the most exact calculator.* Bede explains, with sufficient accuracy, the nature of the lunar and solar eclipses; and observes, that their recurrence at each conjunction and opposition is prevented by the obliquity of the moon's orbit."†

To this luminous, though by no means complete exposition, we shall add a few observations. Considering the earth as a fixed point in the centre of the universe, and that the sun and the planets revolved round it at unequal distances, their orbits gradually enlarging as we proceed from that centre, they had a clear idea not only of the motions of the heavenly bodies, but of the diurnal motion of each planet round its own axis. They believed that Saturn, the highest of the planets, the nearest, says Bede, to the celestial firmament, — required thirty years to revolve round the sun; that Jupiter required twelve, Mars two, the sun three hundred and sixty-five days, and one quarter; and so on till we descend to the moon, the lowest, because the nearest planet to the earth, the orbit of which required only twenty-seven days to traverse. Eclipses they understood to proceed from the conjunction of any three given planets in the same part of the ecliptic, in the same sign of the zodiac; that in this case, as the three happened to occupy for a moment a right line, the most remote must of necessity be wholly or partially hidden by the one in the centre. Hence, if the sun and the moon happened to be at the same moment in the same part of the ecliptic, in a right line with the earth, the moon would exercise a twofold occultation; from the earth it would hide a part of the sun, from the sun part of the earth. Comets were supposed by the Venerable to portend evil to man; sometimes physical evils, as storms and heat, pestilence; sometimes

* "Lunam non minui nec crescere dicunt, sed a soli illustratam, a parte quam habet ad eum paulatim, vel ab eo recedendo, vel a appropinquando, nobis candidam partem revolvere, vel atram."-De Natura Rerum, cap. xx. p. 25.

† Ibid. cap. xxii. xxiii. De Temporum Ratione, cap. v. Lingard, Antiquities of the Anglo-Sax Church, pp. 331-335.

Venus, however, though lower than the sun, was held to be longer by three days in her revoluiton.

moral ones, as wars and revolutions of kingdoms. The influence in this respect possessed by the comets, was easily transferred to the planets. Hence the prevalence of judicial astrology in every country where the phenomena of nature, and the laws of sidereal motion, are but imperfectly understood. The influence of sun and moon on both vegetable and mineral productions was recognised: why, then, might not the same influence be exercised over the human frame? over the mind itself? over the destiny of man? There was not, indeed, much logic in the inference; but it acquired additional force from the events which sometimes accidentally attended certain configurations of the planets. Men sometimes reason strangely, even in countries where a high degree of civilisation exists. The poor rustic, who, because he had lost two cows in two successive years, when the moon happened to be at full, maintained that such a period was fatal to distempered cattle, may be placed on a level with the believers in judicial astrology. In that pretended science, the Anglo-Saxons were, for the most part, steadfast believers. St. Aldhelm learned the construction of horoscopes in the school of the abbot Adrian: though Bede reprobated the knowledge as false and pernicious, he yet shows that he was sufficiently acquainted with its principles, and Alcuin was far from ignorant of them. All three, however, were too wise, because too religious, to suppose that human actions were necessarfly subject to sidereal influence: they knew that the will was free, or, if it had a bias to evil, that grace was sufficient to counteract the mischievous tendency. In other respects, even astrology was useful, since it necessarily involved some knowledge of astronomy. Most, however, of the Anglo-Saxon scholars were better occupied than in these forbidden pursuits; they were eager to calculate the orbits of the planets, their rising and setting, the return of eclipses, and other phenomena.*

* Bede, De Natura Rerum, necnon De Ratione Temporum, passim.

The influence of the moon on the tides was not unknown to Bede. On comparing their ebb and flow with the motions of that planet, he suspected that the waters were attracted to it by some mysterious power inherent in it. He found that as the moon receded from the sun, the tides were daily retarded many minutes in their approach to the shore; but that when the two planets approached their conjunction, the waters rose higher. He remarked that the decrease happened from the fifth to the twelfth, from the twentieth to the twenty-seventh day of each moon; and he disproved, by his own daily observations, the opinion of the ancient philosophers, that in every part of the ocean the tides began to flow at the same moment: he proved that they reached some parts of the coast long before others; that they reached the mouth of the Tyne before the coast of the Deiri. With respect to some other natural phenomena, Bede was less rational, always assuming that the Mundi Constitutio is his composition. If it be not, however, it is assuredly that of some other Anglo-Saxon, not much subsequent to his period; and it may, therefore, be safely regarded as a record of the national opinions on such matters.-There are four humours in man, which resemble the four elements, which flourish at different times, and rule in different periods of life. 1. Blood, like air, increases in spring, and reigns in youth. 2. Anger is like to fire, which increases in summer, and reigns in youth. 3. Melancholy to earth, which grows in autumn, and reigns in manhood. 4. Phlegm to water, which freezes in winter, and rules in old age. As in the natural world the harmony of the whole depends on the equilibrium of their elements, so in the moral, the co-existence of these qualities in their due proportion preserves the harmony of the man. Earthquakes were believed by some to be caused by the winds, which, having entered the numerous deep caverns of the earth, and finding no outlet, roared and struggled with such force as to shake the neighbouring countries. By others, however, the cause was supposed to be the

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motion of the abyss on which the earth is placed; when the former moves so must the latter. Some again held, that it was produced by that terrible animal, the leviathan, which, when tormented by the scorching sun, attempted, in its fury, to enfold within its coils the whole globe of the earth: sometimes, too, it swallowed such an immensity of water, that when it disgorged the mass, the whole earth was shaken by it. They were more successful in the investigation of the nature of the clouds, which they held to be water exhaled from the ground, and which fell in rain or snow, according to the heat or cold of the atmosphere. In explaining thunder and lightning, however, they were sufficiently puzzled their general opinion seemed to be, that when three cardinal winds met in the atmosphere, they forced the clouds together with such velocity that, by the concussion, not only a loud sound, but sparks, or even streams of fire, were emitted. Others, however, maintained, that the sound was caused by the efforts of the winds, pent up in the clouds, to escape from their prison-houses. Their geographical notions were a strange mixture of truth and absurdity. With the distinction of zones and climates they were well acquainted; and the treatise of Bede (borrowed from Adamnan), De Locis Sanctis, proves that they paid some attention to foreign countries. In fact, with such notions of countries as were to be found in ancient writers, they were of necessity acquainted; and they had, besides, several geographers, especially Strabo and Pomponius Mela, before them. In some of their notions, however, they exceeded the Spaniard in absurdity.

"The MS. Tiberius, B.5., contains a topographical description of some eastern regions, in Latin and Saxon. From this we learn there is a place in the way to the Red Sea which contains red hens, and that if any man touches them, his hand and all his body are burned immediately; also that pepper is guarded by serpents, which are driven away by fire, and this makes the pepper black. We read of people with dogs' heads, boars' tusks, and horses' manes, and breathing flames: also of

ants as big as dogs, with feet like grasshoppers, red and black. These creatures dig gold for fifteen days'; men go with female camels and their young ones to fetch it, which the ants permit on having the liberty to eat the young camels. The same learned work informed our ancestors that there was a white human race fifteen feet high, with two faces on one head, long nose and black hair, who, in the time of parturition, went to India to lie in. Other men had thighs twelve feet long, and breasts seven feet high; they were cannibals. There was another sort of mankind with no heads, who had eyes and mouths in their breasts: they were eight feet tall, and eight feet broad. Other men had eyes which shone like a lamp in a dark night. In the ocean there was a soft-voiced race, who were human to the navel, but all below were the limbs of an ass. These fables even came so near as Gaul; for it tells us that at Liconia, in Gaul, there were men of three colours, with heads like lions, and mouths like the sails of a windmill; they were twenty feet tall; they run away and sweat blood, but were thought to be men. Let us, however, in justice to our ancestors, recollect that most of these fables are gravely recorded by Pliny. The Anglo-Saxons, therefore, were not more credulous or ill informed than the Roman population. The descriptions of foreign ladies were not gallant. It is stated that near Babylon there were women with beards to their breasts; they were clothed in horses' hides, and were great hunters; but they used tigers and leopards instead of dogs. Other women had boars' tusks, hair to their heels, and a cow's tail; they were thirteen feet high: they had a beautiful body, white as marble; but they had camels' feet. Black men living on burning mountains; trees bearing precious stones; and a golden vineyard, which had berries 150 feet long, which produced jewels; gryphons, phoenixes, and beasts with asses' ears, sheep's wool, and birds' feet; are among the other wonders which instructed our ancestors. The accounts in the MS. Vitalian, A. 15., rival the phenomena just recited, with others as credible, and are also illustrated with drawings."

This certainly exceeds the statement of good old Pomponius, that on the shores of the Baltic lived a race of men with ears so large, that every night one of them served for a couch, the other for a coverlet.*

The Anglo-Saxons had a smattering of some other

Bede, De Natura Rerum, De Temporum Ratione; necnon De Mundi Constitutione, passim. Lingard, Antiquities, p. 338. Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol iii. book ix. chap 7.