268 



Turning now from the place to the poem, we shall be asked, 

 what is the probable date of it 1 The manuscript in which it is 

 found contains productions of various ages, some of which are 

 pi'obably very little older than the manufacture of the volume itself. 

 But our poem must be ranked among the oldest of its contents. 

 There are in it several obscure words, at the meaning of which the 

 editors have only been able to guess ; it is very fragmentary, and 

 several of the expressions appear to have been corrupted by the 

 errors of scribes, and other accidents of repeated transcription. It 

 is quite possible that it may be as old as the eighth or even 

 the seventh century. It belongs to the oldest type of Saxon 

 poetry, that type of which the Beowulf is the most signal 

 example. This evident antiquity of the piece is to me a much 

 stronger argument than I can expect it to be to the hearer ; but in 

 a matter so obscure I think it no harm to present the case with all 

 the little circumstances that may have invested the proposed 

 identification with additional plausibility for my own mind ; even 

 though some of the points may be too subjective to be scientifically 

 communicable. 



If now we may for a moment indulge ourselves in the hypothesis 

 that this description was really taken from old Akmauchester, we 

 shall naturally look to see whether any minor coincidences arise, 

 tending to confirm the identification. The expression whicli I have 

 translated " pictured gables " (line 61), is one that is rare and 

 obscure ; but I translated it " pictured gables" because, before I had 

 found words for it, I seemed to have found the thing which answers 

 to the old poetic phrase, teafor geapu, and that thing is the great 

 sculptured pediment in the vestibule of this Institution. 



Another obscure line is line 19, where I have so rendered it that 

 the wall is said to be " fern- tufted and lichen-spotted." Now of the 

 first expression, " fern-txifted," I have little doubt of its accuracy 

 in a general way of speaking. Antique language, as is well known, 

 never gives very precise answers to botanical enquiries, and there- 

 fore I would not be sure about the " fern." The popular name of 

 " ragwort" is assigned by Professor Babington to one of the 

 groundsels, Senecio Jacohma. It might be fern, or gi-oundsel, or 

 grass, or all three of it together ; but the sense is clear, that the 



