niary advantage attends this description of labour, and the time and research bestowed upon these volumes have been already very much in excess of what the editor contemplated at the outset, or could properly, indeed, afford. The editor has once more to render his warm thanks to George Waring, Esq., of Oxford, for the unflagging kindness and zeal which he has displayed throughout in supplying information, and in enabling the editor to make these present texts as accurate and satisfactory as possible, so far as the treasures of the Bodleian Library are concerned. Mr. Waring forwarded to the editor a set of the highly curious woodcuts to the History of Tom Thumbe, 1630, beautifully executed in pen-and-ink facsimile. It was the editor's hope that he might have had them cut in wood and introduced here, and he regrets that he has been precluded from doing so by the consideration of cost, a very necessary one, where the publishing price of a work is so moderate. The cuts which occur in the second, third, and fourth volumes will, it is trusted, be found genuine facsimiles of the objects which they purport to represent; but they have been unavoidably reduced in size, in some cases, to suit the dimensions of the page. A few of them have been taken from the originals in the British Museum, but the better part were furnished by Mr. Waring, who made pen-and-ink tracings, at the editor's request, of the title-pages, &c, wherever a copy of the old black letter tract happened to be preserved in the Bodleian. The editor has to add, that, owing to the absence of the Duke of Devonshire from London, he has been unable to gain access to the unique fragment in his Grace's library of the Booke in Meter of Robin Conscience, consisting of A. ij and iij, and belonging to an older impression of the tract, as is stated elsewhere, than that in the Bodleian among the books of Selden. If it had been a volume, there would have been no difficulty in finding it, but it is a mere fragment of two leaves; and his Grace obliging'y informed the editor that he did not even know he was possessed of such a thing, and that he had no clue whatever to its whereabouts (being probably preserved in some drawer or portfolio). His Grace was kind enough to say that a general search should have been undertaken at Devonshire House, upon his arrival in town, and the editor much regrets the necessity for dispensing with a collation of the piece, in consequence of the already long delay which has taken place in the completion of this work. THE Piers of Fullham. HE present performance has been published by Mr. Hartshorne in his Ancient Metrical Tales, 1829, from a MS. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The text now offered to the reader is formed from a collation of two MSS. in the Bodleian: James MS., 43, fol. 2, recto, and Rawlinson MS., C. 86, fol. 100, recto. But the moral with which the poem concludes occurs in the latter only. A very imperfect idea of Piers of Fullham will be gathered, probably, by such as have had no opportunity of perusing it else where than in Mr. Hartshorne's book, where the text abounds with errors. There is a second and very superior MS. at Cambridge, which Mr. Hartshorne did not consult. Some very curious verses occur in the present MS. of Piers of Fullham, with which they have of course no connexion whatever. A specimen is subjoined : Incipit ffortuna secundum christi domini nativitatem. VOL. II. Now lysteneth all vnto me, Off this mater here schall ye, Lordynges, I warne yow by forne, That yere wyntyr schalbe good aye, The somer drye and fayr to see. B The kyndys skyll with owten lees; Thorow owt the lond yt schall be pees, And good time good wurkes to don, But who so stelyth oght schalbe takyn sone, And what chyld on that day boorn be,-Off gret worschyp schall he be. Perdimus Angvillam manibus dum stringimus illam. vayne conseptes of folysche love vndyr colour of fyscheng and fowlyng.1 yn MAN, that lovyth fyscheng and fowlyng bothe, ofte tyme that game schall hym be lothe, of that crafte all thoghe he can the scole, the see, in rever, in ponde, or yn pole; Al thoghe hys nettes nere so wyde streeche, yet happethe hym ofte ryght noght to kache. what ffysche ys more slyppyr then an elle? whan thow hym grypest, and wenest wele ffor to haue hym sekyr; yet for all thy lyste Thow faylyst of hym, for he ys owt of thy fyste. Also sumtyme where samons vsen for to haunte, Lampreys, luces, or pykkes plesaunte, wenyth the fyscher suche fysche to fynde, There comythe a noyes norweste wynde, And dryvyth the fysche in to the depe, And cawsyth the draght not worthe a leke. 10 1 In the MS. used by Mr. Hartshorne this exordium is ampler, as follows:-Loo worshipfull Sirs here after ffolleweth a gentlymaly Tretyse full convenyent for contemplatiff louers to rede and understond made by a noble Clerke Piers of ffulha sum tyme ussher of Venus Schole, whiche hath brieflye compyled many praty conceytis in loue under covert termes of ffysshyng and ffowlyng. |