Page:The ancient language, and the dialect of Cornwall.djvu/52

 32 This Drama, being of much later date, shews the Cornish language to have become greatly corrupted, and it is full of English words. The above mentioned works com- prised all the accessible material for the Dictionary when the Editor drew out the plan some thirty years ago. Lhuyd had mentioned that there were three Dramas preserved in the Bodleian Library, of which he gave the first lines, and the Editor, finding that his Dictionary would be a meagre performance without obtaining a copy of them, in vain endeavoured to meet with a transcriber to supply him. Several commenced, but after a short attempt they gave up the task in despair. This circum- stance has delayed the Dictionary for many years, and it would never have been completed but for the publication of these Dramas in 1859. They turn out to be of much greater importance than could have been supposed; they are of greater amount than all the other remains of the Cornish language taken together, and are most invalu- able specimens of it when spoken in great purity. The three are of the same antiquity as the Poem of Mount Calvary. The series represents scriptural subjects from the Creation to the Death of Pilate, the first beinof entitled Ordinale de Origine Mundi. 2, Passio Domini Nostri Ihesu Christi. 3, Ordinale de Eesurrectione Domini; and they are of the same kind as the old Mysteries, or Miracle-plays, so common in the middle ages. They were published by the University of Oxford, in 2 vols. 8vo., being most ably edited by Mr. Edwin Norris, who has added a literal translation on the opposite page.