terbury. During the present period, there seems to have been a close correspondence and intercourse between the French and Anglo-Saxons in matters of literature. Alcuine was invited from England into France, to superintend the stu dies of Charlemagne, whom he instructed in logic, rhetoric, and astronomy'. He was also the master of Rabanus Maurus, who became afterwards the governor and preceptor of the great abbey of Fulda in Germany, one of the most flourishing seminaries in Europe, founded by Charlemagne, and inhabited by two hundred and seventy monks. Alcuine was likewise employed by Charlemagne to regulate the lectures and discipline of the universities', which that prudent and magnificent potentate had newly constituted". He is said to have joined to the Greek and Latin, an acquaintance with the Hebrew tongue, which perhaps in some degree was known sooner than we may suspect; for at Trinity college in Cambridge there is an Hebrew Psalter, with a Normanno-Gallic interlinear version of great antiquity". Homilies, lives of saints, commentaries on a Saxon abbot of Malmesbury, was a skilful architect, ædificandi gnarus. Vit. Aldhelm. Wharton, Angl. Sacr. ii. p. 33. Herman, one of the Norman bishops of Salisbury, about 1080, condescended to write, bind, and illuminate books. Monast. Angl. tom. iii. p. 375. In some of these instances I have wandered below the Saxon times. It is indeed evident from various proofs which I could give, that the religious practised these arts long afterwards. But the object of this note was the existence of them among the Saxon clergy. Dedicat. Hist. Eccl. Bed. Eginhart. Vit. Kar. Magn. p. 30. ed. 1565. 4to. the abbey. They therefore removed him, yet afterwards in vain attempted to recall him. Serrar. Rer. Mogunt. lib. iv. p. 625. John Mailros, a Scot, one of Bede's scholars, is said to have been employed by Charlemagne in founding the university of Pavia. Dempst. xii. 904. "See Op. Alcuin. Paris. 1617. fol. Præfat. Andr. Quercetan. Mabillon says, that Alcuine pointed the homilies, and St. Austin's epistle, at the instance of Charlemagne. CARL. MAGN. R. Diplomat. p. 52. a. Charlemagne was most fond of astronomy. He learned also arithmetic. In his treasury he had three tables of silver, and a fourth of gold, of great weight and size. One of these, which was square, had a picture or representation of Constantinople: another, a round one, a map of Rome: a third, which was of the most exquisite workmanship, and greatest weight, consisting of three orbs, contained a map of the world. Eginhart, ubi supr. p. 29. 31. 41. " MSS. Cod. Coll. S. S. Trin. Cant. Class. a dextr. Ser. Med. 5. membran. 4to. Bede says, that he compiled part the bible, with the usual systems of logic, astronomy, rhetoric, and grammar, compose the formidable catalogue of Alcuine's numerous writings. Yet in his books of the sciences, he sometimes ventured to break through the pedantic formalities of a systematical 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 ecclesiastical history of England; and was greatly instrumental in furnishing materials for that early and authentic record of our antiquities*. In the mean time we must not form too magnificent ideas of these celebrated masters of science, who were thus invited into foreign countries to conduct the education of mighty monarchs, and to plan the rudiments of the most illustrious academies. Their merits are in great measure relative. Their circle of reading was contracted, their systems of philosophy jejune; and their lectures rather served to stop the growth of ignorance, than to produce any positive or important improvements in knowledge. They were unable to make excursions from their circumscribed paths of scientific instruction, into the spacious and fruitful regions of liberal and manly study. Those of their hearers, who had passed through the course of the sciences with applause, and aspired to higher acquisitions, were exhorted to read Cassiodorus and Boethius; whose writings they placed at the summit of profane literature, and which they believed to be the great boundaries of human erudition. I have already mentioned Ceolfrid's presents of books to Benedict's library at Weremouth abbey. He wrote an account of his travels into France and Italy. But his principal work, and I believe the only one preserved, is his dissertation concerning the clerical tonsure, and the rites of celebrating Easter. of his CHRONICON, EX HEBRAICA VERITATE, that is, from S. Jerom's Latin translation of the Bible; for he adds, "nos qui per beati interpretis Hieronymi industriam puro HEBRAICA VERITATIS fonte potamur," &c. And again, "Ex Hebraica veritate, quæ ad nos per memoratum interpretem pure pervenisse," &c. He mentions on this occasion the Greek * Dedicat. Hist. Eccl. Bed. To King Ceolwulphus, p. 87. 38. edit. Op. Cant. y Bed. Hist. Eccl. v. 22. And Concil. Gen. vi. p. 1423. This was written at the desire of Naiton, a Pictish king, who dispatched ambassadors to Ceolfrid for information concerning these important articles; requesting Ceolfrid at the same time to send him some skilful architects, who could build in his country a church of stone, after the fashion of the Romansa. Ceolfrid died on a journey to Rome, and was buried in a monastery of Navarre, in the year 706. But Bede, whose name is so nearly and necessarily connected with every part of the literature of this period, and which has therefore been often already mentioned, emphatically styled the Venerable by his cotemporaries, was by far the most learned of the Saxon writers. He was of the northern school, if it may be so called; and was educated in the monastery of Saint Peter at Weremouth, under the care of the abbots Ceolfrid and Biscopc. Bale affirms, that Bede learned physics and mathematics from the purest sources, the original Greek and Roman writers on these subjects. But this hasty assertion, in part at least, may justly be doubted. His knowledge, if we consider his age, was extensive and profound: and it is amazing, in so rude a period, and during a life of no considerable length, he should have made so successful a progress, and such rapid improvements, in scientifical and philological studies, and have composed so many elaborate treatises on different subjects. It is diverting to see the French critics censuring Bede for credulity: they might as well have accused him of superstition. There is much perspicuity and facility in his a Bed. Hist. Eccl. ib. c. 21. iv. 18. e "Libros septuaginta octo edidit, quos ad finem HISTORIE Suæ ANGLICANE edidit. [See Op. edit. Cant. p. 222. 223. lib. v. c. 24.1 Hic succumbit ingenium, deficit eloquium, sufficienter admirari hominem a scholastico exercitio tam procul amotum, tam sobrio sermone tanta elaborasse volumina." &c. Chron. Præf. Bever. MSS. Coll. Trin. Oxon. ut supr. f. 65. [Bever was a monk of Westminster circ. A. D. 1400.] For a full and exact list of Bede's works, the curious reader is referred to Mabillon, Sæc. iii. p. i. p. 539. Or Cave, Hist. Lit. ii. p. 242. f It is true, that Bede has introduced many miracles and visions into his history. Yet some of these are pleasing to the imagination: they are tinctured with the gloom of the cloister, operating on the extravagancies of oriental invention. I will give an instance or two. monk of Northumberland died, and was brought again to life. In this interval of death, a young man in shining appare! came and led him, without speak A Latin style. But it is void of elegance, and often of purity; it shews with what grace and propriety he would have written, had his mind been formed on better models. Whoever looks for digestion of materials, disposition of parts, and accuracy of narration, in this writer's historical works, expects what could not exist at that time. He has recorded but few civil transactions: but besides that his History professedly considers ecclesiastical affairs, we should remember, that the building of a church, the preferment of an abbot, the canonisation of a martyr, and the importation into England of the shin-bone of an apostle, were necessarily matters of much more importance in Bede's conceptions than victories or revolutions. He is fond of minute description; but particularities are the fault and often the merit of early historians'. Bede wrote many pieces of Latin : ing, to a valley of infinite depth, length, and breadth one side was formed by a prodigious sheet of fire, and the opposite side filled with hail and ice. Both sides were swarming with souls of departed men; who were for ever in search of rest, alternately shifting their situation to these extremes of heat and cold. The monk supposing this place to be hell, was told by his guide that he was mistaken. The guide then led him, greatly terrified with this spectacle, to a more distant place, where he says, "I saw on a sudden a darkness come on, and every thing was obscured. When I entered this place I could discern no object, on account of the encreasing darkness, except the countenance and glittering garments of my conductor. As we went forward I beheld vast torrents of flame spouting upwards from the ground, as from a large well, and falling down into it again. As we came near it my guide suddenly vanished, and left me alone in the midst of darkness and this horrible vision. Deformed and uncouth spirits arose from this blazing chasm, and attempted to draw me in with fiery forks." But his guide here returned, and they all retired at his appearance. Heaven is then described with great strength of fancy. I have seen an old ballad, called the Dead Man's Song, on this story. And Milton's hell may perhaps be taken from this idea. Bed. Hist. Eccl. v. 13. An ingenious author, who writes under the name of M. de Vigneul Marville, observes, that Bede, "when he speaks of the Magi who went to worship our Saviour, is very particular in the account of their names, age, and respective offerings. He says, that Melchior was old, and had grey hair, with a long beard; and that it was he who offered gold to Christ, in acknowledgment of his sovereignty. That Gaspar, the second of the magi, was young, and had no beard, and that it was he who offered frankincense, in recognition of our Lord's divinity: and that Balthasar, the third, was of a dark complexion, had a large beard, and offered myrrh to our poetry. The following verses from his MEDItatio de die JUDICII, a translation of which into Saxon verse is now preserved in the library of Bennet college at Cambridges, are at least well turned and harmonious. Inter florigeras fœcundi cespitis herbas, Flamine ventorum resonantibus undique ramis'. Some of Aldhelm's verses are exactly in this cast, written on the Dedication of the abbey-church at Malmesbury to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Hic celebranda rudis" florescit gloria templi, Marcida qui riguis humectant fletibus ora." The strict and superabundant attention of these Latin poets to prosodic rules, on which it was become fashionable to write didactic systems, made them accurate to excess in the metrical conformation of their hexameters, and produced a faultless and flowing monotony. Bede died in the monastery of Weremouth, which he never had once quitted, in the year 735*. I have already observed, and from good authorities, that many of these Saxon scholars were skilled in Greek. Yet considerable monuments have descended to modern scarce any |