sex. When Dunstan was a youth, he appears to have been always a welcome visitor to the ladies in their “bowers,” on account of his skill in music and in the arts. His contemporary biographer tells us of a noble lady, named Ethelwynn, who, knowing his skill in drawing and designs, obtained his assistance for the ornaments of a handsome stole which she and her women were embroidering. Dunstan is represented as bringing his harp with him into the apartment of the ladies, and hanging it up against the wall, that he might have it ready to play to them in the intervals of their work. Editha, the queen of Edward the Confessor, was well-known as a skilful needle-woman, and as extensively versed in literature. Ingulf’s story of his schoolboy-days, if it be true (for there is considerable doubt of the authenticity of Ingulf’s “History”), and of his interviews with queen Edith, gives us a curious picture of the simplicity of an Anglo-Saxon court, even at the latest period of their monarchy. “I often met her,” he says, “as I came from school, and then she questioned me about my studies and my verses; and willingly passing from grammar to logic, she would catch me in the subtleties of argument. She always gave me two or three pieces of money, which were counted to me by her handmaiden, and then sent me to the royal larder to refresh myself.” Several circumstances arising out of certain rivalries of social institutions render it somewhat difficult to form an estimate of the moral character of the Anglo-Saxons. In the first place, before the introduction of Christianity, marriage was a mere civil institution, consisted chiefly in a bargain between the father of the lady and the man who sought her, and was completed with few formalities, except those of feasting and rejoicing. After the young lady was out of the control of her parents, the two sexes were on a footing of equality to each other, and the marriage tie was so little binding, that, in case of disagreement, it was at the will of either of the married couple to separate, in which case the relatives or friends of each party interfered, to see that right was done in the proportional repayment of marriage money, dowry, &c., and after the separation each party was at liberty to marry again. This state of things is well illustrated in the Icelandic story of the Burnt Njal, recently translated by Dr. Dasent, and it was not abolished by the secular laws, after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, marriage still continuing to be, in fact, a civil institution. But the higher clergy, at least, who were those who were most strongly inspired with the Romish sentiments, disapproved entirely of this view of the marriage state, and, although the Saxon priests appear not to have hesitated in being present at the second marriages after such separations, they were apparently forbidden by the ecclesiastical laws from giving their blessing to