Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/316

 29S THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. to discern Irish traits in the almost burlesque fulsome- ness of the inscriptions of Columbanus' letters to the Popes Boniface IV and Gregory the Great : Pulcher- rimo omnium totius Europae, ecdesiarum capiti, papae praedulci, praecelso praesuliy pastorum Pastori, reveren- dissim^ speculatori : humilissimus celsissimOj maximo, agrestia urbano, micrologus eloquentissimo, extremus primo, peregrinus indigenae, pauperculus praepotenti, minim dictu ! nova res ! rara avis, scribere audet Boni- facio PatH Palumbus} Likewise a certain Irish extrav- agance seems discernible in the Ilispericafamina, a curi- ous grammatical treatise of the ninth or tenth century.'^ Perhaps, also, one can discern an Irish flavor in the poems of the Irishman Sedulius Scotus, or in other Latin verses written by Irishmen in the later Caro- lingian period. The following lines read like a lament of a " poor exile from Erin " : — Node dieque gemo, quia sum peregrinus et egens ; Attritus fehrihus node dieque gemo. Plangite me, juvenes, animo qui me colebatis ; Bideat hinc quisquis; plangite me, juvenes.^ More clearly the characteristics or tastes of Anglo- Saxon literature appear in the Latin poetry written by Anglo-Saxons. For example, the alliteration so marked at the beginning of Aldhelm's poem De laudi- bus Virginum* recalls that cardinal element of Anglo- 1 Migne, Patr. Lat., Vol. 80, col. 274; also i6., col. 259, the letter to Gregory. 2 A. Mai, Auctores Classici, V, p. 479 et seq. ; and see ib., Introd., pp. xlviii-1. Sim, pp. 685-701.
 * Traube, Poet. Lat. Aevi Caroli., Ill, p. 688; see also ib., paS'
 * Migne, Patr. Lat., Vol. 89, col. 239.