* Preface, p. xvii.

Only secondary to the romance of Beowulf must once have been the fragment of a poem on the death of Beorhtnoth.* It was printed by Hearne in the appendix to his edition of Johannis Glastoniensis Chronicon, but without a translation.

* Formerly Otho A 12, in the Cottonian Library; the original perished in the fire of 1731.

“It constitutes,” says Conybeare, “a battle-piece of spirited execution, mixed with short speeches from the principal warriors, conceived with much force, variety, and character; the death of the hero is also very graphically described.  The whole approximates much more nearly than could have been expected to the war-scenes of Homer.”

Of the poem of Judith, one of the finest specimens of Anglo-Saxon songs, a fragment is preserved in the same volume which contains the story of Beowulf.

The type of the Anglo-Saxon poets in Christian times is Caedmon, whom Professor George Stephens called “the Milton of North England in the seventh century,” and who, according to the legend told by Bede, being singularly unblessed with the power of song, received the gift miraculously in sleep.  He is represented in the Cottonian library only by a few prayers in Anglo-Saxon (Julius, A 2) which Junius printed from this Ms. at the end of his edition of Caedmon’s paraphrase.  The interesting collection, which goes by Caedmon’s name in the Bodleian library, is a series of pieces on Scriptural subjects, with beautifully painted illustrations.

A manuscript of the tenth century (Cleopatra, B 13) contains a short hymn on the conversion of the AngloSaxons; and in the same volume is a life of St. Dunstan.

Two important volumes (Tiberius, B 5, and Titus, D 27), one of which appears to have been written for the use of nuns, formed part of the material for a history of mathematics in England, during the Middle Ages.*

* Rara Mathematica from inedited MSS., by J. O. Halliwell.

Alcuin and Aldhelm were the chief Anglo-Latin poets.  Some of Alcuin’s letters are to be found in this collection.  St. Aldhelm, Abbot, afterwards Bishop of Malmesbury, was regarded by King Alfred as the prince of Anglo-Latin poets.  His chief work, The Praises of Virginity, is at Cambridge, but his metrical treatise on the monastic life and one of his letters are here preserved.

Alfred is well represented in his Laws, and in his Saxon versions of Augustine’s soliloquies.

Of the works of the venerable Bede we have the Ecclesiastical History, the Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert, and nine other manuscripts.