saints on Mount Zion. A noble description follows of the Angels of the four trumpets summoning the dead. Christ appears in a blazing light, and the universe melts in conflagration. Only Mount Zion remains, and the throne, and the dead, small and great, before it. Then, with its root on the mount and its top in heaven, a mighty Cross is upraised, wet with the blood of the King, but SO brilliant that all shade is drowned in its crimson light. This fine conception is Cynewulf's own, and in its description, and in that of the great conflagration, the power he showed in the Riddles reaches its highest point. The poem ends with a picture of the saints in the perfect land.

The Crist was followed by the Phenix and the second part of the Guthlac. Neither of these are signed by Cynewulf, but the majority of scholars allot them to him. The Phonix is in the Exeter Book, and its source is a Latin poem by Lactantius. This original is left at line 380; the rest is an allegory of the Resurrection, in which not only Christ but all the souls of the just are symbolised by the rebirth of the Phoenix. The first part describes the paradisiacal land the equivalent of the Celtic land of eternal youth-in which the Phoenix dwells, and the description is famous in Old English work. Then the enchanted life of the bird is told with all Cynewulf's love of animals, of lovely woodland places, of the glory of the sunrising and the sunset, and of sweet singing; and then the flight of the bird to the Syrian land, its burning, its resurrection, and the return to its Paradise for another thousand years. allegory follows. It is plain from the joyousness, the exultation of this poem, and its rapturous praise, that Cynewulf had fully recovered from his spiritual misery, and was happy in faith and hope.

The

The second part of Guthlac, which Cynewulf now added, as I think, to the first part, has for its subject the death of Guthlac, and is told in the manner of the saga stories. I have conjec

tured that Cynewulf, who in the previous poems had avoided the heroic and mythical terms of the heathen poetry, as he would be likely to do after his conversion from a life he held in horror, now felt his religious being so firmly set that he allowed himself to recur to the poetic fashions of his youth. At any rate, in this poem and in the later poems he sings the Christian battle with death, the victory of Jesus over evil, the legends of the Church, with a full use of the old heroic strain, of the Nature-myths, and of the terms of heathen war. Guthlac stands on his hill, like a Viking, as if on Holmgang, to meet the assaults of Satan and his 'smiths of sin; to stand against Death, that greedy warrior; and dies in triumph. A pillar of light rises from his corpse, and the heavenly host bursts into rapturous singing to welcome him. All England trembles with joy. It is an unfinished poem, but there is no better work in Old English poetry.

A fragment of a Descent into Hell also belongs

to this poet, and is written with the same trick of dialogue and the same enthusiasm as the Crist, and in the same heroic manner as the Guthlac. This poem also is not signed.

There are two signed poems yet to be spoken of, and two unsigned, which many critics have allotted to Cynewulf. The two signed poems are the Fates of the Apostles and the Elene. The two unsigned are the Andreas and the Dream of the Rood. No discussion has gathered round the Elene. It is plainly Cynewulf's. A great deal of discussion has gathered round the Dream of the Rood. Again and again it has been claimed for Cynewulf; again and again the claim has been denied. The same may be said with regard to the Andreas. As to the Fates of the Apostles, most people think the signature makes it plainly his ; but the date of its production and whether it stands alone or is an epilogue to the Andreas are matters still in discussion. The best thing this short treatise can do is to leave these critical matters, and to speak of the poems themselves. If the Fates of the Apostles be bound up with the Andreas, and if Cynewulf wrote the Andreas, it is here, after the second part of Guthlac, that we may best place these poems.

The Fates of the Apostles is in the Vercelli Book, and the personal passage (if it really belong to that poem) contains Cynewulf's name. The work of the apostles is told as if it were the expedition of English Æthelings against their foes. 'Thomas bore the rush of swords; Simon and Thaddeus were quick in the sword-play.' This heroic cry is equally strong in the Andreas; but the manner of the whole poem does not resemble the other work of Cynewulf. It has many lines which recall Beowulf, and the writer seems to have read that poem. If it is by an imitator of Cynewulf, the imitator was capable of as good work as Cynewulf; and he loves the grim sea-coasts and the stormy sea as much as Cynewulf. It would be pleasant to think that there were two such good men at this time writing together.

The Andreas is in the Vercelli Book, and tells from the Acts of St Andrew and St Matthew, of which there is a Greek manuscript at Paris, the adventures of the two apostles among the Mermedonians, a cannibal Ethiopian tribe. The apostles, the angels, even Christ Himself, are all English in speech, and the scenery is English. There is, of course, nothing English in the original. The change is a deliberate addition made by the writer. As literature, the important part of the poem is the voyage of St Andrew and his thanes with Christ and two angels, their conversation, the description of the storm, their landing on the coast. All this is done in heroic fashion; the breath of the sea fills it; the natural description is terse and observant, and the talk is imaginatively treated. We feel as if we were sailing in a merchant-boat of the eighth century between Whitby and the Tyne. Landing, Andrew delivers

Matthew, suffers three days' martyrdom, and then, after a mighty flood and tempest of fire has destroyed his foes, converts the rest, founds a church, and sails away.

There is no doubt of the authorship of the Elene, which Cynewulf wrote when he was 'old and ready for death in my frail tabernacle.' It is the last of the signed poems. He was now a careful artist. 'I've woven craft of words,' he says, 'culled them out, sifted night by night my thoughts.' He then recalls the story of his life while he signs his name in runes. It is the chief biographical passage in his work, and it ends with a fine description of the storm-wind hunting in the sky. The poem is in the Vercelli Book1320 lines. The subject is the Finding of the True Cross by the Empress Helena. The battle of Constantine with the Huns and the voyage of Helena are the best parts of the poem. They are insertions by Cynewulf into the Latin life of Cyriacus, Bishop of Jerusalem, which (in the Acta Sanctorum, May 4) is the source of the poem. The battle is done with the full heroic spirit. The sea-voyage breathes of his delight in the doings of ships and of the ocean. The ancient saga-terms. strengthen and animate his verse, and the poet seems to write like a young man. His metrical movement is steadier here than in the other poems. He uses almost invariably the short epic line into the usage of which English poetry had now drifted. Rhyme, also, and assonance are not infrequent. The poets, it is plain, had now formulated rules for their art. Had Northumbrian poetry lasted, it might have become as scientific as the Icelandic.

The last poem belonging to Cynewulf or his school is the Dream of the Rood, which is found in the Vercelli Book. Its authorship is unknown, but many scholars give it to Cynewulf. I believe it to be his last poem, his farewell; and that he worked it up from that early 'Lay of the Rood' written, it is supposed, by Cædmon, and a portion of which is quoted on the Ruthwell Cross. Cynewulf wished to record before he died the vision of the Cross which converted him. He found this poem of Cædmon's, and wrought it up into a description of his vision, inserting the 'long epic lines' in which it was written. Then he wrote a beginning and end of his own in his 'short epic' line. This theory-it is no more-accounts for the difficulties of the poem.

It begins by describing how he saw at the dead of night a wondrous Tree, adorned with gems, moist with blood; and how, as he looked on it, heavy-hearted with sin, it began to tell its story.

I was hewed down in the holt, and wrought into shape, and set on a hill, and the Lord of all folk hastened to mount on me, the Hero who would save

the world. Nails pierced me ; I was drenched with the Hero's blood, and all Creation wept around me. Then His foes and mine took Almighty God from me, and men made His grave, and sang over Him a sorrowful lay.

The old poem, thus worked up into Cynewulf's new matter, may be distinguished by its long epic lines from the newer matter, which is written in the short epic line. When the dream is finished, Cynewulf ends with a long passage so like the rest of his personal statements, so steeped in his individuality as we know it from his signed poems, so pathetic and so joyous, that it is hard to understand how the poem can be attributed to any one but Cynewulf. 'Few friends are left me now,' he says; they have fared away to their High Father. And I bide here, waiting till He on whose Rood I looked of old shall bring me to the happy place where the High God's folk are set at the evening meal.' And with that the "oetry and the life of Cynewulf close.

The time is coming when his name will be more highly honoured among us, and his poetry better known. He had imagination; he anticipated, at a great distance, the Nature-poetry of the nineteenth century, especially the poetry of the sea; his personal poetry, full of religious passion both of penitence and joy, makes him a brother of the many poets who in England have written well of their own heart and of God in touch with it. His hymnic passages of exultant praise ought to be translated and loved by all who cherish the Divine praise which from generation to generation has been so nobly sung by English poets. The heroic passages in his poems link us to our bold heathen forefathers, and yet are written by a Christian. Their spirit is still the spirit of England. But his greatest hero was Jesus Christ. Cynewulf was, more than any other Old English poet, the man who celebrated Christ as the Healer of men, and, because He was the Healer the Hero of the New Testament.

The other remains of English poetry which we possess in the Exeter and Vercelli Books, and which were written before the revival of literature under Ælfred, belong more to the history of criticism than literature. They were written at various dates during the eighth and ninth centuries. For our purpose it will almost suffice to name the best of them. One of them is a short Physiologus, a description of three animals-the Panther, the Whale, and the Partridge-followed by a religious allegory based on the description. The Panther symbolises Christ, the Whale the devil. There are two didactic poems, the Address of a Father to a Son, and of the Lost Soul to its Body. There are two other poems on the Gifts of Men and the Fates of Men, the latter of which treats its subject with so much originality that it has been given to Cynewulf. Both contain passages which tell us a good deal about the arts and crafts of the English, and about various aspects of English scenery. The Gnomic Verses-folk proverbs and maxims, short descriptions of human life and of natural events are in four collections, three in the Exeter Book and one in the Cotton MS. at Cambridge. Many of these are interesting.

Some have come down from heathen times; some are quotations from the poets; others tell of war, of courts, of women, of games, of domestic life. They would have interested Ælfred; and it is probable that, collected at York, they were edited in Wessex in Ælfred's time. The Rune Song is an alphabet of the Runes, with attached verses, such as we still make at the present day on the letters of the alphabet. There are two dialogues between Solomon and Saturnus, in which Christian wisdom in Solomon and the heathen wisdom of the East in Saturnus contend together in question and answer. Such dialogues became frequent in medieval literature, but changed their form. Marculf takes the place of Saturn, and represents the uneducated peasant or mechanic, whose rustic wit often gets the better of the king and the scholar. But there is no trace of this rebellion against Church and State in the English dialogues. With them we may close the poetry of the ninth century. A few years after the death of Cynewulf the Danish terror began. Literature decayed; men had not the heart to write poetry; and when, shortly after 867, the 'army' (which had already ravaged East Anglia and the greater part of Mercia) stormed York and destroyed every abbey and seat of learning from the Humber to the Forth, the poetry of Northumbria passed away. We may say that the farewell of Cynewulf in the Dream of the Rood was the dirge of Northumbrian

song.

At the Judgment-Day.

Deep creation thunders, and before the Lord shall go
Hugest of upheaving fires o'er the far-spread earth!
Hurtles the hot flame, and the heavens burst asunder,
All the firm-set flashing planets fall out of their places.
Then the sun that erst o'er the elder world
With such brightness shone for the sons of men
Black-dark now becomes, changed to bloody hue.
And the moon alike, who to man of old
Nightly gave her light, nither tumbles down :
And the stars also shower down from heaven,
Headlong through the roaring lift, lashed by all the
winds.

The Bliss of Heaven.

(From the Crist.)

There, is angels' song; there, enjoyment of the blest;
There, beloved Presence of the Lord Eternal,
To the blessed brighter than the beaming of the Sun !
There is love of the beloved, life without the end of
death;

Merry there man's multitude; there unmarred is youth by eld;

Glory of the hosts of Heaven, health that knows not pain;

Rest for righteous doers, rest withouten strife,

For the good and blessed! Without gloom the day,
Bright and full of blossoming; bliss that's sorrowless ;
Peace all friends between, ever without enmity;
Love that envieth not, in the union of the saints,
For the happy ones of Heaven! Hunger is not there
nor thirst,

Sleep nor heavy sickness, nor the scorching of the Sun;

Neither cold nor care; but the happy company,
Sheenest of all hosts, shall enjoy for aye
Grace of God their King, glory with their Lord.
(From the Crist.)

St Guthlac dies and is received into Heaven.
Then out-streamed a Light
Brightest that of beaming pillars! All that Beacon fair,
All that heavenly glow round the holy home,
Was up-reared on high, even to the roof of Heaven,
From the field of earth, like a fiery tower,

Seen beneath the sky's expanse, sheenier than the sun,
Glory of the glorious stars! Hosts of angels sang
Loud the lay of Victory! In the lift the ringing sound
Now was heard the heaven under, raptures of the Holy
Ones!

So the blessed Burgstead was with blisses filled,
With the sweetest scents, and with skiey wonders,
With the angels' singing, to its innermost recesses;
Heirship of the Holy One!

Latin Writers before Ælfred. When Augustine landed in Thanet in 597 and made Canterbury the first Christian town, he brought with him, to add to the development of English literature, the power, the wisdom, the amalgamating force, and the long traditions of Rome. But at first, though the Roman missionaries influenced the English thought, they did not use the English language. All that they wrote they wrote in Latin. The Celtic Church encouraged the English to shape their thought and feeling in their own tongue; the Roman Church discouraged this; and the south of England, where Rome was supreme as a teacher, did not till the days of Ælfred produce any important literature in English.

The Latin literature of the south began with Theodore of Tarsus, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 669. Benedict Biscop, a Northumbrian scholar, came with him from Rome; and Benedict, going to his home, was the proper founder of Latin literature in Northumbria. Hadrian, Theodore's deacon, joined in 671, and with his help Theodore set on foot the school of Canterbury, which soon became the centre of southern learning. Wessex and Kent now produced their own scholars, and their bishops were men who loved nourished education. Daniel of Winchester was a wise assistant of Bæda; but the man who best represents the knowledge and literature of the south was Ealdhelm, who, educated by Mailduf, an Irishman, and also at Canterbury, became Abbot of Malmesbury and Bishop of Sherborne. He may have helped to compile the Laws of Ine,

and

after the middle of the eighth century active literary life died in Wessex, and when Ælfred came to the throne in 871, there was not a single priest left who could understand their service books or put them into English.

The history of Latin literature in the MidEngland kingdom of Mercia is even of less importance than it is in Wessex. Under Æthelbald the country seems to have won a reputation for learning; and Ecgwin, Bishop of Worcester, is said to be our first autobiographer. The Life of St Guthlac, written by Felix of Crowland for an East Anglian king, in outpuffing Latin, is the only work we know of. But Æthelbald and his successor Offa were munificent to monasteries; and the school at Worcester was the last refuge of learning, when its cause was lost all over England in the ninth century.

The career of Latin literature in Northumbria was more continuous and more important than it was in Wessex or Mercia. The names of many of its scholars were known over the world, and are famous to this day. Northumbrian scholarship founded a great school, almost a university, at York, from which flowed the learning which, received and cherished by Charles the Great, produced an early Renaissance in Europe. The story of its rise and its fall belongs to York. The story of its growth and development belongs to Wearmouth and Jarrow.

Christianity reached York in the year 627, when Paullinus baptised Eadwine. But after Eadwine's death Northumbria relapsed into heathenism, Paullinus fled, and Latin literature was stifled in its birth. Literature and religion again took fresh life under Oswald in 634, but they were now in Celtic, not in Roman hands. The monasteries set up were ruled by Celtic monks from Iona; the bishops came from the same place; the kings and princes of the Northumbrian house were, for the most part, educated at Iona, spoke Irish, and knew the poetry and learning of Ireland. And the Irish, accustomed to praise God and their heroes and saints in their own tongue, encouraged the Northumbrians to write in their own tongue. The first literature of Northumbria was in English.

Rome was naturally unsatisfied with this predominance of the Celtic Church; Northumbria must be drawn into the Latin fold; and Theodore, Wilfrid, and others, with Prince Alchfrith, fought their battle so well that in 664, at the Synod of Whitby, Northumbria joined the Latin Church. And now, though the Celtic influence lasted for many years, Latin learning, which had begun in Ripon and Hexham, took deep root in the north. Benedict Biscop, who had been at Rome with Theodore, built in 674 the monastery of St Peter at Wearmouth, and in 682 the sister house at Jarrow. He and the large libraries he collected for these abbeys were the real foundation of the Latin literature and learning of the north. Scholars and writers soon began to multiply.

Wilfrid's biography-the first written in England —was done by his friend Eddius Stephanus about 709. The Life of St Cuthbert was written at Lindisfarne. Wilfrid's closest friend, Acca, Bishop of Hexham, increased the library which John of Beverley had ministered to. These are the chief names of the early Latin writers of the north.

But the learning was scattered. It was gathered together and generalised by Bæda of Jarrow. He is the master of the time, and his books became not only the sources of English, but of European learning. To this day his name is revered; he is still called the 'Venerable Bede;' all the science, rhetoric, grammar, theology, and historical knowledge of the past which he could attain he absorbed, edited, and published. He increased in his Homilies and Commentaries the religious literature of the world; he made delightful biographies, and he wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation with skill and charm. It is our best authority. His first books, on the scientific studies of the time, were written between 700 and 703. They were followed by a primer of the history of the world-De sex ætatibus Sæculi, 707; by the Commentaries on almost all the books of the Old and New Testaments, and these range over many years after 709; by the Lives of Cuthbert and the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow, 716-20; and by the De Temporum ratione in 726. The Ecclesiastical History was finished in 731, and his last work, the Letter to Egbert, was done in the year of his death, 735. These thirty-five years were thus filled with that learning and teaching and writing in which he had always great delight; and the little cell at Jarrow, whence he rarely stirred, was continually visited by men of many businesses and of all ranks in life. He kept in touch with all the monasteries of England, and with many in Europe. Even so far away as Rome he had scholars who worked for him among the archives. His greatest book is the Ecclesiastical History. He took so much pains to make it accurate, and to write nothing without consulting original and contemporary authorities, that the modern historical school claim him as their own. He shows in the book that power of choice and rejection of material so necessary for a historian; and, what chiefly concerns us here, he filled it with a literary charm and beauty of statement when the subject permitted this self-indulgence. It is here that his personality most appears; that we feel his happy, gentle, loving, and simple nature. His character adorns his style. The stories which embellish the book have a unique clearness and grace, a vivid grasp of character, a human tenderness, which makes us feel at times as if we were present with him in his room at Jarrow and listening to his charitable voice. Cuthbert, one of his pupils, gives an account of his fair death in his cell among his books; and it is pleasant to think that the last work on which he was engaged on the day of his