History of the English Language and Literature greedy battle-hawk, and the grey wolf in the wood.â—— The Song of the Fight at Maldon tells us of the heroic deeds and death of Byrhtnoth, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle against the Danes at Maldon, in Essex. The speeches of the chiefs are given; the single combats between heroes described; and, as in Homer, the names and genealogies of the foremost men are brought into the verse. 8. The First English Prose.—The first writer of English prose was Baeda, or, as he is generally called, the Venerable Bede. He was born in the year 672 at Monkwearmouth, a small town at the mouth of the river Wear, and was, like Caedmon, a native of the kingdom of Northumbria. He spent most of his life at the famous monastery of Jarrow-on-Tyne. He spent his life in writing. His works, which were written in Latin, rose to the number of forty-five; his chief 276 work being an Ecclesiastical History. But though Latin was the tongue in which he wrote his books, he wrote one book in English; and he may therefore be fairly considered the first writer of English prose. This book was a Translation of the Gospel of St John—a work which he laboured at until the very moment of his death. His disciple Cuthbert tells the story of his last hours. â——Write quickly!â—— said Baeda to his scribe, for he felt that his end could not be far off. When the last day came, all his scholars stood around his bed. â——There is still one chapter wanting, Master,â—— said the scribe; â——it is hard for thee to think and to speak.â—— â——It must be done,â—— said Baeda; â——take thy pen and write quickly.â—— So through the long day they wrote—scribe succeeding scribe; and when the shades of evening were coming on, the young writer looked up from his task and said, â——There is yet one sentence to write, dear Master.â—— â——Write it quickly!â—— Presently the writer, looking up with joy, said, â——It is finished!â—— â——Thou sayest truth,â—— replied the weary old man; â——it is finished: all is finished.â—— Quietly he sank back upon his pillow, and, with a psalm of praise upon his lips, gently yielded up to God his latest breath. It is a great pity that this translation—the first piece of prose in our language—is utterly lost. No MS. of it is at present known to be in existence. 9. The Father of English Prose.—For several centuries, up to the year 866, the valleys and shores of Northumbria were the homes of learning and literature. But a change was not long in coming. Horde after horde of Danes swept down upon the coasts, ravaged the monasteries, burnt the books—after stripping the beautiful bindings of the gold, silver, and precious stones which decorated them—killed or drove away the monks, and made life, property, and thought insecure all along that once peaceful and industrious coast. Literature, then, was forced to desert the monasteries of Northumbria, and to seek for a home in the south—in Wessex, the kingdom over which Alfred the Great reigned for more than thirty years. The capital of Wessex was Winchester; and an able writer says: â——As 277 Whitby is the cradle of English poetry, so is Winchester of English prose.â—— King Alfred founded colleges, invited to England men of learning from abroad, and presided over a school for the sons of his nobles in his own Court. He himself wrote many books, or rather, he translated the most famous Latin books of his time into English. He translated into the English of Wessex, for example, the â——Ecclesiastical Historyâ—— of Baeda; the â——History of Orosius,â—— into which he inserted geographical chapters of his own; and the â——Consolations of Philosophy,â—— by the famous Roman writer, Boëthius. In these books he gave to his people, in their own tongue, the best existing works on history, geography, and philosophy. 10. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.—The greatest prose-work of the oldest English, or purely Saxon, literature, is a work—not by one person, but by several authors. It is the historical work which is known as The Saxon Chronicle. It seems to have been begun about the middle of the ninth century; and it was continued, with breaks now and then, down to 1154—the year of the death of Stephen and the accession of Henry II. It was written by a series of successive writers, all of whom were monks; but Alfred himself is said to have contributed to it a narrative of his own wars with the Danes. The Chronicle is found in seven separate forms, each named after the monastery in which it was written. It was the newspaper, the annals, and the history of the nation. â——It is the first history of any Teutonic people in their own language; it is the earliest and most venerable monument of English prose.â—— This Chronicle possesses for us a twofold value. It is a valuable storehouse of historical facts; and it is also a storehouse of specimens of the OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE.
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