CHAP.

V.

Aid me, Supremel the Spirit's gifts proceed
From thee; and none can fitly sing thy grace
Without thy help. Oh, thou ! who tongues of flame
Erst gave, now send the treasures of thy word
To him who sings thy gifts ! 25

The following legend is selected as a specimen of the general style of the narration :

26

The youth now bent beneath a sudden pain,
And led his languid footsteps with a pine.
When on a day as in the air he placed
His weary limbs, and meek yet mourning lay,
An horseman clothed in snowy garments came,
And graceful as a courser : - He saluted
The youth reclined, who offered his obeisance.
“My prompt attentions should be gladly paid

if grievous pains did not withhold me:

To you

25

26

Tu, rogo, summe, juva, donorum spiritus auctor,
Te sine nam digne fari tua gratia nescit.
Flammivomisque soles dare qui nova famina linguis
Munera da verbi linguæ tua dona canenti.

Smith's Bede, p. 263.
Parvulus interea subiti discrimine morbi
Plectitur, atque regit vestiga languida pino.
Cumque die quadam sub divo fessa locasset
Membra dolens solus mitis puer, ecce repente
Venit eques niveo venerandus tegmine, nec non
Gratia cornipedi similis, recubumque salutat,
Obsequium sibi ferre rogans. Cui talia reddit,

Obsequiis nunc ipse tuis adsistere promptus
Vellem, in diro premeretur compede gressus.
Nam tumet ecce genu, nullis quod cura medentum
Tempore jam multo valuit mollire lagonis.”
Desilit hospes equo, palpat genu sedulus ægrum,
Sic fatus : “ Similæ nitidam cum lacte farinam
Olla coquat pariter ferventis in igne culinæ.
Hacque istum calida sanandus inunge tumorem.”
Hæc memorans conscendit equum, quo venerat, illo
Calle domum remeans. Monitus medicina secuta est,
Agnovitque sacer medicum venisse superni
Judicis a solio summo, qui munere clausos
Restituit visus piscis de felle Tobiæ.

Smith's Bede, p. 269, 270,

BOOK
IX.

See how my knee is swell’d — no leech's care
Thro' a long lapse of time has sooth'd the evil."

Straight leaped the stranger from his horse, and strok'd
The part diseased, thus counselling : “ The flour
Of wheat and milk boil quickly on the fire,
And spread the mixture warm upon the tumour."
Remounting then he took the road he came;
And Cuthbert used his medicine, and found
That his physician from th' exalted throne
Of the Supreme had come, and eased his pain,
As with the fish's gall he once restored

The light to poor Tobias.
There are some hymns of Bede remaining. The
hymn on the year deserves our peculiar notice, as
it shows that he also used rime, and gives addi-
tional support to that column of evidence which
enabled me to trace the use of rime into the fourth
century.

The first part of the hymn on the year consists of a few hexameters, some of which seem to have been meant to rime. These are succeeded by fifty-eight lines, which correotly rime in couplets, and which are not hexameters. They are not worth a translation, being only curious for their rimes. I add the first twelve.

Annus solis continetur quatuor temporibus,
Ac deinde adimpletur duodecim mensibus.
Quinquaginta et duabus currit hebdomadibus
Trecentenis sexaginta atque quinque diebus.
Sed excepta quarta parte noctis atque diei
Quæ dierum superesse cernitur serie.
De quadrante post annorum bis binorum terminum,
Calculantes colligendum decreverunt bissextum.
Hinc annorum diversantur longe latitudines
Quorum quidam embolismi, quidam fiunt communes,
Brevis quippe qui vocant communis lunaribus
Solis semper duodenis terminatur mensibus.
Longus autem qui omnino embolismus dicitur
Lunæ tribus atque decem cursibus colligitur

CHAP.

V.

Brevioris anni totus terminatur circulus
Trecentenis quinquaginta ac quatuor diebus,
Longus vero lunæ annus in dierum termino
Continetur trecenteno, octogeno, quaterno. 27

In the same poem he frequently makes his hexameters rime.

In another part of the same poem he introduces a series of middle rimes; as,

Adventum domini, non est celebrare Decembri,
Post ternas nonas, neque quintas ante calendas,
Pascha nec undenas, Aprilis ante calendas,
Nec post septenas, Maias valet esse calendas,
Virgo puerperio, dedit anno signa secundo,
Illius magni cycli, modo bis revolvit....
Triginta que duos, quingentos qui tenet annos,
Illius angelici, dantes paschalia cycli,

Qui constat denis, annis simul atque novenis. 28
The comma marks the position of the middle rime.
He adds thirty-six more lines of this sort.

We have also of Bede's a long poem on the
martyr Justin. The beginning may be given to
show its form.
Quando Christus Deus noster Quatenus totius orbis
Natus est ex virgine

Fieret descriptio. Edictum imperiale

Nimirum quia in carne Per mundum insonuit, Tunc ille apparuit. 29

Boniface, the Anglo-Saxon who went a self. Latin devoted missionary to Germany, and, after con- Boniface.

1

27 Bedæ Opera, tom. i. p. 476. That Bede had observed the middle, or what have been called Leonine rimes, is clear from his adducing one as a specimen how poets use the figure Homæoleuton :

“ Poetæ hoc modo ;

Pervia divisi, patuerunt cærula ponti.” Tom. i. Op. p. 62. 28 Bedæ Opera, tom. i. p. 485. Simeon Dun., p. 96., quotes a long poem of Bede, on the day of judgment, in hexameter Latin verse.

BOOK
IX.

verting one hundred thousand from their idolatry, was murdered in 755, attempted poetry. Some of the verses which he subjoined to his epistolary correspondence yet remain to us.

In the following,
the middle lines represent an acrostic of the name
of the friend to whom he writes. It is in Latin
rimes. The acrostic begins when he mentions his
friend's name:
Vale frater, florentibus Dominum quæ semper choris
Juventutis cum viribus : Verum comunt angelicis.
Ut floreas cum Domino Qua rex regum perpetuo
In sempiterno solio

Cives ditat in sæculo
Qua martyres in cuneo Iconisma sic cherubin
Regem canunt æthereo Ut et gestes cum seraphin
Prophetæ apostolicis

Editus apostolorum
Consonabunt et laudibus Filius prophetarum
Nitharde nunc nigerrima

Summa sede ut gaudeas.
Imi cosmi cantagia

Unaque simul fulgeas
Temme fauste Tartarea Excelsi regni premia
Hæc contra hunc supplicia Lucidus captes aurea
Alta que super
æthera

In que throno æthereo
Rimari petens agmina

Christum laudes preconia. 30
On another occasion he closes a letter to pope
Gregory with six complimentary hexameters. 31
Boniface is once called by a contemporary the
client of Aldhelm. 32

Among the correspondents of Boniface we find some poets. Leobyitha, an Anglo-Saxon lady, closes a letter to him with these four verses, which are curious for being rimed hexameters :

Arbiter omnipotens, solus qui cuncta creavit
In regno patris, semper qui lumine fulget.
Quia jugiter flagrans, sic regnet gloria Christi
Ilæsum servet semper te jure perenni. 33

Of Leobgitha.

30 Maxima Bib. Patrum, xiii. p. 70. They contain nothing worth translating.

p.
126.

p.

83.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid. p. 93.

33 Ibid.

CHAP.

V.

Th' Almighty Judge, who in his Father's realms
Created all, and shines with endless light,
May he in glory reign, and thee preserve
In everlasting safety and delight.

" I ask your

She introduces these verses with a letter, of which
a few paragraphs may be selected.
clemency to condescend to recollect the friendship
which some time ago you had for my father. His
name was Tinne; he lived in the western parts,
and died about eight years ago. I beg you not to
refuse to offer up prayers to God for his soul. My
mother desires also to be remembered to you.
Her name is Ebbe. She is related to you, and
lives now very laboriously, and has been long
oppressed with great infirmity. I am the only
daughter of my parents, and I wish, though I am
unworthy, that I may deserve to have you for my
brother; because in none of the human race have
I so much confidence as in you. I have en-
deavoured to compose these under-written verses
according to the discipline of poetical tradition,
not confident with boldness, but desiring to excite
the rudiments of your elegant mind, and wanting
your help. I learnt this art from the tuition of
Eadburga, who did not cease to meditate the sa-
cred law."

CÆNA, an Anglo-Saxon archbishop, another of or Cæna. the correspondents of the German missionary, annexes to a letter which he wrote to Lullus six lines, which are hexameters, but rime in the middle of each line :

Vivendo felix Christi laurate triumphis
Vita tuis, seclo specimen, charissime colo,
Justitiæ cultor, verus pietatis amator,
Defendens vigili sanctas tutamine mandras