CHAPTER XV

Runes. An early love poem. 118

ILLUSTRATIONS

DEATH OF SAINT BEDE _Frontispiece_

WHITBY ABBEY _Page_ 19

KING ALFRED THE GREAT 48

THE RUTHWELL CROSS 80

THE ALFRED JEWEL 114

A SAXON SHIP 114

FOREWORDS

This little book makes no claim to be a history of pre-Conquest

Literature. It is an attempt to increase the interest which Catholics

may well feel in this part of the great 'inheritance of their fathers.'

It is not meant to be a formal course of reading, but a sort of talk, as

it were, about beautiful things said and sung in old days: things which

to have learned to love is to have incurred a great and living debt. I

have tried to clothe some of these in the nearest approach I could find

to the native garb in which their makers had sent them forth, with the

humblest acknowledgement that nothing comes up to that native garb

itself. In writing the book I have naturally incurred debt in various

directions; debt of which the source would be difficult always to trace.

I may mention my obligations to the work of Professor Morley, Professor

Earle, Professor Ten Brink, and Professor Albert S. Cook: also to the

writers of Chapters I-VII of "The Cambridge History of English

Literature," vol. i.

If this little book in any way fulfils the wishes of those Catholic

teachers who have asked me to print some thoughts of mine about English

Literature, I shall be glad indeed.

EMILY HICKEY.

CHAPTER I

The beginnings of Literature in England. Two poets of the best period of

our old poetry, Caedmon and Cynewulf. The language they wrote in.

The monastery at Whitby. The story of Caedmon's gift of song.

How many of us I wonder, realise in anything like its full extent the

beauty and the glory of our Catholic heritage. Do we think how the Great

Mother, the keeper of truth, the guardian of beauty, the muse of

learning, the fosterer of progress, has given us gifts in munificent

generosity, gifts that sprang from her holy bosom, to enlighten, to

cheer, to guide and to help; gifts that she, large, liberal, glorious,

could not but give, for she, like her Lord, is giver and bestower; and

to be of her children is to be of the givers and bestowers. The Catholic

Church is the source of fine literature, of true art, as of noble speech

and noble deed.

We are going to look at a small portion of that part of our Catholic

heritage which consists of our early literature; we are going to think

about the beginning of Christian work of this kind in the form of poetry

and prose in England. When I say Christian poetry and prose, I am using

the word Christian as opposed to pagan, and inclusive of secular as well

as religious verse, though the amount of secular verse is, in the

earliest time, comparatively very small. Some of the pagan work was

retouched by Christians who cared for the truth and strength and beauty

of it. The ideal of the English heathen poet was, in many respects, a

fine one. He loved valour and generosity and loyalty, and all these

things are found, for instance, in the poem "Béowulf," a poem full of

interest of various kinds; full, too, as Professor Harrison says, "of

evidences of having been fumigated here and there by a Christian

incense-bearer." But "the poem is a heathen poem, just 'fumigated' here

and there by its editor." There is a vast difference between

"fumigating" a heathen work and adapting it to blessedly changed belief,

seeing in old story the potential vessel of Christian thought and

Christian teaching. To fumigate with incense is one thing--to use that

incense in the work of dedication and consecration is another. For

instance, the old story of the "Quest of the Graal," best known to

modern readers through Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," has been

Christianised and consecrated. And so it was with some fine old English

(or Anglo-Saxon) poetry. But, just now, we are going to listen to

Catholic poets and teachers only.

We begin with the work of poets. Out of all those who wrote in what was

the best period of our old poetry, a period that lasted some hundred and

fifty or seventy-five years, we know the names of two only, Caedmon and

Cynewulf.

And here may I say that scholars agree that the names are to be

pronounced _Kadmon_ and _Kun-e-wolf_; in the second name we sound the

_y_ like a French _u_, make a syllable of the _e_, not sounding it as

_ee_, but short, and make the last syllable just what we now pronounce

as _wolf_.

Both of these poets deserve our love and our praise, as singers and

inspirers of other singers, but we know much more about Caedmon's life

than we know about his share in the poetry that has been attributed to

him; that is the poetry which has gone under his name. That he did

write much fine verse we know. On the other hand, we know a good deal as

to the authenticity of Cynewulf's poetry, and nothing about his life.

Both of these poets wrote in the language spoken in England before the

period of French influence. That influence upon English at first seemed

to be disastrous; the language became broken up and spoilt: but this was

only for a time; and by and by, out of roughness and chaotic grammar

there grew up a beautiful and stately speech meet for great poets to

sing in, and great men and women to use. So it is that what for a time

seems to be disastrous may one day be realised as benign and beautiful.

This pre-Conquest language has to be learned as we learn a foreign

tongue. It is much easier to learn than Latin or German, but still it

has to be learned; so we shall have to listen to the thought of these

poets in the language of our own day, allowing ourselves now and then

the use of words or expressions which it is fair to employ in rendering

old poetry or prose, though we do not use them in ordinary speech or

writing.

We shall sometimes use translations, and sometimes I will tell you

about the poetry, giving the gist of it as best I can.

[Illustration: WHITBY ABBEY]

At Whitby you may see the ruins of what must have been a very beautiful

monastery, built high on a hill, swept by brisk and health-giving winds

with the strength and freshness of moorland and sea. This monastery,

part of which was for monks, and part for nuns, was ruled by Abbess

Hild.[A] This seems strange to us, but it was because the Celtic usage

prevailed in the government of the Abbey.

[Footnote A: Hilda is the Latinised form, which it is a pity to use

instead of the English one.]

We must never forget the work of the Celtic missionaries who brought

Christianity from the Western Islands to the North of England: and, of

course, their "ways" as well as their message were impressed on the

converts. Later on, as we know, the Roman usage was established all over

the country.

Among the monks of Streoneshalh, as Whitby was then called, the Danes

having given it its present name, there was, as St Bede the Venerable

tells us, "a brother specially renowned and honoured by Divine grace,

because it was his wont to make fitting songs appertaining to piety and

virtue; so that whatever he learned from scholars about the Divine

Writings, that did he, in a short time, with the greatest sweetness and

fervour, adorn with the language of poetry, and bring forth in the

English speech. And because of his poems the hearts of many men were

brought to despise the world, and were inspired with desire for the

fellowship of the heavenly life.... He was a layman until he was far

advanced in years, and he had never learnt any songs. It was then the

custom that, when there was a feast on some occasion of rejoicing, all

present should sing to the harp in turn. And when Caedmon saw the harp

coming near him, he would get up, feeling ashamed, and go home to his

house. Now once upon a time he had done this and had left the house

where they were feasting, and gone to the stall where the cattle were,

which it was his duty that night to attend to. There, when his work was

done, he lay down and slept, and in a dream he saw a man standing by

him, who hailed him and greeted him and called him by his name, saying:

'Caedmon, sing me something.' And Caedmon answered and said, 'I can sing

nothing, and therefore did I go from this feast, and depart hither,

because I could not.' And again he that was speaking with him, said:

'Nevertheless, thou must sing for me.'"

Then Caedmon understood, and he said in the same spirit that prompted

Our Lady's "Be it done unto me according to thy word," "What shall I

sing?" And the guest of his dream said, "Sing the Creation for me."

As soon as Caedmon had received this answer, he at once began to sing to

the praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had never heard.

St Bede quotes a few lines in the Northern dialect, which may be

rendered thus:

"Now shall we praise the Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven, the might of

the Creator and the thought of His mind, the works of the Father of

glory; how He made the beginning of all wonders, the everlasting Lord.

First did He shape for the children of men Heaven for a roof, the holy

Shaper. Then the mid-world the Guardian of Mankind, the Eternal Lord,

the King Almighty, created thereafter, the earth for men."

When Caedmon awoke the gift remained with him, and he went on composing

more poetry. He told the town-reeve about the gift he had received, and

the town-reeve took him to the Abbess and showed her all the matter.

Abbess Hild called together all the most learned men and the students,

and by her desire the dream was told to them, and the songs sung to them

that they might all judge what this might be and whence the gift had

come. And they were all sure that a divine gift had been bestowed on

Caedmon by God Himself. They gave him a holy story and words of divine

lore, and bad him sing them if he could, putting them into the measure

of verse. In the morning he came back, having set them in most beautiful

poetry. And after that the Abbess had him instructed, and he left the

life in the world for the religious life. We are told by St Bede that he

made much beautiful verse, being taught much holy lore and making songs

so winsome to hear that his teachers themselves learned at his mouth.

"He sang of the creation of earth and the making of man, and the history

of Genesis, and the going out of the Israelites from the land of the

Egyptians, and their entering into the Land of Promise, and many other

stories told in the Books of the Canon. He also sang concerning the

Humanity of Christ and about His Passion and His Ascension, and about

the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the Apostles. And he

sang also of the Judgement to come and of the sweetness of the Kingdom

of Heaven. About these things he made many songs, as well as about the

Divine goodness and judgment. And this poet always had before him the

desire to draw men away from the love of sin and of evil doing, and to

make them earnestly desire to do good deeds."

At last a fair end was set upon his life when, glad of heart, full of

love to those around him, he received Holy Viaticum, and prayed and

signed himself with the Holy Sign, and entered sweetly into his rest.

This is the story told for the most part, as it is best to tell it in

the way in which St Bede recorded it; and Alfred rendered it into the

English of his day, from which English I have now taken it.

CHAPTER II

Caedmon and his influence. Poem, "Genesis." "The Fall of The Angels."

"Exodus," English a war-loving race. Destruction of the Egyptians,

Fate and the Lord of Fate.

We possess poems on the subjects which St Bede tells us that Caedmon

wrote upon, but we cannot be sure that any of these are actually that

poet's work. St Bede tells us that many others after him wrote noble

songs, but he sets Caedmon's work above that of all those others as

having been the product of a gift direct from God. In any case he must

have influenced those who wrote later than he. All our work whether we

are poets, thinkers, fighters, craftsmen, servants, tradesfolk,

teachers, must be only partly in what we do directly. This can to some

extent be measured. We can tell how many hours' work we have done in a

day; how many books we have written in a life's working-time; how much

faithful service we have consciously offered. But by far the larger part

of our work we cannot know. We cannot know how much we may have

influenced others for good, we cannot calculate the effect that we have

had upon them, and, through them, upon others. And to apply this thought

specially to a poet, we may say that what he has done for others by

suggesting, by stimulating, by inspiring, is not only a most valuable

part of his work, but also an immeasurable part. A poet may inspire

another poet simply to sing; or he may inspire him to sing on subjects

akin to those dearest to himself; and the second poet, or the third or

fourth, as it may be, may sing better than the first. But all the same,

he owes it to the first poet, and, in a sense, the work of the latter

poet is a part of the work of the earlier.

The poem "Genesis" is known to be the work of at least two people: part

of it is a version of an old Saxon paraphrase of the Old Testament, and

must have been written later than Caedmon's time. It is always

interesting to know who it was that wrote work we care for, but it is a

more important matter to possess the work itself. People in old times

did not seem to care much whether their names were known or not. The

author, for example, of the book which for so long has been read and

studied and cherished as one of the Church's most treasured

possessions, the "Imitation of Christ," remained for a long time

unknown; and this is by no means a solitary instance. The interest in

literary fame is mostly a modern thing. Besides in these old times

people worked in a different sort of way from now. We must remember that

the art of song went hand in hand with the art of verse-making. All

sorts of people sang the words they had heard, changing, adding, as it

might be; adding to, or taking from the beauty and force of what they

were dealing with, in proportion to the strength of their memory, or the

quality of their imagination.

The story of the "Fall of the Angels" forms part of the "Genesis," and

it is well worth while to consider whether a very great poet of much

later days, John Milton, may not have owed something when writing

"Paradise Lost" to his early forerunner.

"Ten angel-tribes had the Guardian of all, the Holy Lord, created by the

might of His hand, whom He well trusted to work His will in full

allegiance to Him, for He had given them understanding and made them

with His hands, the Lord Most Holy.

"He had set them in such blessedness. One thereof had He made so strong,

so mighty in his intellect; to him did He grant great sway, next to

Himself in the Kingdom of Heaven. So bright had He made him, so

beautiful was his form in Heaven that was given him by the Lord of

Hosts. He was like unto the stars of light. His duty was to praise the

Lord, to laud Him because of his share of the gift of light. Dear was he

to our Lord."

But it could not be hidden from God how pride had taken hold of His

angel. And Satan resolves in that pride not to serve God. Bright and

beautiful in his form, he will not obey the Almighty. He thinks within

himself that he has more might and strength than the Holy God could find

among his fellows. "Why should I toil, seeing there is no need that I

should have a lord? With my hands I can work marvels as many as He.

Great power have I to make ready a goodlier throne, a higher one in

Heaven. Why must I serve Him in liegedom, bow to Him in service? I am

able to be God even as He. Strong comrades stand by me, who will not

fail me in the strife; stout-hearted heroes."

And so does Satan resolve to be the foe of God.

Surely we must be reminded of Milton's great poem when we read how

Satan, ruined and cast into hell, speaks to his comrades, lost with him.

He compares the "narrow place" with the seat he had once known in

Heaven, and denies the right doing of the Almighty in casting him down.

He says too that the chief of his sorrows is that Adam, made out of

earth, shall possess the strong throne that once was his; Adam, made

after God's likeness, from whom Heaven will be peopled with pure souls.

And he plans revenge on God by striving to destroy Adam and his

offspring.

All this, and the appeal to one of his followers to go upward where Adam

and Eve are, and bring about that they should forsake God's teaching and

break His Commandments, so that weal might depart from them and

punishment await them, may be compared with "Paradise Lost," Books I,

II.

It is needless to say that the English were a war-like race. They loved

the clash of swords, the whizzing of the arrow in its flight, the fierce

combat, the struggle to keep the battle-stead, as they phrased the

gaining of a victory. We shall see more of this by and by. And this

spirit comes out in their poetry written after they had received

Christianity. They delight in the story of struggle, of brave combat,

of victory. They saw in the hosts of Pharaoh the old Teuton warriors,

with the bright-shining bucklers, and the voice of the trumpets and the

waving of banners. Over the doomed host the poet of "Exodus" saw the

vultures soaring in circles, hungry for the fight, when the doomed

warriors should be their prey, and heard the wolves howling their

direful evensong, deeming their food nigh them. Here is the description

of the Destruction of the Egyptians. The translation is by Henry S.

Canby:--

Then with blood-clots was the blue sky blotted;

Then the resounding ocean, that road of seamen,

Threatened bloody horror, till by Moses' hand

The great Lord of Fate freed the mad waters.

Wide the sea drove, swept with its death-grip,

Foamed all the deluge, the doomed ones yielded,

Seas fell on that track, all the sky was troubled,

Fell those steadfast ramparts, down crashed the floods.

Melted were these sea-towers, when the mighty One,

Lord of Heaven's realm, smote with holy hand

These heroes strong as pines, that people proud....

The yawning sea was mad,

Up it drew, down swirled; dread stood about them,

Forth welled the sea-wounds. On those war-troops fell,

As from the heaven high, that handiwork of God.

Thus swept He down the sea-wall, foamy-billowed,

The sea that never shelters, struck by His ancient sword,

Till, by its dint[B] of death, slept the doughty ones;

An army of sinners, fast surrounded there,

The sea-pale, sodden warriors their souls up-yielded

Then the dark upsweltering, of haughty waves the greatest,

Over them spread; all the host sank deep.

And thus were drowned the doughtiest of Egypt,

Pharaoh with his folk. That foe to God,

Full soon he saw, yea, e'en as he sank,

That mightier than he was the Master of the waters,

With His death-grip, determined to end the battle,

Angered and awful.

[Footnote B: blow.]

How fine a conception it is. Let us notice how far had been travelled

from the old pagan "Fate goeth even as it will" to "the Lord of Fate."

How great is the thought of the vision of God's might, the power of the

Master of the waves, brought before the eyes of Pharaoh before he sinks

in the death-grip that will not let him go!

CHAPTER III

Allegory. Principle of comparison important in life, language,

literature. Early use of symbolism; suggested reasons for this. Poem

of the Phoenix. Allegorical interpretation of the story. Celtic

influence on English poetry. Gifts of colour, fervour, glow. Various

gifts of various nations enriching one another.

In these papers we are not going through anything like a course of older

English literature. We are looking at some of the work which our early

writers have left, from the point of view of its being our Catholic

Heritage, and we want to pay special attention to special works, not to

go through a long list of names. It is hoped that the bringing forward

of what is so good and strong in interest may be found really helpful by

those who have little or no time to go to the originals. That it may be

so is alike the desire of writer and publisher.

To-day we are going to consider a poem of a different kind from what we

have had before, an old poem called "The Phoenix."

Literature is full of allusions to the fable of the phoenix; it is

one of those stories which have caught hold of people and fired their

imagination; and the reason is, we may well suppose, because it has

suggested so many comparisons, some of them great and beautiful and

holy. There are some stories which lend themselves easily to an

allegorical interpretation; stories quite true, and yet suggesting

things beyond their own actual scope. I dwell on this before passing on

to the poem, because I want to bring before you the remembrance of what

a tremendous factor in literature, as in thought and in the whole of

life is the principle of comparison, or, as we might put it, the

principle of similitude or likeness. We learn about a thing we do not

know through its likeness, as a whole or in some parts, to a thing we do

know. Our little children can understand most easily something of the

love of Our Father who is in Heaven through the love of their father on

earth: they learn of their Redeemer's Mother, their own dear Mother of

Grace, through their earthly mother, who is ever ready to supply their

wants and give them joy and comfort.

In devotion what do we most need to pray for? Is it not for likeness to

the holy ones and to the holiest of all creatures, Our Lady; and

highest of all, to the Lord, Our Saviour and Example? And is it not the

fairest of promises that one day "we shall be like to Him, for we shall

see Him as He is"? (St John iii.)

So in literature we have, springing from this principle of comparison,

the forms fable, parable, and allegory; and in language the figures of

speech which we know as simile and metaphor.

Ovid, a Roman poet who lived before the Incarnation, tells the old

Eastern fable thus:

"There is a bird that restores and reproduces itself; the Assyrians call

it the Phoenix. It feeds on no common food, but on the choicest of

gums and spices; and after a life of secular length (_i.e._, a hundred

years) it builds in a high tree with cassia, spikenard, cinnamon, and

myrrh, and on this nest it expires in sweetest odours. A young Phoenix

rises and grows, and when strong enough it takes up the nest with its

deposit and bears it to the City of the Sun, and lays it down there in

front of the sacred portals."

It was a much later and a much longer version of the story that our

English poet was debtor to. It was written in Latin by Lactantius, and

the fable there, Professor Earle says, "is so curiously and, as it

were, significantly elaborated, that we hardly know whether we are

reading a Christian allegory or no."

He goes on to say that Allegory has always been a favourite form with

Christian writers, and finds more than one reason for it. There was a

tendency towards symbolism in literature outside Christianity when the

Christian literature arose. Another reason was that the early Christians

used it to convey what it would probably have endangered their lives to

set in plain words; besides this--here I must give the Professor's own

beautiful words--"Christian thought had in its own nature something

which invited allegory, partly by its own hidden sympathies with nature,

and partly by its very immensity, for which all direct speech was felt

to be inadequate." One more reason he suggests, and that is "the

all-pervading and unspeakable sweetness of Christ's teaching by

parables."

The Romans used the representation of the phoenix on coins to signify

the desire for fresh life and vigour, and Christian writers used the

phoenix as an emblem of the Resurrection.

Many scholars think that it was Cynewulf who wrote the Anglo-Saxon poem

of "The Phoenix." We are, however, uncertain as to its authorship and

as to its date. Whoever wrote it probably took some hints as to the

allegorical interpretation of the story from both St Ambrose and St

Bede. And this poet, too, gives us much more brightness and colour than

we find in Caedmonic poetry. I use the word "Caedmonic" to cover the

poetry which used to be attributed to Caedmon, and which was probably

written under his influence. That he did write much I have shown in

Chapter I.

I cannot give the poem at full length, but in parts quote from it, and

in part give the gist of it. It begins with a description of the Happy

Land which is the home of the Phoenix. Far away in the East it lies,

that noblest of lands, renowned among men. Not to many of the

earth-owners is it given to have access to that country. God's power

sets it far from the workers of evil. Beautiful is that plain, with joys

endowed and with the sweetest smells of earth. Peerless is the island,

set there by its noble Maker. Oft is the door of Heaven opened for the

blessed ones and the joy of its music known of them. Winsome is the

plain with its wide green woods. And there is neither rain nor snow,

nor breath of frost nor flame of fire, nor the rush of hail, nor the

falling of rime, nor burning heat of the sun, nor everlasting cold, but

blessed and wholesome standeth the plain, and full is the noble country

of the blowing of blossoms.

The glorious land is higher than earth's highest towering mountain,

lying serene in its sunny wooded fairness. Ever and always the trees are

hung with fruits, and never comes the withering of the leaf. No foes may

enter that land, and there is no weeping nor any sorrow, nor losing of

life, nor sin, nor strife, nor age, nor care, nor poverty. When the

Flood covered the earth, this Paradise was shielded from the rush of

angry waters, happy through God's grace and inviolate; and so shall it

remain even to the day of the coming of the Judgement of the Lord.

In this fair country there abides a bird of wondrous beauty and strong

of wing. For him there shall be no death while the world shall last.

Ever he watches the course of the sun, eagerly looks for the radiant

rising over ocean of the noblest of stars, the first work of the Father,

the glowing token of God. At the coming of the sun he flies swift-winged

toward it, singing more wondrously than any son of man hath heard since

the making of heaven and earth. Never was human voice nor sound of any

instrument of music like unto the song. And so twelve times by day he

marks the hours, as twelve times by night he has marked them by his bath

in the glorious fountain, and his drink of its cool clear water.

A thousand years go on, and the burden of years is upon him, and he

flies to a spacious lonely realm and there abides alone. He is lord over

all the birds, and dwells with them in the wilderness. He flies

westward, attended by a great throng, till he gains the country of the

Syrians. Then he sends away his retinue, and stays alone in a grove,

hidden from human eyes. Here is a lofty tree, blossoming bright above

all other trees, and on this tree the Phoenix builds his nest, on a

windless day, when the holy jewel of heaven shines clear. For he is fain

by the activity of his mind to convert old age into life, and thus renew

his youth. He gathers from far and near the sweetest and most

delightsome plants and leaves, and the sweetest perfumes that the Father

of all beginnings has made. On the lofty top of the tree he builds his

house fair and winsome, and sets round his body holy spices and noble

boughs. Then, in the great sheen of mid-day, the Phoenix sits, looking

out on the world and enduring his fate. Suddenly his house is set on

fire by the radiant sun, and amid the glowing spices and sweet odours,

bird and nest burn together in the fierce heat. The life of him, the

soul, escapes when the flame of the funeral pile sears flesh and bone.

Then comes the resurrection of the Phoenix, who rises from the ashes

of his old body, young and wondrously beautiful. Fed on the honey-dew

that oft descends at midnight, he remains a while before his return to

his own dwelling-place, his home of yore.

When he goes he is accompanied by a great retinue of the bird-folk, who

proclaim him their leader. Ere he reaches his own country he outstrips

them all, and comes home alone in his splendour and his might. And the

next thousand years go on, and again comes the change to this creature

who has no dread of death, since he is ever assured of new life after

the fury of the flame.

And so it is that every blessed soul will choose for himself to enter

into everlasting life through the dark portals of death. Much of a like

kind does this bird's nature shadow forth concerning the chosen

followers of Christ, how they may possess pure happiness here, and

secure exalted bliss hereafter.

The allegorical significance is explained by the old poet at

considerable length. The main thought is, of course, the great

Resurrection in which, day by day, we all profess our belief; the

Resurrection through the fire that "shall be astir, and shall consume

iniquities"; the Resurrection at the Day of Judgement, when the just

shall be once more young and comely in the glory of joy and praise,

singing in adoration of the peerless King: "Peace and wisdom and

blessing for these Thy gifts, and for every good, be unto Thee, the true

God, throned in majesty. Infinite, high, and holy is the power of Thy

might. The heavens on high with the angels, are full of the glory, O

Father Almighty, Lord of all gods, and the earth also. Defend us, Author

of Creation. Thou art the Father Almighty in the highest, the Lord of

Heaven."

How familiarly these words ring! For our heritage of praise has come to

us from afar and from of old.

And again rises the chant triumphant, to the endless honour of the

Eternal Son, whose coming into the world and birth and death are all

typified by the mystical Phoenix.

I have dwelt at considerable length upon this poem for various reasons.

One is that it is of a special kind, the allegorical; another is that,

as I have pointed out, it is full of a richness and colour and love of

nature, which is not found in the earlier poetry. Where does it come

from? It is most probably part of the Celtic influence which has set its

magic touch upon English poetry and given to it that "light that never

was on sea or land." It has done far more than give a sense of colour

and beauty and nature-love. More than the love of nature in its beauty

is the sense of fellowship between man and nature, the sense that makes

man see his own joy and sorrow reflected in the mighty heart of Nature.

This is a very big subject, and can only be touched on here. The

beginning of this influence, which came also from Wales and France, is

due to Ireland. We must never forget how great a debt England owes to

Ireland. May we say that it was from the Irish missionaries whose feet

hallowed the soil of Iona that the English north country caught that

intense glowing love of the Holy Faith, which even still, in a measure,

differentiates the north of England from the south?[C] We must value

very greatly the solid foundation of strength, sincerity, what we call

_grit_, directness of expression, simplicity, to be found in early

English work; all these being great things, yet capable of receiving

into their fellowship and above it and beyond it, that which should give

what we look for in a great literature; the power of appeal to various

kinds of people, to "all sorts and conditions of men." And to Celtic

influence, Irish, British, French, we look for that which turns grey,

however fair a grey, to green, and purest pallor to the glory of

whiteness. It is beautiful, is it not, to think how various kinds of men

and women can help to complete one another by giving and taking what

each has to give, and each needs to take? It is the same with nations:

each has its own gifts, its own needs; and for a great and noble

world-literature we need the gifts of all.

[Footnote C: I have not, of course, forgotten the mission of St

Paulinus; but, as history shows, this does not affect the question here.

Glow and fervour permeate life, and literature being its outcome could

not but keep the mark of what had been set upon that life.]

CHAPTER IV

Prose-writing. St Bede the Venerable. His love of truth. His industry

and carefulness. Cuthbert's account of his last days. "Bede whom God

loved."

We leave our poets now for a time, and go to the writers of prose in

early days. We want first to think about a beautiful-souled religious,

who gave us the first great historical work done in England. We know him

as St Bede, the Venerable Bede, as he has been called from the epithet

inscribed on his tomb in Durham Cathedral, which bears the words

Hac sunt in fossa

Bedæ Venerabilis ossa.

"In this grave are the bones of Venerable Bede." We know the old story

how the pupil who was writing his dear master's epitaph could not find

the right word, as it has happened to many a one for the time being; and

how he slept and awoke to find the word supplied by the gracious angel

hand.

In his Benedictine cell at Jarrow, St Bede read and thought and wrote;

and all that he wrote was done in noble sincerity of purpose, springing

from the dedication of his whole soul to Him who is truth itself. He

told as history what he believed to be true, and collected his materials

from sources acknowledged to be trustworthy; and he is always careful to

tell us when he gives a story on evidence only hearsay.

St Bede refused to be Abbot of Jarrow, because "the office demands

household care, and household care brings with it distraction of mind,

which hinders the pursuit of learning."

He wrote many things, and it has been said that his writings form nearly

a complete encyclopædia of the knowledge of his day; but the work of St

Bede by which he is best known is the "Church History of the English

Race." It is of greater value than we can tell, and has been used for

many generations for knowledge and help.

The history of England was in St Bede's time inseparable from the

history of her Church, as we pray that one day it may again come to be.

The book begins with a short account of Britain before the coming of St

Augustine. St Bede used old writers for this, and he was much helped by

two of his friends, Albinus and Northelm. Northelm used to make

researches for him at Rome, and brought him copies of letters written by

St Gregory the Great, and other Popes, bearing on the Church history of

Britain. From other sources also he took the information which has come

down through him to us, a heritage for which we cannot be too grateful.

Our two great early histories are the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," and

Bede's "Church History of the English Race." Without these, what could

our historians have done?

This great book of St Bede's was, like almost all his work, written in

Latin; the grand old tongue in which our priests say their daily Office

and minister at God's altar. It was King Alfred who gave us a free

translation of it in English. But although it was written in Latin, it

belongs absolutely to our Catholic Heritage in English Literature.

Bede was the first historian to date from the Incarnation of Our Lord,

the form which we have always used. The History comes down to A.D. 731,

a short time before its author went to his rest. We can never think of

St Bede as a mere bookman, a purely "literary man." His own character,

truth-loving, wise, devoted, cheerful, has been felt through his work; a

character that has made people love him and stretch out hands of

affection to him across the heaping-up of the years. How glad are we to

say, we, students, workers, all of us, "St Bede, pray for us."

There is a lovely account of St Bede's last days handed down to us in a

letter written by his pupil Cuthbert, to another of his pupils, Cuthwin.

Cuthwin had written, telling Cuthbert how he was diligently saying

Masses, and praying for their "father and master, Bede, whom God loved,"

and Cuthbert is glad to answer his fellow-student's enquiries as to the

departure of that "dear father and master."

His death-illness began "a fortnight before the day of Our Lord's

Resurrection," and lasted till Holy Thursday. All the time he was full

of joy and thanksgiving. Cuthbert says he has never seen any man "so

earnest in giving thanks to the living God."

He made a little poem in English about the absolute importance of

everybody considering, before his departure, what good or ill he has

done, and how his soul is to be judged after death. "He also sang

antiphons," says Cuthbert, "according to our custom and use." Cuthbert

gives one of them, which is the lovely antiphon to the "Magnificat" at

second Vespers on Ascension Day.

His work went on during his illness. He was making a translation of part

of St John's Gospel into English, "for the benefit of the Church," and

was working at "Some collections out of the 'Book of Notes' of Bishop

Isodorus, saying, 'I will not have my pupils read a falsehood, nor

labour therein without profit after my death.'" As the time went on his

difficulty of breathing increased, and last symptoms began to appear;

but he dictated cheerfully, anxious to do all that he could. On the

Wednesday he ordered them to write with all speed what he had begun; and

then "we walked till the third hour with the relics of saints, according

to the custom of that day."

Then one of them said, "Most dear Master, there is still one chapter

wanting: do you think it troublesome to be asked any more questions?" He

answered, "It is no trouble. Take your pen, and make ready, and write

fast."

After this he distributed little gifts to the priests, and spoke to

all, asking that Masses and prayers might be said for him. His desire

was, like St Paul's, to die and be with Christ: Christ Whom he had so

loved, and at Whose feet he had laid all his gifts and all his learning.

"One sentence more," said the boy, was yet to be written. The Master bad

him write quickly. "The sentence is now written," said the boy. And the

dear Saint knew that the end was come, and asked them to receive his

head into their hands. And there sitting, facing the holy place where he

had been used to pray, he sang his last song of praise, "Glory be to the

Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost," and "when he named the

Holy Ghost he breathed his last and so departed to the Heavenly

Kingdom."

St Bede was buried at Jarrow, but his relics were afterwards taken to

Durham by a priest named Elfrid, and laid by St Cuthbert's side. In the

twelfth century a glorious shrine was built over these relics by the

Bishop of Durham, Hugh Pudsey: a shrine that, like many another, was

destroyed in the sixteenth century uprising of the king of the country

against the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER V

King Alfred, first layman to be a great power in literature; man of

action; of thought; of endurance. Freedom first great possession;

afterwards learning and culture. Alfred a loyal Son of the Church.

Founder of English prose. Earliest literature of a nation in verse;

why. Influence of Rome on Alfred.

"Let us praise the men of renown," says Holy Scripture (Ecclesiasticus,

44), "and our fathers in their generations.... Such as have borne rule

in their dominions, men of great power and endued with their wisdom ...

ruling over the present people, and by the strength of wisdom

instructing the people in most holy words."

We have to think now of a man of renown who bore rule in his dominions;

a man of great power, and endued with wisdom; who by strength and wisdom

instructed his people in most holy words. We have hitherto spoken of

work done in the dedicated life of religion: to-day we direct our

attention to the work of a great layman; the first English layman whom

we know to have been a great power in literature; less as a "maker,"

poet or proseman, than as an opener out to "makers" of precious store; a

helper and encourager; a fellow-student; a learner and a teacher of whom

it could be said, as Chaucer says of his Clerk of Oxford, "gladly would

he learn and gladly teach."

[Illustration: STATUE OF KING ALFRED, BY H. THORNEYCROFT, R.A. [_Page 48_]

It would not, I think, be possible for English people to over-estimate

the value of the gift God gave them in KING AELFRED. That is really the

right way to spell his name, but as to most people it looks unfamiliar,

we will adopt the more usual spelling and write of him as Alfred.

We think of him in various aspects: first as the strong, brave man who

did so much toward making noble history for time to come, by his own

action, guided by his piety and devotion. His earliest work was to fight

for the gaining of freedom and unity for his people, and this work went

over many years. When there was an interval of peace, and when a more

settled peace had been won, he worked hard to gain for them the freedom

of the mind which can never exist where ignorance is reigning. Freedom

is the first great possession; afterwards we seek for learning and

culture. People who may be called away at any moment to fight for life

or liberty cannot do much in the way of quiet study; and while the

Danes were not yet finally repulsed or bound by treaty, the great work

of Alfred in civilizing England had to remain in suspense.

We love to think that Alfred's wars were not to greaten himself, but to

set his country free. Then, as later on, if I may quote what I have

elsewhere said, the English

Had fought for their God-given birthright, their country to have and to hold,

And not for the lust of conquest, and not for the hunger of gold.

There is another aspect in which we may look at this great King; we

think of him not only as a doer but as a sufferer; and not only as an

endurer of disappointment, a bearer of toil, difficulty, trouble, but as

one who bore in his body a "white martyrdom" of great pain, perhaps even

anguish; and this for some twenty years.

Alfred was always a loyal son of the Church. His father, Æthelwulf, sent

him to Rome when he was quite a little boy, and Pope Leo IV was

godfather to him at his Confirmation, and, on hearing the report of

Æthelwulf's death, consecrated him as king, as he had been asked to do.

But Æthelwulf did not die for a little time after, and took Alfred for

a second visit to Rome. Each of Alfred's three brothers reigned a short

time before he became King of Wessex in 871. In that same year he fought

no fewer than nine battles against the Danes, besides making sundry

raids upon them. It is well to be a good fighting man where need is, and

it is well to use the qualities that go to the making up of the good

fighting man to meet the difficulties that beset the path of duty and

the way of progress. Courage, strength, generosity, perseverance, these

are needed for all work alike in peace and war.

Alfred was familiar in his youth with English songs, and most probably

knew the old Norse sagas; but he had to learn Latin in his later life.

We must remember that most of the literature which Alfred could get at

was locked up in Latin; even the invaluable Church History of St Bede

needed a translator's key; and it was Alfred who first applied this key

to it.

When we think of the prose written in England in early days, we are

thinking of the work of scholars, in a grand language that had done

growing; a language that was to be in Western Christendom the language

of religion, the language of the altar, for how long a time who can

know? the language that gave birth to other languages, as its

literature so powerfully influenced both theirs and that of others not

descended from it. Not yet was the time for a great prose literature in

England, such as grew up many a year ago, and is going on in our own

days.

The earliest literature of a people is almost invariably in verse: the

literature that comes from the heart of a people, and is not the

production of a few learned folk. In early days, there was little

reading or writing, except in the shelter of the great monasteries. The

common folk-literature, which is a very precious thing, is preserved, in

such times as we are thinking of, in people's memories, and circulated

by recitation, this recitation being accompanied by music or by

rhythmical movements of the body. We all know how much easier it is to

remember a page of verse than a page of prose. Thus, the form that could

most easily be carried in the memory and recited, would naturally be the

first to flourish.

We have seen something of early English religious poetry in Caedmon's

work and that of his followers; and next we shall come back to poetry

with Cynewulf, who made great and holy verse.

But beside such work as these poems which were written by cultivated

men, many poems and fragments of verse were floating about the land,

come over from the old native country with the first Angles and Saxons

who made their home in Britain. These were dear to the people and dear,

as we shall see, to the greatest among their kings, Alfred, who was, we

may say, the founder of English prose. It was not English prose as we

know English prose, because the language was then more like German than

anything else; but it was prose in the native tongue, and this was a

good and great thing to begin.

In our gratitude to Alfred, we must not forget our gratitude to the

English scholars of older days, none of whom had put us under so great a

debt as our dear old Benedictine of Jarrow.

A later writer than St Bede, though not so great as he, was Alcuin of

York, who was invited by no less a man than Charlemagne to teach his

children, and who became, as it has been phrased, a sort of Minister of

Public Education in his empire.

Alcuin was good as well as great, and I will give you a little instance

of the rightness of his thought. In a Dialogue which he wrote, in his

teaching days, he supposes Prince Pepin to ask the question, "What is

the liberty of man?" and the answer is, "Innocence."

But the evil days of invasion and war and trouble had swept learning

from its northern home; and Alfred's work was to bring it back to

another part of England.

CHAPTER VI

Decay of learning in England. Revival under Alfred. His translations.

Edits English Chronicle. His helpers. Some of his sayings.

Missionary spirit. "Alfred commanded to make me."

We cannot forget the impression that must have been made upon Alfred by

his stay in Rome, young as he was at the time, he being in the centre of

royal state while there, and also being himself a royal child to whom

much would be told and under whose notice much would be brought; and

who, from his position, would be expected to mark and remember much.

Long afterwards, he would recall the magnificence he had seen, and

associate it with the glories of the double history of Rome; Rome pagan

and Rome Christian: Rome, the great conqueror and law-giver, spiritual

as well as temporal. Very often, after Alfred was king, he sent over

embassies and gifts to Rome, loving her, and reverencing her as it was

meet he should. The Holy Father granted him certain privileges for the

English school at Rome, and sent him a piece of the wood of the Holy

Cross.

There is a pretty story told of Alfred's early learning to read English

verse. Even if it is not true, it points to his love of English, as well

as learning; a love which never left him. He wanted English to be taught

in schools, and he loved the old poems. We owe to him the translation of

the account of the first English poet, Caedmon, from which I have quoted

in my first chapter. But rightly, he felt the very great importance of

learning Latin, and so he learned it himself, and made others learn it

too.

When Alfred came to the throne, he tells us, learning had fallen away so

utterly in England that there were very few of the clergy, on the south

side of the Humber, who could understand the Latin of their Mass-books,

and he thinks not many beyond the Humber. This state of things was very

different from that of old times when the clergy were "so keen about

both teaching and learning and all the services they owed to God": very

different from St Bede's time, and the days when Northumbria was a

centre of learning and culture. Alfred was to create a new centre, not

in the North but in Wessex. Later on, the centre of learning and

cultivation was shifted to the East Midlands, whose dialect became the

language of England, and whose great poet, Chaucer, was the greatest

English poet before Spenser and Shakespere.

In his studies Alfred was helped by various friends, the chief of whom

was a Welsh Bishop, named Asser. So greatly did Alfred value Asser that

he wanted him to live altogether at Court; but Asser felt, it is to be

supposed, that this would not be right, and arranged to spend half his

time in Wales and half with the King. From him we learn a great deal

about Alfred.

One of the Latin books translated by Alfred--perhaps the first--was

called the "Pastoral Care" ("Cura Pastoralis"). It was written by St

Gregory the Great, and was intended for the clergy as a guide to their

duties. The king had a copy sent to every bishopric. He called it the

Herdsman's Book, or Shepherd's Book. Sending all these copies made of

course a great deal of work for scribes or "bookers," as we may render

the old "bóceras," the copyists who had to write out all their books by

hand.

As various books had been turned into the "own tongue" of various

nations, so would Alfred give to his people in their "own tongue" books

of help, of knowledge, of wisdom. This is how Alfred tells us he worked.

"I began to turn into English the book which in Latin is named

'Pastoralis,' and in English 'Shepherd's Book'; sometimes word for word,

sometimes meaning for meaning, as I had learned it from Plegmund, my

Archbishop, and Asser my Bishop, and from Grimbold, my Mass-priest, and

from John, my Mass-priest."

At the end of the translation, Alfred put some little verses of his own.

Alfred as we have seen, translated St Bede's History, omitting many

chapters which contained things he may be supposed to have thought were

not of general interest. He also edited the English, usually called the

Anglo-Saxon, Chronicle, which begins with the invasion of Julius Caesar,

and ends with the accession of Henry II. There are a good many MSS. of

it, the earliest of which ends with the year 855. We owe this work, as

we owe so much beside, to the care of the monks who wrote it, adding to

it probably, year by year, sometimes giving poetry as well as prose. It

contains several poems, among them the vigorous lay of the Battle of

Brunanburh, fought in 937 by Athelstane against the Scots and Danes.

You will find a rendering of it among Tennyson's poems, made by him from

a prose translation of his son's. This editing of the A.S. Chronicle was

very important work, work that has helped generations of history-writers

and students. Where should we be without these Histories? How much of it

Alfred actually did himself we do not know: we may suppose he had a good

deal to do with the chronicling of the events of his own reign. I wonder

whether it was he that wrote how three bold Irishmen came over from

Ireland in a boat without any rudder, having stolen away from their

country, "because they desired for the love of God to be in a state of

pilgrimage, they recked not where." They had a boat made of "two hides

and a half," and provisions for a week. They got to Cornwall on the

seventh day, and soon after went to Alfred. We have no account of their

visit to the King, but I think he would have welcomed them right warmly,

and loved to hear how big souls ride in little cockleshells. We know

their names at least: Dubslane, Macbeth, and Maclinnuim. And immediately

after this record we are told something that must also in a different

way have greatly interested Alfred. "And Swifneh, the best teacher

among the Scots (Irish) died."

Another book that Alfred translated was the History written by a Spanish

priest called Orosius, a disciple of St Augustine's (of Hippo), which

"was looked upon as a standard book of universal history." Alfred by no

means gave a literal translation, but used great freedom, and omitted

some things and put in others which he judged of greater interest and

importance for Englishmen. Alfred enlarged the account of Northern

Europe, which he knew a great deal of. He also added the accounts of the

voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, the former of whom got round the north

of Scandinavia and explored the White Sea. Wulfstan's voyage also was of

importance. Both these men told Alfred their stories, and he

incorporated them in the History. They came to see him, and Ohthere gave

him teeth of the walrus, and no doubt Alfred listened to all they told

him, with the keenest interest.

"The account of Ohthere's voyage holds a unique position as the first

attempt to give expression to the spirit of discovery."

Alfred knew how to use helpers. All who understand the "ought to be"

take help as well as give it. The good King encouraged others, and the

office of encourager is no mean part of the office of helper. We cannot

do our work in the world alone: God meant us to work with others, and

man's best work as an individual can never be independent of the work of

others, those who are living or those who have gone before.

Another of the books translated by Alfred was the "Consolations of

Philosophy," by a good and thoughtful Consul of Rome, who was put to

death by Theodoric, the Arian King of the East Goths. He wrote the book

in prison, and there was so much in it that was felt to be in accord

with Christian teaching that some people thought Boethius must have

belonged to the body of Holy Church.

A Christian writer, finding a book seeming to possess much of the spirit

of Christianity, would naturally study it and frequently use it; and

Boethius's book, with more or less adaptation, grew to be a great

favourite with Christians. Its influence can be traced in the work of

the greatest Catholic poet, Dante, and in that of the great English

poet, Chaucer, who rendered it into the English of his day.

Alfred made the translation definitely Christian. For instance, he

writes of "God" and "Christ" where Boethius says "love" or "the good";

and he writes of "angels" instead of "divine substance."

I will give you one or two specimens of the additions to Boethius with

which Alfred is credited.

"He that will have eternal riches, let him build the house of his mind

on the footstone of lowliness; not on the highest hill where the raging

wind of trouble blows, or the rain of measureless anxiety."

"Power is never a good unless he be good who has it."

Here is what he has to say of being well-born:

"Art thou more fair for other men's fairness? A man will not be the

better because he had a well-born father, if he himself is nought. The

only thing which is good in noble descent is this, that it makes men

ashamed of being worse than their elders, and strive to do better than

they."

And here is his standard of self-respect:

"We under-worth ourselves when we love that which is lower than

ourselves."[D]

[Footnote D: Translation by Miss Kate Warren.]

These sayings are worth copying into a little book such as Alfred kept

to note down things he wanted to keep track of. Asser tells us this,

and he tells us of the "Handbook" which grew to a great size, from this

collecting habit of Alfred's. The book was unfortunately lost.

By no means have we exhausted the interest of Alfred's story. It would

be indeed difficult to do so; but we must now bid him good-bye.

We love to think how, amidst all his cares and work for his kingdom, he

had the true Catholic Missionary spirit; for he sent embassies to India,

with alms for "the Christians of St Thomas and St Bartholomew."

There is a valuable thing which we possess, known as the "Alfred Jewel":

it has on it an inscription which we can truly say applies to far more

than this work of art. Its application to Alfred's work is indeed a very

wide one:

Alfred commanded to make me.

CHAPTER VII

Some of greatest pre-Conquest poetry associated with name of Cynewulf.

Guesses about him. Little known. Probably North-countryman, eighth

century, an educated man. Finding of the Cross. Elene, story of St

Helena's mission. Constantine goes to fight invaders. Vision of the

Cross. Victory. Journey of St Helena, and search for the Cross. The

Finding.

We are going now to consider some of the greatest poetry written before

the Conquest. It associates itself with the name of Cynewulf, a name

with which certain poems are signed in runes. By-and-by we shall hear

something about runes and the old writing; and something also about

where our old treasures of literature, part of our dear Catholic

heritage, are found in their original form.

As I have said, certain poems are signed with Cynewulf's name; and there

are others which are with more or less probability of rightness

attributed to him on grounds of likeness of subject, likeness of style,

similar greatness of treatment.

About Cynewulf himself we know, I may say, nothing except what we

gather from his work. Various guesses have been made, and various

theories formed, identifying him with one or other of the men about whom

we know something; but for the present, at all events, we must be

content to think that he probably lived in the eighth century, and that

he probably was a North-countryman. All his writings have come to us in

the dialect of Wessex, except some parts of a poem known as the "Dream

of the Holy Rood." These are carved on an old cross, which I will speak

of by-and-by, and they are in the Northumbrian dialect; but the

manuscript of the entire poem is in West Saxon.

Scholars are working upon old materials and discoveries are being made

and theories formed which are at variance with what used to be set down

as certainty. The main thing is that we have these poems, and that we

want to know about them and learn to prize them. If we want to know them

thoroughly and prize them as they deserve, we must take the trouble to

learn the language they are written in. But many of us have not time for

this, and so must be content, for the present, at least, with making

their acquaintance through translations.

Perhaps Cynewulf was a poet who lived as one of the household of some

great lord, and wrote more at his ease than if he had been merely an

itinerant singer, a "gleeman," who sang his songs as he went about. He

appears, at any rate, to have been an educated man, and I think no one

can read his poetry without feeling that he was a man of deep and

fervent piety.

There are four poems signed by Cynewulf, and these are named "Christ,"

"Juliana," "The Fates of the Apostles," and "Elene." Certain "Riddles"

have also been attributed to him.

The poems I am going to bring before you now are the "Elene" and a poem

on the Holy Cross, which has been attributed to Cynewulf, and which I

for one--and I am not by any means alone in this--love to believe that

he must have written. The "Phoenix," about which we thought in a

former chapter, has by some been supposed to be his. Then there is the

"Judith," of which we possess enough to make us recognise it as indeed

one of our great possessions; but to-day the two poems I have named will

give us enough to think of. To adapt a lovely Scriptural phrase (Judith

vii, 7), there are springs whereof we refresh ourselves a little rather

than drink our fill. Let us drink, if not our fill, at least a draught

long and deep.

We have a church festival, instituted many hundred years ago, the

Festival of the Finding of the Cross. Let us hear something of what our

old poet sings concerning this in the poem named after the heroine of

the finding, St Helena; the poem known as "Elene."

Cynewulf is one of the poets of the Cross. His poetry is literally

stamped with the mark of the Holy Rood. Read over the grand Church

hymns, the "Vexilla Regis," the "Pange lingua gloriosi lauream

certaminis," or recall them in your memory--their Passiontide echoes

sound under the triumphant pealing of the bells of Easter--and then be

glad that one of your own poets has also sent down the ages the song of

his love and his reverence.

Cynewulf knew well the story of Constantine's vision of the Cross of

Victory whereby he was to conquer. He would also have had in mind the

story, not so far remote from his own day, of the English King, St

Oswald, who reared a cross to God's honour before he fought with

Cadwalla, the pagan Welsh king. He would remember how the Saint had

called upon his comrades at Heavenfield to fall down with him before the

Cross and pray Almighty God for salvation from the mighty foe. He would

recall the great victory and the cross-shaped church built to

commemorate it. He knew well the honour of the Cross. He had often knelt

to adore what it symbolised, when he saw it raised on high, lifted up on

the Church's Festival. And he loved the Cross with a great and fervid

love.

The poem of his making tells us how the great army of the Huns and

Goths[E] came against Constantine; how the warriors marched on, having

raised the standard of war with shoutings and the clashing of shields.

Bright shone their darts and their coats of linked mail. The wolf in the

wood howled out the song of war; he kept not the secret of the

slaughter. The dewy-feathered eagle raised a song on the track of the

foe.

[Footnote E: This, of course, is unhistorical.]

The King of the Romans was sorrow-smitten when he saw the countless host

of the foreign men upon the river-bank. In his sleep that night came the

vision of one in the likeness of a man, white and bright of hue. The

messenger named him by his name. The helmet of night glided apart. The

behest was given to look up to Heaven to find help, a token of victory.

The Emperor's heart was opened and he looked up as the angel, the

lovely weaver of peace, had bidden him. Above the roof of clouds he saw

the Tree of Glory with its words of promise. The great battle came, when

the Holy Sign was borne forth. Loud sang the trumpets. The raven was

glad thereof, and the dewy-feathered eagle looked on at the march, and

the wolf lifted up his howling. The terror of war was there, the clash

of shields and the mingling of men, and the heavy sword-swing and the

felling of warriors.

When the standard was raised, the Holy Tree, the foe was scattered far

and wide. From break of day till eventide the flying foe was pursued;

his number was indeed made small. It was but a few of the best of the

Huns that went home again.

How the old fighting spirit delights in the "pomp and circumstance of

glorious war"! How it loves to have the clash of spear and shield strike

upon the ear, and to hear how the voice of the eagle and the raven, and

the howl of the wolf, proclaim the place of slaughter, the reek of

battle!

Cynewulf calls the angel who stood by Constantine in his vision a

"weaver of peace"; but the peace was to be woven after conflict, and the

wearer of the victor's palm had first to wield the fighter's sword.

When Constantine had learned about the Cross from the few Christians he

could find, he believed and was baptized, says the poet. (In reality his

baptism took place just before his death, several years later.)

The thought of the Tree was ever with Constantine, and when he had

returned he sent his mother with a multitude of warriors to Jerusalem,

on the quest of the Holy Rood that was hidden underground. Helena was

soon ready for her willing journey, and set forth with her escort.

The steeds of the sea

Round the shore of the ocean ready were standing,

Cabled sea-horses, at rest on the water.

Then they let o'er the billows the foamy ones go,

The high wave-rushers. The hull oft received

O'er the mingling of waters the blows of the waves.

The sea resounded.

What delight there is to the poet in the sea and its ships!

When they come to Jerusalem, after much enquiry of the wisest men, and

great difficulty, the Queen is conducted to the Mount of Crucifixion, by

one Judas who knows the story of Redemption, and who the Queen insists

shall point out the resting place of the Holy Rood. It is found by the

winsome smoke that rises at the prayer of Judas, who forthwith makes

full confession of his belief in Him who hung upon that Cross. The

three crosses are together, buried far down in the earth, and Judas digs

deep and brings them up, and they are laid before the knees of the

Queen. Glad of heart she asks on which of them the Son of the Ruling One

had suffered. The Lord's Cross is revealed by its power to raise a dead

man who is brought to the place.

Satan assaults Judas, angry and bitter, for again his power has been

brought low. One Judas has made him joyful: the second Judas has humbled

him. He is boldly answered when he pours out threats and foretells that

another king than Constantine will arise to persecute. (Probably the

allusion is to Julian the Apostate.) But Judas answers boldly, and

Helena rejoices at the wisdom with which in so short a time he has been

gifted.

Far and near the glorious news is spread, and word is sent the Emperor

how the Victorious Token has been found. Then comes the building of a

church by his mother, at his desire; and the adorning of the Rood with

gold and jewels fair and splendid, and its enclosure in a silver chest.

Judas is baptized, and becomes Bishop of Jerusalem under the new name of

Cyriacus.

The holy nails of the Passion have yet to be found, and again the earth

yields up her treasure. A man great in wisdom tells Elene to bid the

noblest of the kings of the earth to put them on his bridle, make

thereof his horse's bit. This shall bring him good speed in war, and

blessing and honour and greatness.

CHAPTER VIII

The Poet's love of the Cross: how he saw it in a double aspect. The

dream of the Holy Rood. The Ruthwell Cross.

Now let us read what our poet says about the Festival of the Finding of

the Cross.[F]

[Footnote F: The phrase "Invention of the Cross" means the finding of

it; the word invention in English does not now translate the Latin

"inventio."]

To each of these men

Be hell's door shut, heaven's unclosed,

Eternally opened the kingdom of angels,

Joy without end, and their portion appointed

Along with Mary, who takes into mind

The one most dear of festal days

Of that rood under heaven.

The poet wrote about the Holy Cross, not just because it was a

picturesque subject, capable of picturesque treatment, one that would

make a fine poem; but because, as he tells us, Holy Wisdom had revealed

to him "wider knowledge through her glorious power over the thoughts of

the mind." He tells us how the fetters of sin had bound him in their

bitter bondage, and how, stained and sorrowful, light came to him, and

the Mighty King bestowed on him His bountiful grace, and gave him light

and liberty, opening his heart and setting free for him the gift of

song, that gift which, he says, he has used in the world joyfully and

with a good will.

Not once alone, he says, did he meditate upon the Tree of Glory, but

over and over again. He thought upon it until all his soul was saturated

with it, and hallowed and consecrated for ever.

He may have venerated the Cross in public on the anniversary of the

Lord's Crucifixion. Certainly, many a time he had venerated it in

private. Perhaps, like Alcuin, his habit was to bow toward the Cross

whenever he saw it, and whisper the prayer "Tuam crucem adoramus,

Domine, et Tuam gloriosam recolimus passionem."[G]

[Footnote G: The Veneration of the Cross, or Creeping to the Cross, was

known in Anglo-Saxon times, but whether as early as Cynewulf's day,

seems uncertain.]

He was old, he tells us, when he "wove word-craft, made his poem,

framing it wondrously, pondering and sifting his thoughts in the

night-time."

The Cross had brought him light and healing, and at the foot of the

Cross he laid his gift of song.

It is a moot point whether the "Elene" or the "Dream of the Holy Rood"

came first. The poetry of the "Dream" is as fine as the conception is

grand, and, at whatever time it was written, it must be classed as being

at the high-water mark of the poet's work.

Wonderful things have been given to us "under the similitude of a

dream"; things beautiful and terrible, things wise and strange. There

have been Dreamers of Dreams into whose souls have sunk the sight and

the hearing of deep things, high things and precious, of comfort and of

warning, of sweetest help and of gravest and most earnest exhortation.

The speech of these Dreamers has sounded in our ears, and has left the

vibrations to go on and on for our lifetime: this we call remembering.

In English literature we have some great tellings "under the similitude

of a dream." We have the nineteenth-century "Dream of Gerontius," our

great Cardinal's drama of the soul in its parting and after. We have the

seventeenth-century dream from the darkness of Bedford Gaol, whence John

Bunyan saw the pilgrims on their way, through dangers and trials, on to

the river that must be crossed before they could come to the Celestial

City. We have the fourteenth-century dream of the gaunt, sad-souled

William Langley, the dreamer of the Malvern Hills. And, earlier by many

a century, we have the dream of the dreamer at the depth of midnight,

the midnight whose heart was bright with the splendour of the glorious

vesting and gem-adorning of the Cross of Jesus Christ, and dark with the

moisture of the Sacred Blood that oozed therefrom.

We have first the simple, quiet prelude.

Lo, I will tell of the best of dreams, I dreamed at the deep midnight,

When all men lay at rest.

Then comes the description of the Cross in its glory. It is uplift and

girt with light, flooded with gold and set with precious gems. This is

followed by the seeing through the glory, the seeing of the anguish. The

hues are shifted from dark to bright; the light of gold lights it, and

yet anon it is wet, defiled with Blood. Here are the two sides of the

Passion: the veiled glory, and the illumined anguish: the supreme might,

and the absolute weakness: the darkness of the grave, and the light of

the Resurrection.

While time shall be, the Cross is to us all the Book where we may read

all we choose to read, all God sends us grace to read. Cynewulf chose to

read, and with Cynewulf was the grace of God.

The poet lies beholding the wondrous sight: the sight that all God's

fair angels beheld, and all the universe, and men of mortal breath.

The Rood speaks to Cynewulf. To us, with every look upon the Cross,

should come, would come, were we alive all through with keen, sweet,

spiritual life, the voice telling of the Passion, of the victory, of the

glory. Cynewulf heard the Rood tell how long ago it was hewn down,

ordained to lift up the evil-doers, to bear the law-breakers.

They bore me on their shoulders then, on hill they set me high,

And made me fast, a many foes. Then mankind's Lord drew nigh,

With Mighty courage hasting Him to mount on me and die.

Though all earth shook, I durst not bend or break without His word;

Firm I must stand, nor fall and crush the gazing foes abhorred.

Then the young Hero dighted Him: Almighty God was He:

Steadfast and very stout of heart mounted the shameful tree,

Brave in the sight of many there, when man He fain would free.

I trembled when He clasped me round, yet groundward durst not bend,

I must not fall to lap of earth, but stand fast to the end.

We notice the obedience of the Cross. In its absolute sympathy with its

Creator's agony, its indignation at the horrible crime of His enemies,

it would fain have fallen and crushed the gazing foes abhorred. But this

was not to be, any more than fire was to come down from heaven at the

Boanerges' call when they were fain to avenge the insult put upon their

Master, whom the people of the Samaritan city would not receive (Luke

ix, 52, etc.).

The Great King is lifted up, and the Rood dare not even stoop: the dark

nails pierce the Cross, and it stands, companion of its Maker's agony

and shame.

Oh, many were the grievous things upon that hill I bare:

I saw the God of Hosts Himself stretched in His anguish there:

The darkness veiled its Maker's corpse with clouds; the shades did weigh

The bright light down with evil weight, wan under sky that day.

Then did the whole creation weep and the King's death bemoan;

Christ was upon the Rood.

How great is the poet's insight! How deeply must he have entered into

the fellowship of that supreme suffering! He knows that throughout

creation that cup is being drunk from, as even yet it is in the groaning

and travailing of every creature, waiting for the adoption of the sons

of God, to wit, the redemption of the body (Romans viii, 22, 3).

The Descent from the Cross and the Burial come next. Tenderly, after the

telling of the anguish, comes the telling of the rest.

They lifted down Almighty God, after that torment dread,

They left me standing, drenched with blood, with arrows sore wounded;

They laid Him down, limb-weary One, and stood about His head;

Gazed on Heaven's Lord, who, weary now, after that mighty fight,

Rested Him there a little while. Then in the murderer's sight,

The brave ones made a tomb for Him, of white stone carved it fair,

And laid the Lord of Victory within the sepulchre.

The bitter weeping goes up. The fair Body waxes chill. Then, in a very

few words the story told in "Elene" is condensed.

Then did they fell us to the ground....

In the deep pit they sank us down; yet the Lord's servants, they,

His friends did hear of me and seek, and find me on a day,

And decked with silver and with gold, in beautiful array.

The glory comes after the shame, and we hear of the healing power of the

Cross, and the honour given to it. Even as Almighty God honoured His

Mother above all womankind, the poet says, so this tree is set high

above all trees of the forest.

The command is laid upon the poet to make known his vision. There is a

compulsion whereby a poet as it were has to send abroad the fair thought

and knowledge wherewith he has been graced. To this poet is the task

assigned to tell of the Crucifixion, of the Resurrection, and the

Ascension, and of the Second Coming to judge the world.

Where is the man, the Lord will ask before that multitude,

Would for His name taste bitter death, as He upon the Rood?

By the love of His name, by the love that means martyrdom in will if not

in deed also, shall men be judged.

The comfort of his life has come to the poet. The greatest of all great

things is his.

The Rood my trust shall be.

I cannot close this chapter without saying something about the great

stone rood known as the Ruthwell Cross, because it bears upon it part of

this poem engraved in runes. The cross is at Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire.

It is very old, probably dating from the tenth or eleventh century.

There are carvings upon it of various events in the life of Our Lord, on

the north and south sides. On the top-stone, north, is a

representation of St John with the eagle, and on the top-stone,

south, is St John with the Agnus Dei. On the east and west is carved a

vine in fruit, with animals feeding, and at each side of the

vine-tracery the runes are carved, which give the words taken from the

poem, in the Northumbrian dialect.

[Illustration: RUTHWELL CROSS [_Page 80_]

This cross used to stand in the church at Ruthwell; it escaped injury at

the time of general destruction in the sixteenth century, but the

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ordered the "many idolatrous

monuments erected and made for religious worship" to be "taken down,

demolished, and destroyed." It was not till two years later, however,

that the cross was taken down when an Act was passed "anent the

Idolatrous Monuments in Ruthwell." It was shattered, and some of the

carved emblems were nearly obliterated, and in this state the rood was

left where it had fallen, in the altarless church, and was used, it

appears, as a bench to sit upon. Later on it was removed from the church

and left out in the churchyard. But after many years, a good old

minister (God rest his soul!) collected all the pieces he could find,

and put them together, adding two new crossbeams (the original ones

were lost), and having gaps filled in with little pieces of stone.

By-and-by there was a waking up to the importance of preserving ancient

monuments (idolatrous! or not), and so the dear, beautiful old rood that

had been so near to destruction, and been indeed so greatly injured, was

brought into the church again, and set up near its old place. But, alas!

for its old surroundings!

It is a sad story, is it not?

Shall we not pray that, one day, our old crosses may be, to all, more

than "ancient monuments"?

"This stone which I have set up ... shall be called the house of God"

(Gen. xxviii, 22).

CHAPTER IX

"Judith," a great poem founded on Scripture story. Authorship uncertain.

Part of it lost. Quotations from it. Description of Holofernes'

banquet as of a Saxon feast. Story of Judith dwelt on to encourage

resistance to Danes and Northmen.

To-day we shall think about some more of the great poetry that was made

before the Norman Conquest, and we shall first take one of the finest

and most characteristic poems which remain to us, a poem founded on

Bible story; the great poem, of which we have unfortunately only a part,

the "Judith."

It is not certain who wrote this poem: it may have been Cynewulf; but we

do not know.

The story of Judith is a well-known one; the story of the Hebrew lady

who is described in the foreword to the Book of Judith as "that

illustrous woman, by whose virtue and fortitude, and armed with prayer,

the children of Israel were preserved from the destruction threatened

them by Holofernes and his great army."

The earlier part of the poem is lost, so we can only guess how the poet

told of the ravage wrought by the general of King Nabuchodonoser in the

countries close to Palestine, and how submission was as vain as

resistance to a power which, for the time being, was allowed to be so

terribly great.

The poem, as we have it, begins where Judith has come, in the splendour

of her beauty, and the might of her purity, and the power of her faith,

to destroy the destroyer and set her people free.

The Prince of Glory gave her the shield of His hand in the place

Where she stood in her uttermost need of the highest Doomer's grace

To save her in peril extreme; and the Ruler of all things made,

The glorious Father in Heaven, He granted the prayer she prayed,

And, because of the might of her faith, He gave His help and His aid.

I have heard how his word went forth, how Holofernes bad

His men to the drinking of wine, and the splendid feast he had.

The prince he called his thanes and the shielded warriors best,

And the folk-leaders came to the mighty, all fain for the doing his best.

And now, since the coming of Judith, three days and three nights had been,

The woman wise in her heart, and fair as the elf-folk sheen.

We have the description of the banquet, with the deep bowls and

well-filled cups and pitchers borne to the sitters along the floor--just

the description of the old Saxon banquet which the poet knew of. We have

the drunken glee of Holofernes, his right noisy laughter and the stormy

mirth that could be heard from afar; and his call to the henchmen to

quit them as warriors ought, till at last they lie in their drunken

sleep, powerless, and as though stricken of death.

Then comes the night, and the sending for Judith, the wise-hearted one,

to Holofernes' tent. Holofernes lies in his drunken sleep, and the

Lord's handmaid draws from the sheath the keen-edged glittering sword,

and prays,

O God of all created, I pray my prayer to Thee!

O Spirit of Comfort! O Son Almighty! I bow my knee,

For Thy mercy to me who need Thee, most glorious Trinity!

Now is my heart waxed hot, exceeding hot in me,

And my soul afflicted sore, and sorrowful grievously.

Give victory, Prince of Heaven, to me, and steadfast faith,

That so with this sword I slay this dealer of wrong and death.

O, grant me Thy salvation, most mighty Folk-prince, Thou,

For ne'er have I needed Thy mercy with greater need than now.

Avenge, O mighty Lord, the thing whereof I wot,

Which is anger in my soul, and in my breast burns hot.

Then the Judge most high He gave her the courage she prayed Him for,

As yet to each He giveth, who seeketh Him, as of yore,

With faith and understanding, his help for evermore.

And then,

Enlarged was the woman's soul, the holy one's hope sprang new.

And she smites the evil general with the strength she had prayed for,

and goes forth victorious with her handmaiden, to bear the tidings to

her people of the deliverance wrought for them, ascribing the glory to

God and His might. Judith leaves the camp of the Assyrians, with her

waiting-woman, who carries the head of Holofernes in a bag. Men and

women in great multitudes flock to the fortress-gate, pressing and

running to meet God's handmaid, glad of heart to know of her

home-coming. They let her in reverently, and the trophy she has brought

is shown them. Judith beseeches them to go forth to the fight, as soon

as the Maker of the beginning of all things, the King of high honour,

hath sent the bright light from the East; to go forth bearing shield and

buckler and the bright helmet, to meet the thronging foemen, and fell

the folk-leaders, the doomed spear-bearers. Their foes are doomed to

death, and they shall have glory and honour in battle. Then follows a

great battle, with full victory to Israel.

The poet has varied from the Biblical story, in representing the

officers of Holofernes' army as drunk; and also in telling of a battle

after the return of Judith to Bethulia. It also may seem strange that

Judith should address the Holy Trinity and each separate Person thereof.

The old Christian poet carried his belief along with him, and the

handmaid of God, the brave Judith, was to him a follower of Our Lord.

The brave Judith, yes! St Dominic's Third Order was at first, as we

know, called "The militia of Jesus Christ." How Judith would have loved

the name! And we may think, may we not? how, looking from her place

among the glorified, she smiled on the great warrior Maiden Saint who

went in the might of the Lord, to deliver her country from the rule of

the stranger.

The story of Judith would especially appeal to people living at a time

when incursions of foreigners were well known, and later on, still

unforgotten. Abbot Ælfric, about whose work I have to tell you something

presently, in writing a short account of the Old Testament with its

various books, says that the Book of Judith "is put into English in our

manner as an example to you men, that you should defend your country

with weapons against an invading army"--the word which he uses, "here,"

always meaning in old English the army of the Danes. Ælfric also wrote

"a homily on Judith to teach the English the virtues of resistance to

the Danes."

It is interesting likewise to think that the poet of "Judith" may have

had in his mind some great Englishwoman concerning whom he wished in a

veiled way to convey well-deserved praise. Perhaps he was inspired to

tell of Judith, by the deeds of King Alfred's daughter, Æthelflaed,

known as the Lady of the Mercians, and sought to do honour to her as

well as to the great Hebrew lady.

Æthelflaed fortified Chester and other towns, and, along with King

Edward, built fortresses, "chiefly along the line of frontier exposed to

the Danes, as at Bridgenorth, Tamworth, Warwick, Hertford, Witham in

Essex, and other places." Of course it is uncertain whether our poet was

thinking of Æthelflaed. We should be able to say whether it were

impossible if we knew the date of "Judith," as, if the poem were

composed before Æthelflaed's time, she could not have entered into the

poet's mind.

The Church has paid a splendid tribute to Judith by applying to her who

is pre-eminently the strong or valiant woman (mulier fortis) full of

the strength that always wore the exquisite veil of humility, the words

spoken to this valiant woman of the Hebrews by her countrymen, as they

adored the Lord, who had given her the victory. See the lesson read on

the Feast of Our Lady's Seven Sorrows.

CHAPTER X

Byrthnoth, the leader of the East Angles against Anlaf the Dane. Refusal

to pay unjust tribute. Heroic fight.

We have in the "Battle of Maldon" a great patriotic poem, written about

the "ealdorman"[H] of the East Angles, Byrthnoth, or Brihtnoth, who

stood so valiantly against the Danes. It was he who was so good to the

monks, helping to defend them against the "ealdorman" of the Mercians,

and others who were turning them out: he also helped to found the Abbey

of Ely. He was buried there, we are glad to know. Anlaf, known as Olaf

Tryggvesson, afterwards King of Norway, came with two other Northmen,

and harried Ipswich and other places, and then sailed up the Pant or

Blackwater to Maldon, where the river divides into two parts. The

beginning and end of the poem have been lost, and, as we have it now, it

opens with the command of Byrhtnoth that every man should let his horse

go, and march afoot to meet the enemy and strive with him hand to hand.

[Footnote H: "Alderman" is the modern form, but it does not mean the

same thing.]

Then Byrthnoth 'gan array his men; he rode and gave the rede,

He shewed the fighters how to stand and keep the place at need,

Fast with their hands to hold the shields, nor be afraid indeed.

He took his place among his own bodymen, his immediate followers. On the

other side of the stream the herald of the vikings (or pirates) stood,

and with a loud voice gave the scornful message of the sea-folk to the

English leader. If Byrhtnoth would be in safety he must quickly send

treasure to the foe.

"And better 'tis for you buy off this onset of the spear

With tribute than that we should deal so sore a combat here;

We need not spill each other's lives if ye make fast aright

A peace with us; if thou agree, thou, here the most of might,

Thy folk to ransom, and to give the seamen what shall be

Right in our eyes, and take our peace, make peace with told money.

We'll haste to ship, we'll keep that peace, and go upon the sea."

This was Brythnoth's answer:

Dost hear, thou dweller on the sea, what this my people saith!

Their tribute is the spear, the sword, the arrow tipt with death;

War-harness that for you in fight full little profiteth.

Not he. He stood for his own soil, his prince's earth, the people and

the land. We may compare with this St Ælfeah's (Alphege) splendid stand

even to death against unjust payment of tribute.

Byrthtnoth ordered his men to march on till they all stood on the bank

of the river. The flood flowed in after the ebb, and the hostile armies

could not reach each other, and it seemed too long to wait for the water

to let them meet. Wulfstan, by race a warrior bold, held the bridge for

his chief, and Ælfhere and Maccus with him, the undaunted mighty twain.

The Danes begged to be allowed to overpass the ford, and Byrhtnoth in

his scorn allowed this.

Too much the earl in his disdain to that ill folk gave heed.

The wolves of slaughter strode along, nor for the water cared;

The host of vikings westward there across the Pante fared.

Byrhtnoth was awaiting them, and the fight began.

Then rose a cry as round and round the ravens wheeled in air,

The erne all greedy for his prey. A mighty din was there.

Oh, bitter was the battle-rush, the rush of war that day,

Then fell the men; on either hand the gallant young men lay.

The battle-rage grew stronger and keener; the din of war grew louder

and louder. Byrhtnoth fought hand to hand with a strong viking, and with

yet another, dealing death to both.

The blither was the earl for that, out laughed the warrior grim,

Thanked God because of that day's work which God had given to him.

But the brave man's time was come, and a dart pierced him, and he fell;

and as he lay on the ground a young lad, a boy who stood beside him,

drew the spear from his lord's body and cast it back to pierce the foe

who had sorely hit his lord. An armed man came to the death-stricken

leader of the English to rob him of his jewels and his warrior's gear

and fretted sword of fame. The dying man struck him on the corslet, but

Too soon a seaman hindered him; that good arm's strength he marred.

The leader drops his gold hilted sword, no longer able to wield the

weapon, powerless to hold the keen-edged falchion. No more deeds of

valour for him; only to urge on his men, and to commend his soul to God.

Yet spake the word that warrior hoar, the young men's hearts he cheered,

Bad the good comrades forward go, nor ever be afeard.

No longer could he firmly stand on's feet; to heaven looked he--

"Thanks, Lord of hosts, for these world-joys Thou here didst give to me.

Now, merciful Creator, now, I stand in deepest need

That Thou shouldst grant my spirit good, that thus my soul indeed

Fare forth to Thee, travel with peace, O King of Angels, so:

I pray Thee that the hell-spoilers nor work her hurt nor woe."

The heathen varlets smote him down, and those that stood him by,

Ælfnoth and Wulfmaer, by the side of him in death did lie.

Then, alas! came the shameful flight of some whom he had loved and

trusted, and graced with noble gifts. One Godric, to whom he had given

many a goodly steed, leapt upon the horse in his trappings which his

lord had owned, and his two brothers fled with him.

And with them more than had behoved if these had thought upon

The gifts and goods so free bestowed by him, their mighty one.

But there were but few cowards and mean. Of his own hearth-comrades

there went forth men, hasting eagerly,

One of two things their heart's desire, to avenge their lord or die.

Young Ælfwine heartened them with noble words, and gave them the

example of noble deeds. And Offa, and Leofsunu, and Dunnere, the old

man, fought stubbornly. And a hostage from among the Northumbrian folk,

a man come of gallant kin, helped them; and Edward the Long, and many

another.

Then Bryhtwold spake, that comrade old, he raised the shield on high

He shook the ashwood spear, he taught the men unfearingly:

"The braver must our spirit be, our hearts the stronger far,

The greater must our courage wax, the fewer that we are.

Here lies our prince all pierced and hewn, the good one in the clay;

Aye may he mourn who thinketh now to leave this battle-play.

I am old in life; I will not hence; I think to lay me here,

The rather by my chieftain's side, a man so lief and dear."

And the men grew bold in heart at his words and fought on. Godric full

often sent the spear flying among the vikings, and fought till he too

was laid low in the battle.

'Twas not that Godric who had turned his back upon the fight,

says the poet--and the end is lost! It will help us in appreciating this

poem to remember that the battle of Maldon took place in the reign of

that poor weak king Æthelred, known as the "Unready," or the Man of no

Counsel. As Freeman the historian says, "No doubt he had to struggle

with very hard times, but the times now were no harder than the times

which Ælfred had to struggle against, and we know how much he could

do."

CHAPTER XI

The literature of one people owes a debt to that of others.

Help-bringers. Great work of Benedictine monks. Our debt to Ireland.

The English Chronicle's account of the Martyrdom of St Ælfeah.

The literature of a country is not merely what the men and women born in

it have written. The thought of one people is fed, or enlarged, or in

some way strengthened by the thought of other peoples; and the

literature of the times we are speaking of could not have been what it

was, had it not had other sources than these purely English to draw

from. And, of all kinds of help-bringers, we owe much to the monks, and

chiefly the great Benedictine order. King Alfred had to do his work at a

time when things were at a low ebb in the English monasteries. You will

remember how he bewailed the poor state of learning in England, and the

ignorance of the clergy; a state very different indeed from that of the

old days of St Bede and Alcuin. After Alfred's time there came a

revival--and revival in life means revival in work. So we get much good

prose literature, and, through the monks, note well, we have it, fed

from whatever old lore was then to be got at.

I have reminded you of England's great debt to Ireland through St Aidan

and others. I must tell you of a record of St Bede's, which shows how

gladly Ireland in old days, as ever, shared the priceless gift which she

of all countries, received with the most passionate entireness and held

with the most unswerving steadfastness. It was in the year 664 that

there was a great pestilence, raging both in England and Ireland. At the

time there were many Englishmen in Ireland who had gone there, "either

for the sake of divine studies, or of a more continent life"; some of

them, he says, became monks, and others devoted themselves to study,

"going about from one master's cell to another." "The Scots (that is the

Irish) willingly received them all, and took care to supply them with

food, as also to furnish them with books to read, and their teaching,

gratis."

Where should we be but for the work done in the monasteries? How can we

be grateful enough for what went on there in the way of thought,

research and the collecting of materials, in addition to the work of

teaching: all fed by the life of prayer and praise and self-denial? Let

us try to think about the quiet, patient work of scholars and students;

about their noting of so many facts and detailing of them. Let us think

of the beginnings of English history and literature; of the writing of

precious manuscripts; the careful copying of them; each of them taking

so much time to complete and being so costly in production, especially

when there was added to care and skill the artistic beauty of decoration

and illumination.

From these quiet abodes of the piety that transfused itself through

loving toil and discipline, light streamed forth to go on shining and

shining, on through the long centuries to come.

We must now have a look into the pages of the great English Chronicle

which we should not possess had it not been for these good monks, and we

will take the account of the martyrdom of Archbishop Ælfeah, whom you

know best under the Latinized form of his name, Alphege. His heavenly

birthday was the 19th of April. The king who is spoken of was Æthelred

who was called the Unready, which word means without counsel, and then

of ill-counsel. You know how we talk of "ill-advised" conduct or speech.

There is a fourteenth century poem which speaks of Richard the Second as

"redeless." And, because there is no such thing as being neutral;

because, if we are not good, we are bad, the word got the meaning of

foolish or worse. Freeman, the great historian says that Æthelred "was

perhaps the only thoroughly bad king among all the Kings of the English

of the West Saxon line; he seems to have been weak, cowardly, cruel, and

bad altogether."

As long as St Dunstan lived, Æthelred was not so bad as he afterwards

became. We must remember what a bad mother Æthelred had in Ælfthryth, or

Elfrida, who was an evil wife to her first husband, and most probably

caused the murder of the king her step-son, the son of King Edgar, who

was her second husband. This was the Edward known as St Edward the

Martyr.

The story of Ælfeah comes under the year A.D. 1011. "In this year sent

the king and his witan to the (Danish) army, and desired peace, and

promised them tribute and food on condition that they ceased from their

harrying. They had then overrun East Anglia, and Essex, and Middlesex,

and Oxfordshire, and Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire; and south of

Thames, all Kent and Sussex, and Hastings, and Surrey, and Berkshire,

and Hampshire, and much of Wiltshire. All these misfortunes befell us

through ill counsel, that they were not in time (either) offered tribute

or fought against, but when they had done the greatest ill, then peace

and truce were made with them. And nevertheless for all the truce and

tribute, they went flockmeal everywhere and harried and robbed and slew

our poor folk. And then, in this year, between the nativity of St Mary

and St Michael's Mass, they sat round Canterbury and came into it

through treachery, because Ælfmaer betrayed it, whose life the

Archbishop Ælfeah had before saved. And there they took the Archbishop

Ælfeah, and Ælfweard, the king's reeve, and Abbot Ælfmaer, and Bishop

Godwin. And Abbot Ælfmaer they let go away. And they took there within

all the clergy, and men and women: it was untellable to any man how much

of the folk there was. And they were afterwards in the town as long as

they would. And when they had thoroughly surveyed the city then went

they to their ships and led the Archbishop with them. Then was he a

captive who erewhile had been the head of the English race and of

Christendom.[I] There might then be seen misery there where oft erewhile

men had seen bliss, in that wretched city whence had first come to us

Christendom and bliss before God and before the world.

[Footnote I: _i.e._ of English Christianity.]

"And they kept the archbishop with them as long as to the time when they

martyred him.

"A.D. 1012. In this year came Eadric the ealdorman, and all the chief

witan, religious and lay, of the English folk of London, before Easter:

Easterday was then on the date of the Ides of April (13th April). And

they were there then so long as until all the tribute was paid, after

Easter; that was eight and forty thousand pounds. Then on the Saturday

(19th April) was the (Danish) army greatly stirred up against the

bishop, because he would not promise them any money; but he forbad that

anything should be given for him. They were also very drunken, because

wine had been brought there from the south. Then took they the bishop,

led him to their husting on the eve of Sunday, the octave of the Pasch;

and there they then shamefully killed him: they pelted him with bones

and the heads of oxen, and then one of them struck him with an axe-iron

on the head, so that with the blow he sank down; and his holy blood fell

on the earth, and that his holy soul be sent to God's kingdom."

A sorrowful story of evil folly and treachery: a splendid story of

steadfastness to the end: of glorious martyrdom. The refusal to allow

himself to be ransomed at his pillaged people's cost; the greed of the

Danes; the death-stroke given him, we are told, in another chronicle, in

mercy, to put an end to his sufferings, given him by a newly-made

convert of his. And see how the Church has shown us, in her canonisation

as a martyr saint, of this man, who died not directly to testify to the

truth of the religion of Jesus, but for the sake of justice, that

justice is the outcome of Christianity, and that he who dies for justice

sake dies for God.

It was said by Lanfrane that Æfeah was not a martyr, because he had not

died for the Faith; but St Anselm said he was a true martyr, because he

died for justice and charity.

CHAPTER XII

Abbot Ælfric, writer of Homilies, Lives of Saints, and other works.

Wulfstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The greatest of English prose-writers before the Conquest was Ælfric,

who was educated at the school at Winchester which Æthelwold, a pupil of

St Dunstan, had founded. His works are very numerous. He wrote Homilies,

or Sermons, on Scriptural subjects, and Lives of the Saints. I have

quoted a passage about "Judith," which occurs in the summary of the

books of the Old Testament, written for a friend of his, one Sigeweard,

who had often asked him for English writings, which he had delayed

giving him until after he had, at Sigeweard's earnest request, come to

his house, and then Sigeweard had complained to him that he could not

get at his writings. This little incident reminds us how differently

from now people had to arrange about books and writings, and how much

more dependent they were on teaching through the ear and the eye.

I must give you a little specimen of Ælfric's writing, a piece taken

from his beautiful homily on Holy Innocents' Day. It is in very simple,

direct language, and I think you will say it is not without a touch of

that lovely thing which it is easy to feel and hard to define--poetry. I

should like to have heard the sermon, and I hope you will feel somewhat

as I do!

"Christ despised not His young soldiers, although he was not present in

body at their slaughter. Blessed were they born that they might for His

sake suffer death. Happy is that their (tender) age, which was not yet

able to confess Christ, and was allowed to suffer for Christ. They were

the Saviour's witnesses, although as yet they knew Him not. They were

not ripe for the slaughter, but yet did they blessedly die to live!

Blessed was their birth, for they found eternal life on the threshold of

this present life. They were snatched from mother-breasts, but they were

straightway given into the keeping of angel-bosoms. The cruel persecutor

(Herod) could with no service benefit those little ones so greatly as he

benefited them with the hatred of his cruel persecution. They are called

martyrs' blossoms because they were as blossoms upspringing in the cold

of earth's unbelief, thus withered with the frost of persecution.

Blessed are the wombs that bare them, and the breasts which suckled such

as these. The mothers indeed suffered in the martyrdom of their

children; the sword which pierced the children's limbs pierced to the

mothers' hearts: and it must needs be that they be sharers of the

eternal reward, when they were companions in the suffering."

I will now tell you about a very different kind of sermon from

Ælfric's--one of the sermons preached by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York,

who was not, like Ælfric, leading a quiet life in an abbey, but throwing

himself into the struggles and needs of a most disastrous time. He saw

how the Danish inroads had terribly demoralised the English people, and

he spoke out as God's preacher, who comes face to face with wrong, must

speak.

He begins by telling his "beloved men" how evil will go on increasing

till Antichrist's coming; and then will it be awful, and terrible all

through the world. "Too greatly has the devil for many years led this

folk astray, and little faithfulness has there been among men, albeit

they spake well; and wrongs too many have ruled in the land; and not

always were there many who thought earnestly about the remedy as they

should; but day by day they added one evil upon another and they reared

up wrong, and many evil laws all throughout this nation. And therefore

have we suffered many losses and shames: and if we shall await any cure

then must we deserve it from God better than heretofore have we done.

For with great earning have we earned the miseries that oppress us, and

with great earning must we obtain the remedy from God if from henceforth

it is to grow better." He tells them how in heathen lands they dare not

withhold what has been devoted to the worship of idols: "and here we

withhold the rights of God. And everywhere in heathen lands none dare

injure or lessen within or without any of the things offered to idols:

and we have robbed God's houses within and without." And so he goes on

pouring out from his very soul the fiery words that tell of the warning

of God's laws, and the worsening of folk-laws; and how the Sanctuaries

are unprotected, and God's houses are robbed and stripped of their

property, and holy orders are despised, and widows forced wrongfully to

marry, and too many are made poor and humbled, and poor men are sorely

betrayed and cruelly plotted against; and far and wide innocent people

are given into the power of foreigners, and cradle-children made slaves

through cruel evil laws for a little theft: and freeman's right taken

away, and thrall's right narrowed, and alms' right diminished. It goes

on and on, the terrible list of wrongs that have brought God's wrath on

the land. The sermon is not for the building-up of faithful ones, but

for the rousing and stirring up of those whose baptismal vow has been

terribly and shamefully broken, His words are clashed out as he brings

men face to face with their sin.

And then comes the preaching of the true penance. "Let us do what is

needful, bow to the right, and in somewise forsake the wrong, and mend

where we have broken." And the preacher's voice now takes the tender

tone of entreaty. "Let us creep to Christ and with trembling heart often

call upon Him, and deserve His mercy; and let us love God, and obey His

laws, and fulfil what we promised when we received baptism; or what

those promised who were our sponsors at baptism. And let us rightly

order word and work, and earnestly cleanse the thoughts of our hearts,

and carefully keep oath and pledge and have honesty among us without

weakness, and let us often understand the great judgement which we all

must meet, and earnestly protect ourselves against the burning fire of

the punishment of hell, and earn for ourselves the glories and the joys

which God has prepared for them that do His will in the world. God help

us. Amen."

CHAPTER XIII

Love of books is love of part of God's world. In books we commune with

the spirit of their writers. The Church the mother of all art and

all literature. Catholic literature saturated with Holy Scripture.

A man who made many a man and woman love literature and helped them to

study it, the late Professor Henry Morley, has said that one who thinks

that a bookroom is not a part of the world; one who thinks that, in

leaving his books and going forth to commune with nature he is, as it

were, passing from death to life, is one who has not yet learned to

read. The good Professor saw that books have souls in them, so to speak,

and that to love a book really and truly is to hold communion with that

which is living and is a part of the great, beautiful scheme of God's

great, beautiful world. To love one part of what Our Father has given us

should never lead us to despise, or even undervalue, other parts. And we

must remember, too, must we not? how one thing helps us to understand

another; how great painters and great poets help us to understand the

beauty of nature as we might not have understood it without them, just

as they help us also to know men and women, and help us to know better

some of the fair things in our great and glorious religion; things which

God can and does teach without their help when He chooses, though He

graciously and lovingly often uses their help--the help He has given

them the power of giving--to teach others of His children. Our Father,

being _Our_ Father, not just _your_ Father and _my_ Father and _his_

Father and _her_ Father, but _Our_ Father, the Father of us all as one

big family of His, brothers and sisters in Him, wills that we all help

one another with the gifts He has given us; and the more we can realise

that all separate gifts are parts of one great harmonious whole, the

more fully we shall live and feel and enjoy.

There is, of course, a delight in exquisite typography, and hand-made

paper, and binding into which the soul of a true artist has gone. People

may be willing to give large sums for these things, independently of the

value of what is under them; or people may value books for their age, or

because they are rare, or because they are records of facts which it is

well to know and good to be able to verify.

But there is a better way of love than all of these. One may love the

book through which one holds communion with the spirit of its writer,

being ready to learn from him by direct learning, or by the learning

received through suggestion, or through the rousing of the spirit of

enquiry, or the spirit of opposition. Is not this the best kind of love,

the love by which the thought of man is used by man, the spirit of man

holds communion with the spirit of man?

All through the ages, great things have been handed down by written

words, and people of all nations have shared one another's national

heritage of written thought, and in that sharing made it larger and

greater. We are now considering the earlier story of English Catholic

literature, and it is surely well that people should know something of

what things were said and sung in the olden time; the time when all art,

all literature was fed by the great Mother of all Christian art and all

Christian literature, the Holy Catholic Church.

You will find our Catholic literature saturated with sacred lore and

knowledge of Holy Scripture. Before printing was invented people could

not multiply copies of the Sacred Books as they can now, but they knew

them probably much better than many of those who can easily now buy them

for a few pence. We have translations of various parts of the Bible in

these early times. You will remember how in St Bede's last days he

finished his translation of part of St John's Gospel. We have lovely

manuscripts, such as that of the Lindisfarne Gospels, written in fine

clear writing, which can be seen at the British Museum; and facsimiles

of parts of them can be had for a small sum. It is simply an uneducated

error to suppose that the heretical editing, as I may call it, of Holy

Scripture in the mother-tongue of English people, made by Tyndale and

Coverdale, was the first attempt to put the Bible into English. We

should have had plenty of printed copies of Holy Scripture in the

mother-tongue of English people, had these versions never been made and

circulated to attack and injure Holy Church, without whom the originals

could never have existed.

CHAPTER XIV

Scattering of our old MSS. in Sixteenth Century. Same now in public

libraries. Collections. Exeter Book and Vercelli Book.

Where are all our old manuscripts, our treasures from days of yore, the

work of the cunning scribe, the pages whereon so many of our religious

spent hour after hour, in patient and loving toil? They were scattered

abroad in the sixteenth century by wholesale. Many of them found their

way into private collections, and the collectors often generously gave

them to college libraries. Matthew Parker, the Protestant Archbishop of

Canterbury, was a great book-collector, and gave a good many volumes to

Corpus Christi College at Cambridge. Among these is the oldest copy of

the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. John Bale, once a friar, afterwards, alas! a

Protestant Bishop, says that some of the books from the monasteries were

used to scour candlesticks or to rub boots; some were sold to grocers

and soap-vendors; and whole ships-full went abroad.

[Illustrations:

SAXON SHIP

As used by our Forefathers in the time of King Alfred

THE ALFRED JEWEL

[_Page 114_]

Robert Bruce Cotton was another great book-collector. His library was

sold to the nation about seventy years after his death. Many books and

MSS. belonging to it were destroyed or injured by a fire that broke out

where it had been placed; among those injured was the only copy of the

old poem of Béowulf, which I have not talked about because it is

apparently outside our _Catholic_ Heritage in literature. The reduced

library is now at the British Museum. It includes the beautiful

Lindisfarne Gospels, or Durham Book, which once belonged to Durham

Cathedral.

There is another collection which was bought for the British Museum,

made by Harley, Earl of Oxford.

William Laud, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in Charles the First's

time, and, like him, died on the scaffold, was also greatly interested

in collecting books. He gave generously to Oxford University, and his

books are in the Bodleian Library, with many other valuable literary

treasures.

Francis Junius collected Anglo-Saxon literature, and other books. He

left them to the Bodleian Library. Among them is the unique "Caedmon"

Manuscript, given him by Archbishop Usher, who founded the library of

Trinity College, Dublin. People are now alive to the value of these

great possessions, and we must be glad that scholars have worked at

them, and published many of them, and so made their contents accessible

to everyone. But we must never forget our debt to the earliest writers,

and chiefly to the monks who wrote and who copied, much and long and

well. As we trust, they have their reward.

There are two specially interesting collections of manuscript

Anglo-Saxon poems, known respectively as the Exeter Book and the

Vercelli Book. The Exeter Book is one of some sixty volumes acquired by

Leófric, Bishop of Crediton, when he was making his library for the

cathedral of his new bishopric at Exeter. It is described as "a large

English book of many things wrought in verse." It is one of the few of

Leófric's books that remain at Exeter, where it has been over eight

hundred years. It contains various poems by Cynewulf and others. Several

leaves are missing, and ink has been spilt over part of one page. This

Exeter library was scattered at the "Reformation." Some of its treasures

are in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, or at Corpus Christi College, at

Cambrige.

The Vercelli Book is so called because it was discovered in its home in

the cathedral library at Vercelli in Italy a good many years ago. It

contains twenty-two sermons in Anglo-Saxon, and six poems, among which

is our beautiful "Dream of the Holy Rood." Perhaps some English pilgrim

or pilgrims, on the way to Rome, left this book as a gift, or through

inadvertence, at the hospice where hospitality had been received. Or

perhaps Cardinal Guala, who was over here in the days of John and of

Henry III, bought the book for his library at Vercelli. Or perhaps it

was one of the books of which John Bale tells us whole ships-full went

abroad. We have to be very grateful to the scholars whose researches

have recovered for us so much of our old heritage, and to those who have

made their contents in various ways so easy to get at.

CHAPTER XV

Runes. An early love-poem

I said I would tell you a little about runes, which I have had more than

once occasion to mention. The runes were the alphabet used by the

Teutonic tribes, to which the English belonged. This alphabet is very

old, and it is not certain where it originally came from. The word

"rune" means secret or mystery. To "round" in a person's ear means to

whisper, so that what is said is a "secret" or a "mystery." The word

comes from "rune." When we use the word to "write" we think of setting

down words on paper with a pen or a pencil. But the old meaning of

"write" is to incise, or to cut, or engrave. Probably the runes were at

first cut in wood. A wooden tablet was called "bóc," from beechwood

being used for it. When we talk of a book we are away from the first

idea of a book a good distance. Runes were also carved, or incised, in

metal and in bone. They were associated, not only with secrecy or

mystery, but with magic, and were supposed to possess power for good or

evil. People thought that "runes could raise the dead from their graves;

they could preserve life or take it, they could heal the sick or bring

on lingering disease; they could call forth the soft rain or the violent

hailstorm; they could break chains and shackles, or bind more closely

than bonds or fetters; they could make the warrior invincible and cause

his sword to inflict none but mortal wounds; they could produce frenzy

and madness, or defend from the deceit of a false friend."

There is a story in an old Norse book telling that Odin, the

Scandinavian god, learned them and used them. St Bede tells in his

"Church History" a story which proves that the belief in the magic power

of runes lingered on in England after Christianity had become the

professed religion of the people. It takes a good while to lose

superstition that has been with people for a long, long time. Because

Christianity condemns anything like magic, the use of the runes,

associated with it, gradually went out. The Irish missionaries in the

North of England taught the people there a beautiful kind of handwriting

from which the English handwriting of later times was formed. The

"Lindisfarne Gospels" are written in the earlier Irish rounded

characters. In a copy of St Bede's "Church History" written after

A.D. 730, a more pointed hand is used. If we want to write fast, we do

not write so round as when we write slowly. Afterwards, in the tenth

century, the English began to use the French style of writing.

The runes were sometimes used as ordinary letters, without any thought

of the old connection with magic. So the great Christian poet, Cynewulf,

wrote his name in runes, which is how we know him to be the author of

some of the poems we have been considering.

The portions of the "Dream of the Holy Rood" which are on the Ruthwell

Cross (see Chapter IV) are carved in runes. There is a small sword in

the British Museum with runes on it, which was found in the Thames.

In connection with the runes I want to tell you of two old poems, which

may be related to each other. One is known as "The Wife's Complaint,"

the other as, "The Husband's Message." The first of them is apparently

spoken by a woman who laments her hard fate, her husband having gone

over the sea, away from her. She is imprisoned in an old earthen

dwelling under an oak; she has no friends near, and she tells how vain

were the vows of love exchanged between her and her husband. Now the

second poem, "The Husband's Message," may be written for this wife; we

do not know; at any rate it conveys a message from an absent husband to

a wife; and I will give it to you as an early love-letter. It consists

of two parts, one of which has been thought to be a riddle, but they

have been put together by a learned Professor, and if they do belong to

each other, the arrangement is as interesting as it is beautiful. The

message is given by the letter itself--the slip of bark or wood on which

it was carved--and this wood speaks. First it tells us about itself. It

had dwelt on the beach near the sea-shore: there were few to behold its

home in the solitude, but every morning the brown wave encircled it with

a watery embrace. Then it little thought that even, though itself

mouthless, it should speak among the mead-drinkers and utter words.

A great marvel it is,

Strange in the mouth that knoweth it not,

How the point of the knife and the right hand,

The thought of a man, and his blade therewith,

Shaped me with skill, that boldly I might

So deliver a message to thee

In the presence of us two alone,

That to other men our talk

May not make it more widely known.

The letter then tells how it had come in the keeled vessel, and how the

lady would now know how in her heart she may think of the love of her

lord. "I dare maintain," says the letter, "that there thou wilt find

true loyalty." He that carved the characters on the wood, bad it pray

her, the lady decked with jewels, to remember the vows they twain had

often made when they dwelt together in their home in the same land.

Force drove him

Out of the land. Now hath he bidden me

Earnestly to urge thee to sail the sea

When thou hast heard on the brow of the hill

The mournful cuckoo call in the wood.

Then let no living man keep thee

From the journey, or hinder thy going.

Betake thee to the sea, the home of the mew,

Seat thee in the boat, that southward from here

Beyond the road of the sea thou mayest find the man

Where waits thy prince in hope of thee.

We hope the lady betook herself to the sea-mew's home, and found her

beloved at the end of the journey! Her beloved had no thought of any

greater joy than the granting of Almighty God that together they should

be givers of treasure to men. The beloved has enough of beaten gold and

wealth, and a fair home among the strangers, the noble warriors that

obey him. Banished from home, gone forth a homeless one, in the

stranger-land good has come to him; he has no lack of anything but of

her, who had with him come under an old threat, and had been parted from

him. He vows to fulfil his pledge and love-troth, and he writes in runes

some message, which she, as it appears, would understand, and she alone.

The old, old story, written fair and full.

You will have noticed in the literature we have been considering the

absence of certain elements which are an integral part of our modern

literature. This poem, for instance, is, as far as I know, the only love

poem before the Conquest which has come down to us. There is no romance

either, and there is, we may say, no humour. Life is a very serious

thing, so often lying close to the sword-edge; and the duties of life

are simple. There is to be a great, very great enlargement of the

borders of English literature later on. Prose and poetry are to have new

developments. Romances are to show us heroic ideals. Lyrics of joy, of

sorrow, of passion, of emotion natural and spiritual, are to be sung.

The sense of beauty is to grow. The drama is to arise from beginnings to

be but faintly traced in early days. Epic poetry is to take a great

place. Character modified, enriched by foreign strains, is to mould a

noble literature--noble through many and many a gift and grace. A great

poet is to arise with sympathies large and wide, to show us, in verse

most musical, in words full meaning, with that grace of humour which is

a fresh light upon life, how men and women lived: and to be the great

precursor of a greater than he. Geoffrey Chaucer is to come to us. After

him William Shakespere.

THE END

THE MERCAT PRESS, EDINBURGH.