University of Virginia Library

At the end of the careful study which introduces his edition of The Court of Venus (1955) Russell A. Fraser says that in the light of our new knowledge of this miscellany "our conception of English literary history in the sixteenth century will have to be revised substantially" (p. 74). That this prophecy is already coming true is a tribute to Professor

Fraser's scholarship. The conclusions of his study have been incorporated into works directed to the student and to the general reader.[1] The purpose of this article is to support the misgivings other readers have had about one minor aspect of these conclusions[2] and to introduce a note of caution concerning a more prominent aspect.