Page:Elizabeth Elstob - An English-Saxon homily on the birth-day of St. Gregory.djvu/122

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An Homily on the


pepum on jehp ileum bup- each City of the Eng^ gum on enjla ]?eobe. -3 UJh Nation, and they hi on Ero&er ^eleapan have remain'd promoting J>eon5e ))uph punebon o^ the Chriftian Faith con-^ which Book is contained Pajjionamm SanSorumy beginning with $c. Apoliinarisy and ending with the Paition o£ St. SimplkiHs^ Faujli- ms^ zvi& Beatrix. VIII. And upon the fame Table of the High Attar 5s placed a Book which hath on the Cover a large feeryl fet round on all fides with Cryftals • in which is an Expoficioh on the Epiflles and Gofpels, froiii the third Sunday after the Oftaves of EafteY^ to the Fourth 6*^^^ after the Oftaves of W7?/>/«n^/Vff. And these Are the First Fruits Of the Books of the whole English Church. The firft of thefe venerable Books, is the Gregorian Bible in two Volumes ^ which Bible appears to have been not long ago extant in ilnglandy from an Apologetick Petition of the Lay Catholicks (as they call themfelves) to Jams the Firft, king of Great Britain^ in the Month oi July 1^04. in which are thefe EKpreffions. Cl)C icrg S>nginal 1BxAZy tl)e fclf^famc l^umcvo x^)ii) ^* (0^egorg fcnt in totti) our SUpoftle &. Sfugufttne, being as tet ptc= fcrtJCD b^ (EoVb fpecial |&jotoit)encet which Words are cited by Dr. Sutdiffm his Anfwer to that Apologetical Petition, pag, 87. The fecond Book, that is, the Pfalter, after diligent Enquiry, I have not found. the Third and Fifth Books, tho' imperfeft, I believe to be extant. The one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford ; the other adorn'd with j^igures in Corpw Chrijil College in Cambridge. For to fay the truth> both thefe Books have a face of Antiquity, both of 'em being writ- ten in the round and large Roman Hand, and in Letters much diffe- ring from the ^axon of that kind ^ both the Parchment and the Ink declaring therh to have been written abroad. In both of them were the Ten Canons o( Eufebius^ inafmuch as in the Margin there are to be feen the Notes and Figures referring to them 5 and that they were brought into England above Eight Hundreid Years ago, appears from the Diftindtions and Emendations of the Bodleian Book, in an eld Sa^ xon Hand : and from the laft Will of Ealhburga in the Mennet College Book, made about the Year Eight Hundred and Fifty, in which are reckoned up what Legacies file left to the Abby of St. AugujVwe to which this Book belonged. So that there feems no reafon to doubt* thifS