almost without reserve: not so much perhaps for the purpose of varying the cadence of their verse, as with a view to keep the attention of their hearers upon the stretch by the artificial obscurity of their style; and to astonish them by those abrupt transitions which are very commonly (though rather absurdly) considered as Pindaric, and which are the universal characteristic of savage poetry.

That the reader may be enabled to judge for himself concerning the truth of all the foregoing observations, he is here presented with a specimen of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The only liberty which has been taken with it, is that of substituting the common characters instead of the Saxon; and a literal translation is added, for the purpose of shewing the variety of inversions in which the Saxon poets so much delighted. But as such a translation is very ill calculated to convey the spirit of a poetical original, I am happy in being enabled, by the kindness of a friend, to subjoin a second and metrical version. This was written several years ago, during the controversy occasioned by the poems attributed to Rowley, and was intended as an imitation of the style and language of the fourteenth century. The reader will probably hear with some surprize, that this singular instance of critical ingenuity was the composition of an Eton school-boy.

AN ODE ON ATHELSTAN'S VICTORY,

From Two MSS. in the Cottonian Library, British Museum, Tiberius, B. iv. and Tiberius, A. vi. dated 937 in Gibson's Chronicle, and in Hickes's Saxon Grammar 938, and supposed to be written by a contemporary Bard.

Ballice is boldly, Mar. xv. 43, in the Rushworth gloss. and bealh varies little in sound from beah.

• Whiter in his Etymol. p. 347, gives gevar, Chaldaic, and thence deduces our corresponding chief, captain, &c. g and c

This celebrated ODE is rendered into English as literally as possible, to show the very great affinity between our present language and its Saxon forefather, which, it is hoped, will be admitted as an excuse for some occasional obscurity.

LITERAL RENDERING.

Here Athelstan King,

Of Earls the Lord,

Of Barons the bold chief,
And his brother eke,

are certainly letters of the same organ; and in Saxon cafre and cafost, are chiefer, chiefest; and Matt. xxvii. 57, Gothic, gabigs is applied to Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable

man.

• Æthel, hæleth, halettan, cilt, clyto, on Mr. Whiter's clea mentary principle, are all deducible from l, t, disregarding the vowels, and the Latin altus, inclytus, Greek nλvtos, our exalted, lofty, &c. Etheling is the young Æthel, or noble.

4 Thrym derived from turma, is the common term for a train, and the Saxons sometimes added, frequently omitted, the m final; and in English tier, as tier of guns, a row, a long line of ancestors.

5 The marches of Wales and the North of England elucidate this term to an English reader, but it is derived from the Gothic MARKOS, Mat. ix. 34, where mar is the corres ponding Saxon, and signifies marks defining boundaries.

Edmund Atheling,

Elders a long train,

Slew in the shock (of war)

With the edges of swords
Round Brunanburgh.

They cloven the hard walls,
They hew the lofty ones,
The marches (borders) they leave,
As aforen in Edward's days.

So to them it destined was
From their mighty kindred,
That they at camp oft
Gainst robbers on each side

Their land wholly cleared;

6 Th and d are the same letter in Saxon; and in Cadmon, whose style alone resembles this Ode, there is adaled, portioned, destined, and dal, Saxon, and dalgs, Gothic, are common terms for portion or lot, synonimous with the modern deal.

7 This word corresponds with cyn, genus, and certainly the knees of Gibson conveys no appropriate idea.

8 The Latin latro.

• Each whence, literally.

10 Geall is all, in the Lambeth Psalter, Ps. lxv. 15. "Geaton is found for to get, in the Saxon Chronicle, An. -655, 675, 963.