commonly called Venerable Bede, one of our most ancient historians, was born about the year 673, 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. He was ordained deacon at the age of nineteen, and priest at the age of thirty. About this time he was invited to Rome by Pope Sergius; but there is no good reason for believing that he accepted the invitation. In the year 731 he published his Ecclesiastical History; a work of great value, notwithstanding the legendary tales with which it is deformed. This work was first printed at Eslingen by Conrad Fyner in 1474, an edition extremely rare. Bede died in the year 735, of a lingering consumption, probably brought on by sedentary habits, and a long uninterrupted application to study and literary composition. He was buried in the church of his convent at Jarrow; but his bones were afterwards removed to Durham, and there deposited in the same coffin with those of St Cuthbert. Bede was undoubtedly a singular phenomenon in a rude and illiterate age. His learning, for the times, was extensive; his application incredible; his piety exemplary; and his modesty extreme. 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 Basle in 1563, and reprinted at Cologne in 1612, and again in 1688. Besides this general collection, there are several of his compositions 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 libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. A complete edition of the works of Bede, by Dr Giles, with an English translation of the historical treatises, was published at London in 1843-44, in 12 vols. 8vo.