While we must pass over many fine Anglo-Saxon poems without mention, there are two that must receive some notice.  ‘Judith’ is an epic based upon the book of Judith in the ‘Apocrypha.’  Only about one-fourth of it has survived.  The author is still unknown, in spite of many intelligent efforts to determine to whom the honor belongs.  The dates assigned to it vary from the seventh to the tenth century; here, too, uncertainty prevails:  but we are at least sure that it is one of the best of the Anglo-Saxon poems.  It has been said that this work shows a more definite plan and more conscious art than any other Anglo-Saxon poem.  Brooke finds it sometimes conventional in the form of expression, and denies it the highest rank for that reason.  But he does not seem to sustain the charge.  The two principal characters, the dauntless Judith and the brutal Holofernes, stand out with remarkable distinctness, and a fine dramatic quality has been noted by several critics.  The epithets and metaphors, the description of the drunken debauch, and the swift, powerful narrative of the battle and the rout of the Assyrians, are in the best Anglo-Saxon epic strain.  The poem is distinctly Christian; for the Hebrew heroine, with a naive anachronism, prays thus:  “God of Creation, Spirit of Consolation, Son of the Almighty, I pray for Thy mercy to me, greatly in need of it.  Glory of the Trinity.”

‘The Battle of Maldon’ is a ballad, containing an account of a fight between the Northmen and the East Saxons under the Aldorman, Byrhtnoth.  The incident is mentioned in one MS. of the Chronicle under the date of 991; in another, under the date of 993.  The poem is exceedingly graphic.  The poet seems filled with intense feeling, and may have been a spectator, or may indeed have taken part in the struggle.  He tells how the brave old Aldorman disdains to use the advantage of his position, which bade fair to give him victory.  Like a boy, he cannot take a dare, but fatuously allows the enemy to begin the battle upon an equal footing with his own men.  He pays for his noble folly with his life and the defeat of his army.  The devotion of the Aldorman’s hearth-companions, who refuse to survive their lord, and with brave words meet their death, is finely described.  But not all are true; some, who have been especially favored, ignobly flee.  These are treated with the racial contempt for cowards.  The poem has survived in fragmentary form, and the name of the poet is not known.

As distinguished from all poetical remains of such literature, the surviving prose of the Anglo-Saxons, though extensive, and of the greatest interest and value, is less varied in subject and manner than their poetry.  It admits of brief treatment.  The earliest known specimens of Anglo-Saxon prose writing have been already mentioned.  These do not constitute the beginning of a literature, yet, with the rest of the extensive collection of Anglo-Saxon laws that has survived, they are of the greatest importance to students.  Earle quotes Dr. Reinhold Schmid as saying, “No other Germanic nation has bequeathed to us out of its earliest experience so rich a treasure of original legal documents as the Anglo-Saxon nation has,”—­only another instance of the precocity of our ancestors.