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ALFRED THE GREAT.

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ANGLO-SAXON PROSE.

ALFRED.-King Alfred is the leading writer of Anglo-Saxon prose, whose works remain. The Welshman Asser has preserved for us an account of this royal scholar's life and works.

What Alfred did for England in those dark days, when Danish pirates ravaged the land so sorely, every reader of our history knows. Here it is not as the warrior, victorious at Ethandune and on the banks of the Lea, that we must view this greatest of the Anglo-Saxons; but as the peaceful man of letters, sitting among his books and plying his patient pen, as his time-candle burns down, ring after ring, through the hours allotted to literary toil. Both sword and pen were familiar tools in that cunning right hand.

Alfred the Great was born in 848, at Wantage in Berkshire. Two visits to Rome in his early days gave him a wider range of observation and thought than Anglo-Saxon children commonly enjoyed. When he had reached his twelfth year, he won as a prize a beautiful book of Saxon poetry, which his mother had promised to that one of her sons who should first commit its contents to memory. Already Alfred had been noted in the family circle for the ease with which he remembered the songs sung by the wandering gleemen.

When in 871 he ascended the throne of Wessex, his great mind found its destined work. Through many perils and disheartening changes he broke the power of the insolent Danes, taming the pirates into tillers of the Danelagh. And then, his warlike task for the present done, he turned to the elevation of his people's mind.

There being few scholars in the troubled land, he invited learned men from France to preside over the leading schools. Much of his scanty leisure was spent in literary work, chiefly translations into Anglo-Saxon. His chief works were his versions of Bede's History of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy. Translations of Orosius, of Pope Gregory's Pastorale, and an unfinished rendering of the Psalms, are also named among his contributions to literature.

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ALFRIC.-There was an author in the latter days of the AngloSaxon period, known as Alfric the Grammarian, about whom much confusion exists among writers on the Anglo-Saxon literature. Whoever this man was,-whether, as is generally thought, that monk of Abingdon who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 995, or another man of York, or yet another of Malmesbury,he contributed largely to the literature of his day. Most of his writings are still extant. His name, the Grammarian, was taken from a Latin Grammar, which he translated from Donatus and Priscian. His Latin Glossary and Book of Latin Conversation are works of merit. But his Eighty Homilies, written in the simplest Anglo-Saxon, for the use of the common people, are undoubtedly his greatest work. Among these is his famous Paschal Sermon, which embodies the Anglo-Saxon belief on the subject of the Lord's Supper. Alfric of Canterbury died in November 1006.

The famous Saxon Chronicle was the work of centuries. An Archbishop of Canterbury, named Plegmund, drawing largely from Bede, is said to have compiled the work up to 891. It was then carried on in various monasteries until 1154, when the registers ceased to be kept. As a work of history, embracing the events of many hundred years, and written for the most part by men who lived in the midst of the scenes they described, it is perhaps the most valuable inheritance we have received from the native literature of our Saxon forefathers.

A romance founded on the story of Apollonius of Tyre,—King Alfred's Will,-some Laws and Charters,-some Homilies, and a few works on Grammar, Medicine, and Botany,—are nearly all the specimens of Anglo-Saxon prose that remain.

LATIN WORKS.

The learned tongue of Europe was then, as it long continued to be, Latin, the writing of which was revived in England by Augustine and his monks. In the stern soldiering days of the Roman period, much Latin had been spoken and read, but little had been written within British bounds. But the Anglo-Saxon monks,

THE VENERABLE BEDE.

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nay, the Anglo-Saxon ladies, -wrote countless pages of Latin prose and verse. The great subject of these Latin works was theology, as was natural from the circumstance that they were chiefly the productions of the cloister.

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ALDHELM. Most ancient of the Anglo-Saxon writers in Latin was Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury and Bishop of Sherborn. He was born in Wessex about 656, of the best blood in the land. His chief teacher was an Irish monk named Meildulf, who lived a hermit life under the shade of the great oak trees in north-eastern Wiltshire. When the followers of Meildulf were formed into a monastery bearing its founder's name (Meildulfesbyrig or Malmesbury), Aldhelm was chosen to be their abbot. There he lived a peaceful life, relieving his graver cares with the sweet solace of literature and music. He died at Dilton in May 709. His chief works are three; a prose treatise in praise of Virginity,—a work in verse on the same subject,—and a book of Riddles. His Latin is impure, filled with Greek words, and stuffed with those alliterations and metaphors which are characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry.

BEDE-Second in time, but first in place, comes the name of the Venerable Bede, or Beda. This illustrious man was born about 672 or 673, at Jarrow in Durham, near the mouth of the Tyne. To the newly founded monastery of Wearmouth, not far distant, the studious boy went at the age of seven, to profit by the teaching of Benedict Biscop. Thenceforward-until his death fifty-six years later the cloisters of Wearmouth were his home; and within their quiet seclusion he wrote the great work, on which his title to the name Venerable is justly founded. In his fifty-ninth year he brought to a close his famous History of the Anglo-Saxon Church, written-like nearly all his works-in Latin. Its style is simple and easy, unsullied by the far-fetched figures which are such favourites with Aldhelm. From it we learn nearly all we know of the early history of the Anglo-Saxons and their Church. At the end of this book Bede gives a list of thirty-eight works, which he had already written or compiled. These are chiefly theological; but there are, besides, among them, histories, poems, works on physical science, and works on grammar.

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735

THE GREAT SCHOLAR ALCUIN.

Cuthbert, one of Bede's disciples, gives us a sketch of his dying bed. From the beginning of April until the end of May 735, he continued to sink under an attack of asthma, which had long been sapping his strength. To the very last he worked hard, dictating with his failing breath a translation into Anglo-Saxon of John's Gospel. It was morning on the 27th of May. "Master," said one of the young monks who wrote for him, "there is but one chapter, but thou canst ill bear questioning." "Write quickly on," said Bede. At noon he took a solemn farewell of his friends, distributing among them his treasured spices and other gifts. By sunset there remained but one sentence of the work to do, and scarcely had the concluding words of the Gospel flowed from the pen of the writer, when the venerable monk sighed out, "It is done." The thread was just about to snap. Seated on that part of the floor where he had been wont to kneel in prayer, he pronounced the "Gloria Patri," and died as the last words of the sacred utterance were breathed from his lips.

A.D.

ALCUIN.-The year 735, which sealed the eyes of Bede in death, is thought to have given life to the great scholar Alcuin. It is doubtful whether Alcuin was born at York or in Scotland. He won a prominent place in the great school presided over at York by Archbishop Egbert, and when he was called to fill the chair— from which his master, Egbert, had taught so well-he drew even greater crowds of students to this capital of the north. Besides his work as a teacher, he acted as keeper of the fine library collected in the Cathedral of York. While returning from a visit to Rome, he became acquainted at Parma with the Emperor Charlemagne, who invited him to France. Going thither in 782, he speedily became one of the most cherished friends of his imperial patron, who was never happier than when he was chatting and laughing unreservedly with men of thought. After a short visit to England (790-792) in the character of Imperial Envoy, Alcuin seems to have settled permanently in France. There his position was a proud one, for he was recognised as chief among the distinguished group of wits and lettered men who encircled the throne of Charlemagne. The name by which he was known in

ERIGENA, THE LEARNED LAYMAN.

25 this brilliant circle was Flaccus Albinus, a title under which he could converse more freely with his friend David (Charlemagne), than if the monk and the emperor always retained their distinctive names and titles. In his old age Alcuin desired earnestly to retire from the glare and bustle of court life to that quiet monastery round which his earliest associations were twined. He had all ready for the journey, when news came of terrible massacres and burnings in the north of England, such as had not before been suffered, although the Raven's beak had left many a deep and bloody gash upon the fair English shore. Frightened at such tales, he. asked from the emperor a post, in which he might calmly pass the evening of his days. The Abbey of Tours, falling vacant just then, became his place of retirement, where he spent his learned leisure in training a new generation of scholars, and in writing most of those books by which his name has come down to us. At Tours he died in 804.

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The Letters of Alcuin give a life-like picture of the great events of his day. The wars of Charlemagne against the Saracens and the Saxons are there described; and there, too, we find a graphic account of the inner life of the imperial court. A Life of Charlemagne has been ascribed to the pen of Alcuin; but, if there was ever such a work, it has long been lost. Of his poems, the best is an Elegy on the Destruction of Lindisfarne by the Danes. He wrote, besides, a long metrical narrative of the bishops and saints of the Church at York; which, on the whole, is not very elegant Latin, and poor enough poetry. Theology, of course, was his principal study; and on this theme he wrote much, pouring from his pen a host of Scriptural commentaries and treatises on knotty points of doctrine. As a teacher he ranks much higher than he ranks as an author. His chief glory-and the thing of which his countrymen were especially proud-was the fact that he, a Briton, had been chosen to give instruction to the great Emperor of the West.

ERIGENA.-John Scotus or Erigena, although not a Saxon, but, as his name shows, an Irishman, claims our special notice here. Little is known of this great man. He probably settled in France

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