The fifth and last book contains a survey of the condition of the
national Church down to 731, within about four years of the author's
death.

Books of his on the technicalities of literature are a tract on
"Orthography," another "On the Metric Art," also a book "On Figures and
Tropes of Holy Scripture." Least esteemed have been his poetical
compositions, some of which have been suffered to perish. The poem on
the "Miracles of St. Cuthberht" is extant, but the "Book of Hymns in
Various Metre or Rhythm" is lost, and so also is his "Book of Epigrams
in Heroic or Elegiac Metre." But we are not left without an authentic
specimen of his hymnody, as he has incorporated in his history the Hymn
of Virginity in praise of Queen Ethelthryð, the foundress of Ely. His
extant poetry proves him to have been an accomplished scholar and a man
of cultivated taste rather than of poetic genius. But we could afford to
lose many Latin poems in consideration of the slightest vernacular
effort of such a man.

Many manuscripts of the "Ecclesiastical History" contain a letter by one
Cuthbert to his fellow-student Cuthwine, describing the manner of Bede's
death. In this letter is contained a pious ditty in the vernacular,
which Bede, who was "learned in our native songs," composed at the time
when he was contemplating the approach of his own dissolution.

Fore there neidfarae
nænig ni uurthit
thonc snoturra
than him tharf sie
to ymbhycggannae,