1898.] SMYTH — PERICLES AND APOLLONIUS. 249 



In 1850 J. O. Halliwell (Halliwell-Phillipps) printed for pri- 

 vate circulation : A new boke about Shakespeare arid Stratford- 

 ypon-Avon. He introduced into it a *' curious and interesting 

 fragment of a very early English metrical translation of the story of 

 Apollonius, King of Tyre." It is copied from a MS. on vellum 

 which had formerly belonged to Dr. Farmer. The MS. had but 

 two leaves and had been converted into the cover of a book, the 

 edges were cut off, and some words were altogether lost in 

 consequence. Steevens had quoted a few lines from it (cf. Ma- 

 lone's Shakespeare, ed. 1821, Vol. xxi, p. 221). '* The author," 

 says Halliwell, "appears to have resided at Wimborne Minster in 

 Dorsetshire," and the MS. would appear from the language to be 

 anterior to the appearance of Gower's Confessio Amantis. 



The fragment is of considerable philological importance, and as 

 it was printed in a limited edition of seventy-five copies, of which 

 I believe fifty were destroyed/ I have ventured to reprint it here 

 as a singular and interesting fragment of early English literature.^ 



Sche was fairest of alle, 

 The Kyng .... 



And on hys knees byfore hire falle 



He ofTryde and alle that wit him were 

 And afterw .... 

 drery chere ; 

 Of Tire I Ar . . . . 

 , . . . myself there king, 



1 Halliwell-Phillipps was provokingly fond of printing his pamphlets and bro- 

 chures in very limited editions. A wag said of him that he only printed two 

 copies of his books — one he burned and the other he put in his private library. 



2 1 have normalized the orthography of the MS. only in one particular, sub- 

 stituting for the so-called Anglo-Saxon g symbol (which had in ME. the value 

 of a spirant) its later ME. representatives gh, and y according to the phonetic 

 value of the symbol in each instance ; following in this the orthographic usage of 

 the later ME. MSS., which put gh for the guttural or back spirant, y for the pa- 

 latal, and g for the stop. In Ags. up to the twelfth century only one character 

 was used for the various sounds of g, viz., the Anglo-Saxon g. In ME. the so- 

 called Prankish g (our modern g sign) v*^as introduced to denote the stopped sound 

 as in go, and the French sound of g in rouge ; the Anglo-Saxon letter was re- 

 tained for awhile to denote the spirant sounds of g, but in Chaucer's time it had 

 been dropped and gh or y substituted. 



