Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/202

 they are the work of a beginner in the poetic art. On the other hand, the fact that Bæda believed the poem to be Cædmon's does not absolutely prove its genuineness, as the composition may be merely part of the legend relating to the poet's divine call.

Another composition which has been ascribed to Cædmon is the really fine poem called ‘The Dream of the Holy Rood.’ A fragment of this poem, in the original Northumbrian dialect, is inscribed in runic letters on the sculptured stone cross set up at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire. The ornamentation of the Ruthwell cross is so strikingly identical in character with that of the similar monument at Bewcastle as to suggest the conclusion that the two are not far apart in date, if indeed they were not wrought by the same artist, and the historical allusions contained in the Bewcastle inscription assign it to the end of the seventh century—that is to say, to a time at which Cædmon may have been still living. After the inscription on the Ruthwell cross had been deciphered by J. M. Kemble in 1840, it was discovered that a West-Saxon version of the entire poem existed in a manuscript preserved at Vercelli, which also contained four other poems in the West-Saxon dialect. The suggestion that ‘The Dream of the Holy Rood’ was composed by Cædmon is due in the first instance to the late Dr. Haigh, and it was adopted by Professor George Stephens, of Copenhagen, who believed that he had found decisive proof of its correctness in the words ‘Cadmon mæ fauœðo’ (Cadmon made me), which he read on the top-stone of the Ruthwell cross. The reading of the word ‘Cadmon’ on the stone is perfectly certain, though that of the other two words is open to some doubt. Professor Stephens's conclusion was for a time accepted by all English and some German scholars. But the words on the top of the cross are an example of a formula which is of constant occurrence in runic texts, and which in every known instance indicates the person who carved the monument. That in this particular case it can have been employed to denote the author of the verses which form a part of the inscription is in the highest degree unlikely. We must therefore conclude that the sculptor of the Ruthwell cross was a namesake of the Northumbrian poet. This conclusion leaves untouched the question of the authorship of the ‘Dream.’ At first sight, indeed, it seems almost incredible that the carver of the monument should have borne the same name as the poet whose verses he inscribed upon it. But the improbability of the coincidence is diminished by the consideration that the name is likely to have been a very common one in a district whose population must have been largely of Celtic descent; and it is worthy of note that the neighbourhood of Ruthwell is known to have been inhabited, till long after the seventh century, by a Welsh-speaking people. That the ‘Dream’ belongs to the age of Cædmon is certain; and when we consider that it is one of the noblest specimens of Old-English poetry we possess, there seems to be considerable plausibility in ascribing it to the man whom Bæda regarded as by far the greatest religious poet of his time. The strongest argument against this view is based upon the resemblance which the style of the poem, at least in its amplified West-Saxon form, bears to the undoubted work of Cynewulf; but it is by no means clear that the poetry of Cynewulf may not be largely an adaptation of older compositions. An engraving of the Ruthwell cross, with a transcript and a translation of the inscription, is given in Stephens's ‘Old Northern Runic Monuments,’ i. 405, iii. 189; and the West-Saxon version of the ‘Dream’ from the Vercelli manuscript will be found in Grein's ‘Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie,’ ii. 143.

The works to which the celebrity of Cædmon's name in modern times is chiefly due are the so-called sacred epics, or metrical versions of Scripture history, which have been preserved in a manuscript of tenth-century date now in the Bodleian Library. The first part of this manuscript is all in one handwriting, and contains paraphrases of portions of the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel. The second part seems to have been written by three different scribes, and consists of fragments of three poems, of which the first relates to the fall of the angels and the temptation of man; the second to the descent of Christ into hell, His resurrection and ascension, and the last judgment; and the third to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. With the exception of a portion of the paraphrase of Daniel, of which a copy, materially differing from the Bodleian text, occurs in the Exeter book, none of these pieces has been found in any other manuscript. It will be at once perceived that the list of subjects just given corresponds precisely, so far as it goes, with Bæda's account of the poetry of Cædmon. No author's name appears in the manuscript, but Franciscus Junius (François Dujon), who edited the poems in 1655, conjectured that they were the work of Cædmon, by whose name they have subsequently been known. The fact that these compositions, as we now have them, are in West-