to have at mass their corporalis garment, and the subucula under their alba; and all their officiating garments were to be woven. Each was to have a good and right book. No one was to celebrate mass, unless fasting, and unless he had one to make responses; nor more than three times a day; nor unless he had, for the eucharist, pure bread, wine and water. The cup was to be of something molten, not of wood. No woman was to come near the altar during mass. bell was to be rung at the proper time.

The

"They were to preach every Sunday to the people; and always to give good examples. They were ordered to teach youth with care, and to draw them to some craft. They were to distribute alms, and urge the people to give them, and to sing the psalms during the distribution, and to exhort the poor to intercede for the donors. They were forbidden to swear, and were to avoid ordeals. They were to recommend confession, penitence, and compensation; to administer the sacrament to the sick, and to anoint him if he desired it; and the priest was always to keep oil ready for this purpose and for baptism. He was neither to hunt, or hawk, or dice; but to play with his book as became his condition." *

But the duties pointed out in these extracts do not seem to have satisfied the Venerable Bede; he applied himself to every branch of literature and science then known, and besides study, and writing comments on the Scriptures, he treated on several subjects, on history, astrology, orthography, rhetoric, and poetry; in the latter of which he was not inferior to other poets of that age, as appears by what he has left us on the life of St. Cuthbert, and some verses in his Ecclesiastical History; he wrote likewise two books of the Art of Poetry, which are not now extant; a book of Hymns, and another of Epigrams. Bede's own writings inform us of the names of some of his literary friends; among whom were Eusebius or Huetbert, to whom he inscribed his book, De Ratione Temporum, and his Interpretation on the Apocalypse, and who was afterwards abbat of Wearmouth : Cuthbert, called likewise Antonius, to whom he inscribed his book, De Arte Metrica, and who succeeded Huetbert, and was afterwards abbat of Jarrow; he wrote of his master's death, but of this hereafter: also Constantine, to whom he * Wilkins's Leges Anglo-Saxonicæ, 85-87.

inscribed his book, De Divisione Numerorum; and Nothelm, then priest at London, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, to whom he wrote his Questions on the Books of Kings; to which we may add several in other monasteries; whilst others have improperly classed amongst them Alcuinus, afterwards preceptor to Charles the Great.

Thus was the time of that excellent man employed in doing good to mankind, seldom or never moving beyond the limits of his own monastery, and yet in the dark cloister of it surveying the whole world, and dispensing to it the gifts entrusted to him; it seems not a little surprising, that one who had scarcely moved away from the place of his nativity, should so accurately describe those at a distance; and this quality in his writings, when considered with reference to the age in which he lived, is the more remarkable, as there is but one other recorded in history who possessed it in equal perfection,-the immortal Homer.

Sect. 5.-Of his supposed journey to Rome.

THE peaceful tenor of Bede's monastic life was apparently uninterrupted by absence or travel, and his own words might be thought to afford sufficient authority for the supposition. A controversy, however, on this subject has arisen from a letter first published by William of Malmesbury, which to this hour has not been satisfactorily decided. This historian says that Bede's learning and attainments were so highly esteemed, that pope Sergius wished to see him at Rome, and consult him on questions of importance and difficulty relating to the church. He accordingly quotes a letter, addressed by Sergius to abbat Ceolfrid, in which he is requested to send Bede without delay to Rome. Now it is argued, and apparently with truth, that Bede would not have dared to decline an invitation coming from so high a quarter; and yet it is all but certain that Bede never was out of England. He tells us distinctly that his whole life was spent in the neighbourhood of Jarrow; and that the letters, which he has inserted in his Ecclesiastical History, had been procured for him at Rome by Nothelm, which would certainly lead us to infer that Bede was not there himself. Moreover, he tells us in his treatise, De Natura Rerum [46], that he was not with the monks of Yarrow,

who went to Rome in the year 701. It is therefore certain that Bede, if invited, never went to Rome; and it is most probable, as has been stated by Gehle in his Latin Life of Bede, that the unexpected death of Pope Sergius, which happened shortly after, was the cause of his not undertaking the journey.

Sect. 6. Of his pretended residence at Cambridge.

It has been also asserted, that Bede resided at the University of Cambridge, and taught there in the office of Professor. This has been maintained by certain members of that University, who have been eager to claim such an illustrious man as their own; whilst other writers of the University of Oxford have been induced, by a corresponding jealousy, to deny the fact.

The principal authority for this ill-supported statement is found in a volume called Liber Niger, preserved in the University of Cambridge. Out of that book, Hearne, in the year 1719, published "Nicolai Cantalupi Historiola de Antiquitate et Origine Universitatis Cantabrigiensis, simul cum Chronicis Sprotti Ox."*

In this history Bede is said, "at the request of doctor Wilfred, and at the bidding of abbat Ceolfrid, to have left the territory belonging to the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul, and being even then a monk in mind and regular discipline, though not in dress, to have gone, in the year 682, to Cambridge, where by sowing the seeds of knowledge for himself and others, by writing books and teaching the ignorant, he was of use before God and man in eradicating prevailing errors.

It is hardly necessary to observe, that this is said to have happened at a time when Bede was little more than nine years old! Seven years after he is stated to have had public honours conferred on him by the University, and at a later period to be still pursuing the duties of a teacher.

In support of these statements a letter is produced, purporting to be addressed to the Students of the University

This work has been twice published in English, under the following titles, "History and Antiquities of the University of Cambridge, in two parts, by Richard Parker, B.D., and Fellow of Caius College, in 1622. London, 1721; and again printed for J. Marcus, in the Poultry, London."

of Cambridge, by Alcuin, in which allusion is made to Bede as still alive, but Alcuin was fifty years later than Bede, and the supposed letter is consequently a forgery.

Sect. 7.-Of his occasional visits to his friends.

WE may therefore infer without hesitation that Bede did not travel far from the monastery. This is both plainly asserted in his own account of his secluded life, and appears also from the want of any evidence to the contrary. Yet it is certain he made visits and excursions to other places; nor can we suppose that he confined himself entirely within the monastery, and never indulged the pleasure of seeing and conversing with his friends. In his own letter to Egbert, archbishop of York, and nephew to king Ceolwulf, he alludes to a visit which he paid to that nobleman and prelate, and acknowledges an invitation to go there for the sake of conferring with him on their common pursuits in the year following. He was unable to comply with this request, in consequence of illness, and therefore communicated with his friend by letter. In another letter, still extant, addressed to Wictred on the celebration of Easter, he speaks of the kindness and affability with which he had been received by him on a former occasion. It is not improbable that he might sometimes likewise pay visits to the court; for Ceolwulf, king of the Northumbrians, in one of whose provinces, i. e. Bernicia, Bede lived, was himself a man of singular learning, and a very great encourager of it in others; and had, doubtlessly, an extraordinary respect for Bede, as appears by his request to him to write the Ecclesiastical History, and by Bede's submitting the papers to him for his perusal. That prince was not only a lover of learned men in general, but especially of that part of theni who led a monastic life, insomuch that, about three years after Bede's death, he resigned his crown, and became a monk at Lindisfarne.

*

Sect. 8.-Of his death.

THE tranquillity of Bede's life, passed, as we have seen, entirely in the monastery of Jarrow, has left it a difficult task for his biographers to extend their accounts of him to

* King of Kent.

C

that length which might seem suitable to his reputation and the value of his works. It has been truly remarked that scholars and persons of sedentary habits, though liable to frequent petty illnesses from want of bodily exercise and too great mental exertion, are nevertheless on the whole rather a long-lived race. This rule was not exemplified in the case of Bede. He seems to have contracted at a somewhat early period a complaint in his stomach, accompanied with shortness of breath: "So that," says Malmesbury, "he suffered in his stomach, and drew his breath with pains and sighs." An attack of this disorder had lately prevented him from visiting his friend archbishop Egbert, and led to his writing him the valuable letter on the duties of a bishop, which we have still extant. We are not informed whether the disorder left him at that time, and came on afresh, when it at last killed him; but it is most probable that he enjoyed general ill health during the last few years of his existence. He was ill some weeks before he died, and was attended by Cuthbert, who had been one of his pupils, and after Huetbert became abbat of the monastery. The Christian piety with which he suffered the dispensation which awaited him, has been the universal theme of panegyric. The whole scene of his increasing malady, his devout resignation, and fervent prayers for all his friends, together with his paternal admonitions for the regulation of their lives, and his uncontrollable anxiety to dictate to the boy who was his amanuensis, even to his last moments, are so beautifully recorded in the letter of his pupil Cuthbert, that we shall not attempt here to describe it in other terms.†

CUTHBERT'S LETTER ON THE DEATH OF

VENERABLE BEDE.

"To his fellow reader Cuthwin, beloved in Christ, Cuthbert, his school-fellow; health for ever in the Lord. I have received with much pleasure the small present which you sent me, and with much satisfaction read the letters of your devout erudition; wherein I found that masses and holy

* Hist. of the Kings of England, lib. i. c. 2.

+ See Simeon. Dunelm. de Ecc. Dun. ap. Twysdeni Scrip. X. I. 15, p. 8. Leland, Collect. Hearne, IV. iii. 77. Mabilloni Act. Bened. Sec. iii.