Half-Hours with the Best Authors (Volume 2); Including Biographical and Critical Notices (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881. Excerpt: ... a higher kind of wisdom, and a state in which truth is fully and brightly revealed, seems, as it were, to demonstrate its birthright to immortality. (fmtfeersirm of fimg Bede. BsDE or Beda, distinguished by the name of the Venerable, was one of the most learned churchmen of the eighth century. He was educated in the monastery of St Peter, one of the two united abbeys of Wearmouth and Jarrow, in the bishopric of Durham, and subsequently became a monk of Jarrow. His most important work is the "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation," which is brought up to the year 731. This most interesting record was originally written in Latin, was translated by King Alfred into Saxon, and was first translated into English in 1565. Our extract is given from a more careful translation, published in 1723. Bede died in his monastery, according to the best accounts, in the year 735. He has left the following account of himself at the end of the Ecclesiastical History: --"Thus much of ecclesiastical history of the Britons, and more especially of the English nation, as far as I could learn either from the writings of the ancients, or the tradition of our ancestors, or of my own knowledge, has, with the help of God, been digested by me, Bede, the servant of God, and priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, which is at Wiremuth and Gyrwum; who, being born in the territory of that same monastery, at seven years of age was given to be educated by the most Reverend Abbot Benedict, and afterwards by Ceolfrid, and spending all the remaining time of my life in that monastery wholly applied myself to the meditation of Scripture, and amidst the observance of regular discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, always took delight in cither learni...