[651] Æneid, X, 467-9.
[652] In the two admirable articles by Klaeber (Archiv, CCXVI, 40 etc., 399 etc.) every possible parallel is drawn: the result, to my mind, is not complete conviction.
[653] Chadwick, Heroic Age, 74.
[654] "Litteris itaque ad plenum instructus, nativae quoque linguae non negligebat carmina; adeo ut, teste libro Elfredi, de quo superius dixi, nulla umquam aetate par ei fuerit quisquam. Poesim Anglicam posse facere, cantum componere, eadem apposite vel canere vel dicere. Denique commemorat Elfredus carmen triviale, quod adhuc vulgo cantitatur, Aldelmum fecisse, aditiens causam qua probet rationabiliter tantum virum his quae videantur frivola institisse. Populum eo tempore semibarbarum, parum divinis sermonibus intentum, statim, cantatis missis, domos cursitare solitum. Ideo sanctum virum, super pontem qui rura et urbem continuat, abeuntibus se opposuisse obicem, quasi artem cantitandi professum. Eo plusquam semel facto, plebis favorem et concursum emeritum. Hoc commento sensim inter ludicra verbis Scripturarum insertis, cives ad sanitatem reduxisse." William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870, 336.
[655] "Reverentissimo patri meaeque rudis infantiae venerando praeceptori Adriano." Epist. (Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Giles, 1844, p. 330).
[656] Faricius, Life, in Giles' edition of Aldhelm, 1844, p. 357.
[657] Letter of Cuthbert to Cuthwine, describing Bede's last illness. "Et in nostra lingua, hoc est anglica, ut erat doctus in nostris carminibus, nonnulla dixit. Nam et tunc Anglico carmine componens, multum compunctus aiebat, etc." The letter is quoted by Simeon of Durham, ed. Arnold, Rolls Series, 1882, I, pp. 43-46, and is extant elsewhere, notably in a ninth century MS at St Gall.
[658] "quid Hinieldus cum Christo."
[659] "Þæt ǣnig prēost ne bēo ealuscop, ne on ǣnige wīsan glīwige, mid him sylfum oþþe mid ōþrum mannum"—Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, 1840, p. 400 (Laws of Edgar, cap. 58).
[660] "avitae gentilitatis vanissima didicisse carmina." This charge is dismissed as "scabiem mendacii." Vita Sancti Dunstani, by "B," in Memorials of Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1874, p. 11. Were these songs heroic or magic?