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even free paraphrases. The truth is, a good deal of ingenuity is required to discover in many cases a resemblance at all. Alfred has taken up the tune of Boethius, and begins a theme in the key-note of the Latin, but is soon hurried away by the rapidly recurring alliterations of his own free harp and tongue and so becomes original. With respect to Anglo-Saxon poetry, in most instances it is far from an easy task to discover much regularity of rhythm, or anything like exactitude of rhyme. The present metre however is an exception; it pleases the eye and the ear alike. Generally speaking, doubtless, a great deal depended on the bardic harp and the inspiration of the moment: rhyme and rhythm which now in our ignorance escape us, and an alliterative jingle, which our modern taste despises, might have been made acceptable by stress and accent properly laid, by eloquent pauses and stirring bursts of Song. How meagre and dull, for instance, our 'God save the Queen' would look, if we knew nothing of the noble air to which it is set; and how much to further disadvantage would it be seen, if in the lapse of centuries transcribers had here and there omitted a rhyme or a line, or had jumbled them all together, so as to have hidden away the rhythm! Suppose such a case as that Mr Haynes Bayley may, centuries hence, (if this αἴων tasts so long,) find an editor to mark out one of his best songs in the following learned manner;

O no we never
mention her her
name is never
heard my lips are
now forbid to speak that
once familiar
word from sport
to sport......

This instance may provoke a smile, but it is instructive notwithstanding; possibly, the Junian manuscript and others may do our Alfred similar injustice; and, at any rate, the discoverer is still to arise who shall help us to the tunes which doubtless rendered all harmonious. Perhaps we know as yet very little about the matter: for example: Dr Hickes, one of our most learned scholars in this line, maintains that the Anglo-Saxon rhythm is reducible to the rules of Latin prosody: so ridiculous does this seem to another equally distinguished man, Mr Tyrwhitt, the editor of Chaucer, that he does not scruple to say he can make out no metre at all in the so called poems, which are merely an inflated style of prose; while a more recent living writer, by way of reconciling such contrarieties, marks out his lines indeed with the symbols of dactyls, spondees, trochees, and anapæsts, but unluckily the words are too stubborn for his gratuitous prosody. The case seems to be, that the metres were very various; emphasis and harp-accompaniment made up for many a syllable ; the thing would be monotonous in uninspired hands, but stirring enough under the touch of genius; which might rise or fall, be tender or impassioned, forte or piano, at its own free will. At present our wisdom is to take random shots at the true metre, if existing and discoverable at all, by translating Alfred into a great variety, as here done: and for all else, the nearest approximation we can make seems to amount to such a play of words as 'whirlpool' and 'whalepool,' ' scattered' and 'shattered' and the like; together with short staccato sentences; interweaved synonymes, and parallel phrases; and, now and then, a sort of dancing measure. The writer however throughout has desired to make the metrical part (whatever may have been his Parnassian pains in this respect,) a secondary matter: the first thing to be considered every where is the Wise King's mind and meaning.

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And sang in soothful strain

The truths he had to tell.

When with clearest blaze

The bright sun shines in the sky,

The stars must quench their rays
Over the earth so high;

For that, set in the light
Of her that rules by day,
Their brightness is not bright,
But dimly dies away.

When the wind south-west
Under the cloud blows low,
Field-flowers wax their best

Fain to be glad and grow.

But when East and by North

The stark storm strongly blows,

Speedily drives he forth

All beauty from the rose.

So, with a stern needs-be

The northern blast doth dash

And beat the wide waste sea
That it the land may lash.

Alas, that ever on earth
Nothing is fast and sure;

No work is found so worth
That it for ever endure.

Very little need here he added, beyond the perpetual protest against the idea that Alfred does more than take hints from Boethius: justice is done to neither side by the word translation, or even paraphrase: for Alfred often omits two thirds of Boethius, and makes up by two-thirds of his own. To shew how united our modern and ancient English are, there are nearly forty words in this short poem unchanged from the royal minstrel's Anglo Saxon: and nearly the same ratio will be found to pervade most of the other metres.

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Again, as his wont, began Wisdom a song,

And spoke out his spells as he wander'd along.

He said, On a mountain no man can be skill'd

With a roof weather-proof a high hall to upbuild.

Moreover, let no man think ever to win
By mixing pure wisdom with over-proud sin.
Heard ye that any built firmly on sand,

Or caught hold of wisdom with gain-getting hand?

The light soil is greedy to swallow the rain;
So now doth the rich, in his measureless gain
Of honours and havings, drink deep of such weal,
Yea, down to the dregs, and still thirsty will feel.

A house on a hill-top may never long stay,
For quickly the swift wind shall sweep it away;
And a house on the sand is no better at all;
In spite of the house-herd, in rain it shall fall.

So, failing and fickle is every mind
When rack'd by the rage of this world-trouble wind;
And measureless cares, as a quick-dropping rain
Unstopping, stir up the mind's welkin with pain.

But he who would have everlasting true bliss,
Must fly from the glare of a world such as this :
And then let him make a strong home for his mind
Wherever true Lowliness' rock he can find;

A settled ground-anchor that never shall slide,
Though trouble attack it by tempest and tide;
For that, in Lowliness' valley so fair
The Lord, and mind-wisdom for ever live there.

Therefore leads always a quiet-like life
The wise in the world without changes or strife,
When heedless alike of earth's good and earth's ill,
He watches in hope of an after-world still.

Such an one evermore God ever kind
Happily keeps in the calm of his mind;
Though wild winds of sorrow against him are hurl'd,
Though always annoyed by the cares of the world,
Though wrathful and grim are these trouble-dark gales,
And Care, in its anguish, or anger assails.

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