vince of Normandy, watered by a noble river, and contiguous to the sea, which was their favorite element. In that province they founded a mighty state, which gradually extended its influence over the neighbouring principalities of Brittany and Maine... Without laying aside that dauntless valor which had been the terror of every land from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than all, the language, knowledge, and refinement which they found in the country where they settled.

The polite luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He loved to display his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armor, gallant horses, choice falcons, well-ordered tournaments, banquets, delicate rather than abundant, and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite flavor than for their intoxicating power... That chivalrous spirit, which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, morals, and manners of all the European nations, was found in the highest exaltation among the Norman nobles.

The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an effect on Anglo-Saxon England. Before the conquest, English princes received their education in Normandy. English sees and English estates were bestowed on Normans. The French of Normandy was familiarly spoken in the palace of the English kings. The court of Rouen seems to have been to the court of Edward the Confessor, what the court of Versailles long afterwards was to the court of Charles II.

The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the whole population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race... The subjugation of a nation by a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete. The country was portioned out among the captains of the invaders. Strong military institutions, closely connected with the institution of property, enabled the foreign conquerors to oppress the children of the soil. A cruel penal code, cruelly enforced, guarded the privileges, and even the sports of the alien tyrants.

England, which, since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell at length under the dominion of a trifler and a coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their election between the island and the Continent. Shut up by the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and de

spised, they gradually came to regard England as their country, and the English as their countrymen... The two nations so long hostile, soon found that they had common interests and common enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king. Both were alike indignant at the favor shown by the court to the natives of Poitou and Aquitaine... The great grandsons of those who had fought under William, and the great grandsons of those who had fought under Harold, began to draw near to each other in friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for their common benefit. Macaulay.

ANGLO-SAXON INDUSTRY.

WHEN the Anglo-Saxons invaded England, they came into a country which had been under the Roman power for about four hundred years, and where agriculture, especially after the energetic rule of Agricola, had been so much encouraged, that it had become one of the western granaries of the empire... The Britons, therefore, of the fifth century may be considered to have pursued the best system of husbandry then in use, and their lands to have been extensively cultivated with all those exterior circumstances which mark established proprietorship and improvement: as small farms, enclosed fields, regular divisions into meadow, arable, pasture, and wood; fixed boundaries; planted hedges; artificial dykes and ditches; selected spots for vineyards, gardens, and orchards; connecting roads and paths; scattered villages and larger towns; with appropriate names for every spot and object that marked the limits of each property, or the course of each way... All these appear in the earliest Saxon charters, and before the combating invaders had time or ability to make them, if they had not found them in the island. Into such a country the AngloSaxon adventurers came, and by these facilities for rural civilisation soon became an agricultural people... The natives, whom they despised, conquered and enslaved, became their educators and servants in the new arts, which they had to learn, of grazing and tillage; and the previous cultivation practised by the Romanised Britons will best account for the numerous divisions, and accurate and precise descriptions of land which occur in almost all the Saxon charters.

The great season of abstinence from flesh, and the regular recurrence through the year of days of fasting, rendered a pro

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vision for the supply of fish to the population a matter of deep concern to their ecclesiastical instructors. In the times when the Pagan Saxons were newly converted to Christianity, the missionaries were the great civilisers, and taught the people how to avail themselves of the abundant supply of food which the sea offered to the skilful and the enterprising. Bede tells us that Wilfred so taught the people of Sussex... "The bishop, when he came into the province, and found so great misery of famine, taught them to get their food by fishing. Their sea and rivers abounded in fish, and yet the people had no skill to take them, except only eels. The bishop's men having gathered eel-nets everywhere, cast them into the sea, and by the help of God took 300 fishes of several sorts, the which being divided into three parts, they gave a hundred to the poor, a hundred to those of whom they had the nets, and ... The Anglo-Saxons had kept a hundred for their own use oxen and sheep; but their chief reliance for flesh meat, especially through the winter season, was upon the swine, which, although private property, fed by thousands in the vast woods with which the country abounded. Our word bacon is "from the beechen-tree, anciently called bucon, and whereas swine's flesh is now called by the name of bacon, it was given only at the first unto such as were fatted with bucon or beechmast." As abundant as the swine, were the eels that flourished in their ponds and ditches. The consumption of this species of fish appears from many incidental circumstances to have been very great. Rents were paid in eels, boundaries of lands were defined by eel-dykes, and the monasteries required a regular supply of eels from their tenants and dependents.

Three centuries after Wilfred had taught the people of Sussex to obtain something more from the waters than the rank eels in their mud-ponds, the produce of the country's fishery had become an article of regular exchange. The citizens bought of the fisherman as much fish as he could sell; the fisherman obtained big loaves and clothing from the citizens. The enterprise which belongs to the national character did not Though rest satisfied with the herring and salmon of the sea. the little fisherman crept along the shore, there were others who went with many ships to hunt whales. We cannot have a more decisive indication of the general improvement which had followed in the wake of Christianity, even during a period of constant warfare with predatory invaders.

The garments of the Anglo-Saxons, both male and female, were linen as well as woollen, but we can easily judge that in a country whose population was surrounded by vast forests and

dreary marshes, wool, the warmer material for clothing, would be of the first importance. The fleece which the shepherd brought home in the pleasant summer season, was duly spun throughout the winter by the females of every family, whatever might be their rank... King Edward the elder commanded that his daughters should be instructed in the use of the distaff. Alfred, in his will, called the female part of his family the spindle side. At this day, true to their ancient usefulness (the form of which, we hope not the substance, has passed away), unmarried ladies are called spinsters. But the Anglo-Saxon ladies attained a high degree of skill in the ornamental work belonging to clothing. The Norman historians record their excellence with the needle, and their skill in embroidery.

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August they call Arn-monat, more rightly Barn-monat, or Barn-month, intending thereby the then filling of their barns with corn." The arable portion of an estate was probably comparatively small. The population of the towns was supplied with corn from the lands in their immediate vicinity...There was no general system of exchange prevailing throughout the country. In the small farms enough corn was grown for domestic use; and when it failed, as it often did, before the succeeding harvest, the colewort and the green pulse were the welcome substitutes... Wheaten bread was not in universal use. The young monks of the abbey of St. Edmund ate the cheaper barley bread. The baker, in Alfric's colloquy, answers to the question of "What use is your art? we can live long without you: ""You may live through some space without my art, but not long nor so well; for without my craft every table would seem empty, and without bread all meat would become nauseous. I strengthen the heart of man, and little ones could not do without me"... In a picture representing a dinner party, some food is placed on the table; but the kneeling servants offer the roasted meat on spits, from which the guests cut slices into their trenchers. We smile at these primitive manners, but they were a refinement upon those of the heroes of Homer, who were their own cooks.

C. Knight.

THE DEATH OF THE CONQUEROR.

Ar the end of the year 1086, when he had been seated nineteen years upon the throne of England, William went over to the Continent with a mighty army to wage war with Philip, king of France, for the possession of the city of Mantes and the

country of the Vexin...The corn was almost ready for the sickle, the grapes for the wine-press, when he marched his cavalry through the corn-fields and made his soldiery tear up the vines by the roots, and cut down the pleasant trees. Mantes was soon taken, and consigned to the flames...Neither house nor cottage, -nay, neither church nor monastery was spared. As the conqueror rode up to view the ruin he had caused, his war-horse put his fore-feet on some embers, or hot cinders, and then swerved or plunged so violently that the heavy rider was thrown upon the high pommel of the saddle, and grievously bruised. The king dismounted in great pain, and never more put foot in stirrup. Forthwith quitting the burning town, he was carried slowly in a litter to Rouen, and again laid in his bed...It was soon evident to all, and even to himself, that his last hour was approaching. Being troubled by the noise and bustle of Rouen, and desirous of dying in a holy place, he made his people carry him to the monastery of St. Gervas, outside the city walls. He lingered for six weeks, during which he was surrounded by doctors, priests, and monks...On the nearer approach of death his heart softened; and though he preserved the kingly decorum, and conversed calmly on the wonderful events of his life, he is said to have felt the vanity of all human grandeur, and a keen remorse for the crimes and cruelties he had committed. He sent money to Mantes to rebuild the churches and houses of religion he had burned, and he ordered large sums to be paid to the churches and monasteries in England which he had plundered and impoverished. He released all his state prisoners, as well Saxons as others, some whom had pined in dungeons for more than twenty years... Robert, his eldest son, who had had many violent quarrels with his father, was absent, but his two younger sons, William and Henry, who were successively kings of England, were assiduous round the death-bed, waiting impatiently for the declaration of his last will...A day or two before his death, the conqueror assembled some of his prelates and chief barons in his sick chamber, and raising himself in his bed, he with a solemn and ghastly countenance declared in their presence that he be queathed the duchy of Normandy and its other dependencies to his eldest son Robert..." As to the crown of England," said the dying monarch, "I bequeath it to no one, as I did not receive it, like the duchy of Normandy, in inheritance from my father, but acquired it by conquest and the shedding of blood with mine own good sword. The succession to that kingdom I therefore leave to the decision of God, only desiring most fervently that my son William, who hath ever been dutiful to

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