sciences. With chemistry they must have had some acquaintance, or they could not have prepared colours which, even at this day, after the lapse of above 1000 years, are found to be so bright, wherever discovered.* Their art of gold-writing must also have required some knowledge of its principles. In medicine every nation is compelled to make some proficiency. In all barbarous times, diseases are regarded as inflictions of some supernatural power; and to propitiate that power is the first care of the patient. Hence the charms, spells, exorcisms, and incantations which prevailed in this country, even after the introduction of Christianity. Such superstitions are too deeply rooted to be shaken by any sudden attack; time only, and the progress of civilisation, can extirpate them. By degrees, however, the instruction and example of the clergy introduced attempts at healing, which, though necessarily imperfect, were most useful, since they not only aimed a fatal blow at the still lingering demon of magic, but laid a foundation on which human experience could work. In every great monastery there was one brother, at least, wholly occupied in medicine; and he was the physician of the surrounding country no less than of the monks. Some of the parochial clergy, no doubt, imitated their example. In time, however, medicine was followed as a distinct profession; and leaches wrote no less than prescribed. There is still extant a MS., probably as old as king Alfred, containing above 200 recipes for various disorders. Surgery was in a still ruder state, since a knowledge of the simplest herbs is far more easy of acquisition than the reduction of inflammation, or operations with the lancet or knife. Their times of bleeding, too, were superstitiously chosen: it was particularly to be avoided, while the light of the moon and the tides were encreasing. One MS. points out nine days in every month in which bleeding was sure to be pernicious, and nine more on which certain

* See a remarkable proof of this fact in Raine's St. Cuthbert,

hours must carefully be chosen for that purpose. Even Theodore and Bede were not wholly exempt from this superstition.*

If, from the physical or natural, we pass to the intellectual sciences of the Saxons, -to what we may term their mental philosophy, we shall find some thing that may occupy a passing attention. Before knowledge can be conveyed, we must prepare the vehicle : hence grammar and dialectics were the first objects of attention to the youthful student. Whether the treatises, "Incunabula Grammatica Artis," "De Octo Partibus Orationis," which stand the first among the works of Bede, be really his, is of no consequence; they are, undoubtedly, the productions of the Saxon mind. In them we find the same parts of speech-except the article, which the Latin language had not -as are now taught in our schools, and the definition of each is substantially the same. The treatise by Alcuin, drawn up for the use of the students at the imperial court, is founded on the same principles; but the definitions are sometimes more subtle, sometimes, too, more puerile, a fact for which the reader will be prepared when we observe that it is chiefly taken from Priscian. Thus, in nouns, we have the various distinctions of quality, comparison, gender, number, figure, case; of prænomen, nomen, cognomen, agnomen; of appellative and proper; of corporeal, incorporeal, radical, derivative, compositive, denominative, diminutive, homonymous, synonymous; with others, adjectival or prænominal, interminable as those of the ancient grammarians. It is a singular fact, that while, in other branches of knowledge, the progress of civilisation and refinement has added to its nomenclature, in grammar we have rejected many of the old distinctions, and sacrificed precision to simplicity. cuin's treatise on Dialectics is no mean attempt to assist the reasoning powers of the youthful, or even mature, mind: he thought the subject of so much consequence,

* Saxon MSS. in the Museum, cited by Turner, ubi supra.

Al

that in the dialogue nicating knowledge

- his favourite mode of commu

he introduces Charlemagne and himself as the speakers. It, too, is substantially the same with our modern works on logic: nor do we see that from his days, and long before his days, the human mind has gained much either in the invention or the use of argumentative weapons. In metaphysics there is a very bounded field: we have the names of three only, Bede, Alcuin, and Johannes Erigena, who distinguished themselves in abstract enquiries; and, even among them, it may be doubted whether Bede should be ranked. The treatise De Substantiis contains one expression indicating a much more modern period.* It may, indeed, be said, that it has been added by subsequent transcribers; but we fear the work exhibits more subtlety than that simple-minded, however learned, Northumbrian possessed. The same arguments will apply to the second of the treatises, De Elementis Philosophiæ: but, in fact, there is stronger evidence in favour of the negative. In most of the ancient MSS. of this treatise, another name appears, Gulielmus de Concha, a writer certainly of the tenth century. The metaphysical facts, however, of this latter work bear little proportion to the physical: they seem rather incidentally introduced, as much by way of illustrating the antagonist properties of matter and spirit as for any other reason. The treatise of Alcuin, De Anima, contains no great solidity, none whatever of profundity. He separates and defines the faculties of the soul, its modes of operation: he does not investigate its nature. He dwells chiefly on the memory, the will, and the understanding; which, though separately developed, are indissolubly united in the same spiritual nature. Should we also rank among the phi

The author, whoever he was, reckons 1000 years from the origin of Christianity, or even from the time of the Apocalypse being written. Opus est cunctis fidelibus, ne ecclesia sancta sub temporis præteriti partibus bene fundata et suffulta, penitus destruatur sub temporibus nostris, in quibus mille annis impletis juxta prophetiam in Apocalypsi prædicatam, Sa. tanus solutus esse videtur. (De Substantiis, p. 201.) After this decisive passage, it is surprising that any one should be found to father this work on Bede. The style and manner, too, suffice to disprove the paternity alleged.

losophical works of Alcuin his treatise against the heresy held by Felix of Urgel and Elipando of Toledo? * At this time theology was certainly beginning to be a science, even in England; while, before, it was merely a collection of scriptural texts, supported by extracts from the fathers. Now men began, not merely to extract, but to analyse and reason on the most mysterious points of faith; and though, in England, the invasions of the Danes, during part of the ninth and most of the tenth century, arrested the progress of theology as well as of every other mental pursuit, yet the example of archbishop Elfric proves, that even here the mind was conversant with such mysteries. † Hitherto the dogmas of the incarnation, the trinity, faith, grace, predestination, were held to be things too sublime for the human intellect things to be silently adored by a subdued reason. In the more ancient church, indeed, such subjects had been much agitated; but, during four centuries, at least, curiosity had slumbered, even in the regions where Christianity had always` pre- vailed. Among the nations of Germanic origin, it began for the first time to exist; but the attemps to gratify it were isolated: nor can scholastic theology be said to exist as a general science, however it might be partially cultivated by individuals, until Paschasius Radbertus, by his treatise on the Eucharist, led divines into the dangerous field. But though Paschasius may be said to have laid the first stone, and Johannes Scotus § to have assisted at the foundation of the building, the work proceeded slowly until Gerbert, and Berengarius, and St. Anselm laid their hands to the edifice: nor was it fully reared until the thirteenth century, when Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Alexander Hales, and a host besides, laboured at the task. Hence, from Alcuin little could be expected deserving the name of philosophy but he had a clear understanding; and

*See History of Spain and Portugal, vol. iv. p. 305. + See Vol. III. p. 336. of the present compendium. See Vol. III. p. 331.

Vol. II. p. 265.

he applied both scriptural texts, and the comments of doctors, with considerable force. He proved, in opposition to Felix and Elipando, that Christ is not merely the natural and nuncupative, but the eternal Son of God, not merely in his human capacity, but in his divine essence; that the filiation did not begin with the incarnation in the womb of the Virgin, but was from the fathomless depths of eternity. In his two works, for he answers Felix and Elipando separately,Alcuin exhibits great acuteness and more ecclesiastical erudition than was possessed by any man of the same century. We have, however, before characterised him as a writer*, and we will no longer dwell on the subject. The same may be said in regard to Johannes Scotus, to the sketch of whose life we refer the reader.† He, strictly speaking, is the only philosopher of whom these islands could boast; and he was not an AngloSaxon, but an Irishman.

From the preceding sketch it may be inferred, that the Anglo-Saxon intellect was far from contemptible; that, in poetry and prose, in the vernacular and the church idiom, the country, so long as its tranquillity was not affected by foreign invasions, obtained more distinction than any other during the same period. No other, indeed, can produce an ecclesiastic so learned as Bede; or a Latin poet comparable with St. Aldhelm; or vernacular verses fit to be mentioned with those of our ancestors; or a theologian like Alcuin; or a philosopher like Johannes Scotus and the monk of Ramsey, the most learned Bridferth. Yet, though this pre-eminence is certainly due to them, it is perfectly consistent with a very general barbarism. If individuals, instigated whether by duty or the hope of reward, thus obtained an enduring distinction, the case

Vol II. p. 251.

+ Ibid. p 265.

Bede, Incunabula Grammaticæ Artis, necnon De Octo Partibus Orationis (Opera, tom. i.). Albinus Dialectica, p. 488., necnon Grammatica, p. 506. (apud Canisium, Thesaurus Monumentorum, tom ii.). Ceillier, Histoire des Auteurs Ecclésiastiques, tom. xviii. p. 291. The dogmatic trea tises of Alcuin are in the collection of his works by Duchesne; most of them are also in the Magna Bibliotheca Patrum.