logy for many years, and would add incalculably to our exact knowledge of the changes which have taken place in the English vocabulary, and in the differentiation of meanings. And what is true of semasiology is likewise true, in its degree, of syntax. Such comparisons as have been mentioned will be facilitated by the Index of Biblical Passages, and by that of Principal Words. The latter is not intended as a glossary, nor for the exhibition of grammatical forms; but for the purpose indicated its fullness ought to render it valuable. I wish the limitations of space had permitted still greater fullness, even under very common words; for now and again a student may wish for a completer exhibit of usage than has been provided. The Introduction will, I trust, be serviceable to all who are interested in these texts, and to many who are not. The astounding misstatements and omissions of the latest and most authoritative books of reference which treat of this subject-a subject of interest to every intelligent person of English extraction-will no doubt be deemed a sufficient reason for the essay here presented. Its shortcomings may perhaps be the more leniently judged when it is considered that all existing outlines which profess to cover the same ground are either misleading, or wholly inadequate, or both. This sketch may therefore justly be regarded as a sort of pioneer effort, for, while much of it is compilation, criticism has been necessary at every step, and some of the results have been worked out by the author himself especially for this publication. In conclusion, I shall be glad if the present work leads to a somewhat juster appreciation of the early history of the English Bible, to a more diligent study of the course of English speech, and, in however slight a measure, to a fuller sense of fraternity among the different members of the English race. ALBERT S. COOK. YALE UNIVERSITY, August 15, 1897. - Cynewulf Anonymous Poems of the Eighth Century-Poems of Uncertain Date. NINTH CENTURY: Prose Translations: Mercian Gloss on the Psalms-Other TENTH CENTURY: xiii xiii-xix XX XX-XXV xxvi-xliii xliii Prose Translations: Northumbrian Gloss on the Gospels xliii-lxxv TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS Bede.-As under Greg. Greg.-Gregory's reading in his Cura Pastoralis, as distinguished from that of the Vulgate. H.-Hatton MS. ins.-insert(s); inserit, inserunt. Ital.-Italam, Italicam versionem. LXX.-Septuagint. om.-omits; omittit. sec.-secundum. sum.-summarily; summatim. Vulg.-Vulgate. [] in the Cotton MS. of Gregory's Pastoral Care, denote the readings of Cotton Otho B. 2 (Sweet's Cotton II); in the Hatton MS., they denote additions above the line. () in the O. E. Pastoral Care, denote Sweet's conjectural additions; when a word in parentheses is followed by H., a reading of the Hatton MS. is signified. In Alfred's Laws, both brackets and parentheses are used to indicate readings of MSS. G. and H. (Cott. Nero A. 1, and the Textus Roffensis), the standard being E. (the Corpus or Benet MS., C. C. 175). INTRODUCTION As a means of exhibiting the relations which the Biblical extracts now first collected sustain to the versions already known, the following conspectus is presented. No such survey at present exists, and the current statements on the subject are often so lamentably meagre and incorrect that it has seemed by no means superfluous to supply the exactest possible information in these pages, and to give ample references to the most authoritative and critical of recent works. SEVENTH CENTURY. None are known. PROSE TRANSLATIONS. POETICAL TRANSLATIONS. CADMON.-The first Old English paraphrase of portions of the Bible is attributed to Cadmon, in the following passage of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (iv. 24): Canebat autem de creatione mundi et origine humani generis, et tota Genesis historia, de egressu Israel ex Aegypto et ingressu in terram repromissionis, de aliis plurimis sacrae Scripturae historiis, de incarnatione Dominica, passione, resurrectione, et ascensione in coelum, de Spiritus Sancti adventu, et apostolorum doctrina.' Since the publication of Francis Junius' Cadmonis Monachi Paraphrasis Poetica Genesios ac Praecipuarum Sacrae Paginae Historiarum (Amsterdam, 1655), certain poetical paraphrases of the Bible contained in MS. Junius XI of the Bodleian Library at Oxford have passed under the name of Cadmon. The whole subject is discussed at length by Wülker, in his Grundriss, pp. 111-140, with the purely negative result, expressed on p. 139, that nothing can with certainty be attributed to Cædmon save the Hymn found at the end of the Moore MS. of Bede in the Cambridge University Library, and which is printed, e. g., in Sweet's Oldest English Texts, p. 149, and Anglo-Saxon Reader, seventh edition, p.175; in my The Bible and English Prose Style (Boston, U.S.A.: D. C. Heath & Co.), p. ix; Zupitza-MacLean's Old and Middle English Reader, p. 1; Grein-Wülker's Bibliothek, ii. 317; and Stopford Brooke's History of Early English Literature, p. 340. Since this Hymn is but nine lines in length, and refers only allusively to the first chapter of Genesis, it is evident that we cannot affirm that we possess any portion of the Biblical translations which Bede affirms to have been made by Cadmon. ALDHELM.-For more than sixty years there has been discussion among scholars as to whether the so-called Paris Psalter may have been the work of Aldhelm (640 ?-709). This recent suggestion was made by Thorpe in his edition of the Paris Psalter, under the title, Libri Psalmorum Versio Antiqua Latina, cum Paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica (Oxford, 1835). His words are (Praefatio, p. v): 'Memoriae quidem proditum est Aldhelmum, Shirburnensem Episcopum, qui quum carminum laude inclaruisset, non Latino solum sed et patrio sermone conditorum, A. D. DCCIX mortuus est, Psalmos Davidis Anglo-Saxonice primum reddidisse: et quum versio quam nos edendam suscepimus, etsi ab initio ad Psalmum quinquagesimum oratione soluta scripta est, inde usque ad finem versibus puris Anglo-Saxonicis constet, dicendi tamen genus seculum decimo superius non sapiat; erunt fortasse qui suspicentur eam aliam non esse quam Aldhelmi ipsius versionem a recentiore quodam refictam.' Thorpe goes on to say that the evidence of language alone would not justify us in assigning a date to an Old English composition, and that the version which he publishes is in parts so incorrect that he would hesitate to attribute it to Aldhelm: 'Hinc quidem minus verisimile fit hanc versionem opus fuisse viri doctrina eximia qualis fuerit Aldhelmus; etsi inter errores istos multi sunt quos aut incuriae aut ignorantiae librarii jure tribuas.' In his translation of Lappenberg's Anglo-Saxon Kings, 1845 (ed. 1880, i. 258, note 3), Thorpe says: 'An AngloSaxon version of the Psalms, possibly Aldhelm's, transcribed by the present translator from a MS. in the Royal Library at Paris, has been published at the expense of the University of Oxford.' Thorpe was followed by Thomas Wright, whose Biographia |