mitting
to writing those verses with which their memories were loaded; and it is
probable that they only wrote down a small quantity of them at last....
Among the innumerable advantages which accrued to the Northern nations
from the introduction of the Christian religion, that of teaching them
to apply the knowledge of letters to useful purposes is not the least
valuable. Nor could a motive less sacred have eradicated that habitual
and barbarous prejudice which caused them to neglect so admirable a
secret.'--P. 234. Mallet's statement respecting the Greek emigration of
the Northern 'Barbarians' from the East is thus confirmed by Burke.
'There is an unquestioned tradition among the Northern nations of Europe
importing that all that part of the world had suffered a great and
general revolution by a migration from Asiatic Tartary of a people whom
they call Asers. These everywhere expelled or subdued the ancient
inhabitants of the Celtick or Cimbrick original. The leader of this
Asiatic army was called Odin, or Wodin; first their general, afterwards
their tutelar deity.... The Saxon nation believed themselves the
descendants of those conquerors.' Burke, _Abridgment of English
History_, book ii. cap. i.

Page 252. _Like hunters chasing hart, to sea-beat cliffs._

This is recorded by Lingard and Burke.

Page 259. _Bede's Last May._

This narrative of the death of Bede is closely taken from a letter
written by Cuthbert, a pupil of his, then residing in Jarrow, to a
fellow-pupil at a distance. An English version of that letter is
prefixed to Dr. Giles's translation of _Bede's Ecclesiastical History_.
(Henry G. Bohn.) The death of Bede took place on Wednesday, May 26, A.D.
735, being Ascension Day.

Page 265. _They hunger for your souls; with reverent palms._

'But in a mystical sense the disciples pass through the cornfields when
the holy Doctors look with the care of a pious solicitude upon those
whom they have initiated in the Faith, and who, it is implied, are
hungering for the best of all things--the salvation of men. But to pluck
the ears of corn means to snatch men away from the eager desire of
earthly things. And to rub with the hands is, by examples of virtue, to
put from the purity of their minds the concupiscence of the flesh, as
men do husks. To eat the grains is when a man, cleansed from the filth
of vice by the mouths of preachers, is incorporated amongst the members
of the Church.'--Bede, quoted in th