THE CHOICE OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF
THE “MASTER OF GAME”

HE question which of the existing nineteen MSS. to select for reproduction in this
place was one not lightly decided. A careful study of all the known and available
existing complete copies narrowed down the choice to three MSS., two of which are

in the British Museum, the third in the Bodleian Library. Aft i i
authorities, I abandoned the idea of taking the latter MS., and the Htc eee
Vespasian B XII. and Additional MS. 16,165. For some time I entertained the idea of ee
the latter, for one reason, because this MS. is the only one containing the all-important passa :
seruing for good and all the authorship of this English classic, and also because Enis ne
authority as the late Sir Henry Ellis had selected this MS. when asked to give his opinion which
of the various MSS. of the Master of Game was the best suited for reproduction by the Camden
Society. His advice, though never carried out, for the work has remained unpublished, is
embodied in a letter dated British Museum, April 4, 1855, which he wrote to Mr. W. J. Thon
A copy of it was given me by the late Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., of whose kind assistance I shall
have to speak repeatedly. The letter, which is worth quoting, runs:

“Ohm compliance with the wish of our last Council of the Camden Society, I have looked
aaa at the different MSS. which the British Museum possesses of the Master of the
‘ame.
§ They are no fewer thanten!in number. In the Cottonian Library, one, Vesp. B XII,
a tie and clear MS. on vellum, prefixed to which, in the same hand with the rest
of the volume, is the English Giffard and Twety, filling a f i
prin aneieibe ts y, g a few pages as introductory of the
“In the Royal Library in the Museum there are six copies of the Master of the Game;
three on vellum, namely, 17 B XLI., 17 D IV., and 18 C XVIII.; and three on paper,
Type Nee Le 10 Le seanl¢ aa Lo leeeereac ler 7a) OX TOT
‘In the Harleian Collection there are two, both on paper: one, MS. Harl. 5086, with a
aoe colophon from most of the MSS. already named—a sort of dedication; the other,
cee a copy, I should say, shorter in its contents, and, in fact, of no great worth.
There is another MS. on paper in our House, Additional 16,165, purchased for us as
a as 1846. This MS. was written by, or for, John Shirley, an English poet of the
teenth century, unknown to Ritson, although particularly mentioned by Tanner in his
Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica.
. fas the MSS. I have mentioned I should myself make my choice, as an editor, between
ae ottonian MS., Vespasian B XII. and the Shirley MS. Both are elegant specimens
a eo writing of the period. But Vespasian B XII., though clear in appearance, will
still be difficult in many passages to an amanuensis. There are some small figures of
.Th ime thi
i eee fs ne Meee ae MSS. of the Master of Game in the British Museum} as detailed in the
2 It should read 17 A LV., probably a clerical error.

 

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THE CHOICE OF THE MANUSCRIPT Xxvil

t of the MS., but I doubt whether it would be at all needful to

; in the earlier par
animals in the 7 rd and Twety, not to the Master

copy them in woodcuts. They belong moreover to Giffa

of the Game.
é « After maturely considering the matter, however, I should put my final choice upon the

Shirley MS. It is on paper, clearly written in a strong, dark hand, and is ie only at
the Master of the Game which distinctly states in its colophon-title that the oe i
was written by the Duke of York who was killed at the battle of meiner : ms
itself is indisputably of the middle of the fifteenth century, completely corroborated By t le
title of a ballad written by Shirley contained in one of Thoresby’s MSS. described in his
Ducatus Leodiensis, dated in 1440.

“ Of the rest of the MSS. I have mentioned, as in the Old Royal Library, several are of
the fifteenth, one or two of the sixteenth, and one on paper written for and presented to
Henry, Prince of Wales, the son of James I., at the beginning of the seventeenth coer

“The MSS. differ occasionally from each other, and some of them to a considerable
extent from the other copies. I do not mean verbally, but in passages of length : par
ticularly in one of square folio size, illuminated for and presented to King Edward IV., in
the first page of which the King is presented the work, and the second page surrounded by
a border of white and red roses.

«] mention these particulars with a view to impress the Council. that ‘if they undertake
to print from any MS. of the Master of the Game, it must not be given to the world as
the dry text of a treatise on hunting written in Old English in the reign of Henry V., but
as a book compiled from the best foreign sources, intermixed with hunting knowledge and
home practice of the sport as then pursued in England. ae

“The Duke of York makes particular reference to the book of Phebus, the well-known
treatise on hunting by Gaston, Count de Foix, afterwards printed at Paris by Verard, of
whom the French historians say he had 1600 dogs, and who, Froissard says, ‘loved hounds
of all beasts winter and somer.’

“A bibliographical preface on the sport and treatises on hunting should certainly be
prefixed to the book called the Master of the Game. There are other MSS. of the Master
of the Game in other collections, I think, two in the Bodleian, and it is not unlikely that the
catalogue of the MSS. of England would point out others.

“These should, at least in a general way, be looked at or inquired after. I am afraid I
have made too long a letter of this, but it is only to explain what I think might be done to
make the Master of the Game a volume of real interest with the members of the Camden
Society.

“Yours, my dear Sir,
‘Ever sincerely,

“ (Signed) Henry EL tis.”

When I first read the above letter, I had already decided upon proceeding with the publication
of the JJaster of Game on the lines recommended by Sir H. Ellis, though the choice of MS.,
on the advice of the British Museum experts, had fallen not upon the Shirley MS. but on the
Vespasian B XII. By them the latter was pronounced the older MS.—by some twenty or thirty
years—and the work of a professional scribe, while the Shirley MS. is the work of an amateur,

though of scholarly tastes, and there is a good deal of confusion in the arrangement of the chapters
° . :
and an important one is left out altogether.

Full particulars of the various MSS. will be found in the Bibliography.

THE TITLE AND DEDICATION OF THE “MASTER OF GAME”
As the Shirley MS. on every occasion, and the MS. Vespasian B XII. on one of the three

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