place in the present edition. The first of these is a letter from our historian to his friend Albinus, Abbot of Canterbury, thanking him for the transmission of certain presents, and sending him in return a copy of his treatise upon the Temple of Solomon. The numbers II to VI inclusive are necessary to complete the account of the introduction of Christianity into Britain under St. Augustine; No. VII contains the proceedings of the Council of Rome under Boniface the Fourth, too intimately connected with the ecclesiastical history of our nation to be omitted; and No. VIII exhibits a short, but valuable, chronicle, chiefly of the affairs of Northumbria, extending from A. D. 731 to 766.

§ 11. With No. IX a more important series of documents commences, presenting us with some of the materials which Beda employed in preparing his shorter pieces, and enabling us, by a comparison of their narratives with his own, to form some estimate of his fidelity and accuracy as an historian.

The first of these is a Life of Cuthbert, written by one who had ample means of ascertaining full particulars regarding the life and conversation of the Saint, and who took care, as he himself states, (260, 20) to record nothing of the accuracy of which he was not fully informed. It has much in common with the prose Life written by Beda, having in fact, supplied him with the ground-work of his narrative, although he has in some places augmented, in others abridged its details, so as to prove that he was not indebted to it for all he knew respecting the Bishop of Lindisfarne. The Bollandists, by whom it was printed, discovered two

7 Opp. viii, 1, edit. 1612.

8 Acta SS. mens. Martii, iii, 117.

very ancient manuscript copies, one belonging to the monastery of St. Bertin in the town of St. Omers, the other in the monastery of St. Maximin, near Treves. Although the work is anonymous, we are not left in ignorance respecting the age of the writer, or the place in which he lived, there being internal evidence that it was written while Ecgfrid filled the throne of Northumbria, and that the author was an inmate of the monastery of Lindisfarne.

§ 12. The history of the Translation of the body of St. Cuthbert, and of its various peregrinations until it was finally enshrined at Durham, together with the account of certain miracles which were wrought by its agency, forms the subject of No. x. It extends from A. D. 875 to the episcopate of William, Bishop of Durham, who succeeded Walcher in 1080. The text here given has necessarily been adopted from the Acta Sanctorum, no manuscript copy being known in England; and the omissions have been supplied from the history of Symeon of Durham.

§ 13. The history of the Abbots of Wearmouth which follows, (No. XI) has furnished Beda with much of the information which he has given in his work upon the same subject; although here, as in a previous instance, he has made the narrative his own by numerous alterations. The writer was a monk of Wearmouth, and appears to have drawn up the present account as a commemorative discourse to be delivered on the anniversary of those persons whose virtues it records. Its information is, therefore, of the most authentic character. It is here printed, for the first time, from the Harleian

9 Acta SS. mens. Martii, iii. 127.

MS. 3020, written apparently in the ninth century.

§ 14. The sermon upon the nativity of St. Benedict, with which the volume concludes, is the undoubted production of Beda, and is not, as stated in p. 335, of doubtful authenticity. It forms part of Beda's Homily 10 upon that Saint; and although furnishing little additional information to what he had already written, is here inserted in order to complete the series of his historical writings connected with the history of England.

10 Opp. vii. 332, edit. 1612.

VITA S. CUTHBERTI

METRICA,

AUCTORE

VEN. BEDA.

5 DOMINO IN DOMINO DOMINORUM DILECTISSIMO

JOHANNI PRESBYTERO BÆDA,

Famulus Christi, Salutem.

DICI non potest, dilectissime in Christo domine, quantum tua caritate afficiar, tuaque, si 10 fieri posset, præsentia semper delecter; tuæ quoque sanctæ dulcedinis etiam inter longi itineris, quod inire cupis, angustias, perennis memoriæ stimulo compungar. Unde tibi vel ad memoriam meæ devotionis, vel ad tuæ peregri15 nationis levamentum, beati Cutberhti episcopi, quæ nuper versibus edidi, gesta obtuli. Absque ulla enim dubietate confido, quod tanti viri comitatus multum felicitatis conferat. Nam illius et mærentem dulcedo consolatur affabilis, et de20 cidem compunctio fervens excitat, et pericli

NOTES AND VARIOUS READINGS.

12 Perennis

...

7 Salutem.] Incipit Epistola compungar.] Bedæ presbyteri, ad Johannem Perenni... compungar, H. presbyterum,' H 2.; C.

2

tantem intercessio firma defendit. Scire autem debes, quod nequaquam omnia gesta illius exponere potui; quotidie namque et nova per reliquias ejus aguntur, et vetera noviter ab his, qui scire poterant, indicantur. Ex quibus unum est 5 quod in me ipso, sicut jam tibi dixi, per linguæ curationem, dum miracula ejus canerem, expertus sum. Si vero vita comes fuerit, et nostræ dispositioni superna voluntas favendo annuerit, spero me in alio opere nonnulla ex his, quæ 10 prætermiseram, memoriæ redditurum. Obsecro, cum ad limina beatorum apostolorum, Deo protegente, perveneris, pro me intercedere memi

neris.