to its grammatical form. A badly mutilated document may be restored by a comparison with analogous cases, by due regard to the sequence of time entering into the legal transaction, and by the assistance derived from words of style in similar instruments. It is the second part which presents matter of a different character from previous publications.

Types of contract from Greek and Roman law have been taken, such as the Greek sale of domestic animals and slaves, the Roman sale of slaves, loans and mortgage. The comparison of Greek and Roman contracts of sale reveals a noteworthy difference between the Roman conception and that of the Greek papyri. The Roman written document proceeds, as in the primitive mancipatio, from the standpoint of the buyer: emit mancipioque accepit-pro eo homine pretium eius accepisse et habere se dixit (i. e. is qui vendidit).

The Greek document proceeds from the standpoint of the seller, in the form of a declaration or acknowledgment that three things have happened-that is, the seller ópodoye that he has sold (Tempaкéva), that he has received the price (anexew), and that he stands ready to warrant undisturbed possession against eviction by a third party (βεβαιώσειν).

The Roman document distinguishes between the creation of the jus in personam and the jus in rem—that is, there is a separation of obligation and ownership.

The Greek document is a declaration of the party relinquishing rights and assuming duties, and the idea of a transfer of ownership does not appear in this threefold declaration of the seller.

The

Of loans, the most frequently occurring type is the xepoypadov, a note of hand in the form of a statement of indebtedness addressed to the creditor. Less frequent is the ópoλoyia form, an instrument drawn by a notary containing a minute personal description of the debtor. It is noteworthy that in the autograph documents (xepóypapa) this description is always lacking, while in the notarial instruments (ópoλoyiai) it is always present. purport of this is to protect an illiterate person (aypáuparos) who binds himself through an instrument written by another whom he has called to his assistance, against the possibility of being presented with a note for payment which was not drawn by his order a circumstance which might easily occur where the same name frequently occurs. Identification of the parties is attained through signalement giving the names of ancestors, age, physical description, scars, etc. The Greek papyri give evidence of the fact that the Greeks inclined to written documents in transactions which were usually oral among the Romans. The transactions which the Romans called mancipatio, the papyri show were written among the Greeks in the case of res mancipi (slaves, domestic animals, and land).

It remains to speak of one important feature of this book which Prof. Gradenwitz calls a new mechanical expedient for the

restoration of mutilated papyri-that is, a 'contrary-index'; in other words, an index of words arranged in alphabetic order reading from right to left. Since the final letters only of many words are transmitted, it happens that the process of restoration must proceed in the reverse from the usual order. Following out his idea of the value of such a contrivance, the author has added a vocabulary of some 5000 words of those found to recur most frequently in the papyri.

Viewed as a whole, this volume of Prof. Gradenwitz is exceedingly valuable as an introduction to the study of legal papyri, but we venture to predict that those who have had no legal training will find it difficult to follow the author through his discussions of the larger part of the volume.

LEIPZIG, GERMANY.

JAMES J. ROBINSON.

Outlines of the History of the English Language.

By T. N. TOLLER, M. A., Professor of English in the Owens College, Manchester. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900. King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius. Done into Modern English, with an Introduction. By WALTER JOHN SEDGEFIELD, Litt. D., Editor of King Alfred's Old English Version of the 'De Consolatione.' Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, MDCCCC.

The first work, whose title is given above, is one of the Cambridge Series for Schools and Training Colleges, and it is evidently well fitted for the purpose for which it was written. It is devoted chiefly to the history of the language in its oldest period, ten of its thirteen chapters being given to the Oldest English, English before the Norman Conquest, or Anglo-Saxon, as some prefer to call it. Prof. Toller's view as to the use of this term may be seen in the last section of the tenth chapter (p. 202), and, while granting that "the term Anglo-Saxon may be of use," he thinks that "it is not without its disadvantages," for "it tends to obscure the continuity in the life of the language, and to give to one stage of it the character almost of a foreign speech;" so "it is certainly better to speak of Old or Oldest English." There is now a consensus of scholars as to the use of this term, which certainly preserves the continuity, while to those who know, there is no danger of an obscuration of meaning in still referring to this period of the language as Anglo-Saxon.

The first chapter is merely introductory; the following nine chapters treat the language, with competent insight and greater fullness than is usual in such works, down to the coming of the Normans.

The sixth chapter treats the so-called Latin of the Second Period with particular fullness, and a long list of Latin words is given "that made their way into English before about the middle.

of the eleventh century" (p. 79 et seqq.). Certain Old English poems and their vocabulary follow, and an investigation of the Scandinavian element is made in the eighth chapter.

The works of King Alfred and of Aelfric are next considered, and a synopsis of the grammar of Old English is given in the tenth chapter. It is doubtful, however, whether this will be well understood by those entirely ignorant of Old English. It is hard for a scholar to realize that, at this stage of instruction, such things must be treated as milk for babes, boiled down to the comprehension of young students. These chapters comprise two hundred of the less than three hundred pages of the work.

The eleventh chapter treats the Norman-French element (AngloNorman, or Anglo-French, as some prefer to call it), and the English from the Conquest to Chaucer inclusive. The work seems to have grown under the author's hands, with the result that the last two chapters are much compressed. The twelfth chapter, in some thirty pages, covers the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a period that deserves a more careful and thorough

treatment.

In the extract from Occleve in this chapter (p. 242) the author takes wote in men wote as plural, but it is possible that men here may be the indefinite, and hence wote is singular, although Chaucer himself has several times ye woot, showing that the old distinction between singular and plural forms was being disregarded. The last chapter is very meagre, only fourteen pages, and we miss all mention of Ben Jonson as a representative of "the language of the early part of the seventeenth century," but every prominent writer could not be included, even if Ben Jonson's "Discoveries" will bear mention in any treatise on the language of this period. His remark that "Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language" is, however, twice quoted. We miss titles to the several chapters and an index, which would have increased the convenience of reference, and we have noted some misprints, which it seems impossible to avoid in the bestregulated printing-office. More exact references to works quoted would also have been helpful. We have, however, much to be thankful for.

Dr. Sedgefield's edition of King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae (Oxford, 1899) was briefly noticed in this Journal (Vol. XX, No. 4), and now we are indebted to him for a modern English version of the prose text, and a metrical version of the Metra, or Lays, of Boethius, but why it should appear as "Consolations," we are nowhere informed. The Introduction treats of King Alfred's reforms and his zeal for learning, enumerating his translations of Orosius, Bede, the Dialogues and the Pastoral Care of Pope Gregory the Great, Boethius, and the Soliloquies of St. Augustine. The editor thinks that the Orosius, Boethius, Pastoral Care, and Soliloquies

"were put into English by the King himself," the Dialogues, perhaps, by Bishop Werfrith, and the Bede, "in its original form, was also the work of one of the King's learned priests." This has been one of the mooted questions in Old English literature.

The introduction treats, further, of the work of Boethius and his fate, King Alfred's method of translation, which he has himself described for us, the MSS of the Old English version, discussed more fully in Sedgefield's edition of the Old English, the prose and the poetic version of the metres, both of which the editor now thinks were made by King Alfred-another disputed question,-King Alfred's own comments and additions, and lastly the later English versions of the "Consolations." This last section is a distinct addition. We know of no English version between King Alfred and Chaucer, but after Chaucer's wellknown Boëce, we have a metrical version made by a certain Johannes Capellanus, i. e. John Walton, circa 1410, "printed for the first and only time in 1525, in The Boke of Comfort at the monastery of Tavistock;" one in prose made by George Colvile, or Coldewel, and dedicated to Queen Mary in 1556; a partial one of the carmina in a variety of metres, made about 1563 by Sir Thomas Challoner; one made by no less a personage than Queen Elizabeth herself in 1593, said to be "fairly accurate and very literal;" one in terza rima by a certain "J. T." in 1609; a metrical version by Harry Coningsby in 1664; an anonymous one by "A Lover of Truth and Virtue" in 1674, at Oxford; and one in 1695 by Richard Lord Viscount Preston, the Metra in metre and the Prosa in prose.

Four versions are mentioned from the eighteenth century, of which, as of the preceding, short specimens are printed, one in heroic couplets by William Causton, in 1730; a second in the octosyllabic couplet by the Rev. Philip Ridpath, in 1785; a third by a Scotchman, Robert Duncan, in blank verse, in 1789; and an anonymous translation of the Metra in octosyllabic quatrains, with the Latin opposite, in 1792. The only translation mentioned of the nineteenth century is one by H. R. James, London, 1897. These various translations show the continued popularity of the work. Dr. Sedgefield has translated into prose the five books of the prose version, and into thirty-one Lays the Metra. The metre used is an imitation of the Old English alliterative line, four accents to the verse, which the present writer has long since concluded to be the best measure for the translation of Old English poetry. Success in handling this measure depends of course upon the skill of the translator, to whom should be charged any defects in attaining the ideal and not to the measure itself.

The present translation is approximately line-for-line, and, on a cursory examination, appears to be very fairly done. I hope it may induce others to give us similar translations of Old English poems.

JAMES M. GARnett.

REPORTS.

ROMANIA, Vol. XXVIII (1899).

Janvier.

F. Lot. Nouveaux essais sur la provenance du cycle arthurien. II. La patrie des "Lais Bretons." 48 pages. "La théorie de la provenance exclusivement armoricaine des récits dits de la Table Ronde vient de faire, avec M. Brugger, une rentrée bruyante. L'auteur, reprenant la thèse de M. Zimmer, soutient particulièrement que tous les lais sans exception sont originaires de la Bretagne continentale. Ceux qui ont cru qu'une partie, au moins, de ces petits poèmes pouvait provenir de la Grande-Bretagne (du pays de Galles) sont dénoncés comme des gens sans cervelle et même sans moralité."

G. Raynaud. Le dit des outils de l'hôtel (ms. du Musée Condé). 12 pages. Critical edition of the text, with introduction and glossary.

Ov. Densusianu. Étymologies romanes. 9 pages.

Giacomo de Gregorio. Ultima parola sulla varia origine del Sanfratellano, Nicosiano e Piazzese. 21 pages.

C. Salvioni. Note etimologiche e lessicali.

21 pages.

Mélanges. Ad. Mussafia; G. Paris; A. Thomas; E. Trojel; S. Berger.

Comptes rendus. Wesselofsky, Quelques nouvelles versions orientales du roman d'Alexandre J. Anitchkoff). Ph. Aug. Becker, Der Quellenwert der Storie Nerbonesi (Raymond Weeks). Remarques sur le compte rendu de Maxeiner Beiträge zur Geschichte der französischen Wörter im Mittelhochdeutschen (Theodor Maxeiner). Réponse à Maxeiner (F. Piquet). Université de Paris: Bibliothèque de la Faculté des lettres III-IV (P. Meyer).

Périodiques. Zeitschrift für rom. Phil. XXII 4, discussion of etymologies (G. Paris). Bulletin de géographie historique et descriptive, 1897 (P. Meyer).

Chronique. "Rapport de M. V.-H. Friedel sur sa mission en Espagne.'

Livres annoncés sommairement. 51 titles. The historical syntax of the atonic personal pronoun in Italian, by Oliver Martin Johnston. A study of the romance of the Seven Sages, by Killis Campbell.