Dr. Incram—On the “* De Imitatione Christi.’’ 151 
this world. Wolde God that her lif had be accordyng to her kunnyng, 
for then had thei wel studied and wel radde. How many ben ther 
that perisshith in this worlde by veyn konnyng, that litel retchith of 
the service of God. And for thei chese rather to be grete than meke, 
therfore thei vanisshe awey in her owne thoughtes.”’ ® 
Contrast with this strictly literal and really effective translation 
the following, which is Atkynson’s rendering, it rendering it deserves 
to be called, being in fact a paraphrase. 
‘‘ Where be now all the royal poetes in theyr craftye conveyed 
poemes, and elegant oratours with theyr oracions garnisshed with 
eligancy : the philosophers with their pregnant reasons and sentences. 
Divers of these maner of clerkes we have knowen in oure days. Now 
their curiosite is passed and other men occupie theyr prebendes and 
promocions that they poss[ess led: If they were here now agayne, I 
suppose they woilde never labour so busily for curyosyte in knowlege 
ne temporall promocyons. Nowe they had lever than all this worlde 
that theyr entent had been accordynge to the holy doctryne of Scryp- 
ture; than the study had been happy. O howe many in maner of 
every state perishith in this worlde by vayne glory that more desyre 
to please prynces and prelates and other patrons for a temporall 
promocyon than truly and inwardly to serve God for the promocions 
eternall. These desyre rather by pompe and pryde to be grete in the 
world than by mekeness and charyte to be in favoure with God and 
therefore they vanysshe in theyr thoughtes and desyres as the smoke 
that ever the more it ascendeth the more it fadeth and faileth.” 
A great part of this, it will be seen, is not in the original at all. 
The royal poets, the elegant orators, the philosophers with their 
pregnant reasons, the princes, prelates and other patrons, the image 
of the smoke at the end, and much else in the passage, are purely 
Atkynson, and not a Kempis at all; whilst the MS. translator 
makes it his business here and everywhere else in all simplicity 
to follow his author, and never thinks of exhibiting his eloquence at 
all. He writes in fact like a man penetrated with the moral and 
religious spirit of the treatise on which he was engaged. 
I had intended to exhibit the features of the old translation in 
greater detail by means of selected specimens: but it will not be 
necessary to occupy the pages of the Proceedings with extracts, since 
it is my purpose, if I am confirmed by the best judges in my impres- 
sion of the interest and value of the version, to print it hereafter in 
full, with such philological illustration and comment as it may seem 
to require, and as I may be able to supply. 
5 T haye written ¢h throughout this passage for p. 
