V. BOOK Anglo-Saxon ancestors for peculiar credulity, nor consider it as an index of their barbarism. They believed nothing on these points, but such things as came recommended to them by the analogous belief of the classical and Roman empire which had preceded them. What Athens and Rome alike supposed of the powers and agencies of their gods and goddesses, heroes, demons, and genii, the imperial Christians attributed to their saints and most venerated clergy. Pope Gregory was not more credulous in his religion than the Emperor Julian was in his paganism; or Apuleius, and perhaps even Lucian, in common with his age, of witchcraft. Philostratus, Jamblichus, Porphyry, Ammonius, and other heathen philosophers, of the third and fourth centuries, in their belief of the miracles achieved by the sages whom they patronised 30, were the precursors of the Catholic biographers of their respected saints; and our Alfred may be pardoned for following the stream, not 29 29 Julian's works show abundant evidences of his credulity, and Lucian describes the powers of witchcraft as fully, and with as much seriousness, as Apuleius. 30 See Philostratus's Life of Apollonius Tyanæus, written by the desire of the empress of Septimius Severus, to be run against the the life of our Saviour, and therefore written accordingly; Jamblichus's Life of Pythagoras; Porphyry's De Antro Nympharum, and other remains. It was such a favourite point with decling paganism to set up Apollonius against the Christian legislator, that in the reign of Dioclesian, when such a bitter war was waged against Christians, Hierocles, the intolerant president of Bithynia, took up his pen to maintain the superiority of the Tyanæan sophist. He was such a zealous defender of the pretended miracles which are now ascribed to this upheld competitor, above two centuries after his death, that both Eusebius and Lactantius thought it necessary to refute his exaggerating supporter. Some modern opponents of religion have emulated both the credulity and literary efforts of Hierocles in favour of the Tyanæan; although time, the great decider between truth and falsehood, has long since verified the dying exclamation of Julian, VICISTI, Galilæe!" III. only of his own age, but of the most cultivated CHAP. classical periods, in believing such wonders on the authority of Gregory, which every age of the world had concurred to admit to be both practicable and practised by those whom its different sects and parties revered. With such sanction, from both philosophical and popular belief, it then seemed irrational to doubt them.31 One of Alfred's favourite objects was the moral improvement of his people. He wisely considered religion to be the most efficacious instrument of his benevolence; and Gregory's dialogues were as adapted to excite pious feelings at that time, as they would now operate rather to diminish them. We feel that piety allied with nonsense or with falsehood only degrades the Majestic Being whom it professes to extol. He whose wisdom is the most perfect intelligence and the fountain of all knowledge to us; He whose creations display a sagacity that has no limit but space, and which appears in forms as multifarious as the countless objects that pervade it; should be adored with our sublimest reason and knowledge united with our purest sensibility. Alfred possessed this noble feeling in its full aspiration, but he was compelled to use the materials which his age afforded. afforded. He chose the best within his reach, which was all that was within his power. That they were not better was his misfortune, but leaves no imputation on his judgment. 31 So much self-delusion and mistake have been connected with miracles; so many are resolvable into accidents, natural agencies, imagination, false perceptions, erroneous judgments, and popular exaggeration, independent of wilful falsehood, that the cautious mind will believe none but those mentioned in the Scriptures, as no others have that accumulation of evidence, both direct and inferential, which impresses these upon our belief. BOOK V. Alfred's selections from St. Austin. His Psal ter. His Bible. In the Cotton Library there is an Anglo-Saxon MS. of some selections from St. Austin's soliloquies, or, as the MS. expresses it, "The gathering of the flowers," from St. Austin's work. At the end of these flowers is this imperfect sentence: "Here end the sayings that king Alfred selected from those books that we call- 9933 Here the MS. terminates. 34 MALMSBURY mentions that Alfred began to translate the Hymns of David, but that he had hardly finished the first part when he died. There are many MSS. of the Anglo-Saxon translation of the Psalter extant 35; but it is not in our power to discriminate the performance of Alfred. 66 THAT the king translated the Bible or Testa 66 32 It is in Vitellius, A. 15. After three pages of preface, it says, Angustinus Captama biceop pophte spa bæc be his egnum gechance; tha bæc rint zehatene rolliquiopum, tha ir be moder Fineaunze treounza." The first part closes as "æp endiath the blostman theɲe fopman bocum;" and the next part begins with "ap opizinch jeo zabo ung thene blortmena thene æftenan bec." MS. p. 41. 33 Aep endiath tha cpidar the Elfred Kining alær of thære bæc the pe hatath on ————— MS. p. 56. Wanley says of this MS. "Tractatus iste quondam fuit ecclesiæ, B. Mariæ de Suwika ut patet ex fol. 2. litteris Normanno-Saxonicis post conquæstum scriptus, p. 218. A transcript of this MS. made by Junius is in the Bodleian Library, Jun. 70., and this has the same abrupt ending. Wanley, 96. 34 Psalterium transferre aggressus vix prima parte explicata vivendi finem fecit. Malmsb. 45. 35 Wanley says, p. 182., there is a MS. very elegantly written about the time of Ethelstan, which contains Jerome's Latin Psalter, with an interlineary Saxon version, in the King's Library. There is another interlineary version in the Cotton Library, Vesp. A. 1., written 1000 years ago, very elegantly, in capital letters. Wanley, 222. There is another written before the conquest in Tiberius, C.6. p.234. This contains many figures of musical instruments, alleged to be Jewish, and several coloured drawings on religious subjects. There is another interlineary version in the Lambeth Library, written in Edgar's reign, or a little before, which contains the curious and valuable addition of ancient musical notes. Wanley, 268. Spelman has published an Anglo-Saxon Psalter. ment into Anglo-Saxon has been stated on some authorities, but the selections which he made for his own use appear to have been confounded with a general translation. 36 CHAP. III. IN the Harleian Library there is a MS. of a His Esop. translation of fables styled Æsop's, into French romance verse. At the conclusion of her work, the author asserts that Alfred the king translated the fables from the Latin into English, from which version she turned them into French verse. 38 Mary, the French translator, lived in the thirteenth century. The evidence of her assertion, as to Alfred being the English translator of the fables, can certainly only have the force of her individual belief; and as this belief may have been merely founded on popular tradition, it cannot be con 36 Flor. Wig. says, that in 887, on the Feast of Saint Martin, he began it. It is clear, on comparing the passages, that he only meant what Asser had mentioned, p. 57., that he then began to translate some parts. The history of Ely asserts, that he translated all the Bible; but Boston of Bury says, that it was "almost all the Testament." Spelman's Life, p.213. Yet as no MSS. of such a work have been seen, we cannot accredit the fact beyond the limits mentioned in the text. 37 This author was Mary, an Anglo-Norman poetess. She states herself to have been born in France, and she seems to have visited England. The thirteenth volume of the Archæologia, published by the Antiquarian Society, contains a dissertation upon her life and writings, by the Abbé La Rue, p. 36—67. 38 Mary's words are :— "Por amur le cunte Willame Le plus vaillant de nul realme Harl. MS. 978. p. 87. BOOK sidered as decisive evidence. Such an assertion V. and belief, however, of an authoress of the thirteenth century, must be allowed to have so much weight as to be entitled to notice here.39 The completest MS. of Mary's translation contains an hundred and four fables, out of which thirty-one only are Æsop's. 40 BUT it would seem that Alfred's extensive mind had even condescended to write on one of the rural sports of his day; for in the catalogue of MSS. which in 1315 were in the Christ Church library we find a treatise of this king on keeping hawks mentioned. "Liber Alured, regis, de custodiendis accipitribus." This book corresponds with the fact mentioned by Ass, that Alfred was accustomed "to teach his falconers and hawkers, and hound-trainers." 42 41 IT has been declared that the Parables of Alfred 39 Mons. La Rue thinks, that Alfred was not the author of the English translation which Mary used. His reasons are by no means conclusive for 1st. Asser mentions no translations of Alfred's, and therefore his omission of Æsop is of no consequence. 2d. Though Malmsbury does not particularize Æsop among the translations he enumerates, this argument is indecisive, because Malmsbury expressly states, that the king translated more books than those which he enumerates. His words are, "Denique plurimam partem Romanæ Bibliothecæ Anglorum auribus decit, ·cujus præcipui sunt libri Orosius," &c. Malmsbury only names the chief of his translations; a monk would have hardly ranked Æsop in this honourable class. 3d. The abbe's doubt, whether Mary could, in the thirteenth century, have understood Alfred's language, is of no great force, because we cannot think it unlikely that there should be persons in England who knew both Norman and Saxon, or that Mary should have learnt Saxon if she wished it. 4th. As to the feudal expressions which Mary uses, as we have not the English MSS. which she translated, and therefore cannot know what were the actual expressions in that, I think no argument can be rested on them. Alfred, in his Boetius, puts king in one place, and heretogas in another, for Roman consuls. 40 Archeologia, p. 53. 42 Asser, 43. 41 Wanley's preface. |