ART. IV. THOMAS RANDOLPH.

Thomas Randolph was born 1605, and died 1634. His poems were first published with the following title, "Poems, with the Muses' Looking Glass, and Amyntas. By Thomas Randolph, M. A. and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Oxford, printed by L. Lichfield, Printer to the University, for Fr. Bowman,* 1638," Quarto. The Fifth Edition, Oxford, for Fr. Bowman, 1668. Duod.

Oldys has recorded the following curious anecdote of him.

"When Queen Henrietta-Maria was at Cambridge, she upon some occasion pleasantly objected to Randolph," Pauper ubique jacet," to which Randolph wittily replied,

"In thalamis, Regina, tuis hac nocte jacerem,

Si verum hoc esset " Pauper ubique jacet."

Sir Aston Cokayne, who knew Randolph, ascribes these verses to him, and old Rodney Fane, who never read Cokayne, also ascribed them to Randolph.

So says T. Warton; but Oldys mentions an edition in quarto, 1634, which, though he afterwards seems to doubt, yet he adds that "There seems to be one earlier than 1638, by the date of Sir Henry Wotton's letter to Milton the 13th of April that year, in which he says he had seen his Masque of Comus bound up in the close of the late R's Poems, printed at Oxford, some good while before. These are certainly meant for Randolph's poems, and there follows a reflection upon them, which I believe Sir Henry would not make. That Masque was acted on Michaelmas eve in 1634, and one edition was in quarto, 1637. Milton published that letter before the 8vo edition of the Masque, printed with his Poems, Svo. 1645, above five years after Sir Henry's death.”

Yet

Yet I have heard these verses were spoken by somebody, and that he was afterwards made a Bishop."

But a very learned critic remarks that "he much doubts whether Queen Henrietta-Maria could speak Latin; though Queen Elizabeth could."

Randolph translated his Ode in defence of Jonson into Latin; and Oldys had it with William Strode's translation of Jonson's Farewell, in MS.

ART. V. Emma Anglorum Reginæ, Richardi I. Ducis Normannorum filiæ, Encomium. Incerto Auctore, sed coataneo. Item Gesta Guillelmi II. Ducis Normannorum, Regis Anglorum I. A Guillelmo Pictavensi, Lexoviorum Archidiacono, contemporaneo, scripta. Ex Bibliotheca nobilissimi Viri Roberti Cottoni, Equitis Aurati et Baronetti, primum edita Lutetiæ Parisiorum, Anno Domini 1619, a doctissimo viro Andrea Duchesne, Turonensi: nunc denuo edita Londini, Anno Domini 1783. To these are added, Excerpta ex Orderici Vitalis, Uticensis Monachi, Ecclesiastica historia libris tertio & quarto: quorum ope suppleri quodammodo possint defectus in manuscripto codice Cottoniano supra memorato Historia Gulielmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum, A Guillelmo Pictavensi, scriptæ.Also, Annalis Historia Brevis in Monasterio Sancti Stephani Cadomensis conscripta.—And at the end are-Excerpta quædam ex Appendice doctissimi viri Andrea Du Chesne ad rerum Normannicarum scriptores, viz. 1. Nomina Normannorum, qui floruerunt in Anglia ante Conquestum 2. Cognomina Nobilium,

qui Guill. Norm. Ducem in Angliam secuti sunt. 3. Cognomina eorum qui cum Guilielmo Conquestore Angliam ingressi sunt. 4. Magnates superstites Anno XX. Regni Willelmi Conquæstoris; & quibus in comitatibus terras tenuerunt. 5. Catalogus Nobilium, qui immediate prædia a Rege Conquæstore tenuerunt. London, for B. White, Fleet-street, 1783. 4to. pp. 380.

This book was printed, I believe, for private distribution only, with that disinterested love of literature, which through a long life has adorned and dignified the various and profound studies of Baron Maseres. The text is selected from the numerous pages of Duchesne's Scriptores Normanni, and illustrated with very ample and curious English notes, and marginal abstracts of the contents, by the present Editor.

The principal article here selected is the History of William the Conqueror by William of Poitiers, Archdeacon of Lisieux in Normandy. This author, who had been first a soldier himself, and afterwards the Conqueror's chaplain, relates actions which he saw with his own eyes, and in which he was himself engaged; but he did not continue his history beyond the year 1070, which was the fourth of that king's reign in England; and unluckily even of this the latter part is lost, and what remains scarce extends beyond the battle of Hastings. "Perhaps," says Mr. Maseres, "the deficient part exists in some old manuscript, that has not been attended to by the learned, in the library of some old monastery of France or Normandy. And, if it does exist, it is a pity it should not be produced; as it is probable that it contains a more exact

account

account of the events of the four first years of the Conqueror's reign than is elsewhere to be found."

Mr. Màseres, having observed that Ordericus Vi talis, in his account of the first part of the Conqueror's reign, took most of his facts from William of Poictiers, only relating them with more brevity, has therefore added from Ordericus the history of that period, of which the relation by Poictiers is lost.

"Thus much therefore of this fourth book of Ordericus Vitalis," says the learned Editor, "is all that is necessary to supply the loss of the latter part of the manuscript of that curious history. But as the remaining part of this Fourth book of Ordericus's work contains many important particulars concerning the Conqueror's government of England after he had completed the conquest of it, I shall here present the reader with a new edition of it. The following books of our author's history (the whole of which is divided into thirteen books) are likewise full of interesting matter, and very fit to be republished with marginal abstracts of the contents, and with explanatory notes, in the same manner as this Fourth Book, in order to render them inviting and agreeable to the lovers of English history. But this would be an expensive and tedious work, which it will not be convenient to me to undertake. I hope, however, that some other gentlemen, that are fond of these researches into our ancient history, may be hereby induced to complete this new edition of our author, or at least to carry it on to the end of the Seventh Book, or the death of William the Conqueror. For I believe there is no other book extant that gives so full and authentic an account of the transactions of that important reign. If one gentleman

would

would republish in this manner the remaining part of the reign of William the Conqueror, and another would give us the reign of William Rufus, and a third those of Henry the First and King Stephen, to the year 1141, (with which the History concludes), the labour and expence, being thus divided, would not be very great, and the work would, I presume, be thought a matter of great accommodation and real benefit by all curious enquirers into the ancient history of England."

ART. VI. Historia Normannorum Scriptores Antiqui, Res ab illis per Galliam, Angliam, Apuliam, Capuæ Principatum, Siciliam, & Orientem gestas explicantes, ab anno Christi Dccc XXXVIII ad annum MCCXX. Insertæ sunt Monasteriorum fundationes variæ, series Episcoporum ac Abbatum: genealogia Regum, Ducum, Comitum, et Nobilium; Plurima denique alia vetera tam ad profanam quam ad sacram illorum temporum historiam pertinentia. Ex MSS. codd. omnia fere nunc primum edidit Andreas Du Chesne Turonensis. Lutetiæ Parisiorum MDCXIX. Cum privilegio Regis.

Andrew Du Chesne, a learned and voluminous collector and publisher of the ancient historians, particularly of France, was born in Touraine 1584, and crushed. to death by a cart as he was passing to Paris from his country house in 1640. The titles of his other works are,

Andre du Chesne Bibliotheque des Autheurs qui ont ecrit l'Histoire et Topographie de la France, 8vo. Paris, 1637. A rare book.

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