Northumbrian high-priest, to Eádwini, do at any rate imply a feeling on his part, that his position was not so brilliant and advantageous as he thought himself entitled to expect; and the very expressions he uses, implying a very considerable degree of subordination to the king of one principality[4], are hardly consistent with the hypothesis of a national hierarchy, which must have assumed a position scarcely inferior to that of the sovereigns themselves. Finally, I cannot believe that, had such an organization and such a body existed, there would be no trace of the opposition it must have offered to the introduction of the new creed: some record there must have been of a triumph so signal as that of Christianity under such circumstances; and the good believers who lavish miracles upon most inadequate occasions, must have given us some well-authenticated cases by which the sanctity of the monk was demonstrated to the confusion of the pagan. The silence of the Christian historian is an eloquent evidence of the insignificant power of the heathen priesthood. ----- Footnote 2: In the very early periods the Saxon inhabitants of different parts of England would probably have found it difficult to understand one another. Footnote 3: Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 22. “Qui, inter alia inenarrabilium scelerum facta, quae historicus eorum Gildas flebili sermone describit et hoc addebant, ut nunquam genti Saxonum sive Anglorum secum Brittaniam incolenti verbum fidei praedicando committerent.” Footnote 4: “Tu vide, rex, quale sit hoc quod nobis modo praedicatur: ego autem tibi verissime quod certum didici, profiteor, quia nihil omnino virtutis habet, nihil utilitatis, religio illa quam hucusque tenuimus; nullus enim tuorum studiosius quam ego culturae deorum nostrorum se subdidit, et nihilominus multi sunt qui ampliora a te beneficia quam ego, et maiores accipiunt dignitates, magisque prosperantur in omnibus quae agenda vel adquirenda disponunt. Si autem dii aliquid ualerent me potius iuvare vellent, qui illis impensius servire curavi.” Beda, H. E. ii. 13. That Coifi is a genuine Northumbrian name, and not that of a Keltic druid, is shown in a paper on Anglosaxon surnames, read before the Archæological Institute at Winchester by the author in 1845. -----