Hebrew heroine, with a naive anachronism, prays thus: "God of
Creation, Spirit of Consolation, Son of the Almighty, I pray for Thy
mercy to me, greatly in need of it. Glory of the Trinity."

'The Battle of Maldon' is a ballad, containing an account of a fight
between the Northmen and the East Saxons under the Aldorman, Byrhtnoth.
The incident is mentioned in one MS. of the Chronicle under the date of
991; in another, under the date of 993. The poem is exceedingly graphic.
The poet seems filled with intense feeling, and may have been a
spectator, or may indeed have taken part in the struggle. He tells how
the brave old Aldorman disdains to use the advantage of his position,
which bade fair to give him victory. Like a boy, he cannot take a dare,
but fatuously allows the enemy to begin the battle upon an equal footing
with his own men. He pays for his noble folly with his life and the
defeat of his army. The devotion of the Aldorman's hearth-companions,
who refuse to survive their lord, and with brave words meet their death,
is finely described. But not all are true; some, who have been
especially favored, ignobly flee. These are treated with the racial
contempt for cowards. The poem has survived in fragmentary form, and the
name of the poet is not known.

As distinguished from all poetical remains of such literature, the
surviving prose of the Anglo-Saxons, though extensive, and of the
greatest interest and value, is less varied in subject and manner than
their poetry. It admits of brief treatment. The earliest known specimens
of Anglo-Saxon prose writing have been already mentioned. These do not
constitute the beginning of a literature, yet, with the rest of the
extensive collection of Anglo-Saxon laws that has survived, they are of
the greatest importance to students. Earle quotes Dr. Reinhold Schmid as
saying, "No other Germanic nation has bequeathed to us out of its
earliest experience so rich a treasure of original legal documents as
the Anglo-Saxon nation has,"--only another instance of the precocity of
our ancestors.

To the West Saxons belongs nearly the whole of Anglo-Saxon prose.
Whatever may have existed in Northumbria perished in the inroads of the
Northmen, except such parts as may have been incorporated in West Saxon
writings. It will be remembered, however, that the great Northumbrian
prose writers had held to the Latin as their medium. The West Saxon
prose literature may be said to begin in Alfred's rei