SUMER IS ICUMEN IN (continued from vol. iii, p. 768)

While receiving with due respect the judgment of the writers already quoted, we cannot but feel that, in most cases, their authority is weakened, almost to worthlessness, by the certainty that it rests on evidence collected entirely at second-hand. Neither Forkel, de Coussemaker, nor Ambros, ever saw the original document; their statements, therefore, tend rather to confuse than to enlighten the enquirer. Still, great as are the anomalies with which the subject is surrounded, we do not believe them to be irreconcileable. Some critics have trusted to the peculiar counterpoint of the Eota, as the only safe guide to its probable antiquity. Others have laid greater stress upon the freedom of its melody. We believe that the one quality can only be explained by reference to the other, and that the student who considers them separately, and without special reference to the caligraphy of the MS., stands but a slender chance of arriving at the truth. We propose to call attention to each of these three points, beginning with that which seems to us the most important of all—the character and condition of the MS.

1. The style of the handwriting corresponds so closely with that in common use during the earlier half of the 13th century that no one accustomed to the examination of English MSS. of that period can possibly mistake it.