the Early English text at once set aside the supposition that
Simon of Ghent (Bishop of Salisbury from 1297 to 1315) was the original
author of the work. The copy in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, I have
not seen, but of the three copies in the British Museum I feel confident
that the one marked Cleopatra C. vi. was actually written before Bishop
Simon of Ghent had emerged from the nursery. This copy is not only the
oldest, but the most curious, from the corrections and alterations made in
it by a somewhat later hand, the chief of which are noticed in the printed
edition. The collation, however, of this MS. might have been, with
advantage, made more minutely, for at present many readings are passed
over. Thus, at p. 8., for _unweote_ the second hand has _congoun_; at p.
62., for _herigen_ it has _preisen_; at p. 90., for _on cheafle_, it reads
_o muthe_, &c. The original hand has also some remarkable variations, which
would cause a suspicion that this was the first draft of the author's work.
Thus, at p. 12., for _scandle_, the first hand has _schonde_; at p. 62.,
for _baldeliche_ it reads _bradliche_; at p. 88., for _nout for_, it has
_anonden_, and the second hand _aneust_; at p. 90., for _sunderliche_ it
reads _sunderlepes_, &c. All these, and many other curious variations, are
not noticed in the printed edition. On the fly-leaf of this MS. is written,
in a hand of the time of Edward I., as follows: "_Datum abbatie et
conventui de Leghe per Dame M. de Clare._" The lady here referred to was
doubtless Maud de Clare, second wife of Richard de Clare, Earl of Hereford
and Gloucester, who, at the beginning of the reign of Edward I., is known
to have changed the Augustinian Canons of Leghe, in Devonshire, into an
abbess and nuns of the same order; and it was probably at the same period
she bestowed this volume on them. The conjecture of Mr. Morton, that Bishop
Poore, who died in 1237, might have been the original author of the _Ancren
Riwle_, is by no means improbable, and deserves farther inquiry. The error
as to Simon of Ghent is due, in the first place, not to Dr. Smith, but to
Richard James (Sir Robert Cotton's librarian), who wrote on the fly-leaves
of all the MSS. in the Cottonian Library a note of their respective
contents, and who is implicitly followed by Smith. Wanley is more blamable,
and does not here evince his usual critical accuracy, but (as remarked by
Mr. Morton) he could only have looked at a few pages of