The Life of St George by Alexander Barclay; William NelsonReview by: T. S. DorschThe Modern Language Review, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Oct., 1956), p. 582Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3719237 .

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582 Reviews

a difficult text. It is at once comprehensive and enlightening, and provides a mass of detailed information which all students of Middle English will find invaluable.

SHEFFIELD R. M. WILSON

The Life of St George. By ALEXANDER BARCLAY. Edited by WILLIAM NELSON. (Early English Text Society, no. 230.) London: Cumberlege. 1955 (for 1948). xxvi + 120 pp. 28s.

The present edition of the 'lost' Lyfe of St George by Alexander Barclay has been prepared from the apparently unique copy which, by a fortunate accident, Mr Nelson recently discovered in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, while working on Barclay's 'rival' Skelton. Catalogued under the name of Baptista Spagnuoli (i.e. Mantuan), the author of the Georgius of which Barclay's poem is an English version, this volume has for some generations escaped the notice of scholars interested in Barclay. It was printed by Richard Pynson, presumably soon after the date of its dedication, 3 August 1515, for Pynson's device is not recorded in volumes published later than 1516; and it contains not only Barclay's translation, but also the Georgius printed in the margins. Two leaves have been removed and two partially destroyed, apparently by someone interested in the woodcuts, and this mutilation, Mr Nelson estimates, has resulted in the loss of ninety-five lines of a total of 2716. Naturally losses in the Barclay cannot be supplied from other sources; but gaps in the Mantuan are filled from an edition of 1509, and an edition of 1510 has also been collated.

Barclay's poem, in rime royal, is a very free translation of the Georgius, the 997 lines of which it draws out to nearly three times that number; this expansion results largely from Barclay's ' wordy and repetitious dilations and accentings of emotional passages' and from long-winded moralizing. The generally pedestrian style is perhaps most aptly hit off by Barclay's own mock-modest words in the prologue: 'My langage rude and moche ineloquent.' Yet the work contains a few passages of effective narration, and, like Barclay's other translations and adaptations, has some interest as a comparatively early attempt to acclimatize the fruits of the new learning in England.

In his Introduction Mr Nelson adds a few details to the biographical information so clearly assembled by Miss Beatrice White in her edition of the Eclogues, and provides further support for the belief that Barclay was of English rather than Scottish birth. His presentation of Barclay's text is, in the main, careful and accurate. For the sake of consistency, however, 'bewyale' in 1. ,587 should have been emended to 'bewayle' and the change noted in the critical apparatus, and in 1. 1848 the first 'my' should read 'may'; at 1. 1980 there is a discrepancy between 'meyteyne' in the apparatus and 'meytayne' in the text. The glossary might perhaps have included a few more words bearing obsolete senses: 'namely' (657), 'abyden' (800), 'parmanent' (817, 'If ye be goddes in heuyn parmanent'), 'slake' (842), 'oonly' (1457), 'wode' (1609), 'frettyde' (1823); and a better gloss than 'resounded' might have been provided for 'redoundyd' (2297).

The Latin text of the Georgius has not been so carefully handled. If they are not due to faulty proof-reading, the following anomalies should have been noted: 'tempore pore prisco' (136), 'descendere in in aluum' (275), 'Posteritas et et erat' (390), 'congregnavimus' (501), 'Propertea' (992); and unless 1. 402, where 'reges' is scanned 'reges' (it scans correctly in 559 and 589), and 1. 453, which lacks a foot, are similarly defective in the other texts of the Georgius collated, they too should have received notes.

T.S. DORSCH LONDON

582 Reviews

a difficult text. It is at once comprehensive and enlightening, and provides a mass of detailed information which all students of Middle English will find invaluable.

SHEFFIELD R. M. WILSON

The Life of St George. By ALEXANDER BARCLAY. Edited by WILLIAM NELSON. (Early English Text Society, no. 230.) London: Cumberlege. 1955 (for 1948). xxvi + 120 pp. 28s.

The present edition of the 'lost' Lyfe of St George by Alexander Barclay has been prepared from the apparently unique copy which, by a fortunate accident, Mr Nelson recently discovered in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, while working on Barclay's 'rival' Skelton. Catalogued under the name of Baptista Spagnuoli (i.e. Mantuan), the author of the Georgius of which Barclay's poem is an English version, this volume has for some generations escaped the notice of scholars interested in Barclay. It was printed by Richard Pynson, presumably soon after the date of its dedication, 3 August 1515, for Pynson's device is not recorded in volumes published later than 1516; and it contains not only Barclay's translation, but also the Georgius printed in the margins. Two leaves have been removed and two partially destroyed, apparently by someone interested in the woodcuts, and this mutilation, Mr Nelson estimates, has resulted in the loss of ninety-five lines of a total of 2716. Naturally losses in the Barclay cannot be supplied from other sources; but gaps in the Mantuan are filled from an edition of 1509, and an edition of 1510 has also been collated.

Barclay's poem, in rime royal, is a very free translation of the Georgius, the 997 lines of which it draws out to nearly three times that number; this expansion results largely from Barclay's ' wordy and repetitious dilations and accentings of emotional passages' and from long-winded moralizing. The generally pedestrian style is perhaps most aptly hit off by Barclay's own mock-modest words in the prologue: 'My langage rude and moche ineloquent.' Yet the work contains a few passages of effective narration, and, like Barclay's other translations and adaptations, has some interest as a comparatively early attempt to acclimatize the fruits of the new learning in England.

In his Introduction Mr Nelson adds a few details to the biographical information so clearly assembled by Miss Beatrice White in her edition of the Eclogues, and provides further support for the belief that Barclay was of English rather than Scottish birth. His presentation of Barclay's text is, in the main, careful and accurate. For the sake of consistency, however, 'bewyale' in 1. ,587 should have been emended to 'bewayle' and the change noted in the critical apparatus, and in 1. 1848 the first 'my' should read 'may'; at 1. 1980 there is a discrepancy between 'meyteyne' in the apparatus and 'meytayne' in the text. The glossary might perhaps have included a few more words bearing obsolete senses: 'namely' (657), 'abyden' (800), 'parmanent' (817, 'If ye be goddes in heuyn parmanent'), 'slake' (842), 'oonly' (1457), 'wode' (1609), 'frettyde' (1823); and a better gloss than 'resounded' might have been provided for 'redoundyd' (2297).

The Latin text of the Georgius has not been so carefully handled. If they are not due to faulty proof-reading, the following anomalies should have been noted: 'tempore pore prisco' (136), 'descendere in in aluum' (275), 'Posteritas et et erat' (390), 'congregnavimus' (501), 'Propertea' (992); and unless 1. 402, where 'reges' is scanned 'reges' (it scans correctly in 559 and 589), and 1. 453, which lacks a foot, are similarly defective in the other texts of the Georgius collated, they too should have received notes.

T.S. DORSCH LONDON

This content downloaded from 193.105.245.156 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 13:31:57 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions