affirms that only the general sense is given The verses which he inserts begin thus:—
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Nu we sceolon lierian hcofon-riccs weanl, Mctodes mihtc and his mod-gethonc, (N"ow must we praise the Warder of the heavenly kingdom, the might of the Creator, and the thought of His mind.) In short, Bede s description is turned with great literalness into Anglo-Saxon verses. But are these Csedmon s? If they are, then the paraphrase is not the work of Csedmon ; for not one line in the opening as given by Alfred agrees with the paraphrast s opening However, in spite of the circumstances mentioned above, the judgment of criticism will not identify Alfred s verses with the true work of Cccdmon. They are so bald, so literal, that the conviction forces itself upon us that Alfred is here merely translating from Bede s Latin, and amusing himself with making his version metrical On the other hand the paraphrast is a genuine poet ; variety, force, and colour are the ever-present attributes of his poetic diction ; his imagination is bold and fertile ; his moral purpose clear and pervading in fact he is just such a man as we should conceive the real Coedmon to have been.
The other point of comparison between the paraphrase and Bede s description relates to the contents of Casdmon s poem. " He sang," says the historian, " the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis ; and made many verses on the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the land of promise, with many other histories from holy writ ; the incarnation, passion, resurrection of our Lord, and His ascension into heaven ; the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of the apostles ; also the terror of future judgment, the horror of the pains of hell, arid the delights of heaven." With this account the contents of the paraphrase which we have agree, up to a certain point, remarkably well. It may be said, generally, to embrace the whole history of Genesis, except that portion which relates to events posterior to the time of Isaac. It then passes to the history of Moses and his statutes, " Moyses domas," briefly giving the thread of events till it arrives at the passage through the Red Sea, on which the writer enlarges with evident enjoyment. An abrupt transition is then made to the book of Daniel ; the story of the three children saved out of the fiery furnace is told ; Daniel s dream-wisdom is set forth, and the doom denounced against Belshazzar. Then what is called the second book of the paraphrase, the beginning of which coincides with a change of handwriting in the MS., commences, and now the resemblance to Bede s description ceases. This book opens with the complaints of the fallen angels in hell and the lamentations of the souls detained in the Linibus Patrum ; the descent of Christ after his passion to liberate these souls is described ; the resurrection is barely mentioned, but the intercourse of Christ with his apostles previous to his ascension, and the ascension itself, are told at some length. The book concludes with a description of the terrors of the Day of Judgment. Such a poem cannot be said to corres pond with Bede s description; but then it must be remembered that, partly on account of the change of hand and of subject, partly on account of the presence in it of later linguistic forms, the ascription of this second book of the paraphrase to the author of the first has always been held problematical On the whole, although the grounds of a confident judgment do not exist, the analysis of the evidence here attempted points to the conclusion that the first book of the paraphrase, though not the second, may with considerable probability be assigned to Csedmon.
Some writers have assigned other extant poems to Ciudinon, e.</., the Half/a Rud (Holy Rood) of the Vercelli codex, a passage in which has been found to tally with the Runic inscription on the Ruthwcll Cross, and also the frag ment called Judith, in the MS. volume containing Beowulf. But the evidence in favour of either supposition may be set down as nil ; nor does the style in Judith, still less in the Ualya Rod, agree with that of the Paraphrast.
CAEN, or, as it is called in the old chronicles, Cadon, Cathim, Cahem, or Caam, the capital of an arrondissement in the department of Calvados in France. It stands about 80 or 90 feet above the level of the sea, in an extensive valley, on the left bank of the Orne, at the influx of the Odon, 9 miles from the English Channel, and 122 west of Paris, in 49 11 14" N. lat., 21 15" W. long. The town is handsome and well built; the streets, of which the most important is the Rue St Jean, are generally wide, straight, and clean ; and the houses, being of freestone, have a very good appearance. Hardly any remains of its once extensive ramparts and towers are now to be seen ; bxit the castle, founded by William the Conqueror and completed by Henry I., is still employed as barracks, though in a greatly altered condition. The city contains several ancient churches and other buildings, affording fine speci mens of the Norman style of architecture. Among these are the church of St Pierre, dating from the 14th century and surmounted by a handsome stone spire, the finest in Normandy, 242 feet in height ; the magnificent churches of the Abbaye Aux Hommes, or St j^tienne, and the Abbaye Aux Dames, or Trinity, both founded in 10G6, the former by William the Conqueror, where a plain grey marble slab in the pavement now marks his long since desecrated tomb, and the latter by his queen Matilda, who was interred there. The old convent of the Capuchins is now occupied by the society of Le Bon Sauveur, which, founded by two poor girls about 1730, has grown into a most important institution, and maintains an asylum for the insane of both sexes, a charitable dispensary, a school for the education and industrial training of deaf and dumb children, and various minor establishments. Caen is the seat of a high court of appeal for the departments of Cal vados, Manche, and Orne, and has tribunals of primary instance and commerce, a chamber of commerce, a conseil de prud hommes, a university (founded in 1431 by Henry VI. of England), a royal college, a school of hydrography, a public library of 45,000 volumes, an extensive botanic garden, a museum belonging to the society of Norman antiquaries, and a theatre. There is a local Academic deft sciences, arts, et belles-lettres, which has published a scries of Memoires since 1754. The commerce of Caen is consider able. It exports barley, flour, potatoes, wine, brandy, fruit, cattle, hardware ; and imports timber from Norway, coal, pig-iron, oats, wheat, and oil-seeds. Its manufactures are of comparatively small importance with the exception of rape and colza oil, though there is a certain turn-out of caps, table-linen, cotton fabrics, leather, earthenware, and cutlery; breweries, dye-works, and ship-building yards are also in operation. The manufacture of lace, formerly of great extent, has very much declined. A fine kind of oolitic stone, in great favour as a building material, is quarried in the neighbourhood. Several large fairs are held annu ally. At high water, vessels of 150 or 160 tons can come up to the harbour, which consists of a part of the river bed and a basin 189G feet in length by 1G4 in breadth, and has communication with the sea not only by the river, but also by a canal debouching at Ouistreham. A canal to connect it with the sea is in course of construction, which will render it accessible to large vessels. The town is situated on the main line of railway from Pans to Cher bourg, and is connected by branch lines with Courseulles on the coast, and with Laval inland.
