THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE SHIP OF FOOLS.
By Fr. Aurelius Pompeii. O.F.M. (Longmans. 21s. net.) 'rim is a book for specialists, for those who, when they have done learning about the newly fashicthable age of Skelton and Erasmus, will tell us exactly how Humanism came to England. Meanwhile Father Pompen and his like .rake over the Tom Tiddler's grotind of Tudor literature and give us an occasional light on manners amid an intolerable deal of useless and pedantic detail. Because Barclay translated the German Ship of Fools from a Latin rendering with some slight aid from a French crib the author thinks this an example of French Renaissance influence in England. • On these lines North's famous Plutarch would be another example. A sense of humour would have avoided this error of emphasis. The Ship of Fools came from Germany, and is one of the world's great monuments of satire. Any discussion of it necessarily throws light on the intellectual and social stupidities of Renaissance Europe ; but it is a pity that Father Pompen, with his illuminating and recondite knowledge and vast industry, should have joined the dustbin school of research.
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