There are other songs preserved in our chronicles, and closely allied to those last mentioned, but which are much shorter, and partake more of the lyrical character. Among them may be enumerated the Bruuanburgh war-song, Edgar's coronation song, the two songs which conunemorato the death of this monarch, and the elegy written on the death of the Confessor. The first and last of these are among the noblest specimens of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
A great deal of Anglo-Saxon verse was written during the 11th century. One of the writers seems to have been called Deor. His name occurs in a poem which exhibits many difficulties of construction, and perhaps some blunders of transcription ; but it may be gathered that he was stop or minstrel to the Danish princes who succeeded Knut, and he appears to have lost his place at court when the Con fcssor mounted the throne of England. The name of Cynewuif has also been extracted from certain poems found in the Exeter and Vercelli manuscripts. It was hid in a kind of riddle, similar in character to our modern acrostic. He was probably the compiler of the two manuscripts, and may have been the author of much of the poetry which they contain.
But the noblest relic of this period is the Psalter published by the University of Oxford, from a manuscript preserved in the "Biblio th&te du Roi.' In the first part, each psalm has an Anglo-Saxon translation in prose; and also a preface giving some account of its history, general scope, and tendency. The translation often para phrases the Latin, so as to show more clearly its doctrinal or prophet ical meaning : but from the 50th Psalm, the translation is metrical, and though generally literal, exhibits many cases of glaring miscon struction. The prefaces also disappear, and the whole seems to be the work of a man very slenderly provided even with the rudiments of learning. This deficiency, however, may now be considered as amply compensated for by the high character of the poetry. Some of the psalms are translated with a terseness and also an elegance, which place the translation far above any of our modern versions, and there is occasionally a Miltonic sweep of language, that has not often been surpassed even in the choicest specimens of our sacred poetry.
A note in the manuscript informs us that a priest named Wnlfwin Cada " wrote it with his own hand " (mann au& conscripsit). We think it extremely probable that Wulfwin copied from some manu script the prose version as far as it went, arid then drew on his own resources. There are numberless irustances of transcribers altering and continuing the work they were copying. Most of our manuscript
chronicles were transcripts up to a certain date, and were then con tinued as original compositions. The verb conscripsit draws it was a compilation ; and If Wnlfwin had before him a metrical translation, he would hardly, with that passion for stately language so common among his countrymen, have postponed it to the prose version. To Wulf win Cada we think may fairly be ascribed both the faults and the merits of the metrical translation.
Among the most important prose works of our Saxon literature must be ranked those extraordinary compilations which are commonly called (as if they constituted but one work) the 'Saxon Chronicle.' The earliest copy of a Saxon Chronicle now extant is the Plegmund Manuscript, in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It is written, as Wanley observes, in the same hand to the year DI, and In hands equally ancient to the year 924. After that date it seems to have been continued and interpolated by various transcribers, whose notices of Christ Church, Canterbury, leave little doubt that the volume was once the property of that cathedral. As Plegtnund was consecrated archbishop in 890, and died in 923, it has been inferred that the original text was compiled by his order, and continued from time to time under his direction. The internal evidence favours this supposition. The notices which it contains respecting the opera tions of Alfred and his immediate predecessors could hardly have beon furnished by any but those who acre present at them, and were probably the subatance of conversations which had passed between the prelate and the king.
The next copy, in point of time, is the Dunstan manuscript in the British Museum. This Is also a Canterbury manuscript, and appears to have belonged to St. Austin's Abbey. It is written throughout in the same hand, and ends in the year 977. As Dunstan was then arch bishop, and as the handwriting resembles that of other manuscripts ascribed to hint, he has been named with some degree of confidence as the transcriber. However this may be, it must have been written by a man of scholarlike attainment. We have only to compare the passages which relate to the period after Plegmund's death, with the corre sponding passages in the Christ Church manuscript, to seefat once its superiority. This is particularly striking in the poetical portions. The noble ode on the battle of 13runanbargh would have remained for ever tantilated, and in parts unintelligible, but for the copy preserved in the Dunstan Chronicle.