Page:The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle according to the Several Original Authorities Vol 1 (Original Texts).djvu/44

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xx
preface

again coincides with Manuscripts C, D., and E., with some variations. It is mutilated or illegible till it ends. It contains also various peculiar additions, chiefly relating to Kentish ecclesiastical affairs; of which the first occurs under A.D. 694. The Latin version follows the text, year by year, and it is generally very close, but it has occasionally insertions which apparently are not translations."[1]

G. "The Cottonian Manuscript, Otho B. xi. 2., from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to A.D. 1001, is in small folio, according to Wanley,[2] but now greatly shrunk by fire. This volume was supposed to have been entirely destroyed, but a considerable portion of Beda's Ecclesiastical History (No. 1.), and three damaged leaves of the Saxon Chronicle, in a hand apparently of the eleventh century (No. 2.), beginning A.D. 837 (823), and ending A.D. 871, have lately been recovered. This Manuscript formed the basis of Wheloc's edition, and a comparison of his text with such portions of the leaves as are readily legible, seems to show that he transcribed it very carefully. A transcript by Lambard, apparently from this copy, is among Usher's collections at Dublin."[3]

W. By this letter are indicated the references to Wheelocke's edition of the Chronicle.

In addition to the foregoing there yet remains to be noticed the Cottonian Manuscript, Tiberius A. iii. (fol. 175), consisting of a single leaf, bound up with other manuscripts of a heterogeneous and miscellaneous character, containing the genealogy of the West Saxon kings, from Cerdic to Eadward, son of Eadgar, with whom it ends abruptly; whence it appears probable that it was composed during the short reign of that

  1. Monumenta Historica Britannica, Preface, p. 76.
  2. Catalogus Librorum Septentrionalium, p. 219.
  3. Monumenta Historica Britannica, Preface, p. 77.