Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/184

 172 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH leaves actually lost at the beginning, but two at the end. Known as W. The third is another British Museum manu- script, Harley 2013, which bears the date 1600. In spite of considerable difference of appearance it is probably by the same scribe as the preceding ; the ornament is similar though less elaborate. It is the oldest perfect manuscript. I give it the symbol K. Next comes an Oxford manuscript, Bodley 175. Its date is 1604. It is perfect; it is the plainest of the manuscripts, and is written in a very current hand. Its symbol is B. manuscripts being actually the work of the same scribe, and account for the differences in the writing by the evidently intentional freedom of style in the later example and by the lapse of eight years. Who George Bellin was we have no record, but he must pretty certainly have been a professional scribe. He can hardly be identified with the George Bellin who was 'put down' from brewing or selling ale at an inquisition at Chester in 8 Elizabeth (i.e. 1566, see MS. Harley 2105, fols. 29 b, 3O b : his name is said also to occur in MS. Harley 1927, but I have been unable to find it there), but he may have been of the same family, and also of that of Thomas Bellin, who, when Mayor of Chester in 1578, caused the Shepherds' play to be performed at the high cross in the Roodee. Deimling labelled the present manuscript <h' to dis- tinguish it from the more important H (Harley 2124), but an examination of his edition shows that the symbols * h ' and ' H ' are too liable to confusion, and therefore I propose for the earlier manuscript the arbitrary symbol ' K.' 1604. B. In the Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 175. Measures HtjX 7-^ inches. There are 176 folios in the original vellum wrapper, and the manuscript is perfect. The speakers' names are centred as in all the above manuscripts; there is, however, no rubrica- tion and no ornamentation of any kind. The English hand in which the scribe wrote is very current, and though a good hand it often leaves the precise reading uncertain by reason of its haste. The manuscript is signed at the end : ' 1604, P er me gulielmum Bedford.'