XII. Observations on the History of Cædmon. By Francis Palgrave, Esq. F.R.S., F.S.A., in a Letter to Henry Ellis, Esq. F.R.S., Secretary

Extract

It has not perhaps been hitherto remarked that the well-known history of Cædmon has its exact parallel. We learn from a fragment, entitled “Præfatio in librua antiquua lingua Saxonica conscriptum;” published amongst the Epistles of Hincmar Bishop of Rhemes (Bibliotheca Patrum, Paris, 1644, vol. xvi. p. 609) that Ludovicus Pius, being desirous to furnish his subjects with a version of the Holy Scriptures, applied to a Saxon Bard of great talent and fame. The Poet, a peasant or husbandman, when entirely ignorant of his art, had been instructed in a dream to render the precepts of the Divine Law into the verse and measure of his native language. His translation, now unfortunately lost, to which the fragment was prefixed, comprehended the whole of the Bible. The text of the original was interspersed with mystic allusions; and the beauty of the composition was so great, that, in the opinion of the writer of the preface, no reader, perusing the verse, could doubt the source of the poetic inspiration of the Bard.