LITERATURE.
We have no proof that the early pagan Saxons possessed an alphabet, or had any acquaintance with a written language, until the introduction of Christianity; for, unlike the Britons, they had not the enlightened Romans to instruct them. Even as late as Alfred's time, we have shown that but few of the English chiefs could either read or write; and we find Wihtred, king of Kent, as long after the Saxon invasion as the year 700, unable to affix his signature to a charter, but causing some scribe, who had probably drawn up the document, to add as an explanation to the royal mark, that "I, Wihtred, king of Kent, have put this sign of the holy cross to the charter, on account of my ignorance of writing." As the Saxons were the avowed enemies of the ancient Cymry, and came amongst them only to slay, destroy, and take possession of the land, it is easy to account for the length of time that must have elapsed before the Britons would impart the knowledge they had gathered from the Romans to their Saxon conquerors.
One of the earliest histories we possess is that to which the name of Gildas is affixed, who appears, however, to have belonged to the Cymry, and to have had a brother at that period who was celebrated as one of the Welsh bards. To him we have already alluded; also to Nennius, who is said to have been one of the monks of Bangor, and to have had a narrow escape from the massacre, in which so many of his brethren perished. To his early history of Britain we have before alluded. Columbanus, a celebrated Irishman, who died in Italy about the year 615, appears to have been well acquainted with both the Greek and Hebrew languages. Literature at this period seems to have been confined principally to the monasteries; and towards the close of the sixth century, we find Aldhelm, an abbot of Malmsbury, celebrated for his Latin writings. "But his meaning," says Sharon Turner, "is clouded by gorgeous rhetoric: his style an endless tissue of figures, which he never leaves till he has converted every metaphor into a simile, and every simile into a wearisome episode." But the venerable Bede's is the most distinguished name amongst the early Anglo-Saxon writers. He also wrote in Latin, and his ecclesiastical history of England still stands as the chief authority, whence we derive the clearest knowledge of the manners and customs of the early Anglo-Saxons. He was born about 670, or 680, at a village named Yarrow, which stands near the mouth of the Tyne, and was educated at the neighbouring monastery of Wearmouth. He was acquainted with Egbert, the learned archbishop of York, to whom he addressed a letter, which is still extant. Egbert left behind him a famous library, mention of which is made by the celebrated Alcuin, who proposed to Charlemagne that the boys he was educating should be sent out of France, to "copy and carry back the flowers of Britain, that the garden might not be shut up in York, but the fruits of it placed in the paradise of Tours." Though both writing in the same language, and about the same period, no two authors out of the thousands who have since lived and written, have ever exhibited a greater contrast in the style of composition than that which exists between the writings of Aldhelm and Bede. "The style of Bede," says Turner, "in all his works, is plain and unaffected. Attentive only to his matter, he had little solicitude for the phrase in which he dressed it; but, though seldom eloquent, and often homely, it is clear, precise, and useful." Alfred was the first who translated the works of Bede into Saxon, and made them familiar to his subjects. Alcuin, who speaks so highly of the library collected at York by the archbishop Egbert, was sent on an embassy by Offa, surnamed the Terrible, to Charlemagne. Alcuin was a pupil of Bede's, and a native of Northumbria; and while he resided in France, he was instrumental in persuading the emperor to collect many valuable manuscripts. His works seem to have been written for the use and instruction of his friend and patron, the emperor Charlemagne; and, though highly valuable in their day, they lack that living spirit which was infused into the writings of Bede.
But few of the civilized nations of Europe possess works which will bear comparison with those produced by our early Saxon writers; nor has any other of the Gothic tribes, from which our old Germanic language sprung, a literature of so old a date, that in any way approaches to the perfection attained by the early Anglo-Saxons. What we possess is wonderful, considering the short time that elapsed from the first introduction of letters amongst the Saxons, to the troubles which followed the Danish invasion, when so many monasteries and libraries were destroyed by those illiterate but brave barbarians. The first business of the Saxons, after they had ceased fighting, and settled down in England, would be to build and plant; and much time and labour would be required in erecting their habitations, preparing a supply of food, and defending their possessions in a new and hostile country, before they would be enabled to find leisure to direct their thoughts to literature, or do anything more than establish those civil institutions which were necessary for the protection of the colony. They had that work to do which we find ready done to our own hands; fields to inclose, and roads to make; and even the monks to whom we are indebted for our earliest writings were at first compelled to assist in building the monasteries they wrote in, and to cultivate the waste lands which lay around them: yet, in spite of these drawbacks, what wonderful progress was made in literature by the close of the reign of Alfred! Though illiterate, the early Saxons were a highly intelligent race: look at the speech of the chieftain we have already quoted in the reign of Edwin, the king of Deiri—the beautiful and applicable imagery of the bird, the warm hall it enters in winter, and the cold and darkness, which is compared to death, that reigns without; all evince a fine appreciation of the true elements which constitute poetry; yet we have no doubt in our own minds that this heathen orator could neither read nor write. When the Saxons once turned their attention to letters, none of the barbarous nations excelled them—the progress made during the reign of Alfred, we again repeat, is marvellous.
Nothing can be more primitive than our Anglo-Saxon poetry. Every line bears the stamp of originality. The praise of brave warriors is ever the subject. It has always been the same. They but extolled what then stood highest in their estimation—the brave—the giver of rewards—the terror of enemies—the leader of battles are but the plaudits of men put into metre—the natural outbreak of admiration. Watch a fond mother when alone, talking to her infant—nature is still the same—she addresses it as her darling, her dearest, her life, her delight; and when she has exhausted every endearing epithet—uttered every fond word that her heart dictated, she evinces her affection by caresses. To what lengths could we extend the comparison! But neither mother nor child in those days called forth the lavish praises which were expended on a brave chieftain. We need only refer to the extracts we have already given in the body of our history, from the Welsh bards, to prove this. The literature in no country was ever built upon so original a foundation as that of the Anglo-Saxons. Their language at an early period was enriched by the Danish: their habits resembled those of the sea-kings. Long before the Norman conquest, they had melted into one; the sea-horses, and the road of the swans, were to them familiar images; there was a sublimity about the ocean, and the storm, and the giant headlands, which they felt and understood; and had we the space, we could fill pages with proofs of this grand poetical appreciation—of this natural inspiration. The Saxon ode which celebrates Athelstan's victory at Brunanburg bears evidence of the fiery spirit which the Scandinavians diffused. Neither drew from the classic stores of Rome or Greece.
Their homilies and graver works scarcely come within the compass of our history; they require more serious treatment than we are able to bestow upon them. Those attributed to Alfric are now on the eve of becoming widely known; and we doubt not but that, in the course of time, the study of the Anglo-Saxon language will be pursued by every man who aspires to literature. A few days' attention to it, renders the reading of Chaucer easy; and although it may be long before the student is enabled to decypher an old Saxon manuscript, yet he will be rewarded by the facility with which he will get through our early stores of black-letter lore.
Ballads were sung in the English streets before the time of Alfred. Our music and singing-parties are nothing new. More than a thousand years ago, the harp sounded in the festal hall, accompanied by the voice of the singer. Look at the beauty of the following extract. It is an old Saxon ditty, and was known long before the Normans invaded England. Read it; then turn to some of our specimens of modern versification. The exile is banished from his friends, and encounters many hardships. He is doomed to dwell in a cave within the forest; and thus he complains:—
This earthly dwelling is cold, and I am weary;
The mountains are high up, the dells are gloomy,
Their streets full of branches, roofed with pointed thorns;
I am weary of so cheerless an abode.
My friends are now all in the earth—
The grave guards all that I loved;
I alone remain above, and thitherward am I going.
All the long summer day I sit weeping
Under the oak tree, near my earthly cave,
And there may I long weep.
The exile's path still lies through a land of troubles;
My mind knows no rest—it is the cave of care.
Throughout life has weariness ever pursued me.
This passage wants but the polish of Shakspere, and to be uttered by his own mournful monarch, king Richard the Second, to be worthy of a place in his immortal writings.[24]