". . . . down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire."
. . . . . Line 48.
"Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild?"
. . . . . Line 180.
"A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace, flamed."
Line 61 ". . . . torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed."
Line 67.
But after the death of Caedmon (680), there must have been a great deal of poetry written which is now lost, for we read that Bede, on his [{807}] death-bed, repeated several passages from national poets, one of which is preserved in that interesting description of the last moments of the great historian, written by S. Cuthbert, who was with him to the end. [Footnote 216] But the chivalrous poetry of tradition gave way to that of religion, which is the characteristic of Saxon song after the sixth century.
[Footnote 216: Asseri Annaies (Gale's Collec.) ann.; 731.]
We are also told that Aldhelm, bishop of Sherbourne, who died in the year 709, was one of the best poets of his day. But still at this period, although there was a struggle after a national literature, the great works were all written in Latin; and Bede, much as he admired the Saxon poets of his country, intrusted his Ecclesiastical History to the only idiom sacred to learning. Gildas and Nennius, who preceded Bede, also wrote in Latin. But the Saxons were the first out of all the barbarians to acquire a vernacular literature. Of that literature we are scarcely competent to judge; but from what has come down to us, from allusions in history, from the state of education among them, we may safely conclude that although little has survived, it was not a poor literature. We must remember the continual scenes of devastation which took place during the period of their domination; when monasteries were rifled, books burnt, and manuscripts wantonly destroyed. From the time of Alfred, only one Anglo-Saxon writer of any consequence has come down to us, Olfric; but from what we know of Saxon progress we may be assured there were many others. It is evident from the state of education among them. Before the middle of the seventh century schools had sprung up, and toward the latter end an impetus was given to learning by the labors of Theodore and Adrian, of whom Bede asserts that they gathered together a crowd of disciples, and taught them not only the books of Holy Writ, but the arts of ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, and arithmetic, and adds in proof that some of their scholars were alive in his day who were as well versed in the Greek and Latin tongues as their own. [Footnote 217]
[Footnote 217: Eccl. Hist. lib., iv., c. 2.]
Even the ladies among the Saxons were well educated, for it was to them that Aldhelm addressed his work De Laude Virginitatis, and Boniface corresponded with ladies in Latin. In the ninth century also we find that schools were flourishing in various parts of the kingdom, especially the one at York, under Archbishop Egbert, who taught Greek, Latin, and Hebrew to the scholars, amongst whom was Alcuin the friend of Charlemagne. From the letters of Alcuin, but more especially from his History of the Church of York, we may learn that for the same there was a renowned library there, and as it is the earliest list of books—the first catalogue of an English library extant—we may as well subjoin it. Alcuin says that in his library were the works of Jerome, Hilarius, Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius, Gregory, Pope Leo, Basil, Chrysostom, and others. Bede and Aldhelm, the native authors, of course were there. In history and philosophy there were Orosius, Boethius, Pompeius, Pliny, Aristotle, and Cicero. In poetry, Sedulius Juveneus, Prosper, Arator, Paulinus, Fortunatus, Lactantius; and of the classics, Virgil, Statius, and Lucan. Of grammarians there was a great number, such as Probus, Phocas, Donatus, Priscian, Servius, Eutyehius, and Commianus. Boniface was a great book collector, and used to send them home to England. So that we may fairly conclude that if the Danish depredations and the internal dissensions of the country had not been so fatal to the treasures hoarded up in monastic libraries we should have had much more of Saxon literature. The influence of Dunstan, too, gave an impulse to learning both in the country [{808}] generally and in the church. He himself was a scholar, a musician, an artist, an illuminator, and a man of science; [Footnote 218] but the most prominent figure is Bede, who, as we observed, wrote in Latin; he was well versed in Greek and Hebrew.
[Footnote 218: "Artem scribendi necne citharizaudi pariterque pingendi peritiam diligenter excoluit."—Cotton MSS.—-Cleop., B xiii., fol., 69. ]
He wrote many works—thirty-seven according to his own list, including compilations; but the most important was his Ecclesiastical History, which traces the course of the national church from the earliest times down to 731, within four years of his own death. In his introduction he honestly gives us a list of his materials, from which we can gather that in all parts of the country the bishops and abbots had instinctively turned their attention to historical writing; for he says he was indebted to Albinus, abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, for the particulars of the Augustinian mission and the history of the Kentish Church generally, and to Northelm, a priest of London, who had discovered at Rome the epistles of Pope Gregory upon the subject; from Daniel, bishop of the West Saxons, he received much assistance as to the history of that province and the adjoining. Abbot Esius, of East Anglia, and Cunebert, of Lindsey, are also mentioned as contributing valuable materials. So that this history of Bede is compiled from the most authentic sources, and forms one of the most valuable collections of ecclesiastical annals extant in any nation. It is a fact worthy of note in the history of letters, that these early prelates of the Saxon Church, and in fact the monks in the various monasteries scattered over the country from the earliest period, and even down to their decadence, silently and patiently recorded the events of their times and of their church, and that their labors, such as have been rescued from the ravages of the past, form the only true "materia historica" of modern writers. But we pass on from the time of Bede to that of Alfred, under whose influence the Saxon language almost displaced the use of the Latin. The extraordinary vicissitudes of his life have been elsewhere recorded, but in literature he was an historian, a theologian, a commentator, and a transcriber. His principal works were translations of Gregory's Pastoral Care, the Universal History of Orosius, Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and several parts of the Bible; but he not only translated, but interpolated whole pages of his own. In the Pastoral Care he has inserted original prayers; in the History of Orosius there is a sketch of the state of Germany by him, and the translation of Boethius is tesselated with profound and pointed thoughts, which fairly entitle him to the name of philosopher. The greatest achievement of King Alfred was perhaps the reviving and restarting the Saxon Chronicle. It is probable that from the earliest times of the Saxon rule a national record of events had been kept somewhere, either from the instinct of preservation or by concert. The evidence of Bede proves that it was done in the church as regards ecclesiastical matters, and we know that in the time of Alfred there was a short record of bare events, with now and then a genealogy treasured up and handed down from age to age. It was his thought and care to reform these records and restart the Chronicle as a great national archive. For this purpose, he enjoined Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, to collect what could be found, write it out fairly, and commence his labors as the chronicler of the period. From that time the records are fuller and more in detail, and down to the year 1154 it was kept up by different men in different monasteries, who were eye-witnesses of the events they recorded, and out of whose labors there are only six original MSS. extant of this great national work. The first is called the Plegmund, or Benet MSS., because it was, as we have said, compiled by Plegmund at the instigation of Alfred, and is preserved in Benet [{809}] (Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge. From the year 891 it is written in different hands and by different people down to the year 1070. The second copy is in the Cottonian Collection at the British Museum (Tiberius, A vi.), written apparently by one hand, which has been attributed to Dunstan, and it terminates at the year 977, eleven years before his death. The third copy is in the same collection (Cotton Tiberius, B i.), and is thought to have been written in the monastery of Abingdon; it reaches down to 1066. The fourth copy is also in the Cottonian collection (Tiberius, B iv.), written by different men down to the year 1079. The fifth manuscript is in the Bodleian library at Oxford (Laud, E 80), from internal evidence, written in the year 1122, compiled from older materials, and carried down in different hands to the year 1154, showing the gradual degeneracy of the Saxon language under Norman influence, from 1132 to the end. The sixth and last manuscript is in the Cottonian library (Domitian, A viii.). It has been accredited to a Canterbury monk; it is written in Latin and Saxon, and terminates in 1058. Besides these six, one other MS. is mentioned as of great value, being a transcription of a Cottonian MS., which perished in a fire at Dean's yard in 1731. It is in the Dublin library (E, 5-15), and was written by Lombard in 1863-64. [Footnote 219]
[Footnote 219: For a more detailed account of these MSS. see Preface to Bohn's edition of the Translation of Bede and Saxon Chronicle.]
Scarcely any country in Europe possesses such an historical treasure as this, so authentic and so characteristic. It is a very interesting study to note its many peculiarities; there are sad gaps in its records, as though the sorrow of the land was too great to be recorded, and the hand had failed; there are songs of triumph at the defeat of the enemy, and pathetic lamentations over desolated homes; there are noble panegyrics upon men of blessed memory, who had fought up bravely for their church and country, and words of bitter scorn for traitors, cowards, and profligates; it contains pious reflections, ejaculations, and aspirations; it is a most vivid picture of the manners, the thoughts, the joys, the sorrows of the most interesting and important period in the history of our country, as though the life itself, with its characters and incidents, were made to pass before our eyes in a rapid panorama.