A Brefe Dialoge bitwene a Christen Father and his stobborne Sonne by William Roye (review)

358 letters in canada 1999 turning away from what Rajan calls postcolonialism's via negativa to a more inclusive and constructive critical practice. (PAUL STEVENS) William Roye. A Brefe Dialoge bitwene a Christen Father and his stobborne Sonne Edited by Douglas H. Parker and Bruce Krajewski University of Toronto Press. viii, 306. $60.00 As `The First Protestant Catechism Published in English' (subtitle), this handsomely bound and printed edition, which adds substantially to our knowledge of the early English Reformation, joins Parker's earlier volumes, both from the University of Toronto Press B Barlowe and Roye's Rede Me and Be Nott Wrothe (1992) and A proper dyaloge betwene a Gentillman and an Husbandman (1996) B in giving students and scholars of the history, theology, and literature of the Reformation in both England and the Continent a finely drawn picture of the pioneering reformers and their historical moment. This version is `an old-spelling critical edition of the 1527 first edition' of Roye's translation of Wolfgang Capito's De Pueris Instituendis Ecclesiae Argentinensis Isagoge (1527), which also appeared in that year as Kinder bericht und fragstuck von gemeynen puncten Christlichs glaubens. Roye's translation was published, like the original, in Strassburg, and judging from its official condemnations in England, it quickly became `a much feared and subversive work.' Adolph Wolf's edition (Vienna, 1874) is a patently unreliable text; there are numerous arbitrary changes to orthography and punctuation, for example, and so this scrupulously rendered and richly contextualized version is most welcome. The introductory material discusses the structure and reception of the text, Wolf's edition, and Roye's life and work, about which little is known, except that he was an associate of William Tyndale. The text of the Brefe Dialoge is followed by an ample Commentary, to which are appended the textual apparatus (variants, emendations, glossary), Bibliography and Index, and two appendices, one being a `Collation of Wolf's Transcription with the Copy Text,' the other, `The Latin Text.' These make possible serious scholarship on `only the third printed work of an English Protestant.' Because of its strong and thorough apparatus, this edition will assist both novice and senior researchers in Reformation studies. Of special note are `The Catechism in Sixteenth-Century England' (twenty-seven pages of suggestive, detailed commentary, which should be supplemented by Ian Green's The Christian's ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in England c. 1530B1740); the biographical notes on the life of William Roye, who remains an intriguing and shadowy figure; and the dramatic reconstruction of the world of early Protestantism on the Continent, involving furtive printing, agents and counter-agents, and both smuggled humanities 359 and condemned books. The notes of commentary here are often exceptionally useful. The gloss on lines 181B82, for example, which deal with free will and salvific works, moves from Luther to Spenser with fluid and economical didactic force as it explicates a central theme of the century's polemicists. The researcher will leave this text with a clear, strong sense of why the form of catechism matters to literary historians; the historian will appreciate the commentary on the reception and influence of the Brefe Dialoge; the theologian will find valuable the thoughtful commentary on Roye's departures from Capito; and the rhetorician will welcome the notes on Roye's writerly qualities, especially his doublings and neologisms. The editors could profitably have added several more detailed notes on the theological leanings and context of Capito's catechism B on Capito's indebtedness to varied parts of Luther and Zwingli's teachings, or to his use nearly everywhere of Pauline texts and themes B but the edition as it now stands will assist historians and students of the Reformation notably. And because of its own crisp, lively, and jargon-free prose style, it will please and instruct lay readers too, or any non-specialist interested in the evolution of early modern Christianity. (PETER AUKSI) E.J. Devereux. A Bibliography of John Rastell McGill-Queen's University Press. xiv, 184. $65.00 The editors begin their preface by explaining that when E.J. Devereux died in 1994 he was working on another project, `having set aside the completed typescript of...