Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/186

 174 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH manuscripts mentioned above. Too little of the text is preserved for its readings to have much evidential value. It is possible, or perhaps prob- able, that when complete it contained a single pageant only. In that case its date is presumably before 1575. The last manuscript to be described is one of peculiar interest and importance, though it contains nothing but the pageant of the Coming of Anti- christ. It belongs to the famous Hengwrt-Peniarth colledtion now in the National Library of Wales at Aberystwith. It is written on vellum and has unfortunately lost its original wrapper. This most likely bore the name of the guild that performed English in a careful imitation of black-letter type. The relation- ship of the text of this manuscript is by no means clear, but its closest affinity seems to be with B. ' Antichrist ' only, c. 1500. P. A Peniarth manuscript now at Aberystwith. On vellum, measuring 1 1 x 7 J inches, two gather- ings, the first of four leaves, the second of six, 20 pages in all. It is enclosed in a vellum wrapper consisting of a double leaf of a finely written missal probably of the thirteenth century, much injured by damp. But this is not original, for the quires have been folded down the middle, whereas the cover has not. The latter bears a paper label marked : ' Dialogue 229.' It is now protected by a rough cardboard case which bears certain notes : * Hengwrt MS. 229,' '229 Per my Fathers Catalogue.' 'End of the 15 th century. G. F. Warner, Deputy Keeper of MSS. Brit. Mus. 10 Od. 1895. F. J. F[urnivall].' The second of these presumably refers to W. W. E. Wynne's catalogue of the Peniarth MSS. in the ' Archaeologia Cambrensis,' 1861-71. There appears the entry (1870, p. 75): 'This MS. is a dialogue in English verse, of the fifteenth century. I believe it to be a portion or fragment of one of the " Mysteries " of the middle ages. . . .' The modern press-mark is Peniarth 399. Manly in his edition remarks that Furnivall assigned the manuscript to '1475 or a little later,' Warner to ' the end of the fifteenth century.'