should have been so stern and squeamish as not to give us the
substance of that old book, containing a life of Athelstan--which he
discovered, and supposed to be coeval with the monarch--because,
forsooth, the account was too uniformly flattering! Let me here,
however, refer you to that beautiful translation of a Saxon ode,
written in commemoration of Athelstan's decisive victory over the
Danes of Brunamburg, which Mr. George Ellis has inserted in his
interesting volumes of _Specimens of the Early English Poets_:[243]
and always bear in recollection that this monarch shewed the best
proof of his attachment to books by employing as many learned men as
he could collect together for the purpose of translating the
Scriptures into his native Saxon tongue.

[Footnote 242: Consult _Johannis Rossi Historia Regum
Angliae; edit. Hearne_, 1745, 8vo., p. 96. This passage has
been faithfully translated by Dr. Henry. But let the lover
of knotty points in ancient matters look into Master Henry
Bynneman's prettily printed impression (A.D. 1568) of _De
Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiae_, p. 14--where the
antiquity of the University of Cambridge is gravely assigned
to the aera of Gurguntius's reign, A.M. 3588!--Nor must we
rest satisfied with the ingenious temerity of this author's
claims in favour of his beloved Cambridge, until we have
patiently examined Thomas Hearne's edition (A.D. 1720) of
_Thomae Caii Vindic. Antiquitat. Acad. Oxon._: a work well
deserving of a snug place in the antiquary's cabinet.]

[Footnote 243: Edit. 1803, vol. i., p. 14.]

Let us pass by that extraordinary scholar, courtier, statesman, and
monk--ST. DUNSTAN; by observing only that, as he was even more to
Edgar than Wolsey was to Henry VIII.--so, if there had then been the
same love of literature and progress in civilization which marked the
opening of the sixteenth century, Dunstan would have equalled, if not
eclipsed, Wolsey in the magnificence and utility of his institutions.
How many volumes of legends he gave to the library of Glastonbury, of
which he was once the abbot, or to Canterbury, of which he was
afterwards the Archbishop, I cannot take upon me to guess: as I have
neither of Hearne's three publications[244] relating to Glastonbury in
my humble library.

[Footnote 244: There is an ample Catalogue Raisonne of these
three scarce publications in the first volume