Page:King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care (2).djvu/530



The MSS. on which the present edition is based are these:-

1. (formerly 88) in the Bodleian (H.). This MS. is a square quarto of the end of the ninth century, preserved entire with the exertion of a single leaf cut out (pp. 219, 221 and 223 of this edition).

2. . xi., in the British Museum (C. i.). Originally a large quarto (in quarto grandiori W.), of the same age as H., containing only the first forty-nine out of the sixty-five chapters of the work, and having a large gap towards the end. It was injured in the great fire of 1731, restored and rebound, and burnt again in a fire at the bookbinder's, so that nothing now remains of it but a few charred fragments. It will therefore be necessary to quote Wanley's accounts of the MS., which was made while it was uninjured.

'Tiberius. B. xi. Codex membr. in quarto grandiori, in quo continetur capita pene 49 libri Gregorii Magni Papæ de Cura pastorali Saxonicè versi per Ælfredum Regem. Hujus MS. fol. 3. dicitur esse liber quondam Plegmundi Archiepiscopi Cant. qui floruit anno 889. sub ipso Alfredo: Hæc autem notula, sc. ✠ Plegmunde Arcebiscepe is agifen his boc. and Swiðulfe Biscepe. & Werferðe Biscepe. quam videre est fol. i. facit quo minus id credam. Nam si antea inclytissimus Rex Plegmundo exemplar versionis suæ donaverat, quid opus illi fuerit alterius? Quin & in præfatione, lacunula cemitur alterius cujusdam nomine implenda, ÆLFRED kyning hateþ gretan - his wordum. loflice (sic) and freondlice. Quod si Ælfredus hunc ipsum Plegmundo destinarat codicem, non dubito quin jussisset ut nomen ejus in præfatione scriberetur perinde ac in Werferthi, Heastani & Wulfsigi libris. Quod autem ad scriptionem & antiquitatem hujus MS. attinet; utraque