#Dialect:# Here, as in the Trinity College manuscript of the Poema Morale, a scribe of the northern border of the South-Eastern area has turned a composition in the dialect of the Middle or Western South into his own, with occasional retention of Southern forms. After a considerable interval his version was copied with little alteration by the three scribes of the Stowe manuscript, for the differences between the sections are mainly graphic and only in a minor degree dialectal. As a consequence, the language of VV is older than that current at the time when the copy was made; in some respects older than that of MS. T of the PM., as in its representation of #ā#, #ā# + #g#, #ā# + #w#. Occasional lapses into OE. forms at the beginning of the manuscript, such as acwellan _inf._ VV 9/19, daȝas 27/22 (which would have been in OE. #dagum#), have been thought to point to an OE. original, but they are more probably due to a scribe acquainted with the older native literature. #Vocabulary:# Scandinavian are hahte 21, skele 121, sckelewisnesse 107; an OE. borrowing is stieresmann 3: French are carite 29, cariteð 58, hert 35, prophete 75, richeise 88, (stan) roches 31, seruise 130, and probably arche 5: offrin 129 is a pre-Conquest Latin borrowing. #Introduction:# The book is imperfect at the beginning, but probably little has been lost. It opens in the middle of a confession by a sinful soul of a formidable array of sins, to which Reason (‘Scadwisnesse,’ 90/62, ‘Ratio,’ 92/135) replies by a series of discourses on the virtues which will help the soul against its vices. The first extract, written by the first scribe, is part of this. The second piece, written by the third hand, concludes the book. The writer speaks of his work as a compilation from many authors (93/144). The framework of it may have been suggested by S. Isidore’s Synonyma de Lamentatione Animae Peccatricis, wherein Homo and Ratio hold similar alternate discourse (Opera vi. 472), but nothing else. The author appears to have been acquainted with the writings of Hugh of St. Victor (_d._ 1140); he may have borrowed from him (Opera i. 69) the idea of the contest between Mercy and Truth (VV 113), but the influence of the older English literature dominates his style, vocabulary, and mode of thought. 1. #hierdes#, pastors: comp. ‘þe selue herdes beð þe lorþewes of holi chiriche,’ OEH ii. 39/12; ‘se cyning ⁊ se biscop sceoldan beon Cristenra folca hyrdas,’ BH 45/25. #lokin#, to take care of, preserve: comp. 4/20; ‘ðe sceaweres ðe lokeden ðe hali burh,’ VV 103/13, 121/11; generally with _acc._, but ‘to lokin of mine wrecche lichame,’ VV 17/3. #⁊# = and, 89/28. 2. #ute#, in the cloister. 3. #noe#: a type of Christ; the Ark is the Church, a common idea, Ælf. Hom. Cath., ii. 60; OEH ii. 43/4; AR 142/12, but especially beloved of Hugh of St. Victor, ‘Noe significat Christum sive quemlibet praelatum qui in quantum potest facit arcam, id est, aedificat Ecclesiam,’ i. 226.