Must afterwards sit with more unsound (worse ones) to sew them together. ([p. 104].)
This [brief outline] of the poems, together with the short extracts from them, will, it is hoped, give the reader stomach to digest the whole. It is true that they contain many “uncouth” terms; but this will be their highest merit with the student of language, as is shown, by Dr. Guest’s testimony, that they are “for several reasons curious, and especially so to the philologist.”[22] To those readers who do not appreciate the importance of such a very large addition to the vocabulary of our Early Language as is made by these treatises, let Sir Frederic Madden’s opinion of their literary merit suffice. That distinguished editor says, of the author’s “poetical talent, the pieces contained in the MS. afford unquestionable proofs; and the description of the change of the seasons, the bitter aspect of winter, the tempest which preceded the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the sea storm occasioned by the wickedness of Jonas, are equal to any similar passages in Douglas or Spenser.”[23] Moreover, as to the hardness of the language—inasmuch as the subject matter of the poem will be familiar to all who may take up the present volume, the difficulty on the word-point will not be such as to deter the reader from understanding and appreciating the production of an old English poet, who—though his very name, unfortunately, has yet to be discovered—may claim to stand in the foremost rank of England’s early bards.
The Editor of the present volume has endeavoured to do justice to his author by giving the text, with some few exceptions, as it stands in the manuscript.[24] The contractions of the scribe have been expanded and printed in italics, a plan which he hopes to see adopted in every future edition of an early English author.
The [Glossary] has been compiled not only for the benefit of the reader, but for the convenience of those who are studying the older forms of our language, and who know how valuable a mere index of words and references sometimes proves.
In conclusion, I take the present opportunity of acknowledging the kind assistance of Sir Frederic Madden and E. A. Bond, Esq., of the British Museum, who, on every occasion, were most ready to render me any help in deciphering the manuscript, in parts almost illegible, from which the poems in the present volume are printed.
[ REMARKS UPON THE DIALECT AND GRAMMAR.]
Higden, writing about the year A.D. 1350, affirms, distinctly, the existence of three different forms of speech or dialects, namely, Southern, Midland, and Northern;[25] or, as they are sometimes designated, West-Saxon, Mercian, and Northumbrian. Garnett objects to Higden’s classification, and considers it certain “that there were in his (Higden’s) time, and probably long before, five distinctly marked forms, which may be classed as follows:— 1. Southern or standard English, which in the fourteenth century was perhaps best spoken in Kent and Surrey by the body of the inhabitants. 2. Western English, of which traces may be found from Hampshire to Devonshire, and northward as far as the Avon. 3. Mercian, vestiges of which appear in Shropshire, Staffordshire, and South and West Derbyshire, becoming distinctly marked in Cheshire, and still more so in South Lancashire. 4. Anglian, of which there are three sub-divisions—the East Anglian of Norfolk and Suffolk; the Middle Anglian of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and East Derbyshire; and the North Anglian of the West Riding of Yorkshire—spoken most purely in the central part of the mountainous district of Craven. 5. Northumbrian,” spoken throughout the Lowlands of Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, and nearly the whole of Yorkshire.
Garnett’s division is based upon peculiarities of pronunciation, which will be found well marked in the modern provincial dialects, and not upon any essential differences of inflexion that are to be found in our Early English manuscripts.[26]
The distinction between Southern and Western English was not at all required, as the Kentish Ayenbite of Inwyt (A.D. 1340) exhibits most of the peculiarities that mark the Chronicles of Robert of Gloucester (Cottonian MS. Calig. A. xi.) as a Southern (or West-Saxon) production. The Anglian of Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire may be referred to one group with the Mercian of Lancashire, as varieties of the Midland dialect.
A careful examination of our early literature leads us to adopt Higden’s classification as not only a convenient but a correct one.