The Book-Hunter at Home | Page 6

Passionate
Pilgrim,' the first issue of John Barclay's satirical romance
'Euphormionis Lusinini Satyricon,' published at London in 1603, the
'Famous Historie of the Vertuous and Godly Woman Judith,' London,
1565 (of which a title-page has been preserved), what would not every
book-collector give for copies of these?
Then there are such early-printed works as Caxton's translation of the
Metamorphoses of Ovid, probably published by him about 1480, 'The
Life of St. Margaret' (known by three leaves preserved in the Bodleian),
the 'goste of guido' or Ghost of Guy, and the Epitaph of the King of
Scotland, all printed by Pynson, as well as that mysterious volume
ycleped 'The Nigramansir,' said to be by John Skelton the poet-laureate
who lived under five kings and died in 1529. Many of Skelton's works,
perhaps even the majority of his writings, are known to us by title and
hearsay alone; but who shall say that his 'Speculum Principis,' or 'the
Commedy Achademios callyd by name,' which he himself mentions,
are lost beyond all hope of recovery? 'The Nigramansir' was actually
seen by Thomas Warton, the poet-laureate, in the 'fifties of the
eighteenth century, and is described by him in some detail. His account
is so interesting that it deserves quoting.
'I cannot quit Skelton,' he writes, 'without restoring to the public notice
a play, or MORALITY, written by him, not recited in any catalogue of
his works, or annals of English typography; and, I believe, at present
totally unknown to the antiquarians in this sort of literature. It is, The
NIGRAMANSIR, a morall ENTERLUDE and a pithie written by
Maister SKELTON laureate and plaid before the king and other
estatys at Woodstock on Palme Sunday. It was printed by Wynkin de
Worde in a thin quarto, in the year 1504.'
Against this Warton makes the following note: 'My lamented friend Mr.
William Collins . . . . shewed me this piece at Chichester, not many
months before his death (Collins died in 1759), and he pointed it out as

a very rare and valuable curiosity. He intended to write the History of
the Restoration of Learning under Leo the Tenth, and with a view to
that design had collected many scarce books. Some few of these fell
into my hands at his death. The rest, among which, I suppose, was this
Interlude, were dispersed.'
Warton then goes on to describe the book in detail, and this
circumstance, together with the fact that he quotes one of the stage
directions ('enter Balsebub with a Berde') seems to point to the fact that
he actually had the volume in his hands. It concerned the trial of
Simony and Avarice, with the Devil as Judge. 'The characters are a
Necromancer or Conjurer, the Devil, a Notary Public, Simonie, and
Philargyria or Avarice. . . . There is no sort of propriety in calling this
play the Necromancer: for the only business and use of this character is
to open the subject in a long prologue.'[3] Unfortunately there is no
other mention of this interesting work, and of recent years its very
existence has been doubted.
'It was at Chichester,' wrote Hazlitt, 'that the poet Collins brought
together a certain number of early books, some of the first rarity; his
name is found, too, in the sale catalogues of the last century as a buyer
of such; and the strange and regrettable fact is that two or three items
which Thomas Warton actually saw in his hands, and of which there
are no known duplicates, have not so far been recovered.' Mr. Gordon
Duff, in his 'English Provincial Printers,' mentions seventeen books
described by Herbert at the end of the eighteenth century, of which no
copies are now known to exist. Another rare volume is known to have
existed about the same time. A copy, the only one known, of 'The
Fabulous Tales of Esope the Phrygian' by Robert Henryson, published
at London in 1577, was formerly in the library of Syon College; for it is
included in Reading's catalogue of that college library, compiled in
1724. But its whereabouts is now unknown. Fortunately in this case a
later edition has survived.
Another mysterious volume is the treatise concerning Elizabeth Barton,
the Maid of Kent, who was burnt at Tyburn in 1534. Cranmer,
describing her story to a friend, writes: 'and a boke (was) written of all

the hole storie thereof, and putt into prynte, which euer syns that tyme
hath byn comonly sold and goone abrod amongs all people.' From the
confession of John Skot, the printer of this work, at the trial, it seems
that seven hundred copies were printed; but no copy is now known to
exist.
Other works there are as yet unseen by bibliographer, such as
Markham's 'Thyrsis and Daphne,' a poem printed in 1593,