ABSTRACT

Mr Th. puts the age of the Cotton codex in the tenth century, on the inspection of his friend Thomas Astle, the British Royal Archivist. One cannot judge of that without looking for oneself; internal indications make this admittedly very probable. However, as regards the time at which the unknown author of the poem himself is supposed to have written, this reviewer cannot concur in Mr Th.’s opinion. That he places the scene of the poem in the third or not later than the fourth century is clear from the title-page; in order, then, to make a veritable Ossian out of his unknown author, he maintains that the latter was an eye-witness to the deeds of Hrothgar, Beowulf and Higelak, and that he gave the obituary-speech over Beowulf, killed in Jutland in 340. We shall not argue about the dating of Beowulf’s lifetime; but we do not know how to explain the passage on p. 208 (the only one that Mr Th. could have in mind) as a praise-speech delivered over Beowulf by the author of the Scyldeid; the author seems rather to say clearly the opposite: ‘High through my songs, his name will shine for evermore on Hronesness, which after that time the seafarers called Biowulfsburg.’ If the author knew that in later times Hronesness had received the name Biowulfsburg, then he could not well live in the times when the old name was still in common use? In general Mr Th. allows himself much too high an opinion of his poem.