inculcating revenge and promising the rewards of Walhalla; in spirit it was changed by the doctrine of love, and in form it was softened and in some degree — but only for a timeinjured by the influence of the Latin, the language of the Church. At this time, also, there was a large adoption of Latin words into the Saxon, especially in theology and ecclesiastical matters.

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THE ADVENT OF BEDE. The greatest literary character of the Anglo-Saxon period, and the one who is of most value in teaching us the history of the times, both directly and indirectly, is the man who has been honored by his age as the venerable Bede or Beda. He was born at Yarrow, in the year 673, and died, after a retired but active, pious, and useful life, in 735. He wrote an Ecclesiastical history of the English, and dedicated it to the most glorious King Ceowulph of Northumberland, one of the monarchs of the Saxon Heptarchy. It is in matter and spirit a Saxon work in a Latin dress; and, although his work was written in Latin, he is placed among the Anglo-Saxon authors because it is as an Englishman that he appears to us in his subject, in the honest pride of race and country which he constantly manifests, and in the historical information which he has conveyed to us concerning the Saxons in England: of a part of the history which he relates he was an eye-witness; and besides, his work soon called forth several translations into Anglo-Saxon, among which that of Alfred the Great is the most noted, and would be taken for an original Saxon production.

It is worthy of remark, that after the decline of the Saxon literature, Bede remained for centuries, both in the original. Latin and in the Saxon translations, a sealed and buried book; but in the later days, students of English literature and history began to look back with eager pleasure to that formative period prior to the Norman conquest, when English polity and institutions were simple and few, and when their Saxon progenitors were masters in the land.

BED

excellent parts

commended him to Bishop Benedict. He made rapid progress in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; was a deacon at the unusual age of nineteen, and a priest at thirty. It seems probable that he always remained in his monastery, engaged in literary labor and offices of devotion until his death, which happened while he was dictating to his boy amanuensis. "Dear master," said the boy, "there is yet one sentence not written." He answered, "Write quickly." Soon after, the boy said, "The sentence is now written." He replied, "It is well; you have said the truth. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place where I was wont to pray, that I may also sitting, call upon my Father." "And thus, on the pavement of his little cell, singing Glory be unto the Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost,' when he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom."

His ecclesiastical history

HIS ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. opens with a description of Britain, including what was known of Scotland and Ireland. With a short preface concerning

the Church in the earliest times, he dwells particularly upon the period, from the arrival of St. Augustine, in 597, to the year 731, a space of one hundred and thirty-four years, during nearly one-half of which the author lived. The principal written works from which he drew were the natural history of Pliny, the Hormesta of the Spanish priest Paulus Orosius, and the history of Gildas. His account of the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, "being the traditions of the Kentish people concerning Hengist and Horsa," has since proved to be fabulous, as the Saxons are now known to have been for a long period, during the Roman occupancy, making predatory incursions into Britain before the time of their reputed settlement.1

For the materials of the principal portions of his history, Bede was indebted to correspondence with those parts of England which he did not visit, and to the lives of saints and contemporary documents, which recorded the numerous miracles and wonders with which his pages are filled.

BEDE'S RECORDED MIRACLES. The subject of these miracles has been considered at some length by Dr. Arnold,' in a very liberal spirit; but few readers will agree with him in concluding that with regard to some miracles, "there is no strong a priori improbability in their occurrence, but rather the contrary." One of the most striking of the historical lessons contained in this work, is the credulity and superstition which mark the age; and we reason justly and conclusively from the denial of the most palpable and absurd, to

1 Kemble ("Saxon in England ") suggests the resemblance between the fictitious landing of Hengist and Horsa " in three keels," and the Gothic tradition of the migration of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepide to the mouth of the Vistula in the same manner. Dr. Latham (English Language) fixes the Germanic immigration into Britain at the middle of the fourth, instead of the middle of the fifth century.

Lectures on Modern History, lect. ii.

the repudiation of the lesser demands on our credulity. It is sufficient for us that both were eagerly believed in his day, and thus complete a picture of the age which such a view would only serve to impair, if not destroy. The theology of the age is set forth with wonderful clearness, in the numerous questions propounded by Augustine to Gregory I., the Bishop of Rome, and in the judicious answers of that prelate; in which may also be found the true relation which the Church of Rome bore to her English mission.

We have also the statement of the establishment of the archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, the bishopric of London, and others.

The last chapter but one, the twenty-third, gives an important account "of the present state of the English nation, or of all Britain; and the twenty-fourth contains a chronological recapitulation, from the beginning of the year 731, and a list of the author's works. Bede produced, besides his history, translations of many books in the Bible, several histories of abbots and saints, books of hymns and epigrams, a treatise on orthography, and one on poetry.

To point the student to Bede's works, and to indicate their historic teachings, is all that can be here accomplished. A careful study of his Latin History, as the great literary monument of the Anglo-Saxon period, will disclose many important truths which lie beneath the surface, and thus escape the cursory reader. Wars and politics, of which the AngloSaxon chronicle is full, find comparatively little place in his pages. The Church was then peaceful, and not polemic; the monasteries were sanctuaries in which quiet, devotion, and order reigned. Another phase of the literature shows us how the Gentiles raged and the people were imagining a vain thing; but Bede, from his undisturbed cell, scarcely heard the howlings of the storm, as he wrote of that kingdom which promised peace and good-will.

BEDE'S LATIN. To the classical student, the language of

Bede offers an interesting study. The Latin had already been corrupted, and a nice discrimination will show the causes of this corruption-the effects of the other living languages, the ignorance of the clergy, and the new subjects and ideas to which it was applied.

Bede was in the main more correct than his age, and his vocabulary has few words of barbarian origin. He arose like a luminary, and when the light of his learning disappeared, but one other star appeared to irradiate the gloom which followed his setting; and that was in the person and the reign of Alfred.

OTHER WRITERS OF THIS AGE. — Among names which must pass with the mere mention, the following are, after Bede, the most illustrious in this time. Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, who died in the year 709, is noted for his scientific computations, and for his poetry: he is said to have translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon poetry.

Alcuin, the pride of two countries, England and France, was born in the year of Bede's death: renowned as an Englishman for his great learning, he was invited by Charlemagne to his court, and aided that distinguished sovereign in the scholastic and literary efforts which render his reign so illustrious. Alcuin died in 804.

The works of Alcuin are chiefly theological treatises, but he wrote a life of Charlemagne, which has unfortunately been lost, and which would have been invaluable to history in the dearth of memorials of that emperor and his age.

Alfric, surnamed Grammaticus, (died 1006,) was an Archbishop of Canterbury, in the tenth century, who wrote eighty homilies, and was, in his opposition to Romish doctrine, one of the earliest English reformers.

John Scotus Erigena, who flourished at the beginning of the ninth century, in the brightest age of Irish learning, settled in France, and is known as a subtle and learned scholastic philosopher. His principal work is a treatise "On the Division of Nature." Both names, Scotus and Erigena, in