Froda IV unquestionably reigned in Denmark about the year 370, and was the father and grandfather of Healfdene and Hrothgar, both of whom are named in the poem. Beowulf himself, described as the son of Ecgtheow, and kinsman of Hygelac, king of the Geatas, he conceived to be purely historical. But in the interval previous to the publication of the translation, he had become better acquainted with the facts collected and the views put forth by German writers upon the Northern mythology, and in the preface to the latter work, Beowulf appears in a much more dim and dubious character. He is at once exalted to the skies, and degraded from the category of realities. Originally a god presiding over agriculture (Beo, Bewod, means the harvest month in Old Saxon, and is connected with the German bau, bauen), Beowulf, as the positive and realising spirit gained ground among the Teutons, was transformed, first into a demi-god, and finally into a mere mortal hero, the son of Ecgtheow. He appears, in an old Latin MS. of the fifteenth century, as the father of the eponymi of all the great northern tribes, Cinrincius, Gothus, Jutus, Suethedus, Dacus, Wandalus, Gethus, Fresus, Geatte or Geathus. And as a Scylding, i.e. son or descendant of Scyld, who was son of Scef or Sceaf, he seems to be identified with the Beaw' in Ethelwerd's genealogy, numbered by that writer among the ancestors of the royal line of Wessex.1 In Beowulf himself, therefore, we are carried back to the misty shroud of fable which envelopes the cradle of all nations; but as other personages in the poem are clearly historical, we are still not precluded from supposing that the author, while

This curious passage is as follows, omitting the earlier portion of the genealogy :—‘Tætwa son of Beaw, son of Sceldi, son of Sceaf. This Sceaf came with one ship to an island of the ocean named Scani, sheathed in arms, and he was a young boy, and unknown to the people of that land; but he was received by them, and they guarded him as their own with much care, and afterwards chose him for their king. It is from him that king Ethelwulf derives his descent.'-Ethelwerd's Chronicle, iii. 3.

drawing from the resources of popular story and legend for the name and exploits of his chief hero, set this earlier element in a framework of historic fact.

As to the date of the work, Mr. Kemble thinks that the original poem was composed among the continental Angles, and brought over to Wessex towards the end of the fifth century; but that, in its present form, the work only dates from the seventh century. It cannot be dated further back than this, on account of the numerous allusions and phrases, some of which are so woven into the texture of the poem that it is impossible to regard them as later interpolations, which prove the writer to have been a Christian.

Another theory—that of Mr. Thorpe—is to this effect: that we have here no original Anglo-Saxon poem in any sense, but only a metrical paraphrase of an old Swedish poem of uncertain date, composed in England under the Danish dynasty, between the years 1010 and 1050, by some one who was of Danish parentage, but a native of England. Yet why any one should take so much trouble to make a translation which would be unintelligible to his Danish, and uninteresting to his English countrymen, it is not easy to understand. Even the motive of glorifying the Danish nation in the eyes of the English cannot be supposed, for the heroic race of the poem is the Geatas, who, whatever their precise ethnical affinities may have been, were certainly not Danes. There are, moreover, many expressions and epithets with a peculiar archaic stamp, and that an Angle stamp,-inasmuch as they may be paralleled by similar expressions in other very ancient Angle poems,-which cut right across the notion of Beowulf's being a translation into Anglo-Saxon of a modern type. The theory of Kemble, therefore, seems to me more satisfactory than that of Mr. Thorpe. Cadmon's Paraphrase.-The unique MS. containing this poem belonged to Archbishop Usher, and is now in the

Bodleian library. No author's name is to be found in the MS. itself; but Francis Junius, who published the first edition of the poem in 1655, observing the remarkable general agreement of its contents with the summary given by Beda' of the substance of the religious poetry written by Cadmon, the lay brother of Whitby, who flourished about 680 A.D., assumed the identity of the two works. Later critics have generally held the contrary opinion. Hickes led the way, by maintaining that the language of the work published by Junius was full of Dano-Saxon peculiarities, and therefore could not be referred to so early a date as the seventh century. But he did not succeed in establishing the fact of these peculiarities; and even if they existed, there is no reason why they should not be laid to the charge of some later transcriber, rather than of the author. Rask, however, the learned Dane to whom Anglo-Saxon scholars owe so much, was decidedly of opinion that the work was not written by Beda's Cædmon; he always speaks of its author as the ' pseudo-Cadmon.' This also seems to be the general opinion in Germany. On the other hand, Thorpe and Guest are disposed to uphold the correctness of the designation assigned by Junius.

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If there were no means of trying the question, other than a comparison of Junius's poem with the meagre description of Cadmon given by Beda will furnish, I do not see why we should not hold with considerable confidence the opinion that the two are identical. But the reader shall judge for himself. Beda writes of Cadmon thus:— 'He sang of the creation of the world and the origin of the human race, and the whole history as found in Genesis, concerning the going forth of Israel out of Egypt, and their entrance into the land of promise; of very many

1 Hist. Eccl. vi. 24.

2 Thorpe's Cadmon, Edited for the Society of Antiquaries, 1832. History of English Rhythms, ii. 24.

other narratives in Holy Scripture, of the Incarnation of our Lord, his Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven; of the descent of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the Apostles. He also composed many verses concerning the terror of the judgment to come, and the fearfulness of the punishments of hell, and the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom; besides a great many others on the loving-kindnesses and judgments of God; and in all his compositions he strove to wean men from the love of vice, and stimulate them to the love and right understanding of virtue.'

The following rough notes of the contents of the 'Paraphrase,' as printed by Mr. Thorpe, were made without any reference to the passage in Beda :—

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'Book I.-The Creation; Revolt of the Angels; they are hurled into hell; the Fall; Expulsion from Eden (pp. 1-59). From Cain and Abel to the Flood (pp. 59–93). From the Flood to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and thence regularly on to the Sacrifice of Isaac (pp. 94-177). Here is a break; Canto xlii. makes a fresh start on the subject of Moyses dómas,' the Statutes of Moses; but the story of Moses is told very concisely down to the passage of the Red Sea, on which the writer descants lengthily. The passage from page 200 to page 206 reads like an interpolation of later date; it goes back again to Noah and Abraham's sacrifice. At page 207 the narrative of the passage of the Red Sea resumes, and continues to page 216. The remainder of the first book (pp. 216-263) is a paraphrase of parts of the Book of Daniel; the Three Children in the Fiery Furnace; their Song; Daniel's Dream-wisdom; Belshazzar.

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Book II.-The complaints of the fallen angels and other inhabitants of hell; the descent of Christ; his intercourse with the twelve before the Ascension; his Ascension; description of the Last Judgment. (pp. 264 -313.)'

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From this analysis it is manifest that the contents of the MS. printed by Junius and Thorpe correspond very well as far as they go, allowing for gaps and omissions, with Beda's description of the writings of Cadmon. There is, however, one other piece of evidence producible, which bears, though perhaps with no great force, the other way. Beda professes to give the substance, in Latin, of the opening of Cædmon's poem. After speakingof the manner in which the verses were, so to speak, given to him, he continues, 'quorum iste est sensus:- -Nunc laudare debemus auctorem regni cœlestis, potentiam Creatoris, et consilium illius, facta patris gloriæ. Quomodo ille, cum sit eternus Deus, omnium miraculorum auctor extitit; qui primo filiis hominum cœlum pro culmine tecti, dehinc terram custos humani generis omnipotens creavit. Hic est sensus,' he continues, non autem ordo ipse verborum, quæ dormiens ille canebat; neque enim possunt carmina, quamvis optime composita, ex alia in aliam linguam, ad verbum, sine detrimento sui decoris ac dignitatis, transferri.' In King Alfred's translation of Beda, a metrical rendering of the above Latin version of Cædmon's opening is given, introduced by the words, para endebyrdnes is pis, 'their order is this.' At the close of his version, Alfred, who, though he admits much, generally adheres closely to his original in the parts which he translates, forbears to translate the passage from Hic est sensus' to 'transferri.' This he would naturally do, if the lines which he had just written down were really known by him to have been taken from the actual work of Cadmon; for in that case he had given the ordo ipse verborum'; and it would seem absurd to insert in his translation words importing the exact contrary. But if the lines inserted were, as some suppose, his own composition-not the ipsissima verba of Cadmon at all, but a mere metrical rendering of Beda's Latin-would he not have felt himself bound