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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
\ riously in possession of the public , appear to have been but scanty . The only person who can be said to have attempted any thing of this kind is Mr . Lewis , who was also the original editor of WyclinVs translation of the New Testament * This writer certainly cannot be said to have superseded the necessity of further and more extensive researches in the same field , though we think Mr . V . has somewhat undervalued the labours of his
predecessor . His performance , indeed , may rather be calle 4 materials , for a Life than the finished work itself ; the style , too , is antiquated and uncouth ; but the book does not seem to us so utterly " unreadable" as it is represented by Mr . Vaughan . The present writer , however , has certainly produced a work in every respect much superior and more valuable . He has evidently used a diligence and research worthy of his subject , and has not only disposed in a more acceptable form what had been communicated by
preceding writers , but has made very considerable additions to the information hitherto accessible to the public . For this purpose he has examined , apparently with great care and labour , the numerous writings of Wycliffe yet remaining in MS . in our different public libraries . Of many of the most important of these he has presented us with a detailed analysis , and
has inserted a variety of interesting and valuable extracts , which may assist the reader in forming a fair estimate of the talents , learning , and opinions , of our reformer , and of the real efficacy of his labours . These are among the most valuable , and to the public in general the most truly original , parts of his work , and in making them more generally accessible , we think he has performed a very important and acceptable service .
In one respect only we feel disposed to express our regret at the manner in which he has thought it best to perform this service . He seems to us to have carried his regard for the fastidious taste of the modern reader to an extreme . While we admit that it was in , general desirable , and indeed necessary , in some degree , to modernize the orthography , and even the language , by the occasional rejection of obsolete terms , without which he ijs perhaps right in thinking that the passages inserted would have failed to
receive the attention they deserve , yet we doubt whether it was necessary for this purpose to make his author speak so entirely the language of the present day , and should have been better pleased if he had been allowed occasionally to express himself in his original , homely , but unsophisticated , forcible , and impressive style . It is more easy to judge of the character and manners , if not of the sentiments , from the ipsissima verba > and the reader feels himself more at home with the personages of the narrative when
they are introduced to him as far as possible in their original , national , or peculiar costume . Besides , the language itself is perhaps an inferior , but Still , to an English reader , an interesting , object of curiosity . Though Wycliffe was contemporary with Chaucer , his vernacular idiom approaches one step nearer than that of the poet to the English of the present day , and from the avidity with which , even under unfavourable circumstances , his writings were sought after , and the extent to which they were circulated arid
read , there can be no doubt that they exerted a powerful influence in forming and advancing towards maturity the as yet rude and imperfect dialect of the times . On these grounds , therefore , we think the critical inquirer into the history of his own language would have been gratified by a few opportunities of exploring this " genuine well of English undefined , " by studying the peculiarities of WyclinVs composition in his native tongue , as presented in their original dress . And we have often wondered that this natural curipsity alone , independently of the interest attached to them from their intrinsic
Untitled Article
HevUw . ' O W DD i-Lafc and pinions of John de ycWfte , . . 607
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1828, page 607, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2564/page/23/
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