"he (God) shall not nappe, ne slepen"; nol, head or neck; peis, weight; porail, the common people; ripynge, harvest; shamefast, which was originally in the Authorized Version (1 Tim. ii, 9), and ought to have been kept; schrewid, depraved; scheltrun, an army; sothsaw, a proverb; sumdel, partly; scrippe, wallet; shewers, mirrors; sparlyvers, calves of the leg; therf, unleavened; thirs or thrisse, a fabulous beast; toukere, a fuller; welsum, prosperous; unsad, unstable.

But a great number of similar words still survive in Scotch so nearly allied to the Platt-Deutsch and northern English, though they have ceased to occur in ordinary English. Attercop, a spider; axtre, for axletree; baili (Luke xvi, 1), bailie being still the name of a magistrate in a Scotch borough; big, to build, "auld clay biggin'" (Burns); beel, suppuration ; bylyve, forthwith; birle, (in Scotland to contribute money for drink); birr, force, rush; brokskin, badgerskin, brok being the common name for the animal; brunston, brimstone; chopin, denoting a measure, a word in daily use; dicht, to prepare, applied to the winnowing of grain; draf, well known to keepers of cattle and dairies in Scotland; egge, to edge or push on; fell for skin, “between the fell and the flesh "; gowling, howling; grene for gin, the poacher sets a girn; hyne, a labourerhind, a common name for farm servants in Berwickshire; croket-rigged, hunchback, shoulders and back being called in old Scotch riggin; cod for pod, "to fill his wame with the coddis the hoggis did ete " (Luke xv, 16); keetling, a whelp, the Scotch familiar word for kitten; kouthly, kouthy, very intimate; rue, to repent; segge, sedge; stithie, anvil, pronounced often study; smekede, smoked; sowel, sowens, a kind of gruel made from the finer flour of oats; tollbooth, prison; puddock, frog; edwite, to upbraid (wite in Scotch signifies blame; the original title of Pecock's book is " Repressor of the overwyting of the Clergy"); lout (pronounced loot), to stoop; hooled, having the hull or shell taken off; snapere, to stumble; sour-doug, leaven, applied in some parts of Scotland to buttermilk; sowk, suck-Acts xiii, 1, "Manaen that was the sowkynge feere of Eroud" (Herod); sparplyd, sparpled, scattered; stike, stick, to pierce; tungy, tonguy, talkative; toun, a common name for farm

buildings (Luke xiv, 18, "I have bought a toun"); trows, artificial conduit to serve a mill-wheel; to wauke, to full, so waukmill; wod, mad; yett, gate; yowl, to howl; tak tent, tak heed (Acts xx, 28); wook, week, but now nearly out of use; sled, sledge; slidery, from slide, used for slippery; and speels, meaning chips or splinters. The distinction of genders is well sustained, and both terminations are used, -ster and -ess (issa in mediæval Latin); spouse, spousess; purpuresse, applied to Lydia in Acts xvi; cousyness, a female cousin; discipless; daunstere, or daunceress; sleestere and sleeresse, a female murderer; syngster and syngeress, devouress, servauntess, lecheresse, synneresse, thralesse, weileresse, a female wailer; chesister, cheseresse, a female chooser; leperesse, a female dancer. The feminine termination -ster was beginning, however, to yield, so that sometimes it represents the masculine also. The first version has webstres in a general sense, (1 Kings, xvii, 7), and spinster yet survives, but songster is feminine in Ben Johnson; songster-ess being a double feminine. We also richess, richessis in the plural; almesse, almessis. Some adjectives of material have not been retained. We still possess, however, golden, brazen, wooden, flaxen, woolen, but Wycliffe has silvern, reeden, treen, stonen, hairen, bricken, hornen, &c.

Wycliffe had great wealth of compound words, though very many have not survived. His prefixes are-above-, after(which he couples with forty different words), again- (Titus iii. 6, "bi waischyng of agen bigetyng and agen newying of the Hooli Goost”), at-, alto-, before- (which he couples with thirtytwo different words), bi-, dis-, en-, even-, ever-, for-, fore-, ful-, in-, mel-, mis-, o-, if-, on-, over-, out-, through-, to-, un-, under-, up-, with-. There was the less difficulty in translating when words could be so easily coined, and compounds were of the genius of the Saxon language. If a distinctive word for things having life could not be found, then soul-havers was at hand; if helm meant a warlike headpiece, then steer-staff might be used for the instrument that guides a ship; erthe-movynge is an earthquake.

And yet a slight change of spelling gives many of Wycliffe's

words a modern aspect abaished, abashed; aish, ashes; abregge, abridge; abite, habit; axe, ask; brid, bird; brisse, bruise; breste, burst; bigge, buy; bocherie, shambles; boyschel, bushel; bottler, butler; brenne, burn; caitiff, captive; coryour, currier; coz, kiss; drede, dread; falt, fauld, folded; gree, degree; hole, whole; carkeis, carcass; hoxe, hough; ligge, lie; parfyt, perfect; pistil, epistle; raied, arrayed; rede, read; scrowis, scrolls; suget, subject; snybbe, snub, reprove; sorwe, sorrow; spitele, hospital; treede, tread; weilen, to wail; wilden, to weild; wlaten, to loathe; yuel, evil; wrethen, wreath; "tweye minutis," "two mites," the second word being only the contraction of the former (Mark xii, 42). Not many years ago when the experiment of reading Wycliffe's translation aloud was tried in Yorkshire, there was hardly a word or an expression which seemed at all peculiar.1

1 The statement is given in the Christian Annotator, vol. III, p. 58,

1856, and is said to rest on the authority of Dr. Tregelles.

CHAPTER IV.

THE Bible in the "modir tongue" must have been speedily diffused, at first in fragments copied and carried through the country by Wycliffe's poor priests, and many other agents. Without such a circulation the first version could not have made the impression ascribed to it before the Reformer's death, and it could only have been completed shortly before that event. Among these poor priests Swinderby was noted for preaching any where and at any time; his pulpit on one occasion being set between two millstones. Those preachers also, according to Knyghton, or pseudo-Knyghton, maintained stoutly that they were true evangelists, because they possessed "the Gospel" or English Bible. The manuscripts remaining are, of course, only a very small remnant, and most of them seem to have been written within forty years of its publication, or between 1420 and 1450. The handsome appearance of many of them shows that the wealthier classes appreciated them, and that the scribes who bestowed such time and skill on them felt assured of disposing of their labour at a good remuneration. There was a great demand, and a corresponding supply. Among Wycliffe's followers there were not a few knights and "soldiers, with dukes and earls," the strenuous supporters and defenders of the new sect, according to Knyghton, and that sect, "like suckers growing out of the root of a tree, filled every place within the compass of the land," and brought over to it "the greater part of the people." "Both men and women," he adds, on turning Wycliffites, "became too eloquent and too much for other people by word of mouth, and they all expressed profound respect for Goddis law" or the English Bible

Therefore there were copies not only in folio and quarto for the higher classes, but there were copies also of a smaller size; and, indeed, nearly all of those extant are of this last kind, meant not for a place of honour in a library, but for individual daily consultation. But it need not surprise us that so few MSS. have come down to our time. Many must have perished from use, others were destroyed in a season of panic, or injured by the means taken to conceal or preserve them, and not a few were burned, as the most unscrupulous measures were taken to suppress the version.

Many of these written Bibles are of great interest from the persons who had them, and the dates, curious notes, and references found in them. Lewis refers to a copy of the New Testament in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, which has on a spare leaf at the end-"Finished 1382, this copy taken 1397." There is one in the library of Cambridge University, written about 1430, which, along with some personal allusions, has a note amidst rich ornamentation-"The true copy of a prologe which John Wickliffe wrote to this Bible, which he translated into English about two hundred years past; that was in the tyme of Kinge Edwarde the Thyrd, as may justly be gathered of the mention that is had of him in divers ancient cronicles, Anno Domini 1550." Upon the second of two inserted leaves of vellum is printed in large capitals of gold, Edoverdus Sextus; this Bible may have belonged to the young king who died in 1553. In the library of Westminster Abbey there is another copy, written about 1450, given by the Duchess of Richmond to Henry, Earl of Arundel, and by him, in September, 1576, to Richard Wiclif. Another MS. in the old library of the British Museum, in two volumes, is very neatly and carefully written, probably before 1420; it has also been diligently gone over by another and nearly contemporary reviser, and is the second text of the edition so well printed by Forshall and Madden. A copy, belonging to Mr. Bannister, of the Inner Temple, has on the first page, in an old hand of the fifteenth century, an inscription showing that probably it belonged to the Duke of Gloucester, Richard the Third. Another is also said to have belonged to Duke Humphrey, another to Henry VI, who gave