Add MS 38654

TREATISE, on virtues and vices, containing numerous exempla, in Latin. Imperfect at beginning and end, and wanting single leaves after ff. 9, 20. Divided into "articuli" and chapters, as follows: art. iii, De Compassione, etc., 28 chapters (ch. 1-13 and parts of ch. 14, 23, 24 wanting). f. 1 ; art. iv, De Sapiencia et Castitate, etc., 5 chapters (part of ch. 3 wanting,). f. 17b; art. v, De Prudencia, etc., 10 chapters. f. 26b; art. vi, De Justicia, etc., 10 chapters. f. 35; art. vii, De Obediencia, 4 chapters (ch. 4 imperf. at end). f. 42 b. The exempla, 41 in number, include extracts from the lives of SS. Winwaloc, Judoc, Edward the Confessor, Æthelwold, and other saints. ff. 1, 3 b, etc. ; extracts from Visio monachi de Eynesham (cf. H. L. D. Ward, Cat. of Romances, ii. 1893, p. 493, and for the text Analecta Bollandiana, xxii, 1903, p. 236). ff. 2, 10-15 b; Fables, partly derived from Odo of Cheriton (cf. Cat. of Romances, iii, 1910, p. 31), and partly from a collection allied to that of Marie de France (ib. ii, p. 291 ; K. Warnke in Forschungen zur Rom. Phil., Festgabe fiir H. Suchier, 1900, p. 161). ff. 31 b-34, 36 b. Among the remainder the most noteworthy are the following (including the Latin originals of three of the tales in the Manuel des Péchés, viz. nos. 9, 12, 14) : 1. Captive king appeals vainly to two of his sons, but is ransomed by his third (a variant of the familiar apologue of the Three Friends, cf. Cat. of Romances, iii, p. 205, etc. Cf. also Test of Trueborn Son, ib. p. 112). f. 2 b.

2. Witch sows discord between man and wife (ib. p. 399). f. 15 b.

3. Fool of Alexandria (ib. ii, p. 722, cf. iii, p. 341): a loner version, imperf. at beg. f. 21.

4. Wise man follows fool: a similar version to that of Royal MS.

12 E. i (ib. iii, p. 538), but fuller. Moralized. f. 25 b.

5. King gives each of his three sons a topaz to guard ; painter tries to substitute coloured glass counterfeits (cf. ib. p. 250, no. 92). Moralized. f. 27.

6. Girl's name changed from Smutta to Rose, to attract suitors (ib. pp.- 174, 421). f. 29 b.

7. Emperor Theodosius advised to curb his temper by repeating the alphabet. "Lecitur in historia Romanorum." f. 30.

8. Doctor takes a patient's blood for diagnosis, and gives it to his (the patient's) daughter to keep for him; she spills it, and substitutes her own. f. 34.

9. The dead knight who appeared to his comrade (the same version as in the Manuel des Péchés, ib. p. 280). f. 38.

10. Devil carries off advocate because his victims' curses are sincere (cf. ib. p. 592). f. 39.

11. Advocate retained by both sides, with cart and oxen respectively (ib. p. 375). f . 39 b.

12. Deathbed of corrupt and merciless judge (as in Man. des Péachés, ib. p. 281). f. 40.

13. Dead lawyer seen in torment with his tongue on fire (cf. ib. pp. 134, 280, etc.). f. 40b.

14. Mother curses her daughter (as in Man. des Péachés, ib. p. 279). f. 41.

15. Clerk's wife near Antioch, by the devil's advice, curses her seven sons in the church where they were baptized ; going home she finds them strangled, and kills herself, but they are all revived through the intercession of the Virgrin (cf. ib. p. 529). f. 41 b. The treatise beg. (in art. iii, ch. 14) "ipse imperator ecclesiam dotauit." Ends (in art. vii, ch. 4) "euenit ut ambo idem peccatum faciant," with the catchwords, "postea ac deinde." Vellum ; ff. 44. 8 in. X 5 in. First half of xiv cent. Gatherings of 12 leaves (i⁸, ii² wanting, one leaf). Flourished initials in blue and red, or red and violet. Outline sketch of a dog chasing a hare on f. 10 b. Hodgson's sale-cat., 8-10 Jan. 1913, lot. 449. No. 36 in an earlier catalogue, a cutting from which is pasted on the last fly-leaf.