Those who study the humanities are continually reminded that great events do not always find historians of commensurate stature to record and interpret them. In this respect, however, Spain's Golden Age was exceptionally privileged. Names such as Pulgar, López de Gómara, Zurita, Mariana, Sandoval, and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza recall an era of diligent, conscientious historical scholarship combined with elegance and grace of expression. Publications in Spain once more have directed attention to this outstanding period of historiography. It will be recalled that in this field the pioneer investigations of Irving, Prescott, and Ticknor have been amply developed by Armstrong, H. Baumgarten, Konrad Häbler, Roger Bigelow Merriman, as well as other American and European scholars. A typical Golden Age historian is Pero (Pedro) de Mexía (1497?-1551), whose historical works are the object of new research.

Printed anonymously in 1602, Blurt, Master Constable was attributed to Thomas Middleton by Francis Kirkman in his 1661 playlist. For almost three centuries the ascription went unchallenged. Dyce and Bullen included the play in their editions of Middleton; Chambers did not question its authenticity in The Elizabethan Stage. But in 1926 Oliphant suggested Thomas Dekker as the possible author, and his proposal has met with more favor than is usually accorded such conjectures. However, the argument for Dekker has consisted entirely of stylistic impressions—the kind of evidence which does not often persuade the skeptical reader—and as recently as 1948 the serious student of Middleton could accept without qualm the traditional attribution. It might, therefore, be useful if some external evidence, however slight, were forthcoming to support Dekker's claim to the play. Such evidence may be afforded by a possible contemporary allusion to Dekker's authorship of Blurt in the anonymous Wily Beguiled, printed in 1606 but probably acted ca. 1602.

An untitled and anonymous piscatory eclogue of 104 hexameters, published in Gilbert Cousin's Basel anthology, Bucolicorum autores (printed by Johannes Oporinus in 1546), is worth a page or two. Here the fisherman Cephylas asks Morson to repeat a famous and ancient prophecy of Venetian power. Morson agrees readily, and explains that the seer in question had lived centuries ago—during the reign of Saturn, in fact; he himself had learned of this while traveling with a friend from Padua to Venice: on coming in sight of Venice, the friend had narrated at length the prophecy, which Morson now proceeds to retail (16-96) to Cephylas. After the Trojan War, begins Morson, two Trojan princes (i.e., Aeneas and Antenor) had fled to Italy: one of them was to found the Roman race and a warlike, imperial city that would extend its power over Italians, Carthaginians, Britons, and others until a disastrous war between one man and his son-in-law (Caesar and Pompey) should bring on an empire that would eventually become no more than a shadow and a name (this phrase is not the only reminiscence of Lucan in the poem).

Milton's comprehensive ability to synthesize diverse elements from different traditions according to his artistic purpose is one of the most outstanding ways in which he manifested his originality. Even Manoa's attempt to ransom his son, one of the most remarkably original episodes in Samson Agonistes, has not only profoundly Christian overtones, but also, I should like to suggest, two classical analogues.

To the Christian reader the word ‘ransom’ inevitably suggests Christ's redemption of mankind, ‘Thy ransom paid, which Man from death redeems’. Just as surely as Job's declaration of faith, ‘I know that my redeemer liveth’, has been taken as an anticipation of Christ; the correspondences between Christ and Samson would have been evident to Milton's audience.