Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/48

Rh century, from which the others were copied, and from which Dr. Edwin Norris edited the plays in 1859. 2. Another Oxford MS., presented to the Bodleian by Edwin Ley of Bosahan about 1859, with a translation by John Keigwin. The copy of the text is older by a century than the translation. 3. A copy in the library of Sir John Williams, Bart., of Llanstephan, Carmarthenshire, with an autograph translation by Keigwin. This was Lhuyd's copy.

7. The Life of St. Meriasek.—This play, the MS. of which was written by "Dominus Hadton" in the year 1504, as appears by the colophon, was discovered by Dr. Whitley Stokes some thirty-two years ago among the MSS. of the Peniarth Library, near Towyn in Merioneth. It represents the life and death of Meriasek, called in Breton Meriadec, the son of a Duke of Brittany, and interwoven with it is the legend of St. Sylvester the Pope and the Emperor Constantine, quite regardless of the circumstance that St. Sylvester lived in the fourth century, and St. Meriasek in the seventh. The play contains several references to Camborne, of which St. Meriasek was patron, and to the Well of St. Meriasek there. It is probable that it was written for performance at that town. The language of the play is later than that of the Ordinalia, the admixture of English being greater, while a few of the literal changes, such as the more frequent substitution of g (soft) for s, and in one instance (bednath for bennath) the change of nn to dn, begin to appear. The grammar has not changed much, but the use of the compound and impersonal forms is more frequent, and the verb menny has begun to be more commonly used as a simple future auxiliary. The metres are much the same as those of the Ordinalia. The spelling is rather more grotesque and varied. But, since this play (or combination of plays) is to a large extent on