Again, there's a star more bright than them all,
He comes from the east before the sun's birth,
The star of the morning, thus him ever call
Under the heavens the children of earth.

For that he bodes day's-dawn to men's homes
After him bringing the sun in his train,
Fair from the east this forerunner comes
And glides to the west all shining again.
People rename him at night in the west,
Star of the evening then is he hight,
And when the setting sun goes to her rest,
He races her down more swift than the light.

Still he outruns her, until he appears
Again in the east, forerunning the sun,
A glorious star, that equally clears

The day and the night, ere his racing be run.

Thro' the Lord's power, the sun and the moon
Rule as at first by the Father's decree;
And think not thou these bright shiners will soon
Weary of serfdom till domesday shall be :

Then shall the Maker of man at his will
Do with them all that is right by and bye:
Meanwhile the Good and Almighty one still
Setteth not both on one half of the sky,
Lest they should other brave beings unmake;
But, evergood, He still suffers it not;
Somewhiles the dry with the water will slake,
Somewhiles will mingle the cold with the hot.

Yea, by His skill, otherwiles will upsoar
Into the sky fire airily-form'd,
Leaving behind it the cold heavy ore

Which by the Holy One's might it had warm'd. Bv the King's bidding it cometh each year

Earth in the summertime bringeth forth fruit, Ripens and dries for the soildwellers here [root. The seed, and the sheaf, and the blade, and the

Afterward rain cometh, hailing and snow,
Wintertide weather that wetteth the world,
Hence the earth quickens the seeds that they grow
And in the lententide leaves are uncurl'd.

So the Mild Maker for children of men

Feeds in the earth each fruit to increase,
Wielder of heaven! he brings it forth then;
Nourishing God!-or makes it to cease.

He, Highest Good, sits on his high seat
Self-king of all, and reins evermore
This his wide handiwork, made (as is meet)
His thane and his theow to serve and adore.

That is no wonder, for he is The King,

Lord God of hosts, each living soul's awe,
The source and the spring of each being and thing,
All the world's maker and wisdom and law.

Everything made, -on His errands they go,
None that he sendeth may ever turn back ;
Had he not stablished and settled it so
All had been ruin and fallen to rack;

Even to nought would have come at the last :
All that is made would have melted away :
But in both heaven and earth, true and fast,
All have one love such a lord to obey,
And are full fain that their Father should reign;
That is no wonder, for else should each thing
Never have life, if they did not remain

True to their Maker, man's glorious King.

Very few words in these literally rendered metres are not pure unlatinized English, the same as used by Alfred: even to forerunner, 'Forrynel,' 'wintres-tid,' and 'lencten-tid' and 'thios side gesceaft thenath and thiowath,' &c, and this wide handiwork is his thane and his theow'; &c.

Homer, among the Eastern Greeks, was erst
The best of bards in all that country-side;
And he was Virgil's friend and teacher first,
To that great minstrel master well allied.

And Homer often greatly praised the sun,
Her highborn worth, her skilfulness most true;
Often by song and story many a one

He to the people sang her praises due.

Yet can she not shine out, tho' clear and bright,
Everywhere near to every thing all ways,
Nor further, can she shed an equal light

Inside and out on all that meet her rays.
But the Almighty Lord of worldly things,
Wielder and Worker, brightly shines above
His own good workmanship, and round all flings
An equal blaze of skilfulness and love!

That is the true Sun, whom we rightly may
Sing without leasing as the Lord of Day.

Alfred is here commonly accused of an anachronism: but really without any cause. Was not Homer in spirit the friend and teacher of the Roman Epic Poet? if the Iliad had never existed, should we ever have heard of the Æneid? - No :- let us vindicate the self-taught Anglo-Saxon even here; and not cease further to admire how he brings all his knowledge to the footstool of his God.

This ends the list of the metrical paraphrases of Boethius, as given by King Alfred. A few of the odes were omitted by him,probably from want of leisure to set them to music: but in the prose version of Boethius we shall probably find all such deficiencies supplied. Meanwhile, to make an end. The writer is more humbly aware than the severest possible critic would wish to make him, how little light he, for his part, has been able to throw upon Anglo-Saxon Metre in general. The fact seems to him to be, that there must have been supplied a running harp accompaniment which, with vocal adlibita also, made up the rhythm and possibly now and then the echoing rhyme, of the words as downwritten. Take any modern oratorio, and judge how little we can guess its melodies from the mere words. There would be naturally very little to guide us in words alone, if we remember that poetry in those early times of our tongue was far more the harper's craft than the scribe's. At the same time the present writer has so varied his measures (more often than Boethius) that, even be it but by chance, he may have lighted now and then on some approximation in English to the ancient poetry of the Anglo-Saxons.

KING ALFRED'S

PARLIAMENT AT SHIFFORD,

A METRICAL FRAGMENT FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON. *

At Shifford many thanes were set ;
There book-learned bishops met,
Earls and knights, all awsome men,
And Alfric, wise in lawsome ken:

• We have to add the interesting fragment here appended: the authorship is disputable; but there is no doubt that it is a genuine echo of the words of Alfred, especially the latter part, the beautiful pathos of which, as addressed by the dying Alfred to his son and successor

Essa s

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