“It is thus the monks speak with monotonous dryness”! And so speak they often in their _Chronicle_. The death of Byrhtnoth referred to by M. Taine in note 2, p. 36, is also from the _Saxon Chronicle_, and Mr. Morley specifies numerous other poetical passages in it. Nevertheless, we find that M. Taine is not at all embarrassed by his somewhat uncertain and limited command of Anglo-Saxon literature. On the contrary, he qualifies as _amusing_ (p. 30) a discussion on a point of Anglo-Saxon history by two such distinguished scholars as Dr. Lingard and Sharon Turner! These historians “amuse” M. Taine! “What is your first remark,” asks Mr. Taine, “in turning over the great, stiff leaves of a folio, the yellow sheets of a manuscript? This, you say, was not created alone. It is but a mould, like a fossil shell, an imprint, like one of those shapes embossed in stone by an animal which lived and perished. Under the stone there was an animal, and behind the document there was a man. Why do you study the shell, except to represent to yourself the animal? So do you study the document only in order to know the man” (Introduction, p. 1). In this we almost agree with our author. It is well to study shells, and well to study men in the shells of leaves, sheets, manuscripts, or other literary exuviæ they may have left. Our objection to M. Taine is that he has piles and heaps of such shells, which he resolutely refuses to study, behind which he persistently refuses to look. The trouble with him lies here. Behind every shell is a monk, a priest, or a bishop, whose piety and whose virtues are not subjects of agreeable contemplation to a writer who announces his belief that religion is a mere human invention; that man makes a religion as he paints a portrait or constructs a steam-engine. Thus M. Taine states it: “Let us take first the three chief works of human intelligence--religion, art, philosophy” (p. 15).