rough the persistent characteristics of the race. This epic shows the
ideals of our ancestors, what they held most dear, the way they lived
and died.

I. We note the love of liberty and law, the readiness to fight any
dragon that threatened these. The English _Magna Charta_ and _Petition
of Right_ and the American _Declaration of Independence_ are an
extension of the application of the same principles embodied in
_Beowulf_. The old-time spirit of war still prevails in all branches
of the race; but the contest is to-day directed against dragons of a
different type from Grendel,--against myriad forms of industrial and
social injustice and against those forces which have been securing
special privileges for some and denying equal opportunity for all.

II. _Beowulf_ is a recognition in general of the great moral forces of
the universe. The poem upholds the ideals of personal manliness,
bravery, loyalty, devotion to duty. The hero has the ever-present
consciousness that death is preferable to dishonor. He taught his
thane to sing:--

"Far better stainless death
Than life's dishonored breath."

III. In this poem, the action outweighs the words. The keynote to
_Beowulf_ is deeds. In New England, more than a thousand years later,
Thoreau wrote, "Be not simply good; be good for something." In reading
other literatures, for instance the Celtic, we often find that the
words overbalance the action. The Celt tells us that when two bulls
fought, the "sky was darkened by the turf thrown up by their feet and
by the foam from their mouths. The province rang with their roar and