July 1904. The Original-Series Texts for 1903 were: No. 122, Part II of The Laud MS. Troy-Book, edited from the unique Laud MS. 595 by Dr. J. E. Wülting; and No. 123, Part II of Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne, and its French original, ed. by Dr. F. J. Furnivall.
The Extra-Series Texts for 1903 are to be: No. LXXXVIII, Le Morte Arthur, in 8-line stanzas, re-edited from the unique MS. Harl. 2252, by Prof. J. Douglas Bruce (issued), No. LXXXIX, Lydgate’s Reason and Sensuality, edited by Dr. Ernst Sieper, Part II, and English Fragments from Latin Medieval Service-Books, edited, and given to the Society, by Mr. Henry Littlehales.
The Original-Series Texts for 1904 will be No. 124, t. Hen. V, Twenty-six Political and other Poems from the Digby MS. 102, &c, edited by Dr. J. Kail, and No. 125, Part I of the Medieval Records of a London City Church (St. Mary-at-Hill), A.D. 1420-1559, copied and edited by Mr. Henry Littlehales from the Church Records in the Guildhall, the cost of the setting and corrections of the text being generously borne by its Editor. This book will show the income and outlay of the church; the drink provided for its Palm-Sunday players, its officers’ excursions into Kent and Essex, its dealing with the Plague, the disposal of its goods at the Reformation, &c., &c., and will help our members to realize the church-life of its time. The third Text will be Part I of An Alphabet of Tales, a very interesting collection, englisht in the Northern Dialect, about 1440, from the Latin Alphabetum Narrationum by Etienne de Bésançon, and edited by Mrs. M. M. Banks from the unique MS. in the King’s Library in the British Museum; the above-named three texts are now ready for issue. Those for 1905 and 1906 will probably be chosen from Part II of the Exeter Book—Anglo-Saxon Poems from the unique MS. in Exeter Cathedral—re-edited by Israel Gollancz, M.A.; Part II of Prof. Dr. Holthausen’s Vices and Virtues; Part II of Jacob’s Well, edited by Dr. Brandeis; the Alliterative Siege of Jerusalem, edited by the late Prof. Dr. E. Kölbing and Prof. Dr. Kaluza; an Introduction and Glossary to the Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. by H. Hartley, M.A.; Alain Chartier’s Quadrilogue, edited from the unique MS. Univ. Coll. Oxford MS. No. 85, by Mr. J. W. H. Atkins of Owen’s College; a Northern Verse Chronicle of England to 1327 A.D., in 42,000 lines, about 1420 A.D., edited by M. L. Perrin, B.A.; Prof. Bruce’s Introduction to The English Conquest of Ireland, Part II; and Dr. Furnivall’s edition of the Lichfield Gilds, which is all printed, and waits only for the Introduction, that Prof. E. C. K. Gonner has kindly undertaken to write for the book. Canon Wordsworth of Marlborough has given the Society a copy of the Leofric Canonical Rule, Latin and Anglo-Saxon, Parker MS. 191, C.C.C. Cambridge, and Prof. Napier will edit it, with a fragment of the englisht Capitula of Bp. Theodulf. The Coventry Leet Book is being copied for the Society by Miss M. Dormer Harris—helpt by a contribution from the Common Council of the City,—and will be publisht by the Society (Miss Harris editing), as its contribution to our knowledge of the provincial city life of the 15th century.
Dr. Brie of Berlin has undertaken to edit the prose Brut or Chronicle of Britain attributed to Sir John Mandeville, and printed by Caxton. He has already examined more than 100 English MSS. and several French ones, to get the best text, and find out its source.
The Extra-Series Texts for 1904 will be chosen from Lydgate’s DeGuilleville’s Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, Part III, edited by Miss Locock; Dr. M. Konrath’s re-edition of William of Shorcham’s Poems, Part II; Dr. E. A. Kock’s edition of Lovelich’s Merlin from the unique MS. in Corpus Christi Coll., Cambridge; the Macro Plays, edited from Mr. Gurney’s MS. by Dr. Furnivall and A. W. Pollard, M.A.; Prof. Erdmann’s re-edition of Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes (issued also by the Chaucer Society); Miss Rickert’s re-edition of the Romance of Emare; Prof. I. Gollanez’s re-edition of two Alliterative Poems, Winner and Waster, &c, ab. 1360, lately issued for the Roxburghe Club; Dr. Norman Moore’s re-edition of The Book of the Foundation of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, from the unique MS. ab. 1425, which gives an account of the Founder, Rahere, and the miraculous cures wrought at the Hospital; The Craft of Nombrynge, with other of the earliest englisht Treatises on Arithmetic, edited by R. Steele, B.A.; and Miss Warren’s two-text edition of The Dance of Death from the Ellesmere and other MSS.
These Extra-Series Texts ought to be completed by their Editors: the Second Part of the prose Romance of Melusine—Introduction, with ten facsimiles of the best woodblocks of the old foreign black-letter editions, Glossary, &c, by A. K. Donald, B.A. (now in India);
and a new edition of the famous Early-English Dictionary (English and Latin), Promptorium Parvulorum, from the Winchester MS., ab. 1440 A.D.: in this, the Editor, the Rev. A. L. Mayhew, M.A., will follow and print his MS. not only in its arrangement of nouns first, and verbs second, under every letter of the Alphabet, but also in its giving of the flexions of the words. The Society’s edition will thus be the first modern one that really represents its original, a point on which Mr. Mayhew’s insistence will meet with the sympathy of all our Members.
Texts preparing: The Texts for 1906, 1907 &c.
The Texts for the Extra Series in 1906 and 1907 will be chosen from The Three Kings’ Sons, Part II, the Introduction &c. by Prof. Dr. Leon Kellner; Part II of The Chester Plays, re-edited from the MSS., with a full collation of the formerly missing Devonshire MS., by Mr. G. England and Dr. Matthews; the Parallel-Text of the only two MSS. of the Owl and Nightingale, edited by Mr. G. F. H. Sykes (at press); Prof. Jespersen’s editions of John Hart’s Orthographie (MS. 1551 A.D.; blackletter 1569), and Method to teach Reading, 1570; Deguilleville’s Pilgrimage of the Sowle, in English prose, edited by Prof. Dr. L. Kellner. (For the three prose versions of The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man—two English, one French—an Editor is wanted.) Members are askt to realise the fact that the Society has now 50 years’ work on its Lists,—at its present rate of production,—and that there is from 100 to 200 more years’ work to come after that. The year 2000 will not see finisht all the Texts that the Society ought to print. The need of more Members and money is pressing. Offers of help from willing Editors have continually to be declined because the Society has no funds to print their Texts.
An urgent appeal is hereby made to Members to increase the list of Subscribers to the E. E. Text Society. It is nothing less than a scandal that the Hellenic Society should have nearly 1000 members, while the Early English Text Society has not 300!