Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Harmony of Birds: A Poem; From the Only Known Copy, Printed by John Wight in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century; With an Introduction and Notes
The ensuing tract has been attributed to John Skclton on the authority of Herbert, who was not aware of its existence until after he had published his edition of the Typographical Antiquities of Ames. He subsequently saw a copy of it in the hands of Latham, and from Latham it found its way into the library of the late Mr. Heber. Our re-impression is made from a trans cript of that copy, for no other is known to be in existence.
Whether A proper new Boke of the Armonye of Byrdes were really the authorship of Skelton, is a point which we shall probably find consi dered and determined in the long promised, and, we h0pe we may now say, speedily forthcoming edition of that author's multifarious works, under the care of the Rev. Alexander Dyce. Herbert seems to have thought that this tract was in the manner of Skelton, but we own that it does not strike us at all in that light; it is of too morala turn, as well as in too modern a style, for his pen, however becoming its tendency might have been to his profession. Neither is the versification at all like that of any other produc tion by Skelton with which we are acquainted. However, this is a point on which we do not feel well qualified to decide, and it is the less necessary that we should finally make up our mind upon the point, in as much as we are soon likely to have it decisively settled. It has never, that we are aware of, been attributed to any other author, and we are without any extrinsic evidence either way; none at least has come to our knowledge, beyond the fact that Wight was the printer of two of Skelton's admitted works, Phillip Sparrow, and Colyn Clout. Both these are dateless, but pur port to have been printed by John Wight, and the last of them has the same imprint as the tract now offered to the members of the Percy Society.
As to the date of the piece reprinted on the following pages, John Wight did not begin to print, as far as the fact can now be ascertained, until 1551, and books with his name attached to them, as a stationer, are extant dated 1588; but he appears to have left off printing on his own account early Ferrarius of a Common Weale.
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