The charming collection of legends, anecdotes and fables known as the Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims is one of the gems of Old French literature,comparable,in its naïveté and grace, to the prose parts of Aucassin et Nicolette. It has been published three times under different names. The latest, and the only critical edition is that by N. de Wailly, entitled Récits d'un m. mestrel de Reims au treizième siècle.

Among the incunabula in the John Hay Library of Brown University are two quarto editions of Horace's Opera, with comment by Cristoforo Landino, one published in Florence in 1482 “per Antonium Miscominum,” the other in 1483 in Venice “per Joannem de Forlivio et socios,” the latter edition probably pirated from the former. Both volumes contain holograph annotations by Pomponio Leto, by Bernardo Tasso and by Torquato Tasso; and both volumes, so far as I can ascertain, have been overlooked by scholars both in Italy and in this country. I have, therefore, undertaken to study part, at least, of this material.

Montemayor, the illustrious author of Diana, has not until recently been accorded a place among Spanish dramatists. His name does not appear in the catalogue of La Barrera nor in the Orígenes del Teatro Espanol of Moratín. The only mention of his dramatic activity, so far as I know, is the brief description of the autos here printed in the history of the early Spanish drama by Professor J. P. W. Crawford. These quin-tillas, it is true, afford little promise of the matchless beauty of diction which distinguishes the Diana but, quite apart from the later fame of the author, the autos possess the interest inherent in all early drama.

On the 15th of December, 1778, about six months after the death of Voltaire, his private library at Ferney was bought by Catherine the Great of Russia for 30,000 rubles plus a certain number of valuable presents to Mme Denis, Voltaire's niece. This library consiste of about 7500 volumes comprising, because of the number of large sets, about 2500 to 3000 titles. Catherine received her purchase at St. Petersburg on July 30, 1779. Wagnière, the secretary of Voltaire, had been engaged to arrange the books in the same order as at Ferney and to prepare the manuscripts for binding. He arrived in St. Petersburg, as he tells us, “le 8 auguste 1779” and remained in Russia at the execution of the task set him by Catherine until probably January or February, 1780. The library was installed in the Hermitage and remained there until about 1862, when it was transferred to the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, now the Public Library of Leningrad. There in the Fine Arts Division of the Philosophy Section these books are still to be found, carefully stored in their locked cases behind glass doors and supposed still to stand in the order in which they were arranged by Wagnifere after that used by Voltaire himself at Ferney. Most of his books are contained in two large double-faced cases, each case about twenty feet long and ten shelves high, giving a total book space of some eight hundred feet. The bottom shelves are reserved for folio volumes, the second shelves for quartos and the smaller volumes appear on the higher shelves. A somewhat smaller case in the gallery above contains the rest of Voltaire's books. Under the former government of Russia no one was allowed to consult more than five books of this collection a day. This limit is no longer imposed and during the summer of 1927 the authors of this article were permitted to have before them on their tables any number of volumes that they wished.

A few years ago, in a series of articles on the theory of the natural goodness of man in the writings of Rousseau, Professor George R. Havens defended the startling thesis that, after all, Jean-Jacques was not the rebel against tradition that the world has long considered him. Professor Havens claims that Rousseau's theory of natural goodness, when properly understood, is not necessarily related to that doctrine of an “effortless morality” which is so often associated with Rousseau. Each of the three different conceptions of la bonté naturelle which he distinguishes in the works of the great Jean-Jacques, (1) primitive goodness, (2) instinctive goodness, and (3) virtue (or, “goodness as harmony with man's higher nature,”) he finds not fundamentally incompatible with the humanistic or traditional attitude toward life and toward morals.

Le Philosophe Sans Le Savoir has always been one of the most discussed of the eighteenth-century plays. Ever since it was presented to the police censors for approval and permission to be played, it has been subjected to diversified criticism. This criticism, however, has failed to solve several questions arising from contradictory statements made at the time of the play's appearance. The original title of the play, the reason for the hesitation between the two titles, and the relation of the title to the principal character are still unsolved questions which hinder the accurate interpretation of Sedaine's work.

We are accustomed to refer to François Coppée as “le poète des humbles,” but it would be a mistake to suppose that he was the only poet of his time to whom this designation can be applied. Leaving out of account Sainte-Beuve and Hugo, who devoted occasional poems to the poor and the oppressed, Béranger, Maxime Du Camp, Pierre Dupont and numerous other minor poets, we must not overlook the work of another contemporary who began writing before Coppée was born. This poet is Eugène Manuel, whose life and work offer many striking resemblances with those of Coppée. It is the purpose of this study to compare the work of these two men with a view to determining whether or not Coppée was indebted to his less renowned confrere.

Biblical epics like Milton's Paradise Lost, Klopstock's Messias, and Bodmer's Noah, must necessarily give prominence to the hostile, destructive spirits of evil, and inasmuch as these poems are all based on Biblical tradition it is natural that there should be a general similarity in the treatment of them. Several European scholars have maintained that Bodmer's infernal characters were influenced solely by Klopstock. The purpose of this paper, however, is to show that Bodmer borrowed repeatedly, at times almost literally, from Milton's descriptions in Paradise Lost. The evidence which I have presented elsewhere as to Bodmer's indebtedness in other respects to Paradise Lost, would seem to make it probable on general grounds that he was also indebted to Milton for his descriptions of the spirits of evil.

In meiner Abhandlung, Die Doppeldrucke in ihrer Bedeutung für die Textgeschichte von Wielands Werken, habe ich nachgewiesen, dasz von den verschiedenen Bänden der Wielandschen Oktav-Ausgabe letzter Hand, Leipzig 1794 ff., je drei bis sechs Drucke vorliegen, die zum Teil nicht im angeblichen Erscheinungsjahre, sondern erst später veranstaltet wurden. Diese dem Dichter gänzlich unbekannten Doppeldrucke legen nicht nur ein beredtes Zeugnis ab für Wielands Beliebtheit bei seinen Zeitgenossen— ihre Feststellung und Absonderung von dem echten Originaldrucke ist höchst wichtig für die Geschichte des Textes. Ich habe damals schon die überzeugung ausgesprochen, dasz sich im Laufe der Zeit noch weitere Drucke entdecken würden: an dieser Stelle sollen nun die seither entdeckten Doppeldrucke beschrieben und eingereiht werden. Sämtliche Exemplare sind in meinem Besitz.

In the development of Ludwig Tieck 1795 and 1796 were decisive years. For several years previous to 1795 Tieck had been giver to a pessimistic and rather negative view of life, according to which human existence seemed to have but little meaning, and poetry, art, and idealism appeared to him to be delusions. While this nihilistic tendency held sway over Tieck's mind not even the works of Goethe, Shakespeare, or Cervantes, which he had read eagerly ever since early boyhood, or his friendship with Wackenroder represented saving forces in his life. William Lovell, Tieck's novel of almost seven hundred pages, adequately reflects the distressed state of his mind during this early period of his life, although the work was written for the most part after the worst throes of his pessimism and despair had spent their force.

A recent critic declares of John Donne: “He had none of that enthusiasm for Greek culture which distinguished More, Colet, and Ascham. He appears to have studied certain Greek authors in Latin translations. . . . . His learning was chiefly of the Mediaeval type.” No evidence, it is true, comes forward to establish Donne's acquaintance at first hand with Greek authors. At the same time, an examination of the allusions to Greek mythology in the poetry of Donne makes it clear that he had part in the all-but-universal interest of the Elizabethans in classical material, and that he uses this material with characteristic independence and originality.

If any part of Robert Burns' extensive correspondence would seem to have been thoroughly edited, it is the series of letters he wrote to George Thomson in the course of his contributions to that worthy's Select Collection of Original Scotish Airs. Unlike the rest of the correspondence, this series was never dispersed. Though one letter somehow found its way into the Pickering Collection, and so into the British Museum, the remaining fifty-five continued in Thomson's possession until his death in 1851. In the following year they were bought by Lord Dalhousie, in whose collection they remained until they were acquired by Mr. J. P. Morgan. Thomson had placed the letters in the hands of Dr. Currie, the poet's first biographer, who selected mangled fragments for publication, and during their half-century at Brechin Castle they were freely accessible to Burns scholars, among them Scott Douglas and William Wallace. The former of these declared in his 1877 edition of the Complete Works that the letters to Thomson “are here for the first time printed exactly as they appear in the original manuscripts” —a claim which with true editorial amenity is balanced by Wallace's statement that “an examination of the letters written by Burns to George Thomson . has enabled me to reproduce this correspondence accurately for the first time.”

The mystical philosophical (or pseudo-philosophical) tendencies of the English romantic movement probably owed a good deal to Thomas Taylor. From the publication of Cowper's Task and Burns' Kilmarnock poems to the death of Shelley and Byron, Taylor poured out an unceasing stream of commentaries and translations elucidating for England the doctrines of Plato and the Neo-Platonists. To be sure, his works had very limited sale, and most of one edition was locked up for a lifetime in the archives of the rich nobleman who financed its publication. But no man could print so much and receive as many comments as he did without having a definite effect.

Of what song the sirens sang Sir Thomas Browne, being a quaint and theoretical old gentleman, probably had some private opinion, and of just what John Keats meant when he declared (or the urn rather obviously declared for him) that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” more than one critic has advanced a not so private opinion. The statement is so lucid and so guilelessly simple, taken alone, that it cannot be misunderstood, but put into its context it is like a man of too severe ideals in a naughty world—promptly at outs with the neighbors. It disagrees so sharply both with the ode it concludes, and the odes which follow it, that it is become what scholars in their odd language would call a “crux.” The answer is simpler than might be expected. One may very reasonably ask whether Keats ever even said “Beauty is truth,” and the answer is: No, he probably did not say it, nor anything like it.

Thomas Carlyle's French Revolution may be regarded as a prodigious cento of fragments from the memoirs and histories which made up the great bulk of his sources. Those sections which are not devoted to running commentary on the Revolution, on democracy, or on other problems, are Carlylean renditions of various dull or hopelessly biased accounts, selected for color and drama, arranged according to climax or contrast, and presented so as to secure the result desired, a “flame-picture.” “While other historians sought to blend . . . details [from memoirs] into a smooth equable narrative, as rags are fashioned into a sheet of paper, Carlyle took the rags themselves and hung them forth gay or grimy or blood-stained, dancing in air or trailing in mud.” Instead of considering Carlyle as a scientific historian we may more properly regard him as an artist, dealing with reported fact from a confusing number of directions, and handling materials which, however manifestly unreliable they themselves might be, always demanded some degree of accuracy and good faith, and which on the other hand permitted various turns of interpretation, emphasis, perspective, or moral judgment. From a great number of incoherent and carelessly inaccurate narratives, he attempted to winnow that thing which he revered with his whole soul, the significant human fact.

This paper does not attempt to isolate all the influences that determined Emerson's theory and practice of poetry. My purpose is rather to call attention more clearly than I did in a former paper to his obligations to Coleridge and Wordsworth. Emerson's criticism of these two men will aid us in determining not only their relation to each other, but also their position in the history of English poetry and literary criticism. Just as present-day criticism of both Coleridge and Wordsworth shifts from scathing strictures to high praise, so, too, did Emerson's. But Emerson differs from many later critics in that he took cognizance of the manifold forces that entered into their work.

Hardy's poetry has the careful articulation of the skeleton in a modern surgical laboratory. But also it has all the atmosphere of the skeleton in old ghostly legends: the sudden visitations, the faint shine and quaver, the lank pointings, the leisurely dissolving in gloom, the telltale streaks of gray on the dark earth and sky, the posturing branches, the summoning voices in the wind. All these are in the weft of his verse. A quizzical reader could assemble therefrom quite an array of theatrical apparitions. But at center his work is far from theatric. It moves with a large sincerity and simplicity.