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

Britannica Literaria: Anglo-Saxon Period was published in 1842. He observes, at the close of his life of Aldhelm (p. 222): 'He is said to have translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon verse, but the translation published by Mr. Thorpe, in 1835, has none of the characteristics which might be looked for in his compositions.' From this it may be inferred that he derived his information from Thorpe. This is, however, quite inconsistent with his remarks concerning Aldhelm in a note to p. 21: 'He is said, among other things, to have translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon verse, which may possibly have been the same which Mr. Thorpe has so ably edited from the Paris MS. or the groundwork of it.'

Giles, Sancti Aldhelmi Opera, 1844, says nothing whatever on the subject.

In 1853 Professor Franz Dietrich, in an article entitled 'Hycgan und Hopian,' published in Haupt's Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum, vol. ix, endeavours to rehabilitate the tradition by means of an investigation into the relative age of two words for the verb 'hope,' namely, hycgan and hopian. In summing up (p. 222), he remarks: Es giebt eine alte Tradition dass Aldhelm (+709), der lateinisch und in seiner Muttersprache gedichtet, auch die Psalmen ins Angelsächsische übertragen habe. Die schon aufgegebene Vermutung, dass sich sein Werk hier erhalten habe, ist für den allitterierenden Theil nach den obigen Ausführungen wieder aufzunehmen, und kann durch einige wenige auch hier wie im ersten Theil vorkommende Mängel der Uebersetzung, welche noch nach Abzug der vom Abschreiber und vom Lateinischen verschuldeten übrig bleiben, nicht umgeworfen werden. Drittel seiner Arbeit mag an der Handschrift abgerissen gefunden und von einem Schreiber des In Jh. durch die vorliegende Prosa vermeintlich ersetzt worden sein. Vielleicht ist die Prosa aus einer etwas älteren, ebenfalls vollständig gewesenen Uebersetzung entnommen.'

In 1854, K. W. Bouterwek (Cadmons des Angelsachsen Biblische Dichtungen, Gütersloh and London) refers to Thorpe's opinion in his' Dritte Abtheilung,' p. clxxxiii, but, beyond citing Spelman (see below), he contributes nothing to the discussion.

In

In 1880 appeared a posthumous work of the distinguished scholar Grein, his Kurzgefasste Angelsächsische Grammatik. this (p. 9) he expresses the opinion that Psalms 52-150 of Thorpe's edition are probably to be attributed to Aldhelm.

Psalterio ab illo Saxonice seu Anglice converso taceam: extat etiamnum Epistola eius ad Ehfridum, qua illum multis obsecrat, ut divina eloquia in communem omnium usum vernacula lingua explicaret.'

This argument is, in a word: Aldhelm compliments the nuns to whom he writes on their reading of the Bible; hence there must have been an English Bible, since women could of course read no Latin. Aldhelm could not only read Latin, but write it ; hence what so likely as that he had the translation made, if he did not make it himself? In the light of Bede's statement that he knew several people who were as well acquainted with Latin and Greek as with English, this argument of course falls to the ground; and if the nuns knew no Latin, how came it that Aldhelm was writing them a letter in that language? The appeal to Aldhelm's letter to Ehfrid is equally valueless, because of its obscurity and the generality of the terms in which it is couched.

Hearne, in his translation of the elder Spelman's Life of Alfred (Oxford, 1709), carries on the tradition (p. 212, note): 'There had been a Saxon version before, by Aldhelmus, Bishop of Shirburne, as is mentioned by Bale in his Life, and confirmed by Mr. Wharton.' Hearne, however, thinks that the Psalter which Leland saw was the Spelman MS., and that Aldhelm's version had been lost before Alfred's time.

GUTHLAC.-It has often been asserted that Guthlac, a Saxon hermit who died in 714, translated the Psalter, and this statement recurs even in the latest encyclopædias. Tracing it back from one author to another, we find the earliest mention of Guthlac's Psalter in the Chronicle which bears the name of Ingulf (d. 1109). According to this account, the Psalter was left with Abbot Kenulf by Guthlac's sister. The original runs : 'Sancta vero Pega, soror praefati sancti patris nostri Guthlaci, cito post primi anni revolutionem ab obitu eiusdem, relicto prius ibidem in manibus Kenulphi Abbatis flagello Sancti Bartholomaei, et psal terio fratris sui, . . . ad cellam suam navigio remeavit.'

...

The next statement emanates from John Lambert, properly Nicholson, who in 1538, having been accused of heresy, was examined by Archbishop Warham on forty-five articles. As part of his answer to the twenty-sixth article, he is reported in Foxe's Acts and Monuments (ed. Townsend and Cattley, v. 213) to have said:

'There [in Higden's Polychronicon] it is showed how, when the Saxons did inhabit the land, the king at that time, who was a Saxon, did himself translate the Psalter into the language that then was generally used. Yea, I have seen a book at Crowland Abbey, which is kept there for a relic; the book is called St. Guthlake's Psalter; and I ween verily it is a copy of the same that the king did translate, for it is neither English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, nor Dutch, but somewhat sounding to our English; and, as I have perceived since the time I was last there, being at Antwerp, the Saxon tongue doth sound likewise after ours, and is to ours partly agreeable.'

From this it is evident that Lambert believed the 'St. Guthlake's Psalter' which he saw to have been the translation made by King Alfred (see p. xxxiv).

The connexion between the statements of Ingulf and of Lambert was made by Archbishop Ussher in 1690, in his Historia Dogmatica (Works, xii. 280): Psalterii S. Guthlaci Ingulphus in historia sua meminit; et ad nostra tempora inter reliquias Croilandensis monasterii conservatum est. Quod quidem vulgari Saxonica lingua exaratum fuisse, ex testimonio Joannis Lamberti, qui illud vidit, apparet.'

As yet no great error had been committed, but conjecture soon mingled with fact, and finally we come to such extraordinary remarks as the following, taken from Mombert, Handbook of the English Versions of the Bible, 2nd ed., New York 1890, p. 5: To the beginning of the eighth century belongs the Psalter of Aldhelm and Guthlac [sic], which contains the Latin with an exceedingly minute interlinear Anglo-Saxon version. The text is the Roman Psalter in use at Canterbury, whereas the Gallican text was used in other parts of England. It is said to be the identical copy sent by Pope Gregory to Augustine, A. D. 596. The translation is of much later date. It is among the Cotton MSS., marked Vespasian A. 1.'

The two independent versions, by Aldhelm and Guthlac respectively, both mythical, have now become a joint work of the two authors, and this is identified with the Vespasian Psalter, which is not a translation, but a mere gloss!

EIGHTH CENTURY.

PROSE TRANSLATIONS.

BEDE-Bede is said to have made a translation of the Gospel of John from the beginning through vi. 9, but of this no trace remains. The statement is contained in a letter concerning the close of Bede's life, written by Cuthberht, a pupil of Bede's, to Cuthwine, a fellow-student, and 'printed from MS. CCLV (compared with CCLIV) in the library at St. Gallen, which is believed to be a MS. of the ninth century,' by Mayor and Lumby in their edition of Bedae Hist. Eccl. III, IV, Cambridge, 1881. The passage runs (op. cit. p. 178): 'In istis autem diebus dua opuscula memoriae digna, exceptis lectionibus quas cottidie accepimus ab eo et cantu psalmorum, facere studuit. Id est a capite sancti evangelii Iohannis usque ad eum locum in quo dicitur, "sed haec quid sunt inter tantos?" in nostram linguam ad utilitatem ecclesiae Dei convertit, et de libris Isidori episcopi excerptiones quasdam.' Translations of the whole of this letter may be read in Lingard's AngloSaxon Church, ii. 177-182, and in Stevenson's Bede, pp. xvii-xx. The statement has frequently been made that Bede translated larger portions of the Bible, but this cannot be authenticated.

POETICAL TRANSLATIONS.

KENTISH VERSION OF THE 51ST PSALM.-This was first published from MS. Cott. Vesp. D. VI of the British Museum by Dietrich in 1854, in the Indices Lectionum et Publicarum et Privatarum quae in Academia Marburgensi per Semestre Hibernum habendae proponuntur (Marburgi: Typis Academicis Elwerti). Dietrich subjoins a Latin translation, and adduces proofs that the poem was composed in the Kentish dialect. According to him, the MS. is of the early ninth century, the letters a, m, and s, for example, being often written as uncials. The paraphrase he would assign to the eighth century, citing, in support of his view, archaic forms like wigbed (later weofod), v. 139; blids (later bliss), vv. 79, 99, 118; hleodor, in the sense of hearing,' v. 78; andhette, v. 29; &c. Some of the other words, as well as constructions, adduced in support of his opinion, are less convincing.

In 1857 the psalm was reprinted by Grein, in his Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie, ii. 276-280 (new ed., ii. 224-226).