Early English Meals and Manners

Committee of Management:
Director: DR. FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, M.A.
Treasurer: HENRY B. WHEATLEY, Esq.
Hon. Sec.: W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67 VICTORIA ROAD, FINSBURY PARK, N.
Bankers: THE UNION BANK OF LONDON, 2, PRINCES STREET, E.C.
The Early English Text Society was started by Dr. Furnivall in 1864 for the purpose of bringing the mass of Old English Literature within the reach of the ordinary student, and of wiping away the reproach under which England had long rested, of having felt little interest in the monuments of her early language and life.
On the starting of the Society, so many Texts of importance were at once taken in hand by its Editors, that it became necessary in 1867 to open, besides the Original Series with which the Society began, an Extra Series which should be mainly devoted to fresh editions of all that is most valuable in printed MSS. and Caxton’s and other black-letter books, though first editions of MSS. will not be excluded when the convenience of issuing them demands their inclusion in the Extra Series.
During the thirty-nine years of the Society’s existence, it has produced, with whatever shortcomings, an amount of good solid work for which all students of our Language, and some of our Literature, must be grateful, and which has rendered possible the beginnings (at least) of proper Histories and Dictionaries of that Language and Literature, and has illustrated the thoughts, the life, the manners and customs of our forefathers and foremothers.
But the Society’s experience has shown the very small number of those inheritors of the speech of Cynewulf, Chaucer, and Shakspere, who care two guineas a year for the records of that speech: ‘Let the dead past bury its dead’ is still the cry of Great Britain and her Colonies, and of America, in the matter of language. The Society has never had money enough to produce the Texts that could easily have been got ready for it; and many Editors are now anxious to send to press the work they have prepared. The necessity has therefore arisen for trying to increase the number of the Society’s members, and to induce its well-wishers to help it by gifts of money, either in one sum or by instalments. The Committee trust that every Member will bring before his or her friends and acquaintances the Society’s claims for liberal support. Until all Early English MSS. are printed, no proper History of our Language or Social Life is possible.