and built the monaftery of Weremouth in Northumberland. The church he constructed of stone, after the manner of the Roman architecture; and adorned its walls and roof with pictures, which he purchafed at Rome, representing among other facred fubjects the Virgin Mary, the twelve apoftles, the evangelical hiftory, and the vifions of the Apocalypfe. The windows were glazed by artists brought from France. But I mention this foundation to introduce an anecdote much to our purpose. Benedict added to his monastery an ample library, which he stored with Greek and Latin volumes, imported by himself from Italy. Bede has thought it a matter worthy to be recorded, that Ceolfrid, his fucceffor in the government of Weremouth-abbey, augmented this collection with three volumes of pandects, and a book of cofmography wonderfully enriched with curious workmanship, and bought at Rome. The example of the pious Benedict was immediately followed by Acca Bishop of Hexham in the fame province: who having finished his cathedral church by the help of architects, mafons, and glaziers hired in Italy, adorned it, according to Leland, with a valuable library of Greek and Latin authors. But Bede, Acca's cotemporary, relates, that this library was entirely compofed of the hiftories of thofe apoftles and martyrs to whofe relics he had dedicated feveral altars in his church, and other ecclefiaftical treatifes, which he had collected with infinite labour. Bede however calls it a moft copious and noble library. Nor is it foreign to our purpose to add, that Acca invited from Kent into Northumberland, and retained in his fervice during the space of twelve years, a celebrated chantor named Maban: by the affiftance of whofe inftructions and fuperintendance he not only regulated the church mufic of his diocefe, but introduced the ufe of many Latin hymns hitherto unknown in the northern churches of England. It appears that before the arrival of Theodore and Adrian, celebrated fchools for educating youth in the sciences had been long established in Kent. Literature, however, seems at this period to have flourished with equal reputation at the other extremity of the island, and even in our most northern provinces. Ecbert Bishop of York, founded a library in his cathedral, which, like fome of those already mentioned, is faid to have been replenished with a variety of Latin and Greek books. Alcuine, whom Ecbert appointed his firft librarian, hints at this library in a Latin epiftle to Charlemagne. "Send me from France fome learned treatifes, of equal excellence with those which I preferve here in England under my cuftody, collected by the industry of my mafter Ecbert: and I will fend to you fome of my youths, who fhall carry with them the flowers of Britain into France. So that there fhall not only be an enclosed garden at York, but also at Tours fome sprouts of Paradife," &c. William of Malmesbury judged this library to be of fufficient importance not only to be men tioned in his hiftory, but to be ftyled, Omnium liberalium artium armarium, nobiliffimam bibliothecam." This repofitory remained till the reign of King Stephen, when it was deftroyed by fire, with great part of the city of York. Its founder. Ecbert died in the year 767. Before the end of the eighth century, the monafteries of Weftminster, Saint Alban's, Worcester, Malmbury, Glastonbury, with fome others, were founded, and opulently endowed. That of Saint Alban's Ee 3 Alban's was filled with one hundred monks by King Offa. Many new bishoprics were also established in England: all which inftitutions, by multiplying the number of ecclefiaftics, turned the attention of many perfons to letters.' After this follows fome account of the principal Saxon Authors at this period, which were Aldhelm, Bishop of Shirburn, Ceolfrid, Alcuine, Bede, and King Alfred. In an enquiry of this nature, fays our Author, Alfred deserves particular notice, not only as a writer, but as the illuftrious rival of Charlemagne, in protecting and affifting the restoration of literature. He is faid to have founded the univerfity of Oxford; and it is highly probable, that in imitation of Charlemagne's fimilar inftitutions, he appointed learned perfons to give public and gratuitous inftructions in theology, but principally in the fashionable feiences of logic, aftronomy, arithmetic, and geometry, at that place, which was then a confiderable town, and conveniently fituated in the neighbourhood of those royal feats at which Alfred chiefly refided. He fuffered no prieft that was illiterate to be advanced to any ecclefiaftical dignity. He invited his nobility to educate their fons in learning, and requefted thofe lords of his court who had no children, to fend to fchool fuch of their younger fervants as difcovered a promifing ca pacity, and to breed them to the clerical profeffion. Alfred, while a boy, had himfelf experienced the inconveniences arifing from a want of scholars, and even of common inftructors, in his dominions: for he was twelve years of age, before he could procure in the western kingdom a master properly qualified to teach him the alphabet. But, while yet unable to read, he could repeat from memory a great variety of Saxon fongs. He was fond of cultivating his native tongue : and with a view of inviting the people in general to a love of reading, and to a knowledge of books which they could not otherwife have underflood, he tranflated many Latin authors into Saxon. These, among others, were Boethius OF THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, a manufcript of which, of Alfred's age, ftill remains, Qrofius's HISTORY OF THE PAGANS, Saint Gregory's PASTORAL CARE, the venerable Bede's ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, and the SOLLOQUIES of Saint Auftin. Probably Saint Auftin was felected by Alfred, because he was the favourite author of Charlemagne. Alfred died in the year 900, and was buried at Hyde abbey, in the fuburbs of Winchester, under a fumptuous monument of porphyry. Aldhelm, nephew of Ina King of the Weft Saxons, frequently vifited France and Italy. While a monk of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, he went from his monaftery to Canterbury, in order to learn logic, rhetoric, and the Greek language, of Archbishop Theodore, and of Albin abbot of Saint Auftin's, the pupil of Adrian. But he had before acquired fome knowledge of Greek and Latin under Maidulf, an Hibernian or Scot, who had erected a small monaftery or school at Malmesbury. Camden affirms, that Aldhelm was the first of the Saxons who wrote in Latin, and that he taught his countrymen the art of Latin verfification. But a very intelligent antiquarian in this fort of literature, mentions an anonymous Latin poet, who wrote the life of Charlemagne in verfe; and adds, that he was the first of the Saxona Saxons that attempted to write Latin verfe. It is however certain, that Aldhelm's Latin compofitions, whether in verfe or profe, as novelties were deemed extraordinary performances, and excited the attention and admiration of scholars in other countries. A learned cotemporary, who lived in a remote province of a Frankish territory, in an epiftle to Aldhelm has this remarkable expreffion, "VESTRÆ LATINITATIS PANEGYRICUS RUMOR has reached us even at this distance, &c." In reward of thefe uncommon merits he was made Bishop of Shirburn in Dorsetshire in the year 705. His writings are chiefly theological: but he has likewife left in Latin verse a book of ENIGMATA, copied from a work of the fame title under the name of Sympofius, a poem de VIRGINITATE hereafter cited, and treatifes on arithmetic, aftrology, rhetoric, and metre. The laft treatise is a proof that the ornaments of compofition now began to be ftudied. Leland mentions his CANTIONES SAXONICE, one of which continued to be commonly fung in William of Malmesbury's time: and, as it was artfully interfperfed with many allufions to paffages of fcripture, was often fung by Aldhelm himself to the populace in the streets, with a defign of alluring the ignorant and idle, by fo fpecious a mode of inftruction, to a fenfe of duty, and a knowledge of religious fub jects. Malmesbury observes, that Aldhelm might be justly deemed ex acumine Græcum, ex nitore Romanum, et ex pompa Anglum." It is evident, that Malmesbury, while he here characteriles the Greeks by their acutenefs, took his idea of them from their fcientifical literature, which was then only known. After the revival of the Greek philofophy by the Saracens, Ariftotle and Euclid were familiar in Europe long before Homer and Pindar. The character of Aldhelm is thus drawn by an ancient chronicler. "He was an excellent harper, a moft eloquent Saxon and Latin poet, a moft expert chantor or finger, a DOCTOR EGREGIUS, and admirably versed in the fcriptures and the liberal fciences." Alcuine, Bishop Ecbert's librarian at York, was a cotemporary pupil with Aldhelm under Theodore and Adrian at Canterbury. During the prefent period, there feems to have been a close correfpondence and intercourfe between the French and Anglo-Saxons in matters of literature. Alcuine was invited from England into France, to fuperintend the ftudies of Charlemagne, whom he inftructed in logic, rhetoric, and aftronomy. He was also the mafter of Rabanus Maurus, who became afterwards the governor and preceptor of the great abbey of Fulda in Germany, one of the most flourishing feminaries in Europe, founded by Charlemagne, and inhabited by two hundred and feventy monks. Alçuine was likewise employed by Charlemagne to regulate the lectures and difcipline of the univerfities, which that prudent and magnificent potentate had newly constituted. He is faid to have joined to the Greek and Latin, an acquaintance with the Hebrew tongue, which perhaps in fome degree was known fooner than we may fufpect; for at Trinity college in Cambridge there is an Hebrew Pfalter, with a NormannoGallic interlinear verfion of great antiquity. Homilies, lives of faints, commentaries on the Bible, with the usual fyftems of logic, aftronomy, rhetoric, and grammar, compofe the formidable cata Ee 4 logue logue of Alcuine's numerous writings. Yet in his books of the fciences, he fometimes ventured to break through the pedantic for malities of a fyftematical teacher: he has thrown one of his treatises in logic, and I think, another in grammar, into a dialogue between the author and Charlemagne. He first advised Bede to write his ecclefiaftical history of England; and was greatly inftrumental in furnishing materials for that early and authentic record of our an tiquities.' We omit the character and account of Bede, as better known than the others. Thefe fair openings of literature, however, were quickly obfcured, and the efforts of the glorious Alfred and the flattering profpects of Bede perifhed under the fupineness of fucceeding kings, and the incurfions and devaftations of the barbarous Dane. At length, after the conqueft, learning revived again, and flourished under better aufpices and a happier protection. Not many years after the invafion a play was acted, the first, perhaps, that was ever known or exhibited in England: it was called St. Catharine, and was compofed by Geoffry, a learned Norman, who was invited from the univerfity of Paris, to fuperintend the direction of the school of the abbey of Dunstable, The players were his fcholars. Matthew Paris, who first records the anecdote, fays that Geoffry borrowed copes from the facrift of the neighbouring abbey of St. Alban's, to dress his characters. The most eminent fcholars which England produced both in philofophy and humanity, before and even below the twelfth century, were educated in our religious houses. In every great abbey there was an apartment called the Scriptorium, where many writers were conftantly bufied in tranfcribing not only the fervice books, but books for the library.' Diftinguished amongst the principal fcholars of the eleventh century was Joannes Grammaticus, who ftudied polite literature at Paris. He wrote an explanation of Ovid's Metamorphofes, and a treatife on the Art of Verfification. In the twelfth, Laurence, prior of the church of Durham, wrote nine books of Latin elegies, &c. Robert Dunstable, a monk of St. Alban's, wrote an elegant Latin poem, in elegiac verfe, containing two books on the life of St. Alban. The following line, which begins the fecond book, is remarkably flowing and harmonious: Pieridum ftudiis clauftri laxare rigorem. Henry of Huntingdon, commonly known and celebrated as an hiftorian, was likewife a terfe and polite Latin poet of this period. The proem to his book De Herbis, has this elegant in vocation : Vatum Vatum magne parens, herbarum Phoebe repertor, Vofque, quibus refonant Tempe jocofa, dea! Geoffry of Monmouth, who lived in this century, is fo well known that he requires no notice here. A most diftinguifhed ornament of this age was John of Salifbury. His ftyle has a remarkable elegance and energy. His Policraticon is a pleasant mifcellany, replete with erudition, and a judgment of men and things. He was highly promoted in the church by Henry the Second, whofe court was crowded with scholars, and almost rivalled, in this refpect, that of his cotemporary, William, King of Sicily. Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, an elegant writer of history, and William, a monk of Malmesbury, celebrated as an hiftorian by the late Lord Lyttelton, were of this period. William wrote many pieces of Latin poetry, too, and it is remarkable that almost all the profeffed writers in profe at this time made attempts in verse. With these may be mentioned Simeon of Durham, Roger Hoveden, and Benedict abbot of Peterborough, as hiftorians of a liberal caft; likewife John Hanville, a monk of St. Alban's, who wrote a long Latin poem, called Architrepius. But if we may judge of the whole from the specimen Mr. Warton has given us, we can entertain no very favourable opinion of its merit. GYRALDUS CAMBRENSIS deferves particular notice for the univerfality of his works. He was an hiftorian, an antiquary, a topographer, a divine, a philofopher, and a poet. His love of science was fo great that HE REFUSED TWO BISHOPRICS. The following English translation of his description of the fituation of the abbey of Lantony in Monmouthshire, will entertain our Readers, and they will fee that old Gyrald was a man of a romantic genius and a picturesque fancy : "In the deep vale of Ewias, which is about a bowfhot over, and enclosed on all fides with high mountains, ftands the abbey church of St John, a ftructure covered with lead, and not unhandfomely built for fo lonefome a fituation; on the very fpot where formerly tood a small chapel dedicated to St. David, which had no other ornaments than green mofs and ivy. It is a fituation fit for the exercife of religion; and a religious edifice was firft founded in this fequeftered retreat to the honour of a folitary life, by two hermits, remote from the noise of the world, on the banks of the river Hondy, which winds through the midst of the valley.-The rains which mountainous countries ufually produce, are here very frequent, the winds exceedingly tempeftuous, and the winters almoft continually dark. Yet the air of the valley is fo happily tempered as scarcely to be the caufe of any difeafes. The monks fitting in the cloyfters of the ab bey, |