We must also admit that early English literature had reached a very high state of development, when we consider the few poor attempts which we find in France in the centuries preceding the Chanson de Roland.1 The history of early English prose begins most suitably with ALFRED THE GREAT (848-901). The ninth century witnessed a great crisis in the history of England. The Scandinavian Norsemen, and more particularly the Danes, had by their piratical inroads checked the peaceful development of the country. The invaders were even able, as in Normandy, to establish an independent monarchy of their own. The English people, however, found a deliverer in Alfred, a prince of their own race, who has justly received the title of "The Great," for the services rendered by him to the political and literary regeneration of his country. The Danish supremacy was extinguished for ever at the battle of Ethandune in 878, and Alfred set to work to restore, by sound precepts and wise example, the genius of literature to the home whence it had been scared by the horrors of war. Like Charlemagne, Alfred became the schoolmaster of his people; but he surpassed the former in that he took into his own hands the compilation of manuscripts, so that both monks and laymen could enrich their store of knowledge. With the English literature of former centuries Alfred was thoroughly acquainted; an old chronicler calls him poetarum Saxonicorum peritissimus (well read in the Saxon poets); he also understood Latin, well enough at least to finish unaided his excellent translations of Latin manuscripts. King Alfred is the first English prose writer. His translation of the De consolatione philosophiae (“On the consolation afforded by philosophy") of Boethius,2 is a little gem in its touching simplicity. The passage (quoted on page 17) from the story of Orpheus and Eurydice gives an indication of the style. What in Boethius was a stiff and affected classicism becomes, in King Alfred's version, simple and engaging. The genuine German fairy note, as opposed to classical themes, has a surprisingly graceful effect. Further, we have before us a paraphrase rather than a slavishly literal translation of the writings of Boethius. We see, in the numerous additions from the royal pen, the work of a really noble man and a wise ruler of his people. The Metra of Boethius, the metrical interludes so frequent in the original, were also metrically translated by the king in the national English form, alliterative, freely rhythmical verses, to which he has added much of his own. 1 See the author's Geschichte der französischen Litteratur, ch. I compare, for instance, the clumsy song of Eulalie with Cynewulf's Juliana. 2 Boethius was a late Roman philosopher, who was executed in the reign of Theodoric, in 525. His work enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages. The poetical vigour of these Metres may be seen from the following extract : Thu meaht be there sunnan Sweotole gethencean, And be æghwelcum Othrum steorran, Thara the cefter bungum Gif him wan fore Ne mogen hi swa leohtne Swa oft symlte sae Onhrerath hron-mere : And gereclice Rihte floweth, Irueth with his eardes; Muntes mægen-stan, And him on midden geligeth, Thinre heortan willath Minre leohtan Lare withstondan : And thin mod-gethonc Look now at the sun and also at the other heavenly bodies; when the swarthy clouds come before them, they cannot give their light; so also the south wind with a great storm troubles the sea, which before, in serene weather, was clear as glass to behold. When it is so mingled with the billows, it is very quickly unpleasant, though it before was pleasant to look upon. So also is the brook, though it be strong in its right course, when a great stone rolling down from the high mountain falls into it, and divides it and hinders it from its right course. In like manner does the darkness of thy mind now withstand my enlightened precepts. KING ALFRED's Works, Jubilee edition. Among other prose translations by King Alfred we must mention The historical books of Orosius (a fifth century Spanish historian) and Bede's (Latin) History of the Church of the English. Alfred made of Orosius a textbook of universal history for his subjects, and his many additions impart to the adaptation a vigour of which the tedious original is quite innocent. The reader is referred to the detailed account, narrated by an eye-witness, of a contemporary coasting voyage round Scandinavia. The oldest collection of statutes can also be traced back to Alfred. He collected the most important edicts which had been framed up to that time, and augmented them by others drawn up by himself. Early English prose never again enjoyed such pious literary care as that bestowed upon it by King Alfred. We have to wait a century before a great writer emerges from the darkness in the person of Abbot AELFRIC (about 950-1025). He left a collection of eighty-five sermons, a Latin grammar in English, and some other writings of little importance. The Saxon Chronicle, said to be partly the work of King Alfred, is a prose work of greater value to the student of the history and literature of the people. It opens with a short sketch of universal history until the times of Alfred, and from the year 855 it is the most important authority for the history of England down to the Norman Conquest. An exhaustive register of historical events to 923 is added. Later, this becomes more scanty, and is discontinued after the mention of the coronation of Henry II., in 1154. The Chronicle is a kind of official "Court Journal," which may have been instituted by King Alfred. Its language is very bald, and only certain poetical interpolations exhibit a higher style. The concluding chapters begin to show traces of the invasion of the language of the French conquerors, and at once form a connecting-link with the literature that followed the Norman Conquest. BIBLIOGRAPHY. HISTORY.-Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons; Palgrave, same title; Winkelmann, Geschichte der Angelsachsen; Lappenberg, History of England, vol. i. ; Green, History of England; Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest. LANGUAGE.-Dictionaries by Bosworth, Grein, Leo, Ettmüller. Grammars by E. Sievers, Cosijn. Dieter, Sprache der ältesten englischen Denkmäler. COLLECTIONS.-Grein, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie und Prosa; the same, Dichtungen der Angelsachsen (an alliterative translation); H. Sweet, An AngloSaxon Reader in Prose and Verse; the same, Oldest English Texts; Fr. Kluge, Angelsächsisches Lesebuch; R. Wülker, Kleinere angelsächsische Dichtungen; J. Earle, A Book for the Beginner in Anglo-Saxon; L. Ettmüller, Engla and Seaxna scopas and boceras; also the publications of the Early English_Text Society; R. Wülker, Die Verceller Handschrift; I. Gollancz, The Exeter Book. There are several good translations in the first volume of ten Brink's History of English Literature. HISTORY OF LITERATURE.-J. Earle, Anglo-Saxon Literature; R. Wülker, Grundriss zur Geschichte der angelsächsischen Litteratur; ten Brink, Geschichte der englischen Litteratur (vol. i. English translation); Merbot, Aesthetische Studien zur angelsächsischen Poesie; Stopford Brooke, History of Early English Literature. BEOWULF.-Editions; oldest by Thorkelin (Copenhagen, 1815), others by Kemble, Heyne, Wyatt, Arnold, Holder, Zupitza. Ühland, in his Essays on the History of Poetry and Legend; Th. Krüger, Ursprung und Entwickelung des Beowulf (Herrig's Archiv, vol. Ixxi.); Sarrazin, Beowulf-Studien; Müllenhoff, Beowulf; ten Brink, Beowulf; J. Earle, The Deeds of Beowulf; English translation by J. M. Garnett; Trautmann, Berichtigungen, Vermutungen, und Erklärungen zum Beowulf. ་་ CAEDMON.-Editions by Thorpe, Bouterwek, Grein (in his Bibliothek); Watson, Caedmon, the First English Poet. Most of the other Anglo-Saxon" poems will be found in the above-named compilations, especially in the editions of the Vercelli and Exeter MSS. KING ALFRED.-Jubilee edition (London, 1858). SAXON CHRONICLE.-Edition by J. Earle, by T. Thorpe. CHAPTER III MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE Τ 'HE Norman Conquest struck the greatest blow at the development of intellectual life in England which any civilised country has ever had to undergo. Notwithstanding the many specimens of the language and literature of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it is almost impossible accurately to gauge the confusion arising from the desire of the conquerors to force their own language on their defeated foe. Nothing more indisputably attests the vigour of the national character in England than the survival of all that was best in its literature amidst the general desolation, and the preservation of the native language in all its purity. We have sketched, in the first chapter, all the essential points in the influence of the Norman upon the English language. Poetry, especially, was affected by the tendency of the Norman final rhyme to suppress and eventually to abolish entirely the alliterative rhyme. For a brief period the two languages and literatures ran side by side. But the Saxons soon had to copy the French, when they found opposition was out of the question. In the first hundred years after the Conquest the French showed such utter contempt for the language of the country that every future literary effort in English was at once branded as out of fashion. The language of the English court was French till the thirteenth century, and the effects of this were far-reaching. It caused the dialects in Middle English to spread more widely, for the absence of any English court language prevented the prevalence of any written language. We can thus see how it is that, in that period, till nearly the close of the twelfth century, not a single English work of distinction is to be recorded. After a while we note a complete reaction in the political relations of the two races; the same change took place in regard to their language and literature. The Normans had quitted for ever their home in France, Normandy had passed into French hands by 1203, and so the |