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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 Excerpt: ... ready to help Germans coming to England with the intention of pursuing serious studies. E. Sieper. Munich, May 1904. CHAFFER I.' AUTHORSHIP, TITLE, AND DATE. In his article on Reason and Sensuality,1 Professor Schick has already established Lydgate's authorship of that poem. As the result of my own observations and investigations I should like to add the following remarks. Both MSS. assign the poem to Lydgate. But the heading in F, in which the words compylid by John Lydgat follow the title, was written, without doubt, at a much later date than the text. After carefully comparing the hand in which this heading is written with that of A, I have arrived at the conclusion that both are of the same person--John Stowe. Thus the two proofs are reduced to one; and it is on Stowe's authority alone that the authorship, according to the MSS., is ascribed to Lydgate. There is no doubt that Stowe's statements are of great value; still, they are by no means invariably trustworthy. The Add. MS. itself proves this, for on leaves 8 and 9 is an epitaph on Edward IV., designated by Stowe as the work of Lydgate. The error, it is true, was recognized and corrected later, the name of Skelton taking that of the monk; but it is a question whether this blunder would have been seen, had there not been so palpable an anachronism, Lydgate's death having taken place even before the reign of Edward IV. However, in spite of Stowe's questionable authority, there is not the slightest room for doubt as to the authorship of Lydgate. In addition to the external proof, the internal evidence is convincing. At first I should like to mention that during the literary decay of the fifteenth century, when the creative art of Chaucer began to crumble down into dead formulas in the hands...

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