from a French original, being the story of that Irish monk who, in a
leather bark, sailed in search of Paradise,[334] and visited marvellous
islands where ewes govern themselves, and where the birds are angels
transformed. The optimistic ideal of the Celts reappears in this poem,
the subject of which is borrowed from them. "All there is beautiful,
pure, and innocent; never was so kind a glance bestowed on the world,
not a cruel idea, not a trace of weakness or regret."[335]

The mirth of St. Dunstan's story, the serenity of the legend of St.
Brandan, are examples rarely met with in this literature. Under the
light ornamentation copied from the Celts and Normans, is usually seen
at that date the sombre and dreamy background of the Anglo-Saxon mind.
Hell and its torments, remorse for irreparable crimes, dread of the
hereafter, terror of the judgments of God and the brevity of life, are,
as they were before the Conquest, favourite subjects with the national
poets. They recur to them again and again; French poems describing the
same are those they imitate the more willingly; the tollings of the
funeral bell are heard each day in their compositions. Why cling to this
perishable world? it will pass as "the schadewe that glyt away;" man
will fade as a leaf, "so lef on bouh." Where are Paris, and Helen, and
Tristan, and Iseult, and Caesar? They have fled out of this world as the
shaft from the bowstring:

Heo beoth iglyden ut of the reyne,
So the scheft is of the cleo.[336]

Treatises of various kinds, and pious poems, abound from the thirteenth
century; all adapted to English life and taste, but imitated from the
French. The "Ancren Riwle,"[337] or rule for Recluse women, written in
prose in the thirteenth century is perhaps an exception: it would be in
that case the first in date of the original treatises written in English
after the Conquest. This Rule is a manual of piety for the use of women
who wish to dedicate themselves to God, a sort of "Introduction a la Vie
devote," as mild in tone as that of St. Francis de Sales, but far more
vigorous in its precepts. The author addresses himself specially to
three young women of good family, who had resolved to live apart from
the world without taking any vows. He teaches them to deprive themselves
of all that makes life attractive; to take no pleasure either through
the eye, or through the ear, or in any other way. He gives rules for
getting up, for going to bed, for