called day: creation of bright splendour He saw the dark shade black spread itself over the wide ground, when time declined over the oblation-smoke of the earth. from the pure shine, our Maker, the first evening. To him ran at last a throng of dark clouds. To these the King himself gave the name of night: these separated. Afterwards, as an inheritance, the will of the Lord made and did it eternal over the earth. Nothing can equal the poverty of this description, if that may be called description which consists only of vain repetition or paraphrastic amplifications of scripture language. Such repetitions, such paraphrastic amplifications, must have been peculiarly acceptable to one who was not animated by a single spark of invention. The subject was enough to call forth a flame, wherever genius glowed; but Caedmon had none; and, as we transcribe, the question continually recurs, what made this man the admiration of St. Hilda's community? Undoubtedly the charm must have consisted in his vocal powers. Rude as was the age, we were prepared to expect something better than this. If the learned reader will compare the paraphrase of Caedmon with the poems of St. Avitus of Vienne, who lived a century and a half before the Saxon, he will be surprised at the contrast: the one is all nakedness, rude, sterile, unimpressive; the other often catches a gleam of the fire which glowed in the breast of Virgil. The two, indeed, were placed in very different situations: the Gallic prelate beheld the still-existing, however rapidly fading, traces of Roman genius and taste: though the spirit was dying, it had not yet departed. On the other hand, Caedmon was illiterate: he was wholly unacquainted with the ancient stores of literature; nor, as his native mountains had never been irradiated with the Roman genius, could he discover a glimpse of the departing light. But, after all due allowances are made for the disparity of circumstances, we must still wonder at the contrast to which we have alluded.* After this specimen of sacred poetry, we have no wish to notice the poem of Judith, a paraphrase of that heroine's history in one of the Apocryphal books,— or the other rude effusions of the sacred muse. In this state the Anglo-Saxon poetry continued for two centuries. Both before and after Alfred, it was cultivated by all who had the taste for it, and it was always heard with applause. It formed the chief recreation, not only at festive entertainments, but in the open air; so that our street singers may boast of a profession somewhat older than is generally supposed. That St. Aldhelm, whose Latin poetry we shall hereafter mention, and who died early in the eighth century, composed ballads in the popular tongue, is expressly affirmed by Alfred and William of Malmesbury. By that monarch, who represents him as unrivalled, one ballad is mentioned so much a favourite with the public, that it was sung in the streets two centuries after the author's death. William adds a characteristic feature of the times. Aldhelm, anxious to instruct his halfbarbarous countrymen, and still more to reclaim them from their vices, took his station as a public singer on *Turner, Anglo-Saxons, iii. 318. Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. vi. pars 1. work. See the Poems of St. Avitus in the the public bridges and thoroughfares. When he saw that his auditors were attentive, he ingeniously turned the subject from profane to sacred things, and by so doing effected much good. It was a book of Saxon poems which first induced Alfred to learn the then dif ficult, and, out of the cloister, uncommon art of reading. From songs William of Malmesbury sometimes owns that he had derived his information; and Dunstan was charged with knowing the vain songs of his nation. In this latter case, indeed, the allusion is evidently to metrical incantations, which had, doubtless, subsisted from the pagan times. Canute the Great, as he was one day sailing by the abbey of Ely, heard the distant chanting of the monks, and this petty incident struck a chord which vibrated within him. He instantly composed a Saxon song, the beginning of which has been preserved by the chroniclers of Ely: "Merrily sang the monks in Ely When Canute the king was sailing by. Finally, Ingulf, as well as Malmesbury, bears evidence to the existence of popular songs, which, indeed, appear to have been handed down from father to son with peculiar enthusiasm. Frequent fragments may be found in the Saxon chronicle, not marked as verse, but incorporated with the prose, so as not easily to be distinguished from it. Thus, under the year 938, we have an account of king Athelstan's victory, which, though at first view mere prose, on a closer inspection betrays its rhythm, and a language consecrated to the service of the muse. Of this celebrated king we had, with much trouble, prepared a new translation, differing evidently from Gibson's, Turner's, and Ingram's; when the one by Mr. Price, the accomplished editor of Warton's History of English Poetry, fell into our hands. In a moment we committed our own version to the flames, both because it had been made from faulty originals (Gibson and Ingram), and because Mr. Price is the first Saxon scholar who has understood the original. In justice to him we adopt both his version and his notes, which display a critical ingenuity likely to interest every student in the language. See the Appendix. Under the year 975 we have another poem on the death of king Edgar. We will not translate it. Like the preceding, it exhibits the muse in the homeliest garb; nor does it contain sufficient of nature or feeling to redeem its rugged barbarity.* But the best effusions of the Anglo-Saxon muse are not to be sought either in sacred literature or in the chronicles. Many compositions of an historical, romantic, and miscellaneous character remain, far superior in merit to the preceding; and their entire publication would be a great boon to literature, since they would not only enable us to trace the history of our national poetry, but would throw great light on that of manners. From such fragments or collections as have already been published, we make two or three extracts, which will fully justify the assertion, that England had vernacular poets long before any other European country, and better than any other country down to the twelfth century. The period when most of the Anglo-Saxon poems were written cannot be ascertained. So little has our ancient language been studied, that we have no critics capable of distinguishing the style of the seventh from that of the eleventh century. Unless, therefore, some internal allusion to historic personages or manners guide us, we must remain in a chronological darkness that may be truly called Egyptian. Unfortunately, in the Saxon poems there are seldom such allusions; so that we cannot possibly ascertain the age of more than about four of them. One or two of them are supposed to have been written by Danish, not by Anglo-Saxon poets; but this is mere hypothesis: so nearly related were the two languages, that Dane or Angle could without dif ficulty write in either dialect. The first specimen is evidently from an Anglo-Saxon poet-of one hostile to the barbarous Danes, whom he calls heathens and pirates. It is the death of Brithnoth; a composition Wilhelmus Malmesburiensis, Vita S. Aldelmi, p. 339.; Regibus, pp. 45. 48. 101. Asserius Menevensis Vita Elfredi. Eliensis, p. 505. Ingulphus Croylandensis, Historia, pp. 67, 68. Saxonicum, an. 938. 975. Turner, Anglo-Saxons, iii, 280, &c. necnon De Historia Chronicon that must doubtless be referred to the eleventy century. From the Saxon chronicle we learn that Brithnoth, a celebrated Northumbrian earl, a patriot of unrivalled bravery, fell in 991, in battle against the Danes, at Meldune. The place is not, as all our critics have supposed, Maldon in Essex, but Meldon in Northum berland. The following is a fragment: it belongs to a poem which has neither beginning nor end; but, as a picture of the times, - and it appears to have been written soon after the reign of Ethelred II., -independent of its poetical character, it cannot fail to be read with interest: - Death of Brithnoth.* "When Brithnoth began to train his bands, he instructed the warriors in their array and discipline, how they should stand, how guide their steeds: he bade that they should hold their shields right forward with firm grasp, and should not fear aught. Soon as he had arrayed his eager troops, he alighted amid his favourite band, the retainers of his household, whom he knew the most faithful of all. Meanwhile the herald of the vikings stood in his station: stoutly he called forth, and, advancing opposite, spake in these words to proclaim the threatenings of the private host, their embassy to the earl:- The seamen bold send me to thee; they bid me say thou must deliver to them forthwith thy treasures for thy safety: better is it for you that ye should buy off this warfare with tribute, than that we should wage so hard a conflict: it boots not that we should slay each other. If ye will consent to this, we will ratify a peace with gold."" Brithnoth, however, scorned to buy the friendship of the pirates. Upraising his buckler with the left hand, and shaking his lance in his right, "Hear, thou son of the deep, what this people say: for tribute ye shall have our weapons. Herald of the ocean men ! deliver to thy people a message in return, a declaration of defiance!" The earl concluded by insultingly advising the Danes Though the translation of Brithnoth has been published by Mr. Conybeare in the Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, that book is become too scarce to be purchased at any price. We condense that translation, and, in some slight respects, alter it. |