Is in the
Cotton Library, Tiberius I., and is supposed to have been written in
the ninth or tenth century; but that, in making his translation, he used a
transcript, made by Mr Elstob, occasionally collated with the Cotton MS.
and with some other transcripts. But, before publishing a work of such
curiosity and interest, he ought to have made sure of possessing a perfect
copy, by the most scrupulous comparison of his transcript with the original
MS.
In the following republication of the geographical chapter, much care has
been taken to correct errors, chiefly in regard to direction, as east,
west, north, and south, are often used interchangeably in the translation
by Mr Barrington. Most of the notes are from that edition, or from J.R.
Forster, who reprinted so much of this chapter as referred to northern
geography, and who appears to have studied that part of the subject with
great care.
As a specimen of the Anglo-Saxon, or the language of England near a
thousand years ago, we have given the first sentence of this geographical
chapter in the ordinary Roman letters, with a literal translation.
Anglo-Saxon.
Ure yldran calne thysne ymbhwyrft
thyses middangeardes, cwaeth
Orosius, swa swa Oceanus ymbligeth
utan, wone man garsecg hatath, on
threo todaeldon.
