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BOOK rics, and the abbey of Fulda, and several monas

teries in Germany, was born in Devonshire. His name was Winfrith. 37 He calls himself German Legate of the Apostolic See 38, and mentions that, “born and nourished in the nation of the English, we wander here by the precept of the Apostolic Seat.” 30 From another letter, we find that he had visited Rome, to give an account of his mission, and that the Pope had exhorted him to return and persevere in his efforts. 40 He was in the archiepiscopal dignity from 745 to 754. His activity was exerted with the greatest success between the Weser and the Rhine. He anointed Pepin king of the Francs in 752. During his absence abroad he kept up an extensive correspondence in England. We have several of his letters to the kings of the Anglo-Saxon octarchy. He wrote to Ethelbald, king of Mercia, begging his assistance to the friend who carried his letter, and sending him some presents. To the same king he addressed a longer letter of moral rebuke and religious exhortation. Ethelbert, the king of Kent, sent to him a complimentary letter, mentioning his rumoured successes in the conversion of the Germans, and presenting himn with a bowl of silver gilt. Sigebald, a king of the octarchy, wrote to him to request that he would be one of his bishops; and Æbuald, king of East Anglia, also addressed him in a very kind and respectful manner. 41

His letters to Nothelm, archbishop of Canterbury, to the Anglo-Saxon bishops, Daniel and Ecberth, and to several abbots and abbesses, are yet

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preserved. His correspondence with the son of chap, Charles Martel, with Pepin, king of France, and with the Popes Gregory II. and III., and Zachary, also exists. He appears to have been a man of considerable attainments, of earnest piety, and the most active benevolence. His last Christian labours were in East Friesland, where he was killed with fifty companions. 42

Eddius, surnamed Stephanus, is described by Eddius. Bede 43, as the first singing master in the churches of Northumbria, and as having been invited from Kent by Wilfrid. He flourished about 720, and wrote the life of Bishop Wilfrid: he addresses his work to bishop Acca and the abbot Tatbert. Ed. dius begins it with a ridiculous prodigy. While the mother of Wilfred was in labour with him, the house where she lay seemed to those without to be in flames. The neighbours hastened with water to extinguish them. But the fire was not real; it was only a type of Wilfrid's future sanctity and honour. The miracles of his mature age were of course not less extraordinary. To restore a dead child to life, and to heal another whose arms and thighs were broken by a fall from a scaffold; a dark dungeon supernaturally illuminated; St. Michael coming from heaven to cure him of a malady; a withered hand restored by touching the cloth in which his corpse had been laid; an angel appear

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44

BOOK ing with a golden cross to hinder his chamber from

being burnt; are some of the effusions of Eddius's fancy, with which he feebly attempts to adorn his composition and its object.

The style is not so plain as Bede, nor so affected as Aldhelm; but is seldom above mediocrity.

; Alcuin. One of the pupils formed by Bede, and who

became the literary friend and preceptor of Charlemagne, Alcuin, called also Albinus, is entitled to the most honourable notice among the Saxon literati of the eighth century. He was born in Northumbria, and studied at York under Egbert. He says

of himself, that he was nourished and educated at York 45, and that he went in his youth to Rome, and heard Peter of Pisa dispute on Christianity with a Jew.

He was sent on an embassy from Offa to Charlemagne, and after this period the emperor was so highly attached to him, that in 790 he went to France, and settled there. Here he composed many works on the sciences and arts, which were valued in that day for the use and instruction of Charlemagne. These still exist, and a number of letters and poems also appear in his works, addressed to Charlemagne, on a variety of topics, under the name of David, and written in the most affectionate language. He was indefatigable in exciting the emperor to the love and encouragement of learning, and in the collection of MSS. for its dissemination. His efforts spread it through France, and his reputation contributed much to establish it in Europe. After the enjoyment of

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imperial affection and confidence to a degree which CHAP. literature has never experienced in any other instance, he retired to the abbey of Saint Martin, at Tours, where he died in 804.46

He attained great affluence from the favour of his imperial friend. He remarks that a Spanish ecclesiastic, whose erring opinions he had censured, blamed him for the multitude of his riches, and for the number of his servi, or bondsmen, being 20,000. Alcuin does not contradict the fact, but denies that it had corrupted his mind : “ It is one thing to possess the world; it is another to be

possessed by it.” 47

He seems to have been much afflicted with illness, for he often mentions his headachs, the daily pains of his weak body, and a species of continual fever. 48

The merit of Alcuin's poetry we have already exhibited. His prose is entitled to the praise of learning, eloquence, and more judgment than any of his contemporaries exhibited. He had a correct and high feeling of morals and piety; his taste was of an improved kind, and his mind was clear and acute. But it must be recollected of him, as of all the writers of the Anglo-Saxon period, that their greatest merit consisted in acquiring, preserving, and teaching the knowledge which other countries and times had accumulated. They added little to the stock themselves. They left it as they found

46 See his works, published by Du Chesne, at Paris, in 1617. 47 Alb. Op. p. 927.

48 Op. p. 1505 — 1511.; and “the wicked fever scarcely suffers me to live on earth. It seeks to open for me the road to heaven. Health leads me to seek its precious treasures amid the fields and hills, and verdant meadows." P. 1509.

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Book it. But they separated its best parts from the

words and lumber with which these were connected, and thus prepared the ground for further improvement; and their efforts, examples, and tuition, contributed to excite the taste, and to diffuse the acquisition. Unless such men had existed, the knowledge, which the talents of mankind had been for ages slowly acquiring, would have gradually mouldered away with the few perishing MSS. which contained it. Europe would have become what Turkey is, and mankind would have been now slowly emerging into the infancy of literature and science, instead of rejoicing in that noble manhood which we have attained. Several Irish ecclesiastics at this time attained eminence, and assisted to instruct both France and Italy. Of these Claudius, also a disciple of Bede, and friend of Albinus, Dungal, and Duncan, were the most conspicuous.

All these were patronised by Charlemagne. Erigena. Another disciple of Bede, and one of the

literary companions of Alfred, Johannes Erigena, or John the Irishman, was distinguished by the acumen of his intellect and the expanse of his knowledge. Though a native of the west of Europe, he was well skilled in Grecian literature 49, for he translated from the Greek language a work of Dionysius, called the Areopagite 59, and

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49

Bouquet, in his recueil of the ancient French chronicles, says, that after Charlemagne had obtained the empire of the West, and an epistolary intercourse had taken place between the Franks and Greeks, “ Cepit occidentalibus nosci et in usu esse lingua Græca." T. viii. p. 107.

50 That the works ascribed to Dionysius, the Areopagite, are supposititious, and were written after the fourth century, see Dupin, vol. i. p. 100—111. ed. Paris, 1688. They suited the genius of Eria