ABSTRACT

It will certainly be to all times a difficult problem to determine how, when year after year so many persons have been taking up this pursuit, when one of our Universities actually possesses a Professorship expressly meant for its encouragement, so little should at this moment have resulted from the efforts made. The purpose for which Saxon was called out of its long sleep by Archbishop Parker, was avowedly theological. Foxe and W.L’Isle used it under his auspices merely to confound their political and religious opponents on the Popish side. But it was never once suffered to relapse into its ancient limbo, and while Wheeloc, Spelman, Junius, Hickes, Gibson, and Rawlinson, are remembered, it cannot be said to have wanted severe and zealous pursuers [see Berkhout and Gatch 1982, for the names above]. Yet, in spite of the many who before and after them put their hand to the plough, the work has never proceeded: and had it not been for the industry of Danes and Germans, and those who drew from the well-heads of their learning, we might still be where we were, with idle texts, idle grammars, idle dictionaries, and the consequences of all these-idle and ignorant scholars. The only approach which we can make to a solution of this strange problem is; that the study being a little out of the way of men’s usual pursuits, has been stared at and wondered at; and that those who did give themselves to it and become mégala thaumata [‘great marvels’] thereby, have had their heads turned: and having so lost the better part of their senses, have entirely forgotten what they did when they first began Greek or Latin; viz. that they first learnt at great length and with much pains, the grammar of these tongues; and then by means of the Dictionary and the Authors, having become competent scholars,

work in picking up a little of the grammar, the great majority certainly have not. We could mention, were we so inclined, Doctors, yea, Professors of Anglo-Saxon, whose doings in the way of false concords, false etymology, and ignorance of declension, conjugation and syntax, would if perpetrated by a boy in the second form of a public school, have richly merited and been duly repaid by a liberal application of ferula or direr birch. To this alone we owe it, that the Saxon Poems have, comparatively speaking, been little ventured upon by our Viri Clarissimi; and far more that, till Rask published his Grammar of the language, there was not an elementary book upon the subject fit to be named. [Goes on to attack Lye’s Dictionary (1772), and praise Thorpe’s Analecta.]

[‘I.J.’ sent an angry reply from Oxford, printed under the heading ‘Anglo-Saxon Scholars’ in the August issue, p. 140: ‘T.W.’ counterattacked Kemble’s ability a month later in ‘The Saxon Scholars of England’, GM NS 2 (Sept. 1834), 259-60.]

[The letter opens with a defence of Lye and ‘my friend, the late Professor Conybeare’.] But I have not done with your Critic, who is so dependent upon the leading strings of Danes and Germans, that he ventures not a step without them. Where they support he is bold. He seems to be so fond of the broad figure, and dowdy dress of Germans, that nothing will satisfy him but the clothing of the Saxon vowels in their dress. [Gives examples of umlauts and accents sometimes used by Kemble.] Is this anything like plain honest English, and the still plainer Saxon? Even Mr Kemble has not gone to the same length in his accentuation of Beowulf; but he has had the presumption, without knowing any thing on the subject, to add innumerable accents which are not in the MS. He will answer, I know they ought to be there. The fact is, he knows nothing about the matter; for he prints a considerable part of his Beowulf before he discovers he has been committing a serious error in every page. Then, instead of honestly confessing his ignorance, he honourably lays the blame upon Rask. I give you his own language. ‘I have upon Dr. Rask’s authority written wæs, eram, with a long æ. During the time the sheets were passing through the press I fully satisfied my mind that that lamented scholar had erred, and through the rest of the book I have not accented the praet. sing.’ [note: ‘Preface to Beowulf, p. xxv, note 6’, see item 30 above]. It must be observed, that this is not the first edition of Beowulf. It was first published by Thorkelin, with a Latin translation and notes; much of the poem has been translated into English by Mr Turner and the text corrected by an entire collation, and a considerable part of it translated by Conybeare. When much light had been thrown on the poem, Mr Kemble came and put all into darkness by publishing the mere text, loaded with German accents, without even common punctuation to guide the sense, or a word of translation or illustration. This is

do harm, to retard the progress of a study, to perplex and fill the mind with trouble, Mr Kemble’s Beowulf is assuredly that book.’