94 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[20* S. VI. 135., July 31. '58. 



stronof presumption may justly arise that the book 

 to whicli the Censura were prefixed in 1330, is 

 simply anil entirely Cranmer's book as it was 

 printed, and read by his contemfioraries. Observe 

 also that the book seems to have lain in type from 

 the date of the colophon to the latter part of the 

 year 1530, when it was issued in its present shape, 

 — at least I know no other way of accounting for 

 the fact that the Censurce are of various dates 

 subsequent to April in that year.* There seem 

 also to have been good reasons why Cranmer's 

 book should have been published so quietly and 

 modestly, and without his name. The king's case 

 was better recommended to the Universities who 

 were being solicited for opinions, by an impersonal 

 statement, free from the defiance and invidious- 

 ness of an avowed attack upon the dispensing 

 power of the Pope ; and, therefore, more likely to 

 carry weight and be read with fairness, like a 

 state paper. As for Cranmer, he did not write for 

 his own sake ; it was a law paper drawn for his 

 client, the king, and which the latter was at li- 

 berty to publish and to circulate in the shape and 

 way he thought best adapted to further his pur- 

 poses. On the whole, there appear to me strong 

 grounds for the conjecture that Cranmer's book 

 is not lost, except so much of it as may have been 

 modified or withdrawn in publication, and of every 

 printed book so much has been lost. It may be 

 interesting to state, that the copy in the Advocates' 

 Library, which has occasioned these remarks, for- 

 merly belonged to Henry Sinclair, Bishop of Ross, 

 1560 ; and before him to the community of Preach- 

 ing Friars at St. Andrew's, as appears from the 

 following inscription under the imprint : — 



" Corlex cOiL-Jtis frin predicator(uni) Ciuitatis soi and' 

 ex idusl' et dono Re"" p. f. .Jo. gresoun piucialis." 



W. H. C. 

 Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. 



THE SEVEN CHAMPIONS AND SHAKSPEARE. 



(2"'' S. vi. 46.) 



Without in any way claiming a priority in the 

 discovery of the truly interesting parallel passages 

 adduced by Mb. Keightley, perhaps I may be 

 allowed to observe, without placing any great 

 importance upon it, that the evident acquaintance 

 of Shakspeare with the popular history of the 

 Seven Champions was pointed out by me in print 

 upwards of a year ago ; and I have since seen with 

 great pleasure that Mr. Collier, in his recenJy 

 published edition of the works of the great poet, 

 has extensively used the same romance in illustra- 

 tion of his author's text. The subject is one of great 



* Does not the fact that a separate edition of the Cen- 

 surce was published in 1530 give some countenance to the 

 conjecture that the treatise may have been privately 

 printed by itself also ? 



interest, and I have long been convinced that we 

 are only at the commencement of discoveries of 

 the kind made by Mr. Keightley, who could do 

 great service by continuing his researches in the 

 same direction. To say nothing of the obvious 

 circumstance that no one person can exhaust a 

 single book, (for a parallel that will strike one 

 reader may escape another,) the extent of Elizabe- 

 than literature is so vast, it is certain many gene- 

 rations must elapse before the subject can be at 

 all nearly' exhausted. All the Elizabethan popu- 

 lar English romances are full of singular illustra- 

 tions of Shakspeare that are at present scarcely 

 known; and I hope this suggestion may reach the 

 attention of some of your readers who may have 

 leisure to enter upon one of the pleasantest courses 

 of reading that can be imagined. There are 

 dozens of volumes that deserve the strictest ex- 

 amination for this purpose. Even so common a 

 book as Florio's Montaigne, 1603, the work from 

 which Shakspeare transcribed so literally a passage 

 from the Tempest, has never been thoroughly 

 read by Shakspearian critics, who are not numer- 

 ous enough to have exhausted a hundredth part 

 of the treasures in their grasp. The romances of 

 Amadis de Gaule, Morte Arthure, and numerous 

 others translated before the close of the sixteenth 

 century, should be most carefully read. The 

 American critics could here be of great service. 

 We are so spoilt by the accessibility to choice 

 rarities, we are apt to overlook important sources, 

 merely because they are common. 



Will Mr. Collier, whose bibliographical know- 

 ledge of such matters is so profound, favour us 

 with some information as to the earliest dates of the 

 various parts of the Seven Champions. The second 

 part was, I know, published in 1597, and again in 

 1608, but was the third part, that referred to by Mr. 

 Keightley, ever printed in Shakspeare's time, or 

 was it not possibly a later addition ? This question 

 is of course of the greatest importance in respect to 

 the value of the parallel passages quoted by Mr, 

 Keightley, who will, I' hope, follow up the sub- 

 ject by a close examination of the entire romance, 

 viewed in connexion with Shakspeare, an author 

 of far more importance in every way than Spen- 

 ser, not to mention that the chief worlss of the 

 latter were published before the appearance of the 

 Seoen Champions of Christendom. 



J. O. Halliwell. 



CRASHAW AND SHELLEY. 



(2"'i S. T. 449. 516. ; vi. 54.) 



I am glad to learn from the letter of your cor- 

 respondent A. A. W. (2°" S. V. 516.) in reply to 

 some observations of mine upon certain resem- 

 blances which appear to me to exist between the 

 poetry of Crashaw and of Shelley, that the opinions 



