Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

DISTICHACATONIS. An article by H. R. Mead of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, in The Huntingtor. Library Quarterly, III, i (October, 1939), deals with fifteenth-century school-books. Mr. Mead deals with Three of these popular textbooks, which were the three best sellers on the basis of the number of existing editions Ars Minor of Donatus, of which some 360 editions were printed in the fifteenth century; the Doctrinale of Alexander de Villa Dei, some 280 editions; and the Distichs of Cato, about 135 editions.. Of The Distichs of Cato, a collection of Latin moral maxims, Mr. Mead writes:- It is not known who this Cato was-the name is probably apocryphal, and the authorship remains obscurf but the Distichs was in use by 200 A.D. For many years it served as a first Latin reader, and also as a textbook of morals; on both accounts its influence has been great. Through the many centuries of service the collection has borne various titles, such as Dicta M. Catonis ad filium suum, Cato moralissimus, Dionysii Catonis Disticha de Moribus ad Filium, and Parvus Cato ei Mangus Cato. The collection consists of about 150 maxims, each a Latin couplet. The Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke describes 135 editions, in seven languages Latin, German, English, French, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish." Peniarth MS. 481 (Anc. Peniarth MS. 38), which belongs to the fifteenth century, contains the Disticha," together with Historia Alexandri magni Regis Macedonie," Historia de Prelijs,'I and John of Hildesheim's Historia sanctorum trium Regum.' Mr. J. A. Herbert, formerly of the British Museum, examined this manuscript in 1921 and described its contents as follows Disticha Catonis, with the English paraphrase, in rhyme royal, of Benedict Burgh. Printed by Caxton, circ. 1477 (republished in phographic facsimile by F. Jenkinson, Cambridge, 1906) and circ. 1481 (Brit. Mus., iB. 55034), and by Coplande, 1558; and extant in numerous MSS., e.g. Harley 4733, ff. 3-30 (with colophon naming the author). Where the texts vary, the present MS. is much closer to Coplande's ed., and still more to Harl. 4733, than to the Caxtons.' W. LL. DAVIES. THE ROYAL BRITISH BOWMEN. The National Library has copies of two coloured aquatints which depict scenes at meetings of the Royal British Bowmen; one is of the meeting at Gwersyllt Park, Denbigh- shire, 1790, in the other of the meeting at Erddig in the same county in 1822. Interesting references to these prints, supplementing the information given in the text on the prints themselves, occur in a little booklet entitled Plas Newydd with A Catalogue of its Contents; [by General John Yorke]. There are copies of two editions of this booklet in the Library; the earlier is without a date, the later was published in 1888. General Yorke2 had purchased Plas Newydd, Llangollen, the far-famed residence of the Ladies of Llangollen,' on his retirement from military service, and in this mono- 1 See Speculum, a Journal of Mediaeval Studies (Cambridge, Mass.) IX, No. I, January 1934, for' A List of Manuscripts containing Texts of the Historia de Preliis Alex- andri Magni, Recensions I1, 12, 13.' 1 2 General John Yorke, C.B. (1814-1890), was the second son of Simon Yorke (1771- 1834) of Erddig, Denbighshire. He commanded the 1st Royal Dragoons in the Crimean War, and was disabled for life at Balaclava.