Sir Robert Cotton was a still greater collector, and to him we owe all the Saxon Chronicles save two, ‘Beowulf,' a fragment of a noble poem on the story of Judith, part of the works of Elfric, the Lindisfarne Gospels of the ninth, and a Psalter of the tenth century.

To Archbishop Laud we owe the famous 'Peterborough Chronicle,' and some of the works of Ælfric. To Christopher Lord Hatton (time of Charles II.) we owe Alfred's translation of the Pastoral Care,' and the translation of Gregory's Dialogues' with Alfred's preface.

To Franciscus Junius, a celebrated scholar of Charles II.'s time, we owe the Cadmon, and a Psalter of the tenth century.

In 1851 there was brought to light a book of Saxon homilies of a generation earlier than Elfric from the library of Blickling Hall, in Norfolk.

In 1860 a valuable fragment of an epic poem on King Waldhere was discovered at Copenhagen on some scraps of vellum taken from book-backs.

INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

In the eleventh century English literature languished. The Winchester Chronicle' has for this period but a few meagre entries; Ælfric was gone and no one had arisen to compare with him in learning or eloquence, and Cynewulf's poems and the great songs of the 'Chronicle' belonged to an age that had passed away.

The exhausting struggle with the Danes in the early

years of the century, and in later years the growing intercourse with Normandy were doubtless the chief causes of this stagnation. Edward the Confessor's tastes and sympathies were French, as was Latural for one whose youth was spent in Normandy in the closest friendship and relationship with its rulers, and as far as might be he surrounded himself with Norman councillors, both in Church and State. Then came the great shock of the Norman Conquest, and within a short time scarcely an Englishman was left as bishop or abbot or great noble, and the nathe literature had no longer any recognition in the king's court or in those of his great barons.

The language could not die while the bulk of the people remained the same, but it underwent a great change. Old English was a highly inflected language, and its system of case-endings was especially elaborate. These inflections were gradually falling away under the influence of natural laws, and we can see that the language of Alfric is simpler and more modern than that of Alfred.

But now this slow and natural change was enormously quickened, and all these sounding terminations that make so handsome a figure in Saxon courts-the

AN, the --UM, the -ERA and -ENA, the -IGENNE and IGENDUM-all these, superfluous as bells on idle horses, were laid aside when the nation had lost its old political life and its pride of nationality, and had received leaders and teachers who spoke a foreign tongue.'1

From this time three languages existed side by side within the kingdom-Latin, the language of the clergy

1 Earle.

and the learned; French, that of polite intercourse; and English, that of the mass of the people. The famous Abbot Samson, of St. Edmundsbury (Carlyle's' Past and Present'), could preach in three languages, and, sturdy Englishman as he was, he preferred a certain man to be one of his chief tenants because he could speak no French.

During the reigns of the first six or eight kings after the Conquest, Latin was the language used in nearly all public documents, and it was probably chosen as being the common language of Western Christendom, while French would have been the badge of conquest. Then, from the beginning of the reign of Edward I. onward, for about eighty or ninety years French took the place of Latin, till at last it also yielded before the English, which once more had gained supremacy.

The final victory of English was somewhat retarded by the vanity of men and the usage of grammar schools, for we are told Children in scole beth compelled, agines the usage and maner of alle other naciouns, for to leve her owne langage, and for to constrewe her lessouns and her thingis a Frensch, and haveth siththe that the Normans come first into England. Also gentil mennes children beth ytaught for to speke Frensch from the tyme that thei beth rokked in her cradel and kunneth speke and playe with a childes brooche. And uplondish men wole likne hemself to gentil men, and fondeth with great bisynesse for to speke Frensch for to be the more ytold of.' (Higden's Polychronicon,' translated from Latin into English by John of Trevisa, in 1385.)

Trevisa adds: This maner is siththe som del ychaun

1 Their.

gide. For John Cornwaile, a maistre of grammar, chaungide the lore in grammar scole and construction of Frensch into Englisch, and Richard Pencriche lerned that maner teching of him, and other men of Pencriche. So that now, the yere of our lorde a thousand thre hundred foure score and fyve, in all the grammar scoles of Englond children leveth Frensch and construeth and lerneth an Englisch.'

LATIN AND FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE
NORMAN PERIOD.

It is foreign to the purpose of this little book to speak of any other than of our own native literature, but the Latin and French works of the Norman period were so many and so important that a few words must be given. to some of them. Lanfranc and Anselm, who were in succession Archbishops of Canterbury, were theologians of European fame, and some of their chief works were written after they came to England. The Norman clergy who came over here were in general more highly educated than the English, and through their coming a great stimulus was given to education and especially to the cultivation of Latin literature. Englishmen, no less than Frenchmen, distinguished themselves, and the Latin historical literature of the twelfth century is one of which any country might be proud. The English monk Eadmer, the friend and biographer of Anselm, wrote the history of the period from 1066 to 1122. Florence of Worcester gives in Latin the story of the old

English Chronicles, and Simeon of Durham does the same, but makes use of many northern annals which are now lost.

William of Malmesbury then wrote his noble' History of the Kings of England,' which was no mere collection of annals, but a work after the model of the great histories of Greece and Rome. He made use of many old English songs which are now lost, and in this he was followed by Henry of Huntingdon.

The story of the Conquest was written in Latin verse by Guy of Amiens, and in Latin prose by William of Poitiers. Ordericus Vitalis, another historian of Norman parentage, was born on the banks of the Severn, and in the retirement of a Norman monastery he wrote a history, of which that part is very valuable which deals with the period after the Conquest.

To the same period belongs that wonderful book the History of the Britons,' written by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bishop of St. Asaph's. The work contains hardly a shred of historical truth, but it is a rich storehouse of romance and fable. There for the first time appear in literature Locrine and Lear, and Merlin and Uther Pendragon, and the great Arthur, and others whose story has charmed so many generations. The book became at once immensely popular, and from it as from a well-head flowed many later tales of romance.

Within a few years Wace, a native of Jersey, turned Geoffrey's book from Latin into a French metrical romance, and presented it to Eleanor, the queen of Henry II. Wace called his work 'Brut d'Engleterre,' and it became in turn the foundation of the English