In perusing Ethelbert's Code our readers may realize the true character and status of early Medieval society. Most conspicuous is the absence of respect for life and limb, to say nothing of property. "Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," were much needed, not only among the Anglo-Saxons of A.D. 597, but among their cotemporaries, whether Franks, Lombards, Germans, Goths, Danes, or Normans. Frequent impulsive violence and crime must have been committed to call forth legal clauses to prevent gouging out eyes, cutting off noses, ears, hands, fingers, feet, toes, and tearing off nails, which, it seems, were practised, not only during momentary passion and anger, but were inflicted deliberately as punishments. After alluding thus to the dark side of this primitive document, let us add that it exhibits among the Anglo-Saxons elements of civilization and customs we cherish and hold sacred now; prior to this code they had a medium of exchange, and consequently an idea of numbers and values, first traced by the Roman characters 1, V, L, X. They also knew the precious metals and the working thereof, as is evidenced by the mention of gold, lord-ring, scillinga, gylde, whence our gold, shillings, German and Dutch geld and German gulden. This code even points to a national poetic sentiment for ancient customs, as evidenced by "gold finger," which reminds us of ring finger, wedding ring, and all the train of thought connected with our marriage ceremony. To see such a hallowed custom through a hoary hyperborean antiquity must be pleasant to posterity. Synopsis of the different words from the preceding Table of the sixth century:

Greek: I

Latin: 5

Greco-Latin: 6

Anglo-Saxon: 94 Gotho-Germanic: 94

Total of the different words: 100.

Hence the style of Anglo-Saxon writing in the sixth century shows a vocabulary of different words, containing ninety-four per cent. Gotho-Germanic or Anglo-Saxon, and six per cent. Greco-Latin.

Twenty-six of the ninety-four different Anglo-Saxon words, or twenty-seven per cent., are now obsolete.*

*This numeric result casts a decided shadow on Sharon Turner's five per cent. obsolete Anglo-Saxon words, as stated in his "History of the AngloSaxons."

Fourteen of the ninety-four different Anglo-Saxon words, or fifteen per cent., are now spelt as they were in the sixth century.

Archeologists write glowing accounts of pyramids and cyclopean structures. Can there be more astounding monuments than the words finger and gold in the above Extract and Table from King Ethelbert's Code of A.D. 597? They were penned twelve hundred and eighty-one years ago as they are now in English and German. Thus is language, or petrified thought, more lasting and immutable than granite or marble.

NOTE: Readers will please remember, that we mention all the authors and writings, penned in Anglo-Saxon from A.D. 597 to 1200, and give similar Extracts and Tables therefrom; so we do the authors of the Franco-English period from A.D. 1200 to 1600. Thus we shall endeavor to give a clear idea of the gradual evolution of the English language from century to century.

In connection with Ethelbert's Code, A.D. 597, we must not omit to mention the oldest Irish MS. "Leabhar nah-Uidhei," now in the Royal Irish Academy of Dublin. Antiquarians claim that St. Ciaran, Abbot of Cluain-mic-Nois, wrote the original in the sixth century, but that the copy now shown at Dublin was made from the original of St. Ciaran by Moelmuiri Mac Ceileachair about A.D. 1100. Its contents are mostly heroic tales. Irish historians also mention the "Saltair of Tara," written by Cormac Mac Airt, King of Ireland from A.D. 227 to 266. It treats of Hibernia's laws and usages, but there seems to be no MS. thereof.

As late as A.D. 1762, James Macpherson issued a book styled "Ossian," purporting to be a translation of two Galic poems called Fingal and Temora, by the ancient Scotch hero, Ossian, who lived and wrote in the third century. This work took England's literati by surprise. Hugh Blair, Prof. of Rhetoric at Edinburgh University, Dr. Henry, Lord Kaimes and all the Highlanders admired, sustained and defended Macpherson's attempt; but Dr. Johnson pronounced the whole movement a forgery. Hume and Gibbon challenged any one to produce a MS. of any poem, ante-dating the sixteenth century. About A.D. 1800, the learned Scotch historian, Malcolm Laing, proved from historic and intrinsic evidence that the so-called Ossianic

poems were spurious. Next the committee of the Highland Society of Edinburgh, appointed to investigate the matter, reported, 1805, "that they had not been able to obtain any one poem the same in title and tenor with the poems of Ossian." This report consigned the pretended Ossianic poems to oblivion and put archeology on the qui vive against modern discoveries of ancient relics.

Before leaving this age so propitious to Anglo-Saxon progress, let us allude to the earliest book that reached posterity from the Isle of Britain. Its author was Gildas, styled "The Wise," born in Wales about A.D. 511. He studied several years in France, returned, founded a church and school in Pembrokeshire, and wrote "De Excidio Britannia" (Destruction of Britain). True, like most books of that period, it was written in Latin; but it was conceived in Gildas' native tongue, Cymric or Welsh, one of the primitive dialects of Britain. It soon found its way to the Anglo-Saxons, whose mode of thinking it shaped; for, as early as A.D. 680, Caedmon paraphrased the Bible in a similar style, and A.D. 735, Bede speaks of Gildas, Lib. I., C. XXII. It is generally conceded that Gildas wrote about A.D. 546.

The first written thought in any country makes an epoch, because thence date the rudiments of civilization. Thought, like all else in the universe, is magnetic, and attracts thought.

The ancient British record, known as "Gildas' Chronicle," is divided into Preface, History and Epistle. In the first he speaks of his plan and style; in the second he vividly depicts the advent of Christianity into the British Isles, the rule of the Romans, their departure from Britain, the consequent ravages of the Picts and Scots, and the supineness of his countrymen in calling the Saxons. The third is a sermon-like, vehement exhortation, analogous to the Jewish prophecies and St. Paul's Epistles.

All who trace their origin to Britain, may feel proud of this early originator of native written thought; for his ideas and style are not only forcible, but original and impressive. Goeffrey of Monmouth, in his "Historia Britonum," Lib. I., C. 17 (A.D. 1147), speaks of Gildas in the highest terms, calling him "The Great Writer."

After witnessing the advent of Christianity, alphabet, chronology, sacred music, written law among the Anglo-Saxons, and

the style of Gildas, Britain's first native author, some allusions to budding intellect and morals elsewhere may not come amiss. We must not pass unnoticed some of the tendencies rising in the British Isles at that period. Columba, styled the Apostle of the Highlanders, went to Scotland, where he preached about A.D. 565, and founded in Iona an abbey and college that became renowned as a seat of learning. For several centuries the Northern nations sent their youth to be educated there. Imagine a famed college at the northwestern confines of Europe in Iona, one of the Hebrides, whither the disappointed princes and nobles went, ended their days in retirement, and were buried. Tourists might enjoy visiting the remains of that primitive abbey, college and resting-place, where curious epitaphs of many departed worthies are to be scanned. There Columba was the first abbot, and there he ended his career, A.D). 597. The Scotch have ever cherished the memory of Iona and their apostle.

Next Columban and Gall started from the Emerald Isle for Europe about 585, to preach Christ to the Franks, Germans, Helvetians and Lombards. Columban founded the Monastery of Luxeuil in France, and that of Bobbio in Italy. Gall reared the Abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland, which has ever since been celebrated for its rare manuscripts. Later Gall was made Bishop of Constance, where he is known as the Apostle of Switzerland. He wrote an epitome of the Scriptures, which is to be found in Basnage's "Thesaurus Monumentorum." Thus the British Isles shed their light abroad at an early date, and continue to do so

now.

About A.D. 590 the Bavarian princess Theodelinda married Agilulf, leader of the Lombards in Italy, and persuaded him to become a Christian. Thus the world has to thank two gentle women, Bertha and Theodelinda, for winning to Christ and civilization two distant Gotho-Germanic nations: the AngloSaxons in Britain and the Lombards in Italy during the sixth century. Among Pope Gregory's letters in the Patrologiæ are some to Theodelinda, written in the same style and spirit as those he wrote to Bertha and Ethelbert.

In the sixth century all writing in Europe, with the exception of Ethelbert's Anglo-Saxon Code and perhaps Leabhar nah-Uidhei