364 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 23. 
1736 to Pope, he asked him his opinion. Pope said 
‘It would do very well; there was nothing pert or low 
in it.’ Spence was satisfied with this praise, which, 
however, was an implied censure on all his other 
writings. — He is very fond of the familiar vulgarisms 
of common talk, and is the very reverse of Dr. Johnson. 
« E. M.” [Epmonp Matone. | 
The note is not signed at length, but there can 
be no doubt as to its authorship, as I purchased 
the volume which contains it at the sale of the 
unreserved books of Mr. Malone in 1818. 
Bouton Corney. 
QUERIES. 
NICHOLAS BRETON’S “CROSSING OF PROVERBS.” 
Ithough my query respecting William Basse 
and his poem, “Great Britain’s Sun’s Set,” (No. 
13. p. 200), produced no positive information 
touching that production, it gave an opportunity 
to some of your correspondents to communicate 
valuable intelligence relating to the author and 
to other works by him, for which I, for one, was 
very much obliged. If I did not obtain exactly 
what I wanted, I obtained something that here- 
after may be extremely useful; and that I could 
not, perhaps, have obtained in any other way than 
through the medium of your pleasant and wel- 
come periodical. 
I am now, therefore, about to put a question 
regarding another writer ef more celebrity and 
ability. Among our early pamphleteers, there 
was certainly none more voluminous than Nicholas 
Breton, who began writing in 1575, and did 
not lay down his pen until late in the reign of 
James I. A list of his pieces (by no means com- 
plete, but the fullest that has been compiled) may 
be seen in Lowndes’s Bibl. Manual; it includes 
several not by Breton, among them Sir Philip 
Sidney’s Ourania, 1606, which in fact is by a per- 
son of the name of Backster; and it omits the one 
to which my present communication refers, and 
regarding which I am at some loss. 
In the late Mr. Heber’s Catalogue, part iv. p.10., 
I read as follows, under the name of Nicholas 
Breton : — 
“Crossing of Proverbs. The Second Part, with 
certaine briefe Questions and Answeres, by N. B., 
Gent. Extremely rare and very curious, but imperfect. 
It appears to contain a portion of the first part, and 
also of the second; but it appears to be unknown.” 
Into whose hands this fragment devolved I 
know not; and that is one point I am anxious to 
ascertain, because I have another fragment, which 
consists of what is evidently the first sheet of the 
first part of the tract in question, with the follow- 
ing title-page, which I quote totidem Literis : — 
“Crossing of Proverbs. Crosse-Answeres. And 
Crosse-Humours. By B. N. Gent. At London, 
Printed for John Wright, and are to be solde at his 
Shop without Newgate, at the signe of the Bible. 
1616.” 
It is in 8vo., as Heber’s fragment appears to 
have been; but then the initials of the author are 
given as N.B., whereas in my fragment they 
stand B.N., a usual inversion with Nicholas Bre- 
ton; the brief address “* To the Reader” is also 
subscribed B. N.; and then begins the body of 
the work, thus headed: ‘Crosse and Pile, or, 
Crossing of Proverbs.” It opens as follows : — 
“ Proverb. The more the merrier. 
Cross. Not so; one hand is enough in a purse. 
P. Every man loves himselfe best. 
Cros. Not so, when man is undone by suretyship. 
Prov. He that runnes fastest gets most ground, 
C. Not so, for then foote-men would have more land 
than their masters, 
Prov. He runnes far that never turnes. 
Cros. Not so, he may breake his necke in a short 
course. 
P. No man ean call againe yesterday. 
C. Yes, hee may call till his heart ake, though it 
never come. 
P. Had I wist was a foole. 
C. No, he was a foole that said so.” 
And so it proceeds, not without humour and 
point, here and there borrowing from known 
sources, as in the following : — 
«“ P. The world is a long journey. 
Cros. Not so, the sunne goes it every day. 
P, It is a great way to the bottom of the sea. 
C. Not so, it is but a stone’s cast.” 
However, my object is not to give specimens of 
the production further than are necessary for its 
identification. My queries are, 1st, Who bought 
Mr. Heber’s fragment, and where is it now to be 
found? 2nd, Are any of your correspondents 
aware of the existence of a perfect copy of the 
work? 
I naturally take a peculiar interest about 
Nicholas Breton, because I have in my possession 
an unknown collection of amatory and pastoral 
poems by him, printed in quarto in 1604, in 
matter and measure obvious imitations of pro- 
ductions in “ The Passionate Pilgrim,” 1599, im- 
puted to Shakspeare, and some of which are 
unquestionably by Richard Barnfield. 
Any new information regarding Breton and his 
works will be most acceptable to me. Iam al- 
ready in possessioat of undoubted proof that he 
was the Nicholas Breton whose epitaph is on the 
chaneel-wall of the church of Norton, in North- 
amptonshire, a point Ritson seems to have ques- 
tioned. J. Payne Coxiier. 
March 30, 1850. 
THE SWORD CALLED CURTANA. 
In the wardrobe account for the year 1483, are 
“jij swerdes, whereof oon with a flat poynte, 
