commonly called Venerable Bede, one of our most ancient historians, was born in the year 672, in the neighbourhood of Wearmouth, in the bishopric of Durham. He was educated by the abbot Benedict, in the monastery of St Peter, near the mouth of the river Wear. At the age of nineteen he was ordained deacon, and priest in the year 702. About this time he was invited to Rome by B. Pope Sergius; but there is no good reason for believing that he accepted the invitation. In the year 731 he pub- lished his Ecclesiastical History; a work of great value, notwithstanding the legendary tales with which it is de- formed. Bede died, in the year 735, of a lingering con- sumption, probably brought on by sedentary habits, and a long uninterrupted application to study and literary com- position. He was buried in the church of his convent at Jarrow; but his bones were afterwards removed to Dur- ham, and there deposited in the same coffin with those of St Cuthbert. Bede was undoubtedly a singular pheno- menon in a rude and illiterate age. His learning, for the times, was extensive; his application incredible; his piety exemplary; his modesty excessive. He was universally admired, consulted, and esteemed, during his life; and his writings are deservedly considered as the foundation of our ecclesiastical history. His language is neither elegant nor pure, but it is perspicuous and easy. All his works are in Latin. The first general collection of them appeared at Paris in 1544, in three volumes folio; and they were printed again at the same place in 1554 in eight volumes. They were also published in the same size and number of volumes at Basel in 1563, reprinted at Cologne in 1612, and at the same place in 1688. Besides this general collection, there are several of his composi- tions which have been printed separately, or in collections of the writings of ancient authors; and some manuscripts ascribed to him have been preserved in the different libra- ries of Oxford and Cambridge.