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and of Germany.

important epochs in the history of England, of France, The foremost biographers of the century are Southey, Lockhart (1794-1854), and John Forster (1812-76).

The great pulpit orators of this period were Robert Hall (1764-1831) and Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847). In philosophy, the leading names are Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the founder of the science of Jurisprudence, Dugald Stewart (1753-1828), Coleridge, James Mill (1773-1836), and his son John Stuart Mill (1806-73), Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856), Alexander Bain, and Herbert Spencer. Sir Arthur Helps has written thoughtful essays. The immense advances in all branches of science have naturally found fitting expression by the pens of many able writers; such as Sir Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley, and John Tyndall.

The miscellaneous literature of this century has very largely been committed in the first instance to the pages of periodical publications. The reading public, seventy or eighty years ago, had become a term almost synonymous with the nation, and provision had to be made for the wide thirst for knowledge or at least for novelty. Newspapers had begun to assume a distinct position in the world of letters, increasing very rapidly in number, size, and quality. Allied to the newspapers were the larger magazines and reviews, furnishing at stated intervals articles of interest and power, often from the pens of the most eminent authors; and the publication of the Edinburgh Review (1802) had special significance as marking the establishment of a literary centre apart from London. Through the medium of magazines, Macaulay, Sydney Smith (1771-1845), Jeffrey (1773-1850), Charles Lamb (1775-1834), De Quincey (1785-1859), Carlyle, and countless others, have addressed the people on the most varied matters and in the most varied style.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) is distinguished by independence and vigour. More recently Matthew

Arnold has displayed infinite grace and humour. John Ruskin (born 1819) and A. C. Swinburne have written some of the most striking prose in the language: the first, with remarkable simplicity of diction; the second, with cumulation of phraseology, almost Miltonic; both with the full voluptuous swell of Jeremy Taylor or of De Quincey.

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SIXTH NATIONAL READER.

OLD ENGLISH.

BEOWULF-BEFORE 600 A.D.

BEOWULF, the oldest of Teutonic heroic poems, contains more than six thousand lines, and is an invaluable monument of manners as well as of language. It was probably composed on the mainland, somewhere in the south of Sweden, and brought to England during the Danish rule. Its present form would seem to be due to a Christian Englishman, who re-wrote it, and endeavoured to impress a Christian character upon it. The editor's Northumbrian version, however, is no longer extant; what we have is a much later copy in the West Saxon dialect.

The story is that Hrothgar, a king in Jutland, has built a splendid residence called Heorot, which presently is visited by a fiendish monster named Grendel, who nightly destroys some of the king's thanes, or carries them off to devour them. On hearing of this, Beowulf, a nephew of the king of West Gothland, determines to slay the monster, and accordingly repairs to Hrothgar's court. Here he encounters Grendel, and wounds him fatally; and Grendel's mother, who comes to takes vengeance for her son, shares her son's fate. Beowulf now returns home, and becomes king. After ruling fifty years, he encounters and kills an enormous dragon or fire-drake, fifty feet long, which has been infesting his land; but he dies presently thereafter, poisoned by the venom of the monster. The poem ends with the cremation of Beowulf, amid the lamentations of his people.

The earliest English VERSE is nearly all alliterative. The short lines are taken in couples. Usually, two chief words in the first line and one chief word in the second line begin with the same consonant (Beowulf, 2720-1, 2722-3, &c.); and if any of the chief words have an unemphatic prefix, the prefix is not counted, and the root shews the repeated consonant (Beowulf, 2724-5, 2744-5, &c.) On the other hand, when the chief words begin with vowels, these are all different. The first accented syllable in the second line determines the others. This is the general rule.

Very often the two lines coupled in alliteration belong to different sentences (Beowulf, 2718-9, 2726-7, 2736-7, &c.), and even to different paragraphs (Beowulf, 2718-9, 2756-7; Cadmon's Paraphrase, Book I., Canto xxi., 81-2,

A

89-90, &c.) Modern parallels might be cited. Compare, for instance, the paragraphs in Keats's Endymion throughout: Book I., lines 33-4, 121-2, 231-2, &c.; Book II., 64-5, 215-6, 219-20, and so on.

We base on Thorpe and Grein.

WHERE THE MONSTERS DWELL.

(From Beowulf, Canto xx.)

They a lone land

warigeath, wulf-hleôthu, 2720 dwell in, wolf lurking-places,

Hie dygel lond

windige næssas,

frecne fen-gelâd,

windy nesses,1

fearful fen-paths,

thær fyrgen-streâm under næssa genipu nither gewîteth, flôd under foldan. Nis that feor heonon,

mil gemearces, thæt se mere standeth. Ofer them hongiath

hrinde-bearwas; wudu wyrtum fæst

water oferhelmath.

where the fell 2-stream

neath the nesses' mists

2725 down descendeth,

flood under feld.3
Not is it far hence,

by mile-measure,

that the mere 4 standeth.

2730 Over it hang

Thær mæg nihta gehwæm

2735

nith-wundor seôn,

fyr on flôde.

Nô thæs frôd leofath

gumena bearna

that thone grund wite. Theâh the hæth-stapa, hundum geswenced, heorot hornum trum, holt-wudu sêce, feorran geflymed, ær he feorh seleth, aldor on ofre,

ær he thær in wille hafelan [hydan].

Nis that heoru stôw. Thonon yth-geblond up-astigeth

won to wolcnum,

rindy groves;

a wood fast of roots 5
the water overcanopies.
There may (one) every night
a dread wonder see,

fire in the flood.

None so sage liveth

of men's bairns

that (he) the bottom wots.6

2740 Though the heath-stalker,
by the hounds swinked,7
the hart strong of horns,
the holt-wood seek,
from afar driven in flight,

2745 (ere) first he life yieldeth,
his breath on the bank,

ere he there in will

his head [to hide].

Not is that a gentle9 place.

2750 Thence the billow-blending

upward boundeth

wan to the welkin,

1 Headlands, promontories. 2 Bare hill, mountain. 3 Field, earth. 4 Lake. 5 Firmly rooted. 6 Knows. 7Wearied. 8 Trees closely planted. Scot. canny.

thonne wind styreth
lâth-gewidru,
oththat lyft drysmath,
roderas reôtath.

when the wind stirreth
loathed tempests

2755 until the lift 10 lours, 11
the heavens rain tears.

10 Sky. 11 Grows gloomy.

NOTES.

2719. Lond, another form of 'land.' Cf. hongiath (2730), won (2752), mon, man; long, lang; hond, hand; &c.

2722. Gelâd, collective noun, for 'lada'

(pl. of 'ladu'). Cf. genipu (2724), gewidru (2754); and Ger. gebüsch, geflügel, gefolge.

=

2727. Nis = ne is. Cf. nan (none) =
ne an (one); ne . . . . æfre (Fight
of Brunanburh, 129, 131):
= næfre
(Eng. Chron., 1087 A.D.); næfde
(Eng. Chron., 1087 A.D.) = ne
hæfde, the h falling out; nyllan =
ne willan, the w falling out—as in
Shakspeare's 'Will you, nill you,
I will marry you' (Taming of the
Shrew, ii. 1).

2730-1 and 2732-3. The same fact is
given twice, in different words.

Similar examples are common in our early poetry.

2731. Hrinde has dropped h. Cf. hrathe (quickly, soon) whose compar. is our 'rather;' hrincg (Cadm. Par., I. xxi. 133); hlaford, lord; hrof, roof; hrycg, ridge, Ger. rücken.

2732. Wyrtum, with worts or roots. Cf. Ger. wurz(et). Now only in compounds: colewort, liverwort, &c. In the twelfth century, 'ortgeard' (ortyard) was softened into 'orchard.' 2733. Oferhelmath, crowns, covers, encircles, as a helm(et) does the head. 'Helm' is from 'helan,' to conceal, cover, protect; cf. Dunbar, The Golden Targe, 93: 'I lay oure helit with levis ronk.

2734. Mæg, may; g gets softened. Cf.

dæg, day; windig (2721), windy; fæge (Cadm. Par., I. xxi. 111), Scotch fey; fugol, Ger. vogel, fowl; folgian, follow; bricg, bridge; gear (Eng. Chron., 1087 A.D.), year; geoguth (Cadm. Par., I. xxi. 87). In 'fæger, fair,' &c., it dis

appears.

2738. Gumena, gen. pl. of 'guma' (man). 'Bridegroom' is the old 'bryd-guma' corrupted.

2748. Hafelan. 'Hafela' is poetic for

'heafod' (head). Cf. Ger. haupt. 2752. Wolcnum, dat. pl. (contracted) of 'wolcen' (cloud).

CADMON.-ABOUT 670 A.D.

CADMON in his later years became a brother in the monastery at Whitby, then presided over by the famous Abbess Hilda, who had founded it in 658 A.D. He was well advanced in life before he found his gift of poetry.

As the Beowulf is a great secular poem, setting forth the active life of our forefathers, so Cadmon's Paraphrase of Scripture is a great religious poem, bringing us in contact with their contemplative or spiritual life. Cadmon, as the Venerable Bede tells us, 'sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis; the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the land of promise, with many other histories from holy writ; the incarnation, passion, and resurrection of our Lord, and his ascension into heaven; the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of

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