VI. THE three great luminaries of the Anglo-Saxons CHA P. whofe attainments contributed fo much to increase intellectual cultivation among their countrymen in the century preceding Alfred the Great, were Ald." helm, Bede, and Alcuin. ALDHELM. ALDHELMUS, as he calls himfelf in his Latin poems, or, as Alfred spells it, Ealdhelm 4, Old Helmet, was of princely extraction. A kinfman of Ina was his father. He received his firft tuition from the celebrated Adrian, whom we have already commemorated, and he continued his ftudies at Malmsbury, where Maildulf, an Irishman, had founded a monaftery. He became thoroughly verfed in Greek and Latin under this tutor, who, charmed by the fylvan beauties of the place, led an hermit's life there, and fupported himfelf by teaching scholars. He returned to Kent, and refumed his ftudies under Adrian till his feverish ftate of health compelled him to relinquish them. He mentions fome of thefe circumstances in a kind letter to his old preceptor 15. 66 "I CONFESS, my deareft, whom I embrace with the "tenderness of pure affection, that when, about three years ago, I left your focial intercourfe and with"drew from Kent, my littlenefs ftill was inflamed with "an ardent defire for your fociety. I fhould have "thought of it again, as it is my wifh to be with you, ૯ if the courfe of things and the change of time "would fuffer me, and if divers obftacles had not 4 Alfred's Bede, 5.c. 18. 15 Mamb. de Pont. 3 Gale, 338. Bede, 5. c. 18. BOOK" prevented me. VI. 66 The fame weakness of my cor poreal infirmity boiling within my emaciating "limbs, which formerly compelled me to return "home, when, after the first elements, I had re'joined you again, ftill delays me." IN another letter he expreffes his love of ftudy,, and mentions the objects to which his attention was directed. These were the Roman jurisprudence, the metres of Latin poetry, arithmetic, aftronomy, and its fuperftitious child aftrology ". He became abbot of Malmsbury, and his government was diftinguished by the numerous and fplendid donations of land with which the great men of his time endowed his monaftery. In 705 he was made bishop of Sherborn, and in 709 he died. Before we confider his literary character we will glance a while on fome traditional tales which his ancient biographer has thought proper to at tach to him. To fubdue his rebellious body he immerfed himfelf up to the fhoulders, both in winter and fummer, during the night in a fpring near the monastery, till the last hymn was chanted. In a moment of temptation he held a woman in his arms without offering any improprieties till he had conquered his vicious feelings. Mamsbury mentions that he had no written evidence for thefe circumftances; but alludes to a filver fhrine, on which they were represented ", 16 3 Gale, 338. Henry has given almoft the whole of it in his Hiftory, vol. iv. p. 14. VI. IT may amufe the reader to know what miracles C H A P. were ascribed to him. A beam of wood was once lengthened by his prayers; the ruins of the church he built, though open to the skies, were never wet with rain during the worst weather; one of his garments, when at Rome, once raised itself high in the air, and kept there a while self-suspended; a child, nine days old, at his command once spake to clear the calumniated pope from the imputation of being its father 18. Such were the effufions of monaftic fancy which our ancestors were once ena moured to read and eager to believe. We will now pafs on to his literary character. HE, while abbot, addreffed a letter to Geraint king of Cornwall, whom he ftyles "the most glo"rious lord governing the fceptre of the western "kingdom," on the subject of the proper day of celebrating Eafter, which yet exifts"; but which has nothing in it to deserve further notice. He addreffed a learned book to Alfrid, the intelligent king of Northumbria, on the dignity of the number 7, on paternal charity, on the nature of infenfible things which are used in metaphors, on the rules of profody, on the metres of poetry 20, ALDHELM was highly eftimated by Malmsbury in the twelfth century, who places him above both Bede and Alcuin. Bede, his contemporary, defcribed him as a man in every respect most learned; neat in his style, and wonderfully skilled in fecular and ecclefiaftical literature. Alfred translates Bede's 18 3 1916 Mag. Bib. Pat. p. 65. VI. BOOK nitidus in fermone into on wordum hluttor and scinende, clear and shining in his words ". Malfbury clofes his panegyric on his ftyle with afferting that from its acumen you would think it to be Greek; from its fplendor, Roman; and from its pomp, English 2. After thefe lavish commendations, it will be neceffary to consider of their applicability. His letter to Eahfrid contains a moft elaborate fpecimen of Latin alliteration. Fifteen words begin with the fame letter in the first paragraph. "PRIMITUS (pantorum procerum pretorumque pio potiffimum paternoque præfertim privilegio) panegyricum poemata que paffim profatori fub polo promulgantes ftridula vocum fymphonia ac melodiæ cantilenæque carmine modulaturi hymnizenus." IN the fame letter we have afterwards "torrenda tetræ tortionis in tartara trafit." The whole epiftle exhibits a feries of bombaftic amplification 23. * His treatise in praife of virginity is his principal profe work, and is praised by Malmsbury for its rhetorico lepore. It is unfortunate for human genius that the taste and judgment of mankind vary in every age, and that fo defective are our criterions of literary merit, that even in the fame age there are nearly as many critical opinions as there are individuals who affuine a right to judge. Some things, however, please more permanently and VI. more univerfally than others; and fome kinds of CHA P. merit, like that of Aldhelm, are only adapted to flourish at a particular period. THIS fingular treatise contains a profufion of epithets, paraphrafes, and repetitions, conveyed in long and intricate periods. He clouds his meaning by his gorgeous rhetoric. Never content with illuftrating his fentiment by an adapted fimile, he is perpetually abandoning his fubject to purfue his imagery. He illuftrates his illuftrations till he has forgotten both their meaning and applicability. Hence his ftyle is an endless tiffue of figures, which he never leaves till he has converted every metaphor into a fimile, and every fimile into a wearifome epifode. In an age of general ignorance, in which the art of criticifm was unknown, his diction pleased and informed by its magnificent exuberance. His imagery was valued for its minutenefs, because, although ufually unneceffary to its fubject and to us disgusting, as a mere mob of rhetorical figures, yet, as thefe long details contained confiderable information to an uncultivated mind, and fometimes prefented pictures which, if confidered by themselves, are not uninteresting, it was read with curiofity and praised with enthusiasm. It is, however, juft to his memory to fay, that he was a man of genius, though of wild and uncultivated taste. His mind was as exuberant of imagery as Jeremy Taylor's. Many of his allufions, though fanciful, are appofite, and fome are elegant and vigorous, both in the conception and the expreffion; but he injures all his beauties by |