e;-together with the uncertainty of the rule for the government of prepositions." There are also numerous vowel-changes, which are described as not altogether arbitrary.

The nunnation in which Layamon indulges, or his "addition of a final n to certain cases of nouns and adjectives, to some tenses of verbs, and to several other parts of speech," is characterised as being by no means uniform or constant, and as in numerous instances of final rhyme possibly used only for the sake of euphony, that is, of supplying the requisite consonance. Its use, Sir Frederic thinks, was probably restricted to the dialect in which the poem is written. We have the poem in two texts, both apparently of the thirteenth century, but one probably a little later than the other. There is less of nunnation in the later text. And even in the earlier, we are told, “there are many passages in which it has been struck out or erased by a second hand, and sometimes by the first; so that it is manifest that some doubt must have existed as to the propriety of its usage."

The distinguishing marks of the western dialect in Layamon are enumerated by Sir Frederic as being chiefly "the termination of the present tense plural in th, and infinitives in i, ie, or y; the forms of the plural personal pronouns, heo, heore, heom; the frequent occurrence of the prefix i before past participles; the use of v for f; and prevalence of the vowel u for i or y, in such words as dude, hudde, hulle, putte, hure, &c.” the later text he conceives an Anglian or northern element to have probably been infused into the dialect. This text he thinks may perhaps have been written on the east side of Leicestershire.

In

The following lines from the description of the arming of Prince Arthur before the famous battle of Bath, or Baddon Hill, will afford a specimen of Layamon's language:

"He heng an his sweore aene sceld deore ;

His nome was on Brutisc Pridwen ihaten:
Ther was innen igrauen mid rede golde stauen
An onlicnes deore of Drihtenes moder.

His spere he nom an honde, tha Ron wes ihaten.
Tha he hafden al his iweden tha leop he on his steden.
Tha he mihte behalden tha bihalues stoden
Thene uaeireste cniht the verde scolde leden;
Ne isaeh naevere na man selere cniht nenne
Thenne him wes Arthur, athelest cunnes."*

He hung on his neck a dear [precious] shield;

Its name was in British called Pridwen :

There was within [on it] engraven with red gold tracings

A dear likeness of the Lord's mother.

His spear he took in hand that was called Ron.

When he had all his weeds [accoutrements], then leapt he on

his steed.

Then they might behold that beside stood
The fairest knight that host should lead;
Nor saw never no man better knight none
Than was Arthur, he noblest of kin.

Another work in verse is commonly mentioned along with Layamon's Chronicle as of the same age; that known as the Ormulum, from its author, who calls him

* Verses (or hemistichs) 21, 149-21, 168; Madden's edition, ii. 464, 465. The passage is also printed, with one or two variations, by Mr. Guest.

self Ormin or Orm. The Ormulum still remains in MS.; only extracts have been printed by Hickes and Wanley, and in Mr. Guest's and other modern works.* Hickes goes so far as to place it among the first writings after the Conquest. Tyrwhitt, who, in his Essay on the Language and Versification of Chaucer, was the first to point out that it was written in verse, only ventures to say that he cannot conceive it to have been earlier than the reign of Henry the Second (or the latter half of the twelfth century). Mr. Guest, who, although he seems in one place (Eng. Rhythms, i. 107) to speak of Ormin as having written in the beginning of the thirteenth century, elsewhere (ii. 185) assigns his poem to the latter half of the twelfth, considers it "the oldest, the purest, and by far the most valuable specimen of our Old English dialect that time has left us." He adds:-" Ormin used the dialect of his day; and, when he wanted precision or uniformity, he followed out the principles on which that dialect rested. Were we thoroughly masters of his grammar and vocabulary, we might hope to explain many of the difficulties in which blunders of transcription and a transitional state of the language have involved the syntax and the prosody of Chaucer." (Ibid.) Afterwards (ii. 209), he intimates that, if he were called upon to say in what part of England a dialect such as Ormin's was ever spoken, he would fix upon some county north of Thames and south of Lincolnshire.

* Mr. Thorpe states (Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, New Edit. 1846, Pref. xii.) that an edition of the Ormulum by the Rev. Dr. White, late Rawlinsonian Professor of Anglo-Saxon, was then in course of printing at the University Press, Oxford; and, according to Sir Frederic Madden (Layamon, Pref. vii.) it was in 1847 nearly ready for publication.

The following is a portion of one of the extracts from the Ormulum given by Mr. Guest. Ormin, however, practises a spelling peculiar to himself, which appears to consist in always doubling the consonant after a short vowel; is and it, for example, he writes iss and itt; this private crotchet, which has nothing to do with his language, may for the present be disregarded, notwithstanding that Ormin expressly charges all who copy his book to write the letters twice wherever he has done so, assuring them that otherwise they will not write the word aright:*

"God segde thus till Abraham :-Tac Isaac thin wenchel,
And snith it als it waere an shep, and leg it up on alter,
And bren it all til askes thaer, and offre it me to lake.
And Abraham was forthright bun to don Drihtenes wille,
And toc his sune sone anan, and band it fet and hande,
And legde it up on alter swa, and droh his swerd off shaethe,
And hof the swerd up with his hand to smiten it to daede;
Forthat he welde ben til God hersum on alle wise.

And God sah that he wolde slaen the child with swerdes egge; And segde thus til Habraham (that wit tu well to sothe):Hald, Abraham, hald up thin hand, ne sla thu noht tin wenchel; Nu wat I that tu draedest God, and lufest God with herte; Tac thaer an shep baften thin bac, and offre it for thin wenchel. And Abraham tha snath that shep, and let his sune libben; For that he wolde ben to God hersum on alle wise."

*If the accuracy of Mr. Guest's transcript may be relied upon (which it probably may), Ormin's spelling, as it stands in the MS., is by no means uniformly accordant with his own rule. In the short passage to be immediately quoted (to pass over questionable cases) we have tac in l. 1, and tacc in l. 13; it in l. 6, and itt everywhere else; that in l. 8, and thatt in l. 9, and elsewhere; onn allterr in l. 2, and on allterr in l. 6; with in l. 7, and withth in l. 9, and witth in l. 12; forr that in l. 8, and forr thatt in l. 15; wolde in l. 9, wollde in l. 8 and l. 15.

That is, in our present English :

God said thus to Abraham:-Take Isaac, thine little-child,
And slay it as it were an sheep, and lay it upon [the] altar,
And burn it all to ashes there, and offer it me for gift.
And Abraham was forthwith bound [engaged in proceeding]
to do [the] Lord's will,

And took his son soon anon, and bound him foot and hand,*
And laid it upon [the] altar so, and drew his sword [out] of

sheath,

And heaved the sword up with his hand to smite it to death; For that he would be to God obedient in all wise.

And God saw that he would [was willing to] slay the child with sword's edge,

And said thus to Abraham [that wot thou well for sooth]; Hold, Abraham, hold up thine hand, nor slay thou not thine little-child;

Now know I that thou dreadest God, and lovest God with

heart;

Take there an sheep behind thine back, and offer it for thine little-child.

And Abraham then slew the sheep, and let his son live;
For that he would be to God obedient in all wise.

It is impossible to compare the extracts that have been given from Layamon and the Ormulum without being led to entertain the strongest doubts as to the correctness of the common assumption that they are works of the same age. They do not exhibit the language in the same stage, or, at least, in the same state. The grammar of Layamon is half Saxon, or more than half Saxon; it may be questioned if that of the Ormulum have retained a vestige of what is distinctively Saxon. If it were certain that the two works were of the same age,

* Mr. Guest translates "feet and hands,” understanding the e in hande to be the sign of the plural.