ANCIENT LANGUAGE OF ENGLAND. 



may thus obtain an honourable popularity. His title to esteem is not 

 invalidated because another may falsely pretend to a degree of hu- 

 manity which he does not possess, and may mislead, inflame, and 

 pander to the worst feelings of people belonging to the same class. The 

 spirit of this contrast applies equally to matters of mere literature and 

 intellectual instruction towards the mass of readers. We would in- 

 treat those heads of the University of Oxford who have the control 

 of the Clarendon press, to attend to this earnestly enforced, and we 

 trust valid, distinction. They deserve far more abundant thanks than 

 they have received, for reprinting many works of great worth, which 

 are little known, except among the inmates of their own learned 

 halls. The edition of Isaac Barrow was worthy of the mind dis- 

 played in his masterly compositions ; it remains a noble typographical 

 monument to a great genius ; it does ample honour to its object, and 

 to the designers. More, however, might have been done than has 

 been done, to encourage and facilitate the timid and admiring 

 student, who knows or fears that he cannot master the whole of the 

 vast body of thought before him ; and who finds no indication, either 

 rationally or alphabetically arranged, of the places where those topics 

 are treated of, to which he feels most disposed to pay attention. This 

 deficiency might be removed ; and we hope it will be, by a separate 

 copious index. Of English prose literature, during the 13th century, 

 nothing of extent, value, or important, exists in print. The il- 

 lustrious John Wickliff undertook and executed translations into the 

 cotemporary language of the common people of England all the books 

 of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament. 

 Manuscript copies of these versions exist entire in some of our public 

 libraries. WicklifF's New Testament has been printed ; but no indi- 

 vidual or body of men has yet printed the early reformer's versions 

 of the Hebrew Histories, Laws, Precepts, and Prophecies. The 

 University of Oxford have most laudibly undertaken to publish this 

 great mass of precious mattter : they will entitle themselves to the 

 gratitude of all who have any right feeling towards the memory of a 

 conscientious and intrepid opposer of ecclesiastical tyranny, and a 

 praiseworthy desire to rescue from unmerited and threatening obli- 

 vion the venerable remains of our ancient speech. We would suggest 

 to the heads of Oxford the practicability and the desirableness of 

 bringing out this work (at least one edition of it) in such a shape as 

 may render it accessible to those who have within them the spirit of 

 religious patriotism, but who may want the ample purse, which alone 

 renders possible the purchase of fine-papered and broad-margined 

 volumes ; a few such may gratify the taste of those who are opulent ; 

 and let not the supply of their demand be wanting. We only depre- 

 cate an exclusive regard to the wealthier book-buyers, and a con- 

 temptuous slighting of the more numerous class of intellectual 

 readers. We would further suggest, as a valid substitute for the 

 very copious and frequently repeated glossarial notes which may ap- 

 pear to be necessary in illustration of Wickliff, a copious, verbal 

 index (after the manner of the one which Mr. Todd has attached to 

 his edition of the Poetical Works of Milton) ; this, by referring the 

 student to every book, chapter, and verse in which each characteristic 



