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SAXON CONQUEST.

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XI.

SAXON CONQUEST.

NOR wants the cause the panic-striking aid
Of hallelujahs tost from hill to hill-
For instant victory. But Heaven's high will
Permits a second and a darker shade

Of Pagan night. Afflicted and dismayed,

The Relics of the sword flee to the mountains:

O wretched Land! whose tears have flowed like fountains; Whose arts and honours in the dust are laid

By men yet scarcely conscious of a care

For other monuments than those of Earth ;†

Who, as the fields and woods have given them birth,

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1822.

Alluding to the victory gained under Germanus.—See Bede.-W. W.,

The Saxons and Picts threatening the Britons, the latter asked the assistance of Germanus. The following is Bede's account :-"Germanus bearing in his hands the standard, instructed his men all in a loud voice to repeat his words, and the enemy advancing serenely, as thinking to take them by surprise, the priests three times cried Hallelujah. A universal shout of the same word followed, and the hills resounding the echo on all sides, the enemy was struck with dread. . . . They fled in disorder, casting away their arms."-(Eccles. Hist., Book I., ch. 20.)—ED.

...

+ The last six lines of this Sonnet are chiefly from the prose of Daniel; and here I will state (though to the Readers whom this Poem will chiefly interest it is unnecessary) that my obligations to other prose writers are frequent,-obligations which, even if I had not a pleasure in courting, it would have been presumptuous to shun, in treating an historical subject. I must, however, particularise Fuller, to whom I am indebted in the Sonnet upon Wicliffe and in other instances. And upon the acquittal of the Seven Bishops I have done little more than versify a lively description of that event in the MS. Memoirs of the first Lord Lonsdale.-W. W., 1822.

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MONASTERY OF OLD BANGOR.

Content, if foss, and barrow, and the girth

Of long-drawn rampart, witness what they were.1

XII.

MONASTERY OF OLD BANGOR.*

The oppression of the tumult-wrath and scorn-
The tribulation and the gleaming blades-
Such is the impetuous spirit that pervades

The song of Taliesin; †-Ours shall mourn

The unarmed Host who by their prayers would turn
The sword from Bangor's walls, and guard the store
Of Aboriginal and Roman lore,

And Christian monuments, that now must burn
To senseless ashes.

1 1827.

Mark! how all things swerve

Witness the foss, the barrow, and the girth

Of many a long-drawn rampart, green and bare! 1822.

"Ethelforth reached the convent of Bangor, he perceived the Monks, twelve hundred in number, offering prayers for the success of their countrymen if they are praying against us,' he exclaimed, 'they are fighting against us; and he ordered them to be first attacked: they were destroyed; and, appalled by their fate, the courage of Brocmail wavered, and he fled from the field in dismay. Thus abandoned by their leader, his army soon gave way, and Ethelforth obtained a decisive conquest. Ancient Bangor itself soon fell into his hands, and was demolished; the noble monastery was levelled to the ground; its library, which is mentioned as a large one, the collection of ages, the repository of the most precious monuments of the ancient Britons, was consumed; half ruined walls, gates, and rubbish were all that remained of the magnificent edifice." -See Turner's valuable history of the Anglo-Saxons.

Taliesin was present at the battle which preceded this desolation. The account Bede gives of this remarkable event, suggests a most striking warning against National and Religious prejudices.—W. W., 1822.

+ Taliesin was chief bard and retainer in the Hall of Urien, the great North England Cymric chief. He sang of Urien's and his son Owain's victories, in the middle of the sixth century. See Pitsei, Relationes de rebus Anglicis, 1619, Vol. I., p. 95, De Thelesino. See also Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons (Vol. I., Bk. iii., ch. 4).—ED.

CASUAL INCITEMENT.

From their known course, or vanish like a dream ;1
Another language spreads from coast to coast;
Only perchance some melancholy Stream*
And some indignant Hills old names preserve,t
When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!

XIII.

CASUAL INCITEMENT.

A BRIGHT-HAIRED company of youthful slaves,
Beautiful strangers, stand within the pale
Of a sad market, ranged for public sale,
Where Tiber's stream the immortal2 City laves:
ANGLI by name; and not an ANGEL waves
His wing who could seem lovelier to man's eye3
Than they appear to holy Gregory;

Who, having learnt that name, salvation craves
For Them, and for their Land. The earnest Sire,
His questions urging, feels, in slender ties
Of chiming sound, commanding sympathies :
DE-IRIANS he would save them from God's IRE;
Subjects of Saxon ELLA-they shall sing

Glad HALLE-lujahs to the eternal King! ‡

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* E.g., in the Lake District, the Greta, Derwent, &c.—ED. E.g., in the Lake District, Stone Arthur, Blencatherac, and Catbells. -ED.

The story is told of Gregory who was afterwards Pope, and is known as Gregory the Great, that "he was one day led into the market-place at Rome to look at a large importation from abroad. Among other things there were some boys exposed for sale like cattle. He was struck by the appearance of the boys, their fine clear skins, their flaxen or golden hair, and their ingenuous countenances; so that he asked from what country

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GLAD TIDINGS.

XIV.

GLAD TIDINGS.

FOR ever hallowed be this morning fair,
Blest be the unconscious shore on which ye tread,
And blest the silver Cross, which ye, instead
Of martial banner, in procession bear;

The Cross preceding Him who floats in air,
The pictured Saviour!-By Augustin led,
They come

and onward travel without dread, Chanting in barbarous ears a tuneful prayer

Sung for themselves, and those whom they would free! Rich conquest waits them:-the tempestuous sea

Of Ignorance, that ran so rough and high

And heeded not the voice of clashing swords,
These good men humble by a few bare words,
And calm with fear of God's divinity."

they came; and when he was told from the island of Britain, . . . and were Angles, he played upon the word and said, 'Well may they be so called, for they are like Angels.' . . . Then demanding from what province they were brought, the answer was 'from Deira;' and in the same humour he observed that rightly might this also be said, for de Dei ira, from the wrath of God were they to be delivered. And when he was told that their King was Ella, he replied that Hallelujahs ought to be sung in his dominions. This trifling sprung from serious thought. From that day the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons become a favourite object with Gregory."— (Southey's Book of the Church, Vol. I., pp. 22, 23).—Ed.

Augustin was prior of St Gregory's Monastery, dedicated to St Andrew in Rome, and was sent by Gregory in the year 597 with several other monks into Britain. Ethelbert was then king of Kent, and, as they landed on the Isle of Thanet, he ordered them to stay there. According to Bede, "Some days after, the king came into the island and ordered Augustin and his companions to be brought into his presence. . . . They came... bearing a silver cross on their banner, and an image of our Lord and Saviour painted on a board; and singing the litany they offered up their prayers to the Lord for the eternal salvation both of themselves and of those to whom they were come."-(Eccles. Hist., Book I., c. 25.)—Ed.

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BUT, to remote Northumbria's royal Hall,
Where thoughtful Edwin, tutored in the school
Of sorrow, still maintains a heathen rule,
Who comes with functions apostolical?
Mark him, of shoulders curved, and stature tall,
Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek,
His prominent feature like an eagle's beak;
A Man whose aspect doth at once appal
And strike with reverence. The Monarch leans
Towards the pure truths1 this Delegate propounds,
Repeatedly his own deep mind he sounds
With careful hesitation,-then convenes
A synod of his Councillors:-give ear,
And what a pensive Sage doth utter, hear!†

XVI.

PERSUASION.

"MAN'S life is like a Sparrow, mighty King!

"That while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit

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The person of Paulinus is thus described by Bede, from the memory of an eye-witness :-"Longæ staturæ, paululum incurvus, nigro capillo, facie macilentâ, naso adunco, pertenui venerabilis simul et terribilis aspectu.”— W. W., 1822.

+ Paulinus won over Edwin, king of the Northumbrians, to the Christian faith, and baptised him "with his people," A.D. 627. (See The AngloSaxon Chronicle.)-ED.

See the original of this speech in Bede.-The Conversion of Edwin, as related by him, is highly interesting-and the breaking up of this Council accompanied with an event so striking and characteristic, that I am tempted to give it at length in a translation. “Who, exclaimed the King, when the Council was ended, shall first desecrate the altars and the temples? I, answered the chief priest, for who more fit than myself,

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