EAKLY ENGLISH llOMANCE OF SIR EERUMBRAS. 



71 



out of portions of two Latin documents, one relating to the Vicarage 

 of Columpton, and the other to the chapel of Holne and parish 

 of " Bukfastleghe." This cover, however, is chiefly remarkable 

 because it contains what is evidently part of the first draft of the 

 poem, written in the same hand as the MS. itself. The following 

 extracts from both will show how the poet corrected his verses : — 



DRAFT. 



So sturne strokes ^/?ay ara^/te 



ejt/ier til oi/ier t/ie whyle 

 TAat al the ert/te about qua^te 



men mi^t hure a myle 

 They wer so fers on hure mod 



And egcr on hure %te 

 That eyther of hem thogie god 



to si en other if he mif/t. 



MS. 



So sterne strokes thQ,y arauytc 



eyther til o^//er with strengh^Z-e 

 Thoi al tlie erthe ther ofte quayto 



a myle and more on lengh/Ae 

 They weren so eger hotJie of uiod 



And eke so fers to ^gie 

 27ia,t eyther of hem than thoyie god 



to sle other if he mi^te 



The poem is written in the Southern dialect, but it contains a 

 remarkably large admixture of Northern forms, words occurring 

 sometimes in two forms in lines close together, if not in the same 

 line. Thus we find ich and /, a and he, heo and sche, hy and tluiy 

 (the latter most frequently), and thilke and tJiis, to and til, prykyng 

 and prylcande, vaste and fasie, and so forth, the former being the 

 Southern, the latter the Northern form. The Southern infinitive in 

 y (still used occasionally in Devonshire) continually occurs: e.g., 

 mahj, ashy, yraunty, rohlnj, wivy (to wed), &c. On the whole one 

 would be inclined to suppose that the poem was written in the 

 South (perhaps in the diocese of Exeter) by a southern man, who 

 had, however, lived in the North sufiiciently long to become familiar 

 with northern forms. But a more careful examination (in preparation 

 for the E. E. T. Society's edition) will very likely lead to our being 

 better informed concerning the character and history of this most 

 interesting MS. 



N.B. — In all the (quotations the italic th and y represent Anglo- 

 Saxon letters ; the other italics are extended contractions. 



