or letters have been introduced to fill obvious gaps, they are put in brackets, and superfluous letters, due probably to the scribe, are also clearly indicated.

The Latin text as given in Migne: 'Series Latina, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus' is printed at the foot of each page as far as it supplies the original of the translation. The student can thus compare the two versions for himself. But all discussion of difficulties, suggested readings, and similar matter have been reserved for the notes that follow the text, an arrangement which makes the use of them rather laborious, though it certainly leaves the text clearer. In the Preface, Herr Endter gives a short account of the MS. (the Beowulf MS. Vitellius A, xv), in which the work is found, and a description of the pages (4a to 59b) which contain the Soliloquies. All but the first and last are well preserved and easy to read. He is himself uncertain whether the whole text is in one hand, as Professor Förster states in his Die Beowulf Handschrift. Certainly corrections have been made by a later hand and the capitals have been touched up with red ink.

After a list of editions, translations, and works dealing with the text, comes a discussion of sources. Of the three Books of the Soliloquies, Book I Herr Endter considers to be almost entirely from St. Augustine's work, with no essential variations. The first part of Book II, he considers to be also from the same source, but for the later part, and for Book III, he believes Alfred to have made use of other authorities. He quotes the view of Professor Förster, endorsed by Jost, that some single source may yet come to light for the third book amidst the mass of patristic literature not yet printed, a view suggested by the mention in the last unfinished paragraph, of a book from which Alfred collected his material.

Herr Endter accepts the general view that the translation of the Soliloquies is Alfred's last work, and he dates the MS. as having been written in the second quarter of the twelfth century by a very careless scribe, but not, he thinks, by an Anglo-Norman.

IV

MIDDLE ENGLISH

[BY P. G. THOMAS]

THE year's work in this section has been characterized by considerable activity. In addition to an unusually large amount of Chaucerian research, much interest has been evinced in syntax and textual problems, while at least two noteworthy editions of standard authors have appeared. Some kind of chronological order may be appropriate in dealing with the material, a section being reserved at the end for purely grammatical and linguistic articles, such as have not been discussed earlier in connexion with particular texts or authors.

1

At least two writers have dealt during the course of the year with the problem of Geoffrey of Monmouth's influence on later literature. Dr. Hans Matter in his voluminous Gründungssagen 1 deals, in the first place, with the settlement of Britain legends, then with those concerned with the cities. The influence of Geoffrey is traceable throughout most of these, and it has been the author's task to illustrate their development, before and after Geoffrey. Thus, Brutus makes his first appearance in the Chartres MS. of the Historia Britonum, only to be confused with Junius Brutus, consul in 138 B.C. This Chartres MS. apparently formed the basis of Nennius'. " After Geoffrey, the legend is traceable through Henry of Huntingdon, Jean des Preis, Geoffrei Gaimar, &c., down to Manning. The same method is applied to the Hengist and Vortigern saga, and to the rest. With Havelok,

1 Englische Gründungssagen von Geoffrey of Monmouth bis zur Renaissance, von Dr. Hans Matter. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. pp. xxxiii+685. 18s.

which Dr. Matter again relates vaguely to Geoffrey, and Buern (cf. The Brut or The Chronicles of England, ed. Brie, E.E.T.S.), we come to the Danish settlement legends. Of the latter, variants are pointed out in Gaimar, the Ragnar-Lodbrokssaga, Roger of Wendover, and Matthew Paris. Spenser's Queen Angela is an echo of an earlier Saga of Maiden Inge or Queen Angela, hinted at by Manning and referable ultimately to Geoffrey. The story of Albina and the giants, as set forth in the Eulogium (ed. Haydon), harks back once again to the same source. The Gründungssagen are, for the most part, eponymous, and designed to uphold the national cause of either Celts, Saxons, or Danes.

The foundation-legends of the cities are also eponymous and traceable, for the most part, to the Historia. In connexion with Glastonbury, Dr. Matter discusses Joseph of Arimathea's relation to the local legends and the influence exerted by the interpolations in William of Malmesbury. In the section-Sage und Politikthe author shows that later English claims upon foreign territory were often buttressed up by arguments from the legends, and that a work like the Liber Albus ascribed the laws and customs of London to the Trojans. A further section, dealing with the critical attitude of the late Middle Ages and of the Renaissance towards the legends, cites the Scotchman, John Mayor, as a typical sceptic, while men like John Leland remained conservative. A list of Elizabethan dramas and poems in which the legends are rehandled brings the book to a close.

It is difficult to avoid the impression that this work is somewhat inordinately drawn out, though one must be grateful for the useful résumés from the chroniclers. Dr. Matter holds strongly to Geoffrey's statement that he made use of a British book, but his arguments do not carry conviction. The bibliography (extending to over 400 items) omits the Temple Classics translation of the Historia (with appendix by Dr. Sebastian Evans), Professor Lewis Jones' article on Geoffrey (Trans. of Hon. Soc. of Cymmrodorion), and Fairholt's Gog and Magog, all of which are relevant to points under discussion.

Another writer, Mr. W. J. Entwistle, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Spanish literature (Modern Language Review, October 1922), discusses Geoffrey's influence in Spain in an interesting way.

Following upon the concise reference to the Battle of Camlan in Anales Toledanos Primeros (12th cent.), apparently derived from Geoffrey, we come upon a curious instance of his influence in the work of Alfonso X. For, while Alfonso translates Books i. 3 to iii. 8 of the Historia, he omits the Dedication, the Laus Angliae, and the Arthurian material, in general. In fact, he does not mention Geoffrey's name, though he refers to Godfrey of Viterbo, on whom he relies for his account of the invasion of Italy. There are passages concerned with Lear and Arthur in Portuguese, in Titulo II of the Nobiliario of the Conde D. Pedro de Barcellos, but no Merlin matter. The Arthur passages deal with the founding of the court and the departure from Britain, with the 'Battle of Camblet', and events subsequent thereto. Mr. Entwistle thinks it possible that the Suite de Lancelot, as used by Malory, had appeared in a Spanish or Portuguese translation before 1325, since Don Pedro's account of the last battle is not paralleled in Bivas, Sanchez, the Catalan Queste, nor the peninsula Lancelots, while it agrees with Malory. The fourteenth century was marked by a decline of interest in Arthurian matters, while the Renaissance, through the pen of Juan Luis Vives, openly condemned Geoffrey. With the appearance of Don Quixote Arthurian literature ceased to be a living thing in Spain.

In 1852, Professor R. M. White noticed in the MS. of the Ormulum that 'a second hand appears to have been used in the marginal corrections and in the transcript of some of the inserted leaves; a third in supplying the MS. note at the fiftieth text, and also texts at the respective Homilies; and a fourth in a marginal addition at col. 230'. Mr. Sigurd Holm 2 has made it his object to discover what corrections or additions are due to the different scribes, their purpose, and their dialectal differences. As a result, he comes to the conclusion that the author (A) wrote out the chief part of the work, and that his hand may be traced throughout the MS.; that a reviser (B) then corrected A's work and made some additions; while a few passages are due to a third hand (C). One or more later scribes seem to have made some arbitrary alterations, and there are, in addition, several corrections due to the hand of 2 Corrections and additions in the Ormulum Manuscript, by Sigurd Holm. Uppsala. pp. xl+117.

the author himself. In many instances, the text has been completely scraped out and a new one supplied, or erased with a pen with, generally, a fresh text inserted above or beneath the line, in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the column; or the new text has been supplied in vacant spaces or on inserted leaves. The hand-writings of A and B are contemporaneous and difficult to distinguish, but there are enough clear examples of the latter to determine his characteristic orthography and mental attitude. With the aid of such criteria, Holm arrives at the conclusion that about two hundred marginal insertions in the Ormulum belong to the second hand. B's alterations are concerned, generally, with either accidence, vocabulary, or style, but he is capable of tampering with the matter itself. To him are ascribed over a hundred superpositions of final -n, the alteration of the suffix -nesse to -lezze (probably for metrical reasons), the substitution of gredi3 for 3iferr, and so on. Again, he has erased ten lines, after 1. 2084, which formed a somewhat free transcription of Matth. i. 25. In view of 11. 65-72 of the Dedication, Holm identifies B with Wallter, whom he regards as Orm's brother. But this handing-over of a text for correction in doctrinal matters to a brother in the flesh does not seem quite in accordance with human nature. Very important are Holm's conclusions regarding the -eo- spellings. Since -eo- and -ealternate in the first part of the MS., while -e- alone appears after 1. 13853, the frequent erasures of -o- may be set down to Orm himself, their partial reinstatement being due to a later hand. The erasures have been made, as a rule, with a knife in accordance with Orm's practice, though some, made with the pen, may be set down to B. Of inserted leaves there are twenty-nine, making eighteen insertions, of which ten are assigned to A, four to B, and one to C, the argument being that, if -eo- spellings or corrections characteristic of B are found, the text belongs to A, though absence of these features does not make A's authorship impossible. It cannot, however, be maintained that the criteria are sufficient to enable us to distinguish the scribes in every instance, though the problem has been attached with much ingenuity and the results seem, generally, reliable.

During the year, several well-known poems have come forth in new editions and it is a pleasure to welcome the appearance of The