XXXV111 INTRODUCTION 



Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Syon House. 

 D. x. 1 f. 45. Historical MSS. Commission, Report VI. 

 app. 244. 



Collection of Sir A. Acland-Hood, St. Audries, Somer- 

 setshire. Historical MSS. Commission, Report VI. app. 345. 



Bodleian Library. Ashmolean MS. 1524. A fourteenth 

 century copy, but very imperfect. Mr. Black in the cata- 

 logue of these MSS. suggests that this is more nearly the 

 original of the Digby version than the Heralds' College 

 MS., but it is so fragmentary that there is difficulty 

 in speaking decidedly. 



There is also a copy in Welsh, British Museum, Add. 

 15056, transcribed by Jolo Morganwg, alias Edward 

 Williams, from a book of Thomas Hopcin, intitled ' Cato 

 Cymraeg.' 



I have also come on traces of several MSS., which 

 appear to have been lost or destroyed in comparatively 

 recent times. 



Parker's MS., entitled Gaynage de terres, and used by 

 William Lambarde, cannot be found among the Arch- 

 bishop's books. A considerable portion went to Corpus 

 Christi College, Cambridge, others to the University, and 

 others to Lambeth, but I cannot hear of this MS. at any 

 of these libraries. 



There was also a Latin translation in a Syon College 

 book, which was formerly in the possession of Magdalene 

 College, Oxford, but of which I can find no traces. It com- 

 menced ' Pater aetate decrepita ' according to Pegge (Life of 

 Grosseteste, p. 285), and must therefore have been a different 

 translation from that in the Digby collection, which begins 

 ' Pater jacet in senectute.' 



As a study in the process of the corruption of an 

 author's text, the examination of these MSS. is of considerable 

 interest. What is most remarkable is the evidence that in 

 the thirteenth century, when the treatise was new and had 

 no established reputation, it was found useful, and obtained 

 a considerable circulation, but it was treated with scanty 

 respect by the transcribers. John de Gare altered the 



