WRIGHT'S BIOGRAPHIA RRITANNICA LITERARIA.
THE Royal Society of Literature, under whose superintendence this volume is published, was just such a body as might be expected from its founder GEORGE the Fourth, who built a marine villa without a view of the sea. The pensions of 100/. a year to a cer- tain number of literary men in straitened circumstances, was an in- dividual boon by the exact amount of the sum distributed ; but its apportionment by a parcel of lords and gentlemen, and literary jobbers, was liable to degenerate into mere favouritism, and partook too much of dole to be very grateful to the feelings of the recipients ; whilst the allowances, depending upon the founder's life, were liable through their sudden stoppage to induce a greater incon- venience than they originally remedied ; and so, we believe, it proved. The fund to present a couple of gold medals for "works of great literary merit, and for important discoveries in literature," had the same objection of want of permanence, involved pretty considerable presumption in the self-constituted judges, and was certain to dege- nerate into caprice, jobbing, personal partialities, and all the odious manceuvering and intrigue which are generated by such cliques. Of the fourteen medals distributed, neither WORDSWORTH, CAMPBELL, nor MOORE received one : yet it cannot be said that either poetry or light literature was under ban, for CRABBE and WASHINGTON IaviNG are among the recipients. The first historian and the first person who was honoured with a medal was MITFORD, (his brother was a lord) ; the last medal was assigned to HALLAM ; four years elapsed before SOUTHEY and SCOTT had this honorary badge ; their predecessors, besides Mirroan, being ANGELO MAI, JAMES REN- NELL, CHARLES WILKIN, Professor SCHWEIGHIEUSER, and DUGALD STEWART.
The third object of the Society, "the publication of inedited remains of ancient literature, and of such works as may be of great intrinsic value, but not of that popular character which readily com- mands the attention of publishers," is of a more practical and tangible nature, but obnoxious to the same kind of abuses—the whim of individuals in the choice of subjects, or the influence of favouritism and intrigue. The book before us is a remarkable in- stance of this kind. In the course of eighteen years, the Society has only published two books,—a second volume of Egyptian Hieroglyphics, and the Biographia Britannica Literaria; the latter a work which in its treatment is not unfitted for a bookseller's spe- culation, and whose general purpose is so far popular that the lives of several of the persons have been published in Lardner's Cyclo- p_adia; the chief difference in scope and purpose being, that Mr. WRIGHT embraces a complete series of authors, and the compilers in Lccrdner only took the more characteristic persons. We make this remark without any disrespect to Mr. WRIGHT; who is certainly not to blame if he can find friends to bear him harmless from what may appear a riskful speculation, and whose book is of an informing and agreeable kind : but a more remark- able deviation from the true purpose of this or any other society is hardly conceivable. The Biographic Britannica Literaria is not a series of original documents, or reprint of very scarce books ; nor a critical précis of their contents, superseding their general and directing their special use ; nor a series of original discoveries im- portant to be given to the world but so expensive in illustration or of so limited an interest as to insure a certain loss ; neither can the subject or its style of treatment be pronounced of that cha- racter that it might not succeed, and speculation is an element in all publishing, against which no society (at least no society profess- ing a royal foundation and public objects) is set up to insure against. Questions connected with the manners, modes of thought, and learning of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, may not have the tem- porary attraction of a novel, (though they have a more enduring interest): but the same is true of every other work on a similar subject—of the first volume of Hinix's England, for instance, or PALGRAYE'S Anglo-Saxon Period in "The Family Library.". The attraction of the subject depends upon the treatment. The Biographia Britannica Literaria consists of two parts. An Introduction gives a general view of Anglo-Saxon literature and
learning ; brief, succinct, and rather popular, but not displaying any striking acumen. The Biography proper contains a series of lives of the Anglo-Saxon authors from the sixth century till the Conquest; in which the leading events of their careers are clearly and pleasantly presented, with a critically descriptive account of such of their works as remain, interwoven with occasional speci- mens; whilst to each author is appended a bibliographical list of the different editions of his works. As a general rule, the biogra- phical obtains over the literary portion,—that is, the reader will get fuller ideas of the life of the author than of the character of his works. This, however, is not universally the case ; as in the following sketch of the natural philosophy of the Anglo-Saxons, in an account of
BEDE'S TREATISE " DE NATURA RERUM."
The tract De Natures Rerun', which was one of Bede's earliest works, and the Anglo-Saxon abridged translation made in the tenth century, were the text-books of science in England until the twelfth century. The system of Bede was the same which had prevailed in Europe during several centuries. He considered the earth to be the centre of the universe ; and he believed that the firmament was spherical, and bounded by or enclosed in fire, (De Run Nat. cc. 4, 5); beyond this was the higher heaven, peopled by angelic beings, who were supposed to be able to take etherial bodies, assimilate themselves to men, eat, drink, and perform the other functions of human nature, and at will lay aside their assumed form and return to their own dwelling-place, (ib. c. 7.) He taught that the waters above the firmament were placed there for the purpose of moderating the heat of the fire and the igneous stars, (c. 8); that the stars, with the exception of the wandering stars or planets, are fixed in the firmament and move round with it, and that sparks struck from them and carried away by the wind are what we call falling stars, (c. 11) ; that there are seven planets, whim orbits are included in the firmament, and which revolve in the contrary direction to the motion of the sun, (c. 12); that comets are stars produced suddenly, with crests of flame, and that they forebode political revolutions, pestilence, war, or great tempests and droughts, (c. 24); that the different co- lours of the planets are caused by variation of distance and by the different strata of air in which they revolve, (c. 15.) Many of Bede's notions with re- gard to the planet which we inhabit were equally unscientific : he considered the earth to be a globe, (De Rer. Nat. c. 46); but he did not believe in the existence of the antipodes, (De Tempor. Rat. c. 32); he says that the earth internally resembles a sponge, and that earthquakes are produced by the sudden
and forcible escape of wind confined in the cavernous parts, (De Rer. Nat. c. 49); that the sea is not increased by the rivers which run into it, either be- cause it is constantly evaporating into the clouds, or because the water descends
continually into the earth by secret passages, (ib. c. 40); that the sea to the north of Thule is a mass of everlasting ice ; that thunder is produced by the sadden bursting forth of wind confined and compressed in the clouds, like the
bursting of a bladder, (c. 28); and that lightning is produced by the collision of the clouds in the same manner as fire by the striking together of flints, (c. 29.) Be believed that the world was in his time in its sixth age, old, decreptd, and worn out, and that its end was near approaching, (De Temp. Rat.)
ANGLO-SAXON EPISTLES.
Boniface and Alcnin have left us a large body of familiar letters, which, from the many early transcripts of them that remain, seem to have been the delight of our forefathers during the ninth century, and which deserve to be better known than they are even at the present day. In these letters, although the same subject of paramount importance which gave rise to the severer writings casts a shade of character over the whole, yet at times the theologian or scholar throws off the dulness of scholastic erudition, shows himself the attentive cor- respondent and the affectionate friend, and amid graver business indulges in playful compliments and sallies of wit. Occasionally the present sent by a friend from a distant land will produce a joke or epigram; at one time the follies of contemporaries will drawn smile or even a tear; while at another the intelligence of the loss of a friend or the devastation by barbarous enemies of some beloved spot, is received with the pathetic elegance of heart-felt sorrow. The correspondence of Alcuin is peculiarly lively; and his letters are interest- ing to us in more points of view than one. In them, the fearful struggles in Italy and the South of France, between the iron-armed warriors of the West and the Saracens who had conquered Africa and Spain, and the expeditions of Charlemagne to curb the Saxons and other tribes who paid but an uncertain obedience to his sway—events on which we are accustomed to look through the misty atmosphere of romance, till they seem little better than fables—are told as the news of yesterday ; and the warrior whom we are in the habit of pic- turing to our minds sheathed in iron and stern in look, employed only in bruising the heads of his enemies or oppressing his friends, not less than the hoary-headed priest whom we imagine in flowing robes, with calm and reverend mien, preaching salvation to herds of wild men but just emerging from the ignorance of Pagan superstition,stands himself before us, suddenly transformed into the man of taste and the elegant scholar. It is thus that, when we ab- stract ourselves entirely from the outward consideration of dress and position, from the ever-varying attributes of age and country, these letters teach us the instructive lesson that the mind, when cultivated, is much the same in all ages ; that it is capable of the same feelings, the same tastes, and the same intelli- gence; and that these show themselves naturally under the same forms; in a word, that the old saying of the poet- " Ccelum nun animum mutant qui trans mare currant," is true when we apply it to the mind in general, and when we take into consi- deration diversity of time and person, as well as difference of place.
LEARNED LADIES.
The cultivation of letters was in that age by no means confined to the
robuster sex ; the Anglo-Saxon ladies applied themselves to study with equal zeal, and almost equal success. It was for their reading chiefly that .Aldhelm wrote his book De Laude Virginitatis. The female correspondents of Boni- face wrote in Latin with as much ease as the ladies of the present day write in French, and their letters often show much elegant and courtly feeling. They sometimes also sent him specimens of their skill in writing Latin verse. The Abbess Eadburga was one of Boniface's most constant friends: she seems to have frequently sent him books, written by herself or by her scholars, for the instruction of his German converts ; and on one occasion he accompanies his letter to her with a present of a silver pen. Leobgitha, one of her pupils, concludes a letter to Boniface by offering him a specimen of her acquirements in Latin metres. "These underwritten verses," she says, "I have endea- voured to compose according to the rules derived from the poets, not in a spirit of presumption, but with the desire of exciting the powers of my slender talents, and in the hope of thine assistance therein. This art I have learnt from Ead- barge, who is ever occupied in studying the Divine law." The four hexameters which follow this introduction, though not remarkable for elegance or correct- ness, are still a favourable specimen of the attainments of a young Anglo-Saxon dame. They are addressed as a concluding benediction to flonitace himself- - Arbiter omnipoteus, talus qui cuncta creavit, In regno papas semper qui luminefulget;
QUA jugiter Bagrans sic regnet glom Christi, Ills3sum servet limper te jure perenut."
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