But Monsieur Leger, in 1669, speaks in another tone :~" That all the abovenamed originals (he says) were delivered to the said Sieur Morland, and by him deposited in the famous library of Cambridge, we do not need any more solemn voucher or proof than the declaration of it which he inserts with the list of them, pretixt to his history, printed in London in 1658." No living soul could have then disputed the veracity of Morland. For if the disappearance of the MSS. had been discovered, Leger could not have spoken thus on the subject, in this as well as other passages; and if it bad not, there was nothing in the declaration of Morland to move any scepticism. But this is the language of a conscious man, well knowing that their deposit at Cambridge had been transitory, and that they were not there at the moment when he was writing. By disclaiming the need of further vouchers and proofs, he reminds us to examine the transaction narrowly. Thus do the guilty very often betray themselves; for unaccused innocence never professes to be innocent. If the book remained at Cambridge but a few months or weeks, some people must have seen it, and would bear in mind its general appearance. When a black duck with a white neck dives under water, and some yards off there comes up a black duck with a white neck, it is naturally supposed to be the same duck. And the like conjecture would arise if a manuscript vanished mysteriously from one library, and shortly afterwards an exactly similar one made its appearance in another library. Let us observe how honest Jean Leger handles this rather ticklish topic :-.“ Extrait d'un Traité intitulé la Noble Leiçon datté de l'an 1100, qui se trouve tout entier en un livre de parchemin ecrit a la main, en vielle lettre Gothique, dont se sont trouvés deux exemplaires, l'un desquels se conserve a Cambridge et l'autre en la Bibliotheque de Geneve.” Of poems and other works copies are made; and each copy must be written on vellum, paper, or some particular substance, and in some particular character. But here the work itself, and the copies made of it, are strangely mixed up together. The words might signify that there was (in some unnamed place) one parchment and black-letter original, from which two copies (of unnamed materials and character) had been made, and sent to Cambridge and Geneva. If indeed they have any proper and grammatical meaning, it is that. But Monsieur Leger's intention was, to insinuate that he had found two twin-sister manuscripts of the same poems, equal in age, and similar in all things, and had sent one to England and the other to Geneva. The improbability of such a circumstance, the questions it was not unlikely to call forth, and the monitions of conscience, deterred him from saying it out plainly and grammatically, and caused him to stammer it forth in such prevaricating phrase. Θέλω τί τ' ειπείν, αλλά κωλύει a ME If the above-cited words are ambiguous and suspicious in themselves, they become still more so when we consider how they are employed by him. They introduce a long garbled extract of the Noble a Lesson, occupying four pages. He had previously informed us that it, and all his other specimens, were taken from original MSS. But, in point of fact, he has copied the text as in Morland's previously printed edition (to the existence of which he makes no allusion), with some alterations out of his own head. The words in question are to serve the reader for his immediate information, whence the extract is taken. Yet no one reading them can guess whether he took it from the Cambridge MS., or from the Geneva MS., or from some common original. Sure never did man (unfettered by consciousness) express himself on such wise.† Curious as was the coincidence of one man furnishing two libraries with two similar and most ancient MSS. of the same works, from valleys of which the extent was small and the literature scanty, it did not move their fortunate discoverer to give any details of it. But it rather operated to seal his lips in mystery. Black-letter parchment No. 1 was obtained by him and Antoine Leger, and given to the commissary of Cromwell before 1658; but there is no hint of where it was found. Black-letter parchment No. 2 was found in the valley of Pragela in Dauphiné, and taken to Geneva in 1662; but not a syllable of when it was found. The truth is, that No. 1 was procured by Leger in the valley of Pragela; and that No. 2 was procured by him before A.D. 1658; and that whatever can truly be predicated of one may be predicated of the other. The contents of the Cambridge MS., as described by Morland, do not tally with the account of the existing state of the Geneva MS., as collected from what Leger and Raynouard say. There is no printed index to the contents of the latter. For we know Mons. Leger's brief enumeration to be very grossly defective; and Monsieur Raynouard's professedly relates only to the poetry. We will first give the reader a view of the points in which the two supposed MSS. are described as tallying. In p. 25. + [The Editor is not sorry to be thus imperatively, though not perhaps at first sight obviously, called upon to mention the "GRANGER SOCIETY," which has been recently formed under the presidency of the Marquis of Salisbury. Its object is, "to publish a series of ancient English portraits, and family pictures, accurately copied from the originals, and engraved in the best style of art," in a manner and form which will no doubt be cheerfully explained to any one who applies to W. J. Thoms, Esq., Sec. pro tem., 25, Parliament Street. Of the value of portraits as keys to the works (whether written or acted) of those whom they represent, there cannot be two opinions. Put Bishop Burnet opposite Archbishop Laud, let them look at each other, and look at them both, and if you do not learn the specific facts, which you may obtain from studying their lives or their works, yet you will get a commentary on them almost as valuable as the facts themselves. In like manner, look at the large portrait of Leger prefixed to his book on the Vaudois. It appears to be well executed, and has all the air of a likeness, but what a thing it is! One might almost defy any one who has as much feeling of physiognomy as most children of eighteen months, to believe anything on the word of the original. It seems as if it were put at the entrance for a "cave canem." Even before one had read his impudent ignorant book, one would be inclined to parody the trite lines, and say, "If on his fame some dark suspicions fall, Look in his face, and you'll believe them all."-Ed. The Morland MS. The Geneva MS. 1. Glosa Pater, or the Explication of Explication de l'oraison Dominicale. the Lord's Prayer. 3. Doctor, or divers passages, etc. Le Docteur. 7. Novel Confort. Lo Novel Confort. 8, Novel Sermon. Lo Novel Sermon. 9. La Noble Leyçon. La Nobla Leyczon. 10. Pair Eternal. Lo Payre Eternal. 11. Barca. La Barca. 12. Au Explication of the Ten Com- Des X Commandements. mandments. 13. An Explication of the Articles of tbe Du Symb. des Apôtres. A postles' Creed. 19. Several Sermons upon several texts Quelques Sermons. of Scripture. In these ten points the black-letter manuscript at Geneva corresponds with the black-letter manuscript nobody knows where. The nine following, which are in the index to Morland's volume B., have not been quoted as existing in the Geneva volume that contains the poems, and therefore we cannot assume that they are contained in it. But as we possess no index of the contents of it, there is no reason to assume that they are absent from it. They all appear to be old Waldensian, and not Protestant-Vaudois. 2. Trecenas. 4. Penas. 5. Li goy de Paradis. 6. Epistle to the Faithful. 14. A treatise on Vice and Mortal Sins. 15. Concerning the Seven Gifts of the Spirit. 16. On the three Theological and the four Cardinal Virtues. 17. On tbe goods of Fortune, Nature, and Grace. 18. On the Six Honourable Things in this World. As we can pronounce nothing concerning the presence or absence of these nine articles, they shew neither discrepancy nor conformity. Lastly, the following four are quoted from the Geneva book, which are not named in Morland's index, of which two are Waldensian poems, and two are of the Protestant-Vaudois tracts fraudulently antedated. Lo Despreczi del Mont. When we consider that Morland can scarce have credit for being able to read correctly a page of old Provençal MS. in Gothic letters, it would excite no great surprise if his list of the various contents of such a volume was incomplete. Especially as he did not publish any of his four poems, Nos. 7, 8, 10, 11, or quote a line from them, or shew any indications of having read them. His index was probably defective in respect of the two poems, owing to his not observing where one copy of verses ended, and a fresh one commenced. However, the occurrence of two Protestant tracts in the Genevese volume is more remarkable. There is no reason in the world to suppose that they who abstracted so precious a document from Cambridge held it quite sacred, and took no precaution to alter its contents, by unstitch ing it, and then doing it up again, either in the same or in a different binding. It is apposite to remark, that the MS. books of Morland already mentioned as having been carried out of the country and deposited in the hands of Protestants, are most fully ascertained, by those who have had access to examine them, to be in the binding of the country in which they now are. One of the treatises, supernumerary in the Geneva book, as compared with Morland's index, had been the article 6 of Morland's lost volume A., entitled, "A Treatise against Tramettament, or Traditions and Ordinances of Men, as not consonant to the Holy Scriptures." Upon the whole, there is great reason to believe that the volume now in Geneva library is, in its essentials, the same which was for a few months at Cambridge, during the last illness of Oliver, and in the brief Protectorate of Richard. The dates harmonize perfectly; and the interval of time is no greater than common prudence would dictate to less practised hands. We trace the agency of the same individual throughout, and we observe in his language repeated indications of a self-betraying consciousness. The manuscripts are described in the same terms, and as of the same materials and writing. The conformity between their multifarious contents is great and striking. One of them is mysteriously and unaccountably gone; which establishes the corpus delicti, and so smooths the way to the ascertainment of person and place. Lastly, the opinion to which all this tends, that there exists, and long has existed, but one+ Waldensian copy of the poems of the sect, is supported by the language of J. P. Perrin concerning them: "Item, on nous a mis en main un livre de Poesie en langue Vaudoise, auquel sont les traités qui suivent: Une priere inscripte Nouvel Confort. Une rhithme des quatre sortes de semences mentionnés en l'Evangile. Une autre intitulée Barque. Et une appellée la Noble Leçon. Duquel livre fait mention le Sieur de Sainte Aldegonde." The various readings that at first seem to diversify them may ultimately tend to identify these books. It is morally certain that Morland could not handle Piémontese or Provençal poems in a Gothic codex of 450 years ago, either as a translator, or as a reader. In fact, he never attempted to touch the other and finer poems. But it had been arranged that he should print and translate the Noble Lesson; because that work was indispensable to the party, for its precious words "mil e cent ancz," the groundwork of all their chronological chicane. The Legers must have furnished him with a transcript of it in common writing, for the use of the printer; and also with a translation into French, to give him some idea of the meaning. But the said transcript was inaccurate and slovenly, with deviations from the text, where it was hard to make out. The defects of the transcript are much aggravated by the printer, and by the editor's incapacity to correct the press. Such seems to be the fact respecting Morland's * Above, Vol. xviii., p. 607. + Of which Usher had a Protestant-Vaudois transcript, of moderate correctness. Hist. Vaud., c. vii., p. 59. VOL. XIX.-Jan. 1841. D text. For two such ancient MSS., as we are told of, would be, if not of equal, of comparable authority, and would present some alternation of good readings. But the Cambridge text is condemned throughout by its curiosa infelicitas. Its copyist has, with the minutest number* of exceptions, marred whatever he changed. Sometimes the rhyme is entirely destroyed, and sometimes the sense. And, what should weigh most with us, he had no perception of the metre, or rhythm, and seldom fails to do it injury. Whereas the old Waldic scribe, writing when that mode of teaching was still in use, should have known the cadence of this popular recitative. In collating Morland's text, it is to be feared Monsieur Raynouard wasted his learned pains on trash; as when some schoolmaster, who has set a truant boy the first Eclogue to write out, collates page after page of blotted blunders, just to ascertain that it is really Virgil and not Johnny Gilpin. It may well be questioned if such mean scholars, as they who primed him were, could themselves read the MS. correctly; and equally so, whether he could correctly read their copy. Jean Leger was probably the person who furnished him with the transcript that was sent to the press. For that author has printed a large portion of the Noble Lesson, with the fraudulent suppression of thirty-seven lines that were incompatible with his theory; and in order to close up and hide that deep gash in the text, and obtain a tolerable juncture of the two lips of the wound, it was absolutely necessary for him to expunge the word sinon, except, in v. 455,+ and substitute mas, but; and he accordingly did so. Now we find it so written by the English editor. The word had been substituted aforehand, with a view to the garbled extract that Leger meditated printing, and perhaps had already made; and we see his hand in it. The manuscript copy on paper, which belonged to Usher, and seems to have been made full three centuries ago, agrees with the genuine codex; and we find nowhere, but in printed editions of a non-forthcoming manuscript, that reading of which Leger's trickery stood in need. The case of the variations may be better appreciated by observing Monsieur Leger's conduct upon the same subject, but on another occasion. He gave (as we have observed) specimens artfully garbled and rejoined, from the Noble Lesson, and announced it as original MS. text. But he really reprinted the same text of it which Morland had already printed. Yet how did he do so ? He freely altered it, whenever it suited either his taste and judgment, or his sinister ends. Out of eleven alterations, important enough to be worth reckoning, only one (that in v. 76) coincides with the manuscript. The rest are all entirely out of Monsieur Leger's own brain. They are as follows: a Perhaps no others besides vss. 130 and 348 ; in the former of wbich the words inserted (similar to those in vs. 11, 170, 340, and 367) are indifferent; and in the latter seem rather preferable, provi that “a mal tenir” will bear the meaning given to it. + Being line 3rd of Leger's Hist. Gen., p. 30. |