work being an Ecclesiastical History. But though Latin was the tongue in which he wrote his books, he wrote one book in English; and he may therefore be fairly considered the first writer of English prose. This book was a Translation of the Gospel of St John—a work which he laboured at until the very moment of his death. His disciple Cuthbert tells the story of his last hours. “Write quickly!” said Baeda to his scribe, for he felt that his end could not be far off. When the last day came, all his scholars stood around his bed. “There is still one chapter wanting, Master,” said the scribe; “it is hard for thee to think and to speak.” “It must be done,” said Baeda; “take thy pen and write quickly.” So through the long day they wrote—scribe succeeding scribe; and when the shades of evening were coming on, the young writer looked up from his task and said, “There is yet one sentence to write, dear Master.” “Write it quickly!” Presently the writer, looking up with joy, said, “It is finished!” “Thou sayest truth,” replied the weary old man; “it is finished: all is finished.” Quietly he sank back upon his pillow, and, with a psalm of praise upon his lips, gently yielded up to God his latest breath. It is a great pity that this translation—the first piece of prose in our language—is utterly lost. No MS. of it is at present known to be in existence.
[9.] The Father of English Prose.—For several centuries, up to the year 866, the valleys and shores of Northumbria were the homes of learning and literature. But a change was not long in coming. Horde after horde of Danes swept down upon the coasts, ravaged the monasteries, burnt the books—after stripping the beautiful bindings of the gold, silver, and precious stones which decorated them—killed or drove away the monks, and made life, property, and thought insecure all along that once peaceful and industrious coast. Literature, then, was forced to desert the monasteries of Northumbria, and to seek for a home in the south—in Wessex, the kingdom over which Alfred the Great reigned for more than thirty years. The capital of Wessex was Winchester; and an able writer says: “As
Whitby is the cradle of English poetry, so is Winchester of English prose.” King Alfred founded colleges, invited to England men of learning from abroad, and presided over a school for the sons of his nobles in his own Court. He himself wrote many books, or rather, he translated the most famous Latin books of his time into English. He translated into the English of Wessex, for example, the ‘Ecclesiastical History’ of Baeda; the ‘History of Orosius,’ into which he inserted geographical chapters of his own; and the ‘Consolations of Philosophy,’ by the famous Roman writer, Boëthius. In these books he gave to his people, in their own tongue, the best existing works on history, geography, and philosophy.
[10.] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.—The greatest prose-work of the oldest English, or purely Saxon, literature, is a work—not by one person, but by several authors. It is the historical work which is known as The Saxon Chronicle. It seems to have been begun about the middle of the ninth century; and it was continued, with breaks now and then, down to 1154—the year of the death of Stephen and the accession of Henry II. It was written by a series of successive writers, all of whom were monks; but Alfred himself is said to have contributed to it a narrative of his own wars with the Danes. The Chronicle is found in seven separate forms, each named after the monastery in which it was written. It was the newspaper, the annals, and the history of the nation. “It is the first history of any Teutonic people in their own language; it is the earliest and most venerable monument of English prose.” This Chronicle possesses for us a twofold value. It is a valuable storehouse of historical facts; and it is also a storehouse of specimens of the different states of the English language—as regards both words and grammar—from the eighth down to the twelfth century.
[11.] Layamon’s Brut.—Layamon was a native of Worcestershire, and a priest of Ernley on the Severn. He translated, about the year 1205, a poem called Brut, from the French of a monkish writer named Master Wace. Wace’s work itself is
little more than a translation of parts of a famous “Chronicle or History of the Britons,” written in Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was Bishop of St Asaph in 1152. But Geoffrey himself professed only to have translated from a chronicle in the British or Celtic tongue, called the “Chronicle of the Kings of Britain,” which was found in Brittany—long the home of most of the stories, traditions, and fables about the old British Kings and their great deeds. Layamon’s poem called the “Brut” is a metrical chronicle of Britain from the landing of Brutus to the death of King Cadwallader, about the end of the seventh century. Brutus was supposed to be a great-grandson of Æneas, who sailed west and west till he came to Great Britain, where he settled with his followers.—This metrical chronicle is written in the dialect of the West of England; and it shows everywhere a breaking down of the grammatical forms of the oldest English, as we find it in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In fact, between the landing of the Normans and the fourteenth century, two things may be noted: first, that during this time—that is, for three centuries—the inflections of the oldest English are gradually and surely stripped off; and, secondly, that there is little or no original English literature given to the country, but that by far the greater part consists chiefly of translations from French or from Latin.
[12.] Orm’s Ormulum.—Less than half a century after Layamon’s Brut appeared a poem called the Ormulum, by a monk of the name of Orm or Ormin. It was probably written about the year 1215. Orm was a monk of the order of St Augustine, and his book consists of a series of religious poems. It is the oldest, purest, and most valuable specimen of thirteenth-century English, and it is also remarkable for its peculiar spelling. It is written in the purest English, and not five French words are to be found in the whole poem of twenty thousand short lines. Orm, in his spelling, doubles every consonant that has a short vowel before it; and he writes pann for pan, but pan for pane. The following is a specimen of his poem:—
| Ice hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh | I have wended (turned) into English |
| Goddspelless hallghe lare, | Gospel’s holy lore, |
| Affterr thatt little witt tatt me | After the little wit that me |
| Min Drihhtin hafethth lenedd. | My Lord hath lent. |
Other famous writers of English between this time and the appearance of Chaucer were Robert of Gloucester and Robert of Brunne, both of whom wrote Chronicles of England in verse.