This edition seems to have been repeated at St. Gall in 1693; and these two, which were the last, appear to have been the best. From that time this poem rested undisturbed until our own day, when an edition was published at Hanover, in Germany, by W. Mueldener, after the Paris manuscripts, with the following title:--"Die zehn Gedichte des Walther von Lille, genannt von Chatillon. Nach der pariser Handschrift berichtigt, und zum ersten Male vollstaendig herausgegeben von W. Mueldener." Hanover, 1859, 8vo. Such an edition ought to be useful in determining the text, for there must be numerous manuscripts in the Paris libraries. As long ago as 1795 there were no less than nineteen in the National Library, and also a manuscript at Tours, which had drawn forth a curious commentary by M. de Forcemagne.[23] I ought not to forget here that in 1537 a passage from this poem was rendered into English blank verse, and is an early monument of our language. This was by Grimoald Nicholas, a native of Huntingdonshire, whose translation is entitled "The Death of Zoroas, an Egyptian Astronomer, in the First Fight that Alexander had with Persians."[24] This is not the only token of the attention it had awakened in England. Alexander Ross, the Scotch divine and author, made preparations for an edition. His dedicatory letter was written, bearing date 1644; also two different sets of dedicatory verses, and verses from his friend David Eclin, the scholarly physician to the king,[25] who had given him this "great treasure." But the work failed to appear. The identical copy presented by Eclin, with many marginal notes from Quintus Curtius and others, is mentioned as belonging to the Bishop of Ely at the beginning of the present century.[26] But the homage of the Scotchman still exists in his dedicatory letter:--"Si materiam consideres, elegantissimam utilissimamque historiam gestorum Alexandri magni continet; certe sive stylum, sive subjectum inspicias, dignam invenies quae omnium teratur manibus, quamque adolescentes nocturna versentque manu, versentque diurna."[27] It will be observed that he does not hesitate to dwell on this poem as "most elegant and most useful," and by its style and subject worthy of the daily and nightly study of youth. In his verses Ross announces that Alexander was not less fortunate in his poet than the Greek chieftain in Homer:-- "Si felix praecone fuit dux Graecus Homero, Felix nonne tuo est carmine dux Macedo?" There was also another edition planned in France, during the latter part of the last century, by M. Daire, the librarian of the Celestines in Paris, founded on the Latin text, according to the various manuscripts, with a French translation; but this never appeared.[28]