The following account, taken from William of Malmesbury, of the social condition of the English people at the time of the Conquest, indicates a decline of literature and the arts at that period. The picture may probably be overdrawn, but the main facts are correct. "In process of time, the desire after literature and religion had decayed, for several years before the arrival of the Normans. The clergy, contented with a very slight degree of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the sacraments, and a person who understood grammar was an object of wonder and astonishment. The nobility were given up to luxury and wantonness. The commonalty, left unprotected, became a prey to the most powerful, who amassed fortunes, either by seizing on their property or by selling their persons into foreign countries; although it be an innate quality of this people to be more inclined to revelling than to the accumulation of wealth. Drinking was a universal practice, in which they passed entire nights, as well as days. They consumed their substance in mean and despicable houses, unlike the Normans and French, who, in noble and splendid mansions, lived with frugality." [Illustration: GLEEMEN JUGGLING. (_From the Cotton MS., Tib. C._ 6.)] [Illustration: BALANCING. (_From MS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford._)] Music was cultivated by our ancestors from a very remote period. Among the English the music on which most attention was bestowed was that employed in the services of religion. Singing in churches is said to have been introduced into England in the fourth century. Among the northern nations the Scalds were at once the poets and musicians. Like the bards of the Britons, they celebrated the deeds of the great and brave in heroic poems, which were sung to the sounds of the lyre or the harp. After the conquest of Britain by the English, these minstrels remained in high favour among the people, and were received with respect and veneration in the courts of kings and the halls of the nobles. In the English language they were known by two appellations, the one equivalent to the English word gleemen, or merry-makers, and the other harpers, derived from the instrument on which they usually played. [Illustration: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. (_From the Cædmon MS., Oxford._)] The gleemen were jugglers and pantomimists, as well as minstrels, and they were accustomed to associate themselves in companies, and amuse the spectators with feats of strength and agility, dancing, and sleight-of-hand tricks. [Illustration: DANCE WITH LYRE AND DOUBLE FLUTE. (_From "The Psychomachia," or "Battle of the Soul," of Aurelius Prudentius, MS. of Eleventh Century._)]