[670] ‘he witgode be him sylfum, hu his ealdormen sceoldon fægnian his cymes of his wræcsiðe,’ Thorpe, p. 50; cf. Solil. p. 204, where it is said how a man returned from exile remembers his past troubles, in pleasurable contrast with his present good fortune.
[671] These colophons were sometimes mechanically copied by scribes, and Thorpe suggested that such might be the case in the present instance. If this were so, then it would not be necessary to prove identity of handwriting in order to prove that the person referred to was the same.
[672] Gesta Regum, ed. Stubbs, I. xvi.
[673] It is not impossible that the whole tradition of Alfred having translated the Psalter may have arisen out of the passage in Asser where it is said that Alfred’s Encheiridion or Commonplace Book grew, ‘quousque propemodum ad magnitudinem unius psalterii peruenerit,’ 492 B [57]. We seem to have a trace of this confusion in the Eulogium Historiarum, iii. 9: ‘semper habebat librum in sinu quod ipse uocabat manuale, … quidam dicunt hoc fuisse Psalterium.’
[674] ‘totum Nouum et Vetus Testamentum in eulogiam Anglicae gentis transmutauit,’ p. 81 (Anglia Christiana Society edition). Ailred of Rievaulx (also twelfth century) says ‘sacros apices in linguam Anglicam uertere laborabat,’ col. 722.
[675] ‘plurimam partem Romanae bibliothecae Anglorum auribus dedit,’ G. R. i. 132.
[676] Cf. the lines of Alcuin:—
‘Nomine Pandecten proprio uocitare memento
Hoc corpus sacrum, Lector, in ore tuo;
Quod nunc a multis constat Bibliotheca dicta