BOOK VI. IT is fuppofed that many fpecimens of ancient Saxon architecture yet remain, as St. Peter's at Oxford, part of St. Alban's Abbey church, Tickencote church near Stamford in Lincolnshire, the porch on the fouth fide of Shireburn Minster, Barfreston church in Kent, Ilfley church, and fome others; but the works and delineations of profeffional men must be confulted on this fubjea. THE CHAP. VIII. Their Sciences. НА HE most enlightened nations of antiquity had CHA P. not made much progrefs in any of the sciences but the mathematical. During the AngloSaxon period they were nearly extinct in Christian Europe. Happily for mankind, they were attended to in this æra more efficiently in the Mahomedan kingdoms, in Spain; and the Arabian mind had the merit of preparing that intellectual feast which we are now lavishly enjoying, and perpetually enlarging. THE hiftory of the fciences among the AngloSaxons can contain little more information than that a few individuals fucceffively arofe, as Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin, Joannes Scotus, and a few more who endeavoured to learn what former ages. had known, and who freely diffeminated what they had acquired. Befides the rules of Latin poetry and rhetoric, they ftudied arithmetic and aftronomy as laborious fciences. In their arithmetic, before the introduction of the Arabian figures, they followed the path of the antients, and chiefly ftudied the metaphyfical diftinctions of numbers. They divided the even numbers into the ufelefs arrangement of equally equal, equally unequal, and unequally equal; and the odd numbers into the fimple, the compofite, and the mean. They confidered them again, as VI. BOO K even or odd, fuperfluous, defective or perfect, and under a variety of other diftinctions, ftill more unneceffary for any practical application, which may be feen in the little tracts of Caffiodorus and Bede. Puzzled and perplexed with all this mazy jargon, Aldhelm might well fay that the labour of all his other acquifitions was small in the comparison with that which he endured in ftudying arithmetic. THEIR aftronomy was fuch as they could com prehend in the Greek and Latin treatifes which fell into their hands on this fubject. Bede was inde fatigable in ftudying it, and his treatifes were tranflated into the Anglo-Saxon, of which fome MSS. exist still in the Cotton Library. All the ftudious men applied to it more or less, though many used it for aftrological fuperftitions. It was perhaps on this account, rather than from a love of the nobler directions of the science, that our ancient chroniclers are ufually minute in noticing the eclipfes which occurred, and the comets and meteors which occafionally appeared. THEIR geopraphical knowledge muft have been much improved by Adamnan's account of his visit to the Holy Land, which Bede abridged, and by the ketch given of general geography in Orofius, which Alfred made the property of all his countrymen by his tranflation and masterly additions. The eight hides of land given by his namefake for a MS. of cofmographical treatifes', of wonderful workmanship, may have been conceded rather to the beauty of the MS. than to its contents. But, * Bede, 299. VIIL notwithstanding these helps, the most incorrect and CHA P. abfurd notions feem to have prevailed among our ancestors concerning the other parts of the globe, if we may judge from the MS. treatifes on this fubject, which they took the trouble to adorn with drawings, and fometimes to tranflate. Two of these are in the Cotton Library, and a fhort notice of their contents may not be uninterefting, as a fpecimen of their geographical and phyfical knowledge. THE MS. Tib. B. 5. contains a topographical defcription of fome eaftern regions in Latin and Saxon. From this we learn there is a place in the way to the Red Sea which contains red hens, and that if any man touches them, his hand and all his body are burnt immediately. That pepper is guarded by ferpents, which are driven away by fire, and this makes the pepper black. We read of people with dogs' heads, boars' tufks, horfes' manes, and breathing flames. Also of ants as big as dogs, with feet like grafshoppers, red and black. These creatures dig gold for fifteen days. Men go with female camels, and their young ones, to fetch it, which the ants permit, on having the liberty to eat the young camels 2. THE fame learned work informed our ancestors that there was a white human race fifteen feet high, with two faces on one head, long nose, and black hair, who in the time of parturition went to 2 This was probably a popular notion; for it is faid, among their prognoftics, that if the fun thine on the fourth day, the camels will bring much gold from the ants, who keep the gold hoards. MSS. CCC Cant.-Wanl. 110. BOOK India to lay in. Other men had thighs twelve VI. feet long, and breafts feven feet high. They were cannibals. There was another fort of mankind with no heads, who had eyes and mouths in their breafts. They were eight feet tall and eight feet broad. Other men had eyes which shone like a lamp in a dark night. In the ocean there was a foft-voiced race, who were human to the navel, but all below were the limbs of an afs. These fables even came fo near as Gaul, for it tells us that in Liconia in Gaul there were men of three colours, with heads like lions, and mouths like the fails of a windmill. They were twenty feet tall. They run away, and sweat blood, but were thought to be men. THE defcriptions of foreign ladies were not very gallant. It is ftated that near Babylon there were women with beards to their breafts. They were clothed in horfes' hides, and were great hunters, but they used tigers and leopards instead of dogs. Other women had boars' tufhes, hair to their heels, and a cow's tail. They were thirteen feet high. They had a beautiful body, as white as marble, but they had camels' feet. Black men living on burning mountains; trees bearing precious ftones, and a golden vineyard which had berries one hundred and fifty feet long, which produced jewels; gryphons, phoenixes, and beafts with affes' ears, fheep's wool, and birds' feet are among the other wonders which inftructed our ancestors. The accounts in the MS. Vitellius, A. 15. rival the phænomena juft recited, with others as credible, and are alfo illuftrated with drawings. |