palace; how Sigeferth and Eaha, sword in
hand, defended one door of the blazing pile,
when at the other door Ordlaf and Guthlaf
fought. It tells how the enemy burst in, and
how the din of slaughter mingled with the
roar of fire; how there was a five days' fight,
while the red swords gleamed like a second
fire; and how the raven fattened. A quiet
antiquary, in a drowsy old library, lights
upon this bit of old burning wrath inside a
bookcover, and prints it. Afterwards the
book goes to a binder, who is not an
antiquary; he tears off what he despises as its
rotten back, and commits that to the fire or
to the dust-bin. So the manuscript entirely
perishes, but there remains the printed copy.

Another manuscript, of which there exists
only a single copy, contains the Gleeman's or
the Traveller's Tale. It is the song of an
Anglo-Saxon gleeman, who says that he has
received presents at the courts of many
countries, which he proceeds to enumerate,
naming also the chiefs of each. It is a fine
lesson upon the geography of the Anglo-
Saxons, and about as amusing as a genealogy.

But we have among extant remains of
Anglo-Saxon literature, a moral and
contemplative poem, not less important than the
great saga of Beowulf, and that is the
metrical paraphrase of parts of Scripture by
Cædmon, the Milton of the Anglo-Saxons.
Of this relic, also, as of the other Anglo-
Saxon poems, there remains only a single
copy, and that is in the Bodleian library at
Oxford. It remains as a small parchment
folio of two hundred and twenty-nine pages,
written, as it would appear, in the tenth
century. It belonged once to Archbishop
Usher, who gave it to a learned foreigner,
named Junius, who caused its contents to be
printed, and by whom the manuscript was
finally bequeathed to the Bodleian with his
other papers.

Cædmon, we are told, was a poor
Northumberland herdsman, who lived under the
shadow of the abbey at Whitby, who, though
his piety disdained idle songs, grieved that his
ignorance deprived him of all skill in singing
to the harp. Then, in convivial meetings,
when he saw the harp coming round to him,
he would rise, full of shame, and go home to
his house. And Bede tells us, that after he
had done that on one occasion, he went to his
duty in the stable, and having littered the
cattle, there lay down and went to sleep.
And there came a man to him in dreams,
saying, "Cædmon, sing to me." He answered,
"I cannot sing. I left my comrades and came
hither because I cannot." Again said the
man, "Yet you must sing to me." "What
shall I sing?" Cædmon asked. Said he,
"Sing me the origin of things." Then, in his
dream, Cædmon began singing, and when he
awoke he remembered the lines he had sung.
They are the first lines of his poem, and
their sense is: "It is right for us to praise
and love the King of Hosts, the guardian of
the skies. He is the Lord Almighty, the
spirit of power, and the head of all high
creatures. He is eternal, ever powerful; he
made the wide heavens for the children of
glory, and earth for the sons of men."

In the morning, Cædmon, the herdsman,
went to his master, the bailiff, and told what
gift he had received. The bailiff took him to
the abbess, Hilda, who commanded him to
tell his dream, and sing his song before the
learned in the neighbourhood, and when he
had done so it seemed to them all that the
gift came straight from heaven. They told
him scripture tales, and bade him turn them
into song. He went home to his house, and
brought stories back next day, adorned with
poetry. Therefore the abbess made a monk
of him, and caused him to be taught the
Scriptures. These he turned into verse as he
learnt them, so that even they who were his
teachers wrote and learned them again from
his mouth. He first sang of the creation
and origin of man, and all the history of
Genesis and Exodus; also of many other of
the canonical books. He sang, too, of the
Saviour's incarnation, passion, descent into
hell, and ascension into Heaven; of the coming
of the Holy Ghost, and of the doctrine of the
Apostles. Cædmon is said to have died
nearly twelve centuries ago.

The whole of Cædmon's paraphrase has not
come down to us. The Scripture story
contained in Genesis and Exodus is the
groundwork of more than three-fourths of it, as now
received. Then follow the striking events in
the Scripture history of Babylon. The chief
topic in the remaining part is that which our
forefathers used to call the Harrowing of Hell.
Cædmon's is not a servile paraphrase. He
conceives incidents, he invents dialogues, and
how fairly he may be called the Milton of his
rude times we can best show by a single
extract from his work. He begins as Milton
begins with the fall of the rebellious angels,
and after his fall the words ascribed by
Cædmon to "the Angel of Presumption" are
in spirit altogether like the first speech
wherein we find Milton's Satan,—

                            in bold words
              Breaking the horrid silence.

"Why shall I toil? said he. I need not a
superior. I can with my own hands work as
many wonders. I have great power to form
a diviner throne, higher in heaven. Why
shall I serve for his favour, bend to him
in such vassalage? I may be a god, as he.
Stand by me, strong associates, who will not
fail me in the strife. Heroes, stern of mood,
have chosen me for chief, with such may
counsel be devised, by such we may make
captures. They are my zealous, faithful
friends; I may be their chieftain, and sway
in this realm. It seems not right to me that
I should cringe to God for any good; I will
no longer be his vassal."

Again, after a description of the place to