Page:King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care (2).djvu/526

Rh have employed the brackets to denote the readings of Cotton II, omissions of that MS. being indicated by (om.) after the word in question. When I resolved on adopting this plan, I was under the impression that Cotton II had been entirely destroyed by fire, and consequently that the readings given by Junius in the margin of his transcript of Cotton I were all that remained. As these readings were few in number, I judged it most convenient to incorporate the more important of them into the text, so that the reader might compare the three texts at a glance. When I learnt that Cotton II. was not totally destroyed, and began to examine it carefully, I repented of my plan, but it was too late to change it, as a portion of the text was already printed off.

All additions of my own in either text are enclosed in parentheses, and are intended solely to assist the beginner. From a strictly scientific point of view such additions are hardly advisable, as tending to bias the reader's judgment; but in an edition like the present, which endeavours to supply a variety of wants, they are less objectionable.

The English translation is added more from deference to the usage of the Early English Text Society than from any conviction of its utility. In fact, I look upon a translation to a text like this, which is of exclusively philological interest, as so much waste paper, utterly useless except to the merest tyro - useless even to him, if he wishes to acquire a sound knowledge of Old English, a language, which, like all others, ought either to be studied properly with grammar and dictionary, or else let alone. I should have much preferred printing the Latin original at the foot of the page, and devoting the time and space taken up by the English translation to a full critical commentary, for which, as it is, my very limited time has not sufficed. To prevent misunderstanding, I may state that the translation is made direct from the Old English, not from the Latin original. My principle throughout has been to ask myself the question, What