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In the table of contents to the poem, the last entry, which refers to the xxxvj boke, tells us "Of the dethe of Vlixes by his son. Whiche endis in the story wt the nome of the Knight that causit it to be made, & the nome of hym that translatid it out of latyn into englysshe." Had this promise been fulfilled, these names would have rendered unnecessary our lengthened inquiry into the nationality and authorship of the work, and very materially lightened, if not altogether removed, the difficulties that have attended our labours. Such a signature, or colophon, like that which attests the work of Guido, would have been invaluable, not merely as marking the author, or authors, of the Stately Poem, and handing them down to posterity, but as settling one or two other questions which are yet undecided. It might have settled the point whether Sir Hugh of Eglinton and Huchowne of the Awle Ryale were one and the same, or different persons. If they were different persons, it might have told us whether Sir Hugh was a Mecenas at the court of the Stuarts, with whom he was connected by marriage, or an author in his own person as well. We might have learned whether Huchowne of the Awle Ryale was the real name or the nom de plume of the author, or only a half jocular, half endearing sobriquet applied to him by his friends. We might have learned something about the execution of the work. Whether it had been first translated into English prose, like Guido's Bellum Trojanum, and then rendered poetically, or had been at once rendered into alliterative verse. We might have learned something of the literary partnerships of the age, or might have known for certain, what we can only infer or suspect from the inequality of its execution, that more than one were engaged in the work; and especially we might have learned who was the author of those fine, truly poetical portions, which owe little to Guido's Latin, but have very

Mr Ellis in his Specimens of the Early English Poets, vol. i., chap. ix. &c. "Would it be very absurd to suppose that our common language was separately formed in the two countries, and that it has owed its identity to its being constructed of similar materials, by similar gradations, and by nations in the same state of society? If this opinion should be thought very improbable, must we not, at least, admit that the migration of our language from England into Scotland has not yet been fully established, and that much remains for the investigation of future antiquaries?"

much in common with similar passages in the Morte Arthure and other works to which we have so often adverted. All these questions and interesting points, we hope, may some time or other be answered and resolved. The MS. from which the present text has been taken is as yet unique; but in the searches now being made in the libraries and muniment chests of our old families and nobility throughout the country, some other and more complete copy may yet turn up, and other complete copies also of Barbour's version of the Destruction of Troy, of which we possess only the fragments in the MSS. at Oxford and Cambridge.

To Principal Barclay, for his kindness in granting permission to copy the MS., to Professor J. Young, the curator, and to Mr. J. Young, the keeper of the Hunterian Museum, for their obliging courtesy in giving access at all times to the Stately Poem and other MSS. for transcription and collation, the editors offer their best thanks and grateful acknowledgments. They have also to thank the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, which they most cordially do, for his valuable suggestions and help when the Glossary was passing through the press.

We were

These prefatory remarks were mainly written nearly three years ago. As to the conclusions that the poem was originally Northern or Scottish, and that large portions at least, if not the whole of it, were the work of Huchowne, or the same author that produced the poems ascribed to him, the Committee of the Society are not responsible for them, or in any way committed to them. expressly informed that they disagreed with us on both points. Working, however, apart, independently, and upon different grounds, we arrived at the same result; but as we have no theory to serve, and are simply searching after the truth like others, on due cause shown, we shall most readily confess ourselves mistaken.

It but remains to say that it has been the great object of the editors to present the members of the Early English Text Society with as faithful a transcript of the Stately Poem as possible; and no labour, no effort, and no expense have been spared on their part to accomplish this. The completed volume might have appeared much sooner, and the writer personally regrets exceedingly that it

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has been so long delayed. He has done what he could do to expedite its appearance, and had the matter depended solely upon him, the long delay would have been obviated, but over the arrangements for its production he had no control. Not to dilate, however, upon this, he rejoices that so important a work has been rescued from the oblivion of the dusty shelves of the old Hunterian Museum, and trusts that other works of no less value may yet see the light through means of the Society.

Dec. 6th, 1872.

G. A. P.

THE MS., DIALECT, AND AUTHORSHIP.

THE MS. of this work is a folio volume written on paper, and consists of 216 leaves with 36 lines on each page. It opens with an apparently full and carefully drawn Index to the Books and Subjects; and they follow as there indicated, and the work ends with the usual Amen. A little examination, however, shows that the work is incomplete; for, fol. 189 b1 contains only 22 lines and a few words of the next then, fol. 190 is blank, and 191 begins with quite a different subject. From this point the story moves on smoothly enough till we reach fol. 201 b, which has only 8 lines, where it stops abruptly in the account of Telegonus' return to his mother after the death of Ulysses: then, fol. 202 is blank, and 203 opens with the words with which 189 closed, and continues the account there interrupted. The story then moves on in clear order till we reach fol. 214, where there are only 13 lines and a few words, that really are the catch-words for fol. 191 a; and the remaining portion of the MS. is certainly the conclusion of the work, but incomplete at the beginning.

Evidently, then, fols. 203-214 ought to be placed after fol. 189; and fols. 191-201 should then follow: 2 in other words, the two sets of fols. should be transposed. When so arranged the story is regular and complete on to the return of Telegonus after his father's

As fol. 180 has been lost, 189 of MS. becomes 190 in the Text.

For the reason stated in last note, fols. 203-214 are 191–202 in the Text, and 191-201 are 203-213.

death, where there is a slight gap including the winding up of the story of the Odyssey and the opening of the list of chiefs killed at the siege. But as the MS. stands, not only are different stories mixed up, but the account of the death of Ulysses comes before the story of his wanderings after the siege; and particulars are referred to as already told, which we find recorded some pages farther on. Yet the Books are all properly arranged according to the Index. Now what do these particulars tell us regarding the MS. 1. That it is not the original MS., but a copy of an older one, that had somehow got disarranged into the order in which it now stands; and 2. that the copyist, observing the confusion, but not the cause of it, thought some portions of the story were lost, and, after copying in the catch-words at the bottom of the page, left a blank folio at each place, that the missing portions might be inserted when recovered.

Besides these faults, there are two gaps in the MS.-between fols. 6, 7, and 179, 180: the first, containing the account of the first landing of the Greeks at Troy, and consisting of three or perhaps four leaves, was no doubt a gap in the MS. from which the existing one was copied; and the second consists of one leaf, which has been lost or torn from the set.

The MS. affords further evidences of being a copy from an older one, and gives some information as to how the copyist worked at his task. The writing is in a hand of somewhere about the middle of the 15th century, and in two distinct styles: one (in which the larger portion of the work is written) is the common cursive style of the period, cramp, and often careless, shewing no regularity in spelling and contractions, confusion of the letters t and c, a and o, with a decided preference for the o sound: the other (in which only a few folios and scattered portions are written) is a fine, clear, Saxon, copying style, shewing greater regularity in contractions and spelling, and a more frequent use of the older forms of letters. Yet they are

The portions that are written in the copying style are 11. 4203-30, 6101 -32, 6260-328, 6592-664, 6873-941, 6975-7015, Rubric and first 10 lines of Bk XVI., 7415-51, XIX. Boke-7858, 8511-26, 9728-33, 9763-88, 11244-98, 12015 to the middle of 12156, 12167-200, 12234-54, 1261727, 12650-98, Rubric and first 22 lines of Bk XXXIV., 13574—634, 13672— 738, 13946-81.

THE MANUSCRIPT.

lv the work of the same hand, for the two styles again and again run into each other: and a careful comparison presents differences of form and spelling, peculiarities and mistakes, which suggest that when the scribe used the copying style he had the text before him and worked carefully; and that when he used the cursive style, he wrote for the most part to dictation. In the notes at the end of the work the reader will find abundant evidence to that effect, to which the following may be added: in 1. 2552 the MS. has sororow euer for sorow for euer; 1. 3704, tilude for tild; 4475, a little to pe Grekes for attle to pe Grekes; 5406, welcomth þat worthy for welcomt þat worthy; 10627, he was hengyng for he was lengyng; 11721, Knowith hit yourselfe for Knowis hit yourselfe; 13452, buerne for burne; 13640, after pai were for as pe right ayre; and confusion of the pronouns hym and hom. But perhaps the most striking proof (of which examples are given in the Notes) is the use of wh for qw or quch, by which the alliteration is sometimes spoiled, as in 11. 3028, 4202, and 11726; and which could not have been used by one who was simply copying. Indeed, this alteration alone suggests something more than mere writing to dictation,-it suggests that the writer, who was evidently a West Midland man, adapted the work to his own dialect, with an honest intention no doubt of simply rendering it more readable for himself and friends and the work being in a different dialect quite accounts for the writer preferring to have it dictated to him.

From these particulars it is evident that the existing MS. is not the original, nor even an exact copy of the one from which it was made, but a rendering of it by some one who was a native of the West Midland district. A thorough analysis of the language and

Compare with 11. 1809, 1928, 2693, 2737, 3055, 4973, 5351, 6051, 11783. At the end of the MS., and apparently in the same hand, is written "Notehurst ;" and on one of the blank spaces already referred to occurs the following in a later hand:-" -"John Chethaum sonne and heyre of Thomas Chetham late of Notehurst Decessyd is the verey awner of thys Boke to be an here-lome at Notehurst according to be tenour and effec of my fathers will. In witness wherof I haue written this saying w' my awne hand. Iane Iohana Chetham." Certainly the saying' suggests more than ownership. Notehurst is, no doubt, for Nuthurst: but there are two places of that name, one near Horsham in Sussex, the other in Solihull, Warwickshire, which must be the one referred to.

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