Page:King Alfred's Old English version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies - Hargrove - 1902.djvu/24

XVIII I rather think not.' Hulme, however, thinks there are two hands to be distinguished — one ending with folio 21b, where the red strokes leave off, the other clearer and slanted backward.

Quantity marks in the shape of a circumflex, occurring without any apparent system, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly, are noted in the phonological lists given by Hulme. No record of these is made in this edition, because no real scientific importance, so far as we can see, is to be attributed to them.

The occasional superior letters are apparently changes or corrections by a later hand. These and manuscript erasures are all noted as far as page 36 in the foot notes of this edition. The few remaining instances are repetitions, or of little import.

As to the date of the manuscript there is variety of opinion. Pauli places it in the twelfth century, while Birch 'is inclined to date the writing at 10th century — not far from Alfred's time, say 930-950'; Most scholars, however, including Wülker, Napier, Morley, Schröer, and Hulme, agree with Pauli in assigning it to the twelfth century.

Hulme, who has made the most careful study of the language of the manuscript, reaches the following conclusion:

1. The Old English version of the Soliloquies as we have it belongs to the first quarter of the twelfth century; for the language is clearly older than the older parts of the chronicle of Peterborough.

2. The dialect is Late West Saxon, impure in many respects.

3. The author was King Alfred the Great.