BEDE'S LATIN.--To the classical student, the language of Bede offers an
interesting study. The Latin had already been corrupted, and a nice
discrimination will show the causes of this corruption--the effects of the
other living languages, the ignorance of the clergy, and the new subjects
and ideas to which it was applied.

Bede was in the main more correct than his age, and his vocabulary has few
words of barbarian origin. He arose like a luminary, and when the light of
his learning disappeared, but one other star appeared to irradiate the
gloom which followed his setting; and that was in the person and the reign
of Alfred.


OTHER WRITERS OF THIS AGE.--Among names which must pass with the mere
mention, the following are, after Bede, the most illustrious in this time.
_Aldhelm_, Abbot of Malmesbury, who died in the year 709, is noted for his
scientific computations, and for his poetry: he is said to have translated
the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon poetry.

_Alcuin_, the pride of two countries, England and France, was born in the
year of Bede's death: renowned as an Englishman for his great learning, he
was invited by Charlemagne to his court, and aided that distinguished
sovereign in the scholastic and literary efforts which render his reign so
illustrious. Alcuin died in 804.

The works of Alcuin are chiefly theological treatises, but he wrote a life
of Charlemagne, which has unfortunately been lost, and which would have
been invaluable to history in the dearth of memorials of that emperor and