[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOIL1 Sm,—In your issue
for November 12th, 1904, you were good enough to devote considerable space to a review of " The Master of Game," in which the oldest treatise on hunting, written by the Plantagenet, Edward, second Duke of York, five hundred years ago, is for the first time reproduced in print. May I now ask you to allow me to make the following appeal to owners and custodians of old libraries who may be in a position to assist in a matter that cannot
fail to be of interest to those who concern themselves with the literature of our national sport, a subject which has not received in this country the attention it deserves, or " The Master of Game " would not have had to wait five centuries for an editor ?
In the bibliography of MSS. and books on our subject written before the end of the sixteenth century which I added to my folio, I gave the whereabouts, age, condition, &c., of the nineteen ancient MSS. of "The Master of Game." Seventeen of them are in public libraries, and only two were discovered by me in private repositories,—viz., in those of the late Sir Thomas Phillipps at Cheltenham and of the Earl of Ellesmere at Bridgewater House. Now, there can be little doubt, and my belief is shared by more competent judges, that there must be more of these MS. copies of what was once, no doubt, an exceedingly popular book hidden away in country-house libraries, or even in smaller public institu- tions, that for one reason or another have escaped the eye of the bibliograph.
What I am desirous of soliciting is that those who have in their charge MSS. or black-letter books dealing with English sport should, if they come across any that are not enumerated in my bibliography, for which I do not for a minute claim complete- ness, be so good as to communicate in brief form the necessary particulars to me, care of my publishers, Messrs. Ballantyne, Hanson, and Co., 14 Tavistock Street, W.C., so as to enable me to include them in the fuller bibliography for which I am collecting material. There are several exceedingly scarce books on hunting of the sixteenth century, of which only two or three copies are known, and it is by no means unlikely that search may reveal other copies or works hitherto quite unknown.
And as fer MSS., there is every probability of interesting dis- coveries being thus made. How accidental and unexpected rediscoveries of long-forgotten MSS. often are, one of many experiences of my own may illustrate. For upwards of ten years I had been searching every available source of information, and employing competent professional searchers, in connection with "The Master of Game" ; I had visited most of the principal public libraries and many private ones in England and abroad, and my material was already in type and second revises passed, and everything ready for going to press, when, by a happy chance, a friend accidentally heard of the recent discovery of an hitherto unknown MS. of the book which the librarian of Bridge- water House had made when cataloguing. Investigation showed that it was a very interesting fifteenth-century version of the Duke of York's text, the particulars of which I was enabled to add to my list at the last moment. Here I had been collecting material from all parts of Europe, and fondly believing I had amassed all available information, while all the time a few hundred yards distant from my London quarters was reposing unbeknown to me one of the most interesting copies of the ancient book !
In bibliographies on our theme France and Germany are far ahead of us, and the MSS. of "The Master of Game," unknown to Englishmen, have repeatedly been examined and written about by foreigners. In fact, it was by a mere chance that a Berlin professor did not first publish this, the most important of all old English works on our national sport; it was actually in type on the banks of the Spree before mine was ! That an Englishman who wants to read a correct account of his Norman ancestors' hunting should have to turn to a Frenchman's book, or, if he desires to gain an insight into the early literature, have to seek the works of a German professor, is hardly worthy of Britain. Bearing in mind the constant depletion that is going on by the destruction of country houses, and by the tap of the auctioneer's hammer that is sending so many of our treasures abroad, I trust that my appeal will not be in vain.
—I am, Sir, &c., W. A. BAILLIE-GROHMAN.
Previous page
