STA'TIUS, a Gaul, originally a slave. Ile received the name arcilius when ho became free. He died about one year after his friend Ennius, that is, B.C. 163. Crecilius wrote some forty comedies in the Latin language, of which only very brief fragments remain in the writings of Cicero, Aulus Gellius, and the grammarians. His merit has been variously estimated by the ancients. Cicero (` Ad Attic.,' vii. 3) condemns his style as bad, and Quiotilian (x. i.) does not assent to the praises which had been bestowed on him by others. Horace (` Epiat.' ii. 1. 59, `De Art. Poet.' 54), on the contrary, praises him as in some points superior to Plautus and Terence ; and Vulgatius Sedigitus (in Aul.GelL'xv. 24) gives him the highest rank in comedy. Many of his plays were imitations of Menander • and Aulus Gellius (ii. 23) says that when he read them separately they appeared rather pleasing and lively, but that when compared with the Greek originals they were perfectly disgusting. In the same very valuable chapter Aphis Gellius gives a scene from the Plocium (raiSaies, 'necklace') of Cescilius with the scene of 3Ienander from which it is copied. They differ as much in brightness, he says, as the arms of Diomed and Glaucus. (Terence ' Hee. Prol.' 5.) CsEDIION, the father of English song, or the first person of whom we possess any metrical composition in our vernacular language. This composition is a kind of ode consisting of .no more than eighteen lines, celebrating the praises of the Creator. It is preserved in Alfred's translation of Bede. Bede gives the following account of the pro duction of it, and of the author. Cmdmon was in some kind of con nection with the monks of Whitby : he seems to have had the care of their cattle. It appears to have been the custom of our Saxon forefathers to amuse themselves at the supper hour with improvisatore descants accompanied by the harp, as is still practised at meetings of the Weigh bards. Credmon, far from having the gift of song, when the harp pos=ed round among the guests, was fain as it approached him to shrink away from the assembly and retire to his own house. Once after it had thus happened as he was sleeping at night, some one seemed to say to him, " Cmdmon, sing me something?" He replied, "I cannot sing ;" and he told how his inability to sing had been the cause of his quitting the hall. " Yet thou must sing to me,"
said the voice; "What must I sing ?" said he; "Sing me the origin of things." The subject thus given him, he composed the short ode in question. When he awoke, the words were fast in his mind.
Ctedrnon in the morning told his vision and repeated his song. The effect was that the Abbess Hilda and the learned men whom she had collected round her in her monastery at Whitby believed that he had received from Heaven the gift of song, and when on the morrow ho returned with a beautiful poetic paraphrase of a passage of Scripture which they had given him to versify as a teat of the reality of his inspiration, they at once acknowledged the verity, and earnestly besought him to become a member of their company. He continued to receive poetic inspiration, and he composed numerous poems on sacred subjects, which were sung in the abbey for the edification of its inhabitants. Sacred subjects were his delight, and to them he con fined himself. lie continued in the monastery for tho remainder of his life, and there he died, as is conjectured, about 630.
Tho authenticity of the little poem above mentioned is perhaps unquestionable. But besides this, a very long Saxon poem, which is a metrical paraphrase on parts of the Scriptures, is attributed to Cmdmon. An edition of it was printed at Amsterdam in 1655, under the care of Junius. Hickes expresses doubts whether this poem can be attributed to so early a period as the time of Cmdmon. He thinks he perceives certain Dano-Saxonisms in it which would lead him to refer it to a much later period. It has been again printed with a much more accurate text, by Mr. Thorpe, as a publication by the Society of Antiquarir, London, Svo, 1832. Mr. Thorpe is of opinion that it is substantially the work of Credmon, but with some sophisti cations of a later period, and in this opinion our best Anglo-Saxon scholars appear inclined to coincide. The poem seems to have been popular, and to have been much used in later times by the makers of the mysteries which furnished so much of the amusement of our ancestors. An attempt has been made to show that the parts respecting the creation and our first parents bad been studied by Milton.