It is probable that others of your readers besides myself have had good
reason to complain that Dr. Maitland has cruelly raised the price of this
little book to a bibliomaniacal height, by his inimitable description of
its curious contents and history. (_Essays on Subjects connected with the
Reformation_, xvii. xviii. xix.)
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Some of the things which seem to be indubitable respecting the original
work are these:--1. That it was first printed in 1535. 2. That,
consequently, Bishop Burnet (_Hist. of Ref._, Part I. b. iii. p. 166.:
Dublin, 1730) was mistaken in representing it as having been written in
reply to Cardinal Pole. 3. That there _was_ an octavo edition published at
Strasburg in 1536, and that Goldastus followed it. 4. That there was an
additional reprint of the tract at London in 1603. (Schelhornii, _Amoen.
Hist. Eccles._, tom. i. pp. 15. 849.) But I am anxious to make three
inquiries relative to this really important document and its fictitious
preface.
1. The Roane volume, certainly the earliest in English, professes to have
been printed by "Michal Wood" in 1553. Can we not determine the place of
its origin by the recollection of the fact, that Bishop Bale's _Mysterye of
Iniquyte, or Confutation of Ponce Pantolabus_, was printed at _Geneva_ by
"Mychael Woode" in 1545?
2. With regard to the typographical achievements of the Brocards, is it not
rather an _apropos_ circumstance, that "Biliosus Balaeus," as Fuller calls
him, was the author of a _Historia Divi Brocardi_? (Ware's _Works_, ii.
325.)
3. May not Bale (or _Baal_, according to Pits) be suspected to have been
the composer of the Bonnerian Preface? He might have reckoned it among the
many _Facetias et Jocos_ which he declares that he had put forth. It is
observable that, while the writer of this Preface designates Bishop
Gardiner as the "common cutthrot of Englande," the same title is bestowed
upon Bonner in the Foxian Letter addressed to him by "an unknown person"
(Strype's _Memor._ iii., Catal. p. 161.: London, 1721), and which, from
internal evidence taken from the part relating to Philpot, must be referred
to the year 1555. The style of these performances is similar; and let "gaie
Gardiner, blow-bole Boner, trusti Tonstal, and slow-bellie Samson" of the
Preface be compared with "glorious Gardiner, blow-bolle Bonner, tottering
Tunstal, wagtaile Weston, and carted Chicken." (Bale's _Declaration of
Bonner's Articles_, fol. 90. b., London, 1561.)