CHAPTER VI. It is with pleasure that we notice the activity which the clergy and dignitaries of the church displayed in the promotion of the Saxon learning. William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle, and Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, were very zealous in the cause. We find them both encouraging Hickes, by obtaining subscriptions for his Thesaurus, and in recommending the work amongst their friends and correspondents. Bishop Gibson we have already noticed as the editor of the Saxon Chronicle. An edition of the Saxon Laws, it is supposed, he had at one time intended; and to him, perhaps, are we indebted for suggesting the foundation of an Anglo-Saxon lecture at Oxford. Bishop Nicolson, in particular, was an ardent promoter of the Northern learning. Every one acquainted with English history must have seen his "Historical Library," and have felt what a help, in the beginning of their studies, that book has been to them. The bias of his mind towards these studies might have arisen from the circumstance of his transcribing Junius's large Lexicon for Bishop Fell, when he was a very young man. His first attempt in the Saxon appears to have been a grammar of that tongue, to which allusion is thus made in the English Historical Library: "Bishop Fell was earnest with Dr. Marshall (late rector of Lincoln College) to draw up a [Saxon] Grammar; and he devolved the work upon one much more unfit for the em * * Life of Nicolson, prefixed to his Correspondence, 2 vols. 8vo, 1809. The authority is a note of Humphrey Wanley, in his own copy of the Historical Library, in the Bodleian Library. G ployment, who had made some collections to that purpose.' An edition of the Saxon Chronicle was another of his intended labours, but, from the causes already stated, it devolved upon another. In 1703 his opinion was solicited by Smith, respecting an edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. He promoted and encouraged the publication of Wilkins's edition of the Anglo-Saxon Laws, bestowing a pension on the editor to assist him whilst preparing the work for the press. It would appear also, that some plan for the establishment of an Anglo-Saxon lecture in each of the Universities, had been in contemplation, and which received his recommendation, besides that of Gibson and others. On Dr. Wilkins's solicitation he wrote a dissertation on the Feudal Law of the Saxons, which is prefixed to Wilkins's Leges Anglo-Saxonicæ. His residence at such a distance from the metropolis probably was the reason why he never engaged in the editing of any AngloSaxon works; but his advice was often solicited, and freely given, on almost every publication relating to that language which was undertaken, or issued from the press, during the earlier portion of the eighteenth century.† Several minor works about this period may be mentioned, as illustrating the activity of the Saxonists of England, resulting from the publication of Hickes's Thesaurus, and the improved means which had been afforded, by the printing of that work and others, for the acquisition of the language. In 1713, John Chamberlayne printed a collection of the Lord's Prayer in various languages, in which were inserted several Anglo-Saxon versions. To this work Bishop Nicolson contributed a Preface, and Dr. Hickes had also been applied to for an introduction; but having been made acquainted with that which Nicolson wrote, he declined it. A title-page prepared for this work, differing materially from the one used, is in the Harleian Library. There is also a list of the versions, amounting to 130 in number, which is wanting in the • Nicolson's Historical Library, p. 42. Folio, 1736. Nicolson's Correspondence, passim. printed work.* An edition had appeared some years before. Soon after the publication of this improved work, it was pirated and published at Amsterdam in the year 1715. Prefixed to Sir John Fortescue's "Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy," 8vo, 1714, is a very interesting Preface on the utility of the Anglo-Saxon Language, and of the Study of the Anglo-Saxon Laws, written by John Fortescue-Aland, which appears to have often been a source of information to others, which they have not scrupled to use without acknowledgment. The collections which Elstob had made for the AngloSaxon Laws were for some time in his hands, lent to him by Miss Elstob, for we find Wilkins writing to his great patron, Bishop Nicolson, expressing his wishes to be favoured with a sight of them. In the year 1719 appeared Harris's History of Kent, containing the Will of Byrhtric,† in Saxon, with an interlinear English translation; and the laws of Ethelberht, Hlothere, and Eadric, now printed for the first time from the Textus Roffensis,‡ with John de Laet's Latin version corrected, printed in parallel columns; to which was added the Will of Ælfric, archbishop of Canterbury, Saxon and English.§ In another part of the work we have an account in Saxon of the maintenance of the bridge-work at Rochester, (first printed by Lambarde in his Perambulation of Kent in 1576,) with an English translation.|| The whole of the Saxon in this work is printed in Roman letter, the author justly remarking, "there being but few letters in which the Saxon differs from the present English character, I have thought best to print it in that character."¶ In the ensuing year, Hearne printed the "Textus Roffensis," from a transcript, now in the Harleian Library.** *MS. Harl. 6841. 7. Harris's Kent, p. 201-3. See also Lambarde's Perambulation, p. 357. Ed. 1576. Hickes's Diss. Epist. p. 51. Harris's Kent, p. 401, 404, 410. § Ibid. 515. || Ibid. 260. ¶ Ibid. 201. ** MS. Harl. 6523. Fairly written on 56 leaves of vellum. Subjoined are nine smaller leaves, "Interrogatio Sigewoulfi Presbiteri," in Saxon. A short catalogue of Saxon MSS., already noticed, he also printed the same year, at the end of Robert de Avesbury's History of Edward III., entitled, "Libri Saxonici qui ad manus Joannis Joscelini venerunt.' The same year the Rev. John Johnson, vicar of Cranbrook, published " A Collection of all the Ecclesiastical Laws, Canons, Answers, &c. of the Church of England, from its first foundation to the Conquest, that have hitherto been published in the Latin and Saxon tongues. Now first translated into English, with Explanatory Notes," &c. 2 vols. 8vo, 1720. The translation appears to have been made by himself. The copy of Spelman's Laws, which Somner had enriched with valuable notes and emendations, being of considerable use to him during its progress. The edition of the Anglo-Saxon Laws, undertaken by Dr. Wilkins, soon after the death of Elstob, was published in folio, 1721. Many particulars of the work, during its progress, are to be found in the letters of Wilkins to Bishop Nicolson, published amongst the correspondence of the latter. The first notice is under date of August 1716. "The sum of the Saxon pension may be what it will. I am infinitely obliged to your lordship for bestowing it upon me, and shall strive to deserve it by publishing what your lordship shall approve of. I do not question if, in progress of time, I could print something in that study, worth his majesty's dedication, a grant for a perpetual establishment of a royal lecturer in both universities might easier be obtained than it seems it can now."† He then states that the Saxon Laws, which, according to Dr. Hickes's proposal, he was to compare, collate, augment, and illustrate with the German and Danish laws, had been begun by Mr. Elstob; and, hearing that Elstob's papers had passed into the hands of his sister, he solicits his lordship's intercession with Judge Fortescue-Aland to obtain a sight of them, adding, that by winter he should forward a plan of his design, and a specimen for his lordship's approval. He was not only patronized by Bishop Nicolson, but by Dr. Timothy Godwin, bishop of Kilmore, and Archbishop • Roberti de Avesbury, p. 267-8. 1 Wake; for in one of his letters he says, " His grace promises me some Notes upon the Saxon Laws, which I hope will persuade my lord bishop of Lincoln [Gibson] and Mrs. Elstob to communicate whatever observations and collections they may have made."* The collection of Elstob he could not prevail upon his sister to let him have in sufficient time to be of any use; for he writes, on one occasion, "I want nothing of his whole collection but the transcript of Somner's Notes upon King Henry's laws, which I or any body else that can read Latin may copy at Canterbury. I would fain save my eyes in such a transcription." We find Wilkins, in the following year, soliciting Nicolson for a dissertation upon the Saxon Laws, which he afterwards wrote for the work; and Baron Fortescue "promised to give an abstract, with some occasional additions to his preface, as far as it in particular relates to the Saxon Laws." Notwithstanding the encouragement which he received, and the want of such a work at the time, the editor assures us that he lost by its publication nearly a hundred pounds, expenses which he had incurred in gathering materials together; but he expresses his readiness to be employed upon any other Saxon work, as soon as the edition of the Laws was completed.§ Wise, in the year 1722, reprinted Asser's "Annales Rerum Gestarum Ælfredi Magni," to which he added King Alfred's Preface to St. Gregory's Pastoral, from the Junian MS. LIII., with a Latin translation. The same year, a valuable edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History was published by Smith at Cambridge, containing, first, the Latin text; then the AngloSaxon translation of King Alfred, followed by a few charters and other instruments, in the same language. The year following, Hearne published a volume of considerable value • Wilkins to Nicolson, Sept. 26, 1716, vol. ii. 448-9. † Ibid. ii. 462. Ibid. vol. ii. 470. The second edition of Fortescue on Monarchy, which came out in 1719, is here meant. § Dr. Wilkins was also the author of an "Essay upon the English Tongue, showing its derivation from the Saxon," &c.; if we may credit the authority of Mr. Thomas Thorpe, in whose catalogue of 1400 MSS. 1836, appears for sale, the unpublished autograph MS. together with Dr. Wilkins's Common Place Books. |