It has become evident so far that the basis for the different Latin forms of the story of the martyrdom of Saint George known in Western Europe during the Middle Ages was the apocryphal version. There is no evidence whatever of any direct influence of the Greek form of the legend upon the Latin variations. Zarneke in the Ber. ü. d. Verh. d. k. sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Leipzig, 1874, p. 5, had laid down as a criterion for such influence the introduction of Diocletian and Maximian by the side of Datian; and Weber, in Z. f. r. Ph., V, p. 505, accepted this principle, and on the basis of it he made a rough classification of the different forms of the legend known to him. Our investigation, I think, has shown clearly that no historical study of the growth of the legend can be based upon this entirely external feature. The introduction of the name of Diocletian into Zc and the versions deriving from it may be due to some remote influence of the canonical version, but beyond the presence of this name, the texts of this group do not show the slightest influence of the Greek form of the legend. The further addition of Maximian was a simple and natural step, after the story of the martyrdom had been placed in the tenth persecution of the Christians, and can prove nothing. As a matter of fact, the name is found in versions that do not have the remotest connection with each other, such as Me, V, and Zc, d, e, g.

Contemporary allusions to Drayton's contact with the Elizabethan drama are not very numerous. We know that he had some contact; and during the year 1598 he did a great deal of dramatic work. In his Elegy to Reynolds (1627), wherein he speaks of “poets and poesie,” there are reminiscent suggestions of Marlowe, Nashe, Shakspere, Jonson, Chapman, and Beaumont. But the strain of this very poem seems to hint that his memory was more tenacious of epic and lyric associations. In 1598, Meres iu his Palladis Tamia puts Drayton among the writers “best for tragedie,” along with Marlowe, Peele, Kyd, Shakspere, Chapman, Dekker, and Jonson. Drayton's dramatic period paralleled the dramatic incident called “The War of the Theatres.” Mr. Fleay finds Drayton in the current of this strife. Dr. Penniman, however, in his careful survey, does not associate Drayton with this dramatic contest.

Attention has been called by Prof. A. S. Cook to an interesting parallel between the description of the Day of Judgment in Cynewulf's Elene, vv. 1277–1320, and a passage in Alcuin's De Fide Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis. Prof. Cook believes that the correspondences between these two passages are so complete as to prove the dependence of Cynewulf upon Alcuin. Inasmuch as Alcuin's treatise was not written until 802–4 a. d., Cynewulf's dependence, if established, would oblige us to throw the Elene, and perhaps the rest of the Cynewulfian poetry, into the 9th century. The vital importance of such a conclusion to the whole question of Cynewulf's date and identity is apparent.

The writing of “Characters” was at the same time one of the most prolific and the most significant phases of literary activity in the seventeenth century. Though many of these books of “Characters” have been forgotten, the titles of over one hundred and fifty are still remembered—enough certainly to show how popular the fashion of such writing was. Furthermore, its significance becomes apparent when we consider what prose fiction owes to it; for, through the periodical essay of the eighteenth century, the old formal “Character” passed into the novel and become a part of it.

To distinguish between the course of rhetorical ideas, and the growth of style on the one hand, and of systematic rhetoric on the other, is perhaps to endeavor after too nice a distinction. Yet when we read sixteenth-century English, we may see, between the general effort to use prose with effect and the rather arid sequence of treatises on formal rhetoric, certain definite ideas on prose expression, certain views as to the best vocabulary, certain views on sentence-structure or figures of speech. The frank, vigorous prose of Latimer has style of a sort, the slight treatise of Cox has system. Neither the one thing nor the other is the opinion pro and con as to inkhorn words, for example. The following paper notes in the direction of the vocabulary only, a conscious effort to determine some fundamental principles which should obtain in the use of English as a means of literary expression.

Some years ago (in the academic year 1898–99), while reading Aliscans with a few students, I reached an explanation of v. 3053 in Guessard and Montaiglon's edition which still seems to me plausible, even after the recent remarks of M. Gaston Paris on the same subject (Romania, xxxi, 100 ff.). I, therefore, make it public.

The desire was expressed some years ago that we might soon have in English a collection of translations of Old English poetry that might fill the place so well filled in German by Grein's Dichtungen der Angelsachsen. This desire is now in a fair way of accomplishment, and much has been done during the past ten years, the period embraced in this paper. As was naturally to be expected from the work previously done in criticism of both text and subject-matter, Beowulf has attracted more than ever the thoughts and efforts of translators, for we had in 1892 the rhythmical translation of Professor J. Lesslie Hall and the prose version of Professor Earle; in 1895 (reprinted in cheaper form in 1898) the poetical translation of William Morris and A. J. Wyatt, the editor of Beowulf; in 1901 the prose version of Dr. J. R. Clark Hall, author of A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary; and only the other day, in 1902, the handy prose version of Professor C. B. Tinker.

This is the twentieth annual meeting of our Association, and it has been thought of as a suitable event for marking off a first period of our history. A score of years is a sufficiently conventional unit of measure to assure the form and the significance of a celebration of that character, and the nearness to the hyphen of the centuries would also lend appropriateness to our first comprehensive retrospection. But these thoughts have not been ‘submitted’ regularly to the Association; they have, on the contrary, not spread much beyond the few individual minds of their spontaneous and coincident birth, and therefore no authorized historic sketch has been prepared, no tablet has been inscribed, no bronze is to be unveiled.