he seventh century we find Anglo-Saxon
missionaries, with St. Boniface at their head, carrying Christianity and
enlightenment to the pagan German tribes on the Continent.

The torch had been passed to the Anglo-Saxon, and a new centre of
learning, York,--the old Roman capital, now the chief city of the
Northumbrian Angles,--became famous throughout Europe. Indeed, York
seemed for a time the chief hope for preserving and advancing Christian
culture; for the danger of a relapse into dense ignorance had become
imminent in the rest of Europe. Bede, born about 673, a product of this
Northumbrian culture, represented the highest learning of his day. He
wrote a vast number of works in Latin, treating nearly all the branches
of knowledge existing in his day. Alcuin, another Northumbrian, born
about 735, was called by Charlemagne to be tutor for himself and his
children, and to organize the educational system of his realm. Other
great names might be added to show the extent and brilliancy of the new
learning. It was more remarkable among the Angles; and only at a later
day, when the great schools of the north had gone up in fire and smoke
in the pitiless invasion of the Northmen, did the West Saxons become the
leaders, almost the only representatives, of the literary impulse among
the Anglo-Saxons.

It is significant that the first written English that we know of
contains the first Christian English king's provision for peace and
order in his kingdom. The laws of Athelbert, King of Kent, who died in
616, were written down early in the seventh century. This code, as it
exists, is the oldest surviving monument of English prose. The laws of
Ine, King of the West Saxons, were put into writing about 690. These
collections can scarcely be said to have a literary value; but they are
of the utmost importance as throwing light upon the early customs of our
race, and the laws of Ine may be considered as the foundation of modern
English law. Many of these laws were probably much older; but they were
now first codified and systematically enforced. The language employed is
direct, almost crabbed; but occasionally the Anglo-Saxon love of figure
shows itself. To illustrate, I quote, after Brooke, from Earle's
'Anglo-Saxon Literature,' page 153:--

"In case any one burn a tree in a wood, and it came to light
who did it, let him pay the full penalty, and give sixty
shillings, _because fire is a thief_. If one fell in a wood