Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/187

MIRACLE CYCLES. 175 the play the Dyers, if we may argue from the later records and manuscripts. At the head of the text is the title, ' De adventu Antichristi,' and the number ' Pagina xx ma .' The date of the writing may be assumed to be the end of the fifteenth century, it might be as late as 1500. The leaves have been folded down the middle with a view to carrying the book in the pocket, and the rubbed and faded condition of the text suggests that it has been much handled. I refer to this manuscript as P. The difficulty of deciphering the writing of this manuscript, though great, would not have been insuperable had no attempt been made to restore it. But at some comparatively recent date the text has been largely re-written by an officious hand, which has gone over the lines of the old letters, so far as they were distinguishable, with modern ink. The result has been disastrous. The greater part of the manuscript has been either retouched or wholly written over, and although in most places it is still possible to trace the original writing, and thus to get behind the work of the modern restorer, in some it has wholly disappeared, and we have nothing but the superimposed writing to guide us. It is only fair to say that the restorer was a careful workman, and that as a rule his readings may be trusted. There were, however, occasions on which he fell into error. While working he had by his side either Wright's edition or else the manuscript (W) on which it was based, and when the original became more than usually obscure he was inclined to force the traces that remained into the semblance