work, is the credulity and superstition which mark the age; and we reason justly and conclusively from the denial of the most palpable and absurd, to the repudiation of the lesser demands on our credulity.  It is sufficient for us that both were eagerly believed in his day, and thus complete a picture of the age which such a view would only serve to impair, if not destroy.  The theology of the age is set forth with wonderful clearness, in the numerous questions propounded by Augustine to Gregory I., the Bishop of Rome, and in the judicious answers of that prelate; in which may also be found the true relation which the Church of Rome bore to her English mission.

We have also the statement of the establishment of the archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, the bishopric of London, and others.

The last chapter but one, the twenty-third, gives an important account “of the present state of the English nation, or of all Britain;” and the twenty-fourth contains a chronological recapitulation, from the beginning of the year 731, and a list of the author’s works.  Bede produced, besides his history, translations of many books in the Bible, several histories of abbots and saints, books of hymns and epigrams, a treatise on orthography, and one on poetry.

To point the student to Bede’s works, and to indicate their historic teachings, is all that can be here accomplished.  A careful study of his Latin History, as the great literary monument of the Anglo-Saxon period, will disclose many important truths which lie beneath the surface, and thus escape the cursory reader.  Wars and politics, of which the Anglo-Saxon chronicle is full, find comparatively little place in his pages.  The Church was then peaceful, and not polemic; the monasteries were sanctuaries in which quiet, devotion, and order reigned.  Another phase of the literature shows us how the Gentiles raged and the people were imagining a vain thing; but Bede, from his undisturbed cell, scarcely heard the howlings of the storm, as he wrote of that kingdom which promised peace and good-will.

BEDE’S LATIN.—­To the classical student, the language of Bede offers an interesting study.  The Latin had already been corrupted, and a nice discrimination will show the causes of this corruption—­the effects of the other living languages, the ignorance of the clergy, and the new subjects and ideas to which it was applied.

Bede was in the main more correct than his age, and his vocabulary has few words of barbarian origin.  He arose like a luminary, and when the light of his learning disappeared, but one other star appeared to irradiate the gloom which followed his setting; and that was in the person and the reign of Alfred.

OTHER WRITERS OF THIS AGE.—­Among names which must pass with the mere mention, the following are, after Bede, the most illustrious in this time. Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, who died in the year 709, is noted for his scientific computations, and for his poetry:  he is said to have translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon poetry.