was in the twelfth century, and up to the time of Elizabeth, that Welsh literature was in its 'most high and palmy state;' and the massacre of the bards attributed to Edward I., and commemorated in undying verse by Gray, seems to be wholly without foundation.

The Gael as well as the Cymry had regular bards, who chanted the praises of their monarchs and chiefs, and recounted the deeds of their ancestors. Ireland was early distinguished as a seat of learning, and from its colleges or monasteries learning and Christianity were diffused over the kingdom, even to the remote Hebrides. The Irish annals are among our most ancient records. Pelagius, Celestius, and St Patrick are said to have been natives of the British Islands. The tradition is doubtful, but, if Scotland in the fifth century gave St Patrick to Ireland she received in the sixth a more memorable return in Columba, the saint of Iona.

We know from Barbour and Gawin Douglas that in Scotland, at a very early period, the names of Fingal and Gaul, the son of Morni, were popular among the people. A body of traditional poetry was long prevalent in the Highlands, some of which Macpherson collected and expanded into regular poems-nay, epics; and many Celtic fragments have since been published in Íreland, describing the Fenian wars and the lamentations of blind Ossian. They are curious as antiquarian relics and national memorials, but as to poetical merit, they cannot for a moment be put in comparison with the Macpherson manufacture. It is the coat of frieze beside the royal tartan.

The earliest Anglo-Saxon historians, Gildas, Nennius, and Columbanus, wrote in Latin in the sixth century. The most celebrated of these literary ecclesiastics, and the greatest scholar of his age, was BEDE, known in history as the 'Venerable Bede.' He was born about the year 672, entered the monastery of St Peter at Wearmouth, county of Durham, at the age of seven, removed in his nineteenth year to the neighbouring monastery of Jarrow, where he took orders, and was ordained priest, and where he passed the remainder of his studious life till his death, May 26, 735. The works of Bede are numerous, including homilies, lives of saints, hymns, treatises on grammar and chronology, commentaries on the Bible and Apocrypha, a collection of epigrams, &c. In the spirit of Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenforde,' the good monk said: 'It was always sweet to me to learn, to teach, and to write.' His greatest work is the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, an ecclesiastical history of England, which is also our chief authority for the civil history of the country down to nearly the middle of the eighth century. Among the other Latin writers may be named EGBERT, archbishop of York (678-766), ST BONIFACE (Wilfred, who lived about 680-755), and ALCUIN (about 735-804). For three or four centuries afterwards, Latin treatises, historical and theological, issued occasionally from the monkish

retreats.

ANGLO-SAXON WRITERS.

From its first establishment in Britain, the Anglo-Saxon language experienced scarcely any change till after the irruption of the Danes. The accomplished Romans left few words behind them

Some of

that were adopted by their successors.
the tales and legends of the Scandinavian Scalds
were popular and served as models; and the
Anglo-Saxon gleemen who sung, danced, and
recited, were the precursors of the more lettered
and refined minstrels of a later age. The oldest
poem of an epic form in Europe is believed to be
an Anglo-Saxon production, the Lay of Beowulf,
which describes an expedition made by Beowulf to
deliver a Danish king from a demon or monster
called Grendel. Beowulf vanquished the 'she-
wolf of the abyss; she sank upon the floor, the
sword was bloody, the man rejoiced in his deed;
the beam shone, light stood within, even as from
heaven mildly shines the lamp of the firmament.'
A few words will give an idea of the language:
Thâ com of môre,
Under mist-hleodhun,
Grendel gongan;
Goddes yrrre bär.

Then came from the moor,
Under mist-hills,
Grendel to go;
God's ire he bare.

There are above six thousand of these short lines! Besides Beowulf there are two other Anglo-Saxon remains, the Traveller's Song and the Battle of Finnesburg; also a fragment named Judith, founded on the Apocrypha :

Judith stays Holofernes.

The maid of the Creator with the twisted locks took then a sharp sword, hard with scouring, and from the sheath drew it with her right limb. She took the heathen man fast by his hair; she drew him by his limbs towards her disgracefully, and the mischief-ful odious man at her pleasure laid, so as the wretch she might the easiest well command. She with the twisted the red sword, till she had half cut off his neck, so that locks struck the hateful enemy, meditating hate with he lay in a swoon, drunk and mortally wounded. He was not then dead, not entirely lifeless; she struck then earnest, the woman illustrious in strength, another time the heathen hound, till that his head rolled forth upon the floor! The foul one lay without a coffer; backward his spirit turned under the abyss, and there was plunged below, with sulphur fastened, for ever afterwards wounded by worms. Bound in torments, hard-imprisoned, in hell After his course he need not hope, with mansion of worms; but there he shall remain ever and darkness overwhelmed, that he may escape from that ever without end, henceforth in that cavern-home, void of the joys of hope.

he burns.

CÆDMON, THE MONK OF WHITBY. The next poet is CEDMON, a monk of Whitby, who died about 680. Cædmon was a genius of the class headed by Burns, a poet of nature's making, sprung from the bosom of the common people, and little indebted to education. It appears that he at one time acted in the capacity of a cow-herd. The circumstances under which his talents were first developed, are narrated by Bede with a strong cast of the marvellous, under which it is possible, however, to trace a basis of natural truth. We are told that he was so much less instructed than most of his equals, that he had not even learned any poetry; so that he was frequently obliged to retire, in order to hide his shame, when the harp was moved towards him in the hall, where at supper it was customary for each person to sing in turn. On one of these occasions, it happened to be Cadmon's turn to keep guard at the stable during the night, and, overcome with vexation, he quitted the table and

West Saxons, and various chronicles, meditations, &c. Another invasion of the Northmen in 893 threatened to destroy all the patriotic and enlightened labours of Alfred, but he succeeded in defeating the barbarians, and restoring his country to peace and prosperity. He died October 28, 901. The character of this monarch, comprising so much gentleness, along with dignity and manly vigour, and displaying pure tastes calculated to be beneficial to others as well as himself, would have graced the most civilised age nearly as much as it graced one of the rudest. A short specimen of the language of Alfred may be given from his translation of the Pastorals of St Gregory. Referring to the decay of learning among the people, especially the religious orders, the king

1006. This learned prelate was a voluminous writer, and, like Alfred, entertained a strong wish to enlighten the people; he wrote much in his native tongue, particularly a collection of homilies, a translation of the first seven books of the Bible, and some religious treatises. He was also the author of a grammar of the Latin tongue, which has given him the sub-name of 'the Grammarian.' The Danish sovereign, CNUT or CANUTE (10171036), is said to have composed a song on hearing the music of Ely Cathedral, as he was in a boat on the river Nen. One verse of this song has been preserved by the monk of Ely (Historia Eliensis) who wrote about the year 1166, and it continued, after the lapse of a century and a half, to be very popular with the people. The language is still so intelligible, that we may suspect the Swa clane heo was othfeallen on Anglecynne, that monk to have slightly modernised it in accordfeawa wæron behæonan Humbre the hira thenunge ance with the English of the middle of the twelfth euthon understandan on Englise, oththe furthon an century: ærend-ge-writ of Ledene on Englise areccan; and ic wene that naht monige be-geondan Humbre næron. Swa feawa heora wæron, that ic furthon anne ænlepne ne mæg ge-thencan besuthan Thamise tha tha ic to rice feng. Gode almightigum ay thane, that we nu ænigne an steal habbath larcown.

says:

In Alfred's poetical translation of the poetry in Boethius, there is, as Turner remarks, an effort at description in passages like the following:

Then Wisdom again unlocked her word-treasure. She sang true, and thus herself said: 'When the sun clearest shines, serenest in heaven, speedily will be darkened all over the earth the other stars. For this, their brightness cannot be set aught against the sun's light. When mild blows the south and west wind under heaven, then quickly increase the blossoms of the fields, that they may rejoice. But the dark storm, when he cometh strong from north and east, he taketh away speedily the blossoms of the rose; and also the wide sea, the northern tempest drives with vehemence, that it be strong excited, and lashes the shores. All that is on earth, even the fast-built works in the world will not

remain for ever.'

Two short comparisons by Alfred :

So oft the mild sea with south wind, as gray glass clear, becomes grimly troubled, then the great waves mingle, the sea-whales rear themselves; rough is then that which before was glad to look at.

So oft a spring bursts from the hoary cliffs, cold and clear, and diffusely flows on, it runneth along the earth; a great mountain-stone falleth, and in the midst of it lies trundled from the mountain; it then into two streams is divided; the pure lake becomes troubled and turbid, and the brook is changed from its right course."

ARCHBISHOP ALFRIC-CANUTE-THE SAXON
CHRONICLE.

*

After Alfred, the next important name is that of ALFRIC, archbishop of Canterbury, who died in

Alfred's Boethius, by Rawlinson.

Merie sungen the muneches binnen Ely
Tha Cnut Ching rew there by :
Roweth, cnihtes, noer the lant,
And here we thes muneches saeng.

Merry [sweetly] sung the monks within Ely
That [when] Cnut King rowed thereby :
Row, knights, near the land,

And hear we these monks' song.

The SAXON CHRONICLE relates events from the earliest time to the year 891, compiled, as is believed, by Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury, for the use of King Alfred. A continuation to the first year of Henry II., or the year 1154, was afterwards added. The united work forms but a dry record of facts or marvellous occurrences, but it is one of the authorities for the conquest of Britain, agreeing as it does with the previous narratives of Gildas and Bede. Much of our early history, previous to the introduction of Christianity in the year 597, is now considered mythical. Hengist and Horsa, the reputed popular leaders of the invasion in 450, are ranked by Macaulay with Romulus and Remus, and whole files of English and Scottish kings have been swept from history into the region of fable.

Pur

A lasting glory won by slaughter in battle with the edges of swords at Brunanburh! The wall of shields they cleaved, they hewed the noble banners. . . suing, they destroyed the Scottish people and the shipfleet. They fell dead! The field resounded, the warriors sweat! After that the sun rose in the morning hourthe greatest star! glad above the earth God's candle bright, the eternal Lord's! till the noble creature hastened to her setting!... Five lay in that battle-place, young kings, by swords quieted. So also seven, the Earls of Anlaf, and innumerable of the army of the

fleet, and the Scots. So the brothers both together, the king and the theling their country sought, the West-Saxon land. The screamers of war they left behind, the raven to enjoy, the dismal kite and the black raven with horned beak, and the hoarse toad; the eagle afterwards to feast on the white flesh, the greedy battle-hawk, and the gray beast, the wolf in the wood.*

been traced up to various sources; but neither the Scaldic, nor Saracenic, nor Armorican theory of its origin can sufficiently account for all its materials. Many of them are classical, and others derived from the Scriptures. The migrations of science are difficult enough to be traced; but fiction travels on still lighter wings, and scatters the seeds of her wild-flowers imperceptibly over the world, till they surprise us by springing up with similarity in regions the most remotely divided.'*

ANGLO-NORMAN OR SEMI-SAXON WRITERS. The original Anglo-Saxon terminated with the middle of the eleventh century, or the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066. A great change was effected in the national speech. WACE, LAYAMON, AND THE ORMULUM. Norman-French became the language of education, of the law-courts, the clergy, and the upper be Maister WACE, a native of Jersey, who, about The earliest Anglo-Norman translator is said to classes generally, while Saxon shared in the degradation that the mass of the people experienced 1160, rendered into verse the history by Geoffrey under their conquerors. But though depressed, the of Monmouth, in which the affairs of Britain were old speech could not be extinguished. It main-traced through a series of imaginary kings, begintained its ground as the substance of the popular ning with Brutus of Troy, and ending with Cadlanguage, and being gradually blended with the walader, who was said to have lived in the year Norman, formed the basis of our English tongue. 689 of the Christian era. Wace also composed The Saxon was changed from an inflectional into a history of the Normans, under the title of the a non-inflectional and analytical language,t and Roman de Rou, that is, the Romance of Rollo, first the state of transition is considered to have Duke of Normandy; and from admiration of his occupied about two centuries, from the middle works, Henry II. bestowed upon Wace a canonry of the twelfth to the middle of the fourteenth in the cathedral of Bayeux. Among the other Anglo-Norman French works were: The Roman century. The first literary efforts after the Conquest were de la Rose, imitated by Chaucer; the Romance of in the form of translations or imitations of the Troy, and Chronicle of the Duke of Normandy, by Norman poets. Rhyme and metre were intro- BENOIT DE ST MAUR (1180); a Chronicle of the duced. The language named from its origin Anglo-Saxon Kings, by GEOFFREY GAIMAR (1148), Roman (the lingua Romana, whence we derive &c. Wace's poem, Le Brut d'Angleterre, consists our term Romance) was separated into two great Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, is remarkable on of no less than 15,300 lines! The original work, divisions that of the south, which is popularly represented by the Provençal, and that of the account of its effect on subsequent literature. The north, which formed the French and Anglo-Britons settled in Wales, Cornwall, and Bretagne, Norman. The Provençal used to be distinguished by the name of the Langue d'Oc, and the northern French by that of the Langue d'Oil, both being derived from the words for yes, which were oc in the one and oil (afterwards oui) in the other. The poets of the south were denominated trobadores or troubadours, and those in the north trouvères. The troubadours included princes and nobles, who sung as well as composed their amatory lyrics and light satires. Richard I. (Cœur de Lion), it will be recollected, was one of of incredible stories, partly founded on fact, this the number; and during the twelfth and thir- production is of small value; but it supplied a teenth centuries there were several hundreds of ground for Wace's poem, and proved an unfailing these troubadour versifiers in the Provençal lan-resource for the writers of romantic narrative durguage. The trouvères wrote graver strains, romances, legends, chronicles, and national ballads. A trouvère, Taillefer, at the battle of Hastings, rode in front of the invading army, chanting the songs which told of Charlemagne and Roland, and was the first of the Normans to rush on the enemy. As to the origin of the popular fables and chivalrous romances, Campbell has finely said: 'The elements of romantic fiction have

*Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. 289.

Hallam thus describes the process: 'The Anglo-Saxon was converted into English: 1. By contracting or otherwise modifying the pronunciation and orthography of words; 2. By omitting many inflections, especially of the noun, and consequently making more use of articles and auxiliaries; 3. By the introduction of French derivatives; and, 4. By using less inversion and ellipsis, especially in poetry. Of these, the second alone, I think, can be considered as sufficient to describe a new form of language; and this was brought about so gradually, that we are not relieved of much of our difficulty, whether some compositions shall pass for the latest offspring of the mother, or for the earliest fruits of the daughter's fertility.'-Literature of Europe, Part I. 47.

were distinguished for the store of fanciful and fabulous legends they possessed. For centuries previous, Europe had been supplied with tale and fable from the teeming fountain of Bretagne. Walter Calenius, archdean of Oxford, collected some of these tales, professedly historical, relating to England, and communicated them to Geoffrey, by whom they were put into the form of a regular historical work, and introduced for the first time

to the learned world. As little else than a bundle

ing the next two centuries. Even in a later age its influence was not exhausted; Spenser and ville that of Ferrex and Porrex, while Drayton Shakspeare adopted the story of Lear, and Sackreproduced much of it in his Polyolbion, and allusions to it are seen in the poetry of Milton and Gray. Pope, too, contemplated an epic on the story of Brutus.

doubtful or exaggerated, may be mentioned the As contributions to real history, though often works in Latin of INGULPH, abbot of Croyland (circa 1030-1109), who wrote a history of his abbey, and a Life of St Guthlac; WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY (circa 1095-1143), author of a valuable work, De Regibus Anglorum, a general history of England from the period of the Saxon invasion to the 26th Henry I. in 1126, and a continuation to 1143, with a history of the church, and other

* Essay on English Poetry.

works (this monk of Malmesbury is the most able and original of the early historians); HENRY OF HUNTINGDON (died after 1154) wrote a history of England to the period of Stephen; GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS, or GERALD DE BARRI (circa 11461222), preached the crusade to the Welsh in 1188, and wrote Itinerarium Cambria and Topographia Hibernia; ROGER DE HOVEDEN (died after 1202) wrote Annales Rerum Anglicarum, 732 to 1202; MATTHEW OF PARIS (died about 1259) wrote Historia Angliæ ad ultimum annum Henrici III.; and MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER, a Benedictine monk who flourished in the fourteenth century, author of Flores Historiarum ab exordio Mundi usque ad 1307.

work, the ORMULUM, so called after the name of
its author, Orm or Ormin. This poem-or rather
series of poems, for it consists of homilies and
lessons from the New Testament-is also of great
length, extending to nearly 10,000 lines, or coup-
lets of fifteen syllables. It has one mark of pro-
gress in the language-the alliterative system is
abandoned, though this did not become general,
and Ormin's English has a more modern air than
that of Layamon. He dedicates his work to his
brother:

Nu, brotherr Wallterr, brotherr min
Affterr the flashes kinde;

Annd brotherr min i Crisstenddom
Thurrh fulluhht and thurrh trowwthe;
Annd brotherr min i Godess hus.

Now, brother Walter, brother mine
After the flesh's kind [or nature];
And brother mine in Christendom
Through baptism and through truth;
And brother mine in God's house.

Wace's legendary poem was expanded into 32,250 lines by a monk, LAYAMON, who describes himself as a priest of Ernley, near Redstone, on the Severn. His additions to the work of Wace were made partly from Bede, but chiefly from Welsh and other traditional sources, with passages by Layamon himself. The date of the poem, when completed, is about the year 1205. Sir Frederick Madden, who published an edition A treatise termed The Ancren Riwle, or Female of it (1847), says, that in many passages of the Anchorite's Rule, is referred to the same period poem the spirit and style of the Anglo-Saxon-not later than 1205. It is in eight parts, written writers have been preserved. It embodied the by an ecclesiastic, on the duties of a monastic life. current language of the time, and has very few The work was edited by the Rev. James Morton Norman words. The versification combines the in 1853, and is attributed by him to a Bishop POOR, alliteration characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry who died in 1237. One peculiarity of the work with the rhyming couplets of the French. The is the great number of Norman-French words it structure of the verse, however, is by no means contains. The writer tells the anchorite: 'Ye ne regular. Two manuscripts of the poem exist, one schulen eten vleschs ne seim, buten ine muchele twenty or thirty year later than the other, and secnesse; other hwoso is ever feble eteth potage there is a considerable difference in the text. We blitheliche; and wunieth ou to lutel drunch? (Ye subjoin a specimen, with Sir Frederick Madden's shall not eat flesh nor lard, except in much sicktranslation of the earlier text: ness; but the feeble may eat pottage blithely, and accustom themselves to a little drink.)

Early Text.
An preost wes on leoden,
Layamon wes ihoten :
he wes Leouenadhes sone;
lidhe him beo drihten :
he wonede at Ernleye,
at ædhelen are chirechen,
uppen Seuarne stathe
sel thar him thuhte :
on fest Radestone,
ther he bock radde.
Hit com him on mode,
and on his mern thonke,
thet he wolde of Engle
tha ædhelæn tellen,

wat heo ihoten weoren,
and wonene heo comen,
tha Englene londe
ærest ahten

æfter than flode

the from drihtene com, the al her a-quelde quic that he funde.

Later Text.

A prest was in londe,
Laweman was [i] hote:
he, was Leucais sone;
lef him beo drihte :
he wonede at Ernleie,
wid than gode cnithte,
uppen Seuarne:

merie ther him thohte :
fastebi Radestone
ther he bokes radde.
Hit com him on mode,
and on his thonke,
that he wolde of Engelond
the rihtnesse tell,

wat the men hi-hot weren,
and wanene hi comen,
the Englene lond
ærest afden
after than flode
that fram god com,
that al ere acwelde
cwic that hit funde.

There was a priest on earth (or in the land), who was named Layamon; he was son of Leovenath, may the Lord be gracious to him!-he dwelt at Ernley, at a noble church upon Severn's bank-good it there seemed to him-near Radestone, where he books read. It came to him in mind, and in his chief thought, that he would tell the noble deeds of the English, what they were named, and whence they came, who first possessed the English land, after the flood that came from the Lord, that destroyed here all that it found alive.

About the same time was produced a metrical