MONIA] HENRY OF HUNTINGDON. CASAUBON. 189 cuncta ipse peragrasset, plerumque describit, cum ab infantia in monasterio nutritus totam ibidem usque ad euocationis suae diem uitam transegerit.

XVI

5 ANNO eodem uenerabilis Beda semper mente inhabitata

caeli conscendit palatia; qui regia uirtute sua et aliorum uitia compescens, cum regibus ipsis inferior non sit, dignissime regum in ordine quasi rex ponatur...reliquit autem mundum anno LXII aetatis suae, senex annis et 10 sapientia et plenus dierum non in uano consumptorum, quod apparet in operum suorum numero.

XVII

7IX dubitationi locus uidetur relictus, quin optimi et sanctissimi uiri ac merito suo, uti uocatur, uenera15 bilis Bedae simplicitate etiam hic sit abusus, qui hoc illi persuasit.... quorum nos uirorum [Greg Tur and Beda] pietatem et zelum promouendae religionis suspicimus et ueneramur at facilitatem in credendis multis, quae priora saecula non crediderant, admodum suspectam habere pro20 fitemur.

25

THE

XVIII

'HE profoundest scholar in his age, for Latine, Greek, philosophy, history, divinity, mathematicks, musick, and what not? homilies of his making were read in his life-time in the christian churches; a dignity afforded to him alone.

Henricus Huntendunensis hist Angl IV an 735 (MHB p 726). 12 Isaac Casaubon exercitationes (Frankf 1615) p 124 b.

16

P 472 b.

"Thomas Fuller church-history cent viii §§ 15-18.

190

THOMAS FULLER.

[TESTI

we are much beholding to his ecclesiastical history, written by him and dedicated to Ceolwoolfus king of Northumberland. a worthy work indeed, though, in some respect, we could heartily wish that his faith had been lesse, and his charity more. faith lesse in believing and reporting so 5 many prodigious miracles of the Saxons: except any will say, that this in him was not so much uitium hominis, as saeculi. charity more, I mean to the Britans, being no friend to them, and over-partial to his own country-men; slightly and slenderly touching British matters, onely 10 thereof to make a pedestall, the more fairly to reare and advance his Saxon history thereupon.

Some report that Bede never went out of his cell, but lived and died therein. if so, the scholars of Cambridge will be very sory, because thereby deprived of their honour, 15 by Bede's living once in their university; whose house they still shew, betwixt St John's colledge and Round-church, or St Sepulchres. surely Bede was not fixed to his cell, as the cockle to his shel, seeing no observance of his Benedictine order imposed such a penance upon him. indeed his own 20 words, in the end of his book, give some countenance to their conjecture of his voluntary confinement, speaking of himself, cunctum tempus uitae in eiusdem monasterii habitatione peragens. but his expression imports onely his generall residence therein, that he was no gadder abroad, or dis- 25 continuer from his convent, for a long time; though he might for some short space make his abode elsewhere. thus, when of the prophetesse it is said, that she departed not from the temple: we understand it not so, as if she never went out thereof; but that for the main, she spent the most 30 of her time therein.

He is generally surnamed venerable, but why, authours liffer therein. some say, a dunce-monk, being to make

MONIA]

A DUNCE-MONK NON-PLUSSED.

191

his epitaph, was non-pluss'd to make that dactyle, which is onely of the quorum in the hexameter, and therefore at night left the verse gaping,

Bedae

-ossa.

hic sunt in fossa 5 till he had consulted with his pillow, to fill up the hiatus. but returning in the morning, an angel (we have often heard of their singing, see now of their poetry) had filled up the chasma with uenerabilis. others, disclaiming this conceit, assign this reason: because Bede's homilies were (as afore10 said) read in all churches in his life-time (flores sanctorum in the life of Bede, page 528); plain Bede was conceived too little, and St Bede too much; because, according to popish (but not St Paul's) principles, saint is too much flattery to be given to any whilest alive; Solon allowing none happy, 15 and this mine authour none, in this degree, holy, before

their death. wherefore venerable was found out as an expedient to accommodate the difference, luckily hitting the mark, as a title neither too high nor too low; just even to so good a man, and great a scholar, whilest alive. this is 20 observable in all those who have written the life of Bede; that, whereas such Saxon-saints, as had not the tenth of his sanctity, nor hundredth part of his learning, are said to have wrought miracles ad lectoris nauseam; not one single miracle is reported to have been done by Bede. whereof (under 25 favour) I conceive this the reason: monks, who wrote the lives of many of their saints, knew little more of them then their bare names, and times wherein they lived; which made them historiae uacua miraculis supplere, to plump up the hollownesse of their history with improbable miracles, 30 swelling the bowells of their books with empty wind, in default of sufficient solid food to fill them. whereas Bede's life affording plenty and variety of reall and effectuall matter, the writer thereof (why should a rich man be a thief,

192 a foreigner VISITS BEDA'S TOMB. [TESTI

or lyar?) had no temptation (I am sure no need) to farse his book with fond miracles, who might rather leave, then lack of materiall passages therein.

One of the last things he did, was the translating of the gospel of St John into English. when death seised on 5 him, one of his devout scholars, whom he used for his secretary, or amanuensis, complained, My beloved master, there remains yet one sentence unwritten. Write it then quickly, replied Bede: and summoning all his spirits together (like the last blaze of a candle going out) he indited 10 it, and expired. thus God's children are immortall, whiles their Father hath any thing for them to do on earth; and death, that beast, cannot overcome and kill them, till first they have finished their testimony: which done, like silk-worms, they willingly die, when their web is ended, and are com- 15 fortably entombed in their own endeavours. nor have I ought else to observe of Bede, save onely this; a forreign embassadour, some two hundred yeares since, coming to Durham, addressed himself first to the high and sumptuous shrine of St Cuthbert, If thou beest a saint, pray for me: 20 then coming to the plain, low, and little tombe of Bede, Because (said he) thou art a saint, good Bede, pray for me.

XIX

HE

let a

E was the most general scholar of that age. sophister begin with his axioms, a batchelor of art 25 proceed to his metaphysicks, a master to his mathematicks, and a divine conclude with his controversies and comments on scripture, and they shall find him better in all, than any Christian writer in that age, in any of those arts and sciences. he expounded almost all the bible, 30

13 Thomas Fuller the worthies of England, Durham (1662 p 292).

5

MONIA]

HENRY WHARTON.

193

translated the Psalms and New Testament into English, and lived a comment on those words of the apostle, shining as a light in the world, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. he was no gadder abroad, credible authors avouching that he never went out of his cell; though both Cambridge and Rome pretend to his habitation. yet his corps after his death...took a journey, or rather were removed to Durham and there enshrined.

ΙΟ

ISTO

XX

STORVM [Gregorii, Isidori, Maximi cet] commentaria plures eruditi uiri saepius ediderunt, et orbis litteratus edita comprobauit. quidni igitur parilem fauorem Bedae nostrati sperare liceat? certe huic neque doctrina pro saeculi sui captu nec eximia doctrinae fama defuit. uiuen15 tem ecclesia Romana etiam e longinquo uenerata est; et defuncti memoriam sequentia saecula egregiis laudibus hucusque sunt prosecuta; operaque illius theologica homines exteri pluribus tomis expressa semel atque iterum euulgarunt.

20

Certe nobis Anglis fraudi non erit scripta conterranei nostri celeberrimi in lucem emittere: quin potius pudori erit ea tineis blattisque relinquere, quae exteri sedulo conquirunt et e tenebris eripiunt. neque enim de gentist nostrae gloria minus, quam alii, sumus solliciti; nec de 25 Bedae conciuis meritis atque eruditione minus magnifice sentimus. scriptor nuperus Casimirus Oudin nobis in opprobrium uertit, quod omnia Bedae opera e diuersis bibliothecarum nostratium, quibus abdita latent, forulis eruta nondum euulgauerimus; et uir cl Iohannes Mabillonius se

Henry Wharton Bedae...opera quaedam... (London 1693 4to f A2 vo A3 ro A ro).