its first abbat, and to have resided there all the remainder of his life.

Sect. 2.-Of his youth.

For a youth of such studious habits and indefatigable industry, no situation could have been more appropriate than that in which he was now placed. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monasteries, was a man of extraordinary learning and singular piety. Though a nobleman by birtli, he was unwearied in the pursuit of knowledge, and in ameliorating the condition of his country. In order to accomplish his benevolent intentions, he travelled into other countries, and introduced not only foreign literature, but arts hitherto unknown, into our island. He was the first who brought masons and glaziers home with him, having need of their services in the noble buildings which he erected. He travelled four or five times to Rome, and became intimate with Pope Agatho. Here he was much captivated with the fiturgy of the Roman church, and their manner of chanting, for until then the Gallican or Mozarabic liturgy was used both in Britain and Ireland, as is alluded to in Augustine's Questions to pope Gregory. Each time, on his return to England, Benedict carried back with him the most valuable books and costly relics and works of art which could be procured for money. This collection, which was, by his orders, preserved with peculiar care, received considerable augmentations from the zeal and munificence of his successors. Bede's thirst for study was here, no doubt, satisfied: so large and valuable a library could scarcely have been within his reach elsewhere, even among the other Benedictines of the day, however well qualified that order was to encourage a taste for learning, and to provide means for gratifying that taste among its fosterlings. In so large a community, too, as that of Wearmouth, there were doubtlessly many scholars of mature age, who would all assist in promoting the studies of so talented a youth as he who was now introduced within their walls.

Bede was not, however, left to chance, or the untutored dictates of his own youthful fancy, to find his way as he could through the years spent in the rudiments of learning. In the study of theology and the Holy Scriptures, he received,

as he himself tells us,* the instructions of Trumhere, a monk, who had been educated under the holy Chad, bishop of Lichfield. The art of chanting, as it was practised at Rome, was taught him by John, the arch-chanter of St. Peter's at Rome, who had been, by the consent of pope Agatho, brought into Britain by Biscop Benedict. This celebrated singer attracted multitudes of people from the counties adjoining to the monastery of Wearmouth to witness his performances. It has also been said by Stubbs,† that Bede received instructions from John of Beverley, the disciple of archbishop Theodore; and possibly this may have been the case, as he might also from others learned in the Greek and Latin tongue who were in the company of that famous archbishop; but MabilIon thinks that the author above referred to has made a confusion between the two Johns, for there is no other mention whatever made of his being a pupil of John of Beverley. It is certain, however, that Bede possessed considerable knowledge, not only in the Latin and Greek languages, but also in the Hebrew, although nothing remains which has been ascribed to him in that language, save a vocabulary, entitled Interpretatio Nominum Hebraicorum," which is now admitted to be the production of another. In the Greek tongue he must have made considerable proficiency, as appears from his Ars Metrica," and from his having translated the life of Anastasius and the Gospel of St. John out of that language into Latin. The last two of these productions are no longer

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extant.

Whatever advantages, however, Bede may have enjoyed, the greatest was his own ardour in the pursuit of learning; and let us remember, that the rules of the monastic institutions did not leave the student the uncontrolled disposal of his own time. Many offices, not wholly menial, were performed by the brethren; he himself instances Biscop the founder, and says, that, like the rest of the brothers, he delighted to exercise himself in winnowing the corn, and threshing it, in giving milk to the lambs and calves, in the bakehouse, in the garden, in the kitchen, and in the other employments of the monastery; a considerable portion of the day was spent in discharging the duties required by the monastic rules, and in the daily service and psalmody of the Ecclesiastical Hist. iv. 3, page 177. † Act. Pontif. Eborac.

church. All his leisure time was not even then occupied in reading; part was devoted to writing and to the instruction of others. His own words are here in point: "All my life I spent in that same monastery, giving my whole attention to the study of the Holy Scriptures, and in the intervals between the hours of regular discipline and the duties of singing in the church, I always took pleasure in learning, or teaching, or writing something."

Sect. 3.-Of his admission to Holy Orders.

THE twenty-fifth year of one's age, was then, as the twentyfourth at present, the limit of admission to Deacon's Orders. Of his own entry into this holy ordination, let us hear what he says himself, "In the nineteenth year of my life I was made deacon, and in the thirtieth was ordained priest; both ordinances were conferred on me by bishop John, at the bidding of abbat Ceolfrid."

This John was bishop of Hagulstad, now Hexham, in the county of Northumberland, and the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow were in his diocese, for the see of Durham did not exist until a later period, when the brotherhood of Lindisfarne settled there, carrying with them the bones of St. Cuthbert. This John is also better known by the name of John of Beverley, and is mentioned in high terms by Bede in his History.

So remarkable a deviation from the general rule as the ordination of a candidate for Holy Orders in the nineteenth year of his age, is in itself a sufficient proof of the estimation in which the young student was held. His piety, moreover, must have been well known to the abbat who sent him for ordination, and to the bishop, who hesitated not to admit him so prematurely to that holy rite. It is moreover said of him that, in his ardour for study, he declined to be raised to the dignity of an abbat, lest the distraction to which the care of such an establishment, or family, as the historian expresses it, would subject him, might allow him less time and leisure for his favourite pursuits. "The office," as he expressed it, "demands thoughtfulness, and thoughtfulness brings with it distraction of the mind, which impedes the pursuit of learning."*

* Trithem. de Viris illust. ord. Bened. ii. 21, 34.

This, however, no doubt happened after he took priest's orders in his thirtieth year, though the eleven years which intervened must have been sedulously spent in laying up that store of erudition which afterwards enabled him to shine forth to the world in every department of literature. For it does not appear that he published any thing in writing until after he had undergone the second of the church's ordinances. This we have from his own words, "From the time of my taking priest's orders, to the fifty-ninth year of my age, I have occupied myself in making these short extracts from the works of the venerable fathers for the use of me and mine, or in adding thereto somewhat of my own, after the model of their meaning and interpretation."

If, however, he was admitted unusually early to the orders of deacon, he was in no mind, on the other hand, to rush hastily, or without long and patient study, into the full duty of the priest's office; and thus he devoted eleven patient years to qualify himself for the various services which he was preparing to render to the literature of his country, and the interests of the church.

Sect. 4.-Of his clerical and literary labours.

THE office of priest, or mass-priest, as he is called in king Alfred's Anglo-Saxon translation, brought with it a considerable portion of duties which would not allow him to devote the whole of his time to his favourite occupations. His employment was to say mass in the church, by which we are to understand that he officiated at the various masses which were performed at different hours in the day, besides perhaps assisting in the morning and evening prayers of the monastery. The following extracts from Anglo-Saxon writers, quoted by Sharon Turner, will well describe the responsible functions which were supposed to belong to the priest's office.

"Priests! you ought to be well provided with books and apparel as suits your condition. The mass-priest should at least have his missal, his singing-book, his reading-book, his psalter, his hand-book, his penitential, and his numeral one. He ought to have his officiating garments, and to sing from sun-rise, with the nine intervals and nine readings. His sacramental cup should be of gold or silver, glass or tin, and

not of earth, at least not of wood. The altar should be always clean, well clothed, and not defiled with dirt. There should be no mass without wine.

"Take care that you be better and wiser in your spiritual craft than worldly men are in theirs, that you may be fit teachers of true wisdom. The priest should preach rightly the true belief; read fit discourses; visit the sick; and baptize infants, and give the unction when desired. No one should be a covetous trader, nor a plunderer, nor drunk often in wine-houses, nor be proud or boastful, nor wear ostentatious girdles, nor be adorned with gold, but to do honour to himself by his good morals.

"They should not be litigious nor quarrelsome, nor seditious, but should pacify the contending; nor carry arms, nor go to any fight, though some say that priests should carry weapons when necessity requires; yet the servant of God ought not to go to any war or military exercise. Neither a wife nor a battle becomes them, if they will rightly obey God and keep his laws as becomes their state."*

Their duties are also described in the Canons of Edgar in the following terms:

"They are forbidden to carry any controversy among themselves to a lay-tribunal. Their own companions were to settle it, or the bishop was to determine it.

"No priest was to forsake the church to which he was consecrated, nor to intermeddle with the rights of others, nor to take the scholar of another. He was to learn sedulously his own handicraft, and not put another to shame for his ignorance, but to teach him better. The high-born were not to despise the less-born, nor any to be unrighteous or covetous dealers. He was to baptize whenever required, and to abolish all heathenism and witchcraft. They were to take care of their churches, and apply exclusively to their sacred duties; and not to indulge in idle speech, or idle deeds, or excessive drinking; nor to let dogs come within their church-inclosure, nor more swine than a man might govern.

"They were to celebrate mass only in churches, and on the altar, unless in cases of extreme sickness. They were * Elfric, in Wilkins's Leges Anglo-Saxon. 169—171.