but the progress of a language is very gradual, and the change during a transition state is so fluctuating and confused, that it is difficult to determine to which dialect in particular any composition in question may belong.

As this change was going on, some one named Orm, or Ormin, a canon of the Augustine order, wrote a feeble versified paraphrase of the Gospels and Acts, running out to the extent of 20,000 lines.* In this work the older case-endings of words disappear, though few foreign words are introduced; it exhibits our language under Henry II. Respecting orthography the author was very particular, and forewarned transcribers against inaccuracy, conscious of changes going on at the time in that direction.†

Another specimen of this class is the famous Salus Animi or Soulehele, in the Vernon MS. of the Bodleian, which, according to the best critics, belongs to the thirteenth century. The following lines relate to the crucifixion:

"Our ladi and hire sustur stoden under the roode,

And seint John, and Marie Magdaleyn with wel sori moode
Ur Ladi biheold hire sweete son ibrouht in gret pyne,
For monnes gultes nouthen her and nothing for myne.
Marie weop wel sore, and bitter teres leet,

The teres fullen uppon the ston doun at hire feet."

One may hope that such productions were of some practical use, that there were earnest minds who studied these fragments, and caught the influence of the facts which they record; but compositions of another class were sought for with greater avidity, and were commonly read with deeper interest. The lives of the saints were held in the highest esteem; and some of them are found incorporated

* Edited, with a glossary, by Dr. Meadows, 1852. 2 vols.

+ Eadie's English Bible, i. 30.

in the large thick volume of the Vernon MS., to which reference has been made as containing the work entitled Soulehele. "This sumptuous volume was undoubtedly chained in the cloister or church of some capital monastery. It is not improbable that the novices were exercised in reciting portions from these pieces. In the British Museum there is a set of legendary tales in rhyme, which appear to have been solemnly pronounced by the priest to the people on Sundays and holidays. This sort of poetry was also sung to the harp by the minstrels on Sundays, instead of the romantic subjects usual at public entertainments."*

It should be also stated that there is preserved in the Library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, a Ms. Story of Genesis and Exodus, published in 1865, under the editorship of Richard Morris. The author probably lived about the middle of the thirteenth century.

II. A second class of productions includes Latin MSS., with interlineary glosses.

The first of these is the celebrated Durham Book of the Four Gospels, preserved in the British Museum. The Latin text was copied by Eadfrith, a monk, in the bleak Isle of Lindisfarne, where a famous convent existed, under St. Cuthbert.† Eadfrith died in 687, and his copy must have been made in the same century which witnessed the

* Warton's History of English Poetry, i. 18.

+"Cuthbert's spiritual influence extended far beyond Lindisfarne Priory. He preached zealously among the Northumbrians; and when plague swept the country, and the people, frightened back into paganism, sought a fancied safety in heathen spells and amulets, he went to and fro among them to warn, to strengthen, and to bless the sufferers. He was accustomed to betake himself on horseback or on foot to mountain regions, where, gathering about him a population as wild as their country, he spent the day in teaching and baptizing, and the chief part of the night in chanting psalms in the open air with a voice so remarkable for compass

activity of Cadmon in the composition of his poem. Whitby and Lindisfarne thus became contemporaneously united in the work of Scripture instruction; and about two hundred years later, in the time of Alfred, an interlineary AngloSaxon interpretation of the Latin words was added, by a priest named Aldred. The gloss is given word for word, and no attempt is made to transfer the meaning from one idiom to another.

It may interest the reader to peruse the rendering of the Lord's Prayer into the tongue spoken by our ancestors, and to trace in the rather uncouth-looking words some resemblance in sound to the language of the present day :

"Fader uren thu arth in heofnum, sie gehalgud noma thin to cymeth ric thin; sie willo thin suæls in heofne & in eortho; hlaf userne ofer wistlic sel us todæg: & forgef us scylda usna suæ uæ forgefon scyldgum usum : & ne inlæd usih in costunge uh gefrig usich from yfle.'

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The old quarto volume in which this glossary is preserved is a most beautiful specimen of ancient penmanship. One might almost fancy the letters were engraved. There are in the book many ornaments and pictures by St. Ethelwald, who succeeded Eadfrith in the see of Durham. It contains four curious portraits of the Evangelists, and the initial letter of each Gospel is finely illuminated. Among the stories told respecting the volume, the following is not the least remarkable and amusing. When the monks of Lindisfarne were removing from their favourite monastery to avoid the depredations of the Danes, the vessel in which

and power that the people were ready to believe themselves visited by some heavenly messenger, and eagerly flocked to his feet." (Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels, part iv. pref. p. xvii. Surtees Society, 1865.)

* Cottonian мss., Nero, D. iv. fol. 36.

the holy brethren were embarked was upset, and the Durham Book, which they were anxious to convey to some place of safety, fell into the sea; but through the merits of St. Cuthbert the volume was preserved, for, the tide ebbing at the time much farther than usual, it was found lying high and dry on the sands, at the distance of full three miles from the shore. The Latin Gospels in the book had been used by St. Cuthbert himself, and therefore the volume had acquired the most precious associations in the thoughts of the brotherhood; and it is asserted that it was found after the accident, "much more beautiful than before, both within and without, being no way injured by the salt water, but rather polished by some heavenly hand:" but its present appearance, whilst confirming the fact of its temporary submersion, disproves the assertion that it was uninjured by the waves. For greater safety it was afterwards placed upon the lid of the inner coffin of St. Cuthbert, where it was found in 1104, when the monks ended their wanderings at Durham, and there built a magnificent cathedral.* Afterwards taken back to Lindisfarne, where a colony of the Durham monastics built what was called the Priory of Holy Island, it remained amongst the costly treasures of the fraternity until the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. In some unknown way it fell into Sir Robert Cotton's hands, and is now preserved in the splendid collection of MSS. bearing his name in the British Museum. The rich binding is lost, but the caligraphy and the illuminations exist in unfaded lustre.

After the Durham Book comes the Rushworth Gloss, a manuscript existing in the Bodleian Library. It is an inter

*Raine's St. Cuthbert, pp. 34, 47.

lineary Saxon translation of the Gospels, written about the same time as the former work. It has coloured initials and ornamental delineations of the Evangelists. The parties who executed the task have preserved their names-" Owen, that this book glossed, and Farmen, the priest at Harewood." The copyist has also taken care to perpetuate his memory in connexion with his labours,—one MacReogol, who prays that the reader may not forget to intercede for the writer. The Anglo-Saxon Gloss, as in the case of the Durham Book, follows the Latin word for word, and resembles it in form, as probably it corresponds with it in age.*

III. The third class of Anglo-Saxon Scriptures embrace what may be more properly called versions than any of those already mentioned.

The earliest production of this kind of which we have

"The Rushworth Book, though a noble мs., yields in antiquity, as well as in beauty of execution, to the Lindisfarne Codex. It is written in lines extending through the page, and is abundantly ornamented with illuminated letters. Both MSS. abound with clerical errors; the older one is, however, the more correctly written of the two." (The Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels, part iii. pref. p. x. Surtees Society publication for 1863.)

"In the Lambeth Library (1033, 4to., vellum) are two vols., written probably about 1430; mutilated at the beginning and end and in several other places, in parts much soiled.

"This MS. contains the books of the Old Testament, from 2 Paral. (Chron.) ii. 7 to Baruch inclusive, in the later version, with the prologues to Isaiah and Baruch. The textual glosses are numerous, and sometimes peculiar. It has also occasional glosses in the margin. On Psa. ciii. (civ.) 17, is a Latin note on the word gerfaucun, which supposes Wycliffe the author of the version, and terms him 'Latinitatis ignarus.' The note is in a hand of about 1500." (Forshall and Madden, p. xlvi.)

It would be useless to give specimens of these Saxon MSS., as they would need to be translated into modern English to be intelligible to general readers. Of course the Saxon renderings are intended to correspond with the Vulgate text.