Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/480

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Almost exactly ninety years after its 'discovery' by Dr. Blume, the entire Vercelli Codex CXVII has been reproduced in this magnificent phototype volume with the distinguished name of Max Forster attached to it. The six poems contained in the manuscript had been edited a number of times some of them proving, indeed, especial favorites in college and university classes— and even a facsimile text of them had been provided by Wülker in 1894 (Codex Vercellensis, die angelsächsische Handschrift zu Vercelli in getreuer Nachbildung). But, strange to say, the twenty-three prose homilies were allowed all those years to remain in hiding, save for the incidental printing of two short pieces (Anglia V, 464 f., and Gonser's Guthlac, pp. 117 ff.) and the helpful lexical gleanings embodied in Napier's well-known Contributions to Old English Lexicography (1906). Now the entire manuscript has been placed at the disposal of students, and although very likely only few individuals may find it practicable to procure a copy of their own, no public library appealing to scholars will be able to dispense with this exceedingly important publication.

The photographic reproduction is a thoroughly faithful one. It was deemed necessary, indeed, to reduce the size of the page by one-third―only two pages being given in full size―, but otherwise scrupulous care has been taken to furnish as far as might be a real duplicate of the original. No attempt has been made (as was done in the Wülker publication) to improve the appearance of certain places by retouching and thus to make the facsimile look clearer than the manuscript itself. We thus have an almost perfect picture of the venerable, though by no means ornamental codex, exhibiting the clear and remarkably accurate handwriting of a single scribe who was at work on it some time "in the latter half, or about the close, of the tenth century."

Professor Förster's own work appears in the Introduction,—on the whole an Italian translation of the German text included in the Morsbach Festschrift. It consists practically of