They bear the title, _Epitaphium Adriani I., Papæ, quo Carolus Magnus sepulchrum ipsius decoravit_. But one of the most interesting features in Charlemagne’s intellectual labours was the attempt he made to perfect his native language, and give it a grammatical form. He began the composition of a German grammar, which was afterwards continued by Raban Maur; the other Palatine scholars joined him in the task, and assigned to the months and days of the week the names which they still bear in German. In pursuance of the same design, the emperor made a collection of old Tudesque songs, some of which he took down from the lips of his soldiers; but after his death Louis the Debonnaire found the manuscript, and perceiving the names of Scandinavian deities, with little appreciation of the importance of the work on which his great father had been engaged, tossed it into the fire. There was nothing which Charlemagne had more at heart than the completion of this undertaking, and he was accustomed to say that he hoped to see the day when the laws should be written in the Frankish tongue, comparing the shutting them up in a language of which the common people were ignorant to the conduct of Caligula, who caused his edicts to be written in illegible characters, and placed out of sight, that the people might unconsciously break them and so incur sentence of death. Alcuin no doubt assisted in this work, which was one that ever found favour with the English monks. Even before leaving his native country he is said to have made an Anglo-Saxon version of the Pentateuch, which was preserved and used so late as the twelfth century; and he would naturally be disposed to enter into the king’s designs, and specially to provide for the religious instruction of the people in their own language. Something in this direction had already been done in Germany by the followers of St. Boniface; and early in the eighth century we find formulas of confession, brief confessions of faith, and portions of psalms and hymns translated for popular use into the rude Tudesque dialect. Some of the early German hymns appear to have been written by the monks of St. Gall, and were used as valuable means of instructing the people in the elements of religion. Specimens of these are given by Noth in his history of the German language, and among them is a fragment of the 138th Psalm. It will of course be borne in mind that the language spoken by the people of Germany was essentially the same as that of the English missionaries, who thus possessed peculiar facilities in preaching and instructing their converts. Thus the form of abjuration and the confession of faith drawn up by St. Boniface and his followers, for the use of their German catechumens, is equally akin to the Anglo-Saxon and to the Tudesque idioms:--“Forsachister Diabolæ? Ec forsachs Diabolæ. Gelobistu in Got Almehtigan, Fadaer? Ec Gelobo in Got, Almehtigan Fadaer. Gelobistu