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ments of English literature. There is little in Coleridge's poetry that is Saxon, and nothing in Pope's that is Celtic, though both are parts of English literature. Dr. Johnson is solidly Saxon, and Goldsmith has the Celtic pathos and grace in his style. Burke is a Celtic orator, and Fox an English debater. So the two great hereditary strains appear, and give English literature scope, variety, and interest. Shakespeare's preeminence depends on the fact that the qualities of the two races were organically united in his mind.

Introduc

When the German tribes invaded England, they were not Christianized. Christianity had been established among the Celts, and the Saxon invasion was in tion of reality a heathen reaction, although the Saxons Christianity. were as far advanced in the essentials of civilization as were the Britons. When their power was firmly established, a band of missionaries (under the leadership of Saint Augustine, who “brought fulhut [baptism] hider in") arrived from Rome in 597, and, landing in Kent near the site of the present city of Canterbury, taught the doctrine and worship of the Christian religion. From this center Christianity spread over the land. Soon afterwards missionaries from Ireland established monasteries and churches in the north, and in a short time the worship of the heathen deities was superseded among the conquerors.

Both before and after their conversion to Christianity the Anglo-Saxon people developed a native literature. Anglo-Saxon The language is a highly inflected one, and is Poetry. characterized by virility rather than by grace and harmony. Although Anglo-Saxon literature can be fully appreciated only by those who have made

a study of the language, any one can gather from history and translations some idea of the character of our remote ancestors. Their poetry, as the oldest written record of the Teutonic races, except the translation of the Gospel in Gothic, is entitled to be regarded with veneration. Strictly speaking, it forms no part of English literature, since it is not in a form of English that we can read without study; unfortunately it has not the relation to our minds that the poems of Homer had to the minds of the Athenians of the time of Sophocles, but in the truest sense there is no break of continuity between that which is written in Anglo-Saxon (old English) and in modern English. But it has great qualities of its own, and throws light on all the subsequent development of English thought. It is hoped that the following brief references may lead to fuller study, even if only through the medium of translations.

Anglo-Saxon literature consists of short poems, paraphrases of portions of the Old Testament, prose translations from Latin, and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," on which and on Bede's "Ecclesiastical History," written in Latin in the eighth century, but translated by King Alfred into Anglo-Saxon, early English history is for the most part based.

The oldest document in Anglo-Saxon is the "Song of Widsith the Far-Traveler." It probably received its present form after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. The wanderer is a "scop," or gleeman, who asserts that he visited the halls of kings, some of whom lived in the fourth century, others in the sixth. The narrative throws light upon the life of a professional singer of the early times among the Teutonic races.

"Beowulf" is the longest poem in Anglo-Saxon. It

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'Beowulf."

details the exploits of the hero in early life, his last feat in killing the "fire-dragon," his death from injuries received in the combat, and the ceremonies of his funeral. It, too, probably originated in heathen times, and received its final recasting in Northumbria in the eighth century. The poem was forgotten for eight or nine hundred years, and would have been irrevocably lost but for the preservation of a single manuscript not published till early in the nineteenth century. The story is briefly as follows: Hrothgar, king of the Gar-Danes, has built himself a splendid mead hall called Heorot, where he holds high festival. A monster from the fen, called Grendel, breaks in and carries off thirty of the king's men. No one can cope with Grendel till Beowulf, the hero of the Geats, hears of the calamity, and undertakes to protect the Danes. He is received with joy and royally entertained. During the night Grendel comes and kills one of his companions, but is mortally wounded by Beowulf, who pulls off the creature's arm. The next night Grendel's mother, a monster of still more extraordinary power, comes to the hall and kills one of Hrothgar's thanes. In the morning Beowulf tracks her to her submarine den, dives in, and after a fearful combat kills her too. He then returns to Sweden. After an interval of fifty years we find him king of the Geats. A fire-breathing dragon, possessor or guardian of a great treasure, is devastating the land. Him the heroic old king attacks, accompanied by his thanes. All but one prove cowardly, but Beowulf, with the aid of the faithful one, attacks and kills the dragon, and is fatally injured. He divides the treasure and dies; his body is burned, and a barrow or tumulus is erected in his honor, a "sea-mark for sailors"

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There are extant a number of other poetical works, some fragmentary and some complete, among which may be mentioned Cædmon's paraphrase of parts of Genesis; "Judith," a fine poem, also from the Bible; and three descriptions of fights, the "Fight at Finnesburg," the "Battle of Brunanburh," and the "Battle of Maldon," which last is very graphic. The last two are contained in the "Saxon Chronicle" of the tenth century. All of them relate to contests with other Teutonic tribes. The battles with the Britons apparently were not celebrated in song.

The "Finnesburg Fight."

Anglo-Saxon poetry is marked by vigor rather than by grace. The form is short alliterative lines, which were intended to be sung or recited with considerable force and emphasis. In the "Finnesburg Fight," of which we have but a few verses, Fin, the Frisian prince, sees a gleam of light in his hall, fired by the Danes at night. This passage is rendered by Miss E. W. Washburn as follows:

"Then wildly cried he,

The Warrior King,

This is no dawn of East,

No flight of dragon,

Nor burn the cressets;

Bright in the broad hall

Fierce is the flaming.

Rouse ye, my heroes,

Fight for your dear land,'

Fight in the forefront.'

Then in the hall arose

Roar of the slaughter;

Round mighty Guthlafson
Lay many corpses.
Sailed then the raven
Swart and brown-sallow;
In the fierce sword-gleam,
Seemed it Fin's castle

Blazed altogether.

Battle I never heard,

Nobler of heroes,

Fitter for mead-feast."

To one whose ear is accustomed to the melody of the Romance languages, or to the interlocked harmonies of the Greek or Latin hexameter or of the Miltonic or Tennysonian blank verse, the form of Anglo-Saxon verse must seem crude, rugged, and devoid of melody. But we must remember that grace and fluency are not the only qualities of verse. Vigor is another one, and the proper one on which to superinduce the ornamental. Excess of vigor is far preferable to excess of sweetness. Besides, the fine elemental moral qualities of our forefathers, courage, fidelity, earnestness, and a devotion to duty, are evident in their poetry.

The paraphrase of Genesis by Cadmon, and the fragment of Judith by an unknown author, were written after the conversion of the people to Christianity, and are seri

Cædmon.

ous poetry of a high order for sincerity and force. The "call" of Cædmon is told by Bede. Though well advanced in years, Cædmon had learned nothing of the art of verse, the alliterative jingle so common among his fellows, "wherefore being sometimes at feasts, when all agreed for glee's sake to sing in turn, he no sooner saw the harp come towards him than he rose from the board and turned homewards. Once when he had done thus, and gone from the

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