sh Museum, and is one
of the chief treasures in our national collection. It contains a
beautifully executed Latin text of the four Gospels, written in the
isle of Lindisfarne, by Eadfrith (bishop of Lindisfarne in 698-721),
probably before 700. The interlinear Northumbrian gloss is two and a
half centuries later, and was made by Aldred, a priest, about 950, at
a time when the MS. was kept at Chester-le-Street, near Durham,
whither it had been removed for greater safety. Somewhat later it was
again removed to Durham, where it remained for several centuries.

The second MS. is called the Rushworth MS., as it was presented to the
Bodleian Library (Oxford) by John Rushworth, who was deputy-clerk to
the House of Commons during the Long Parliament. The Latin text was
written, probably in the eighth century, by a scribe named Macregol.
The gloss, written in the latter half of the tenth century, is in two
hands, those of Farman and Owun, whose names are given. Farman
was a priest of Harewood, on the river Wharfe, in the West Riding of
Yorkshire. He glossed the whole of St Matthew's Gospel, and a very
small portion of St Mark. It is worthy of especial notice, that his
gloss, throughout St Matthew, is not in the Northumbrian dialect, but
in a form of Mercian. But it is clear that when he had completed this
first Gospel, he borrowed the Lindisfarne MS. as a guide to help him,
and kept it before him when he began to gloss St Mark. He at once
began to copy the glosses in the older MS., with slight occasional
variations in the grammar; but he soon tired of his task, and turned
it over to Owun, who continued it to the end. The result is that the
Northumbrian glosses in this MS., throughout the three last Gospels,
are of no great value, as they tell us little more than can be better
learnt from the Durham book; on the other hand, Farman's Mercian gloss
to St Matthew is of high value, but need not be considered at present.
Hence it is best in this case to rely, for our knowledge of Old
Northumbrian, on the Durham book _alone_.

It must be remembered that a gloss is not quite the same thing as
a free translation that observes the rules of grammar. A gloss
translates the Latin text word by word, in the order of that text; so
that the glossator can neither observe the natural English order nor
in all cases preserve the English grammar; a fact which somewhat
lessens its value, and must always be allowed for. It is therefore
necessary, in