s. vni. NOV. ao, MM.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 455
been appropriated to the library. Books could occasionally be borrowed from libraries. Our authority for this is again Aulus Gellius. Before the empire libraries were built. Lucullus had a fine collection of books, which seem to have been as much at the disposition of his friends as was in long subsequent times that of Grolier.
At this period we awake to the fact that the matter we discuss occupies only twenty pages in a volume of over three hundred, and we have to arrest progress without having given our readers a taste of the good things they have a chance to enjoy. In dealing with the libraries of mediaeval monarchs and institutions Mr. Clark is at his best, and the designs of the libraries of the Vatican, the Escurial, and the great edifices ecclesiastic and collegiate, are of unending interest and value. We cannot attempt to convey a faint idea of the value of the text and the illustrations, and only resign ourselves to the thought of our powerlessness by the reflection that book-owners will soon count this among their treasures, and will be able to gloat over it at leisure. Under these circumstances the less we attempt to describe the greater may possibly be our claim, on their gratitude.
The Works of Thomas Kyd. Edited by Frederick G. Boas, M.A. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.)
A COLLECTED edition of the works of Kyd, edited from the original texts, is a welcome addition to our pre-Shakespearian literature. The plays with which, on evidence more or less convincing, Kyd is credited have long been accessible to the student. It is, however, satisfactory to possess them in a single volume, together with the other works which may be ascribed to him, and with such biographical particulars concerning his education and his association with his fellow - dramatists as survive. Little exact information is current concerning him, and of the plays contained in the present volume two only are provedly his. ' The Spanish Tragedie; or, Hieronimo is Mad Againe, containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio and Belimperia, with the pitifull death of Hieronimo,' is mentioned as Kyd's in Heywood's ' Apology for Actors,' and ' Pompey the Great, his faire Corneliaes Tragedie, 3 is said on the title-page of the edition of 1595 to be " written in French by that excellent Poet Ro: Gamier: and translated into English by Thoma Kid." The Tragedye of Solyman and Perseda' rests on internal evidence, which, though strong, is not absolutely conclusive. Hawkins, in ' The Origin of the British Drama,' conjectures it to be one of the dramas of Kyd, but it is, in fact, anonymous, is not in the original divided into scenes, and is said by Langbaine not to have been acted. There remains 'The First Part of leronimo, and the Life and Death of Don Andrsea.' Opinions concerning the authorship of this differ. Mr. Sidney Lee, in his life of Thomas Kyd ('D.N.B.'), holds that there is adequate internal evidence for assigning it to the same pen to which we owe ' The Spanish Tragedie.' On the other hand, Mr. Boas deprives Kyd of the authorship of this piece. That a fore part to ' The Spanish Tragedie,' presumably by Kyd, was in existence in 1592 is held probable. That the piece is preserved in ' The First Part of leronimo ' of 1605 meets with an "unqualified negative." To the popularity of ' The Spanish Tragedie' is ascribed the appearance of the anonymous work in question, which it has been
said was printed in 1605, and contains, Mr. Boas holds, internal evidence of having been written in the seventeenth century, or from five to ten years after the date generally accepted as that of the death of Kyd. Not quite conclusive is in every case the internal evidence advanced. Hieronimo's references to his jubilee, I. i. 25 et seq., may be due to the jubilee of 1600. It is not inconceivable that they have another origin. We agree with Mr. Boas that the assumption that they are an interpolation is purely arbitrary. The frequent jests about the small stature of leronimo can scarcely be justified by the appropriation of the play by the Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars. There is ingenuity in the supposition, and the reference to the Induction to ' The Malcontent ' is happy. When we read the well-known lines addressed to leronimo by Balthezer,
Thou ynch of Spaine;
Thou man, from thy hose downe ward, scarse so
much j
Thou very little longer than thy beard, Speake not such big words, &c., it is difficult to conceive why, unless some actor known to be of more diminutive stature than his fellows was indicated, they are applied to leronimo alone. If all the parts were played by children the insults lose their significance. Is anything known concerning the stature of leronimo? If, as has been supposed, 'Ben Jonson was the original Hieronimo of ' The Spanish Tragedie,' such a reason could not have been advanced.
Many plays have, with little apparent justification, been ascribed to Kyd. Malone believed him to have a hand in the first 'Taming of a Shrew' and in 'Titus Andronicus,' and Mr. Fleay would assign him 'Arden of Feversham,' a theory which has found little favour, but in support of which much may be advanced. A good deal of attention has been, however, accorded the notion that he was the first to dramatize the story of Hamlet. This first Hamlet, or, as Prof. Boas calls it, the "Ur-Hamlet," is attributed to Kyd. Kyd, it may safely be assumed, was the subject of a satirical attack by Thomas Nash in his prefatory epistle to 'Menaphon,' when he says, "If you entreate him faire on a frostie morning he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say handfulls of tragical speeches." These things have been the subject of much debate during recent days, and we can but refer our readers to the introduction of Prof. Boas. We are not prepared to accept the estimate of Kyd that the professor advances, but we are glad to have his works in a handsome and scholarly edition. Kyd's name frequently rises in dealing with the literature of Tudor times, and his association with Marlowe in the charge of atheism attracts special attention to him. The documents connected with this are included in this edition, as are Kyd's translation from Tasso and his tract on 'The Murder of John Brewen.' Matter of great interest as illustrating Kyd's work is given in the appendices. The introduction and notes are excellent, and have separate indexes. A close study has been made of the 'Cornelie' of Gamier, a flat imitation of Seneca, which is, if possible, flatter in the rendering of Kyd. Prof. Boas has done apiece of scholarly work. There are a few other Tudor dramatists that call for similar treatment. Did Balzac get the name "la Belle Imp6ria" from the same source as 'The Spanish Tragedie'
