PART II.

LITERATURE OF THE UNIVERSITY.

CHAP. I.

BRITONS-SAXONS.

GILDAS, named the Wise, A. 495, speaking of the ancient Britons, observes, that they either had no records, or, if they had, that those records had been destroyed a. We need not, then, too rigidly explore into the literary pursuits of Caergrant, the land of scholars. A formal investigation into the nature of the schools, and the extent of the literature, of the ancient Britons, would be ploughing on the sand.

But, in making concessions, we may give up too much. It is difficult to conceive, that the Britons were either so lawless, as they are described by the writer of the preface to Hywel Dda's laws, or so unlettered as Hume describes them. The Bardic Institutions are very ancient; and

a Gildas de Excid. Britan. cap. I.

The

b Leges Wallicæ. Edidit Gulielmus Wottonus, S. T. P. 1730. preface is written by Dr. William Clarke, but the part alluded to has to struggle against great authorities, which may be seen in the aforesaid learned preface.

e History of England.

the Druids, according to Cæsar, taught several branches of literature a. They were forbidden, it is true, to commit then to writing-this accounts for their not being handed down to us-but Cæsar says, they had Greek letters, and Pliny describes Britain as an island, celebrated for its monuments of literature, both Grecian and Roman".

Anthony Wood, determined to do them ample justice, goes to the opposite extreme; describing them, as having a whole encyclopædia of the sciences among them; with institutions, resembling our universities, and having privileges, exemptions, and orders, like theirs. Camden had gone over the same ground before, though he trod it with more caution and prudence. Dr. Davies says, the

d

a Imprimis hoc volunt persuadere, non interire animas, sed aliis post mortem transire ad alios; atq. hoc maximè ad virtutem excitari putant, metu mortis neglecto. Multa præterea de sideribus, atq. eorum motu, de mundi ac terrarum magnitudine, de earum natura, de deorum immortalium vi ac potestate disputant, et juventuti tradunt. De Bel. Gal. lib. vi.

b Britannia Insula clara Græcis nostrisq. monumentis. Nat. Hist. I. 4. c. 16.

Hist. et Antiq. Oxon. lib. 1. Universam Scientiarum Encyclopædiam, cognitam penitus, et excultam in hac insula floruisse

Quemadmodum in academiis nostris nunc temporis agitur.

d Dr. Davies, author of the Linguæ Britanniæ, &c. Rudimenta, and a Welch Dictionary, traces it to the Hebrew, and says, Deniq. luce clarius est meridianâ linguam Brit. cum orientalibus, a quibus universæ linguæ ortum habent, magnam affinitatem habere-cum reliquis Europæis pene nullam.-Cambro. Brit. Gram. Præf. 1621. Camden endeavours to shew, (and he has both Cæsar and Tacitus on his side, de Bel. Gal. et Vit. Agric.) that the language of the Britons and Gauls was the same. Si igitur, says he, priscos Gallos, et nostros Britannos, eadem usos fuisse lingua, docuero, ejusdem etiam originis fuisse, ut fateamur, ipsa vis veritatis extorquebit. Britannia. Primi Incolæ. Dr. Davies aims to establish his theory on the analogy in grammar, pronunciation, and prosody, between the Hebrew and Welch languages; Camden his, by a long

origin of the language is unknown, and conceives it to be sprung of the most ancient in the world. I only glance at these matters.

But, to say the least, a people to whose early acquaintance with civil liberty there is testimony so remote and fulla; and who, becoming Christians at a very early period, could so well assert their religious liberty, must not be confounded with those barbarians, among whom a state of nature is a state of war; and who follow, indiscriminately, as they are led by conquerors and tyrants.

Britain was considered, by the Romans, as another world, and described by different writers by different names, though neither the authors of them, nor the import, are sufficiently clear. Most of them, however, seem

list of words in the ancient Gaulish and British languages, corresponding in meaning: this, at least, may be said, that one opinion does not destroy the other.

a In Cæsar and Tacitus.

b Bedæ Hist. Angl. and after Bede, Spelmanni Concil: Brit.

• Hence Claudian, as quoted by Bertram, in his Notes to Ricardus Monachus Westmonasteriensis de Situ Brit. p. 9.

-Nostro deducta Britannia mundo.

De Malii Theodosii Cons. v. 51.

and Solinus after him,

Nomen pene orbis alterius.

Cap. de Britannia.

Horace had said before,

Serves iturum Cæsarem in ultimos

Orbis Britannos.

Lib. i. Od. 33.

and Lucan,

Hic, cui Romani spatium non sufficit orbis.

Pharsal. lib. x. v. 156.

to express something, either agreeable or useful. The country was highly favourable to civilization; and, we may presume, to borrow a little classical language, that with a people, among whom Ceres had so rich a temple, there would at least be a chapel to Minerva.

But whatever was possessed by the Britons was thrown into confusion by their successors. The Saxons came here at first as destroyers, not revivers. They possessed

a An attempt to give the true derivations may be seen in Bertram's Notæ in Ricardo Monach. de Situ Britanniæ, p.94, 95, &c. of the edition published in 1809. What this writer says is highly probable, and if true, is a confutation of Camden, in Britannia, p. 26, &c. edit. 1600, and of Somner, Glossar. Antiq. Britan. voce, Albion, p. 13.

Edward Williams, the Welch bard, (Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, vol. ii. p. 42.) says, Prydain is beautiful: Pryd is beauty, the termination ain, in Welch, meaning the English ful, in beautiful; and he thus differs from most of our etymologists. Stow always calls it Brutaine, or Brutane, from Brutus, the Trojan.

where the writer is speaking of this island. In the same strain Tacitus. Solum præter oleam vitemq. et cetera calidioribus terris oriri sueta, patiens frugum, fecundum. Vit. Agric. c. 12.

Herodian, indeed, who wrote the history of his own times, and describes the expedition of Severus, the Roman emperor, into Britain, uniformly describes the Britons as Bagcapo, lib. 3, 4. But his history, in regard to foreign nations, relates merely to military affairs, in the wars of the Romans against them. For reasons above-mentioned, he could know nothing of the Druidical philosophy, whatever that might be. Herodian, too, was a Greek historian, of Alexandria, and followed the general strain of Greek writers, who treated all nations, but their own, as barbarous. He speaks not only of the Britons, but of all the eastern nations, that he mentions, as Bapổapoi, barbarians; and yet the Greeks themselves derived their philosophy from the East.

a good language, and like all other warlike nations, something of a rude poetry; by accident, too, they obtained no illiberal notions of government. But in their own country they were still barbarians.

Yet, I cannot forbear observing, how totally Hume has passed over the literature of the Saxons, even in this country, or rather, confounded together the state of the Saxons in their own country, with their condition in this. To mistime is here to misrepresent. From the time of Augustine a they certainly had some literature in their monasteries; and in the seventh century, Theodore and Adrian came from Rome to supply the place of an English archbishop, who died there on a mission to the pope. Bede tells us, they taught not only Latin and Greek, but astronomy, arithmetic, and Latin poetry. There is a curious specimen of the Lord's prayer, in what may be called Saxon Greek, in the British Museum. To dig no deeper in this soil, the writings of Aldhem, Bede, and Alcuin, of Joannes Erigena, king Alfred, and

■ He came here in 596, and was received by Ethelbert, king of Kent, who, with many of his people, received the faith. Ethelbert's laws stand the first in Wilkins's Ll. Angl. Sax., and the first of the laws relates to Linic grip and Mýnszeres frip, the peace of the church and the peace of the monastery.

b Monasteries, however, were built here before the coming of St. Augustine, though not so soon as in other parts of Europe. Asceticwn, lib. 1. And these monks well understood the grounds of their religion, and of civil and religious liberty, as their behaviour to Augustine proves. Spelmanni Concil. Brit., and Bed. Hist. Brit. lib. 1. cap. iv. ubi supra.

e MS. Cot. Galba. 18. glo-Sax. vol. ii. p. 301. regularly taught here; if sently.

It is quoted by Mr. Turner, Hist. of the AnBut I do not suppose the Greek language was it was, it was soon lost, as I shall shew pre