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now began. Their desolating bands spread fire and sword over the most cultivated parts of the country. Monasteries and their libraries were burnt. The studious were dispersed or destroyed. The nation was plundered and impoverished; and warfare, avenging or defensive, became the habit of the better conditioned. One man, our Alfred, made the efforts already noticed to revive literature in the island, in the midst of these destructive storms; but even he could not obtain a sufficient interval of peace for its diffusion. The attack of Hastings in the latter part of his life, when he could have done most for letters, again renewed through his kingdom the necessity of great martial exertions; and his earls, thanes, and knights, as well as their dependants, were, for their own preservation, compelled to make warlike education and exercises the great business of life. The occupation of one third of England by the Northmen colonisers of Northumbria and East Anglia; their hostile movements, and the attempts of similar adventurers, kept the country in the same state of martial efficiency and employment, which precluded that enjoyment of peaceful leisure in which letters flourish, and they accordingly declined. The monastic friends of Edgar endeavoured to revive them; but scarcely had Edgar acquired and transmitted a full and prosperous sovereignty, in which the Anglo-Danes and Anglo-Saxons had become melted into one nation; and Dunstan, and his friends Ethelwald and Oswald, were exerting themselves to revive literature, and to multiply its best asylums, the monastic establishments, when, under his second son, the calamities of desolating invasions of Danes and Norwegians again overspread

a

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the country, and ended in the establishment of a Danish dynasty on the throne of Alfred. This event spread a race of Danish lords over the English soil, and the mutual jealousy and bickerings between them and the old Saxon proprietary body kept all the country in an armed state, which made warlike accomplishment and exercises still the first necessity and occupation of all. The reign of Edward the Confessor began a new era of peace and harmony, and literature would have again raised her head among the Anglo-Saxons ; but, in the next succession, their dynasty was destroyed. Thus, though important political benefits resulted from the invading fanaticism of the North, yet their continued attacks, and the consequences that attended them, intercepted and diverted, for above a century and a half, the intellectual cultivation of the Anglo-Saxon nation.

Hence the historian has no progressive development to display in the farther contemplation of the Anglo-Saxon mind. The sufferings of the nation carried the thinking students of the day strongly towards religious literature: and little else than sermons and homilies, penitentiaries and confessions 73, lives of saints, and translations and expositions of the Scriptures, with some authen

72 The Anglo-Saxon MSS. of these are enumerated by Wanley in his Catalogue, pp. 1–48. 52–63. 69. 72. 81. 86–88. 90. 92. 97. 111. 116. 122. 131–144. 154—176. 186—211, &c. &c. &c. Their number exceeds by far all the other topics.

73 As p. 50. 112. 145. and the Rule of Benedict, 91. 122. 74 Wanley's MSS. p. 79. Martyrologies, &c. 106. 185.

75 As MSS. of the Gospels, p. 64. 76. 211.; the Heptateuch, 67.; Psalter, 76. 152. ; Paraphrases of the Lord's Prayer, Creed, Gloria Patri, p. 48. 51. 81. 147, 148. ; Prayers, 64. 147. 202. ; Jubilate, 76. 168. 182, 183.; Hymns, 98, 99. 243.; Judith, 98.; and the Pseudo-Gospel of Nicodemus, 96.

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BOOK tic but plain and meagre chronicles76, formularies

of superstitions, and medicinal tracts78, were produced in the century preceding the Norman conquest. The only individuals who are entitled to be selected from the general inferiority and uniformity are the two Elfrics; Elfric Bata, and his scholar Elfric, the abbot and bishop, of whom the latter only deserves notice here; for whose works, chiefly grammars, translations from the Scriptures, homilies, and lives of saints, we refer the reader to Wanley's Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon MSS. But his exhortations to his fellow-clergymen, to study and to diligence in their duties, ought to be remembered to his honour. To the archbishop Wulstan he writes:

“ It becomes us bishops that we should unclose that booklearning which our canons teach, and also the book of Christ to you, priests ! in English speech, because all of you do not understand Latin.” 79

To bishop Wulfsin he wrote:

“ You ought often to address your clergy, and reprove their negligence, because by their perversity the statutes of the canons and the religious knowlege of the holy church is almost destroyed.” 80

His translations from the Heptateuch into Anglo-Saxon he addressed to the ealdorman Ethel. werd.81 His letter, with other religious treatises,

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to Wulfget, and another to Sigwerd, show that the CHAP. Anglo-Saxon language had acquired the name of English in his time:

“I, Elfric, abbot, by this English writing, friendlily greet Wulfget, at Ylmandune, in this, that we now here speak of those English writings which I lend thee. The meaning of those writings pleased thee well, and I said that I would yet send thee more.” 82.

“ Ælfric, abbot, greets friendlily Sigwerd at East Heolon. I say to thee truly that he is very wise who speaketh in works: and I turned these into English, and advise you, if you will, to read them yourself." 83.

“I, Elfric, would turn this little book (his grammar) to the English phrase from that stæs.cpæfte (art of letters) which is called grammatica, because stæf-cræfte is the key that unlocks the meaning of books." 84

His anxiety for the good and correct writing of his books is thus expressed :

“Look ! you who write this book : write it by this example; and for God's love make it that it be less to the writer's credit for beauty than for reproach to me.

“I pray now if any one will write this book, that he make it well from this example, because I would not yet bring into it any error through false writers. It will be then his fault, not mine. The un-writer doth much evil if he will not rectify his mistake.” 86

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87

Among the Anglo-Saxon MSS. that remain may be remarked the History or rather Romance of

Apollonius, king of Tyre. It is a prose commance of position in our ancient language, but the present Apollonius. author has not yet had an opportunity of consult

Anglo

ing it. 88

of Job, “ I turned formerly some sayings from this into English.' Elfric de Vet. Testam. MS., and cited by Thwaites.

87 It is among the MSS. at Cambridge. It is mentioned by Wanley, p. 147., and is there said to have been first written in Greek, and then turned into Latin during the time of the emperors. A Greek MS. of it is said to be at Vienna, with a version in modern Greek. Since the fifth edition of this history, Mr. B. Thorpe has published from the Cambridge MS. this work, with an English translation. He entitles it “ The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Story of Apollonius of Tyre, upon which is founded the play of Pericles, attributed to Shakspeare." Lond. 1834. He mentions in his preface “ The Latin version, lof which the Saxon is a translation, forms the 153d chapter of the Gesta Romanorum ; but a more ancient and better text is that given by Welser, from a manuscript in the library of the abbey of St. Ulric and St. Afra at Augsberg. M. Velseri Op. Hist. et Philol. Noremb. 1682.”

Mr. Thorpe, besides a translation of Cedmon, has also published a valuable selection in prose and verse from Anglo-Saxon authors of various ages in his Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, with a glossary. Lond. 1834.

88 While we admit that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors neither generally cultivated literature nor attained much eminence in it, we must, in justice to them, at the same time intimate, that neither France nor Italy, during their dynasties, appear to have excelled them. When Pope Gregory II., who died 731, appointed his legates to attend a council, he wrote this excuse for their palpable ignorance : “We send them for the obedience we owe, and not for our confidence in their knowlege; for how can the knowlege of the Scriptures be fully found among men who are placed in the middle of Gentiles, and who seek their daily bread by their bodily labour.” Muratori, Ans. Ital. 810. An epistle of Pope Hadrian I., who died 795, betrays such an ignorance of grammar, as to use prepositions without changing the cases of the nouns they were to govern; as, una cum indiculum ; una cum omnes benebentani. The pontiff also put for Latin such strange words as these, * eorumque novilissimis sui voles.” Mur. ib. 811. Hence, though Muratori fairly says, “ I do not mean to state that Italy was turned into Lapland when the Lombards conquered it, or that letters were so destroyed that no one could read or write,” yet he