Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/145

Rh (11 S. xi. 148, 198).—Some valuable biographical particulars are given in the Rev. H. J. Wilkins's 'Was John Wycliffe a Negligent Pluralist?' [sic] also 'John de Trevisa: his Life and Work' (1915, pp. xii and 113). In this Dr. Wilkins has gathered new material, and presents reliable evidence for the date of Trevisa's death being 1402, and not as variously stated by other writers. He also places the year of Trevisa's birth as about 1322.

(12 S. i. 10, 58, 94).—When the 6th Lancers were in India in the sixties the regiment had a tame bear. It was taught to waltz, and, with a woman's bonnet put on its head, it used to perform with one of the troopers of the regiment for a partner, and I believe was a most comical exhibition.

(11 S. xii. 453; 12 S. i. 12, 72).—From saying that " none of the datesfit in with a vicar alleged to have lived temp. Charles II. to George I.," he has evidently not read the inscription on Dr. Carswell's tombstone, which I quoted in my previous communication. Had he done so, he would have seen that Dr. Carswell was Chaplain to Charles II., and died in 1709. He therefore, as I said before, is contemporaneous with the song.

Runic poems, severally Anglo-Saxon Norwegian, and Icelandic; four precious fragments of heroic verse, namely, 'Waldhere,' 'Finn,' 'Deor,' and 'Hildebrand'; English translations; concise notes; copious bibliographies, and engravings of five of the best-known Futhorcs—all this goes to make up a volume which its author modestly describes as a "little one." "Small herbs have grace," however, and Mr. Bruce Dickins's work has a full share of both gracefulness and utility. His choice and treatment of material are well directed, and they recall to mind the remark of the Rev. Daniel H. Haigh, who was the first to print 'Waldhere' and 'Hildebrand' in England, and who said of the latter that it "is the only relic in a foreign dialect worthy to be placed side by side with 'Beowulf,' the 'Fight at Finnesham,' the 'Lament of Deor,' and the fragments of the 'Saga of Waldhere 'The Anglo-Saxon Sagas: an Examination of their Value as Aids to History,' 1861, p. 149.) Daniel Haigh was no mean judge of these spirited old poems, and when Mr. Dickins tells us that 'Finn' is the fine flower of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry, and that it is one of the most vivid battle-pieces in any language, he appropriately reflects his predecessor's enthusiasm.

Mr. Dickins's particular bibliographies are full of research. His 'General Bibliography,' too, will be found to be very helpful. Nearly one hundred and fifty works are enumerated, and it is surprising to find that no fewer than sixty of these have appeared in the last fifteen years. This output indicates an enormous amount of labour, and, unfortunately, of overlapping drudgery as well. The prospect is disquieting, and the wide divergences of opinion and results which characterize the criticism of Anglo-Saxon poems prompt the questions: Are we moving along right lines? and Have we a clear perception, of the ends we ought to have in view?

Mr. Dickins expresses regret that grammarians have neglected the Anglo-Saxon Runic poem. But the text has not been recovered. Despite all his own industry and painstaking comparisons, he admits that seven of the twenty-nine head-words in the poem are incomprehensible. The grammarian would long ago have availed himself of this poem, and to the fullest extent, no doubt; but what could he do with such a phrase, for instance, as "Eolhx seccard haefþ"? And what trust can we now be expected to place in the judgment even of such scholars as Grimm, Grein, and Rieger, who, having emended the passage in various ways, tell us that "sedge-grass" makes a "ghastly wound"?

In the text of 'Waldhere,' at 1. 18, there is a misprint. In note 26 to 'Finn' we read of the "confusion " of Sige and Sæ in proper names. But this feature is not confined to Anglo-Saxon writers: we may find it on early Swedish coins and in the lists of Visigothic kings. In the notes to 'Deor' the equation of Widga with Widigoia is hazardous, and the possibility that the Mærings over whom Theodric ruled were the Merewioings of 'Beowulf' has escaped attention. The dialectal equations in note 19 to 'Deor' require elaboration. With respect to Meran (really Dalmatia) W. Grimm is a better guide than the investigators who find the Meranare (i.e., the Gothi) in the Tyrol. Mr. Dickins has handled 'Hildebrand' in a very interesting way, and its obscurities and linguistic impossibilities are treated with judgment and discretion.

The rare combination in one scholar of critical knowledge of Old High German, Anglo-Saxon, Norwegian, and Icelandic prompts the expression of the hope that Mr. Dickins will add a working knowledge of Old Welsh to his other attainments, so that, when the time arrives, he will be prepared to play the fullest part possible in the elucidation of that wondrous palimpsest, the map of Anglian Britain—the most wonderful racial document in the world.

'Almanack' is late in appearing this year, owing to difficulties in collecting some of the material consequent upon the war. We find that, while the usual subjects are in their accustomed places, the Navy and Army lists are curtailed,