PREFACE TO RUSSELL. THOUGH this Boke of Nurture by John Russell is the most complete and elaborate of its kind, I have never seen it mentioned by name in any of the many books and essays on early manners and customs, food and dress, that have issued from the press. My own introduction to it was due to a chance turning over, for another purpose, of the leaves of the MS. containing it. Mr Wheatley then told me of Ritson's reference to it in his Bibliographica Poetica, p. 96; and when the text was all printed, a reference in The Glossary of Domestic Architecture (v. III. Pt. I. p. 76, note, col. 2) sent me to MS. Sloane 1315 in the Glossary stated to have been written in 1452—which proved to be a different and unnamed version of Russell. Then the Sloane Catalogue disclosed a third MS., No. 20272, and the earliest of the three, differing rather less than No. 1315 from Russell's text, but still anonymous. I have therefore to thank for knowledge of the MSS. that special Providence which watches over editors as well as children and drunkards, and have not on this occasion to express gratitude to Ritson and Warton, to whom every lover of Early English Manuscripts is under such deep obligations, and whose guiding hands (however faltering) in Poetry have made us long so often for the like in Prose. Would that one of our many Historians of English Literature had but conceived the idea of cataloguing the materials for his History before sitting down to write it! Would that a wise Government would commission another Hardy to do for English Literature what the DeputyKeeper of the Public Records is now doing for English History 1 This MS. contains a copy of "The Rewle of the Moone," fol. 49-67, which I hope to edit for the Society. 2 The next treatise to Russell in this MS. is "The booke off the gouernaunce off Kyngis and Pryncis," or Liber Aristotiles ad Alexandrum Magnum, a book of Lydgate's that we ought to print from the best MS. of it. At fol. 74 b. is a heading, Here dyed this translatour and noble poctte Lidgate and the yong follower gan his prolog on this wys. give us a list of the MSS. and early printed books of it! What time and trouble such a Catalogue would save! But to return to John Russell and his Boke. He describes himself at the beginning and end of his treatise as Usher and Marshal to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, delighting in his work in youth, quitting it only when compelled by crooked age, and then anxious to train up worthy successors in the art and mystery of managing a well-appointed household. A man evidently who knew his work in every detail, and did it all with pride; not boastful, though upholding his office against rebellious cooks', putting them down with imperial dignity, "we may allow and disallow; our office is the chief!" A simple-minded religious man too, as the close of his Treatise shows, and one able to appreciate the master he served, the "prynce fulle royalle," the learned and munificent Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, the patron of Lydgate, Occleve, Capgrave, Withamstede, Leonard Aretine, Petrus Candidus, Petrus de Monte, Tito Livio, Antoyne de Beccara, &c. &c., the lover of Manuscripts, the first great donor to the Oxford University Library which Bodley revived 2, "that prince peerless," as Russell calls him, a man who, with all his faults, loved books and authors, and shall be respected by us as he was by Lydgate. But our business is with the Marshal, not the Master, and we will hear what John Russell says of himself in his own verse, an vsshere y Am / ye may beholde / to a prynce of highe degre, þat enioyethe to enforme & teche / alle po thatt wille thrive & thee, Of suche thynges as here-aftur shalle be shewed by my diligence To them pat nought Can/with-owt gret exsperience; Therfore yf any mañ þat y mete withe, pat for fawt of necligence, y wylle hym enforme & teche, for hurtynge of my Conscience. To teche vertew and connynge, me thynketh hit charitable, for moche youthe in connynge / is bareñ & fulle vnable. (1. 3-9.) At the end of his Boke he gives us a few more details about himself and his work in life: 1 One can fancy that a cook like Wolsey's (described by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 34), "a Master Cook who went daily in damask satin, or velvet, with a chain of gold about his neck" (a mark of nobility in earlier days) would be not leef but loth to obey an usher and marshal. 2 Warton, ii. 264-8, ed. 1840. For further details about the Duke see the Appendix to this Preface. Now good son, y haue shewed the /& brought pe in vre, to know pe Curtesie of court / & these pow may take in cure, pantry/botery / or cellere / & in kervynge a-fore a sovereyne demewre, In A sewer / or a mershalle: in pes science/y suppose ye byñ sewre, Which in my dayes y lernyd withe a prynce fulle royalle, with whom vschere in chambur was y, & mershalle also in halle, vnto whom alle pese officeres foreseid / pey euer entende shalle, Evir to fulfille my commaundement when pat y to þem calle: For we may allow & dissalow / oure office is pe cheeff In cellere & spicery / & the Cooke, be he loothe or leeff. (1. 1173-82.) Further on, at line 1211, he says, "Moore of pis connynge y Cast not me to contreve : my tyme is not to tary, hit drawest fast to eve. pis tretyse þat y haue entitled, if it ye entende to preve, y assayed me self in youthe with-outeñ any greve. while y was yonge y-noughe & lusty in dede, y enjoyed þese maters foreseid / & to lerne y toke good hede; but croked age hathe compelled me / & leue court y must nede. perfore, sone, assay thy self/ & god shalle be by spede." And again, at line 1227, "Now, good son, thy self, with other pat shalle pe succede, whiche pus boke of nurture shalle note / lerne, & ouer rede, pray for the sowle of Iohn Russelle, pat god do hym mede, Som tyme seruaunde with duke vmfrey, duc1 of Glowcetur in dede. For pat prynce pereles prayethe/ & for suche other mo, pe sowle of my wife / my fadur and modir also, vn-to Mary modyr and mayd / she fende us from owre foe, and brynge vs alle to blis when we shalle hens goo. AMEN." As to his Boke, besides what is quoted above, John Russell says, Go forthe lytelle boke, and lowly pow me commende vnto alle yonge gentilmen / pat lust to lerne or entende, and specially to pem þat han exsperience, praynge pe[m] to amende and correcte pat is amysse, pere as y fawte or offende. And if so pat any be founde / as prou3 myñ necligence, Cast þe cawse on my copy / rude / & bare of eloquence, whiche to drawe out [I] haue do my besy diligence, redily to reforme hit by resoñ and bettur sentence. As for ryme or resoñ, þe forewryter was not to blame, For as he founde hit aforne hyn, so wrote he þe same, and þaughe he or y in oure matere digres or degrade, blame neithur of vs / For we neuyre hit made; 1 The duc has a red stroke through it, probably to cut it out. Symple as y had insight / somwhat pe ryme y correcte; blame y cowde no mañ / y haue no persone suspecte. Now, good god, graunt vs grace / oure sowles neuer to Infecte! þañ may we regne in pi regioun eternally with thyne electe. (1. 1235-50.) If John Russell was the writer of the Epilogue quoted above, lines 1235-50, then it would seem that in this Treatise he only corrected and touched up some earlier Book of Norture which he had used in his youth, and which, if Sloane 2027 be not its original, may be still extant in its primal state in Mr Arthur Davenport's MS., "How to serve a Lord," said to be of the fourteenth century', and now supposed to be stowed away in a hayloft with the owner's other books, awaiting the rebuilding and fitting of a fired house. I only hope this MS. may prove to be Russell's original, as Mr Davenport has most kindly promised to let me copy and print it for the Society. Meantime it is possible to consider John Russell's Book of Norture as his own. For early poets and writers of verse seem to have liked this fiction of attributing their books to other people, and it is seldom that you find them acknowledging that they have imagined their Poems on their own heads, as Hampole has it in his Pricke of Conscience, p. 239, l. 8874 (ed. Morris, Philol. Soc.). Even Mr Tennyson makes believe that Everard Hall wrote his Morte d' Arthur, and some Leonard his Golden Year. On the other hand, the existence of the two Sloane MSS. is more consistent with Russell's own statement (if it is his own, and not his adapter's in the Harleian MS.) that he did not write his Boke himself, but only touched up another man's. Desiring to let every reader judge for himself on this point, I shall try to print in a separate text2, for convenience of comparison, the Sloane MS. 1315, which differs most from Russell, and which the Keeper of the MSS. at the British Museum considers rather earlier (ab. 1440-50 A.D.) than the MS. of Russell (ab. 1460-70 A.D.), while of the earliest of the three, Sloane MS. 2027 (ab. 1430-40 A.D.), the nearer to Russell in phraseology, I shall give a collation of all important variations. If any reader of the I See one MS., "How to serve a Lord," ab. 1500 A.D., quoted in the notes to the Camden Society's Italian Relation of England, p. 97. 2 For the Early English Text Society. present text compares the Sloanes with it, he will find the subject matter of all three alike, except in these particulars : Sloane 1315. Omits lines 1-4 of Russell. Omits Russell's stanza, 1. 305-8, about Omits a stanza, 1. 319-24, p. 137. Contracts R.'s chapter on Fumositees, p. 139. Omits R.'s Lenvoy, under Fried Metes, p. 149-50. Transfers R.'s chapters on Sewes on Fische Dayes and Sawcis for Fishe, 1. 819-54, p. 171-5, to the end of his chapter on Kervyng of Fishe, 1. 649, p. 161. Gives different Soteltes (or Devices at the end of each course), and omits Russell's description of his four of the Four Seasons, p. 164-70; and does not alter the metre of the lines describing the Dinners as he does, p. 167-171. Winds up at the end of the Bathe or Stewe, 1. 1000, p. 183, R., with two stanzas of peroration. As there is no Explicit, the MS. may be incomplete, but the next page is blank. Sloane 2027. Contains these lines. Inserts and omits as Sl. 1315 does, but the wording is often different. Contains this stanza (fol. 42, b.). and back). Has one verse of Lenvoy altered (fol. 45 b.). Transfers as Sl. 1315 does (see fol. 48). Differs from R., nearly as Sl. 1315 does. Has 3 winding-up stanzas, as if about to end as Sloane 1315 does, but yet goes on (omitting the Bathe Medicinable) with the Vssher and Marshalle, R. p. 185, and ends suddenly, at 1. 1062, p. 188, R., in the middle of the chapter. words and rhymes, Sloane 1315 In occasional length of line, in differs far more from Russell than Sloane 2027, which has Russell's long lines and rhymes throughout, so far as a hurried examination shows. |