CHAPTER II.
I recur a moment to what was said in our opening talk—as a boy will wisely go back a little way for a better jump forward. I spoke—the reader will remember—of ringing, Celtic war-songs, which seemed to be all of literature that was drifting in the atmosphere, when we began: then there came a gleam of Christian light and of monkish learning thro’ St. Augustine in Southern England; and another gleam through Iona, and Lindisfarne, from Irish sources; then came Cædmon’s Bible singing,—which had echo far down in Milton’s day; next the good old Beda, telling the story of these things; then—a thousand years ago,—the Great Alfred, at once a book-maker and a King. Before him and after him came a dreary welter of Danish wars; the great Canute—tradition says—chirping a song in the middle of them; and last, the slaughter of Hastings, where the Saxon Harold went down, and the conquering Norman came up.