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panied by his sons Edwin and Ethelward, to the abbey. The monks were speedily assembled. 'My beloved,' said he, you will soon lose your friend and protector. My strength is gone; I am stolen from myself. But I am not afraid to die. When life grows tedious death is welcome. To-day I shall confess before you the many errors of my life. Think not that I wish you to solicit a prolongation of my existence. My request is that you protect my departure by your prayers, and place your merits in the balance against my defects. When my soul shall have quitted my body, honor your father's corpse with a decent funeral, grant him a constant share in your prayers, and recommend his memory to the charity and gratitude of your successors.' At the conclusion of this address, the aged thane threw himself on the pavement before the altar, and, with a voice interrupted with frequent sighs, publicly confessed the sins of his past years, and earnestly implored the mercies of his Redeemer. The monks were dissolved in tears. As soon as their sensibility permitted them to begin, they chanted over him the seven psalms of penitence, and the prior Germanus read the prayer of absolution. With the assistance of Edwin and Ethelward he arose; and supporting himself against a column, exhorted the brotherhood to a punctual observance of their rule, and forbade his sons, under their father's malediction, to molest them in the possession of the lands which he had bestowed on the abbey. Then, having embraced each monk, and asked his blessing, he returned to his residence in the neighborhood. This was his last visit. Within a few weeks he ex

pired. His body was interred, with proper solemnity, in the church, and his memory was long cherished with gratitude by the monks of Ramsey." P. 152.

These were beautiful and affecting instances of attachment to the departing spirits of their friends; and this incident seems to evince a chaste and cultivated tone of moral sentiment among the AngloSaxons. No people ever became illustrious in the annals of the fine arts, or intellectually conspicuous, who failed to mark upon their souls this (not universal, as has been sometimes maintained) respect for the dead. The polished Greeks retained many of their beautiful solemnities after Christianity had taught them that the body was insensible to the fond endearments they lavished upon it; and our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were not less obedient to the voice of nature.

How gratifying to find the frail mementoes of their history confirmatory of this -to connect with it their zeal to become fully versed in all the learning of the age.

"The children of the thanes, educated in the neighboring monasteries, imbibed an early respect, if not a passion for literature. Even the women caught the general enthusiasm: seminaries of learning were established in their convents; they conversed with their absent friends in the language of ancient Rome; and frequently exchanged the labors of the distaff and needle for the more pleasing and more elegant beauties of the Latin poets."

Nor were these efforts attended with slight results; for the whole continent was enriched by the stores of learning that had been collected, and were still clustering in the monasteries of England; particularly in the seminary at York, the list of whose works may not prove uninteresting to those who fondly hang over what the friend of Alcuin reverently terms his "libros, caras super omnia gazas "-his guides in a darkened age.

"Illic invenies veterum vestigia patrum Quidquid habet pro se latio Romanus in orbe ; Græcia vel quidquid transmisit clara latinis; Hebraicus vel quod populus bibit ore superno; Africa lucifluo vel quidquid lumine sparsit. Quod pater Hieronymus, quod sensit Hilarius, atque

Ambrosius præsul, simul Augustinus, et ipse Sanctus Athanasius, quod Orosius edit virtus, Quidquid Gregorius summus docet, et Leo

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The great master-spirits of this ageat once" the types and the expression" of its better features-were St. Aldhelm Alcuin and "the venerable Bede;" who, spurning the inglorious ease of a monastic life, passed their days in ministering to the mental cravings of their awakened countrymen. They spoke, they wrote, they taught, fervently and cheerfully;* and, having performed the work allotted them, passed away, leaving those who were worthy to succeed them; those who were quickened with the energy of piety and learning, whose souls were attuned to a grateful veneration for the benefactors whose names and virtues they ever loved to cherish. It was the age when Roman arts and Roman mind had just impressed (in the "civil codes") their characters in Western Europe; and the Latin language was the depository of almost everything in science or religion that had escaped the shocks of barbaric invasion. To the AngloSaxon scholars, then, the Latin became familiar "as household words;" and, at a time when the wild Franks were but just roused from the sleep of ages by the energy and spirit of Charlemagne, England was irradiated by the beams of a morning whose glory has experienced no dimness, although the tide of a thousand years has changed all else. We mentioned Aelbert. He was preceded by Egbert, in whose praise we have the following effusion of Alcuin, the sweet bard of Anglo-Saxon

Britain :

"O pater, O pastor, vitæ spes maxima nostræ : Te sine nos ferimur turbata per æquora mundi,

* As says one of them, "Semper aut discere, aut docere, aut scribere dulce habui."

Te duce deserti variis involvimur undis,
Incerti qualem mereamur tangere portum.
Sidera dum lucent, trudit dum nubila ventus,
Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque
manebunt."

At the earnest solicitation of Charlemagne, Alcuin left Britain; but that he often pined for "his own loved islandto the land of his childhood, is evinced by home," that his affections fondly reverted the following extract from his letter to the clergy of York, (an extract whose trusting faith and innocent simplicity lend a double charm to the respect we cherish for its author:)

66

Ego vester ero sive in vita, sive in morte. Et, forte miserebitur mei Deus, ut cujus infantiam aluistis, ejus senectutem sepeliatis. Et si alius corpori deputabitur locus, tamen animæ, qualemcunque habitaturæ errit per vestras sanctas, Deo denante, intercessiones requies." (P. 209, note.)

This desire was not secured. Far from

its shores he sank to rest; and the zephyrs of a more burning clime swept over his lonely, honored tomb. Truly does he seem to have been gifted with that far-sweeping, foreseeing vision, which conld look beyond his nation's Future-to have been sustained and supported by the unwearying guidance of a Deity ever watchful of his servants. So that Charlemagne not only solicited his services, but his advice; became his "own familiar friend;" and this condescension from one who had been the first styled Emperor of the West,' "* and was the champion of the feudal system-at a period, too, when the whole Christian world acquiesced in the doctrine of "the divine right of kings"-was something of a tribute-a tribute to the Christian and the

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scholar. The following lines will picture forth more than we can express :

"Mens mea mellifluo, fateor, congaudet amore,
Doctor amate, tui: volui quapropter in odis,
O venerande, tuam musis solare, senectam:
Jam meliora tenes sanctæ vestigia vitæ,
Donec ætherii venias ad culmina regni,
Congaudens sanctis, Christo sociatus in ævum,
Meque tuis precibus, tecum rape, quæso magister
Ad pia, quæ tendis, miserantis culmina regis."
Charl. apud Al. (ibid. p. 210.)

[A. D. 800.] Hallam, "Middle Ages," Part I. Chap. I., pp. 21, 22.

It was his to give a beautiful and touching example of the reality of religion. To him might the words of Bryant be addressed in all their spirituality; for he

"So lived that when his summons came to join The innumerable caravan that moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, He went not like the quarry slave at night Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approached his grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

His last hours were spent in rapt communion with the saints long since departed; or, more frequently, in reflections on.his own approaching death. For this end he often wandered to the spot selected for his resting place, and, great to the last, mused upon the frailty of life. Even after death his works did follow him. His epitaph, inscribed on a brazen tablet fixed in the

wall, is characterized by such a pensive beauty and harmonious philosophy, that we cannot be censured for quoting it here:

"Hic, rogo, pauxillum veniens subsiste viator, Et mea scrutator pectore dicta tuo.

Ut tua, deque meis, cognoscas fata figuris ;
Vertitur en species, ut mea, sicque tua.
Quod nunc es, fueram, famosus in orbe viator,
Et quod nunc ego sum, tuque futurus eris.
Delicias mundi cassa sectabar amore:
Nunc cinis et pulvis, vermibus atque cibus.
Quapropter potiùs animam curare memento,
Quam carmen; quoniam hæc manet, illa perit.
Cur tibi nova paras? Quam parvo cernis in antro
Me tenet hic requies, sic tua parva fiet.
Cur Tyrio corpus inhias vestire ostro,
Quod mox esuriens pulvere vermis edet?
Ut flores pereunt vento veniente minaci,
Sic tua namque caro, gloria tota perit.
Tu mihi redde vicem, lector, rogo carminis hujus,
Et die, da veniam, Christe, tuo famulo.
Obsecro nulla manus violet pia jura sepulchri
Personet angelica donec ab arce tuba.
Qui jaces in tumulo, terræ de pulvere surge,
Magnus adest judex militibus innumeris.
Alchuin nomen erat sophiam mihi semper amanti
Pro funde preces mente legens, titulum.”

quo

(Pp. 210, 317.)

Nor did his successors in England become recreant to their religious faith. When the ferocious Danes overran the country they found the abbots and their monks ready to lay down their lives for the truth, and manfully meeting death,

amid their blazing shrines and the lifeless corses of their countrymen. Such was the devotion which has given to posterity the name of St. Elphege, and many others, whose pious zeal met no mercy at the hands of the ferocious monsters that cursed the land. This irruption of the Danes (which occurred A. D. 836, and became most oppressive in 876) was a severe blow to those who viewed their religion with reverential awe, who acknowledged its ministers as messengers of the majesty on High, and whose hearts were tuned to the softest strains of penitential

sorrow.

The inquiry may here arise, why the Britons did not merge with the Danes, as they had before, to some extent, done with the Saxons? We can only conjecture that, after Christianity had refined their manners, and elevated the tone of sentiment, they could not mingle with their ferocious invaders; but, abhorrent as their influence of force might have subdued practices were to the Anglo-Saxons, the them were it not that each sovereignty seems to have been endued with a principle of vitality-an impulse, elastic as the reality imbodied in it, of resistance-which the waves of conquest, though they might overwhelm, could never quench. Of this spirit (universal in its expansion) Alfred was the champion-of this tendency he is the most fitting impersonation. It was "the illustrious Alfred" who, in the leisure hours snatched from the cares of a kingdom saved by his energy, found time to translate the works of Boethius, whose own taste, while his arm guided the reawakened spirit of Anglo-Saxon freedom, purified the decaying sources of AngloSaxon literature. Thus, when the Roman arms were no longer seen in Britain, the writings of her illustrious senator were translated and disseminated by Alfred; and England's once rude barbarians were found to cherish the spirit of freedom when "the seven-hilled city" owned the sway of ferocious tyrants. It was he, who, after consolidating the government, and classifying the varied tribes of his countrymen, founded one of those magnificent universities which have never been surpassed either in talents, piety, or unchanging devotion to principle. Here, doubtless, was the starting Hallam, Middle Ages, p. 524.

point of Anglo-Saxon energy, and AngloSaxon piety. By his side we place one, who, in the tone of his mind, at least, is analogous Alfred-Washington; the extreme links (as it were) to a chain of powerful, brave, and high-souled men-the natural offshoots or personifications of an indestructible renovation of social polity which has never maintained its stability among any other people, or flourished for any length of time in the vales of any other race, whether Greek or Roman, whether Gothic or Frank. In both there is the same unity of aim, precision of purpose, and indomitable perseverance in laboring for its fulfilment; while their intuitive perception of the most fitting means for every exigency in the accomplishment of their designs, is equally conspicuous. Alfred's throne, however, was wrested from his immediate descendants. Washington's residence, and birth-place, and name are enshrined in the affections of a grateful people. Alfred!-the delight of a darkened age-the father of a revering people-the warrior, statesman, Christian, man-great, sublimely great in all.

But a few hundred years, then, had passed before the subjection of England to the Danes was visibly and successfully accomplished by the elevation of Canute to the throne.* Yet he achieved no secure possession for his successors, year after year was but varied by the attempts of each party to place their own chieftain on the throne; but demonstrated the impotence of Danish force to enslave AngloSaxon mind, or annihilate Anglo-Saxon enterprise.

"As the animosity between the Danes and Saxons is to be considered as the real, though often unseen cause of these contests for the

throne which appeared to originate in the ambition of individuals, so the final prevalence of the Saxons is to be attributed to their superiority in numbers and civilization, and to their impatience of a barbarous yoke, which is better preserved by the history and remembrance of the more improved people." (Mackintosh.)

From the frosty peaks of Norway swarmed down the bands of pirates who overran Europe, and afterwards peopled the desolate shores of Iceland with arms and arts, with

A.D. 1016. The struggle between the two races began about 979.

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learning and civilization; who, conquering the nations of the continent, and reviving ancient barbarism there, found no quiet rule in English soil, in Saxon character no base subserviency to their brutal exactions and systematic oppression. The results are known. Continental genius, learning and refinement were clouded by the unmitigated barbarism of "the dark ages,' while on the shores of Iceland sprang up, and in England glowed, the flame of pure religion and civil progress. Here was the beginning of those systems, here the birth of those feelings, which seem to have clung to England's soil, and which rejoice us in their more refined and successful developments of the nineteenth century.

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But here the meed of praise must cease. Britain, torn by the violence of contending factions, with her soil drenched in the best blood of her kings and people, was a prize too tempting to the ambitious restlessness of William the Norman; and, under the sanction of the " 'church," (not now the honest, unassuming friend, but the soi-disant master of the Anglo-Saxons,) he determined to effect its conquest-a conquest over the spirit, rights and feelings, the whole national existence of the AngloSaxons-which, though almost total, it were not altogether judicious to consider an entire annihilation of their civil liberties. From this period the church became more closely allied (and, where it could not reign, more enslaved) to the power of the king; the people less dependent on either; while the nobles were gradually losing their ancient strength, and "the middle class" (now the bulwark of England's greatness) was revived and permitted a share in the councils as well as in the expense of government. In this triple development, although few instances typifying the silent progress of that agency, (the power of public opinion,) now so vital and brilliant, were displayed, it was not the less operative, nor the less appreciated. The tiers état have been ever since gradually elevating themselves, until the period of our own political origin, when the democratic principle was proclaimed to the world as the natural and inalienable safeguard of human authority, of governmental supremacy.

* Mackintosh, vol. I, p. 84.

And the keeping of that precious gempated mind, at the same time that the purest is no easy matter. With mental strength, feelings of social life have been welcomed and incessant devotion, it requires a moral and encouraged. Upon closing this first stamen, a substratum, which history seems portion of a few discursive glances at the to record as peculiar to our own race; home of our ancestors previous to the for, while the other nations who sprang time of William the Conqueror, some from the ancient Goths (and more remotely sketches of the efforts made by the papal from the Germans described by Tacitus) hierarchy to erect here a consolidated emhave suffered their civil liberties to dwindle pire, subject to the central influence at from age to age, or seen them overturned Rome, may be appropriate in passing over by the grasping hands of ambitious nobles, his troubled reign. and have yielded to the unchecked centralization of usurping pontiffs, (the favorite object which scourged emperors and people during the pontificate of "the monk of Cluny" and his successors;*) while France, and Austria, and Spain are less free than when under the sway of those early (barbaric) chieftains; the stock planted on British soil has permanently advanced to the full fruition of spiritual and physical liberty. In brief, where the people are less free in these Roman Catholic countries, in England they are far more so than they were some thousand years ago. Thus these branches of the same race, starting from the same point, and from the same places, (not inaptly denominated officina gentium,) have met with a different fate; for, in one the progress has been towards despotism, exemplifying itself by an absorption of popular influence and the rights of the individual into unbounded ecclesiastical authority or kingly prerogative;§ while, in the other, each successive era has advanced true constitutional freedom, has developed and emanci

*North American Review, Jan. 1845. +Hallam, p. 105-106, (leg. power of 'les etats generaux' lost.)

For a clear view of the predominance attained by the Castilian cortes in the interval from the middle of the twelfth to the close of the fourteenth century, we refer to Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, Introduction, vol. I. pp. 45-58. Their intrepid spirit is traced by Hallam, p. 215, et seq. The Aragonese cortes, it seems, enjoyed still greater influence, and more unequivocal privileges, and yet they were nearly contemporary with the Castilian. (Commons admitted, A.D. 1133, Hallam, p. 224, in notis.) For its causes see the same learned authors.) (Prescott, pp. xcvi.-cv., et seq. Hallam, pp. 218227.) These have been lost now, and Spain is ever on the eve of convulsion. The power of her cortes is merely nominal, and the government as much enslaved to papal influence as the people are impatient of its yoke.-Am. Rev. (For. Mis.) May, 1846, p. 559.

§ We have not included Denmark in this list; but her history affords an unequivocal testimony to the truth of the position. Vide Dr. Baird's Visit, chapters on History of Denmark.

The sweep of six hundred years since the Saxons first landed, has disclosed to our view scenes of quiet happiness, of religious purity, and social cultivation, developed by the genius of uncorrupted Christianity, mingled and shaded with tumult, or civil and moral degeneracy. The thorns and roses, fitly blended, met on the branch which bore the hopes of a blissful future. Henceforth, however, Romish influence became the grand agent of unnumbered evils. Introduced and sanctioned by William, whose naturally vigorous mind prevented an indiscriminating subjection to its precepts, it soon overmastered the puny spirits of his successors, soon reigned as the lord over prostrate Britain, where it had been lately known as but the ally of its conqueror. * We speak not unadvisedly when we maintain that there never was a plan more carefully schemed-one, too, almost beyond the reach of human foresight to detect-that met so signal a failure as the efforts of Rome to bend the simple faith, and crush the independent piety of our ancestors. Some evidence of this might be presented, but it is useless to point out what is traced on each eventful page of England's earlier history. every other country where Roman arts and the Romish faith have prevailed, it has benumbed the spirit and poisoned the fountains of popular freedom, and secured its throne, even to this day, the brighter day of man's advancement. It is this spiritual energy which has cheered the fainting hopes-which has guided, informed, and embellished the exertions of those, who, from century to century, have striven to secure to the masses their natural rights, * Mack. Hist. vol. I. p. 87; also 138, 144. "The Statutes of Mortmain" (tempore Edw. "were introduced to check the overgrown wealth of the hierarchy." Hallam, p. 301. 2 Kent, pp. 281, 282. The British clergy refused submission to the Church of Rome in 637.

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