[328] The Psalter was translated into English, in verse, in the second half of the thirteenth century: "Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter," Surtees Society, 1843-7, 8vo; then in prose with a full commentary by Richard Rolle, of Hampole (on whom see below, p. 216): "The Psalter or the Psalms of David," ed. Bramley, Oxford, 1884, 8vo; again in prose, towards 1327, by an anonym, who has been wrongly believed to be William de Shoreham, a monk of Leeds priory: "The earliest English prose Psalter, together with eleven Canticles," ed. Bülbring, E.E.T.S., 1891. The seven penitential psalms were translated in verse in the second half of the fourteenth century by Richard of Maidstone; one is in Horstmann and Furnivall: "Minor Poems of the Vernon MS.," p. 12.
[329] "The Story of Genesis and Exodus, an early English Song," ab. 1250, ed. R. Morris, E.E.T.S., 1865; shortly before that date a translation in French prose of the whole of the Bible had been completed.
[330] See, e.g., "The early South-English Legendary or lives of Saints; I., MS. Laud, 108, in the Bodleian Library," ed. C. Horstmann, Early English Text Society, 1887, 8vo.—Furnivall, "Early English Poems and Lives of Saints," Berlin, Philological Society, 1862, 8vo.—"Materials for the history of Thomas Becket," ed. Robertson, Rolls, 1875 ff., 7 vols. 8vo.—Several separate Lives of Saints have been published by the E.E.T.S.
[331] Horstmann, "The early South-English Legendary," p. vii. The same intends to publish other texts, and to clear the main problems connected with them; "but it will," he says, "require more brains, the brains of several generations to come, before every question relative to this collection can be cleared." Ibid.
[332] The latter is the MS. Laud 108 in the Bodleian, edited by Horstmann; the other is the Harleian MS. 2277 in the British Museum; specimens of its contents have been given by Furnivall in his "Early English poems" (ut supra).
[333] From MS. Harl. 2277, in Furnivall's "Early English poems," 1862, p. 34.
In the faireste lond huy weren · that evere mighte beo.
So cler and so light it was · that joye thare was i-nogh;
Treon thare weren fulle of fruyt · wel thicke ever-ech bough ...
Hit was evere-more day: heom thoughte, and never-more nyght.
Life of St. Brendan who "was here of oure londe," in Horstmann's "South-English Legendary," p. 220. See also "St. Brandan, a mediæval Legend of the Sea," ed. T. Wright, Percy Society, 1844; Francisque Michel, "Les Voyages Merveilleux de St. Brandan à la recherche du Paradis terrestre, légende en vers du XII^e. Siècle," Paris, 1878; cf. "Navigation de la barque de Mael Duin," in d'Arbois de Jubainville's "L'Epopée Celtique en Irlande," 1892, pp. 449 ff. (above p. 12).
[335] Renan, "Essais de morale et de critique," Paris, 1867, 3rd edition, p. 446.