latter wrote Homilies and Lives of the Saints, and was a large translator of the Old Testament. Wulfstan (Archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023) also wrote Homilies; and his spirited Address to the English is specially noteworthy. Bede should also be mentioned in this connection for a vernacular version (735) of the Gospel of John, though it has unhappily perished. He wrote his other books, to the number of forty-four, in Latin prose. It is to Alfred that the honour belongs of having created English prose. There exists no English prose of earlier date than his. His design was the noble one of throwing open to his people in their own tongue the knowledge which, till then, was accessible only to the clergy. For that purpose he translated and edited many and various books, and wrote up The Saxon Chronicle. He was schoolmaster as well as king to his people.

The Saga of Beowulf.

It is a story of old Scandinavian life and pagan heroism. The scene is in Zealand and Gothland, and the Baltic Sound that separates them. In Zealand for many years had reigned King Hrothgar. Successful in battle, and rich with the spoils of war, he founded Heorot, a magnificent hall, for the entertainment of his thanes. Here he and his braves nightly feasted and slept. But the hall was built on the edge of a moor that was haunted by a huge grim monster, Grendel by name. Alone with his malignant monster-mother he dwelt, joy-hating and divided from joy. The lights and festive sounds of Heorot, streaming out by night over the waste moorland, annoy him, and he approaches the hall to reconnoitre. Watching his opportunity, he enters stealthily when the revellers are asleep and the lights are low, and seizing thirty men, hurries off with his victims into the darkness. At dawn there is woe in the hall of Heorot.

For twelve long years the monster continues his nightly ravages, till Heorot stands almost empty, and Hrothgar is pitied far and wide. Wandering scalds carry the tidings everywhere.

At the court of Hygelac, in Gothland, young Beowulf, the

king's kinsman, first heard of Grendel. Now Beowulf was the most daring Viking of his age, and the force of thirty heroes was in his hand-grip. No enterprise was too arduous for him: he would go to Heorot, and offer his services to Hrothgar, and do battle with the Grendel. Choosing fifteen comrades, he launches his long galley on the Sound, and rowing all that day and all night, descries at early dawn of the second day the glistening cliffs of Zealand. The warder of the coast hails the young searovers as they land, and demands their errand. He conducts them, not without suspicion of their warlike array, to Heorot. At the door of the hall they lay down their shields and mailshirts and javelins, and wearing only their towering helmetscrested with the image of a boar in gold-are led by Wolfgar, the steward of Heorot, into the presence of Hrothgar, and tell their story. Hrothgar is old and bald, but at the sight of heroic youth reckless of danger he grows young again. He remembers, with a warrior's respect, the father of Beowulf, and willingly accepts the services of that father's son. The night is devoted to feasting; and Beowulf, flushed with mead, boasts of his past achievements. A young Dane twits him with his failure in a five-days' swimming match on the open sea. Dane with his fear of the Grendel. at the rivalry of the young warriors. of Grendel's visit approaches. The company retire to rest, and are soon asleep-all but Beowulf. He sits withdrawn among the shadows, recalling his pledges and meditating the method of his attack.

Beowulf taunts the young
Hrothgar laughs with glee
But it is late, and the hour

He turns

Over the moor through the mist comes Grendel striding. He bursts open the hall door with his hands, and with flashing eyes surveys the sleepers. He laughs in horrid delight. In a moment he has seized the nearest, bit through his body, drunk his blood, and devoured him. He is already gloating over a second victim when Beowulf grips his right arm. The suddenness, but especially the strength of the grip, startles the monster. on his assailant, but his assailant holds the grip. struggle ensues. Benches are overturned; the hall is shaken; the sleepers in the sides of the hall sit up, terrified onlookers. This way and that way Beowulf and the Grendel plunge and sway, locked in deadly embrace. The monster would gladly flee, but Beowulf holds the grip. The monster shrieks, tugs amain,

A fearful

and with one mighty collected effort is free. But at what cost! His hand, arm, and shoulder-his severed and bleeding limb—is left in the grip of Beowulf!

At earliest dawn Beowulf and his comrades trace the fatal bloodmarks over the moor to the edge of a mere, the waters of which are surging red! It is with the blood of the Grendel ! They return with the joyful news to Heorot, and the day is given up to rejoicing and the night to revelry. The Grendel's arm attracts crowds, who come to see it from far and near. The queen and her timid maidens look on it and shudder. Beowulf is fêted, and rewarded with horses and harness, and celebrated in a saga, which is chanted in his ears that night. They all retire to rest with no fear of Grendel.

At dead of night the monster-mother of Grendel invades the hall, and snatching up the arm of her son, and one noble thane, victim to her vengeance, rouses the sleepers, and rushes off into the darkness. Beowulf vows her death; and next day, scouring the moor on horseback, they for the first time take notice of its desolate features. What monsters more may it not contain?

It is a waste of windy crags and gorges where the wolf lurks; of misty marshes and stagnant pools, swarming with serpents and dragons; of brawling streams, tumbling from the clouds over cliffs and flooding the hollows; there are shaggy woods, and strange fires dance on the loch waters. Though the moorwanderer, the tall stag, hotly pursued from afar by the hounds, were to make for these shaggy woods, yet would he pause on nearer view of their forbidding aspect, and rather yield his life than enter their recesses in the hope of shelter. Rather would he die of thirst on the bank of that ghastly lake than stoop his head to drink of its waters.

It

Beowulf and his comrades come again to the central mere. is still red with gore; and, to their horror, there is the head of their comrade, the victim of the preceding night, floating ashore! And now they see demons lying in the clefts of the surrounding rocks. One of them Beowulf shoots with an arrow; then, sounding a war-blast on his horn, at the sound of which the demons hurry from sight, the mailed hero grasps his good sword Hrunting, dives in the deep water, and disappears!

For a whole day he continued sinking. The mere-monster, wolf and woman both, Grendel's mother, clutched him ere his

feet touched bottom, and

bore him to her vast den. A dreadful struggle took place here. Beowulf's sword was powerless against the monster, only with his hand-grip could he hold her. He caught up a huge bill, an old sword of the giants', and smote her with it. It was her death-stroke! Looking round him he saw the lifeless body of the Grendel. With the giants' sword he severed the head; hot blood welled up, melting with its heat the sword-blade, and leaving only the hilt in Beowulf's hand! With the hilt and the two heads, regardless of the wealth in the monster's den, he rose through the mere and reached the surface. His companions, seeing the mere reddened with more blood, had given him up for lost. Great was their joy when they helped him ashore. Four of them carried, and scarcely carried, the head of the monster on a stake to Heorot. "Now," said Beowulf to Hrothgar, "now may'st thou and thy warriors sleep in Heorot free of care." There was feasting again that night. And next morning Beowulf and his brave band, laden with presents, raised sail, and passed over sea to their Gothland home.

Beowulf became king of Gothland, and reigned-a brave and blameless ruler-fifty years. His last exploit was to choke with his terrible grip and slay a fire-dragon, fifty feet long, who wasted his land and guarded a treasure in a cavern. But in the encounter the breath of the monster burnt and poisoned him too severely for recovery. On Hrones-ness, a high sea-cape commanding a far view, his sorrowing people built a pile of pine-logs, hung it round with shields and arms, and laid the body of their lord atop; they then set the wood on fire. And thus, as he had ordered, the earthly image of Beowulf passed from the eyes of men.

verse.

Such is a rapid outline of the Saga of Beowulf, the first long poem in the English language. If it be claimed for The Saxon Chronicle that it is the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose, not less justly may the claim be made for Beowulf that it is the earliest and most valuable monument of Teutonic Its poetical beauties are not its only merit: it is of great historical value, showing familiarly and minutely the whole manners, and customs, and mode of life of our pagan ancestors. The events of one entire day are successively recorded. The style of the verse is terse and straightforward, well adapted for the rapid narration of action, but not without that kind of repetition known as parallelism; there are few similes-only five in all-and not

many metaphors, but compound words are common—e.g., swan-
road" for "water," "heath-stalker" for "stag," "bone-case" for
"ribs," &c. The verse itself is peculiar, and, though long disused
in our literature, was popular for many centuries. It was still
the popular form of poetry in the middle of the fourteenth cen-
tury, when Langland wrote his Vision. The last effective use of
it was made by the Scottish poet, William Dunbar, at the very
close of the fifteenth century. Saxon alliterative verse, as it is
called, takes account of neither metre nor rhyme. It is built on
a principle of accent and alliteration. Each verse falls into two
parts as if corresponding to the forward and backward movement
of a rower; there are usually two accented syllables in each part,
placed naturally on the important words, and the first three
usually begin with the same letter, or at least express the same
sound. Here is a specimen which exemplifies the general rule:
"Hie dígel lond

warigeath, wulfhleothu, windige næssas,
frécne fenngelád, thær firgenstreám

under næssa genipu nither gewíteth,

flód under foldan."

(They keep their country secret, their wolf-slopes, windy peaks, dangerous marsh-paths, where the mountain torrent from under the hill-mists descends, flooding the lowlands.)

Cadmon.

The classical English story which tells how Cadmon came to write verses was taken by King Alfred from the Latin of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. Bede was a young child-scholar at Jarrowon-Tyne when Cadmon died at Whitby in 680. The story goes very much in this way: He was a layman till of advanced age, and had never learned to sing; and on that account, when at festive times the harp was passed from hand to hand till each had sung for the entertainment of the rest, Cadmon would rise, when it was coming near his turn, and steal away home quite ashamed of himself. On one of those occasions, happening to have charge of the cattle that same night, he withdrew to the cattle-stalls, and having seen that everything was safe, threw himself down on some straw and fell asleep. He had been sleeping some time when he was aware of a man in a vision