almost total loss of the final _-e_ which is so frequently required
to form an extra syllable when we try to scan the poetry of Chaucer.
Even where a final _-e_ is written in the above extract, it is wholly
silent. The words _ware_ (were), _are_ (are), _myne_, _thine_, _toke_,
_made_, _brede_, _hende_, _ende_, are all monosyllabic; and in fact
the large number of monosyllabic words is very striking. The words
_onesprute_, _forcome_, _foryhelde_ are, in like manner, dissyllabic.
The only suffixes that count in the scansion are _-en_, _-ed_, and
_-es_; as in _sam-en_, _skat'r-èd_, _drev-èd_, _hat-èd_, etc., and
_arw-ès_, _well-ès_, _watr-ès_, etc. The curious form _sal_, for
"shall," is a Northern characteristic. So also is the form _hende_ as
the plural of "hand"; the Southern plural was often _hond-en_, and the
Midland form was _hond-ès_ or _hand-ès_. Note also the characteristic
long _a_; as in _swa_ for _swo_, so; _gast_, ghost; _fra_, fro;
_faas_, foes. It was pronounced like the _a_ in _father_.

A much longer specimen of the _Metrical English Psalter_ will be
found in _Specimens of Early English_, ed. Morris and Skeat, Part II,
pp. 23-34, and is easily accessible. In the same volume, the Specimens
numbered VII, VIII, X, XI, and XVI are also in Northumbrian, and can
easily be examined. It will therefore suffice to give a very brief
account of each.

VII. _Cursor Mundi_, or _Cursor o Werld_, i.e. Over-runner of the
World; so called because it rehearses a great part of the world's
history, from the creation onwards. It is a poem of portentous length,
extending to 29,655 lines, and recounts many of the events found in
the Old and New Testaments, with the addition of legends from many
other sources, one of them, for example, being the _Historia
Scholastica_ of Peter Comestor. Dr Murray thinks it may have been