“ In some districts, as in the Northumbrian, for instance, the language underwent certain changes at a very early period, which more Southern dialects did not adopt for more than a century afterwards: thus, in works of the 14th century, we find the Midland more archaic than the Northumbrian, and the Southern more archaic than either. Authors seeking to become popular would write in the dialect best understood by their readers, without considering whether it was simple or complex. ”

“ The Editor of the present valuable and interesting record of our old English speech will, no doubt, both astonish and alarm his readers by informing them that he has never seen the manuscript from which the work he professes to edit has been transcribed.
But, while the truth must be told, the reader need not entertain the slightest doubt or distrust as to the accuracy and faithfulness of the present edition; for, in the first place, the text was copied by Mr F. J. Furnivall, an experienced editor and a zealous lover of Old English lore ”

“ I say a Midland dialect, because the work of Orm is, after all, only a specimen of one variety of the Midland speech, most probably of that spoken in the northern part of the eastern counties of England, including what is commonly called the district of East Anglia.
Next in antiquity to the Ormulum come the Bestiary, already mentioned, and the present poem, both of which uniformly employ the Midland affix -en, to the exclusion of all others, as the inflection of the present plural indicative. ”

“ The Southern form is, for adjectives, -lich (sing.) , -liche {xviii} (pl.) ; for adverbs -liche. Thus the adoption of this affix really (though at first it appears a matter of no importance) marks a stage in the language when the distinction between the sing. and pl. form of adjectives was not very strictly observed, and was, moreover, a step towards our modern -ly, which is adjectival as well as adverbial.
Even in this poem adjectives occur in -li, as reuli = piteous, which is the earliest example I have met with. Orm employs double forms in -like and -liȝȝ (= ly?) . ”

“ Then follows the Bible narrative of Genesis and Exodus, here and there varied by the introduction of a few of those sacred legends so common in the mediæval ages, but in the use of which, however, our author is far less bold than many subsequent writers, who, seeking to make their works attractive to the "lewed," did not scruple to mix up with the sacred history the most absurd and childish stories, which must have rendered such compilations more amusing than instructive. ”

“ The employment of a dual for the pronouns of the first and second persons marks an early date (certainly not much later than the time of Henry III.) even in works composed in the Southern dialect, which, it is well known, retained to a comparatively late period those Anglo-Saxon inflections that had long previously been disused in more Northern dialects.
The Corpus manuscript is evidently the work of a scribe, to whom the language was more or less archaic, which accounts for such blunders as ðrosing for ðrosem, waspene for wastme, lage for vn-lage, insile for vn-sile, grauen for ðrauen, etc. ”

“ May God help him blissfully,
And preserve his soul from sorrow and tears,
Of hell-pain, cold and hot!"
The Ormulum is the earliest [12] printed Early English work which has come down to us that exhibits the uniform employment of the termination -en (-n) as the inflection of the plural number, present tense, indicative mood; or, in other words, it is the earliest printed example we have of a Midland dialect. ”

“ As most, if not all, of the words in the foregoing list are not found in works written in the Southern dialect,—so far as we at present know them—we may reasonably suppose that they indicate fairly the Danish element in the English literature of the 12th and 13th centuries. In the Northumbrian, and the West, and East-Midland productions of a century later this element prevails to a much larger extent, and Herbert Coleridge's list of such words may be largely increased (Phil. Soc. Trans., 1859, p. 26-30) . ”

“ He says, "I have only to add, that the metre of the 'Christabel' is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem to be so from its being founded on a new (?) principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four."
The normal form of the line of the present poem is that simple one of eight syllables, consisting of four (so-called) iambics, which is so common in English poetry. ”

“ P. 99. l. 3471-84 Each of you bear in mind, that it is not Moses, Amram's son, whom ye shall to-day hear speak, but He who slew Egypt (you for to avenge) , and a path made in the sea; and who let Adam discover the tree which preserved Noah, and led Abraham out into the land of Canaan; who caused Isaac to be begotten of old Abraham and of Sarah (of old teats) ; who gave Isaac (Jacob?) so many sons, and who gave Joseph such rich gifts (abilities) ; let His word be to you as precious as life, dearer than either child or wife.
3488-9
None might go further except Nun,
And also his brother Aaron. ”

“ It seems to have been the object of the author of the present work to present to his readers, in as few words as possible, the most important facts contained in the Books of Genesis and Exodus without any elaboration or comment, and he has, therefore, omitted such facts as were not {viii}essentially necessary to the completeness of his narrative; [5] while, on the other hand, he has included certain portions of the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy, [6] so as to present to his readers a complete history of the wanderings of the Israelites, and the life of Moses their leader. ”

“ The genitive of fader and moder is, as is very seldom the case in Early English writers, fadres and modres.
An n is often added to the final -e (representing an A.Sax. {xxv}vowel-ending) in the nom., dat., and acc. of nouns. For examples, see p. xxi.
II. Adjectives.
1. Adjectives have a definite and an indefinite form; the former is used when the adjective is preceded by the definite article, a demonstrative adjective, or possessive pronoun.
2. Number.—The plural is formed by the addition of e to the singular.
But the -e (pl.) is seldom added to the past participle of irregular verbs. ”

“ The Bestiary presents not only the same grammatical and verbal forms which distinguish the Genesis and Exodus from other Early English compositions, but also its orthographical peculiarities, e.g. s for sch; ð for th; g for y and ȝ (gh) , etc. The editor assigns this poem to the early part of the thirteenth century. ”

“ On the other hand, it is well known that the plurals bretheren (broðeren [39] in Shoreham) , calveren [40] (calves) , children, [41] doren (doors) , [42] eyren (eggs) , [43] honden (hands) , [44] kine, [45] lambren (lambs) , [46] soulen (souls) —very common forms in the Southern dialects in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—are examples of the substitution of n for, or in addition to, the vowel-ending, and were unknown in the Northern dialect.
The Southern dialect could drop or retain, at pleasure, the n final in the past participles, the preterite plurals, and infinitive mood of verbs. ”

“ Imperative Mood.—Verbs forming the past tense in de or te take no inflexion in the 2nd pers. sing. imperative.
Participles.—1. The active or imperfect participle ends in -ende or -ande, the former being the Midland and the latter the Northumbrian form. The Southern affix is -inde, from which we have the modern -ing (O.E. -inge) .
Our author rhymes specande with lockende, and in the Bestiary we find that the participle in -ande rhymes with an infinitive in -en, [65] and this accounts for such forms as stinken = stinkende, brennen = brennende, in the present poem. ”

“ The Ormulum has two or three examples of this prefixal element, and in our poem it occurs but seldom.
IV. A tendency to drop the t of the second person of verbs, as as, hast; beas, beëst; findes, findest.
Examples of this practice are very common in the Bestiary and Genesis and Exodus, but it occurs only four times in the Ormulum. [19] It was very common for the West-Midland to drop the -e of 2nd person in strong verbs. See Preface to O.E. Homilies, 1st Series.
V. The use of arn, aren, for ben of the Midland dialect, or beð of the Southern dialect. ”

“ Infinitive Mood.—The infinitive terminates in -en, which is seldom dropped.
{xxix}
There are no infinitives in -y or -ie, as in Southern English writers, nor do we find them in the Ormulum, or in Robert of Brunne's "Handlyng Synne," and they were, most probably, wholly unknown to the East Midland district.
The t in the 2nd pers. sing. pres. is occasionally dropped, as beas (= best) , art, betes, beatest, findes, findest, etc.; but not in the preterite of regular verbs.
There are no instances of the 3rd pers. sing. present in -es in this poem. ”

“ The first personal pronoun Ic is never found softened into Ich as in Laȝamon's Brut, the Ancren Riwle, and other Southern works. I is found only once or twice throughout the poem.
2. The first and second personal pronouns have a dual as well as a plural number; as, wit, we two; unc, us two; gunc, you two; gunker, of you two.
3. Hine (hin, in) (acc.) occasionally occurs, but more frequently him (dat.) does duty for it. ”

“ Ge, ghe, [53] she, represents the A.Sax. héo (O.E. heo, ho, and hi) . The curious form sge (= sye) , as well as sche, occurs for she, the earliest instance of which is scæ in the A.Sax. Chronicle.
5. The neuter pronoun is written it and not hit, and is frequently used as a plural. It coalesces with the pronoun ge, ghe [54] (she) , and with the preterite of verbs terminating in -de or -te, [55] and with some few irregular verbs; as, sagt (saw there) , p. 37, l. 1301. The curious form negt (in l. 3964, p. 112) = neg + it = nigh it.
{xxvii}
6. The A.Sax. hi (they) is represented by he = hie. ”

“ The editorial portion of the present work includes the punctuation, marginal analysis, conjectural readings, a somewhat large body of annotations on the text of the poem, and a Glossarial Index, which, it is hoped, will be found to be complete, as well as useful for reference.
The Corpus manuscript [2] is a small volume (about 8 in. × 41⁄2 in.) , bound in vellum, written on parchment in a hand of about 1300 A.D., with several final long s's, and consisting of eighty-one leaves. Genesis ends on fol. 49b; Exodus has the last two lines at the top of fol. ”

“ Freme and frame are radically the same words, the former being of A.Saxon and the latter of Norse origin. In the Ayenbite, p. 91, vreme = freme = frame is used exactly in the sense of frame: "We wylleþ wel þet we be yvonded (tempted) vor hit is oure vreme ine vele maneres, vor we byeþ þe more ymylded and þe dredvoller and þe more wys ine alle þinges and þe more worþ and þe more asayd." 197 oc = og = ow, ought.
P. 7. ll. 204-6
Whilst it (the soul) followed holy will,
God's self the while is pleased,
And displeased when it loves sin. ”

“ In the present poem, however, the n seems added to the vowel-ending of all cases except the possessive, in order to rhyme with a verb in the infinitive, a passive participle, or an adverb terminating in -en, and is not always limited to nouns of the -n declension, but represents in A.S. an a or e: 'on boken,' [38] on book, l. 4; 'on soðe-sagen,' on sooth-saw, l. 14; meten, (acc.) meat, l. 2255, (nom.) 2079; sunen, (nom.) son, l. 1656; 'of luuen,' of love, 635; 'after ðe wunen' (after the custom) , l. 688; steden, (nom.) place, 1114; 'for on-sagen,' for reproach, 2045; wliten, (nom.) ”