The present paper reprints the text of Dümmler's expert edition of the important and much studied Latin prose text by Otfrid of Weissenburg i. El., medieval Germany's Martin Opitz namely, a petition for episcopal approbation of his Liber Evangeliorum, addressed to his diocesan Liutbert, archbishop of Mainz (863–889). To this is joined an essay at a translation into English and a commentary. This document, commonly known as Ad Liutbertum—though it is without manuscript title—is one of five pieces closely connected with Otfrid's poem. These may be briefly described: there is an explanatory preface, like the poem itself, written in German verse and forming Bk. i, i, 1–126, of that work; it is commonly cited as Cur Scriptor from the MS heading “Cur Scriptor hunc librum Theotisce dictaverit.” The three remaining, all written in the verse of the poem, are dedicatory epistles in acrostichs and telestichs: “Ludovvico Orientalium Regnorum regi sit salus aeternal,” addressed to Ludwig the German (regn. 843–876) as king of the East-Frankish domains (Francia Orientalis), and “Salomoni episcopo Otfridus,” to Salomo, bishop of Constance (839–871). Similar in language and style is a less formal letter “Otfridus Uuizanburgensis monachus Hartmuate et Uuerinberto Sancti Galli monasterii monachis,” addressed to the St. Gall monks Hartmut (later abbot, 872–884) and Werinbert; this comes at the very end of the work, i.e., after Bk. v, xxv (“Conclusio voluminis totius”).

The obvious and very necessary distinction between learned and popular loan words was first made by A. Pogatscher in his Zur Lautlehre der griechischen, lateinischen und romanischen Lehnworte im Altenglischen. E. Sievers made a further division, realizing that a distinction, recognized by Pogatscher (for example, on p. 31), but not stressed by him sufficiently for Sievers's purposes, should be made between two classes of learned borrowings. With an approach somewhat different from that of Pogatscher, he at first distinguishes two groups, loan words (Lehnwörter) and foreign words (Fremdwörter), designating by the former term such words as are a part of the vocabulary of living communication and bear a more or less native stamp; by the latter, such words as exist for the most part only in learned literature and are distinctly felt as foreign, such as proper names like Caesar and Suetonius. The loan words of his first division Sievers further subdivides into popular loan words, the earliest of all borrowings, and learned loan words, taken over later than the popular words and owing their adoption to more or less cultural influences such as, in the case of the Old English learned borrowings, the church. These last are to be distinguished, he points out, from foreign words in that they are part of a living vocabulary, even though their use is limited to a certain class of speakers. What Sievers has done simply amounts to extracting from Pogatscher's learned loan words those bookish words which are distinctly felt as foreign and making of them a third class, which he calls foreign words.

La Legende de Berte,“ says Léon Gautier, ”est née tardivement et les érudits n'en ont pas encore trouvé de trace réelle avant le comencement du xiiie siècle. Le plus ancien texte où on la rencontre est celui de la Chronique Saintongeaise.“ Gautier's statement remains essentially true today. This article will attempt to indicate some historical reasons that may account for the late origin of the legend, and at the same time try to establish the historical prototype after whom the epic Pépin was fashioned.

Towneley XX, the Conspirado (et Capcio), is one of the most composite plays in the Towneley manuscript. Not only does it show the hand of several poets and editors, but it covers the ground of three plays as registered at York—the Conspiracy, the Last Supper, and the Capture—the last of these including the Agony. It opens with six Wakefield stanzas, which are, rather certainly, the last writing upon it. These stanzas are spoken by Pilate and are in the typical Pilate vein, beginning with a demand for silence, followed by elaborate self-boasting, and then by the theme of the play, Pilate's fear of Jesus, who had declared that “if he lyf a yere / dystroy oure law must vs.” These stanzas offer no problem.

Thomas Campion was a gifted pioneer in the polished and sophisticated seventeenth-century lyric that freed English poetry from the adoration of conventional sonnet mistresses. But the significance of his contribution is obscured when his authentic work is weighted down with the worn-out motifs and frequently slipshod workmanship of the poems appearing in Part ii of A Booke of Ayres. This songbook was brought out in 1601 by Philip Rosseter, lutenist, later King's Musician and Manager of the Children of the Queen's Revels, and Campion's lifelong friend. It was divided, as Rosseter took pains to make clear, into two parts, the first consisting of twenty-one songs by Campion, the second of twenty-one more—“the rest of the Songs contained in this Booke, made by Philip Rosseter.” No one has denied to Rosseter the musical settings of this second part, several of them among the most charming of the period; but almost everyone has kidnaped the lyrics from those settings and presented them as a free gift to Campion, who, I think, might not greatly relish the honor.

The neo-Latin Cornus of Erycius Puteanus (Hendrik van der Putten) has been much neglected as a source of Milton's masque, in which Comus, the post-classical god of revelry, appears as the central figure. As early as 1790, Sir John Hawkins, in a note on Johnson's Life of Milton suggested Puteanus's fantasy as a source of Milton's fiction. To date, however, no serious attempt has been made to trace Milton's debt to this curious extravaganza, although its probable influence upon Milton has been universally recognized.

Cursory critics of John Oldham have quite correctly noted that his Satyrs Upon the Jesuits are distinguished from the rougher popular satire of the early Restoration by their more pretentious literary quality, the generalized nature of the satire, and the greater concentration and force of the invective. But beyond noting Oldham's acknowledged indebtedness to Persius, Horace, Ben Jonson, and Buchanan's Franciscanus, such critics have been generally somewhat vague on the subject of his literary patterns. Currently accepted views seem to be divided between two theories, stressing the classical or the neo-classical elements in his work: (1) According to one view, advanced by Mr. C.W. Previté-Orton, the lurid, violent tone of the poems is derived directly from Juvenal. (2) According to the analysis of Mr. A. F. B. Clark, the direct inspiration of the Satyrs was Boileau's Le Lutrin, which Oldham was engaged in translating at the time he began their composition. It is obvious from a survey of critical comments on Oldham that no English influence has been given much consideration, and that Oldham's almost complete separation from the popular English school of political satire has been generally taken for granted.

When Dryden read the manuscript of William Congreve's Old Bachelor in 1692, he pronounced it the best “first play” that he had ever seen. Dryden's appreciation of Congreve's first play has been seconded by later critics. Dr. Jonson, for instance, found the comedy “the work of very powerful and fertile faculties; the dialogue ... quick and sparkling, the incidents such as seize the attention, and the wit so exuberant that it ‘o'er-informs its tenement.‘” Macaulay pronounced it “inferior indeed” to Congreve's “other comedies, but, in its line, inferior to them alone.” The dialogue, continued Macaulay, “resplendent with wit and eloquence ... preserves a certain colloquial air, a certain indescribable ease, of which Wycherley had given no example and which Sheridan in vain attempted to imitate.”

Writers on the English theatre have noted an interesting paradox in the history of William Congreve's The Mourning Bride. Congreve is remembered today almost exclusively for his series of brilliant comedies, but it was in this, his only tragedy, that he achieved the greatest theatrical triumph of his career, and for the same play he has also been most severely criticized. “Strange as it may seem to us,” wrote Bonamy Dobrée, “the work that most swelled his fame with his contemporaries was his tragedy.” “Congreve's ‘Mourning Bride’ is a melodrama, judged by our standards at present,” asserted Ashley Thorndike, “but for many years it was considered one of the greatest tragedies of the language.” And Crane Taylor, writing of the period following the production of the play at Lincoln's Inn Fields, stated that Congreve “was now the foremost writer of tragedy as well as comedy and, while we are apt to think of him only as a comic dramatist, it is well to remember that he enjoyed the distinction of a premier place in both forms of drama to the end of his life.” Montague Summers summed the matter up: “The Mourning Bride long enjoyed a period of universal eulogy, which may, perhaps, be judged a little extravagant: it was then as generally decried.”

For the student of acting and actors, the Eighteenth Century is a rich period. Within a century the careers of such players as Betterton, Quin, Macklin, Garrick, and Kemble ran their courses; these were actors of varying techniques, yet they had in common their century's earnest desire to imitate “nature” and they all subscribed to the same basic set of acting conventions. The century is rich too in theorists and critics: Gildon, John and Aaron Hill, Churchill, Lloyd, Hiffernan.

Students of Goldsmith have long recognized that in the framing of Tony Lumpkin, hilarious problem-child of Mrs. Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer, he was in some sort indebted to older English comedy. A resemblance to Humphry Gubbin in Steele's The Tender Husband, acted 1705, seems to have been first noticed by John Forster. Following Forster, George A. Aitken, in his Life of Steele (1889) affirmed that Humphry “certainly furnished Goldsmith with suggestions toward the creation of Tony Lumpkin” and cited the point that both are averse to marrying their cousins. He noticed the resemblance again in his edition of Steele's plays for the Mermaid Series, and it has since been a commonplace in histories of the drama.

Students of Rossetti have felt a certain amount of curiosity about the origin of the stanza of “The Blessed Damozel.” The stanza itself is a matter of no great importance, but its study brings up two rather interesting points: (1) it throws some light on the development of one poet's feeling for verse; (2) it suggests the limitations of our ordinary metrical terminology. Described in conventional terms of accents, feet, and rhyme scheme, Rossetti's stanza is the stanza of “The Village Blacksmith” (which has a gratuitous rhyme in stanza 1, line 3), “The Slave's Dream,” and “The Music Grinders.” Yet, so far as I know, no critic has suggested the influence of Longfellow or Holmes, although the three American poems were published respectively in 1839, 1842, and 1836, and “The Blessed Damozel” in 1850. Nor do I think that, quite apart from the subject matter, any critic could mistake a stanza of “The Blessed Damozel” for the work of either Longfellow or Holmes. Waller, rejecting an Italian original suggested by Mégroz, mentions the six-line stanzas of “The Ancient Mariner,” but doesn't seem to think highly of his own suggestion.

The appointment of Lorenzo Da Ponte in 1825 as professor of Italian in Columbia College failed to arouse any considerable interest among the students of the institution in the study of the language. As was the case with the other modern foreign languages, the study of Italian remained optional. In fact Da Ponte had no chair in the Faculty and no salary, and he received only the fees of the students who chose his courses. Despite his insistent offers to the trustees of the college, all aiming at putting the study of Italian on a firmer basis in the curriculum, he remained, as he humorously styled himself, professor sine exemplo. It is true that during his long residence in New York City, Da Ponte taught his native tongue privately to no less than two thousand students, but he was not satisfied with these sporadic results, for his constant aim was to make the Italian language and literature generally available to an increasing number of American students. When he finally became convinced that the trustees of the college were firm in their unwillingness to change their actual statutes which would have placed Italian as a subject of study in the curriculum, Da Ponte turned his efforts in other directions in the hope that he might thus perpetuate the rich heritage of the Italian language, literature, and culture on American soil. He thought that the next best means by which to accomplish this purpose was to establish a permanent, carefully selected, and ever increasing Italian library. Taking advantage of a celebration held in his honor on the occasion of his seventy-ninth birthday (March 10, 1828), Da Ponte delivered an oration to a select audience of pupils and friends, with the specific object of interesting them in becoming subscribers to the projected Italian library. Though everyone had applauded his plan, his triumph ended in fine words. The oration won for him only one subscriber!

A Subject that seems destined to cause comment periodically is the similarity between the American poet Whitman and the German philosopher Hegel. Oddly enough, however, the dissimilarity between the two men has received comparatively little mention and still less emphasis. Yet this dissimilarity is not to be taken for granted, like the other side of the moon. Scholars who do so take it fail to do justice either to Hegel, the triad-maker, or to Whitman, his admirer. The purpose here is to point out some of the most conspicuous differences between the two men, which, it is believed, reveal that many of the likenesses cited from time to time are misleading, if not fallacious, or are too general to be of significance.

Walt Whitman's services as a Federal clerk are treated briefly by all his biographers, and his dismissal from the Office of Indian Affairs is one of the best-known incidents in the poet's life. Yet no systematic canvass of the records in the National Archives, particularly in respect to Whitman's longer employment in the Department of Justice, has been published. In consequence a crop of errors has sprung up among the poet's biographers. For example, Harrison S. Morris's reminiscent Walt Whitman (Harvard University Press, 1929), p. 65, states that “in 1864 Walt had secured a clerkship in the Indian Bureau of the Interior Department”; other biographers state or imply that Whitman's tenure began in February 1865, whereas the records cited hereafter show that his appointment and salary began as of January 1, 1865, although he did not set to work until several weeks later. Clara Barrus's generally admirable Whitman and Burroughs, Comrades (Boston and New York, 1931), p. 25, incorrectly states that Whitman “was removed from his post in the Department of the Interior on June 10, 1865.” The dates of the poet's promotions, from the lowest (first class) to higher ranks of clerkship, are not stated with accuracy in any biography; and his movements during these Washington years are not always carefully described. Bliss Perry, for instance, in writing of Whitman's visit to Dartmouth College in June 1872 for the delivery of his Commencement Poem, says that “by the first of July he was back in Washington”—whereas one of the documents printed below shows that he was lingering in Brooklyn, and applying for extension of leave on grounds of illness, as late as July 9. The clerical duties he performed during these eight years after the Civil War, while of minor import in Whitman's life as an artist—the life that created “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” and “Passage to India”—did furnish him a livelihood and the convenience of a bachelor's study after hours, with stationery, free heat, the gas for his “astral lamp,” and the right to order books for the Office library. They may thus repay a brief review.

During his busiest years as a novelist Charles Dickens was also the editor, and for twenty years the controlling proprietor, of a series of periodicals, the greatest of which attained a circulation larger than that of the London Times of the period. At the same time, he issued successful American editions of his periodicals, developed distinctive editorial methods, became a pioneer in the art of serialization in weekly publications, and throughout his entire career as a journalist was activated by certain well-considered editorial policies. In this article I shall confine my remarks to the general policies, or principles, that guided Dickens in the development of his periodicals, with special attention to those practiced in Household Words and All the Year Round.

When Gottfried Keller in his poetic rejoinder to Justinus Kerner's romantic plaint extolled the world-transforming forces of technology, he expressed the dominant faith of his time in a possible synthesis of the spiritual and the utilitarian, of idealism and materialism. To use the vernacular: he did not doubt but that he could eat his cake and have it. To Kerner it was a bad dream that after the steamship and the locomotive the next step would be aviation, that in the future leaking airborne oil vats might sully the pure atmosphere, the last element to remain undefiled by man; he wished to lie in the grass and gaze up into the serene blue depths while yet he might. Keller replied that there was nothing to prevent such idyllic escape, but that he for one preferred to identify himself with the dynamism of the new “fire dragon.” In fact, was not only now the magic of Kerner's old parchments at last being transformed into reality by the forces of nature in the service of the human spirit? Were they not building for man a “brave new world?”

The Executive Council met in the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York, N. Y., on September 18–19, 1943, in three sessions: 2:30–5:30 p.m., 8:00–10:00 p.m., and 9:30 a m. to 12:00 noon. There were present throughout the sessions all five officers and Professors Blankenagel, Holmes, Gauss, Wade, and Baugh, constituting a quorum. The following were present as alternates: Professors Odell Shepard (for Foerster), E. H. Wright (for L. B. Wright), Marjorie Nicolson (for Hard), H. G. Doyle (for Parmenter), O. J. Campbell (for Aron). Professor Orie W. Long and the Managing Trustees were present on Saturday, September 18.