��æ�峾�Dz�

It is related of ��æ�峾�Dz�, the first great poet of the Anglo-Saxons, that he found in the secular life no vent for his hidden genius.

Moral condition of the empire during the Christian period, 147 ��æ�峾�Dz�, story of the origin of his “Creation of the World,” ii.

Well-founded conjecture carries us back much farther than this; but without relying upon that, we have clear knowledge that all along the time when Beowulf and The Wanderer—to me one of the most artistic and affecting of English poems—and The Battle of Maldon are being written, all along the time when ��æ�峾�Dz� and Aldhelm and the somewhat mythical Cynewulf are singing, formal poetry or verse has reached a high stage of artistic development.

It is historical that as far back as the seventh century ��æ�峾�Dz� is writing a strong English poem in an elaborate form of verse.

For, in coming down our literature from ��æ�峾�Dz�—whom, in some conflict of dates, we can safely place at 670—the very first writer I find who shows a sense of the rhythmical flow and gracious music of which our prose is so richly capable, is Sir Thomas Malory; and his one work, The History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, dates 1469-70, exactly eight hundred years after ��æ�峾�Dz�'s poetic outburst.