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Among other poems in the two collections, we have in the Exeter Book "The Traveller's Song," which is sometimes thought to be the oldest of First English poems; the legend of "St. Guthlac; ""The Phoenix," an allegory of the life of the Christian n; "The Panther" and "The Whale," two examples of the early Christian fashion of turning natural history into religious apologue; "An Address of the Soul to the Body;" "The Various Fortunes of Men; and some "Proverbs" and "Riddles." The collection contains a few pieces not exclusively devotional, and it represents in fair proportion the whole character of First English poetry. Since it was produced by an educated class trained in the monasteries, the religious tone might be expected to predominate, even if this were not also the literature of a religious people. The domestic feeling of the Teuton is tenderly expressed among these poems in a little strain from shipboard on the happiness of him whose wife awaits on shore the dear bread-winner, ready to wash his travelstained clothes and to clothe him anew by her own spinning and weaving.

In the Vercelli Book, beside Cynewulf's "Helen," there is a still longer legend of "St. Andrew," with a "Vision of the Holy Rood," the beginning of a poem on "The Falsehood of Men," a poem on "The Fates of the Apostles," and two "Addresses of the Soul to the Body," one corresponding to that in the Exeter Book. Such poems, in which the soul debates with the body as chief cause of sin, remained popular for centuries.

Among the remains of First English poetry outside the Exeter and the Vercelli Book, the most interesting of those which seem to have been produced before the end of the eighth century is a fragment of old battle-song known as "The Fight at Finnesburg;" also a fine fragment of a poem on "Judith," and a fragment of a gloomy poem on "The Grave."

Few poems remain to us from the First English period, belonging to the years after the eighth century. The writers of that famous national record called "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" occasionally rise from prose into verse, and in this way has been preserved the poem of "The Battle of Brunanburh.”`

There remains to us, nearly complete, a First English poem on "The Battle of Maldon," or, as it is also called, "The Death of Byrhtnoth," warm with the generous love of independence, and yet simply honest in its record of defeat, through which we feel, as it were, the pulse of the nation beating healthily.

Perhaps the most famous specimen of the poetry of this period is a scrap of song believed to have been composed by King Canute. One day, when he was going by boat to Ely to keep a church festival, he ordered his men to row slowly, and near shore, that he might hear the psalms of the monks; then he called to his companions to sing with him, and invented on the spot a little song:

"Merie sungen the Muneches binnen Ely
Tha Cnut ching reuther by;
Rotheth cnites ner the land

And here ye thes Muneches sang."
("Pleasantly sang the monks in Ely

When Canute the king rowed by;

Row, boys, near the land,

And hear ye the song of the monks.")

Then followed other verses, said to have been still remembered and sung a hundred years after the Conquest.

7. As to their mechanism, there is one measure for "Beowulf," Cadmon's "Paraphrase," and all subsequent First English poems. There is no rhyme, and no counting of syllables. The lines are short, depending upon accent for a rhythm varying in accordance with the thought to be expressed, and depending for its emphasis upon alliteration. Usually, in the first of a pair of short lines, the two words of chief importance begin with the same letter, and, in the second line of the pair, the chief word begins also with that letter, that is to say, if the alliteration is of consonants; in the case of vowels the rule is reversed, the chief words begin with vowels that are different.

CHAPTER III.

FIRST ENGLISH PROSE.

1. The Venerable Bede.-2. Alcuin and John Scotus Erigena.-3. King Alfred.4. Ethelwold and Dunstan.-5. Progress in England.-6. Elfric.—7. AngloSaxon Chronicle.

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1. As Cædmon marches at the head of the long line of English poets, so the Venerable Bede leads the still longer line of English prose-writers. This wise and saintly man, born in 673, was a child in arms when Cædmon sang the power of the Creator and his counsel, and the young Aldhelm had begun his work at Malmesbury. When seven years old, that is to say, about the time of the death of Abbess Hilda, - Bede was placed in the newly-founded monastery of St. Peter, at Wearmouth. Three years later the associated monastery of St. Paul was opened at Jarrow, on the banks of the Tyne, about five miles distant from St. Peter's. Bede, then aged ten, was transferred to the Jarrow monastery. There he spent his life, punctual in all formal exercises of devotion, and employing his whole leisure, pen in hand, for the advancement of true knowledge. He digested and arranged the teaching of the fathers of the church, that others might with the least possible difficulty study the Scriptures by the light they gave. He produced, in a Latin treatise on "The Nature of Things," a text-book of the science of his day, digested and compacted out of many volumes. His works are almost an encyclopædia of the knowledge of his time. He drew it from many sources, where it lay hidden in dull, voluminous, or inaccessible books; and he set it forth in books which could be used in the monastery schools, or be read by the educated for their own further instruction. The fame of the devout and simple-minded English scholar spread beyond England. A pope in vain desired to have him brought to Rome. He refused in his own monastery the dignity of abbot,

because the office demands household care; and household care brings with it distraction of mind, which hinders the pursuit of learning.' He was thus at work in his monastery, thirty-six years old, at the time of the death of Aldhelm.

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In 731, in his fifty-ninth year, Bede finished the most important of his works, that known as his "Ecclesiastical History." That History of the English Church was virtually a history of England brought down to the date of its completion, and based upon inquiries made with the true spirit of a historian. Bede did not doubt reported miracles; and that part of the religious faith of his time supplies details which we should be glad now to exchange for other information upon matters whereof he gives too bare a chronicle; but, whatever its defects, he has left us a history of the early years of England, succinct, yet often warm with life; business-like and yet childlike in its tone; at once practical and spiritual, simply just, and the work of a true scholar, breathing love to God and man. We owe to Bede alone the knowledge of much that is most interesting in our early history. Where other authorities are cited, they are often writers, who, on the points in question, know no more than Bede had told them. Bede died in the year 735, four years after the completion of his History. He wrote in Latin, then the language of all scholars; but in his last days, under painful illness, he was urging forward a translation into English of the Gospel of St. John. One of his pupils said to him, when the end was near, "Most dear master, there is still one chapter wanting; do you think it troublesome to be asked any more questions?" He answered, "It is no trouble. Take your pen and make ready, and write fast." Afterwards, says the pupil, who gave, in a letter that remains to us, the narrative of Bede's last days, when the dying scholar had been taking leave of his brethren in the monastery, and bequeathing among them his little wealth of pepper, napkins, and incense, "the boy said, 'Dear master, there is yet one sentence not written.' He answered, Write quickly.' Soon after the boy said, 'The sentence is now written.' He replied, 'It is well. You have said the truth. It is ended. Receive my head into your hands; for it is a great satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place, where

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I was wont to pray, that I may also, sitting, call upon my Father.' And thus on the pavement of his little cell, singing 'Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,'. when he had named the Holy Spirit he breathed his last, and so departed into the heavenly kingdom."

2. After Bede's death there were in England two great scholars, who by their writings made themselves famous over all Europe: these were Alcuin, who died in 804, and John Scotus Erigena, who died about 884. These men did much to advance learning and to quicken thought in England; but as their writings were in Latin, and not in English, their connection with English literature was only indirect.

3. The chief prosperity of First English prose gathers about the name and reign of the great King Alfred. Thirteen years before the death of Erigena, that is in 871, Alfred became King of England; and at that time the same races, which, by their settlements three or four centuries earlier, had laid the foundations of England, were again descending on the coasts of the North Sea and the Atlantic. They spread their ravages from Friesland to Aquitaine, and pushed inland by way of the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne. In England they were called the Danes; in France, the Normans. In the autumn of 866 the Danes occupied in strength part of the eastern coast, and in the following spring they plundered and burned churches and monasteries of East Anglia. The Abbess Hilda's was among the monasteries burned in 867.

In 876, when Alfred, aged twenty-seven, had been for five years an unlucky king, with Healfdene strong at the head of his Danes in the north of England, and Guthrum in the south, Rolf (called also Rollo and Rou) entered the Seine. He and his brother Gorm had, like others, contended with their own king at home. Gorm had been killed, and Rolf had gone into independent exile as a bold adventurer by sea. He had sought prizes in England and Belgium before he went up the Seine, and was then invited to take peaceful occupation of Rouen. In 879 King Alfred obtained peace by his treaty with Guthrum. Thirty-two years afterwards, in 911, the land of the Normans, afterwards called Normandy, was yielded to Rollo and his followers.

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