12 Authorfkip. 



as a fchool-book, by which her fon would learn to read, and, at 

 the fame time, become famiUar with the terms of venery. 



In the Bodleian Library is a fmall manufcript on the Terms 

 of the Chafe, the beginning of which is : — 



" Mi dere fones, where ye fare, be frith or by fell. 

 Take good hede in his tyme how Triftram wol tell." 



This manufcript was probably copied by feme youth as a fchool- 

 exercife, which would account for the following odd colophon — - 

 " Explicit, expliceat, ludere fcriptor eat." 



Compare the above with the opening ftanza of the verfes we 

 attribute to Miftrefs Barnes : — 



" Wherefoever ye fare, by frith or by fell,* 

 My dear child, take heed how Triftram doth you tell."t 



The refl of the Oxford MS. is in fimilar accord with the print, 

 but nowhere in it is there a word about Miflrefs Barnes. 



The words " Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes" have been confidered 

 to prove that the lady was alive when the book was printed. If, 

 however, Sir James Berners were her father, of which there is no 

 evidence, fhe muft have been clofe upon a hundred years old 

 in i486, as he died in 1390. But this is importing a needlefs 

 difficulty into the theory, which is not rendered more probable 

 by making the authorefs and printer contemporary. 



It may here be as well to fay a few words about Sopwell 

 Nunnery, over which, without a particle of evidence, our authorefs 

 is fuppofed to have prefided. Sopwell Nunnery, Hertfordfhire, 

 was founded about 1140, under the rule of St. Benedi6l, and 

 fubjefl to the Abbot of St. Albans, from which it was not far 



* " By frith or by fell " = by foreft or by plain ; but fee Halliwell's Diftionary. 



t Sir Triftram, the well-known knight of the Round Table, was a mighty hunter, and 

 the great authority upon all fubje£ts connefted with the chafe. Popular belief attributed 

 to him the origin of all the fpecial terms ufed in hunting, and his name was invoked to give 

 authority to any ftatement upon this fubjeft, juft as in a later century the arithmetical nilej 

 of Cocker give rife to the popular phrafe — " According to Cocker." 



