Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
The contradictory opinions, which our ablest philological antiquaries have advanced with respect to the leading characteristics by which the poetry of our Anglo Saxon ancestors was distinguished from their prose, will I trust plead my excuse for trespassing upon the time of the Society of Antiquaries, by offering to its attention a few cursory observations on that subject. They are suggested principally by the perusal of two very interesting documents contained in the Exeter Manuscript, some extracts from which I have already had the honour of transmitting through your kind intervention.
page 258 note a See the preface to Tyrwhitt's Chaucer.
page 259 note a Of this the edition of Cædmon, published by the learned Junius, will afford an accurate specimen; as also will the Judith printed at the end of Thwaitcs's Heptateuch, a book of somewhat more common occurrence.
page 260 note a I have thrown into the following note a few more specimens from Wanley's Catalogue illustrative of the positions suggested in the text. The first and second will afford also an entertaining example of the fondness shewn by our Saxon ancestors for introducing into their compositions the few Greek phrases with which they were acquainted.
page 263 note c Cædmon, p. 105.
page 263 note d Id.