The serpent of division, by John Lydgate, ed. with introduction, notes and a glossary by Henry Noble MacCracken.

MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTS

MANUSCRIPTS.

1. The McLean MS. 181 in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Vellum, quarto, 35 lines to the page. Well and clearly written in a good clerical hand, of the second quarter of the fifteenth century. þ and ȝ are constantly used, and abbreviations whenever possible. The MS. is more accurate in proper names and in general has a more consistent adherence to the text than other MSS. At times, however, clauses are omitted through carelessness.

The MS. contains, in addition to our piece, which takes up the first ten folios, some envoys from The Fall of Princes, and a version of the Governance of Kings and Princes, by Lydgate, and the Regiment of Princes, by Hoccleve (with the prologue). It is described in Dr. James's catalogue of the collection.

The first folio is lacking. I have therefore used the Calthorpe MS. as my text, up to the point where the Fitzwilliam begins.

This MS. was formerly no. 134 of Lord Ashburnham's collection, and is described in the sale catalogue of Ashburnham MSS. III, app. 134. Through Mr. Yates Thompson's hands it passed into Mr. McLean's, who gave it to the present owner. Another MS. of the Ashburnham collection, loc. cit. III, app. 128, contained an eighteenth-century transcript of a print of this work, I believe from the 1590 text. I have not found this transcript.

The Fitzwilliam MS. was evidently written at some cost for a 'wise governour' who wanted 'mirrours' of government. It is not unlike in its contents the MSS. which Stephen Scrope compiled for Sir John Fastolf, and Great Book of Arms which William Ebesham compiled for Sir John Paston about this time. (See the Paston Letters, ii, 335.)

2. The Calthorpe MS. Yelverton 35, London.

Paper, quarto, 37 lines to the page. Our piece occupies folios 146 b—156 b. Written in a small, rapid, careless, but easily readable hand of about 1460. The hand∣writing is not unlike some of the hands in the Paston correspondence. This MS. may have been in the hands of the Calthorpe family from the beginning, since the Calthorpes were at Yelverton throughout the later fifteenth century, as the Paston letters show. The forms in dialect show modern tendencies. It is stricken from the past plural (were for weren, &c.), and the general absence of þ and ȝ point to a departure from original forms. Nevertheless this MS. alone gives the colophon ascribing the work to Lydgate, and dating

the production. I use it to supplement F in most cases, and for the lines in the lost first folio of F.

The MS. is described in the Royal Historical MSS. Commission Report, II, App., p. 42. I am greatly indebted to Lord Calthorpe for his kind permission to have the MS. photographed for my purposes.

3. The Pepys MS. 2006 in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Vellum, 30 lines to the page, 391 pages. Written about 1450. Described in Dr. James's catalogue of the collection. The MS. contains Lydgate's Complaint of the Black Knight and Temple of Glas, Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, A. B. C., Hous of Fame, Mars and Venus (two copies), Fortune, and Parlement of Foules, an anonymous prose version of The Three Kings of Cologne, The Serpent of Division, Burgh's translation of Cato, Chaucer's Tale of Melibeus, Parson's Tale, Anelida, Envoy to Scogan, A. B. C. (a second copy), Purs, Trouthe, and Merciles Beaute. The handwriting is clear and well executed, in beautifully regular lettering. The text of the Serpent, on pp. 191-209, is in general sensible, but is marred by a number of inserted glosses and alterations of phrases throughout. Single words and letters are often omitted through carelessness.

4. The MS. A. R. 5 in the Harvard University Library.

Paper, 211 folios, large quarto. Written in two hands, of which one is that of John Shirley (d. 1459), the other—in which the Serpent is written—contemporaneous with it. The MS. contains The Compleynt of Crist (verse); Guy of Warwick, a poem by Lydgate: The Three Kings of Cologne, The Governance of Princes, The Serpent of Division, and a text of the Brut (Cronycles of the Reaume of England), all in prose. Professor F. N. Robinson describes the MS. fully in Harvard Studies and Notes, v. 181-6. Like the Fitzwilliam MS. the Harvard MS. puts our tract next a tract on the governance of princes—these two pieces in the Harvard MS. being in the non-Shirley handwriting. The Harvard text is the only one which preserves a title (quoted below); and in general its readings are excellent; but it lacks the Envoy, and in minor details is inferior to the Fitzwilliam copy, with which it seems to me to have some relation.

PRINTS.

1. The Treverys Fragment.

This was printed complete by J[oseph] H[aslewood] in Brydges's Censura Literaria, ix. 369 (ed. 1809). Treverys used an excellent MS. though not any here described. He may have modernized the spelling to some extent. In the print the envoy follows his colophon. This fact misled Mr. Sidney Lee (see under Lydgate, Serpent, &c., in the Dict. Nat. Biog.), who ascribes the stanzas to the printer. For the text of the colophon, see p. 66.

2. The Print by Owen Rogers, 1559.

This print, so far as I can examine, seems to derive from the Treverys print, with possible reference to earlier MSS. The title, Serpent of Division, is probably derived from the title of Treverys which is lost. The title runs: 'The Serpent of Division, set forth after the Auctours old Copy, by J. S. Anno M. D. L. IX. The iiij of May. Im∣printed at London by Owen Rogers in Smithfield by the Hospitall in little S. Bartolmews.' Collation A⁸-D⁸, in fours. Both this and the previous print are in black letter, 8vo.

3. The Print by E. Allde, 1590.

'The Serpent of Devision. Wherein is conteined the true History or Mappe of Romes overthrowe, Gouerned by Auarice, Enuye, and Pride, the decaye of Empires be they neuer so sure. Whereunto is annexed the Tragedy of Gorboduc, sometime King of this Land, and of his two sonnes Ferrex and Porrex. Set foorth as the same was shewed before the Queenes most excellent Majesty, by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple. At London printed by Edward Allde for John Perrin, and are to be sold in Paules Church∣yard at the signe of the Angell, 1590.' 4to. 44 leaves. Collation, Serp. of Div. A-C in fours; Gorboduc, A-H in fours. In this last print, while no additions are made to the source, the whole treatise is rewritten, so that for purposes of collation the whole tract would need re-printing. [Gorboduc, the first English tragedy, was intended by its authors to illustrate the dangers of division. It was written by admirers of Lydgate, and this union of it with Lydgate's tract was not a mere accident of publication. The dumbshow in Gorboduc, of the fable of the bundle of sticks, was probably suggested by the similar exemplum in Lydgate's text, of the hairs in the horse-tail.]

It is certain that Rogers followed Treverys, and that Allde followed Rogers, in setting orth his copy. The former fact may be proved from my collations at the end of the tract. Allde's print I leave to a student of the Elizabethan period for analysis.

While I have on my desk photographic reproductions of all three MSS. and a careful transcript of the fourth made by myself, as well as a complete transcript of the Rogers print, I can see no advantage in printing my comparative study of the possible relations of the versions. I give in my text a faithful transcription, with modern punctuation, of the Fitzwilliam text (F), and of the Calthorpe where F fails, enclosing every alteration in brackets. I give in footnotes all the important variants of the other MSS. and of the Treverys print. I believe each MS. to be an independent transcript, with possibly a closer relation between F and H than among the others. C and P have taken the greatest liberties with the text.

The end of the text in C, which varies from the others, is probably derived from an early draft, omitted in later texts. This omission and revision was probably Lydgate's own. As I state in the Lydgate Canon, Lydgate got out his work in different forms. Death's Warning is a revamping of stanzas from the Fall of Princes, The Prayer in Old Age a similar alteration of the Verses of St. Bernard.