C.EDDION, the first Anglo-Saxon writer of note who composed in his own language, and of whom there are any remains. The date of his birth is unknown, but his death occurred about 680 A.D. He was originally a cowherd attached to the monastery of Whitby, and, according to Bede, "even more ignorant than the majority of his fIllows, so that in the evenings, when the domestics assembled in the hall to recreate themselves with music after the labors of the day, C. was frequently obliged to retire in order to hide his shame when the harp was moved towards him." night, however, as lie was sleeping in the stable loft, a stranger appeared to him, and commanded him to sing. C. declared his ignorance, but the stranger would take no refusal, and imposed on the poor cowherd the sublime task of hymning the glories of creation. Suddenly a poetic inspiration seized him, and he began to pour forth verses. When he awoke from his
dream the words remained fast-rooted in his memory, and were recited by him to others with new confidence. The abbess Hilda, and the learned men who were with her in the monastery, immediately declared that he had received the gift of song from heaven. He was now educated, became a monk, and spent the rest of his life in composing poems •on the Bible histories and on miscellaneous religious subjects, many of which nave been preserved, and are altogether in bulk nearly equal to the half of Paradise Los( to parts of which some of them bear a striking resemblance. Satan's speech in hell is characterized by a simple yet solemn greatness of imagination, which may possibly have influenced at some period of his life the more magnificent genius of 3lilton.