[He was buried on September 26, 1696, in the chancel of the church of
Langharne, in Carmarthenshire, where there is a tablet to his memory,
with a Latin inscription, recording that he was a pupil of Jeremy
Taylor. The Judge had a residence in the parish.]
"_Reynard the Fox._"--There was a book printed in 1706 entitled _The secret
Memoirs of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Prime Minister and Favorite of
Queen Elizabeth, written during his Life, and now published from an old
Manuscript never printed_; by Dr. Drake: printed by Samuel Briscoe, 1706.
In his Preface he alludes to the _History of Reynard the Fox_:
"There is an old English book, written about the time that these
memoirs seem to have been, which now passes through the hands of old
women and children only, and is taken for a pleasant and delightful
tale, but is by wise heads thought to be an enigmatical history of the
Earl of Leicester and his family, and which he that compares with these
memoirs, will not take to be an idle conjecture, there are so many
passages so easily illustrable, by comparing it with these memoirs. The
book I mean is the _History of Reynard the Fox_, in which the author,
not daring to write his history plainly, probably for fear of his
power, has shadowed his exploits under the feigned adventures and
intrigues of brutes, in which not only the violence and rapaciousness,
but especially the craft and dissimulation, of the Earl of Leicester is
excellently set forth."
I shall feel much obliged to any of your readers who can inform me of the
earliest English edition of _Reynard the Fox_, and whether others besides
Dr. Drake have taken the same view of the history.