The MS. from which the present poem has now for the first time been copied and edited, is one belonging to Trinity College, Cambridge (where its class-mark is R. 3. 17), and which is believed to be unique. It is written (on paper) in a clear but somewhat loose handwriting of the beginning of the sixteenth century, or possibly of the latter part of the fifteenth. I am inclined to guess that it may appear to be of a somewhat later date than it really is, from the possibility of its not having been written by a professional scribe; that is to say, if we are to take literally the lines near the conclusion,<br><br>Sin at your request and commaundement<br>This warke on me toke, it to fourge and make;<br>And so haue I don after myne entent<br>With litterall carectes for your sake,<br>Tham conueying in sable lines blake, &c.,<br><br>which seem to imply that the maker of the translation wrote it out with his own hand. This, however, of course involves two other assumptions; viz. that this particular copy is the original (perhaps the only) one, and that the translator was one who did not employ a scribe. The MS. is nearly perfect, but two leaves are wanting, viz. fol. 1 and fol. 88. The sense of the latter has been easily supplied from a French MS. which will be described shortly, but fol. 1 contained original matter which might have told us more about the translator himself.