Page:The ancient language, and the dialect of Cornwall.djvu/51

 31 259 stanzas of 8 lines each in heptasyllabic metre with alternate rhymes. The subject of this Poem is the Trial and Crucifixion of Christ. There are four copies of this manuscript, the oldest being in the British Museum, and the other three appear to be copies taken from it. Two of them are in the Bodleian Library, and in these a translation by John Keigwin is written on the opposite page. This poem was published by Mr. Davies Gilbert, in 1826. The typographical errors are so numerous, that Zeuss observes that it does not seem to have been corrected after leaving the hands of the compositor, and eight errors in every stanza are below the average. The Editor had carefully collated the manuscript in the British Museum, with the intention of adding a corrected copy as an appendix to the Dictionary, but the necessity no longer remains, as an excellent edition has lately been printed for the Philological Society under the care of a most able Celtic scholar, Mr. Whitley Stokes, of Lincoln's Inn, (8vo., 1862). The text now given is very accurate, and the numer- ous errors in the translation have been rectified. The only other work accessible was a Drama, called ' The Creation of the World with Koah's Flood,' which was written, as stated upon the manuscript containing it, on the 12th of August, 1611, by William Jordan. Of this Drama the oldest manuscript is in the Bodleian Library, and there is another in the British Museum, with a translation by John Keigwin, in 1693. This was also printed by Mr. Davies Gilbert, in 1827, and is equally remarkable for its typographical errors. A new and corrected edition, by Mr. Whitley Stokes, was printed for the Philological Society in 1864.