31 OCTOBER 1885, Page 25

The Imitation of Christ, fiom the Autograph Manuscript of Thomas

ii Kempis. With Introduction by Charles Rueleus. (Elliot Stock.)

—This little volume is' faasimile- of the manuscript of the " De Imitatione," written in the autograph of Themes Kempis, and now preserved in the Royal Library of Brussels. The MS. has this inscrip- tion at the end.,—

" XLI. per mono f rates ThOalie Kempis in 'matte sancta Agnetis propozwollie.,'

In this MS. Professor Hirsch() has discovered "a perfectly original system of punctuation," which M Raelens describes, and which he considers to settle the question of authorship. He is very con- temptuous of all other claims, and possibly with-reason. We do not pretend to have an opinion on the matter, but we do not understand' his description of what he calls the most ancient manuscript of the " Imitation " now extant, bearing at the foot of the first page what reads like an intimation that it was " descriptns ex mann auctoris anno 1425." Is there, then, an older MS: than the autograph, which seems to date twenty years later ?