the tower of Babel." The extensive interpolations which frequently occur are usually in the same sense. As it is only by these that Alfred's style as an original author can be appreciated, we give one from Dr. Sedgefield's

version:

"All creatures Thou hast made alike, and in some things also not alike.

showing brief mention of Alfred's death:

British Museum, Cott. MS. Dom. A 8

"DCCCCI in this year died King Alfred on the 26th of October; and he held the kingdom twenty-eight years and a half; and then Eadward his son took the kingdom"

Though Thou hast given one name to all creatures, naming them the World when taken together, yet Thou hast parted the single name among four creatures: one is Earth, the second Water, the third Air, the fourth Fire. To each of them Thou hast appointed its own separate place; each is kept distinct from the other, and yet held in bonds of peace by Thine ordinance, so that none of them should overstep the other's bounds, but cold brooketh heat, and wet suffereth dry. Earth and water have a cold nature; earth is dry

ALFRED'S PROSE AND VERSE

53

and cold; water wet and cold. Air is defined as both cold and wet and also warm. This is not to be wondered at, for air is created half-way between the dry cold earth and the hot fire. Fire is uppermost above all these worldly creatures. Wonderful is Thy contriving to have done both things: namely, to have bounded things one over against the other, and likewise to have mingled the dry cold earth beneath the cold wet water, so that the yielding and flowing water hath a home in the solid earth, being unable to stand alone. The earth holdeth the water and in some degree sucketh it in, and is maintained by what it sucketh, so that it groweth and beareth blossoms and likewise fruits; for, if the water did not moisten it, it would dry up and be scattered by the wind like dust or ashes. No living thing could enjoy the land or the water, nor dwell in either for the cold, if Thou hadst not in some measure mingled them with fire. With marvellous skill Thou hast so ordered that fire doth not burn up water and earth, when mingled with either; nor again do water and earth wholly quench fire."

It must be

The Anglo-Saxon prose of the day was thus very straightforward and simple, neglectful of ornament, and little capable of expressing abstruse thought. The impressiveness which it possesses arises mainly from the character of the writer. If he be a man like Alfred, the force of the personality will irradiate the artlessness of the phraseology. remembered that this was almost the first prose that had been written in English, and that a distinction between lettered and colloquial speech was hardly recognised. Prose is always younger than her sister Poetry, and her beginnings are more timid and awkward. Whether Alfred can claim the title of poet is doubtful. The numerous poetical compositions interspersed through the Consolation are in his version rendered into prose; but the work is accompanied by a metrical translation of them, or rather a metrical elaboration of the old version, distinctly attributed to him by the writer of an anonymous preface. "These cares are very hard for us to reckon that in his days came upon the kingdoms to which he had succeeded, and yet when he had studied this book and turned it from Latin into English prose, he wrought it up once more into verse, as it is now done." The editor, therefore, wrote at some subsequent period of tranquillity: if under Athelstan or even Edgar his testimony deserves respect, even though apparently contrary to a short prelude in verse prefixed to the metrical renderings, hardly so if under Edward the Confessor. Without doubt, however, the version. is of the age of Alfred, and extracts may serve well as specimens of the Anglo-Saxon poetry of his time :

O Thou Creator of bright constellations

Of heaven and earth; Thou on the high-seat
Eternal reignest and the round heaven

All swiftly movest, and through Thy holy might
The lights of heaven makest to hear Thee,

E'en as the sun scattereth darkness

Of the swart night time through Thy strong power,

Alfred's history and geography

And with her pale beams the bright stars

The moon doth humble through Thy might's moving
At whiles too she robbeth the radiant sun

Of his full light, when it befalleth

That they come together by close compulsion.

So too the glorious star of morning
That we by its other name star of evening

Oft hear called, Thou constrainest

To follow the way where the sun wendeth ;
Every year he must ever travel,

Fare before him. O Father, Thou sendest
Long days in summer, with heat sultry;

To the winter also wondrous short days

Hast Thou granted. To the trees Thou givest
South-west breezes when the black tempest
Sprung from the north-east had utterly stript them
Of every leaf with its loathly wind.

Behold all creatures in the earth's compass
Obey Thy hests; the same do they in heaven
With mind and main, save man only;

He oftenest worketh in despite of Thy will.
Ah! Thou Eternal and Thou Almighty,

Author and Ruler of all creation,

Pity the offspring of Thy poor world!

O sons of mankind, o'er earth moving,

Let each that hath freedom find out the way
To the eternal goodness whereof our speech is,
And to the blessings that are our song's burden.
The man that is straitly bound by the sway
Of the worthless love of this world glorious,
Let him right soon seek for himself

Fulness of freedom, that forthwith he may corne
Into the blessings of the Bidder of spirits;
For this is the rest from all our wrestling,
The hopeful haven for the high vessels

Of the minds of us men, mild harbour bright.
This is the only hithe we ever shall have
After the tossing of troublous billows,
After each tempest, truly peaceful.

This is the sanctuary, the sole comfort

Of all weary mortals, when they are over,

Our worldly troubles; 'tis the winsome bourne

That shall be ours to own after these hardships.

Alfred's choice of the Spaniard Orosius's epitome of general history (compiled A.D. 416) might also be considered as a proof of discrimination if the fact had not been that he had hardly any choice in the matter. Orosius, according to his patron St. Augustine, "a young presbyter, zealous, alert in intellect, ready of speech, and fitted to be useful in the work of the Lord," was the only writer extant in Alfred's day likely to find general acceptance as the author of a manual of general history, inasmuch as he was the only Christian historian. It might almost be added that he was the only philosophical historian, for-slender as his abilities might

appear in comparison with the great authors of the past, he had lived at the period when history first became ripe for philosophical treatment, and was in fact the mouthpiece of no less remarkable a genius than St. Augustine. Augustine's narrow theory of history was, with all its defects, the first theory of history that had ever been broached; nor indeed was any theory possible until material for thought should have been provided by greater mutations in the world's affairs than had been beheld by Thucydides or Tacitus. The speculations of St. Augustine thus indicated a distinct advance in the evolution of the human mind, and by their recognition of a divine plan and purpose in history became invested with a moral value which in Alfred's eyes no doubt transcended their utility as a mere record of events. Even from this latter point of view Orosius's jejune abstract probably gave Alfred's countrymen as much information as they were able to turn to account. Orosius was a geographer as well as an historian, and the geographical portion of his treatise inspired Alfred with the happy idea of himself drawing up a geographical account of the Northern lands unknown

placuerunra mila gue michi aplimennt abe confilio fapretimeon after obfer uare precej rf mufta uoliu de meis ca paulis moto ponere subicans guid oftens mis moe placerer. 83 que repi

siebus Jne Begis cognati me uel offo mirenoz Regis uel delbriches guipmus manglon geme baptizanus eft que mitonia funt visa hic college celaq Sunfi Ego Alfies Weftfavomil key om mbus fapientibus meis her oftenor et verunt omnes placer es cuftosive

Beginning of the Laws of Alfred
From a MS. in the British Museum

to his author. This little treatise, excellent in every way, entitles Alfred to the fame of the first English geographer. It is accompanied by accounts of voyages related to him by visitors to his court-Ohtere the Norwegian, who had doubled the North Cape and explored the White Sea; and Wulfstan, a Dane, who had visited Esthonia. These documents, most interesting in themselves, sufficiently attest Alfred's insatiable curiosity and zeal for the publication as well as the acquisition of knowledge.

The most remarkable feature of Alfred's translation of Gregory's

Pastoral Care is the well-known preface in which he laments the decay of learning owing to the Danish invasions, and makes the remarkable statement that when he came to the throne not a single priest to the south of the Thames was acquainted with Latin. "In former days," he says, people from abroad came to this land for wisdom and instruction, and now we should have to get them abroad if we were going to have them." The existence of any scholarly class apart from the clergy being in Alfred's day impossible, the elevation of the general standard of culture must necessarily begin by the elevation of the clergy, and probably no better first step could have been taken than the translation and dissemination of the treatise of the greatest of the Popes. After a while the paths of Gregory and Alfred would diverge. Gregory wished to make the clergy supreme in the State: Alfred would make them instruments for the general good. For a while they could travel on together; but could Alfred have lived. to the time of Dunstan he must have appeared in a new character, and the voice of the ecclesiastics who then monopolised history would not have been so uniformly favourable to him. It was his marvellous good fortune to live exempt from controversies, to have no enemies except the enemies of his people; no rivals to dispute his throne; no ministers to challenge a share of his glory; no foreign interference; no inward. temptation; no hostile critics; no jealous detractor; to be one not too far in advance of his times nor in any respect behind them; a unique example of a man whom none could wish in any respect other than what he

was.

Before parting with Alfred, it should be pointed out that the life of him by his teacher, Bishop Asser, has been so largely interpolated that Mr. Thomas Wright and Sir Henry Howorth have doubted its authenticity. Such romantic legends as the burning of the cakes, and such unhistorical statements as the foundation of the university of Oxford by Alfred exist, however, only in late MSS., and were not found in a nearly contemporary manuscript of the tenth century, which unfortunately perished in the fire which consumed so much of the Cottonian Library in 1732, but not until it had been edited by Francis Wise (Oxford, 1722). These interpolations are not noticed by Florence of Worcester, who wrote at the beginning of the twelfth century, and continually copies Asser without naming him. Professor Freeman, moreover, has pointed out little touches of internal evidence almost proving that the author must have been a Celt.

Nothing is more noteworthy in the history of English literature and education in Alfred's time than the degree in which all intellectual impulse is imparted by the King, at once the mechanist and the mainspring of the entire machinery. He is his people's sole teacher and their sole legislator. Asser, Plegmund, and the other eminent men around him would apparently have remained undistinguished without him; great as the desert must have been the merit which brought Asser out of a Welsh monastery and Plegmund out of a hermitage. Alfred's history repeats