Writers" (II. 319-320). A Bibliography will be found in Wülker's
_Grundriss_ (pp. 344-5). An edition of both ATHELSTAN and BYRHTNOTH has
been long announced in the "Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry," but it has
not yet appeared.[1] Sweet says of the BYRHTNOTH (Reader, p. 138):
"Although the poem does not show the high technical finish of the older
works, it is full of dramatic power and warm feeling"; and ten Brink,
with more enthusiasm, calls it (p. 96) "one of the pearls of Old English
poetry, full, as it is, of dramatic life, and fidelity of an
eye-witness. Its deep feeling throbs in the clear and powerful
portrayal." He recognizes, however, "the tokens of metrical decline, of
the dissolution of ancient art-forms."

[1] Crow's "Maldon and Brunnanburh," 1897.

V. The DREAM OF THE ROOD is found in the Vercelli manuscript. Wülker's
_Grundriss_ gives the literature of the subject to the time of its
publication (1885). Soon afterwards Morley's "English Writers," Vol.
II., appeared (1888), in which an English translation is given (pp.
237-241); also Stopford Brooke, in his "History of Early English
Literature" (1892), has given an account of the poem, with partial
translation and epitome (pp. 436-443). (See also p. 337 and pp. 384-386
for further notice.) The poem is very briefly mentioned by Trautmann in
his monograph on Cynewulf (1898, p. 40). There are some very interesting
questions connected with the poem which cannot be discussed here. Was it
by Cynewulf? On the affirmative side we find Dietrich, Rieger, Grein,
ten Brink, D'Ham, and Sweet. On the negative, Wülker, Ebert, Trautmann,
Stephens, Morley, Brooke, and others. Pacius, who edited the text, with
a German translation, in 1873, thinks that we know nothing about the
poet. Brooke has propounded a theory, previously adumbrated by the
editors of the _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, Vigfusson and Powell, that an