Several years ago, while pursuing certain studies in the Harvard Library, there came into my hands, quite by accident, a certain “square old yellow book” of quarto size bearing on its first title-page the inscription: “Della Piacevole/ Storia/ dello ‘nvitto, e valoroso Principe/ Don Florismondo/ Libro Primo.” The second page gives the fuller title: “Istoria/ dello ‘nvitto, e valoroso Principe/ Don Florismondo/ E d'altri famosi cavallieri erranti di quel tempo; o-/ve si raccontano le loro maravigliose/ imprese, e piacevoli/ amori./ Composta da Anton Vincenzio/ Magnani./ In Trevi.” Between the words “Magnani” and “In Trevi,” below the former and above the latter, is inserted the drawing of a lily; at the top and bottom of the same are the words: “Sicut lilium inter/ spinas”; on the left-hand side: “Manibus da-/te lilia plenis”; on the right-hand side: “Sola/ fides.” On the following page is a “Tavola delle cose notabile non appartenenti alla storia nel presente primo libro di Florismondo contenute.” Among the “cose notabile” figure Alessandro Magno, Antipatro, Balena mostruosa, Cavalleria a chi obblighi, Diaspro e sua virtù, Superbia odiosa, etc., etc. Following the Tavola comes the text of Book I in twenty chapters and 216 pages, to which is appended a “Tavola dei Capi del Primo Libro della Storia di Don Florismondo”; this is followed by the Registro and the colophon. In the center of the latter is the drawing of a lily with the same quotations as on the title-page; at the bottom the author's name has been ingeniously worked into the design. Book II, which remains unfinished, is numbered to 109 pages and is in seven chapters; pages 65 to 80 inclusive have been lost.

None of the numerous studies devoted to the Don Juan tradition mention a French play of 1630 which contains certain of its elements and is earlier in date than any other extant French or Italian version, as early, indeed, as the printed Burlador itself. This striking fact deserves, I think, some consideration. Let us see first what is the prevailing opinion with regard to the origin and early history of the Don Juan legend, then what place in the list of versions should be assigned to this French play, and finally what confirmation or modification of the present theory may be deduced from the fact of its existence.

The legend of Don Juan with all its wonderful possibilities could not fail sooner or later to reach Russia on its triumphant march through Europe from its home in Spain. In truth we find that as early as the reign of Peter the Great (the first quarter of the eighteenth century) there was produced a Don-Yan. Only the fifth act of this is preserved, but it seems to be a Russian translation of a Polish version of Villiers' Le Festin de Pierre. For a century more there is no Russian version and it is not until the time of Pushkin that we find a really valuable contribution to the development of the legend.

In Laʒjanion's poem commonly called Brut there is an extraordinary profusion of epic formulas, full of flavor and charm, contributing as much as anything to the marked individuality of the poem. The same or similar phrases are used again and again, as a rule in the same or similar circumstances, or to describe the same person or action. The degree of similarity which makes a phrase a formula is impossible to define, but in the first list in each case given below is meant to be essentially close. A phrase is considered a formula when it occurs three times or more in this poem; two occurrences may be accidental, but three are becoming habitual. Other occurrences could doubtless be found, and also other formulas, but we have meant to exclude mere stock-rimes, and in general phrases so inevitable that they would not have been felt as formulas by Laʒamon or his auditors, however often repeated. Some of our items might be combined, others subdivided, for they often merge with each other; the whole matter is fluid. The most frequent form is generally taken as standard. Hundreds of less frequent or important variants are disregarded. Each formula is nicknamed by a striking word in it.

Few poets typify Elizabethan patriotism so completely as Michael Drayton. His most ambitious poem, Polyolbion, is a fond effort to record the chorographic intricacies of his beloved isle. But he does more than that: he often transfers his interest from landscape to human beings. Thus in the Nineteenth Song he passes easily from rivers to men, paying his homage to those responsible for English prestige at sea. The rivers Orwell and Stour reach an agreement:

(156-162) And lastly they agree
That since the Britans hence their first discoveries made,
And that into the East they first were taught to trade,
Besides, of all the Roads, and Havens of the East,
This Harbour where they meet is reckoned for the best.
Our voyages by sea and brave discoveries known,
Their argument they make, and thus they sing their own.

The Shepheards Sirena, together with the Quest of Cynthia and the Nymphidia, was published in 1627. It is a conventional pastoral, in which is described the rueful condition of the shepherd Dorilus, who is pining over the separation from his beloved nymph, Sirena. While musing upon her absence, he reads a letter of Sirena's, in which she counsels him not to come to her, despite her sore affliction, because the ‘wilde waters’ which separate them would make it extremely hazardous. After reading the letter, Dorilus soliloquizes on his future course of action. While thus occupied, his fellow-shepherds gather round him and sing him one of the songs which he had once sent Sirena, when she lived near the Trent. Instead of driving his care away, the song makes him even more wretched, and he thereupon upbraids his companions for thus mocking his woe. At this juncture, a boisterous swain soundly reproves him for wasting his energies in lamenting the absence of his love, when the call of duty demands that he devote himself to more worthy pursuits. His companion reminds him that it is high time to withstand the inroads of the swineherds. In response to this stirring appeal, Dorilus joins his fellow-shepherds.

When Abraham Cowley died in 1667, he was mourned by practically the whole English literary world with such eulogies as the following:

A new interest of late has awakened in Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, through the realization that he is the fountain-head of much of the æsthetics and ethics prevalent in the last century and in our own time. While it has been generally recognized that the background of Shaftesbury's thought is classical, as was to be expected of any student and thinker of his period, deriving both from Stoicism and from Platonism and neo-Platonism, attention and interest have chiefly been concentrated upon those aspects of his thought which look toward the coming romantic movement. Also, such classical influences as have been recognized are usually interpreted from the post-renaissance point-of-view, as agreeing in the main with such modifications of Platonic and neo-Platonic thought as are referred to in discussing “Platonism” of Shelley. Thus C. W. Weiser enlarges upon Shaftesbury's indebtedness to the Platonic and neo-Platonic traditions—terms which he uses, as he explains, in a very general sense, as pertaining to the life of the feeling (the Platonic way) in opposition to the life of the reason (the Aristotelian way).

The subject of prose rhythms is an ancient one. Even without going back of English usage, we find prose rhythms consciously developed, and consequently suggesting some sort of mature theory, as early as the time of Elizabeth. The rhythms of Bacon may be Ciceronian, and those of the King James Bible the habits of the translators, many of whom for the better part of a lifetime had been chanting, or half chanting, the Scriptures in their pulpits. But Lyly's rhythms are a deliberate thing, one is tempted to say, in his case, a premeditated crime. Sir Thomas Browne's rhythms a little later are plainly conscious. With De Quincey the usage has become an art with rules and classified practices.