opening of this new activity, looked back on it when he was old as a
glorious time, and he put it on record that he had known many scholars
to whom both the Latin and Greek languages were as their mother tongue.

Of those who were formed in the school of Hadrian, the first and most
conspicuous is Aldhelm. His rudimentary education must have been over
before he knew Hadrian. The school of Maidulf gave him his boyish
training at the monastery which was called after the Irish founder, and
which has given name to the town of Malmesbury (Maidulfes burh). So
Aldhelm stands between the two systems, the old Irish and the new
Kentish. His preference was for the latter, but his works retain the
characteristics of both. He has a love of grandiloquence which is both
Keltic and Saxon, and a delight in alliteration which is more especially
Saxon. His familiarity with the national poetry looms often through his
Latin. But his proper characteristics, those whereby he fills a position
altogether his own, are apart from these peculiarities. He is the
scholar of the age, the type of that set whom Bede delighted to recall,
who knew Latin and Greek like their mother tongue. He is the father of
Anglo-Latin poetry. He made a zealous study of the Latin metres, and he
commended the pursuit to other scholars. His Greek knowledge manifests
itself everywhere: not always with a good effect, according to present
taste; but in a manner which is of historical value as demonstrating his
real familiarity with the Greek language.

Aldhelm's great work, and the work which most conveys his interpretation
of the spiritual conditions of his time, is his book, "De Laude
Virginitatis," in praise of Celibacy. But for the purposes of literary
history, his artistic studies are of more importance than those which
are strictly religious and ecclesiastical. Of the greatest interest for
us are his Riddles. These are short Latin poems somewhat after the model