Page:The Story of Barlaam & Joasaph - Buddhism & Christianity.djvu/7

 NOTE.

in London in the winter of 1893 I was almost a daily visitor to the British Museum Reading Room. There I specially interested myself in the Story of Barlaam and Joasaph, and, besides taking notes bearing upon it, copied out in MS. the History of the Five Wise Philosophers or the Wonderful relation of the Life of Jehosaphat, of dates 1711 and 1732, being apparently the latest form in which the Story was published in the English language. I had also intended having a translation from the original Greet. Time did not however permit. Soon after my return to Calcutta, I and my colleagues in the 'Board of Studies in English' of the Calcutta University, being called upon to define the English subjects for the Premchand Roychand Studentship Examination in 1895, agreed that one of the subjects be "the development of the English language from the earliest times to the end of the 14th century as illustrated in the Anglo-Saxon and English literature of this period," and that among the books specially recommended for study be Barlaam and Josaphat as in the Bodleian (779), Vernon (f. 100) and Harleian (4196, 1996) MSS. I promised that these texts would be accessible to the students in time. As we Were leaving the meeting Mr. Morrison very kindly volunteered to annotate these texts. On this understanding the work has been accomplished. Each of us was too much burdened with other labours to be able to render any help to the other in our self-imposed tasks. Hence each is wholly and solely