Shakespeare and Precious Stones
England among those still interested in the learning of the scholastic period. A much earlier English version, made by John of Trevisa in 1396, was published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495, and is considered to be the finest production of his press.10
A rarely noted source for some of Shakespeare's knowledge regarding curious customs has been sought in the rambling treatise on heraldry written by Gerard Legh and issued, in 1564, under the title: "Accedens of Armorie" (approximately, Introduction to Heraldry). This is cast in the form of a dialogue between Gerard the Herehaught (Herold) and the Caligat Knight, the latter term designating an inferior kind of knight with no claim to nobility; indeed, an old writer renders it "a souldior on foot." The writer manages to weave in much material slightly or not at all connected with his main theme. Legh was the son of a Fleet Street draper. He seems to have studied a variety of subjects and gathered together many scraps of curious information. He died of the plague, October 13, 1563. His book went through sev-
10In the author's library is a fourteenth century MS. of the "De Proprietatibus Rerum," which belonged to the Carthusian Monastery of the Holy Trinity, at Dijon.
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