But even if they had possessed more genius than they did, much of their old literature would probably have been lost when they became Christians; and when the clergy, who had, most to do with writing, generally devoted themselves only to verses on Biblical or other Christian subjects, or to prose sermons; and to learned books _in Latin._ While plenty of Anglo-Saxon _Christian_ poetry survives, of poetry derived from the heathen times of the Anglo-Saxons there is comparatively little, and much of it has been more or less re-written, and affected by later changes and additions, in early Christian times. The fragments of old poetry enable us to understand the poetic genius of our remote ancestors as it was before they had wholly adopted Christianity, or come under Latin, French, and Norman influences. From the descendants of the Britons whom they had conquered, or who survived as their Welsh neighbours, they seem, at this time, to have borrowed little or nothing in the way of song or story. Before beginning to try to understand the Anglo-Saxon literature, we ought to set before our minds two or three considerations. Though the language of these very old poems is the early form of our own English, we cannot understand them except in translations, unless we learn Anglo-Saxon. However well a translator may render the ideas of a poem, he cannot give the original words of it in another language. Now the poet's very own words have a beauty and harmony and appropriateness which a translation cannot reproduce. The ideas remain, but the essence of the poem is lost: gone is the vigour, the humour is weakened; the harmony is impaired. Once more we are accustomed to _rhyme_, and to certain forms of versification in our poetry. The early Anglo-Saxons did not employ rhyme; the peculiar cadence, with alliteration, of their verse cannot easily be reproduced; and there is much difference of opinion as to the prosody or scansion of Anglo-Saxon verse. Thus, till we can read Anglo-Saxon easily, and while we only read its poetry through translations, we are apt to think less highly of it than it deserves. Again, the ideas and manners of the Anglo-Saxons were not like our own in many details. Their poets did not write for us, but for men of their own time, whose taste and ways of thinking and living were in many respects very different from ours. If many people cannot now take pleasure in the novels of Fielding, Scott, Miss Austen, Thackeray, and Dickens--the novels of 1745-1870--because these seem "so old-fashioned," they will certainly be unable to admire the poetry of 500-800. Yet it may be excellent poetry, when we put ourselves as far as we can in the place of the hearers for whom it was composed. If we fail to do this we may read Anglo-Saxon poetry as a matter of history, but, as poetry, we cannot enjoy it. Minstrels, Story-tellers, and Stories.