Abbotsford Club > Penni worth of witte

PREFACE. xi
recovered, as stated at page ii. A few lines at the commencement are unfor-
tunately lost. The name Lujhtbern, or Child of Light, as applied to Lucifer,
or Satan, before his fall through pride, cannot fail to strike the reader as
highly poetical. — The similar fragment of King Richard, in my possession,
consists of two distinct portions, of 176 lines each, corresponding with
lines 1745 to 1919, and lines 2580 to 2762, in Weber's edition of the
entire romance.
v.— DAVID THE KING.
The commencement of each verse, from the Vulgate, accompanies this
paraphrase of the Fifty-first Psalm. Verses 7 and 8 having been wi'itten
on the reverse of the leaf containing a small illumination, are lost. This
is one of the Seven Penitential Psalms, of which there are numerous ver-
sions, in English verse, preserved in various libraries.
VL— THE DEDLI SINNES, THE HESTES, &c.
This is a similar paraphrase of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the
Lord's Prayer, with a general reference to the Seven Deadly Sins, and a
paraphrastic narration of our Lord's Passion. The concluding lines, or
prayer, to send peace instead of war, that Christians might be enabled to
pass into the Holy Land, and slay the Sai'acens, indicate the later ])eriod
of the Crusades, when the verses were written.
VIL— THE PATERNOSTER UNDO ON ENGLISH.
The Lord's Prayer is here given in a different and more amplified para-
phrase.