A SONG OF GENESIS AND EXODUS IN A.D. 1250.* Tats

is one of the only three pre-Wycliffite Biblical texts hitherto unprinted, and we trust that we shall soon see the two remaining MS. early versions of the Psalms, by Hampole and Shoreham (as the latter is mistakenly called), in type under Mr. Morris's careful and able hands. We have waited long to know in what words Latinless Englishmen heard the Bible story in early days, and grudge every year that passes by leaving the records still hidden on parchment leaves. Believe or not in Genesis as we may, it is well for us to put ourselves back to the time when Englishmen could not learn in their own tongue what tbe sacred story-book said and taught, and to share the feeling when, unworried by Zulus and Colenso's arithmetic, "men were as glad as birds of dawn" to hear the story of Lucifer's shutting men "in hell's portmanteau till Christ un- locked it, and took out all the devil's goods." It was not for Norman nobles that Bible songs were made, but for Saxon churl and Saxon guild-man. Mr. Morris well says, "The number of religious treatises written in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, proves that the dialect of reli- gion approached more closely to the speech of the people than did the language of history or romance. And it is a curious fact that the moat valuable monuments of our language are mostly theolo- gical, composed for the learned and unlearned, who knew no other language than the one spoken by their forefathers, and who clung most tenaciously to their mother tongue, notwithstanding the changes consequent upon the Norman invasion and the oppression of Norman rule."

The author of the present Song, as he calls his poetical para- phrase, or rather abstract of the Bible history to the death of Moses, intends his verse for laymen learned in no books ; and that his pledge of giving it in small words and country speech was fulfilled, will be seen by a short quotation, which we choose because it contains the ouly reference we have hit on to a sin of the author's own time, pride,—references so common in later books of the sort :— " RagneI Jetro that riche man

Was wuniende [dwelling] in Malian; He hadde sevens dovrtres bigeten ; Thor he [they] comen water to fetter' [fetch], And for to wattren here sop [sheep] (Wimmen tho nomen [then took] of here en f [cattle] kep; Pride no cuthe [showed] be that dai Nog,t so michel so it nu zeal)."

All the principal events of Genesis are told in 2,536 lines, often shortly, as the fate of Lot's wife,—

" Soon she stood, went into a stone ;"

often with little additional touches, as of Adam and Eve, who

" . . hadden childre manige i-wis [many, sure] Mo than of telleth the Genesis,"

(unless this corresponds to the "and he begat sons and daughters"

of chap. v., 4.) Oddly enough, Jacob's blessing of his SODS (chap. xlix., 1-27) is omitted, though one would have thought it a good subject for poetical treatment. The omission of Onan's trespass and Judah's incest with Tamar (chap. xxxviii.) was certainly wise. In the account of Eliezer's asking Laban to give him Rebekah as Isaac's wife, we are told that since then, " . . men haven holden skil [reason]

first to freinen [ask] the wimmanes wil

Or-or [ere] men hire to lonerd [lord] give,

for wedding Detrothment] or for morgen-give [nuptial gill]."

The second commandment, against making graven images, is of course omitted, as in all early Papist books, the number ten being made up by splitting the tenth commandment into two. The fourth is worded thus :—

• The Story of Genesis and Exodus: an Early English Song, about A.D. 1250. Now First Edited from a Unique Mg. in the Library of Corpus Christi Collage, Cambridge, by Richard Morris, for the Early English Text Society. Lo.nbu : Trubner and Cu. "Min holi dai thu halge [hallow] wet, An do thin dede on other eel [time]."

In a few places we get a neat translation, as forth-for (forth- faring) for exodus, ticie-wifing for bigamy :— "that nigt sal ben feet Pasche, forth-for, on angle tunge, it be." "Bigamie is unkind(' [unnatural] thing;

On engleis tale, twie-wiling."

The second book of the poem is called "Exodus," though it omits, with good judgment chapters xxi. -xxiii., xxv.-xxxi., xxxv.-xl., about the laws, the shape and making of the altars, curtains, &c., and con- tains sixteen chapters of Numbers and one of Deuteronomy, the object of the writer being to complete Moses's life. All this is told in 2,176 lines. Of the Israelites' persecution in Egypt we are told-

" Snmme he deden in un-thewed swine

[Some they set to unwonted toil], for it was fugel [foul] and ful of stine, Muc and fen ut of burges beren, thus bitterlike he gun hem deren [they worried hem]."

The episode of Balaam and his ass is very well told, and the ass's speaking is put thus :—

" Balaam it spuretb, and smit thoron ;

And God nndede this asses ninth ; So [as] soth it is, so [as] it is salcuth [strange]. Quoth this guise thus with unmithe [anger], 'Qui hetes thu me this tliridde sithe 7' [time.]"

The issue of the prophet's advice, that

"the ginge [young] wimmen of thin lend, faiger [fair] on sigte, an softe on bond, and brighte on hewe, on speche glad," should go out and tempt the Israelites with wine and smiles, and body and guile, is given too ; and then Mosel hies up to Mount Abarim, sees the Land of Promise, dies in Moab, and his body is buried by angels' hands :— " Beseech we now God's might That he make our soules bright, And shield us from hell's might, And lead us to bliss, and into light, To bliss with holy men :

With mouth and heart say we Amen [Explicit liber Exodus.]"

The book must rank above the Ormulum in poetical merit, though it does not reach Caelmon's lofty strains. It is a most interesting relic of olden time, and Mr. Morris's care and diligence as editor cannot be too highly praised. He takes rank with the Kembles and Maddens as one of the first of his class, and though his forte is dialect and language, while their illustrations are rather literary, yet he is as thorough in his line as they are in theirs, and gives us discussions in his preface and notes that are the best things of their kind now appearing. He shows that the dialect of the poem is Midland, but south rather than north, that the number of Romance words is only about fifty, and that there is a very small Norse element in the vocabulary, a fact which puzzles us somewhat, as the text is East Anglian. A very curious use of the pronoun as or is-them, is noticed, —that it amalgamates with the pronouns and verbs,* as lies = lee + is,—he, them ; wes = we -1- is,—we, them ; dedis, did or placed them ; settes, set them, &c., though it is often 'used alone, as is or his :—

"His he tagte leve Lagos [them he taught precious laws],

and writen hem, hayed is hem bitagt

[and having written them, has them to them delivered]."

Hem, them, also coalesces with he, he or they, making hem .= he, them, they, them, as well as them only. Thou has a dual, gunke, of you two, gum:, accusative, you two, as well as a plural, gure, your, and gu, you. The relatives are the and that; and the interroga- tives, quo, quase, or was (whose), and guam, showing that these initial qu words are not confined to the Northern dialect, as is sometimes stated, but are Midland too. For many other inter- eating details we must refer the reader to the book itself, only congratulating the members of the Early English Text Society on getting not only this Genesis and Exodus, which is worth a guinea itself, but also six other valuable texts for their annual twenty-one shillings. New brooms sweep clean, they say. If the Camden, Roxburghe, and other rich printing clubs did as much with their money as the Early English Text Society, we should soon have all our English MSS. in type—Anglo-Saxon, Semi-Saxon, and Early English—and be able to learn a little more of the transition of the stages of our speech into one another than we do now.

• A similar usage prerails in old I. retich. Qes is ihelle who In Wace's Roman de Brut.