25 JUNE 1921, Page 22

The Corpus Mosaary. Edited by W. M. Lindsay. (Cam- bridge

University Press. 40s. net.)—Professor Lindsay has performed a very difficult task -in editing " F.ngland's oldest dictionary," an eighth-century glossary in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which- sv.as.printedthirty years ago, but needed skilful handling. It contains some-eight thousand glosses ; most of these give .Latin synonyms, but at least a thousand give the, Anglo-Saxon equivalent for the Latin word glossed. The text of the unique MS., itself. a. transcript, is corrupt ; the-editor's duty has been to trace the glosses to their source. in. one or other of four early glossaries published in the Corpus, or in the Leyden glossary published by Dr. Hessels. Professor Lindsay has done this work with his accustomed care and- precision, for the benefit alike of Latinists and Anglo-Saxon students. Miss Helen Buckhurst has made a good index of the Anglo-Saxon words. Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon is of course derived in no small degree from the glosses by Anglo- Saxon

scribes on Latin MSS. or from the few glossaries of this kind that were compiled in English monasteries.