Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

MANUSCRIPTS.

Those in Latin are, two in Bennett Coll. Cambridge; see Nasmith's Catal. Nos. cccxviii. ccccli.—Two in the Bodleian libr. Nos. 2435, 2540; see Catal. MSS. Angliæ, pp. 125, 134. Mr. Warton mentions a third, in H. E. Poetry, vol. i. p. 350, note h. A fourth is in the same library among Archb. Laud's MSS. No. 1302, Catal. MSS. Angliæ, p. 70; on what authority this is said to have been translated from the Greek, remains to be examined.

In Magdal. Coll. Ox. No. 2191, Catal. MSS. Angliæ, p. 72.—In Vossius's collection, No. 2409, Catal. MSS. Angliæ, p. 64.—In the Norfolk collection, now in the library of the Royal Society, No. 3181, Catal. MSS. Angliæ, p. 80.—Two in the Sloanian library; see Ascough's Catal. p. 854.—Two in the Vatican. See Montfaucon Bibl. bibliothecarum, i. 20, Nos. 275, 284.—In the Medicean library, Montfaucon Bibl. bibl. i. 372, No. xl.—In the royal library at Paris; Montfaucon Bibl. bibl. ii. 756, No. 5251.

A Saxon translation. Bennett Coll. Camb. See Nasmith's Catal. No. cci. and Wanley, Libror. vett. septentrional. catal. apud Hickesij Thesaur. p. 146.

A French translation is among the royal MSS. in the British museum, 20 c. ii. evidently made from the Latin about the 15th century.

A fragment in old English verse, probably by Thomas Vicary of Wimborn minster in Dorsetshire, on the story of Apollonius Tyrius, was in the possession of the late reverend and learned Dr. Farmer of Cambridge. See it noticed in the present vol. of Mr. Steevens's Shakspeare, pp. 381, 609.