Chapter I: Preface

The present treatise originally appeared in Danish as a University publication (_Kjœbenhavns Universitets Festskrift_, November 1919). In submitting it to the English public, I wish to acknowledge my profound indebtedness to Mr. G. F. Hill of the British Museum, who not only suggested the English edition, but also with untiring kindness has subjected the translation, as originally made by Miss Ingeborg Andersen, M.A. of Copenhagen, to a painstaking and most valuable revision.

For an account of the previous treatments of the subject, as well as of the method employed in my investigation, the reader is referred to the introductory remarks which precede the Notes.

A. B. DRACHMANN. CHARLOTTENLUND, _July 1922_.