of England, since they would enjoy so singular an honour. Hence his fame being noised abroad, foreigners, Saxons, Flemings, and even Danes, frequently sailed hither, and were on terms of intimacy with Edgar, though their arrival was highly prejudicial to the natives: for from the Saxons they learned an untameable ferocity of mind; from the Flemings an unmanly delicacy of body; and from the Danes drunkenness; though they were before free from such propensities, and disposed to observe their own customs with native simplicity rather than admire those of others. For this history justly and deservedly blames him; for the other imputations which I shall mention hereafter have rather been cast on him by ballads.
At this time the light of holy men was so resplendent in England, that you would believe the very stars from heaven smiled upon it. Among these was Dunstan, whom I have mentioned so frequently, first, abbat of Glastonbury; next, bishop of Worcester; and lastly, archbishop of Canterbury: of great power in earthly matters, in high favour with God; in the one representing Martha, in the other Mary. Next to king Alfred, he was the most extraordinary patron of the liberal arts throughout the whole island; the munificent restorer of monasteries; terrible were his denunciations against transgressing kings and princes; kind was his support of the middling and poorer classes. Indeed, so extremely anxious was he to preserve peace ever in trivial matters, that, as his countrymen used to assemble in taverns, and when a little elevated quarrel as to the proportions of their liquor, he ordered gold or silver pegs to be fastened in the pots, that whilst every man knew his just measure, shame should compel each neither to take more himself, nor oblige others to drink beyond their proportional share. Osberne,[1] precentor of Canterbury, second to none of these times in composition, and indisputably the best skilled of all in music, who wrote his life with Roman elegance, forbids me to relate farther praiseworthy anecdotes of him. Besides, in addition to this, if the divine grace shall accompany my design, I intend after the succession of the kings at least to particularize the names of all the bishops of each province in England, and to offer them to the knowledge of my countrymen, if I shall be able
- ↑ Osberne's Life of St. Dunstan is published in the Anglia Sacra, vol. ii.
