Byrhtnoth comes to do battle with the pirates. The tide is full, and for a long time the ford is impassable. The two bands shoot at one another with arrows. At last the ebb allowed them to meet at the ford and on the bank, where Byrhtnoth, in his chivalry, permitted them to land. the Danes were too many for the English, and the great Earl died on the field. And his thanes, save a few cowards, died round him, fighting to the last.

seem

But

His death-song is not like that of Beowulf. For the first time in English battle - poetry the chieftain dies with a Christian cry upon his lips. It is the beginning of a new element in the poetry of war. He dies as the knights die in the Chansons de Geste. Their last words are a We prayer to Christ. to feel in this change the breath of a new life, of a new world of the life and world of romance. After this poem silence follows. The Fight at Maldon is the last song of the war-poetry of England before the Conquest. Not til long after the Conquest did it rise again, and then it rose almost a stranger to the ancient English ways. The Celtic and the Norman spirit had transformed it; but deep below, and lasting through centuries of English song, the strong, constant, deep-rooted elements of the Teutonic race lay at the foundation of the English poetry of physical and moral battle.

Eve, after she has eaten of the Tree of
Knowledge.

Sheener to her seemed all the sky and earth;
All this world was lovelier; and the work of God,
Mickle was and mighty then, though 'twas not by man's
device,

That she saw (the sight)—but the Scather eagerly
Moved about her mind.

'Now thyself thou mayest see, and I need not speak it—

Continued from foot of page 24.]

mære tungol. glad ofer grundas. godes candel beorht, eces drihtnes, oth seo æthele gesceaft sáh tó setle. thær læg secg monig. garum ageted. guman northerne, ofer scyld scoten swilce scyttisc eac. werig wigges sæd, and wessexe forth andlangne dæg eored cystum on last legdon lathum theodon, heowon here flymon hindan thearle mecum mylen scearpum myrce

ne wyrndon heardes handplegan hæletha manum, thara the mid anlafe, ofer ear gebland on lithes bosme land gesohton. fæge to gefeohte fife lagon. on tham campstede cingas geonge sweordum aswefde. swilce vii. eac eorlas anlafes. and únrím herges. flotan and scotta thær geflymed wearth. northmanna brego neade gebæded. to lides stefne lytle werode. cread cnear

The first entry in the page of the Chronicle facsimiled begins with the consecration of King Ethelstan, and ends with an unfinished sentence. Then follow the figures merely for the years 900-933, this particular MS. (of the Abingdon Chronicle) recording no facts under those and after one entry for 934, and the figures for years; 935 and 936, it goes on, under 937, to give the famous entry on the battle of Brunanburh in alliterative verse, written straight on, like the specimens above from Beowulf and Cædmon, without regard to the division into alliterating lines.

O thou, Eve the good, how unlike to thy old self

Is thy beauty and thy breast since thou hast believed my words.

Light is beaming 'fore thee now,

Glittering against thee, which from God I brought,
White from out the Heavens. See thy hands may

touch it!

Say to Adam then, what a sight thou hast,
And what powers-through my coming!'

Then to Adam wended Eve, sheenest of all women,
Winsomest of wives, e'er should wend into the world,
For she was the handiwork of the heavenly King.
Of the fruit unblest

Part was hid upon her heart, part in hand she bore.
'Adam, O my Lord, this apple is so sweet,
Blithe within the breast; bright this messenger;
'Tis an Angel good from God! By his gear I see
That he is the errand-bringer of our heavenly King!
I can see Him now from hence
Where Himself He sitteth, in the south-east throned,
All enwreathed with weal; He who wrought the world.
And with Him I watch His angels, wheeling round about
Him,

In their feathered vesture, of all folks the mightiest,
Winsomest of war-hosts! Who could wit like this
Give me, did not God Himself surely grant it me?
Far away I hear-

And as widely see-over all the world,

O'er the universe widespread !-All the music mirth
In the Heavens I can hear !-In my heart I am so clear,
Inwardly and outwardly, since the apple I have tasted.
See! I have it here, in my hands; O my good Lord!
Gladly do I give it thee; I believe from God it comes !'

Repentance of Adam and Eve.

'Thou mayst it reproach me, Adam, my beloved,
In these words of thine; yet it may not worse repent
thee,

Rue thee in thy mind, than it rueth me in heart.'
Then to her for answer Adam spoke again—
'O if I could know the All-Wielder's will,
What I for my chastisement must receive from Him,

oft from all foemen, warded their land,

their hoard and their homes. Bowed down (was) the foe
the folk of the Scots; and the ship-sailers,
fated fell (dead). Sodden the field was
with blood-sweat of men, when the sun upward,
in morningtide, that far-famed star,

glode over the meadows, bright candle of God,
the Lord everlasting, till that great creature
sank to its seat. There many a hero
lay pierced with the spear, many a Northman
shot over shield, so also the Scotsman,
weary, war-sated. Forth the West Saxons
all the long day, with well-proven warriors,
lay on the track of the hateful folk,
direfully hewed at the flank of the fliers,

with mill-sharpened swords. Withheld not the Mercians the hard hand-playing from any of men,

of those who with Anlaf, over the ocean,
in the ship's bosom, had looked for the land,
fated for war. Five young kings

Thou should'st never see, then, anything more swift,though the sea within

Bade me wade the God of Heaven, bade me wend me hence

In the flood to fare-Nor so fearfully profound

Nor so mighty were the Ocean, that my mind should

ever waver

Into the abyss I'd plunge, if I only might Work the will of God!'

(From Genesis B.)

Prose from Elfred to the Conquest. Ælfred, though he began the prose of England, failed in establishing it. No results, save one, followed his work till ninety years had passed away. The one exception was the narrative in the Chronicle of the wars and government of Eadweard, Ælfred's son, 910-924. Ælfred's own work on the Chronicle ceased in 891. Another writer of vigour, earnestness, and conciseness told the story of the years from 894 to 897. From 897 to 910 the record is meagre, but a new life was given to the Chronicle by the narrative which began with 910. It may have been written by the same man who wrote of the years 894-97. His work ceases with the death of Eadweard, and it is the sole piece of secular prose which we possess at this date. From 925 to 940, during the reign of Æthelstan, the shallow records of the Chronicle are only once filled by the Song of Brunanburh (see page 24). From 940 to 975, during the reigns of Eadmund, Eadred, and Eadgar, the Chronicle contains nothing but short annual statements of leading events. Three small poems are inserted in it.

Secular prose then had died at Winchester. But religious prose now began to rise again with the revival of monasticism, begun by Dunstan and nursed into life by King Eadgar. Dunstan, in whom Celtic and English elements mingle, set up a school at Glastonbury, and made his pupils love the arts of music, of poetry, of design and embroidery, of gold-working, painting, and engraving, in all of which he was himself 2 master. He sang the Psalms with his boys, developed church ritual and music, drew the Irish scholars to his help, made a fine library and treasury, and, having trained his monks in all the known branches of learning, sent them forth as missionaries of education to various parts of England. His best scholar, Ethelwold, was made head of the Abbey of Abingdon, refounded by King Eadred; and Æthelwold, who died in 904, soon made Abingdon as good a school as Glastonbury. It was his favourite pupil, Ælfric, who created the new prose of

England.

This revival of English prose kept step with the revival of monasticism. Monasticism had fallen into complete decay when Eadgar came to the throne in 959. Dunstan's effort, assisted as he was by Oswald of Ramsey and Odo of Canterbury, had

not pushed it far. Even the Rule itself of Benedict had slipped out of memory, and Oswald and Æthelwold had to go or send to Fleury to recover it. But Eadgar threw himself eagerly into the movement, and Æthelwold, now Bishop of Winchester in 963, gave his full energy to the work He cleared Winchester of the lazy secular clergy; he refounded Ely, Peterborough, and Thorney. No better work

could be done for literature than this re-creation of the monasteries. Art, the science of medicine, the study of the Scriptures, of philosophy, of astronomy, and of literature, revived with their revival. The preaching and homilies of the monks brought religion as well as a kind of education to the people. And the new teaching was now given in the language of the people. At last the work of Ælfred began to produce its fruit.

Æthelwold loved his native tongue; King Ælfred's books were studied at Abingdon, and his principle-Teach Englishmen in English

was followed and established. The Blickling Homilies, nineteen of which exist, and probably the Homilies in the Vericelli Book belong to the early time of the monastic revival-from 960 to 990. They represent, with certain books mentioned by Ifric and now lost, the transition between the prose of Elfred and that of Elfric.

A new and more literary English prose now began with Elfric. He was born about 955, and educated at Winchester. Elfhead, Ethelwold's successor, sent him in 987 to teach and govern the new monastery of Cerne Abbas in Dorsetshire, and here he first followed King Alfred's plan, and translated Latin books into English for the use of the people. He returned to Winchester in 989, where he continued his work till the Thane Ethelmær, who had founded a Benedictine monastery at Eynsham, near Oxford, made him its abbot. There, in that quiet place, he lived, learning and teaching, until he died about 1022.

His first book, Homilia Catholicæ, 990-94, is dedicated to Archbishop Sigeric, and consists of two collections of homilies, forty in each collection, on the Sundays and feast-days of the year. A small number of them are in alliterative verse. Then he composed the Grammar and the Glossary, which were probably followed by the Colloquium. As the Homilies addressed the people, these books addressed the pupils at the school of Winchester. The Colloquium is a discourse on the occupations of the monks and on various states of life; and as one of the manuscripts has an English translation over its lines, it becomes a kind of vocabulary. It was re-done by another Elfric, one of his scholars, Ælfric Bata, with appendices. The lives of the saints, Passiones Sanctorum, another set of homilies, followed in 996. Other works of less importance were now taken up; but, urged thereto by Thane Ethelweard, he began to translate the Bible, part of which, from Genesis xxiv. to the end of Leviticus, Ethelweard had given to

another hand. The beginning, then, of Genesis was done by Ælfric, with Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Esther, Job, and Judith. The books are not literally translated; parts are omitted, and parts are thrown into homiletic form. Ælfric used the same liberties with the Bible which Ælfred had used with Boethius and Orosius; and he gave this work the same patriotic tinge as Ælfred had given to his translation of Orosius. The heroic sketches he made out of the Bible of the warriors of Israel not only taught the people the sacred history, but were also applied by him to encourage Englishmen against their foes. 'I have set forth Judith,' he says, 'in English for an example to you men that ye may guard your country against her foes;' and he closes the Homilies with a hymn of praise to God for the great men in all history who had borne witness to the faith, and among them to Ælfred, Æthelstan, and Eadgar, the noble champions of England.

The Canones Elfrici, which followed his translations of the Bible, were written about the year 1000. They were in Latin and addressed to the clergy. In 1006 or 1007, when he was Abbot of Eynsham, he made a book of extracts from the writings of his master, Æthelwold-De Consuetudine Monachorum; addressed a homily on forgiveness to his friend Wulfgeat, a royal thane at Ilmington; another on chastity to Thane Sigeferth; and about the same time, 1008, composed a treatise Concerning the Old and New Testament, which was a practical introduction to the study of the Scriptures. Then, turning from English to Latin prose, he wrote a sympathetic life of his master, Vita Ethelwoldi, and a Sermo ad Sacerdotes for Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, about 1014-16; and Wulfstan made him turn it into English. Other homilies, needless to record, he also made, and then died quietly between 1020 and 1025.

Elfric was the Bæda of his time. He was the assimilator, collector, and distributor of learning, not its creator. He had no originality, but he loved his work and his country. The principles of education which Ælfred had established he carried out steadily. He trained the people as well as the clergy in their duties, in the history of the Church abroad and at home; and his charming character, full of moral dignity, tact, gentle charity, and wisdom in affairs, recommended and enhanced his books and letters. In one thing he was original-in his style. He made a new, a lighter, more musical, more lissome prose. He fitted English to take up the number of new subjects which were soon to engage the interests of the country. We cannot tell what English prose might have become had this modern style been developed. But the Danish invasion checked and the Norman Conquest paralysed it for a long time. Ælfric's English prose had, however, one great fault. It became more and more alliterative-that is, it was prose written in poetic form. This manner, chiefly practised in

his Homilies, may have been used to please the people and for their sake, but it injures the life of prose, and, when continued, kills it.

The creation of this new, popular, and flexible prose was one result of Elfric's work. Another result was the increase of learning and of a higher life among the clergy. The Archbishops Sigeric and Wulfstan, the Bishops Wulfsige and Kenulf, were inspired by him, and they begged him to write such books in English as would enable them to teach their clergy the rudiments of learning and the practice of a holy life. And the effort was not in vain. The clergy began to have a higher ideal of their profession, and to follow it; and so many small books on various ecclesiastical and theological matters were put forward in the eleventh century that it is plain the English clergy at the Conquest were not so ignorant as the Normans declared them to be.

A third result of Elfric's work was the creation of a small literary class among the nobles, some of whom now became learners and patrons of literature. Æthelweard, probably the writer of the Chronicle which bears his name, a royal thane, urged Elfric to write and began his translation of the Bible. Æthelmær, his son, was Ælfric's close friend and patron, and brought him into friendship with Wulfgeat, Sigweard, and Sigeferth, also nobles, for whom he wrote books. It is clear that the class Elfred was unable to touch had now begun to be a cultivated class.

The mass of the people were also educated by the great body of homilies which Elfric had written for them; and the legends of the saints and the tales of the martyrs, going hand-in-hand with the saga stories over England, awakened the imagination of the farmer and the peasant.

Then, too, the monasteries, under his influence, now became the home of learned men who wrote on science as well as on theology. Byrchtfercth, of the monastery at Ramsey, was a well-known mathematician; and his commentaries on the scientific works of Bæda, and his Life of Dunstan, prove his literary activity. The varied knowledge shown in these books, which date before 1016, makes it almost certain that he was the writer of a Hand-book in English which discusses the alphabets and subjects belonging to natural philosophy. Then a number of medical books were published in this eleventh century. The Læce-Boc of the tenth century was re-edited, with many interesting additions; the Herbarium Apuleii, the Medicina de Quadrupedibus, and others of the same kind show how active were

the dispensaries of the monasteries. Many religious books- translations of the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Pseudo-gospels, Biographies of the Fathers, of the martyrs, of saints, and a number of sermons-belong also to the first half of the eleventh century. Certain books of a proverbial and ethical tendency-a Dialogue between Salomo and Saturnus, another between