NICHOLAS BRETON'S "CROSSING OF PROVERBS."
Although my query respecting William Basse and his poem, "Great Britain's Sun's Set," (No. 13. p. 200), produced no positive information touching that production, it gave an opportunity to some of your correspondents to communicate valuable intelligence relating to the author and to other works by him, for which I, for one, was very much obliged. If I did not obtain exactly what I wanted, I obtained something that hereafter may be extremely useful; and that I could not, perhaps, have obtained in any other way than through the medium of your pleasant and welcome periodical.
I am now, therefore, about to put a question regarding another writer of more celebrity and ability. Among our early pamphleteers, there was certainly none more voluminous than Nicholas Breton, who began writing in 1575, and did not lay down his pen until late in the reign of James I. A list of his pieces (by no means complete, but the fullest that has been compiled) may be seen in Lowndes's Bibl. Manual; it includes several not by Breton, among them Sir Philip Sidney's Ourania, 1606, which in fact is by a person of the name Backster; and it omits the one to which my present communication refers, and regarding which I am at some loss.
In the late Mr. Heber's Catalogue, part iv. p. 10., I read as follows, under the name of Nicholas Breton:—
"Crossing of Proverbs. The Second Part, with certaine briefe Questions and Answeres, by N.B., Gent. Extremely rare and very curious, but imperfect. It appears to contain a portion of the first part, and also of the second; but it appears to be unknown."
Into whose hands this fragment devolved I know not; and that is one point I am anxious to ascertain, because I have another fragment, which consists of what is evidently the first sheet of the first part of the tract in question, with the following title-page, which I quote totidem literis:—
"Crossing of Proverbs. Crosse-Answeres. And Crosse-Humours. By B.N., Gent. At London, Printed for John Wright, and are to be solde at his Shop without Newgate, at the signe of the Bible, 1616."
It is in 8vo., as Heber's fragment appears to have been; but then the initials of the author are given as N.B., whereas in my fragment they stand B.N., a usual inversion with Nicholas Breton; the brief address "To the Reader" is also subscribed B.N.; and then begins the body of the work, thus headed: "Crosse and Pile, or, Crossing of Proverbs." It opens as follows:
"Proverb. The more the merrier.
Cross. Not so; one hand is enough in a purse.
P. Every man loves himselfe best.
C. Not so, when man is undone by suretyship.
P. He that runnes fastest gets most ground.
C. Not so, for then foote-men would have more land than their masters.
P. He runnes far that never turnes.
C. Not so, he may breake his necke in a short course.
P. No man can call againe yesterday.
C. Yes, hee may call till his heart ake, though it never come.
P. Had I wist was a foole.
C. No, he was a foole that said so."
And so it proceeds, not without humour and point, here and there borrowing from known sources, as in the following:—
"Proverb. The world is a long journey.
Cros. Not so, the sunne goes it every day.
P. It is a great way to the bottom of the sea.
C. Not so, it is but a stone's cast."
However, my object is not to give specimens of the production further than are necessary for its identification. My queries are, 1st, Who bought Mr. Heber's fragment, and where is it now to be found? 2nd, Are any of your correspondents aware of the existence of a perfect copy of the work?
I naturally take a peculiar interest about Nicholas Breton, because I have in my possession an unknown collection of amatory and pastoral poems by him, printed in quarto in 1604, in matter and measure obvious imitations of productions in "The Passionate Pilgrim," 1599, imputed to Shakespeare, and some of which are unquestionably by Richard Barnfield.
Any new information regarding Breton and his works will be most acceptable to me. I am already in possession of undoubted proof that he was the Nicholas Breton whose epitaph is on the chancel-wall of the church of Norton, in Northamptonshire, a point Ritson seems to have questioned.
J. Payne Collier.
March 30. 1850.