Ermoldus Nigellus-the "Saxon Poet" (Poeta Saxo) who wrote about Charlemagne,1 and Abbo, the historian of the siege of Paris.2 Abbo's verse Abbo. is funnier than Ermoldus, with some of the same practices, but with a larger share of the "Hisperic" vocabulary, and much more complacency in his own work. His tastes are those of Aldhelm, degraded; among the things he most admires are the terms of prosody-episinaliffa he writes on the margin, to call attention to an artful thing in his verse. Friends of the Renaissance, Protestant orators and others, who wish to show up the Middle Ages, will find the poem of Abbo sufficient for their purpose. It is thoroughly enjoyable. The more scholarly Latin verse is used by a number of authors in the ninth century after the flourishing days (c. 809-849) of Alcuin and his friends. Walafrid Strabo at Reichenau, who carries on the educational work of Alcuin, resembles him also in his historical and his occasional poems.3 Among the first is a rendering of the Vision of Wettin, and a Life of St Blathmac of Iona. The ruin of Iona in a Viking invasion (825) had sent many Scots to take refuge under the Alps, and the Holy Island was celebrated there : Walafrid "Insula Pictorum quædam monstratur in oris The best of the lighter poems is Hortulus, a series of short hexameter pieces, describing the plants of his 1 P. Lat. Carol., iv. 1. 2 Ibid., iv. 72. Already mentioned, p. 71. garden, dedicated to Grimald of St Gall. Elsewhere Walafrid uses a more pompous diction in honour of great personages, such as the Empress Judith and her son Charles. The chief Latin poet in the middle of the ninth century was Sedulius Scottus, a wandering Irish scholar, named, like many of his country. Sedulius Scottus. men, after the Christian poet, whose Carmen Paschale was in the hands of every schoolboy. Sedulius the Irishman has left traces of his work in many quarters, including a Greek Psalter written by his hand. His poems,1 of the familiar occasional sort, are distinguished by something personal and characteristic. He does not forget his own land; victories of the Irish over the Northmen are recorded; he knows something of Wales, also. Hraban. The ninth century is full of learning, and also of theological controversy, but the authors concerned are not to be treated at large in this place. Hrabanus Maurus is the great teacher, following Alcuin, and doing for his generation the old work of Isidore in encyclopedias (De Universo, 22 books) and Bible Commentaries. His pupils at Fulda -Walafrid, Lupus, Otfrid, Gottscalc in different ways have proved the influence and efficiency of his teaching. Walafrid at Reichenau carried on the tradition of Hraban, especially as a commentator. He had many aptitudes, however, and thought for himself while he compiled his authorities. He was freshly interested in German philology; he described the 1 Ed. Traube, Poet. Carol., iii. 1. Gothic Bible of Ulfilas, and has a curious chapter on German names. Like Ascham and Bacon, he is rather inclined to apologise for his vernacular language: but let us remember, he says, that apes as well as peacocks were brought to Solomon; what seems absurd to Latin ears may yet be justified; the Lord feeds the ravens as well as the doves. The controversies of the time, and their partisans, are only to be mentioned here. Agobard of Lyons (+840), in his writings against superstition, has included many lively passages, like the story of the land Magonia and the ship of the air.1 The debates of Hincmar and Gottscale, of Paschasius Radbert and Ratramnus, are not thus enlivened, though Gottscalc is to be found again, far from controversy, singing his own song in banishment.2 But among the theological authors there is one, not any less technical indeed, but technical in a new way, a great speculative genius, whose style is something different from the conventional phrase of the schools, because his ways of thinking are different. Erigena, like other philosophers, causes trouble in literary history. It is hard to describe his literary qualities apart from their philosophical substance, which is out of our range. In the general history of culture he is noted for his command of Greek, though this was not singular in an Irish scholar. His translation of Dionysius on The Celestial Hierarchy, besides its importance for theology, had a large imaginative influence, culminating long afterwards in Dante's Paradiso. His great 1 Poole, Medieval Thought, p. 39, sq. 2 See below, p. 217. Ꮮ Erigena. work on The Division of Nature1 has been appreciated as the one purely philosophical argument of the Middle Ages. It is for professed historians of philosophy to describe and criticise it: they have acknowledged the intellectual strength, the subtilty and daring of Erigena. He was called in by Hincmar of Rheims to strengthen the right cause against Gottscalc. They wanted a skilled apologist; they found one whose help, like that of the magic sword in certain fairy tales, might be dangerous for the side that used it. They asked him to oppose the excessive cruelties of predestination, as maintained by Gottscale. But he would not be limited to the requisite amount of controversy, and before the Irish philosopher could be checked, he had refuted Sin and Hell. Neo-Platonist he is called, but in his case the name does not stand for eclectic oriental work; his mind is as clear as Berkeley's, with a vastly greater and more articulate system to explain and develop. For literature, the merit of his writing is that it expresses his meaning without hurry or confusion, and that his meaning, whatever its philosophical value, is certainly no weak repetition of commonplaces. It is to be noted that he takes a different view of Dialectic from what sufficed the ordinary professors. Dialectic is not a human contrivance. Dialectic is concealed in Nature by the Author of all the Arts, and discovered by those who look for it wisely. The proper study of Dialectic is the study of Reality. Erigena is discontented with abstractions. The current formulas 1 Migne, P. L., 122. of the schools are not enough for him, in his Platonic quest for the Real. On the other hand, he saves himself from the more dangerous temptation of mysticism; he is not swallowed up in blind ecstasy. The world and its fulness is not dismissed as a shadow. He is rational, logical, though with a livelier and more imaginative logic than the common. If, like the mystics, he speak of the ineffable Unity, he has also, like Lucretius, an exultation in the welling energy of the world and its innumerable variety. Scripture, he says in one place, may be interpreted in endless ways, even as the colour shifts in a peacock's feather and there is this infinity of meaning because the world is inexhaustible. Although he makes little show of it, he was touched in imagination by the old poetic faith in the Soul of the World. He quotes, after a passage from the Timæus, the famous lines from the Eneid "Spiritus intus alit". which were taxed by Gibbon for their too close resemblance to "the impious Spinoza," and Erigena certainly cannot escape the same condemnation. History flourished along with other learning at the court of Charles the Great. Paulus Diaconus and Einhard in different ways attained success, the one by liveliness and spirit, the other by discretion and sobriety. Paul (c. 720-c. 790), son of Warnefrid, a Lombard, noted for his learning at the Lombard capital of Pavia before the fall of the kingdom, spent some time in the |