the manner of Wace. Its customary clearness rarely suffers in the effort to attain succinct brevity; this effort is sometimes suggestive of prudery. Now and then the poet's religious enthusiasm communicates a poetical glow to his verse. In such cases we understand why he calls his poem a "song," which term is perhaps not to be taken literally. It could indeed be sung, though necessarily in unequal strophes. Whether the fact that the same rhyme sometimes appears in a succession of verse-pairs points in that direction or not, must remain undecided. The Genesis seems, soon after its appearance, to have inspired another poet to write an Exodus in a similar vein. This other poet was presumably a fellow-monk or the successor in some ecclesiastical office of the author of the Genesis; indeed, the possibility that they are identical1 is not to be utterly rejected, though this is not probable. The language of the Exodus poet differs from that of his predecessor only in delicate nuances. He conforms to the latter in versification and style, and successfully imitates him although he does not profess to write a "song." With still less claim to learning than his model, he makes use of the same original, whose sense, moreover, he sometimes fails accurately to reproduce. He was obliged to select from the material before him to a far greater extent than the poet of the Genesis. Inasmuch as he carried the history of the Israelites to the death of Moses, he not only had to use the Historia scholastica in the part on Exodus, but he was obliged to draw historical material from Numbers and Deuteronomy. He wisely passed over Leviticus, as also the detailed ritualistic parts of Exodus. Taken as a whole, the Genesis and Exodus are a monument of no mean interest to literary history. This is the first attempt, after a long interval, to bring the ancient epochs of biblical history more directly before the English people; and it is one of the oldest English poems in which the verse and style of the French clerical poetry were successfully imitated. The circulation of the poem does not seem to have been so great as might have been expected. 1 This theory has hitherto been accepted without question. The Exodus immedi、 ately follows the Genesis in the MS. of the Corpus Christi College of Cambridge, though the latter does not lack a distinct closing passus; and both poems have been edited as one work by Richard Morris for the Early English Text Society. The Story of Genesis and Exodus, 1865; 2d ed., 1874. LIVES OF THE SAINTS. XII. 199 The development at this time in the literature of the South was unquestionably more momentous than that just considered. A series of phenomena, of themes and forms, succeeded in the space of a half-century. To a stronger echo of English antiquity responded the tones of a new age and culture. The lives of three saints first attract our attention, of seinte Marherete, seinte Fuliane, and seinte Katerine. Written in alliterative long lines, or in rythmical, alliterative prose, their diction, with its touch of enthusiasm, contains much that recalls the good old times of poetry. Their language, as compared with Orm's, has wealth and colour. Yet occasional French expressions, as well as the choice of materials, remind us that we are in the thirteenth century. It is true that these three saints, with innumerable others, had been celebrated in English speech before the Conquest. Cynewulf himself had sung St. Juliana in impassioned rhythms. But it is scarcely fortuitous that three female saints should now appear together, in whose legends is varied the power of faith and the might of virginity in conflict with the powers of hell and of this world. The ideal of virgin purity was in the foreground of the moral consciousness of the age, and it gained in influence, as immorality became more gigantic in consequence of the crusades, of unsettled life, and of contact with eastern nations. The alliterative homily on the text, Audi filia et vide et inclina aurem tuam, is closely related, in time and place of origin, to these three legends. In literary history it is known by the name Hali Meidenhad, Holy Maidenhood. Neither moralists nor religious poets wearied in the praise of this crown of all virtues; directions on the surest way of guarding it form one of the most important chapters of practical theology. Divine love was contrasted with sensual desire and impure love. The ancient theme of Christ as bridegroom wooing the soul, of the soul pining for the love of the heavenly bridegroom, was treated with much variety and rich poetical cast. The cult of the Virgin Mary was most closely connected with this; the virgin mother of God, whose beauty fills the solitary penitent and the pious hermit with longing, and which St. Bernard so highly extolled, was venerated in England from the begin. ning of the thirteenth century, with an enthusiasm beside which the love and admiration of the Old English church for her seems cold. A sort of womanly tone pervaded the writings in this sphere of thought. Thus, divine love ("die Gottesminne"), in the mediæval sense, became a new theme in English literature, before secular love-poetry, as it had sprung up in the valleys of Provence "1 more than a hundred years before, could take root there. The impulse proceeding from France, which then had spread over Germany and was beginning to make itself felt in Italy, in Englishspeaking England, first affected the religious literature.2 66 From this came a new rise of prose, and the growth of a new lyrical poetry. The most notable prose monument of the time is the first after a long interval that may be compared with the products of former centuries. Characteristically enough, it is an ascetic rule written for three young nuns by a highly educated and respected ecclesiastic. Three sisters of noble blood, universally loved for their kindness and magnanimity, had renounced 3 the world in the bloom of their years and withdrawn to the solitude of a cloister, where they dwelt as the only inmates, with their women-servants and some attending lay-brothers. Our author seems to have stood near them as spiritual adviser, though probably not as actual pastor. Upon their urgent and repeated request, he wrote for them his Regulae inclusarum or Ancren Riwle (Anchoresses' Rule). This work betokens much learning, great knowledge of the human heart, as well as deep piety, and a refined and gentle spirit. Within the scope of a sharply limited view of life, it shows breadth of mind and freedom of thought. "There are many kinds of rules," says the author in the introduction, "but among them are two of which, with God's help, I will speak in accordance with your request. The one rules the heart, makes it even and smooth. this rule is ever with you. . . . it is the caritas which the apostle describes, 'out of a pure heart, and of a good 1 In den Thalen der Provence We observe the same phenomenon elsewhere, and in other epochs. 3 Ancren Riwle, p. 192. conscience, and of faith unfeigned.'. . . . the other rule is all outward and rules the body and bodily acts. . . . the other is as a lady, this is as her handmaid; for whatever men do of the other outwardly is only to rule the heart within." The inner rule is unchangeable; to observe it, a duty. The outer has to do with persons and circumstances; the sisters may follow, in this regard, what the author imposes upon them, but they are to take no vow to keep his directions as commandments (of God). The writer devotes to the external rule only the first and the last of the eight books of his work; the former treats of "service" (seruise), or of the prayers to be offered daily, ceremonies, and the like; the latter, of the ordering of the outward life. The remaining books all consider the inner rule. The five senses are first taken up, "which guard the heart like watchmen, when they are true": a theme that frequently recurs in ecclesiastical literature, and often worked out in broad allegory. The anchorite's life is next presented; the virtues it requires, the contentment it yields, are depicted, and the grounds are stated that admonish us to renounce the world. The fourth book considers fleshly and spiritual temptations; the fifth, confession, and the sixth, penance. This serves as a preparation for the central part of the work, whose topic is purity of heart, and love of Christ. The method is sometimes systematic, sometimes free. As a whole, the work evinces the effect of a learning given to subtle distinctions. And with it is that feeling for allegory and parable which, awakened by the Scriptures and the fathers of the church, developed most richly under the most various influences in the later Middle Ages, and which a strongly expanding mysticism moulded to its purposes. Neither does the work lack popular features, touches full of human life. Many legends are related or called to mind; names and examples from the Old and New Testaments, from the different centuries of the Christian church, continually occur, and the author sometimes glances at profane history. Everywhere are images, illustrations. We cannot fail to recognise the workings of the new schools of preachers, though the author neither resorts to the most common topics of daily life nor interweaves any true fables into his 1 Ancren Riwle, p. 2, 4. work. The text is interlarded with Latin quotations, which are often left untranslated. Besides the Scriptures, from which he chiefly draws, he also cites Jerome, Augustine, Gregory, Anselm, and, notably, Bernard. The chapter on penance confessedly follows most closely the teachings of the great church father of the twelfth century. Thus the theology of the new era here has a decided effect. The author was, without question, acted upon by French culture in the broader sense. He very often resorts to French expressions; and as he distinctly presupposes a knowledge of this language in his nuns, he had perhaps himself read many a French book, and frequently spoken the language in polite circles. He has, nevertheless, a good English construction. His style is simple and dignified, and unites grace and graphic picturesqueness with the free movement of that period. The reader must not look for a strictly logical structure of sentences, nor an artistic grouping of periods. The particles have not yet acquired the power sharply to define and give the delicate shadings of highly cultivated speech; the mysteries of word-arrangement are, in great part, still unsolved. Naïve and spontaneous, as it seems, we are charmed by this language, which already contains so much art, and has so rich a history behind it; hence it strikes us as graceful, despite its clumsiness. The passage on comfort in temptations affords a good specimen : Þe sixte kunfort is, þet ure Louerd, hwon he idoleð þet we beoð itented, he plaieð mid us, ase þe moder mid hire unge deorlinge: vlihð from him, and hut hire, and let hit sitten one, and loken şeorne abuten, and cleopien, Dame! dame! and weopen one hwule; and peonne mid ispredde ermes leaped lauhwinde uord, and cluppeð and cussed, and wipeð his eien. Riht so ure Louerd let us one iwurden oðer hwules, and wiðdraweð his grace, and his cumfort, and his elne, þet we ne iuindeð swetnesse in none pinge pet we wel doo, ne sauur of heorte; and tauh, idet ilke point, ne luued he us ure leoue ueder neuer þe lesce, auh he deð hit for muchel luue þet he haueð to us. Ancren Riwle, p. 230, et seq. The sixth comfort is that our Lord, when he permits that we be tempted, plays with us, as a mother with her young darling: she flies from it, and hides herself, and lets it sit alone, and look about anxiously and cry "Dame! Dame!" and weep awhile; and then she leaps forth laughing, with outspread arms, and embraces and kisses it, and wipes its eyes. Just so our Lord sometimes leaves us alone, and withdraws his grace, his comfort, and his support; so that we find no sweet |