PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

WHEN I acceded to the wish of the Council to become the President of this Association for the present year, I naturally turned to the examination of the subject-matter of those Addresses delivered by the former occupants of this Chair, especially with a view to the selection of some topic relating to this county. Ascertaining that Devonshire literature had not formed the theme of any, I have selected it on the present occasion, especially as I may declare myself, with a slight alteration of a well-known Horatian phrase—

"Laudator bibliorum actorum."

If an apology for such a selection were needed, Carlyle has more than amply supplied it. "In books," he remarks, "liesthe soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. . . All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men."

As a reverential lover of books-and surely no man has a right to describe them unless he be such a lover-I may exclaim with Chaucer

"Books in mine herte have hem in reverence
So hertely, that there is game none,
That fro my bookes maketh me to gone."

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In attempting to give some account of Devonshire Works and their Authors, I do not purpose to pass beyond the year 1640, when the meeting of the Long Parliament became " definite and distinct turning-point in our printed literature (Arber); and the exigencies of an Address of this kind will not enable me to give more than a faint and somewhat blurred outline. My aim will be to point out in what directions English literature generally, as well as locally, has been aided by the labours of Devonshire men and of Devon

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shire residents; at the same time to draw attention to some of the more notable works and institutions, that stand out prominently above their fellows. In so doing, I hope the time spent will not be deemed altogether profitless; more particularly I trust I may not be accused of misdirected energy, and so fall under the definition included in the scathing lines of J. R. Lowell, as

"A reading machine, ever wound up and going,

He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing."

As a matter of convenience we may divide our subject into periods, differing much in duration, being for the most part marked by some prominent historical event, rather than by any order of time.*

First Period, -1087.

Our first period extends from the earliest times to the death of William I. in 1087.

The earliest literary man to notice belonging to this county, of whom we have any cognizance, is WINFRID or WINFRITH (680-755), a native of Crediton, more widely known as St. Boniface, "the apostle of Germany"; born in the year when Cadmon, the Anglo-Saxon poet, is reported to have died. Up to this time, learning and learned men had been more especially identified with the north and north-east of England, and with Ireland. Wilfred, Benedict Biscop, Cædmon, Ceolford, Bede, were Northumbrians. The life of St. Boniface was one of too much activity to afford him much leisure for literary work. In addition to a set of ecclesiastical statutes, some sermons, and minor religious works, he wrote a Latin poem termed Ænigmata de Virtutibus, addressed to his sister. This entitles him to be considered as the earliest Devonshire poet of whom we possess any record. He is, however, best known for his Epistolæ, the correspondence between himself and his friends, during the period of his missionary work in Germany, 718-755-the earliest collection of letters of an Englishman that we possess. In the opinion of Green, the historian (i. 4), “the letters of Boniface and Alcwine . . . form the most valuable contemporary materials," for the history of England of the period in which they were written. Social and general and personal history, the trials and labours of his missionary work, all find a place in them. His literary character displays itself in his fondness for books, his friends being

* In Appendix A will be found a list of the authorities cited. The references in figures are to notes in that appendix.