XXVI] 1 



PREFACE. 



Now if an Italian or a Frenchman could acquire Greek, 

 and translate into Latin, a Saxon might do the same. 

 Beda' tells of Theodorus the archbishop, and abbot 

 Hadrianus, that they collected pupils, taught them ver- 

 sification, astronomy, and the ecclesiastical arithmetic 

 of the computus, and some remained while Beda wrote 

 who were acquainted with the Greek and Latin lan- 

 sruaeres as well as with their own.^ Further on ^ Beda 

 gives an example of one of these disciples, Albinus, 

 who understood Latin not less than his own language, 

 English, with not a little Greek. Of Tobias, bishop of 

 Rochester, another of these pupils, he saj^s * that he 

 knew the Greek and Latin languages as familiarly as 

 his own. 



King /Elfred and .zElfric both lament the decay of 

 learning consequent upon the invasions of the Danes. 

 Of the works translated from the Latin, by order of 

 Alfred and by his confidential servants or by himself, 

 some are, in scattered passages, turned rather literally 

 than correctly ; some are executed with great spirit, and 

 even improved in the version. ^Elfric himself is a very 

 pleasing translator, he kept his own faculties alive in 

 the execution of his tasks ; thus he translates dactyli, 

 dates, as finger apples, plainly shewing that Greek words 

 were known to him ; it is also striking to find him cor- 

 recting Bedas error, "lutr?e,"^ otters, the quadrupeds 

 out of the sea, which came and warmed St. Cu"Sberhts 

 feet with their breath, into " seals." ^ 



I have shown, by the curious pieces published in the 

 preface to the first volume of the Leechdoms, that in 



• Beda, Hist. Eccl. IV. ii. 



* Latinam Grcccamque linguam 

 aeque ut propriam in qua nati sunt 

 norunt. The Saxon interpreter 

 gives a full emphasis to seque ut ; 

 that ■will bear softening down in this 

 late Latin. 



^ Beda, V. xx., p. 209, line 11. 



* Beda V. xxiii. Ita Grsecam 

 quoque cum Latina didicit linguam, 

 ut tarn notas ac familiares sibi eas, 

 quam nativitatis suje loquelam 

 haberet. 



* Beda, p. 237. 

 « Hom. I. 138. 



