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316 British Chronicle History
had amongst them
An auncient booke, hight Briton moniments y
That of this lands first conquest did devize.
This primary chronicle was plainly enough Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia Britonum, but Miss Harper's industry enables us for the first
time both to detect the precise passages followed and to recognise to
what a degree Spenser used other forms of the narrative than Geoffrey's.
He made his
story of mythical kings not simply a transcript of Geoffrey,
but a rendering of Geoffrey cum Holinshed, Hardyng, and Fabyan,
sometimes cum Stow and Camden too, besides others. Indeed, Miss
Harper amply succeeds in letting us (especially in Canto 10, C A Chronicle
of Briton Kings ') see,
'
as she herself sees, Spenser not solely as a but also as a historian
poet
and chronicler and as an antiquarian.' Surprisingly
complete is the process of the demonstration that Spenser handled
Geoffrey's * matter of Britain '
with an antiquary's way of weaving
in the collateral data, albeit he can scarcely have been critical enough
to perceive that those side touches from other authors all sprang from
Geoffrey's own rib.
The essay is an instructive example of close textual collation, showing
with logical and convincing clearness how faithful even in his romance the
poet was to what then passed for historical authority. A clever sentence at
the close of this patient and well-sustained thesis likens the poet to his own
Eumnestes, among his worm-eaten books and documents :
'
Amidst them all he in a chaire was sett
Tossing and turning them withouten end.'
c c
Even so it would seem,' concludes Miss Harper, Spenser himself must
have worked.' It is perhaps hardly what might have been looked for in a
poet's poet, but the citations, in long and exhaustive array, marshal themselves
into a case which will brook no gainsaying.
The Clarendon Press has issued the Oxford Book of Ballads, chosen and
edited by Mr. Quiller Couch (pp. xxiii, 871. 75. 6d. nett). The volume
is beautifully produced, and brings into very convenient compass nearly two
hundred ballads.
Messrs. W. & A. K. Johnston have sent us a small Historical Atlas,
containing 32 maps printed in colours, with Notes, Chronological Tables,
and Index. The maps are carefully selected, and the work should prove
useful for schools.
The Tear Book of the Viking Club ii.
(vol. 1909-10, pp. 80) consists
but has some district
mainly of reviews, reports, one recording and
illustrating a ring-knot-work cross from Urswick, near Ulverston. Old
Lore Miscellany (January) justifies its name by its gathering of Orcadiana
of all sorts sheep-marks, place-names, charter-notes, topography, and
biography. A first instalment appears of an account of the Sutherland
bard, Rob Donn, written in 1826 but still unpublished. In Orkney and
Shetland Records (vol. i. part ix.), containing several early deeds, there may