The Anglo-Saxon potations were accompanied with various kinds of amusements. One of these was telling stories, and recounting the exploits of themselves or of their friends. Another was singing their national poetry, to which the Saxons were much attached. In the less elevated class, where professed minstrels were not retained, each guest was minstrel in his turn. Cædmon, as his story is related by Bede, became a poet through the emulation thus excited. One of the ecclesiastical canons enacted under king Edgar enjoins “that no priest be a minstrel at the ale (_ealu-scóp_), nor in any wise act the gleeman (_gliwige_), with himself or with other men.” In the account of the murder of king Ethelbert in Herefordshire, by the treachery of Offa’s wicked queen (A.D. 792), we are told that the royal party, after dinner, “spent the whole day with music and dancing in great glee.” The cut, No. 24 (taken from the Harl. MS., No. 603), is a perfect illustration of this incident of Saxon story. The cup-bearer is serving the guest with wine from a vessel which is evidently a Saxon imitation of the Roman amphora; it is perhaps the Anglo-Saxon _sester_ or _sæster_; a word, no doubt, taken from the Latin sextarius, and carrying with it, in general, the notion of a certain measure. In Saxon translations from the Latin, _amphora_ is often rendered by _sester_. We have here a choice party of minstrels and gleemen. Two are occupied with the harp, which appears, from a comparison of Beowulf with the later writers, to have been the national instrument. It is not clear from the picture whether the two men are playing both on the same harp, or whether one is merely holding the instrument for the other. Another is perhaps intended to represent the Anglo-Saxon _fithelere_, playing on the _fithele_ (the modern English words _fiddler_ and _fiddle_); but his instrument appears rather to be the cittern, which was played with the fingers, not with the bow. Another representation of this performer, from the same manuscript, is given in the cut No. 25, where the instrument is better defined. The other two minstrels, in No. 24, are playing on the horn, or on the Saxon _pip_, or pipe. The two dancers are evidently a man and a woman, and another lady to the extreme right seems preparing to join in the same exercise. We know little of the Anglo-Saxon mode of dancing, but to judge by the words used to express this amusement, _hoppan_ (to hop), _saltian_ and _stellan_ (to leap), and _tumbian_ (to tumble), it must have been accompanied with violent movements. Our cut No. 26 (from the Cottonian MS., Cleopatra, C. viii. fol. 16, v^o), represents another party of minstrels, one of whom, a female, is dancing, while the other two are playing on a kind of cithara and on the Roman double flute. The Anglo-Saxon names for the different kinds of musicians most frequently spoken of were _hearpere_, the harper; _bymere_, the trumpeter;