The Program for the Chicago meetings of the MLA in 1925 announced a paper of mine, to be read by title, on the “discovery” of the metre of the Cid. To academic friends who had urged a more tentative phrasing (as “Modest Proposals for a New Theory,” etc.), I had replied briskly that, as a scholar, nothing should deter me from proclaiming the exact truth—not even academic decorum. But this blatant and cantankerous pride suffered forthwith at the hands of Divine Providence a chastisement that continues to this present. Providence, using mortal instruments of course, at once altered my armorial family name in the Bulletin to a meagre and humiliating “Jones”; and prevented my attendance at the sessions, and all discussion of the “discovery” by my accredited representatives Professors Solalinde and Berkowitz, except a few pleading words incidental to a discussion of a paper by Professor Hills. Providence then saw to it that I spent six painful months in preparing a long monograph on the “discovery” and a year more in laboring in company with devoted Spanish friends of both sexes on a revised version in Spanish, which, after devious misadventures in the Iberian Peninsula, finally reached the composing-room of the Revista de Archivos, in Madrid. The first installment appeared in March, 1929 (pages 334–352), under date of Octubre a Diciembre de 1928. I corrected proof on the second last summer (1929): it too concludes with the editor's optimistic “Continuará.” Perhaps some Hispanistas over there are impatiently awaiting the rest; but, as this erudite journal is apparently not as widely consulted in America as it should be, I am inclined to suspect that perhaps the only member of the MLA who is engaged in watchful waiting is the petulant author. Meantime, those among us who have only hearsay knowledge of the “discovery” doubtless think me a swindler. Such has been my chastisement for committing the chief of those seven deadly sins that heretofore have been so frequently discussed in the PMLA … only in a theoretical manner.

The political purpose of Gorboduc, which was first noticed by Leonard H. Courtney, has been elaborated by Professor H. A. Watt in his dissertation, Gorboduc: or, Ferrex and Porrex. The two authors wrote the play rather from the point of view of legal advisers than from that of students. It served as a tactful approach to Queen Elizabeth on the question of the limitation of the succession which would necessitate her marrying. Professor Watt, in his discussion, cites numerous pages from Sackville's portion of the play, but he does not discuss the political significance of Norton's portion, although Norton is believed to have been chairman of the committee appointed to wait upon Elizabeth to present the petition of parliament for limitation of the succession. Norton's “personal interest in the question,” as Watt remarks, “has been well established.” One might reasonably expect, therefore, to find references to the political lesson which the tragedy was to convey to the Queen in the portion of Gorboduc written by Norton. It is the purpose of this paper to examine particularly, with this in view, Norton's part of the text of Gorboduc.

Wīdsīð maðolade, wordhord onlēac—“Wīdsīð spoke, unlocked his word-hoard:” and the things he said have caused many modern scholars to unlock theirs. This curious Old English poem purports to be an account, told in the first person, of a minstrel's wanderings far and wide over the earth; yet it is full of chronological impossibilities. When the singer claims to have visited not only Eormanrīc, King of the Goths, and Offa, King of the Angles, but also Caesar and Alexander, he justifies his name of Far-Wanderer, but he likewise makes his tale impossible to believe.

In Middle English, or rather beginning with Old English and coming down to about 1500, including all works listed by J. E. Wells in his Manual of the Writings in Middle English, there are approximately 553 dream references. By dream references are meant actual dreams or remarks made about dreams which throw light on the attitude of the time toward dreams. Repeated references to the same dream are counted as a single reference. Of these references, 59 occur in Old English and 494 in Middle English. Old Norse is even richer than Middle English in dream references, no less than 530 being found. The large number of dream references in Old Norse is all the more significant in view of the smaller bulk of Old Norse literature in comparison with Middle English.

Students of Elizabethan drama know that the provincial roots and byways thereof have not yet been fully explored. Such scholars as Murray and Chambers have, to be sure, produced admirable chronological sketch-maps of the companies' tours, but other things remain to be done. It will be generally agreed, I think, that something may yet be gained by studying, jointly or severally, but in any case more closely than has yet been done, the implications of some of the many plays which demonstrably reflect—in story, theme, background, or incidental allusion—their provincial origins or associations. In undertaking this general study for another purpose I have been attracted especially to certain of these plays which afford tangible clues, such as local names or allusions, apparently justifying further research. Here, specifically, I wish to present my findings concerning one case in point—the pleasant comedy of Faire Em as a “country play.” It will serve my purpose to recall, first, the relatively familiar facts about the play.

The general history of minstrel life in the Middle Ages has been several times very adequately treated, but the relation of the jongleurs to the classes outside the courts has, owing to a natural scarcity of documentation, been more or less neglected. The so-called “biographies” of the troubadours seem to me, however, to throw considerable light on this subject and on the relation between the jongleur, who was professionally an entertainer, and the troubadour, who was technically an inventor or composer of poetry and song. It was not until about the middle of the twelfth century that the new idea of trobar, of individual composition with the copyright of one's name attached to it, came to Provence. The new troubadour craft came to demand certain fine qualities; its honor and its promise of high patronage attracted numbers of the more gifted jongleurs, some of the best of whom, we learn, were of the lower classes.

Finnur Jónsson says in commenting on the rímur derived from SigurÐar saga fóts ok Ásmundar Húnakongs that the theme is a beautiful love romance. Not only is this little 15th-century lygisaga, now edited for the first time, one of the most readable of its kind, often reminiscent of the older sagas in language and scene and manner; but its literary relations give it unusual interest and importance. Jonsson further observes that it uses well-known motives; and Eugen Mogk that it makes many contacts with the MHG Kudrun, besides being enacted in the same milieu.

The text of David and Bethsabe, as editors of Peele have long been aware, presents a series of perplexing problems: several passages in the play are directly contradictory, the movements and speeches of certain characters in Scene ix are quite unexplainable by any rules of drama or logic, one of the choruses holds out a promise, which is not fulfilled, of presenting David's death, and within the text occurs a misplaced fragment of a lost scene. Dyce, Manly, and Greg have commented on these discrepancies in the play, and the students of Peele have recognized the cruces involved. Yet in spite of the suggestions of P. A. Daniel and Professor Manly and the detailed studies of Dr. Dannenberg and Dr. Neitzel, no satisfactory solution of the difficulties in the quarto text has been found.

The purpose of this study is to trace the history of the word goz and to attempt to solve the mooted problem concerning the authorship of Philomena. It will be recalled that Gaston Paris discovered the poem buried in the Ovide moralisé, which is dedicated to Jeanne de Bourgogne, who died in 1329. G. Paris considered Philomena one of the works enumerated by Chrétien de Troyes in the introductory lines of Cligès, all of which, with the exception of Erec, had been thought lost. The author's name is given in verse 734 of Philomena, riming with bois:

Through an annotator's error, this name was long interpreted as Chrétien Legouais de Sainte-More vers Troyes. This identification was accepted in the 14th century by Eustache Deschamps and as recently as 1893 by L. Sudre. But in the same year, Professor A. Thomas revealed the paleographical error involved. By doing so, he precipitated a battle royal, the smoke of which has not yet cleared away. Many theories have been advanced to determine whether Crestiiens li Gois and Chrétien de Troyes were one and the same person. C. de Boer boldly entitled his edition: Philomena, Conte raconté d'après Ovide, par Chrétien de Troyes (P., 1909). However, as K. Voretzsch has pointed out, while there are similarities in the literary conception and style of Chrétien de Troyes and Crestiiens li Gois, nevertheless the linguistic differences in their works point to two distinct authors.

The purpose of this paper is to present certain facts relating to the historical and political conditions during a definite period of Chaucer's life, to demonstrate his intimate connection with events during this time, and to endeavor on the basis of these to fix the occasion of the contemporary allusions in the allegory of the Parlement of Foules.

Old English ersc belongs to OE. erian, Goth. arjan, Old Norse erja, O. Saxon erian, OHG. erren “to plough”; Lithuanian árti “to plough,” Old Slavonic orjǫ, Lat. aro, Middle Irish airim, Greek áρόω “I plough,” a dissyllabic basis, as may be seen by Greek áρo-τρoν Armenian araur (< Idgc. ar∂tro-) (and Lat. arātrum, which probably stands for arătrum), “plough” and by the accent in Lithuanian árti “to plough” and árklas “plough.”

It is, or at least it ought to be, illuminating to discover the attitude of a worker in any of the arts toward the other media of artistic expression. It seems curious therefore that, although it has been thought worth while to investigate Shakespeare's acquaintance with the law, his interest in medicine and in flower gardening, no one has been much concerned about his knowledge of pictures. Upon Shakespeare and music some one writes an article almost once a month but upon Shakespeare and the fine arts we have little beside the brief chapters in Shakespeare's England, a page or two in Prof. J. M. Manly's article on “Shapespeare Himself,” and Mr. Sidney Colvin's discussion of “The Sack of Troy in Shakespeare's Lucrece and in Some Fifteenth Century Drawings and Tapestries.”

The allegorical poem which forms the subject of the present paper has not hitherto been printed. Le Songe du Castel is preserved in a single manuscript, Bibliothéque Nationale fonds français 25566, which has been described in detail more than once. The most satisfactory brief account of this MS is that by A. Jeanroy in his recent edition of Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas:

C'est un volume de moyen format, de 283 feuillets de parchemin, très soigneusement écrit aux alentours de l'an 1300: il contient une ample anthologie d'œuvres picardes de l'époque immédiatement antérieure, et notamment, tous les ouvrages d' Adam de la Halle.

The original text of the first part of the ballad “Kinge: Arthurs Death” as it appears in the Percy Folio Manuscript, and as it appears in Percy's Reliques with the title “The Legend of King Arthur,” is found with the title “The Historieof The/ conquests of the noble conquerour/ Arthvr,” and with the running title “The Historie of King Arthvr,” in the following Elizabethan account of the Nine Worthies:

We have two manuscripts of The Owl and the Nightingale. Of these the earlier and more valuable, known as Cotton Caligula A.IX (C), is in the British Museum. In this the Owl is immediately preceded by a chronicle in French prose which ends thus: Apres le mort cestu rei Johan, si regna sun fiz Henry, ‘After the death of King John his son Henry became king.’ It would appear, therefore, that the Owl was copied into this volume not long after the coronation of Henry the Third, October 28th, 1216. The other manuscript, Jesus College Oxford 29 (J), is in the Bodleian Library. In Anglia, xxx, 222, Miss Anna C. Paues reports the following opinion of Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson, Bodley's Librarian, concerning the portion of J which contains our poem:

From f. 217 to the end of the volume is apparently all in one hand, and was certainly written about the same time. It contains a history of Tobias which mentions the then Prior of St. Mary Kenilworth (Gwilleyme): this fixes the date of composition at 1276–9, and I believe that to be approximately the date of the writing.