understood him. His is the most important name in the English literature of this century, and the power which he has exercised upon the religious thought of England, and even of America, is vast and profound. In his earlier writings, in spite of the latent pantheism which has grown upon him with such fatal effect, he appealed to the higher and spiritual nature of man with an eloquence which reaches the inmost soul. He is a truer poet than Byron or Mr. Tennyson; a profounder thinker than Stuart Mill or Mr. Herbert Spencer; and a worthier historian than Macaulay or Mr. Froude. He has the most real and subtle humor; the pathos of a "divine despair;" infinite indignation; the holiest anger, and a seraph's loathing of mere matter; and by nature he is not without tenderness and the deepest sympathy. His misfortune and defect is profound and radical skepticism concerning the highest truth. Greater and more awful than the eternities, the immensities, the unconscious, he can conceive of nothing. The many-colored picture of life is painted on a canvas of darkness, and in the background there hovers a region of doubt which thought cannot possibly transform into certainty. He fails to perceive that what forces us to recognize a reality beneath appearances, proclaims also the presence of mind in the laws and harmonies of nature. The fearful and infinite force overwhelms him, and the supreme and central power of love and wisdom is not felt. Hence we find him still, as his disciple has sung of himself: "Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born." After all that can be said, has been said, in praise of Force, this still remains to be said, that it cannot be loved. And yet except in trustful love man finds no peace and no blessedness. "Unhappy men," said St. Teresa, "who do not love!" CEDMON: HIS GENIUS AND INFLUENCE. 1. Cadmon's Paraphrase. Ed. Ben. Thorpe. 2. The Ruthwell Cross. Ed. Prof. Geo. Stephens, F.S.A.: London, 1866. 3. Cadmon, the First English Poet. R. S. Watson: 1875. 4. De Carminibus Anglo-Saxonicis Cadmoni. E. G. Sandras. 5. History of Whitby and Whitby Abbey. Lionel Charlton : York, 1779. 6. Bouterwek. De Cedmone. Elberfelda. 7. Cadmon's Fall of Man. Translated by W. H. F. Bosanquet. 8. Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie. 3 Bde. 9. Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede. 10. Early English Writers. Henry Morley: Vols. i, ii. London. H ENRY MORLEY is a painstaking writer. He does conscientious work. But his style is not attractive. It creeps. It is characteristic of the sober earnestness with which he labors. In his Early English Writers he undertakes to reveal all the treasures of English literature. It is a life-work, and he seems to have laid himself out to it with hearty good-will. He certainly brings together a great deal of miscellaneous matter. He even attempts to reconstruct the intellectual and material life of the period he deals with; but he is not successful. It is as though one were to cart together the rubbish of a ruin and tell us: "These are the materials of which such and such an ancient building is composed; handle them, admire them; it is a labor of love for me to bring them together." Taine goes farther. He takes the material and reconstructs a porch, or a room, or an outhouse, and tells us: "Such is the porch, such the room; judge for yourself of the rest of the building." But sometimes he takes the stable for the dwelling-house, or the dwelling-house for the stable, according as he is prepared to praise or blame. They both fail; but for different reasons. Taine has the mental grasp and the generalizing power; but he is intellectually color-blind. Morley is an honest but awkward worker; he cannot manage his materials. Then he lacks certain primary qualities necessary for the good critic. He has no genius for psychological analysis; he cannot sift facts; he has not learned how to read between lines. Take, for instance, his treatment of Cedmon. He recognizes his greatness, but he does not know how to take it out of the myths in which it is enveloped. He seems to have a vague idea of his influence, though he cannot trace it out. He even commits himself to that fanciful theory of Palgrave's concerning the origin of the name Cedmon. As a pretty piece of word-romancing we give the latter's conclusion in his own words, without allud ing to the manner in which Henry Morley weaves it into his story: "Now, to the name Cædmon, whether considered as a simple or as a compound, no plain and definite meaning can be assigned, if the interpretation be sought in the Anglo-Saxon language; whilst that very name is the initial word of the book of Genesis in the Chaldee paraphrase, or Targum of Onkelos: b' Cadmin or b' Cadmon (the b' is merely a prefix) being a literal translation of b'Raschith or In principio,' the initial word of the original Hebrew text. It is hardly necessary to observe that the books of the Bible are denominated by the Jews from their initial words: they quote and call Genesis by the name of b'Raschith; the Chaldaic Genesis would be quoted and called by the name of b' Cadmin, and this custom, adopted by them at least as early as the time of St. Jerome, has continued in use until the present day." The word Cædmon is not found in the old English dictionaries; but the word Ced is, and means. boat or wherry; so that Cedmon would mean boatman or wherryman. It is a name still common in Yorkshire. Writing in the last century, Lionel Charlton says: "Cedmon's memory remained in great veneration, not only at Streanshalh, but also through the whole kingdom of Northumberland, where his name was long honorably used as an appellative or proper name, and after the conquest was adopted as a surname; so that there yet remain to these our days some families in Whitby and its neighborhood that are known by the name of Cedmon or Sedman; a name with us the most honorable and ancient of all others." Bouterwek, an authority of great weight on such subjects, finds no difficulty in deriving the name from an old English origin. The writer would scarcely lay such stress upon the mere name were it not for some attempts to build up a theory, to which Mr. Henry Morley inclines, that the Culdees and their parent Irish Church received their teachings and traditions, not from Rome, but from the East. This is a theory for which the writer, after a diligent search, has been able to discover no foundation. 2 But to return to Mr. Morley's book. The history of literature is at present a popular subject. But the day is past when such a 1 Archæologia, vol. xxiv. p. 342. History of Whitby, B. i. p. 17: York, 1779. In a learned dissertation on the subject he says: Ipsum Cedmonis nomen (cf Gr. Gr. 2, 507) initio appellativum fuisse, dubium non est. Variæ ejus formæ sunt: Ced. mon, Cadmon, Ceadmon, vox ipsa composita e mon, vir (cf. Paraphr. p. 89, 3: flotmon nauta, p. 186, 12; vraec-mon, fugitivis), et ced, quod ut in glossis a Cl. Monio editis est (p. 331) lintrem denotat. Cedmon tamen non nautam significare videtur, sed potius idem valere quod scegdhmon, pirata, a scegdh, sceigdh liburna, scapha. cf. Gr. 3, 437, ibique Gl. Monii Hoc vero nomen nihil infame habuisse, alia ejusmodi veterum nomina, e. g. landsceatha latro, hros-diop, heriwolf, beowulf cet. satis luculenter testanter. cf. Gr. Gr. 3, 785, notam.-De Cedmone, Elberfeldæ, p. 9. history must be a string of crude notes concerning an author with a few specimen verses tagged on to the tail end. Literature is representative of something deeper than itself, and as such must be treated. It is the outcome of history. It is the expressed thought and sentiment of an age as well as of an individual. We expect to find how far it records the one and the other; and there is no excuse for not being able so to handle literature. One's impressions of a book are not an adequate criticism of the book. The Schlegels, and Sainte-Beuve, and Matthew Arnold do not so criticize; and they are good models in their method, if not in their treatment. Though of Matthew Arnold we must add, that we speak exclusively of his literary criticisms, for when he enters on the domain of religion he becomes silly. Henry Morley is the first historian of English literature who tries to do full justice to Cedmon, and endeavors to say all that can be said concerning him. It is a subject worthy of his learning; and, considering his slender stock of materials, his effort is as creditable to him as it is praiseworthy. It is the purpose of the writer to endeavor to unravel fact from legend in the life of this great poet, to dwell upon his poetry as the outcome of circumstances, and to trace his influence so far as he can find a perceptible clue to its action. I. Let us forget the England of to-day and go back to the seventh century. Rest we on the sea-beaten cliffs of Whitby. It was then known as Streanshalh, and received its more modern name only from the Danes. The zealous and devoted Bishop Aidann is still actively at work. It was in 640, at Hartlepool, that he founded the first nunnery in Northumberland, and placed at its head an Irish. lady, called Heru. Later on he builds a monastery at Whitby. He appoints to govern it the abbess Hilda. A most remarkable woman was this saint. Baptized at the age of fourteen by Paulinus, she preserved unspotted the robe of innocence, with which, on that day, she was clothed. She lived with her relatives and friends till the age of thirty-three, when she enters a convent in East Anglia and consecrates herself to God. Thence she is called by Aidann to govern the new-built monastery at Whitby. It is a double monastery, having a house for men and one for women, according to a custom prevalent in those days. With both is Hilda charged, and well and efficiently does she govern them. The monastery of men becomes a shrine of learning and science, and is noted as the nursery whence issued several saintly bishops. The pru 1 See Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church," for examples and authorities, pp. 82, 83; also Vit. St. Liobæ apud Mab, Sæc. 3. dence, tact, and holy life of the abbess extend their beneficial influence far beyond the convent walls. Bishops and kings consult her under difficulties.' Contesting parties refer their feuds to her and abide by her decision. Her tact in this respect was noteworthy. No one ever thought of appealing from her word. She died in 680, in her sixty-third year, deplored by all, and left in the north of England a name undimmed by centuries. Her memory is still kept green by the gratitude of a people to whose ancestors she was a benefactor. Everything strange or wonderful in the neighborhood of Whitby occurs through her interposition. Nothing hurtful might approach her abode. Wild geese could not fly over her monastery. Ammonites abound in that district; to the fancies of the people they are snakes turned to stone by the dear St. Hilda. Under favorable circumstances a mirage may be seen in one of the windows of the ruins of the church still standing; it is the dear St. Hilda, who continues to show her love for the good people of Whitby, by watching over them from this window. Childish fancies these of a childlike people, who thus embody their gratitude and devotion in legend which outlives history and hard fact. But it is not for any or all of these things that the writer introduces St. Hilda; it is rather because she fostered the greatest poet of her age. She encouraged and drew out the genius that was to revolutionize the popular mind. She was the fast friend of Cedmon. And thus it is, that at the cradle of English Christian song, as at that of the Christian religion among the English, as at that of the same in Judea, as at that of humanity itself, sits a woman. II. The life of Cedmon, like that of his great successor, Shakspeare, lies buried in fable and obscurity. But through the mists in which 1 Butler, "Lives of the Saints," vol. iv. p. 370. 2 Camden. • A paper that was formerly printed and sold in Whitby alludes to these legends. It may be found in Grose's “ Antiquities of England,” vol. vi. p. 163. Therein St. Hilda is represented as speaking in the following rude verses, written with more affection than good taste: "Likewise a window there I placed, All the day long fairly appear. At the west end of the church you'll see Nine paces there, in each degree; But if one foot you stir aside, |