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CAXTON'S BOOK OF CURTESYE
Printed at Westminster about 1477-8 A.D. and Now Reprinted,with Two Ms. Copies of the Same Treatise, from the Oriel Ms. 79,and the Balliol Ms. 354
Edited by
FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, M.A.
Editor of 'The Babees Book, Etc.' ('Manners and Meals in Olden Time'),
Etc. Etc.
London:
Published for the Early English Text Society
by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press,
Amen House, E.C. 4
1868 (reprinted 1882, 1898, 1932)
PREFACE
Though no excuse can be needed for including in our Extra Series areprint of a unique Caxton on a most interesting subject, yet this Bookof Curtesye from Hill's MS. was at first intended for our originalseries, I having forgotten lately that Caxton had written to 'lytylIohn,' though some months back I had entered the old printer's book formy second collection of Manners and Meals tracts for the Society. Afterthe copy of Hill—which Mr W.W. King kindly made for hisfellow-members—had gone to press, Mr Hazlitt reminded me of the Caxton,and its first and last lines in Mr Blades's admirable book showed thatHill's text was the same as the printed one. I accordingly went toCambridge to copy it, and there, before tea, Mr Skeat showed me the copyof The Vision of Piers Plowman which the Provost and Fellows of Orielhad been good enough to lend him for his edition of 'Text B.' Havingenjoyed the vellum Vision, I turned to the paper leaves at its end, andwhat should they contain but an earlier and better version of the Caxtonthat I had just copied part of?[1] I drank seven cups of tea, and eatfive or six large slices of bread and butter, in honour of the event;[2]and Mr Skeat, with his never-failing kindness, undertook to copy andedit the Oriel text for the Society. With three texts, therefore, inhand, I could not well stick them at the end of the Postscript to theBabees Book, &c.,[3] and as I wanted Caxton's name to this Book ofCurtesye to distinguish it from what has long been to me THE Book ofCourtesy,—that from the Sloane MS. 1986, edited by Mr Halliwell for thePercy Society, and by me for our own E.E.T.S.—and as also Caxton's nameis one 'to conjure withal,' I have, with our Committee's leave, madethis little volume an Extra Series one, and called it Caxton's, thoughhis text is not so good as that of the Oriel MS.
[Footnote 1: Mr Bradshaw was kind enough to copy the rest, and to readthe whole of the proof with Caxton's original.]
[Footnote 2: I must be excused for not having found the poem before, asit is not in the Index to Mr Coxe's Catalogue. In the body of the workit is entered as "A father's advice to his son; with instructions forhis behaviour as a king's or nobleman's page. ff. 88, 89, 78. Beg.
"Kepeth clene and leseth not youre gere."]
[Footnote 3: The Treatises in The Babees Book, &c., and the Index atthe end, should be consulted for parallel and illustrative passages tothose in Caxton's text.]
On this latter point Mr Skeat writes:
"The Oriel copy is evidently the best. Not only does it give betterreadings, but the lines, as a rule, run more smoothly; and it has anextra stanza. This stanza, which is marked 54, occurs between stanzas 53and 54 of the other copies, and is of some interest and importance. Itshows that Lidgate's pupil, put in mind of Lidgate