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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
John Leland, sixteenth-century antiquary and defender of the Arthurian legend against Polydore Vergil, is probably better known to historians than to literary scholars. Nevertheless he was an assiduous writer of Latin verse during most of his life, published seven volumes of poetry before his death, and left in manuscript a large collection of epigrams and other occasional verses. In a Bodleian manuscript in Leland's own hand (MS. Top. gen. c. 4, p. 301) we have evidence that he had himself collected these poems for preservation, for he says there, in connection with a poem of his on Chaucer, “in libris meorum epi-grammaton his uersibus eius gloriae assurgo.” This manuscript collection seems not to have been preserved, even in the generation following Leland's death. Our present knowledge of Leland's poemata, aside from those printed during his lifetime, is based upon a manuscript in the hand of John Stow (Bodleian MS. Tanner 464. iv) and a printed edition of 1589 edited by Thomas Newton. A note from Newton to Stow, written on the outside of Stow's manuscript, shows that he had examined this manuscript, but his text is obviously based on a different one. Not only are there many differences in the readings of individual poems, but there is also the fact that the Stow manuscript contains twenty-eight poems not included in the printed edition.
1 (p. 17 in MS.) In frontispicio ueleris codicis
1 Leland's epigrams, as printed in 1589, were rptd. by Thomas Heame in the Appendix to his ed. of Leland's Collectanea (Oxford, 1715). My references are to this ed.
2 Drogo frequently stood for Drieux in French records and for Drew in English records. This Drogo may be the Master Drew who was one of the tutors of More's children. See Correspondence of Thomas More, ed. E. F. Rogers (Princeton, 1947), p. 250.
3 Hyrd was an Oxford B.A. in 1519. See J. Foster's Alumni Oxonienses and also A. W. Reed, Early Tudor Drama (London, 1926), p. 171, and The Lyfe of Sir Thomas More by Ro. Ba. (London: EETS, 1950), p. 129.
4 He may be John Barber, a law student at Oxford about 1524. Lawrence and Nicholas Barber seem to be too early for this reference. See Foster's Alumni Oxonienses.
5 For examples see some of the portraits reproduced in Paul Ganz's Paintings of Hans Holbein (London, 1950). Thomas More, in Epigram 236, refers to couplets on the paintings in Jerome Busleiden's house in Mechlin. See Latin Epigrams of Thomas More (Chicago, 1953), p. 101.
6 Ganz's book just referred to gives the inscription on the Hannover portrait, p. 234. For the verses on the Van Home replica I am indebted to Mr. John Steegman of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
7 For Taxus see the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic There is no volume on Tuke's life and the DNB account is not very helpful for our purposes. George Walker, in Haste, Post, Haste (London, 1938), gives an account of his important work as Master of the Posts.
8 Mr. David Piper, of the National Portrait Gallery in London, informs me that he can find no record of any portrait of Sir Thomas Knyvett. I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to Mr. Piper and to Mr. W. G. Constable of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for their interest and assistance.
