The publication of this valuable semi-Saxon or Early English treatise on the duties of monastic life, recently put forth by the Camden Society, under the editorship of the Rev. James Morton, is extremely acceptable, and both the Society and the editor deserve the cordial thanks of all who are interested in the history of our language. As one much interested in the subject, and who many years since entertained the design now so ably executed by Mr. Morton, I may perhaps be allowed to offer a few remarks on the work itself, and on the manuscripts which contain it. Mr. Morton is unquestionably right in his statement that the Latin MS. in Magdalen College, Oxford, No. 67., is only an abridged translation of the original vernacular text. Twenty-three years ago I had access to the same MS. by permission of the Rev. Dr. Routh, the President of Magdalen College, and after reading and making extracts from it[1], I came to the same conclusion as Mr. Morton. It hardly admits, I think, of a doubt; for even without the internal evidence furnished by the Latin copy, the age of the manuscripts containing the Early English text at once set aside the supposition that Simon of Ghent (Bishop of Salisbury from 1297 to 1315) was the original author of the work. The copy in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, I have not seen, but of the three copies in the British Museum I feel confident that the one marked Cleopatra C. vi. was actually written before Bishop Simon of Ghent had emerged from the nursery. This copy is not only the oldest, but the most curious, from the corrections and alterations made in it by a somewhat later hand, the chief of which are noticed in the printed edition. The collation, however, of this MS. might have been, with advantage, made more minutely, for at present many readings are passed over. Thus, at p. 8., for _unweote_ the second hand has _congoun_; at p. 62., for _herigen_ it has _preisen_; at p. 90., for _on cheafle_, it reads _o muthe_, &c. The original hand has also some remarkable variations, which would cause a suspicion that this was the first draft of the author's work. Thus, at p. 12., for _scandle_, the first hand has _schonde_; at p. 62., for _baldeliche_ it reads _bradliche_; at p. 88., for _nout for_, it has _anonden_, and the second hand _aneust_; at p. 90., for _sunderliche_ it reads _sunderlepes_, &c. All these, and many other curious variations, are not noticed in the printed edition. On the fly-leaf of this MS. is written, in a hand of the time of Edward I., as follows: "_Datum abbatie et conventui de Leghe per Dame M. de Clare._" The lady here referred to was doubtless Maud de Clare, second wife of Richard de Clare, Earl of Hereford and Gloucester, who, at the beginning of the reign of Edward I., is known to have changed the Augustinian Canons of Leghe, in Devonshire, into an abbess and nuns of the same order; and it was probably at the same period she bestowed this volume on them. The conjecture of Mr.