pius Judex vitam meam prævidit, tempus resolutionis meæ instat, quia cupio dissolvi et esse cum Christo." Sic et alia multa locutus, in lætitia diem usque ad vesperam duxit, et præfatus puer dixit: "Adhuc una sententia, Magister dilecte, non est descripta." At ille: "Scribe, inquit, cito." Post modicum dixit puer : "Modo sententia descripta est." At ille: "Bene, inquit, veritatem dixisti: consummatum est; accipe caput meum in manus tuas, quia multum me delectat sedere ex adverso loco sancto meo, in quo orare solebam, ut et ego sedens Patrem meum invocare possim." Et sic in pavimento suæ casulæ decantans: "Gloria Patri, et filio, et Spiritui Sancto," cum Spiritum Sanctum nominasset, spiritum e corpore exhalavit ultimum, ac sic regna migravit ad cœlestia. Omnes autem, qui viderunt beati Patris obitum, nunquam se vidisse ullum alium in tam magna devotione atque tranquillitate vitam finisse dicebant: quia, sicut audisti, quousque anima ejus in corpore fuit, "Gloria Patri" et alia spiritualia quædam ad gloriam Dei cecinit, et expansis manibus Deo vivo et vero gratias agere non cessabat. Scito autem, Frater carissime, quod multa possem narrare de eo, sed brevitatem sermonis ineruditio linguæ facit. Attamen cogito, Deo adjuvante, ex tempore plenius de eo scribere, quæ oculis vidi, et auribus audivi.”

[Epistolam Cuthberti cum lib. MSto, qui in ecclesia Exon. servatur, contuli.]

of this circumstance to pass off spurious writings under his name, is universally allowed, and indeed, as has been elsewhere stated, may be made the subject of of demonstration. In almost all the public libraries of Europe are to be found poems and short tracts ascribed to Bede; but the greatest part of these bear marks of the most unblushing forgery. In some of them his very name is quoted amongst other Fathers of the Church, as if it were the copyist of a later date, and not the original author, who wished to procure a more ready sale for his works by prefixing to them so revered a name. At present we are concerned only

with his poems, letters, and short tracts of a moral nature, principally prayers, and the catalogue of those which are genuine is brief and unsatisfactory. Though it is certain, from Bede's own avowal, that he attempted poetry as well as the other arts and sciences, yet it will hardly be expected that his efforts will be so successful as to possess any other value for the reader than as specimens of the versification of the age in which he lived. The following is an enumeration of those which are given in this volume, though even of these none but the first can be considered as decidedly genuine, and some of them are undoubtedly spurious, though it has been thought proper to err rather in admitting too many than too few.

POEMATA.

I. De Miraculis Sancti Cuthberti, heroico carmine descripti. This metrical legend of St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, was written before his prose composition on the same subject, and is therefore less full in regard to the incidents of his life. It is not found in the folio editions of Bede's works, but was first printed by Canisius in his Lectiones Antiquæ, vol. v. 692. ed. nov. Basn. vol. ii. init. from a MS. in the library of St. Gall., collated with a MS. belonging to Velser. It was reprinted by Mabillon from a MS. belonging to De Thou; and again in Smith's edition of Bede's Historical Works from a Harleian MS. [526] and two Bodleian MSS. [N.E.B. 1. 20. and K. D. 1. 75]. It is also found in Stevenson's edition of Bedæ Opera Historica Minora, from three MSS. [Harl. 526, of the ninth century, 1117, fol. 45. Cott. Vit. A. XIX. fol. 89 b. of the tenth century], collated with the previous editions of Canisius, Mabillon, and Smith. For the present edition all the preceding have been collated, and the various readings given at the end of the volume: the Harl. MS. [526] has again been fully collated, and the

result given a little more fully than has hitherto been the case.

II. Cuculus sive Veris et Hiemis conflictus. This Eclogue is not found in the folio editions. It appears to have been first published in Goldast's edition of Ovidii Erotica, Francof. 1610. p. 190, after which it was given in Oudin's Scriptores Eccles. II. p. 326, and in Burmann's Anthologia Latína, V. 70. It has been again revised and edited in Wernsdorf's Poetæ Latini Minores II. 64-69 and 239-244 ed. Lemaire, from which it has been copied into the present edition. Its genuineness is not entirely to be depended upon, though it is on the other hand by no means to be rejected as undoubtedly spurious. See also Voss. de Poet. Lat. V. 68, and Schweiger's Handbuch der Classischen Bibliographie, Leip. 1832, V. II. 27.

III. Passio Sancti Justini Martyris.

This legend is undoubtedly not a genuine work of Bede. The style is different from his, and the metre, which is regulated by accent and not by quantity, would certainly not have been used by Bede, whose studies were all of a classical and scholastic nature, and who would not have departed from the metres used by the Romans and classic writers. The poem is found in the folio editions [B. III. 368-380.] and is not destitute of much beauty and simplicity, whether as regards the tale itself or the modes of expression. The cloisters of the middle ages have produced many narratives less interesting than that of the humble martyr of Autun.

IV. Martyrologium Poeticum. This dull and heavy composition, of which the chief merit is its shortness, was first copied by Mabillon at Rheims, from a MS. written by Bertigarius Monachus, and bearing the name of Bede as its author. It begins on the first of January, and omits several Saints which are found in Bede's prose Martyrology as restored in Bolland. Thus in

January are omitted Pope Anterus, Salvius Africanus, Hilarius Pictavorum Episcopus, Felix Presbyter Nolanus, Pope Marcellus: in February, Scholastica: in April, Mellitus: in May, Augustine, &c.

The mention of so many English Saints shews that the author was an Englishman, and we infer that he was a monk of Jarrow from the Feast of Dedication, which is fixed on the 27th of April, though the Monasticon Anglicanum says that the church of Jarrow was dedicated on the 24th of that month.

No saints are mentioned later than Wilfrid, who died A.D. 732; but, as Wilfrid is mentioned, it would seem that the author must have lived at that time: and this date corresponds exactly, if Bede be the author of the Martyrology, for he died three years after Wilfrid. The present edition is from a MS. in the British Museum [Sloane 263, entitled Hilperici de Computo, p. 21], collated with the printed text in D'Achery's Spicilegium, Paris, 3 fol. 1723. Several additional verses have been gathered from the MS. above-mentioned, which is of an early date. The variations are given at the end of the volume.

V. Hymni. In the author's list of his writings he names a collection of Hymns under the title of Liber Hymnorum, diverso metro sive rhythmo, but the four Hymns found in the folio editions, [B. I. 476–494. C. I. 401-417], from internal evidence are certainly not the hymns mentioned by Bede. Cassander published eleven hymns, which he considered to be genuine, Paris, 1536, and these were afterwards again printed in Cassander's works, [Paris, 1616, pp. 195, 206, 239, 244, 254, 263, 266, 274, 280, 281, 293,] together with others, by different Fathers of the church. The present collection consists of fourteen, comprising the eleven published by Cassander, and three of those found in the folio editions. The first of the four therein contained, and entitled De anno, is no more than the