labours, he at length expressed his own willingness to comply, provided he obtained the consent of his metropolitan and his king. Accordingly, in 782, we find him at the court of the monarch, who, to provide a suitable theatre for the commencement of his labours, conferred on him three monasteries. "From this period," says M. Guizot, "he was the confidant, the adviser, the doctor, and, if we may thus speak, the intellectual premier of Charlemagne." His future career was one of unrivalled activity and usefulness; but it is too extensive even to be glanced at in the present place. We may observe in general, that he was chiefly occupied in correcting and restoring ancient MSS., in founding schools, in giving a new impulse to letters, and in teaching. In each of these departments his labours would require ample space for delineation. The sacred text he restored to something like purity; MSS. of valuable authors he caused to be amazingly multiplied; he gave splendour to the great schools of the empire, such as Ferrieres, Fulda, Reichenau, Aniana, Fontenelle; he taught the most illustrious youths of France; and, as he was much at court, he was the preceptor of the imperial family, even of Charlemagne himself. His labours, however, appear in time to have wasted his constitution; for in a few years we find his applications to the monarch, to be released from his dignities and public duties, both frequent and earnest. Though his master long opposed his wish, it was at length gratified. In 796, when he was verging on his sixtieth year, he received, as a place of retreat, the magnificent abbey of St. Martin at Tours. Yet even here he continued his activity he restored the vigour of the Benedictine rule; he enriched the library by numerous MSS. copied from those of York; he conferred new glory on the school, in which he was a constant teacher; he superintended the immense domains of the establishment; and he maintained a correspondence by letter both with his master and with the learned of his time. That Charlemagne soon regretted the loss of his friend, appears

from the ineffectual attempts to prevail on him to return: he was resolved not to leave his retreat, yet he was loth to offend the monarch; he had no need for excuses; the plain statement of facts sufficiently justified his declining the pressing invitations from the court. Thus when, in 800, Charlemagne, on the eve of his journey to Rome to receive the imperial crown, earnestly wished to be accompanied by the abbot, the latter feelingly writes,

"I do not believe that my frail body, exhausted as it is by daily pains, could support the journey; I should be glad were it otherwise.". "Why constrain me to struggle anew, to sweat under the weight of armour, when my infirmities do not permit me to rise without difficulty from the ground? - Suffer me, I beseech you, to end my course in peace near the shrine of St. Martin: I feel that all the energy and erect bearing of my body daily disappears, and that in this world I shall have them no more. For some time past I have longed to behold once more the face of your glory; but my growing infirmities compel me to renounce the hope."

To escape farther solicitation, the following year Alcuin resigned his abbeys in favour of his disciples, and devoted his few remaining days to exercises of devotion. His death, in 804, deprived the emperor of an enlightened counsellor, and France of a benefactor.*

The works of Alcuin are singly of no great extent, but so numerous, that they could not be barely indicated within moderate limits. They may, however, be reduced under five heads, theology, philosophy, and literature, history, and poetry. The first class consists of comments on various passages of Scripture, of dogmatic treatises, and of explanations on the offices of the church. The second is nearly allied to the first, since

* Vita Albini Flacci, No. 1-31. (apud Mabillonium, Acta SS. Ord. S. Ben. tom. v.) Yepes, Cronica General de S. Benito, tom. iii. p. 284, &c. Monachus S. Gal. De Gestis Coroli Magni, passim. Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, et Alfordus, Annales Ecclesiæ Anglo-Saxonicæ (sub annis). Balæus, De Scriptoribus Britannicis (sub nomine). The monks of St. Maur, Histoire Litteraire de la France, tom. iv. p. 295, &c. Canisius, Thesaurus Monumentorum, iii. 381. (Basnage, in Alcuinum Observatio.) Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation, tom. ii. p. 347, &c.

There is a wretchedly inadequate account of this celebrated man in that mass of useless notes, the Biographia Britannica.

his definitions of the virtues, his inculcations of the duties of life, his thoughts on the nature of the soul, his elements even of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics, are based on Christianity; and his numerous epistles, of which about seventy are to be found in the collection of Canisius, and 115 in Duchesne, are in reality so many homilies. The third is less extensive in number, being merely the lives of a few saints. The fourth, which is numerous, embraces a variety of subjects. Besides these, there were other works composed by him, which are either lost, or remain shrouded in the dust of libraries; but to detail them is useless. Some of his epistles, time is daily bringing to light. After closely examining most of the monuments which remain of him, we are at a loss to account for the eulogies lavished on him by writers of every age, from the ninth century to the nineteenth. That he was well versed in the Latin fathers of the church, that he was not ignorant of the Greek, that he had read Aristotle, if not Plato, are evident from his writings : we may go farther and say, that he was, beyond all doubt, superior in extent and even accuracy of information to any writer of his age. But it must never be forgotten, that a great proportion of his works consist of strange puerilities, of affected conceits, of pedantic observations; that he has no taste, because no judgment. That there is much valuable matter to be collected from some of his treatises, especially such as concern theology, is undoubted; but in every page modern criticism must smile at his childish simplicity, or bemoan his barbaric manner. In this spirit, though we may and ought to make allowance for the ignorance of the times, we cannot but know that better models were before him. From classical and even ecclesiastical antiquity he might surely have learned taste sufficient to avoid grosser defects. In reality his fame must rest on two considerations, on his orthodoxy *, and the impulse which he gave to the intellect of a great nation. * Orthodox, we mean, in the Roman catholic sense of the word.

Every Christian will respect the fearless, honest spirit with which he reproved the vices of mankind, the high view which he took of sacerdotal responsibility, the indifference which he professed for worldly advantages, the zeal which he felt for the spread of religious, moral, and intellectual truth. Hence his name had deservedly great weight throughout the western church; in Germany no less than in Spain; in Italy no less than in Gaul and Britain. The freedom with which he exhorts even the highest in dignity—kings and archbishops to renewed activity in procuring the salvation of themselves and others, is a sufficient proof how sensible he was of the deference with which his admonitions would be received. Thus, in a letter to Ethelhard, archbishop of Canterbury, he says ", —

"Think of thy renowned predecessors, the teachers and lights of all Britain. Whilst thou worshippest amidst their holy relics, thou canst not fail to be assisted by their intercessions so long as neither the pleasures of the world allure, nor the fear of kings terrifies thee from the path which they trod. Never forget that thy throat should be the trumpet of God, thy tongue the herald of salvation to all men. Be a faithful shepherd, not a hireling; a ruler, not a subverter; a light, not darkness; a fortress defended by firm trust, not a house built on sand; a glorious warrior of Christ, not a vile apostate; a preaching, not a flattering, priest. It is better to fear God

The original is characteristic enough of his general style: - Cogita quales habueris antecessores, doctores et lumina totius Britanniæ. Inter horum sacratissima corpora dum oraveris, illorum precibus certissime adjuvaberis si ab illorum vestigiis te nec sæculi caduca blandimenta subtrahant, nec vani terrores principum formidantem efficient. Memor esto semper, quod guttur tuum tuba Dei debet esse, et lingua tua omnibus præco salutis. Esto pastor, non mercenarius; rector, non subversor; lux et non tenebræ; civitas firma fide munita, non domus pluviis diruta; miles Christi gloriosus, non apostata vilis; pater prædicator, et non adulator. Melius est Dominum timere quam hominem; plus Deo placere quam homini blandiri. Quid adulator nisi blandus inimicus? ambos perdit, seipsum et suum auditorem. Virgam accepisti pastoralem et baculum consolationis fraternæ; illam ad regendum, illum ad consolandum, ut mærentes consolationem habeant in te, et contumaces correctiones sentient per te. Potestas judicis est occidere; tua vero vivificare. Quid times hominem propter gladium, qui clavem regni accepisti a Christo? Recordare quia pissus est pro te; et non metuas loqui pro illo. Pro tuo amore clavis confixus pependit in cruce; et tu, sedens in sella dignitatis tuæ, ob timorem hominis tacueris? Non ita, frater, non ita. Sed sicut ille dilexit te, ita dilige et illum. Qui plus laboret, plus mercedis recipiet. Si persecutionem patieris propter verbum Dei, quid beatius? ipso Domino dicente, Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam, quoniam ipsorum est regnum cœlorum, &c. We need not continue the extract.

than man; to please him rather than the other.

For what is

a flatterer except a smooth-tongued enemy?. he destroys both himself and his hearer. Thou hast received the pastoral rod and the staff of brotherly affection, with that to rule, with this to console, to the end that the sorrowful may be comforted, the obstinate chastised by thee. The power of the judge is to kill, thine to make alive. Why fearest thou the sword of man, seeing that thou hast received from Christ the key of the kingdom? Remember that he suffered for thee; fear not to speak for him. Through love of thee he hung pierced with nails on the cross; wilt thou, in thine elevated seat, be silent through fear of man? Not so, my brother, not so! In the same manner as he hath loved thee, love thou him! He who most labours will receive the greatest reward. If thou suffer persecution through preaching the word, what more desirable? since God himself has said, Happy are they who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Be a comforter to the wretched, a father to the poor, to all affable. Let thine hand be libera! in almsgiving; promptly give, reluctantly receive. Remember that a priest is the messenger of the most high God, and that the holy law must issue from his mouth. Comfort the weak-hearted, invigorate the dejected, bring back the wanderers into the way of truth, instruct the ignorant, monish the knowing, and let your lives be the best teachers."

Language like this shows that Alcuin was deeply impressed with a sense of sacerdotal responsibility. We may well forgive the antithetical manner in consideration of the wholesome matter. The Saxons were a stiff-necked people, their kings violent and savage; and there can be no doubt that his council to the archbishop was not given before it was wanted. That he himself was not slow to perform the duty he inculcated on others, appears from his letters to Charlemagne and the king of Northumbria. Nor is it less pleasing to find, that though so long settled in France, in honour such as he could never have obtained in his own country, his heart fondly turned towards his native land. Vos semper in corde, he truly writes to the monks of York, et primi inter verba precantia in ore.- Omnes dilectissimi patres et fratres, memores mei estote! Ego vester ero, sive in vitâ, sive in morte. But we must reluc