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They are there headed 'Certayne Egloges of Alexander Barclay Priest, Whereof the first three conteyne the misereyes of Courtiers and Courtes of all princes in generall, Gathered out of a booke named in Latin, Miseriae Curialium, compiled by Eneas Silvius Poet and Oratour. This sufficiently indicates what we are to expect of Barclay as of the Latin eclogists of the previous century.

The earliest recorded burning of a witch in England is in Walter Mapes' De Nugis Curialium, in the reign of Henry II. An old black letter tract gloats over the execution at Northampton, 1612, of a number of persons convicted of witchcraft. The last judicial sentence was in 1736, when one Jane Wenham was found guilty of conversing familiarly with the devil in the form of a cat.

Among Sir Roger Twysden's MSS. I have a letter from him to his son at Oxford, requesting his intercession with the University for the loan of the MS. of Walter Mapes "de nugis curialium," in order that he might prepare it for publication.

Walter not only has the greatest amount of traditional attribution, but is the undoubted author of De Nugis Curialium. And the author of De Nugis Curialium, different as it is from the Arthurian story, could have finally divined the latter.