WRITTEN ANNO MCCCLII. BY LAURENCE MINOT. WITH Introductory Dissertations ON THE SCOTISH WARS OF EDWARD III. ON HIS CLAIM TO THE THRONE OF FRANCE, AND Notes and Glossary. BY JOSEPH RITSON. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. H. BURN, BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN. MDCCCXXV. PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF MDCCXCV. THE neglect which writers of genius are occasionally condemned to experience, as well from their contemporaries as from posterity, was never exemplified, perhaps, in a more eminent degree than by the poet whose works are now offered to the public. His very name appears totally unknown to Leland, Bale, Pitts, and Tanner: it is mentioned, in short, by no one writer, till late in the present century, nor is found to occur in any catalogue: while the silence of the public. records would induce us to believe that the great monarch whom he has so eloquently and earnestly panegyrised was either ignorant of his existence or insensible of his merit.* That these equally elegant and spirited compositions were at length retrieved from the obscurity in which they had been for ages interred, was owing to a whimsical circumstance, which it may not be impertinent to relate. The compiler of the Catalogue of Cottonian Manuscripts, printed at Oxford in 1696, or some person whom he employed, had contented himself with describing the inestimable volume, marked GALBA E. IX. which contains some of the most precious relics of ancient English poetry, in these words: "CHAUCER. Exemplar emendate scriptum." The manuscript, it must be confessed, is very fairly, and also pretty correctly written, if either be the * Of this monarch, who gave to Chaucer an office in the customs, upou condition that he wrote his accounts with his own hand, it has already been observed, that," though adorned with many royal and heroic virtues," he "had not the gift of discerning and patronizing a great poet." Vide Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, by Tyrwhitt, 1775, svo. vol. i. p. xxviii. meaning of emendate, but owes not the smallest obligation to the great poet whose genuine works might, naturally enough, have been expected to occupy the whole. The indolence of the catalogue-maker being equal to his ignorance, readily converted the name of RICHARD CHAWFER, scrawled, perhaps, by some former proprietor of the volume, on a spare leaf, into that of GEOFFREY CHAUCER, the supposed author of its contents. To this fortunate blunder, however if a blunder there was to be-we are indebted for our acquaintance with the name and writings of LAURENCE MINOT, Whom one of a different nature might have consigned to perpetual oblivion. The late ingenious and industrious Mr. Tyrwhitt, in preparing materials for his admirable edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, consulted the manuscript for the purpose of collating an accurate copy of his favourite author. His disappointment, which may be easily imagined, would be very speedily converted into the most agreeable sur |