Sir Thomas More said of Tyndale’s version of the New Testament that to seek for errors in it was to look for drops of water in the sea. What was said very unfairly of Tyndale’s work may be said with literal truth of Professor Saintsbury’s. The utmost extent of the space at our disposal will only suffice for a few illustrations. We will select those which appear to us most typical. In the chapter on Anglo-Saxon literature the Professor favours us with the astounding statement, that in Anglo-Saxon poetry “there is practically no lyric.”[12] It is scarcely necessary to say that not only does Anglo-Saxon poetry abound in lyrics, but that it is in its lyrical note that its chief power and charm consists. In the threnody of the _Ruin_, and the _Grave_, in the sentimental pathos of the _Seafarer_, of _Deor’s Complaint_, and of the remarkable fragment describing the husband’s pining for his wife, in the fiery passion of the three great war-songs, in the glowing subjective intensity of the _Judith_, in the religious ecstasy of the _Holy Rood_ and of innumerable passages in the other poems attributed to Cynewulf, and of the poem attributed to Cædmon, deeper and more piercing lyric notes have never been struck. Take such a passage as the following from the _Satan_, typical, it may be added, of scores of others:-- “O thou glory of the Lord! Guardian of Heaven’s hosts, O thou might of the Creator! O thou mid-circle! O thou bright day of splendour! O thou jubilee of God! O ye hosts of angels! O thou highest heaven! O that I am shut from the everlasting jubilee, That I cannot reach my hands again to Heaven, ... Nor hear with my ears ever again The clear-ringing harmony of the heavenly trumpets.”[13]