To the student of the English language the most precious relic of Anglo-Saxon speech is the epic of "Beowulf” which dates from the sixth or seventh century. This famous poem, which is considered "the most important surviving monument of Anglo-Saxon poetry," has been declared to be of West Saxon origin. It relates the exploits of Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, the nephew of Hygelac, King of the Geatas, or ancient people of Gotland, and affords a stirring picture of life among the Norsemen.

4

"Many episodes that have nothing to do with Beowulf himself have been inserted. They include many particulars of what purports to be the history of the royal houses, not only of the Gautar and the Danes, but also of the Swedes, the continental Angles, the Ostrogoths, the Frisians, and the Heathobeards, besides references to matters of unlocalized heroic story such as the exploits of Sigismund. The Saxons are not named, and the Franks appear only as a dreaded hostile power. Of Britain there is no mention; and though there are some distinctly Christian passages, they are so incongruous in tone with the rest of the poem that they must be regarded as interpolations. In general, the extraneous episodes have no great appropriateness to their context, and have the appearance of being abridged versions of stories that had been related at length in poetry. Their confusing effect, for modern readers, is increased "Encyclopedia Britannica" (1910), Vol. III., p. 758.

by a curiously irrelevant prologue. It begins by celebrating the ancient glories of the Danes, tells in allusive style the story of Scyld, the founder of the 'Scylding' dynasty of Denmark, and praises the virtues of his son Beowulf. If this Danish Beowulf had been the hero of the poem, the opening would have been appropriate; but it seems strangely out of place as an introduction to the story of his namesake.” The poem consists of more than 6,000 lines, of which the four given below may serve as a specimen of the language of the time.

Beowulf

pâ com of môre

Unter mist-bleodhun

Grendel gongan;

Goddes yrre bär.

Translation

Then came from the moor,
Under mist-hills,

Grendel to go;

God's ire he bare.

Caedmon was followed by Cynewulf, whom Kemble identified with an abbot of Peterborough, who flourished in the eleventh century, but Dr. Arnold suggests he was probably a West Saxon writer of the first half of the eighth century. Cynewulf was a poet of no mean order and in his "Crist," which contains nearly 1,700 lines, revels in the task of expressing in his mother tongue the new religious ideas which had come to his race.5 He wrote, among other poems, "Elene,' a legend of the finding of the Cross at Jerusalem, and "Juliana," a tale of the martyrdom of a saint bearing that name.

Cynewulf has been identified as a Northumbrian churchman, and as "Cynulf," a priest of Dunwich, whose name figures on a decree of the Council of Clofesho in 803. Pro

J. M. Kemble, "The Saxons in England."

A. S. Cook, Introduction to "The Christ of Cynewulf" (1900).

fessor M. Trautmann identifies him as the bishop of Lindisfarne, who died in 783.'

Beda, sometimes called Bede, who on account of his learning and piety was surnamed "the Venerable," was the most distinguished scholar of his time and the greatest writer of the early literature of Britain. He was born in 672 and died in 735. Bede was a prolific author, and in the course of his career wrote homilies, hymns, lives of saints, and works on chronology and grammar. When fifty-nine years old he produced his most valuable work, "Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum,' an ecclesiastical history of England, in five books, which furnished almost all of the information we have of the early history of England down to 731. Near the close of his life he was engaged on a translation of the Gospel of St. John into Anglo-Saxon, which he lived to complete, and died with the praise of God on his lips as the last sentence was penned.

With the rise of the West Saxon kingdom in the early years of the ninth century the dialect of the West Saxons came to the front, and it established its supremacy over all other Old English dialects about the middle of that century. Its ascendency was complete and it became the standard language of England during the reign of King Alfred, but to remain so only until the Danish invasion. To King Alfred, himself a scholar, we owe, among other works, translations of "The Universal History" of Orosius, "The Pastoral Care of St. Gregory," and "The Consolation of Philosophy" by Boëthius.

Alfred the Great was born in 849, and died October 28, 901. He succeeded to the crown of England on the death of Ethelwulf, his father, in 872. His literary activity was 7 M. Trautmann "Kynewulf der Bischof und Dichter" (1898).

restricted to the few years that followed his defeat of the Danes in 878. In character, his works embraced poetry, history, geography, moral philosophy, and legislation, and they form a valuable part of our Anglo-Saxon literature. His translation, or rather paraphrase of Boëthius' "Consolation" he began about 884. The following lines are among the best specimens of his work. They are from meter VI. of the forty-seven meters into which Alfred divided the work, and they are given side by side with a literal translation in Modern English.

On Change

pa se Wisdom eft
Word-hord onleac,
San sop-ewidas,

And pus selfa ewoep:
ponne sio sunne
Sweotolost scinep
Hadrost of hefone,
Hioepe biop apistrod
Ealle ofer eorpan
Opre steorran;
Forpoem hiora birhtu
Ne bip auht

So gesettanne

With poere sunnan leoht.
ponne smolte bloewp
Soupan and westan.
Wind under wolenum,
ponne weaxap hrape.
Feldes blostman,
Foegan poet hi moton.
Ac se stearea storm
ponne he strong cymp
Norpan and eastan,
He genimep hrape
poere rosen white

Translation

Then Wisdom afterward
Word-hoard unlocked,
Sang various maxims,
And thus himself expressed:

When the Sun
Clearest shineth

Serenest in the heaven,
Quickly are obscured
All over the earth
Other stars;

Because their brightness
Is not aught

When set beside
With that Sun's light.
When mildly bloweth
Southern and western
Wind under clouds,
Then wax rathly
The field's blossoms,
Joyful that they may.
But the stark storm,
When he strong cometh
Northern and eastern,
He taketh away rathly
The roses' beauty.

On Change

And eac pa ruman soe,
Norperne yst
Nede geboeded

poet hio strange geondstyred,

On stapu beateþ.

Ea la! poet on eorpan

Auht foeslices

Weorces on worlde

Ne wunap oefre!

Translation

And eke the roomy sea,
By northern storm

Of necessity bidden

That it be strongly stirred up,
On the shore beateth.

Alas! that upon earth

Aught fast-fixed

Work in the world

Ne'er abideth forever!

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the most important of all our historical documents, for it treats of the earliest part of English history. Starting with the Christian era, it extends, in the latest copy, to 1154. It consists of six manuscripts, and a part of a seventh, which are distributed (1) in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; (2-6) in the Cottonian Collection of the British Museum; (7) in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford. They have been identified with the several great religious establishments in Southern England. The first, with Winchester; the second, with St. Augustine's, Canterbury; the third, with Abingdon; the fourth, with Worcester; the fifth, with Peterborough; the sixth, which is in Latin and Saxon, with Canterbury. The seventh, of which only a fragment remains, is a late copy of the first, and was printed in full by Wheloc of Cambridge, in 1643, before it was destroyed by the Cottonian fire in 1723. A recent edition of the "Chronicle," was edited by the Rev. C. Plummer, and issued by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1899, under the title "Two of the Saxon Chronicles parallel."

The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" took centuries to produce. Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, is credited with its compilation up to the year 891. In compiling it he drew