V. tion of mind, and he seems to have attained all the CHAP. knowlege to which it was possible for him to gain access. He mastered such of the mathematical sciences as were then taught; he excelled in music; he accomplished himself in writing, painting, and engraving; he acquired also the manual skill of working in gold and silver, and even copper and iron. These arts had not at that day reached any pre-eminent merit, but it was uncommon that a man should practise himself in all. To have excelled his contemporaries in mental pursuits, in the fine arts, as far as they were then practised, and in mechanical labours, is evidence of an activity of intellect, and of an ardour for improvement, which, under a better direction of their energies, might have advanced the progression of the social world. WHEN his age admitted, he commenced his career of public life as a courtier. Some relation introduced him into the royal palace, and his musical talents interested and often recreated the king. 30 No circumstance can more impressively attest the superiority of Dunstan's attainments than his 29 Osberne, 93, 94. His attainments are thus enumerated in the MS. Cleop. B. 13.: "Hic itaque inter sacra litterarum studia — artem scribendi nec ne citharizandi pariterque pingendi peritiam diligenter excoluit, atque ut ita dicam, omnium rerum utensilium vigil inspector fulsit." This MS. mentions a particular instance of his painting and embroidery: "Quandam stolam diversis formularum scematibus perpingeret quam postea posset auro gemmisque variando pompare." It also mentions, that he took with him ex more cytharam suam quam, lingua paterna, hearpam vocamus. 30 Adelard says, "De Glestonia egressus Archo Dorobernensi Adelmo patruo scilicet suo se junxit et cohabitare cæpit — in palatio cum præsentavit et regi Athelstano magno affectu commendavit." Nero, C. 7. Osberne implies the same, p. 94. But I think the king should be Edmund. The MS. Cleop. B. 13. mentions his living in Edmund's palace, where plans were formed against him. VI. Edwin. 31 BOOK having been accused, while at court of demoniacal arts. Such charges give demonstration of the talents and knowlege of the person so accused. In the very same century another man of eminence suffered under a similar imputation, because he had made a sphere, invented clocks, and attempted a telescope. The charge of magic was of all others the most destructive, because the most difficult to repel. Every exertion of superior intellect in defence was misconstrued to be preternatural, and confirmed the imputation. 32 His enemies were successful. The king was influenced against him, and Dunstan was driven from court 33 ; from that Eden of his hopes, where, like another Wolsey, he was planning to be naturalised. HIS courtly rivals were not content with his disgrace they insulted as well as supplanted him; they pursued and threw him into a miry marsh. He extricated himself on their retreat, and reached a friend's house about a mile distant.34 THUS far Dunstan appears neither unamiable nor uninteresting. Youthful ambition is the parent of much excellence; while subordinate to reason and duty it is an honourable energy in the springtime of life, when the buds of expectation are in 31 Asserentes illum malis artibus imbutum, nec quicquam divino auxilio sed plæraque dæmonum præstigio operari, Osb. 95. The MS. Cleop. B. 13. thus expresses it: " Dicentes, eum ex libris salutaribus et viris peritis non saluti animæ profutura sed avitæ gentilitatis vanissima didicisse carmina et histriarum colere incantationes." 32 This was Gerbert, who became archbishop of Rheims and of Ravenna; and in 999 was made pope, under the name of Sylvester II. "He had learned the mathematics in Spain: his knowlege cessantly shooting. Dunstan's pursuit of distinc- CHAP. tion, though perhaps questionable as to its prudence, was no immoral impulse. His means were the most honourable he could employ—the cultivation of his mind, the increase of his knowlege, and the fair exertion of his beneficial acquisitions. To be checked in the first madness of our juvenile ambition, may often introduce the invaluable treasures of moderate wishes, moral prudence, and becoming humility. There is no evidence that the effects of Dunstan's disgrace were at first any other. He was repelled from the paths of political greatness, and he submitted to the necessity; he turned his eye from the proud but tempestuous mountains of life to its lowly but pleasant vales, where happiness loves to abide, the companion of the industrious, the contented, and the good. After he left the court, he formed an attachment to a maiden, whom he wished to mary. 35 It is with regret we read that such honourable impressions were deemed to be diabolical suggestions by the relations and biographers of Dunstan. The bishop Ælf heag, his relation, opposed them. Attached by his own taste and habits to the ecclesiastical order, he conjured him to become a monk, a character then much venerated, and, notwithstanding its superstitions, allied to many virtues. 35 It is the MS. Cleop. which informs us of this curious circumstance. It says, the devil primum enim mulierum illi injecit amorem, quo per familiares earum amplexus mundanis oblectamentis frueretur. Interea propinquus ipsius Ælfheagus, cognomine Calvus, præsulque fidelis, petitionibus multis et spiritualibus monitis eum rogavit ut fieret monachus. Quod ille instinctu præfati fraudatoris renuntians, maluit sponsare juvenculam, cujus cotidie blanditiis foveretur, quam more monachorum bidentinis indui panniculis. V. Edwin. BOOK Edwin. DUNSTAN was at first insensible to his oratory. He replied to Ælfheag's reasoning, that the man who lived from choice regularly in the world, was of greater excellence than he who, having entered a monastery, could not avoid doing what his order enjoined. The man in the world displays moral freedom and voluntary rectitude; the monk was a creature of compulsion and necessity. Eelfheag opposed the discriminating remark, by arguing on the future punishment, on the importance of extinguishing the fire of passion, and of avoiding its incitements by withdrawing from the world. Dunstan still resisted; his relation continued to importune him. THESE unfortunate entreaties disturbed the mind of Dunstan. He became agitated by a tumult of contending passions. With the monastic habit were connected all the internal enjoyments of piety to those who valued them, and to those who were less devout it gave a release from the dread of futurity, the reputation and the means of peculiar sanctity, and an impressive empire over the minds of men. But it exacted a renunciation of the charms of mutual affection, of the delights of a growing family, and of those numerous gratifications with which social life in every age abounds. His health was unequal to the conflict: a dangerous disease attacked him before he could decide, and his life was despaired of. He lay without a prospect of recovery, and so senseless that the pulse of life seemed to have ceased: at last it slowly returned, and life renewed in gradual convalescence. But he rose from the bed of sick 26 Osberne, 95. 37 MS. Cleop. And see Osberne's statement, p. 96. V. ness with an altered mind. He renounced the CHAP. flattering world, assumed the monastic habit, and condemned himself to celibacy. 38 BUT to give new directions to our feelings, by the violence of terror, is to produce changes of thought and action, neither salutary to our moral principles, nor calculable in their consequences. Dunstan, while ardent with passions not dishonourable in youth, was driven forcibly from civil honours, and was afterwards excluded from social life. In obedience to duty, fear, importunity, and some new impressions, but in direct contradiction to his own earlier wishes and prospects, he became a monk. Does the incessant experience of human nature teach us to expect that an amiable, benevolent, or virtuous character, would result from these compulsions? Checked in our dearest, and not immoral propensities, are we never soured by the disappointment, never irritated by the injustice? Driven by violence into the schemes of others, will not individuals of strong feelings become artificial characters? harshly coerced themselves, will they not be indurated towards others? Is not selfishness, with all its power of mischief, most likely to become afterwards the ruling principle? It is, indeed, true, that exalted virtue will rise superior to every temptation to misanthropy and vice. Many are the glorious minds who have withstood the fiery trial; and whoever loves virtue as he ought, will 38 MS. Cleop. B. 13. Osberne, 96. Mr. Lingard talks of the "anile credulity" of Osberne. His epithets are just; but how can he apply them fairly to Osberne, and not extend them to all, or nearly all, the legends of his church which crowd the hundred volumes of the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists? Is Osberne more anile than almost all the writers of the Catholic Hagiography? Edwin. |