ABSTRACT

W.Carew Hazlitt’s four-volume 1871 re-edition of Thomas Warton’s ninety-year-old History of English Poetry from the Twelfth to the Close of the Sixteenth Century (already once brought up to date as regards Anglo-Saxon by Richard Price, in 1824, see item 22 above) is an odd production, which at this late date sticks firmly to the obsolete long ‘s’, and is disfigured by continuous and confusing editorial additions from different hands. It cannot be said that the contribution of Henry Sweet (1845-1912), the ‘Sketch of the History of Anglo-Saxon Poetry’ prefaced to volume 2, pp. 3-19, is of much value, for all his later eminence. Like so many English scholars of this period, he begins with a paraphrase (p. 9-10), and ends with some specimen translations (p. 11-12)—the ‘hunted hart’ piece once again (1357b-1376a), a part of Hrothgar’s ‘sermon’ (1724b-1768), the last few lines (3156-3182). In between there is a perfunctory, if as usual slightly recalcitrant restatement of German scholarship (pp. 10-11).