[283] At the age of 66, Bede, b. iv. cxxiii.
[284] Bede, b. iv. c. xxiv.
[285] John de Trevisa says, "Cædmon of Whitaby was inspired of the Holy Gost, and made wonder poisyes an Englisch, meiz of al the Storyes of Holy Writ." MS. Harleian, 1900, fol. 43, a.
[286] Ibid.
[287] Cottonian Collection marked Claudius, B. iv. There is another MS. in the Bodleian (Junius XI.) It was printed by Junius in 1655, in 4to. Sturt has engraved some of the illuminations in his Saxon Antiquities, and they were also copied and published by J. Greene, F. A. S., in 1754, in fifteen plates.
[288] It is unfortunately imperfect at the end, and wants folio 32.
[289] Take the following as an instance of the similarity of thought between the two poets. Sharon Turner thus renders a portion of Satan's speech from the Saxon of Cædmon:
"Yet why should I sue for his grace?
Or bend to him with any obedience?
I may be a God as he is.
Stand by me strong companions."
Hist. Anglo Sax. vol. ii. p. 314.
The idea is with Milton:
. . . . . . . . To bow to one for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power,
Who from the terror of this arm so late
Doubted his empire; that were low indeed!
That were an ignominy, and shame beneath
This downfall!
Paradise Lost, b. i.