PREFACE.
Of all the unpublished Old English[1] texts, the present is perhaps the most important. Preserved in two MSS. written during Alfred's lifetime, it affords data of the highest value for fixing the grammatical peculiarities of the West-Saxon dialect of the ninth century, and, although several texts belonging to the same period have been published, the present edition is the first one of any of Alfred's works which is based on contemporary MSS.: all the editions hitherto published give but a garbled reflection of his language. The result has been that all editors, both at home and abroad, have, with one exception,[2] persisted in ignoring the genuine West-Saxon MSS., dismissing their most constant and characteristic peculiarities as 'Mercian,' 'Northern,' 'dialectic' (whatever that may mean), 'abnormal,' or ascribing them to the innate depravity of the scribes.
It is solely with a view to prevent the student's mind from being biassed by these irrational prejudices, that I have given in
- ↑ I use 'Old English' throughout this work to denote the unmixed, inflectional stage of the English language, commonly known by the barbarous and unmeaning title of 'Anglo-Saxon.'
- ↑ I allude to Mr. Cockayne: a reference to the preface of the first volume of his 'Leechdoms' (p. xcii) will show that the real state of the case was rightly understood by him many years ago: his remarks do not seem, however, to have made any impression on English philologists.
