PREFACE. IT has been the fate of Anglo-Saxon learning, since the earliest undisputed facts of its revival in this country, to have had alternate periods of cultivation and neglect. The possession by the monks of Tavistock of a fount of Saxon type, and the issue of books from a Saxon press would appear to rest on tradition alone, there being no surviving evidence of the quality, extent, or even existence of their productions. The honours of the first revival of Anglo-Saxon learning at the. commencement of the Reformation appear to be justly shared between the royal antiquary John Leland, and his friend Robert Talbot, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and Matthew Parker, raised to the primacy on the accession of Queen Elizabeth. The two former take the lead as collectors of MSS., and the latter in giving to the world the first specimen of Anglo-Saxon1, and the 1 A book entitled "The Defence of Priests' Marriages," written, as Strype supposes, either by Sir Rd. Moryson or John Ponet Bishop of Winchester, both of whom died in exile at Strasburg, was printed with a preface by Parker in 1562. In a few copies of this work, intended probably for presents, are enlargements first book known to have been printed in that language in England. The well-directed exertions of the Archbishop, through his agents both in this country and abroad, led, as is well known, to the discovery and preservation of many invaluable monuments and remains. While securing these from further dispersion by providing for their being deposited in the public library, and in that of Corpus Christi College at Cambridge, his employment and patronage of contemporaries produced important fruits. To the labours thus encouraged of John Joscelyn, the Primate's secretary, of William Lambarde, record-keeper of the Tower of London, and of Foxe the Martyrologist, we owe the first editions respectively of Elfric's Paschal Homily2, with his two Epistles to Wulf in which some of the allegations," according to Strype," are set down in the Saxon tongue." v. Strype's L. of Abp. Parker, b. iv. c. xlv. vol. ii. pp. 445-452. 8vo. Oxford, 1821. 2 The Paschal Homily and Epistles of Ælfric, with the Lord's Prayer from the 6th chap. of St. Matthew, preceded by vv. 7, 8, 9, and followed by the Creed and nine commandments from the Decalogue, as prefixed to the copies of Alfred's Laws, the whole being accompanied with an English translation, are contained in a book which bears this title, "A Testimonie of Antiqvitie, shewing the auncient fayth in the Church of England touching the sacrament of the body and bloude of the Lord here publikely preached, and also receaued in the Saxons tyme, aboue 600. yeares agoe. Jeremie 6. Goe into the streetes, and inquyre for the olde way: and if it be the good and ryght way, then goe therin, that ye maye finde rest for your soules. But they say: we will not walke therein. Imprinted at London by John Day, dwelling ouer Aldersgate beneath S. Martyns. Cum priuilegio |