held under the abbey, and proposed to use his gift of song in aid of the work that was being done by Abbess Hilda and her companions. Hilda called him to her, up the great rock, and, to test his power, caused pieces of Scripture story to be told to him, then bade him go home, and turn them into verse. He returned next day with the work so well done, that his teachers became, in turn, his hearers. Hilda then counselled him to give up his occupations as a layman, and received him with all his goods into the monastery. There sacred history was taught to him, that he might place the word of God in pleasant song within their homes, and on their highways, and at festive gatherings, upon the lips of the surrounding people. He was himself taught by religious men trained in the Celtic school, which was more closely allied to the Eastern than the Western Church. They knew and read the Chaldee Scriptures, and, as their new brother began his work with the song of Genesis, the name they gave him in the monastery was the Chaldee name of the Book of Genesis, derived from its first words, "In the beginning," that being, in the Chaldee, b'Cadmon.

3. Cædmon sang, in what is now called his "Paraphrase,' of the creation, and with it of the war in heaven, of the fall of Satan, and of his counsellings in hell as the Strong Angel of Presumption. Thus Cædmon began, first in time and among the first in genius, the strain of English poetry:

"Most right it is that we praise with our words,
Love in our minds, the Warden of the skies,

Glorious King of all the hosts of men:

He speeds the strong, and is the head of all

His high creation, the almighty Lord.

None formed him: no first was, nor last shall be,

Of the eternal Ruler; but his sway

Is everlasting over thrones in heaven."

Cædmon paints the Angel of Presumption, yet in heaven, questioning whether he would serve God:

"Wherefore,' he said, 'shall I toil?

No need have I of master. I can work

With my own hands great marvels, and have power
To build a throne more worthy of a God,

Higher in heaven. Why shall I, for his smile,

Serve him, bend to him thus in vassalage?
I may be God as he.

Stand by me, strong supporters, firm in strife.
Hard-mooded heroes, famous warriors,

Have chosen me for chief; one may take thought
With such for counsel, and, with such, secure
Large following. My friends in earnest they,
Faithful in all the shaping of their minds;

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I am their master, and may rule this realm.' And thus, to quote one passage more, Cædmon, a thousand years before the time of Milton, sang of Satan fallen:

"Satan discoursed; he who henceforth ruled hell

Spake sorrowing.

God's angel erst, he had shone white in heaven,
Till his soul urged, and, most of all, its pride,
That of the Lord of hosts he should no more
Bend to the word. About his heart, his soul
Tumultuously heaved, hot pains of wrath
Without him.

Then said he, 'Most unlike this narrow place

To that which once we knew, high in heaven's realm,
Which my Lord gave me, though therein no more

For the Almighty we hold royalties.

Yet right hath he not done in striking us

Down to the fiery bottom of hot hell,

Banished from heaven's kingdom, with decree

That he will set in it the race of man.

Worst of my sorrows this, that, wrought of earth,
Adam shall sit in bliss on my strong throne;
Whilst we these pangs endure, this grief in hell.
Woe, woe! Had I the power of my hands,
And for a season, for one winter's space,
Might be without, then with this host, I-
But iron binds me round; this coil of chains

Rides me; I rule no more; close bonds of hell.
Hem me their prisoner.'"

Cadmon, when he has thus told the story of creation and the fall of man, follows the Scripture story to the flood, and represents with simple words the rush of waters, and the ark "at large under the skies over the orb of ocean." So he goes on, picturing clearly to himself what with few words he pictures for his hearer. The story of Abraham proceeds to the triumph of his faith in God; when he had led his son Isaac to the top of a

high mount by the sea, he "began to load the pile, awaken fire, and fettered the hands and feet of his child; then hove on the pile young Isaac; and then hastily gripped the sword by the hilt, would kill his son with his own hands, quench the fire with the youth's blood." From this scene of God's blessing on the perfect faith of Abraham, Cædmon proceeds next to the passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites, a story of the power of God, who is able to lead those who put their faith in him unhurt through the midst of the great waters. And the next subject of the extant paraphrase is taken from the Book of Daniel, to show the same Power leading Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, with their garments unsinged, through the furnace-fire. This paraphrase closes with Belshazzar's feast. The rest is from the New Testament, inscribed in the one extant manuscript less carefully, and by a later hand. It has for its subject Christ and Satan. It is fragmentary; and perhaps no part of it is by Cædmon, except that which describes the fasting and temptation in the wilderness.

4. Thus the English heart sang through the verse of Cædmon its first great hymn based on the Word of Truth. But in the English heart, side by side with its sense of need, and of duty toward God, lay its sturdy joy in combat with man; and not far from the time when was born this first great English poem of religion, was born likewise the first great English poem of war.

The Teutonic settlers in England had brought along with them from the Continent an heroic legend concerning a chief named Beowulf, who was a Pagan like themselves; and the memory of him they kept alive within them long after they had ceased somewhat to be Pagans. By some unknown Christian poet, writing in the same north of England where Cadmon was uttering his inspirations, this old legend was put into English verse, forming a poem of 6,357 short lines, and bearing the name of its hero, "Beowulf.”

It is the most ancient heroic
Its hero sails from a land of

poem in any Germanic language. the Goths to a land of the Danes, and there he frees a chief named Hrothgar from the attacks of a monster of the fens and moors, named Grendel. Afterwards he is himself ruler, is wounded mortally in combat with a dragon, and is solemnly

buried under a great barrow on a promontory rising high above the sea. "And round about the mound rode his hearth-sharers, who sang that he was of kings, of men, the mildest, kindest, to his people sweetest, and the readiest in search of praise." In this poem real events are transformed into legendary marvels; but the actual life of the old Danish and Scandinavian chiefs as it was first transferred to this country is vividly painted. It brings before us the feast in the mead-hall, with the chief and his hearth-sharers, the customs of the banquet, the rude beginnings of a courtly ceremony, the boastful talk, reliance upon strength of hand in grapple with the foe, and the practical spirit of adventure that seeks peril as a commercial speculation; for Beowulf is undisguisedly a tradesman in his sword. The poem includes, also, expression of the heathen fatalism, "What is to be goes ever as it must," tinged by the energetic sense of men who feel that even fate helps those who help themselves; or, as it stands in "Beowulf," that "the Must Be often helps an undoomed man when he is brave."

5. These two poets, Cadmon and the unknown author of "Beowulf," were doubtless the greatest poets in our First English period; but, among the other poets of that period, a beautiful and interesting character was Aldhelm. He was born in 656, was of gentle stock, was well taught by the learned Adrian; and for the love of God he gave his life, with all his intellectual and his material wealth, to the monastery at Malmesbury. In 672, at the very time when Cædmon was doing his poetic work at Whitby, Aldhelm, a youth of sixteen, joined a poor monastery which had been founded by a Scot, more learned than rich, named Meldum, after whom the place had its name of Meldum's Byrig, or Malmesbury. The place was so poor that the monks had not enough to eat. Aldhelm obtained a grant of the monastery, rebuilt the church, gathered religious companies about him, and inspired in them his zeal for a pure life. He was a musician and a poet; played, it is said, all the instruments of music used in his time. His letters and his Latin verse, chiefly in praise of chastity, survive; but those English songs of his which were still on the lips of the people in King Alfred's day are lost to us. William of Malmes

bury has recorded, on King Alfred's authority, that Aldhelm was unequalled as an inventor and singer of English verse; and that a song ascribed to him, which was still familiar among the people, had been sung by Aldhelm, on the bridge between country and town, in the character of an English minstrel or gleeman, to keep the people from running home directly after mass was sung, as it was their habit to do, without waiting for the sermon. Another story is, that on a Sunday, at a time when many traders from different parts of the country came into Malmesbury, Abbot Aldhelm stationed himself on the bridge, and there, by his songs, caused some of those who would have passed to stay by him, and, leaving their trade until the morrow, follow him to church.

6. Apart from "Beowulf," and Cædmon's "Paraphrase," each existing in a single manuscript, the main body of the First English poetry that has come down to us has been preserved in two collections, known as the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book. Each is named from the place where it was found. The Exeter Book is a collection of poems given, with other volumes, to the library of his cathedral by Leofric, Bishop of Exeter, between the years 1046 and 1073. The other volume was discovered in 1823, in a monastery at Vercelli, in the Milanese, where it had been mistaken for a relic of Eusebius, who was once Bishop of Vercelli.

Among the pieces in these volumes are three of considerable length, by a poet named Cynewulf, who, according to one opinion, was Bishop of Lindisfarne, and died in 780, or, according to another opinion, was Abbot of Peterborough, and died in 1014. In the Vercelli Book is Cynewulf's "Elene," a poem of 2,648 lines, on the legend of St. Helen, or the finding of the true cross by the mother of Constantine. In the Exeter Book we have Cynewulf's legend of "Juliana," martyr in the days of Emperor Maximian, and a series of poems which have unity among themselves, and have been read as a single work, Cynewulf's" Christ." Cynewulf deals with Scripture history and legend in a devout spirit; and his poems are interesting, although their earnestness is not quickened by any touch of genius.

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