Beówulf | Page 3

entirely recasting
the plates.
In conclusion, the editors would acknowledge their great indebtedness to the friends and
critics whose remarks and criticisms have materially aided in the correction of the
text,--particularly to Profs. C.P.G. Scott, Baskervill, Price, and J.M. Hart; to Prof. J.W.
Bright; and to the authorities of Cornell University, for the loan of periodicals necessary
to the completeness of the revision. While the second revised edition still contains much
that might be improved, the editors cannot but hope that it is an advance on its
predecessor, and that it will continue its work of extending the study of Old English
throughout the land.
JUNE, 1885.
NOTE I.
The present work, carefully edited from Heyne's fourth edition, (Paderborn, 1879), is
designed primarily for college classes in Anglo-Saxon, rather than for independent
investigators or for seekers after a restored or ideal text. The need of an American edition
of "Beówulf" has long been felt, as, hitherto, students have had either to send to Germany
for a text, or secure, with great trouble, one of the scarce and expensive English editions.
Heyne's first edition came out in 1863, and was followed in 1867 and 1873 by a second
and a third edition, all three having essentially the same text.
So many important contributions to the "Beówulf" literature were, however, made
between 1873 and 1879 that Heyne found it necessary to put forth a new edition (1879).
In this new, last edition, the text was subjected to a careful revision, and was fortified by
the views, contributions, and criticisms of other zealous scholars. In it the collation of the
unique "Beówulf" Ms. (Vitellius A. 15: Cottonian Mss. of the British Museum), as made
by E. Kölbing in Herrig's Archiv (Bd. 56; 1876), was followed wherever the present
condition of the Ms. had to be discussed; and the researches of Bugge, Bieger, and others,
on single passages, were made use of. The discussion of the metrical structure of the
poem, as occurring in the second and third editions, was omitted in the fourth, owing to
the many controversies in which the subject is still involved. The present editor has
thought it best to do the same, though, happily, the subject of Old English Metrik is
undergoing a steady illumination through the labors of Schipper and others.
Some errors and misplaced accents in Heyne's text have been corrected in the present
edition, in which, as in the general revision of the text, the editor has been most kindly
aided by Prof. J.M. Garnett, late Principal of St. John's College, Maryland.
In the preparation of the present school edition it has been thought best to omit Heyne's

notes, as they concern themselves principally with conjectural emendations, substitutions
of one reading for another, and discussions of the condition of the Ms. Until Wülker's text
and the photographic fac-simile of the original Ms. are in the hands of all scholars, it will
be better not to introduce such matters in the school room, where they would puzzle
without instructing.
For convenience of reference, the editor has added a head-line to each "fit" of the poem,
with a view to facilitate a knowledge of its episodes.
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY,
LEXINGTON, VA., June, 1882.
NOTE II.
The editors now have the pleasure of presenting to the public a complete text and a
tolerably complete glossary of "Beówulf." The edition is the first published in America,
and the first of its special kind presented to the English public, and it is the initial volume
of a "Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry," to be edited under the same auspices and with the
coöperation of distinguished scholars in this country. Among these scholars may be
mentioned Professors F.A. March of Lafayette College, T.K. Price of Columbia College,
and W.M. Baskervill of Vanderbilt University.
In the preparation of the Glossary the editors found it necessary to abandon a literal and
exact translation of Heyne for several reasons, and among others from the fact that Heyne
seems to be wrong in the translation of some of his illustrative quotations, and even
translates the same passage in two or three different ways under different headings. The
orthography of his glossary differs considerably from the orthography of his text. He fails
to discriminate with due nicety the meanings of many of the words in his vocabulary,
while criticism more recent than his latest edition (1879) has illustrated or overthrown
several of his renderings. The references were found to be incorrect in innumerable
instances, and had to be verified in every individual case so far as this was possible, a few
only, which resisted all efforts at verification, having to be indicated by an interrogation
point (?). The references are exceedingly numerous, and the labor of verifying them was
naturally great. To many passages in the Glossary, where Heyne's