[Within typographical border:] The Honour Of Chivalry. by [SHIRLEY or SHURLEY (John)] - 1683

Or, The Famous and Delectable History Of Don Bellianis of Greece. Containing The Valiant Exploits of that Magnanimous and Heroick Prince; Son unto the Emperour Don Bellaneo of Greece. Wherein are described, the Strange and Dangerous Ad- Ventures that befel him: with his Love toward the Princess Florisbella, Daughter to the Soldan of Babylon. [Rule] Translated out of Italian. [Rule] Sed tamen est tristissima janua nostræ, Et est unus tempora a prima pati. [Rule] London, Printed for Tho. Passinger, at the Three Bibles on London-Bridge, 1683. Sm.4to, not watermarked; half-title not called for; leaf headed‘The Translator’s Epistle to the Gentle Reader’ [not signed], follows title leaf; pp.[iv]+124+123 - 242; A - I, K - U, X - Hh⁴. BOUND WITH: [SHIRLEY or SHURLEY (John)]. [Within a typographical border:] The Honour of Chivalry: The Second and Third Part: Being a continuation Of the First Part of the History Of the Renowned Prince Don Bellianis Of Greece. Containing his many strange and won- Derful Adventures; as Fights with Monsters and Gy- Ants, Dissolving Inchantments, Rescuing Distressed Ladies, overthrowing Tyrants, and obtaining the fair Princess Florisbella in Marriage. Together, with the rare Adventures of Many other Heroick Emperours, Kings, Princes, and Knights, with their Amorous Intrigues and fortunate Success in their Undertakings. [Rule] Being worthy the perusal of all Persons, as well for its pleasant- Ness as the profit that they may accrue thereby. [Rule] Written by J.S. Gent. [Rule] London, Printed for T. Passinger, at the Sign of the Three Bibles, on London-Bridge. 1683. Apparently Imp.16mo in quarter sheets (i.e., gathered in fours), the watermark being a large crown and the chain-lines running horizontally; half-title not called for; leaf headed To the Reader and signed at end ‘J. Shurley’ follows title leaf; large historiated initials throughout; pp.[4]+167+[i (blank)]; A², B - I, K - U, X - Y⁴. Two volumes bound in one, both printed in black letter and Roman type; nineteenth century full Russia bound after a seventeenth century model, the sides with gilt panel surrounded by broad leaf-and-flower rolls, the spine with four bands and five panels, ruled and tooled elaborately gilt and lettered direct in the second panel; decorative gilt rolls to edges of boards and turn-ins; a.e.g.; end-papers faced light brown. Later re-back, preserving the old backstrip; small puncture to leather (only) in centre of front board; in the the first part: some of the (mostly early) leaves cropped rather close at some lower edges with loss of about twenty catchwords and all or part of the last line of text on leaves A4, C4v, F1, F4r, H1, H2, and H4; paper flaws to blank fore-margin of U1, and blank lower margin of 2C4; small chip to blank lower margin of Z3; neat repair to lower margin of 2G1 with loss of two or three words on the recto; pen trials on blank margins of 2B2v and 2B3r; in the second part: strip lacking from blank lower margins of G3 and G4, due to an original paper fault; insignificant marking to a few scattered leaves in both volumes; otherwise nice. Two volumes evidently printed and issued separately, but in the same year, and usually found together. The First Part, translated from the Italian version of Oration Rinaldi, published in 1598, contains like its model only the first fifty of the sixty-eight chapters of the original Spanish romance, Historia del magnanimo, et invincibil principe Belianis de Grecia, by Jer¢nimo Fern ndez, published in Spain in 1545. It was not, and does not claim to have been, translated into English by Shirley, but is a reprint of the 1650 version translated by Francis Kirkman and reprinted several times up until 1673. Kirkman had added a Second and a Third Part, both written by himself, in 1664 and 1672, and the present Second and Third Parts consist of a paraphrase of them by Shirley, who writes in his remarks ‘To the Reader’ at the start of Part Two that the romance is “now illustrated and put into the newest dialect” by himself. He also added some rather bad verse. These Parts provide “the unique instance of an English continuation of one of the Spanish romances” (Henry Thomas, Spanish and Portuguese Romances of Chivalry’, CUP, 1920, pp.257-8.), and are set partly in England and Ireland. In this copy, possibly as always, p.38 of Part One has been misnumbered ‘93’, and p.39 ‘38’; p.69 ends ‘hap=’ whilst p.70 begins ‘happiness’; and gathering 2C has been laid-out wrongly in the forme, pp.200 and 201 following p.195, and pp.196 and 197, preceding p.202 (which is mis-numbered ‘102)’, whilst the signature mark ‘Cc2’ appears correctly at the foot of p.197 but as the last leaf of the gathering and backed, of course, by the incorrectly numbered p.‘101’. The front pastedown bears the engraved armorial bookplate of Henry Francis Lyte, writer of the hymns ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Praise my Soul the King of Heaven’, and sometime tutor to the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. The verso of the second binder’s blank bears the 1883 rubber ownership stamp of Alexander Gardyne. The first printing of the version by Shirley (not reprinted until 1703) and very scarce. COPAC records only the Oxford, National Library of Scotland, Leeds, and Lambeth Palace copies. Wing (2nd Edition), F780; ESTC, R24084 All books listed by Robert Temple are first editions unless otherwise stated.