Page:Elizabeth Elstob - An English-Saxon homily on the birth-day of St. Gregory.djvu/123

 Jjifum 5$5^eplicum tx- tinually unto this Day, ge :• Se ca&ija Cpejo- The Holy Gregory com? piur gebihre maniga hahge pofed many Divine that thefe old Books are the very fame which St. Gregory fent to St. Au* ^uflincy in the Infancy of the Englifl} Church. The Fourth Book, that is, the Pfalter, fcems to be loft ; never- thelefs, there is in the Cottonian Library, Vespas. A i. a Pfalcer of St* Jerome's in Latin^ in the old Saxon Charafter, written about ^ Thoufand Years ago. In which you have likewife in great Letters, but in a foreign Hand, before the Pfalms, all thofe things, and in the fame Order, which are faid to be in this Book of Gregory, From whence I am inclined to believe the one might be a Copy of the Qther. The Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth as yet I have not feen. But there feems to be many ancient TranfcriptsoiF them in feveral of our Libra- ries. As for the fixth Book, it feems in procefs of time to have been tranflated into Saxon ; beeaufe the fame Paflions of the Saints,^ ?5^Ct are to be found in the Saxon Homilies ; and perhaps the f^me may be faid of the Seventh Volume. Thefe Books, fays the Writer of the Annals, are the Firft Fruity of the Engliflj Church, whom I (hall not contradift, provided the Reader who is a Lover of Antiquity, (hall remember that Augufline brought with him into England Gregory the Great his Book of the Paftoral Care, as is attefted by King Mtfred in his P^oetical Preface prefixed to his Tranflation of this Work. To conclude, the Learned Reader may obferve, th^t this cele- brated Book hath this Note in the beginning of it. *^ This Book -' once belonged to the Monaftery of the Bleffed Apoftles Feter and •* Faul^ or of Augujlke^ near the Walls of the City of Canterbury. •* Bus this Monaftery in the Reign of Henry the Eighth being diffol- f* converted to the King's ufe j this Book by accident came into the !* hands of Matter Robert Haery who gave the fame to the CoUege or •* fecure. But with this condition, that if hereafter it fhould hap- ?* pen by God's pcrmiflion that this Monaftery be rebuilt, then the ^^ Mafter and Fellows of the faid College or Hall of the Sacred TrhUy !• ftiall take care that the ^ok fliall be rcftored to the Monks of the ^ fame plpi^aflcry*
 * ved, and all the Goods of the Monks being taken from them, and
 * HaU of the Sacred Trmty in Cambridge^ ihexe to be kept faf e and