Page:English fragments from Latin medieval service-books.pdf/25

 manuscript-lover, a complete text of Lydgate’s poem can be given, though that of an inserted The British Museum French MSS. (Harleian 4399, theological prose treatise is incomplete. and Additional 22,937? and 25,5943) are all of the First Version.

Besides his first Pélerinaige de l'homme in its two versions, Deguilleville wrote a second, ‘*de l’ame separee du corps,” and a third, ‘“de nostre seigneur Iesus.”” Of the second, a prose Englishing of 1413, The Pilgrimage of the Sowle (with poems by Hoccleve, already printed for the Society with that author’s Regement of Princes), exists in the Egerton MS. 615,‘ at Hatfield, Cambridge (Univ. Kk. 1. 7, and Caius), Oxford (Univ. Coll. and Corpus), and in Cax- ton’s edition of 1483. This version has ‘somewhat of addicions’ as Caxton says, and some shortenings too, as the maker of both, the first translater, tells usin the MSS. Caxton leaves out the earlier englisher’s interesting Epilog in the Egerton MS. This prose englishing of the Sowle will be edited for the Society by Prof. Dr. Leon Kellner after that of the Aan is finisht, and will have Gallopes’s French opposite it, from Lord Aldenham’s MS., as his gift Of the Pilgrimage of Jesus, no englishing is known. to the Society.

As to the MS. Anglo-Saxon Psalters, Dr. Hy. Sweet has edited the oldest MS., the Vespasian, in his Oldest English Texts for the Society, and Mr. Harsley has edited the latest, c. 1150, Eadwine’s Canterbury Psalter. The other MSS., except the Paris one, being interlinear versions,—some of the Roman-Latin redaction, and some of the Gallican,—Prof. Logeman has prepared for press, a Parallel-Text edition of the first twelve Psalms, to start the He will do his best to get the Paris Psalter—tho’ it is not an interlinear complete work.

one—into this collective edition ; but the additional matter, especially in the Verse-Psalms, If the Paris text cannot be parallelised, it will form a separate is very difficult to manage. volume. The Early English Psalters are all independent versions, and will follow separately ) in due course. Through the good offices of the Examiners, some of the books for the Early-English Examinations of the University of London will be chosen from the Society’s publications, the Committee having undertaken to supply such books to students at a large reduction in price. The net profits from these sales will be applied to the Society’s Reprints. Members are reminded that fresh Subscribers are always wanted, and that the Committee can at any time, on short notice, send to press an additional Thousand Pounds’ worth of work.

The Subscribers to the Original Series must be prepared for the issue of the whole of the Early English Lives of Saints, sooner or later. The Society cannot leave out any of them, even though some are dull. The Sinners would doubtless be much more interesting. But in many Saints’ Lives will be found valuable incidental details of our forefathers’ social state, The Lives may be lookt on as the and all are worthful for the history of our language. religious romances or story-books of their period. The Standard Collection of Saints’ Lives in the Corpus and Ashmole MSS., the Harleian MS. 2277, &c. will repeat the Laud set, our No. 87, with additions, and in right order. (The foundation MS. (Laud 108) had to be printed first, to prevent quite unwieldy collations.) The Supplementary Lives from the Vernon and other MSS. will form one or two separate volumes. Besides the Saints’ Lives, Trevisa’s englishing of Bartholomeus de Proprietatibus Rerum, Dr. the medieval Cyclopedia of Science, &c., will be the Society’s next big undertaking. R. von Fleischhacker will edit it. Prof. Napier of Oxford, wishing to have the whole of our MS. Anglo-Saxon in type, and accessible to students, will edit for the Society all the unprinted and other Anglo-Saxon Homilies which are not included in Thorpe’s edition of Alfric’s prose,® Dr. Morris’s of the Blickling Homilies, and Prof. Skeat’s of Elfric’s Metrica]

The late Prof. Kélbing left complete his text, for the Society, of the Ancren Homilies. Riwile, from the best MS., with collations of the other four, and this will be edited for the Society by Dr. Thiimmler. Mr, Harvey means to prepare an edition of the three MSS. of the Earliest English Metrical Psalter, one of which was edited by the late Mr. Stevenson for the Surtees Society. Members of the Society will learn with pleasure that its example has been followed, not only by the Old French Text Society which has done such admirable work under its founders Profs. Paul Meyer and Gaston Paris, but also by the Early Russian Text Society, which was set on foot in 1877, and has since issued many excellent editions of old MS. Chronicles, &c. Members will also note with pleasure the annexation of large tracts of our Early English territory by the important German contingent, the late Professors Zupitza and Kélbing, the living Hausknecht, Einenkel, Haenisch, Kaluza, Hupe, Adam, Holthausen, Schick, Herzfeld, Brandeis, Sieper, Konrath, Wiilfing, &c. Scandinavia has also sent us Prof. Erdmann and Dr. E. A. Kock ; Holland, Prof. H. Logeman, wha is now working in Belgium ; France, Prof. 1 15th cent., containing only the Vie humaine. 2 15th cent., containing all the 8 Pilgrimages, the 3rd being Jesus Christ’s. 3 14th cent., containing the Vie humaine and the 2nd Pilgrimage, de l’ Ame: both incomplete. 4 Ab. 1430, 106 leaves (leaf 1 of text wanting), with illuminations of nice little devils—red, green, tawny, . &c.—and damnd souls, fires, angels &c. Many copies of 5 Of these, Mr. Harsley is preparing a new edition, with collations of all the MSS. Thorpe’s book, not issued by the Ailfric Society, are still in stock. Of the Vercelli Homilies, the Society has bought the copy made by Prof. G. Lattanzi.

Google