ments 13, and some religious persons to assist him, who were afterwards active in the conversion of the rest of the island. Augustin restored from its ruins another British church at Canterbury, which had been built in the Roman times, and began the erection of a monastery. 14 The king sanctioned and assisted him in all that he did; and afterwards became distinguished as the author of the first written Saxon laws, which have descended to us, or which are known to have been established;-an important national benefit, for which he may have been indebted to his Christian teachers, as there is no evidence that the Saxons wrote any compositions before. Gregory sent into the island "many manuscripts," and thus began its intellectual as well as religious education.15 Seven years after Augustin's successful exertions in Kent, he appointed two of the persons that arrived last from Rome, Mellitus and Justus, to the episcopal dignity, and sent them to the kingdom of Essex. Sabert, the son of Ethelbert's sister, was then reigning. The new religion was favourably received; and Ethelbert, to whose superior power the little state was subject, began to erect St. Paul's church at London, its metropolis.16 gory. Augustin did not long live to contemplate the great These were, 1st, A Bible, adorned with some leaves of a purple and rose colour, in two volumes, which was extant in the time of James the First: 2d, The Psalter of St. Augustin, with the Creed, Pater Noster, and several Latin hymns: 3d, Two copies of the Gospels, with the ten Canons of Eusebius prefixed; one of which Elstob believed to be in the Bodleian library, and the other at Cambridge, p. 42. 4th, Another Psalter with hymns: 5th, A volume containing legends on the sufferings of the apostles, with a picture of our Saviour in silver, in a posture of blessing: 6th, Another volume on the martyrs, which had on the outside a glory, silver gilt, set round with crystals and beryls: 7th, An exposition of the Epistles and Gospels, which had on the cover a large beryl surrounded with crystals. Augustin also brought Gregory's Pastoral Care, which Alfred translated. See Elstob, p. 39-43., and Wanley, 172., whose deription is taken from Thomas de Elmham, a monk of Augustin's abbey, in the time of Henry V. See also Cave, Hist. Lit. p. 431. 13 A list of the vestments, vessels, relics, &c., sent by Gregory, is added to Elstob, from Wanley's communication, App. 34-40. CHAP. VI. 597. 604. 14 Bede, lib. i. c. 33. 18 Bede, lib ii. c. 3. 15 Bede, lib. i. c. 29. BOOK III. 604. advantages which he had introduced into England. He died the year of his mission into Essex. Ethelbert survived him eleven years. This King's son Eadbald restored the Saxon paganism in Kent, and drove out the Christian ecclesiastics. The three sons of Sabert imitated him in Essex. But this persecution was of a short duration. A simple contrivance of Laurence, the successor of Augustin, affected the mind of Eadbald with alarm. He appeared before the king bleeding from severe stripes; and boldly declared that he had received them in the night from St. Peter, because he was meditating his departure from the island. The idea was exactly level with the king's intellect and superstition. A strong sensation of fear that the same discipline might be inflicted, by the same invisible hand, on himself, changed his feelings, and he became a zealous friend to the new faith. The exiled bishops were recalled, and the old Saxon rites were abolished for ever in Kent and Essex.17 Laurence enjoyed his triumph but two years; and, on his death, Mellitus, who had converted Essex, received his dignity: a man of noble family, and of such an active spirit, that the gout, with which he was severely afflicted, was no impediment to his unabated exertions for the mental and moral improvement of the Saxon nation. All these early prelates enjoyed their rank but for a brief period. In five years Mellitus died, and Justus, his friend and companion from Rome, was made his successor.1 17 Bede, lib. ii. c. 5, 6. As 18 Bede, lib. ii. c. 7, 8. Gregory has also a claim to our grateful remembrance for his improvement in church music; he reformed the chant of St. Ambrose, and enlarged its plan by introducing four new modes or tones into the canto fermo ; he formed the Roman Gregorian chant which his missioned monks introduced into England. On particular occasions it is still used in the Roman Catholic church, especially during Lent, and it is felt to have a dignity, a breadth, and a simplicity which render it acceptable even to modern composers. He first separated the chanters from the regular clergy and led the way to our present system of notation by substituting the first seven letters of the Roman alphabet for the notes of the octave in place of the more complicated Greek notes. Choron. Hist. of Music, and see Hogarth's Musical History. Gregory had chosen the men best adapted to accomplish his purpose, it is probable that those he selected were advanced in life, 19 19 Gregory appears from his works and extensive correspondence, to have been a man of no common energies acting in the sincerest spirit of Christianity. He, like Alfred the Great, is an instance of how much an active minded man may do amid great bodily infirmities. For this indefatigable Pope was seldom in comfortable health. In one letter from Rome he writes" I am so oppressed with gout that life is a heavy punishment. I faint daily through pain, and breathe after death as my remedy. Among the clergy and people of the city scarce a freeman or slave are exempt from fevers."-L. 7. Ep. 127. To Eulogius of Alexandria, he mentioned in the following year- "I have been near two years confined to my bed in constant pain; often have I been forced to return to my bed when I had scarcely left it. Thus I am dying daily, and yet I am alive." In another letter he speaks of a distressing headache, and in another of a grievous burning heat which spread over all his body, and deprived him of his spirits and comfort, In his preface to Job and elsewhere, he mentions other illnesses as severely and almost continually afflicting him, СНАР. VI. 604. BOOK III. CHAP. VII. Expedition of the EAST ANGLIANS to the RHINE. - EDWIN'S THE kingdom of East Anglia becomes remarkable by an incident which Procopius has preserved, and which Expedition occurred in the sixth century. It exhibits the adAnglians to venturing spirit of our early Saxon princes. of the East the conti nent. Between the Rhine and the Northern Ocean, the 534-547. Varni had settled. Their king solicited a princess of East Anglia for his son, and the hand of the lady was promised. On his death-bed it occurred to him, that an alliance with the Francs, his neighbours, would be more profitable to his people than the friendship of the Angles, who were separated from the Varni by the sea. In obedience to the political expediency, Radiger, the prince, married his father's widow, his step-mother, because she was sister of Theodebert the Franc. The rejected East Anglian would not brook the indignity; she demanded revenge for the slight, because in the estimation of her countrymen the purity of female chastity was sullied if the maiden once wooed was not wedded. Her brother and the East Anglian warriors thought her quarrel just; a large fleet sailed from England under her auspices, and landed on the Rhine. A part of the army encamped round her; the rest, with one of 1 The editor of the great collection des Historiens des Gaules, Paris, 1741, remarks (referring to Valesius), that Procopius erred when he placed the Varni on the right bank of the Rhine, and that he is more credible when he places them nearer the Danes, vol. ii. p. 42. her brothers, defeated the Varni, and penetrated the country. Radiger fled. The Angles returned to the lady, glorying in their victory. She received them with disdain. They had done nothing, as they had not brought Radiger to her feet. Again her selected champions sallied forth, and Radiger at last was taken in a wood. The captive entered her tent, to receive his doom. But the heart of the East Anglian was still his own. He pleaded his father's commands, and the solicitations of his chiefs. The conquering beauty smiled forgiveness. To accept her hand, and to dismiss her rival, was the only punishment she awarded. Joyfully the prince obeyed, and the sister of Theodebert was repudiated.2 CHAP. VII. 547. 617. seizes This event is the only one in the history of East Anglia which can interest our notice until the reign of Redwald. Before this prince it had arrogated no dominating precedence in England. The intemperate ambition of Ethelfrith propelled it into consequence. This king of the Northumbrian Angles, dissatisfied Ethelfrith with his inherited Bernicia, and his trophies in Scot- Deira. land and Wales, invaded Deira, to which Edwin the son of Ella, at the age of three years, had succeeded; and by expelling the little infant, converted the Saxon states in England into an hexarchy. Edwin was carried into North Wales, and was generously educated by Cadvan.3 As Edwin grew up, he was compelled to leave Wales; and for many years wandered about in secret, through various provinces, to escape the unceasing pursuit of Ethelfrith. Reaching East Anglia, Edwin in he went to the court of Redwald, and, avowing him- East Anself, besought his hospitable protection. Redwald 2 Procopius, Goth. Hist. lib. iv. p. 468-471. Gibbon places this incident between 534 and 547, which were the extreme terms of the reign of Theodebert, vol. iii. c. 38. p. 627. 3 Alured Beverl. lib. vi. p. 90. Redwald was son of Titel, and grandson of Uffa, Fl. Wig. 233. glia. |