Israel Gollancz

“ The metre, with the additional adornment of rhyme, had already been employed about 1170 in the south-western poetical homily called ‘Poema Morale’ (Old English Homilies, Early English Text Society, No. 34, ed. R. Morris) . Little can be said for Orm's poetical talent. Conscious of his deficiencies, he seems to have aimed at a sort of dignified monotony. He has, indeed, a certain sense of art in suiting word to thought, and thought and word to rhythm. His only merit is simplicity. ”

“ In a long metrical dedication to Walter, Orm's threefold brother—‘in the flesh, in baptism, and in the order’—the author explains how, encouraged by his brother, he devoted himself to the task of ‘turning into English speech’ the Gospels of the year, so that English folk might thereby be won to salvation. ”

“ The unique manuscript of the ‘Ormulum,’ consisting of a single folio volume, preserved among the Junian Collection in the Bodleian Library, is in all probability the author's own copy, or rather a fragment of it; the twenty thousand and odd half-lines preserved therein represent merely about one-eighth of the complete work. The earliest notice of the manuscript is to be found in the sale-catalogue of the library of the Dutch philologist, Van Vliet, the friend of Junius, ‘greffier’ or registrar at Breda (1610–1666) . ”