ie 
Dr. Incram—On the “ De Imitatione Christi.” 149 
being intended, the latter is, in my opinion, much too late a date. I 
think the true date is nearer to 1450 than to 1500. 
Throughout the volume, for ¢/ the old letter thorn (P) is used, except 
at the beginning of the first word of a sentence, when 7% is written. 
The following are some of the forms of the language. Tho is still the 
plural of that; while the nominative thez is used, the accusative is hem ; 
and the corresponding possessive not their, but her. The old southern- 
dialect termination of the plural persons of the present tense of the 
verb, ¢p, or yp, is almost everywhere found, en occurring only in a com- 
paratively few places. Thus we nedip, we owtp not, bese temporall 
goodes bip as noon, pings pat displesip pe, bese gop not, all pings pat 
pey dop. But also, here and there, we find the form in en, as men 
dien sodenly. Beside we bip, occur we be, we ben, and we are. The 
verb mowe is of frequent occurrence—how shalt pou mowe sufre? pat 
pow mowe stand sure. Mote is in use—blessed mote pou be (sis 
benedictus). Shal regularly turns to shu/ in the plural—he shal, but 
we shul, they shul. There are some strong past participles where 
we use weak ones, as yolden where we say yielded; and in other 
instances different strong forms from the modern ones, as yoven (from 
yeve) tor given. On the other hand, the infinitive has not the ter- 
mination en, nor have the plural persons of the preterite that 
ending. 
T have observed clear traces of a later hand erasing in several places 
the old termination of the plural person of the verb yp, and sub- 
stituting ”, as if to modernize the style. Thusin the following clauses 
of chapter 25 of Part I. :——‘‘lyven abstractly, are cloped boistously, 
laboryn gretly, spekyn litel, waky longe, risy early, praisen longe, 
ofte tymes redyn and kepyn hem in al maner discipline,’’—every one 
ot the active verbs, with the exception of lyven, has been altered, the 
original form of the termination in the MS. having been, I believe, 
without doubt, yp. But if all the plurals in zh were to be changed, 
every page would contain corrections, for that form abounds all 
through the volume. 
It we compare the English of the translation generally with that 
of Pecock’s Repressor, which is attributed to the year 1449, we shall 
find it, I think, quite as archaic, and certainly more so than that of 
Caxton’s Kecuyell of the Histories of Troye, which belongs to the year 
1471. Unless there was from local circumstances a slower develop- 
ment of the language in the part of England where the translator 
lived than elsewhere, his work cannot be of later date than 1460. 
However the question of the date of the translation may be 
decided, it is strange that so striking a specimen of the English of the 
fifteenth century should have been altogether neglected. 
I may here mention a few of the old words or quaint renderings 
which I have met in going thyough the book—ab intra, ‘“ wipin- 
forpe”; ab extra, ‘‘wipoutforpe”; ad unionem, ‘to oonhed”’ ; 
adunare, ‘‘to oone’’; latebre, ‘‘hidels”; laqueos, ‘‘ grynnes” ; 
pennas sicut columbe, ‘‘fedres as a colver’’; perversus, ‘‘ an over- 
