Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/225

196 Charity, a well-known passage, which may be compared with our Version of the Bible put forth three hundred years after the Handlyng Synne. Next comes a peep into English life in Edwardian days; next, a tale of a Norfolk bondeman or farmer; last of all comes the bard's account of himself and the date of his rimes. Had the Handlyng Synne been a German work, marking an era in the national literature, it would long ago have been given to the world in a cheap form. But we live in England, not in Germany. I could not have gained a sight of the poem, of which a few copies have been printed for the Roxburgh Club, had I not happened to live within reach of the British Museum.