tion of their disciples reflected a lustre on their talents and industry. In times of ignorance no great portion of knowledge is required to excite admiration; but we should judge of the merit of men by comparing them with their contemporaries, not with those who have lived in happier times. Yet, among the Saxon scholars of this period, there were some who have merited no vulgar praise. The commentaries of Bridferth, the monk of Ramsey, display an extent of reading, and an accuracy of calculation, which would have done honour to the most eminent philosophers of former ages; and the name of Elfric, the disciple of Ethelwold, has been rendered more illustrious by the utility of his writings, than by the archiepiscopal mitre with which he was honoured. "*

But though a stimulus was thus given to the exercise of the intellect, it was neither powerful nor universal : few ecclesiastics were roused by it even to the studies which became their character. Much of this, indeed, was owing to the same cause, - -the devastations of the Northmen, which continued during the first quarter of the eleventh century; yet the nation was not inclined to such pursuits. Under the long, and on the whole peaceful reign of the Confessor, we might expect to behold some revival of a better spirit; but no! look where we may, we behold the same ignorance, the same immorality, the same indifference to the most obvious duties of morals, no less than to the noblest subjects of the intellect. Nothing indeed could exceed the contempt with which the Norman ecclesiastics regarded the native clergy and that this contempt was richly deserved, is evident from the mental sterility of the period, and from the acknowledgment of the Saxons themselves: :

:

"Such was the general depravity, that the Norman conquest, if considered in its immediate evils, may appear as much a dispensation of Divine justice upon an abandoned people, as it proved to be of mercy in its results. Even the forms of Christianity were in danger of being lost through the criminal ignorance of the clergy, who could scarcely stammer out a service which they did not understand; one who had any

Lingard, Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 422

knowledge of the Latin grammar was regarded as a prodigy of learning.' "Such was their degradation, and such the irreverence with which the half-converted barbarians conformed to the religious usages of the age, that the nobles, instead of attending at church, would have matins and mass performed in the chambers where they were in bed with their wives and concubines. + A horrid tyranny was exercised over the peasants; the lords, for the sake of supplying their own prodigal excesses, seized their goods, and sold their persons to foreign slave-dealers. Girls were kidnapped for this abominable traffic; and it was common for these petty tyrants to sell their female vassals for prostitution at home, or to foreign traders, even though they were pregnant by themselves. When such actions were so frequent as to become a national reproach, no heavier afflictions could fall upon the nation than its offences deserved."

There can, indeed, be no doubt that the Norman invasion, though one of the severest, was also one of the most salutary inflictions that ever befel this country. This abominable people (the Anglo-Saxons), had filled the measure of their own iniquities; and mercy no less than justice required their chastisement, as the forerunner of their future regeneration.

III. SCIENCE. - Though, in the progress of nations towards refinement, the arts precede literature, the case is different with science, which in a physical sense is the application of principles to art. But the investigation of principles requires both the tardy accumulation of experience, and the coolest reasoning in comparing results, and in deducing from that comparison consequences which may serve as the bases of future investigation; and which may be held as so many tests to estimate the value of new discoveries. Hence, in all countries, science has progressed with civilisation; and the higher the scale of the general intellect, the more

These words are almost literally those of an unexceptionable judge William of Malmesbury.

This is too strong. We have no evidence that things were quite so We remember a passage like it; but it is an individual, not a general character.

bad.

Southey, Book of the Church, i. 115. In this literary sketch of the Saxon period, we do not include Alfred, who was chiefly a translator,— of Boethius and Bede. The reader, however, who wishes for some inform. ation respecting this celebrated king, may consult Turner,

comprehensive, the more certain these principles. Nor is the case in regard to metaphysical or ethical science very dissimilar. From the earliest ages the human soul had been recognised as a peculiar substance; its nature and the mode of its existence had exercised the subtlest intellects; its operations were discovered to be distinct from those of matter; and men were anxious to learn by what laws it was governed. To the Saxons, however, this was a subject exceedingly dark; amidst the conflicting opinions of ancient authorities, they had no standard by which to estimate the value of truth; and from their religious feelings they were afraid to plunge into the boundless ocean of speculation, where their faith was every moment in danger of being wrecked. It cannot, therefore, be expected that the Anglo-Saxons who were an infant nation, should have made much progress in the sciences, whether physical or moral. In fact, as they, like the more ancient nations, held science to depend not so much on experience or defined principle, as on authority, they were studious only to collect from the great writers on any given branch, what the world then knew they seldom dreamed of adding to the stock; their minds, indeed, had not the subtlety of the Greek or the Arabian; nor, if they had, would the troubled circumstances of the period have allowed them that calm uninterrupted leisure for speculation which have distinguished nations more fortunately circumstanced. But, though science rested on the fallacious basis of authority or speculation, the state in which it existed during the Anglo-Saxon period, may well excite curiosity. As the subject is interesting, and not uninstructive, we shall devote a few pages to a brief consideration of its leading branches.

From the time of St. Aldhelm, the Anglo-Saxons paid great attention to the science of numbers, which they justly regarded as the key to all the rest. But little are we accustomed to reflect on the insuperable nature of the difficulties with which they had to contend. As the Arabian figures were not introduced into England

until late in the tenth century, they were compelled to follow the tedious and unsatisfactory mode of computation left by the Romans. Every operation was of necessity by these Roman letters, I, V, X, L, C, D, M. In a dialogue between master and scholar, on which the venerable Bede appears to have bestowed some attention, we learn the method employed by the Saxon schoolmasters, to train youth in the rudiments of this important branch of knowledge. Having dwelt at some length on numbers expressed at full length in language, from unus to mille, the master proceeds to discuss the seven letters, which, for the greater readiness of calculations, were universally received as the representatives of those numbers. These signs, he says, have a twofold signification, according as they stand alone or combined. Thus I alone signifies one, V five, X ten, L fifty, C one hundred, D five hundred, M one thousand. He then proceeds to give the value of these signs in composition, and of certain arbitrary marks froin the combinations of units with V to those of M. Though any number could be expressed by these signs from I to M (one million), yet in tedious problems the necessary combinations could scarcely be formed; and when the student descended to the fractions of an integer, he was absolutely at a stand. Subsequently, indeed, every quantity was supposed to be divisible into twelve equal parts, and computable like the uncial division of the Romans. This improvement, however, was soon found to be inadequate, or at least most tedious in verbal calculations; and to shorten the labours, a sort of manual and digital arithmetic was devised. For the satisfaction of the curious reader we will give a few of the directions, premising that each finger had a name; the little one was the auricularis; the next to the little one, the medicus; the long one the impudicus; the index and pollex were of course the fore finger and the thumb. To commence with the fingers of the left hand,-for the same signs by those of the right betokened, as we shall soon perceive, very different quantities:

"Quum ergo dicis unum, minimum in lævâ digitum inflectens, in medium palmæ artum infiges.

"Quum dicis duo, secundum à minimo flexum, ibidem impones.

"Quum dicis tria, tertium similiter inflectes.

"Quum dicis quatuor, ibidem minimum levatis.

"Quum dicis quinque, secundum à minimum similiter eriges.

"Quum dicis sex, tertium nihilminus elevabis, medio duntaxat solo qui medicus appellatur, in medium palmæ fixo. "Quum dicis septem, minimum solum, cæteris interim levatis, super palmæ radicem pones juxta quod,

"Quum dicis octo, medicum.

"Quum dicis novem, impudicum e regione compones. "Quum dicis decem, unguem indicis in medio figes artu pollicis."

Other numbers were expressed by various digital signs: thus 20 was denoted by thrusting the top of the thumb between the middle joints of the index and impudicus; 30 by joining the nails of the index and pollex; 40 by drawing the inner part of the pollex over the index; 50 by bending the pollex towards the palm in the form of the Greek p. The other numbers up to 90 were expressed by various positions of the pollex and index.—For higher numbers it was necessary to employ the digits of the right hand. Thus 100 was expressed just like 10 in the left hand, that is, by fixing the nail of the forefinger in the middle joint of the thumb. 200 in the right was like the sign of 20 in the left; 300 like 30, and so on up to 900; the position of the fingers in the right hand denoting a value ten times greater than the corresponding positions of those in the left. 1000 was expressed by the right hand in the same manner as 1 in the left, viz. by raising the little finger; 2000 in the right like 2 in the left; 3000 like 3; and so on as high as 9000. For quantities higher than 9000, more important signs were necessary. To denote 10,000, the back of the left hand was laid flat on the breast, the fingers, however, pointing towards the throat; for, if they pointed towards the right side, the number was 20,000. 30,000 was denoted by the