this offensive
publication, like so many others of the same class, has been printed
abroad:--

"And in thys wyse is ther sent ouer to be prynted the booke
that Frythe made last against the blessed sacrament answering
to my letter, wherewyth I confuted the pestilent treatice that
he hadde made agaynst it before. And the brethen looked for it
nowe at thys Bartlemewe tide last passed, and yet looke euery
day, except it be come all redy, and secretly runne among
them. But in the meane whyle, _ther is come ouer a nother
booke againste the blessed sacrament_, a booke of that sorte,
that Frythe's booke the brethren maye nowe forbeare. For more
blasphemous and more bedelem rype then thys booke is were that
booke harde to be, whyche is yet madde enough, as men say that
haue seen it" (p. 1036. G.).

More was evidently at a loss to discover the {333} author of this
work; for, after conjecturing that it might have come from William
Tyndal, or George Jaye (_alias_ Joy), or "som yong unlearned fole,"
he determines "for lacke of hys other name to cal the writer mayster
Masker," a sobriquet which is preserved throughout his confutation.
At the same time, it is clear, from the language of the treatise,
that its author, though anonymous, believed himself well known to
his opponent:

"I would have hereto put mi name, good reader, but I know wel
that thou regardest not who writteth, but what is writen; thou
estemest the worde of the verite, and not of the authour. And
as for M. More, whom the verite most offendeth, and doth but
mocke it out when he can not sole it, _he knoweth my name wel
inough_" (sub fin).

But here rises a grave difficulty, which I have taken the liberty of
propounding to the readers of "Notes and Queries." Notwithstanding the
above statements, both of the writer and of Sir Thomas More, as to the
_anonymous_ character of the treatise we are considering, the "Epistle
to the Reader" is in my copy subscribed "Robert Crowley," naturally
inducing the belief that the whole emanated from him.

Perhaps this difficulty may be resolved on the supposition that, while
the body of the Tract was first published without the "Epistle to
the Reader," and More's reply directed against it under this form, it
might soon afterwards have reached a second edition, to which the name
of the author was appended. It is certain that More's copy consisted
of 32 leaves