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Scholasticism reveals already the dominant tendencies of English thought, subordination of theory to practice, in John of Salisbury; scepticism as to ultimate philosophical questions, in Scotus; devotion to physical science as a thing of demonstrative and practical utility, in Bacon.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries are the seed-time of all modern language and literature. The former is the great turning point of the European intellect. Then it is that a general revival of Latin literature takes place; then-the first time for many centuries-the long slumber of untroubled orthodoxy is broken by hydra-headed heresies; then the standard of an impartial philosophy is first planted by Abelard; then the passion for astrology and its fatalism revives with the revival of pagan learning, and penetrates into the halls of nobles and the palaces of kings; men are learning to doubt, without learning that doubt is innocent, compelled, by the new mental activity, to a variety of opinions, while the old credulity persuades them that all opinions but one are suggestions of the devil. The latter is a decisive epoch, not more for the constitutional history of England than for its intellectual progress. Its general activity and ardor are shown by the great concourse of students to the universities, by the number and eminence of the schoolmen, by religious and political satires, by that flame of zeal which sweeps the masses from their native soil to hurl them upon Holy Land. Then the French romantic poetry with its craving for excitement, begins to be transfused into a medium intelligible throughout England; then, above all, a definite language is formed, and there is room for a great writer.

Slowly, step by step, the England of the Doomsday Book, the England of the Curfew, the England of crusaders, monks, astrologers, serfs, and outlaws, is becoming the England of liberty, knowledge, and trade,-the England that spreads her dominion over every quarter of the globe, and scatters the seeds of empires and republics in the jungles of India and the forests of America.

CEDMON.

The Milton of our Forefathers.-D'Israeli.

Biography. His life lies buried in obscurity and fable. We obtain our first glimpses of him as a peasant, on some of the abbey lands of Whitby, who, though his sun was already declining, had never dreamed that he was a sublime poet. A marvellous incident—according to the taste and manner of the ageexplains his literary history:

Once, sitting with his companions over the ale-cup, while they sang in turn the praises of war or beauty, when the circling 'Wood of Joy' passed to him, he rose and went out with a sad heart, for he alone-all unskilled - was unable to weave his thoughts into verse. Wearied and desponding, he lay down to rest in a stall of oxen, of which he was the appointed night-guard. As he slept, an angel appeared to him and said: 'Cadmon, sing some song to me!' The herdsman urged that he was mute and unmusical. Nevertheless, thou shalt sing!' retorted the benignant stranger. What shall I sing?' rejoined the minstrel who had never sung. Sing the origin of things!' His imprisoned intellect was unlocked, and he listened to the wonder of his own voice through eighteen lines of 'Let us praise God, maker of heaven and earth.' In the morning he remembered the lines, flew to the town-reeve' to announce his dream, told how, in one memorable night - incapable even of reading his own Saxon, after a whole life spent without ever surmising himself to be poeticalhe had become a poet, and desired to use his gift for the instruction of the people in the Heavenly Word. Good Abbess Hilda in turn received him, heard him recite, was favorably impressed with his rare talents, gave him an exercise to test his new-found skill, then welcomed him, with all his goods, into the monastery; the brethren read to him, from Genesis to Revelations, wrote down his oracular sayings, and committed them to memory; so winsome, so divine, were his song and his verse. Day by day, piece by piece, the poem grew, till he had turned various parts of Sacred Writ into English poetry. Severed from the cares of

1 Reeve, from Saxon gerefa, denotes a magistrate or officer: obsolete except in compounds, as shire-reeve (now written sheriff).

the active world, in the deep calm of monastic seclusion, he lived and wrought, living for the Unseen alone, and undisturbed by either anxiety or doubt. One of the aspects, is this, in which the monastic period of literature appears eminently beautiful,-freedom from the turmoil and impatience, the vanity and pride, of modern literary life. Slowly wasted by disease, he died in 680, near the hour of midnight, peacefully,—

'Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'

Here, to the inquisitive who would go on knocking, the door is closed. Over the outer history of the man, the accidental circumstances of his life, oblivion 'blindly scattereth her poppy.' Of more worth is the inner history of genius. The Dreamer lives in his dream.

Writings.-The Paraphrase, containing, besides other portions of the Bible, the story of the Creation, the Revolt, the Fall, the Flood, and the Exodus. The sole manuscript is of the tenth century; disappearing from visible existence, it was accidentally discovered in the seventeenth, and first published in 1655, a thousand years after its composition.

Filled with the grandeur of his subject, in words of such majesty as were never uttered of human heroes or Scandinavian gods, he sounds the key-note of a new poetic strain:

Most right is it that we, heaven's Guard,

Glory, King of hosts! with words should praise,

With hearts should love. He is of powers the efficacy;

Head of all high creations;

Lord Almighty! In Him beginning never

Or origin hath been; but He is aye supreme
Over heaven-thrones, with high majesty
Righteous and mighty!'

A concrete of exclamations from a strong, barbarous heart; a song of a servant of Odin, tonsured now, and clad in the habili ments of a monk. Then follow the rebellion of Satan, the expulsion of the angels, and their confinement in the fiery gulf. The Hebrew Tempter, transformed by the German sense of might of individual manhood, becomes a republican, disdainful of vassalage to God:

"Wherefore," he said, "shall I toil?
No need have I of master. I can work
With my own hands great marvels, and have power
To build a throne more worthy of a God,
Higher in heaven! Why shall I, for His smile.

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The two religions, Christian and pagan, so like, mingle their incongruities, images, and legends. The patriarchs are earls; Abraham is a guardian of bracelets' (wealth); the sons of Reuben are vikings (sea-pirates); the Ethiopians are 'a people brown with the hot coals of heaven'; God is the 'Blithe-hearted King,' the Overlord, ruler of his thanes with an iron hand:

Stern of mood He was; He gript them in His wrath; with hostile hands He gript them, and crushed them in His grasp.'

For three nights and days' the Fiend, with his comrades, fell headlong from the skies down to 'the swart hell,- a land void of light and full of flame.'

3

There they have at even, immeasurably long, each of all the fiends, a renewal of fire with sulphur charged; but cometh ere dawn the eastern wind-frost, bitter cold, ever fire or dart.'4

In the 'torture-house' lies the Apostate in chains, proud, fearless, self-conscious, and indomitable, like the Northern warriors; 'the haughty king, who of angels erst was brightest, fairest in heaven, beloved of his Master; so beauteous was his form, he was like to the light stars." Overcome, shall he be subdued?

5

'Within him boiled his thoughts about his heart;
Without, the wrathful fire pressed hot upon him.
He said: "This narrow place is most unlike
That other we once knew in heaven high,

And which my Lord gave me; though own it now

1 See Paradise Lost, I and V, for remarkable resemblances.
2 Nine times the space that measures day and night

And.

And,

To mortal men.-Paradise Lost.

Yet from these flames

No light, but rather darkness visible.-Ibid.

The bitter change

Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice,-Ibid.

Eternal darkness for the dwellers in fierce heat and ice.-Inferno.
5 His form had not yet lost

All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined.-Paradise Lost.

His countenance as the morning star that guides
The starry flock, allured them.-Ibid.

We must not, but to Him must cede our realm.
Yet right He hath not done to strike us down
To hell's abyss,-of heaven's realm bereft,-
Which with mankind to people He hath planned.
Pain sorest this, that Adam, wrought of earth,
On my strong throne shall sit, enjoying bliss,
While we endure these pangs,-hell-torments dire.
Oh! woe is me! could I but use my hands
And might I be from here a little time,-
One winter's space,- then with this host would I,-
But press me hard these iron bands,- this coil
Of chain, and powerless I am, so fast

I'm bound. Above is fire; below is fire;

A loathier landscape never have I seen;

Nor smolders aye the fire, but hot throughout.

In chains; my pathway barred; my feet tied down;
These hell-doors bolted all; I may not move

From out these limb-bands; binds me iron hard,-
Hot-forged great grindles! God has griped me tight
About the neck."'1

But to him who has lost everything, vengeance is left. Indissolubly bound, he dispatches an associate to wreak his ire on the innocent pair in Eden. The emissary was 'prompt in arms; he had a crafty soul; this chief set his helmet on his head; he many speeches knew of guileful words; wheeled up from thence, he departed through the doors of hell,' flinging aside the flames with the bravery of his sovereign. Adam is invincible, but Eve is ensnared; 'for to her,' we are assured, a weaker mind had the Creator assigned;' 'yet'-let us treat her tenderly did she it through faithful mind; she knew not that hence so many ills, sinful woes, must follow to mankind.' A theme fitter for the historian or translator; too domestic for the barbarian poet's vigor and sublimity. Tumult, murder, combat and death are needed to swell into flame the native instinct. When, later on, he describes the flight of the Israelites, the strong breast heaves, and he shouts, incapable of restraining his passion:

They preferred their arms; the war advanced; bucklers glittered, trumpets blared, standards rattled; . . . around them screamed the fowls of war; the ravens sang, greedy of battle, dewy-feathered; over the bodies of the host-dark choosers of the slainthe wolves sang their horrid even-song.'

With full zest, while the blood mounts in blinding currents to his eyes, he recounts the destruction of Pharaoh and his host:

1 See Paradise Lost, I and IV, for singular correspondences.

Reminding us of →

The infernal doors that on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.-Paradise Lost.

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