Beda's Ecclesiastical History,' the story, told in unrivalled manner, of English Christianity-in a word the Church history par excellence of the nation; Orosius's Universal History,' whose words were accepted and reverenced as classical by all students through the middle ages down even to Dante, who does not seem to have known much beyond; Gregory's 'Pastoral Care' and 'Dialogues,' of which the former was to serve as a rule of conduct for the clergy amid the growing needs of a nation newly awakened to freedom and a higher spiritual and intellectual life-the latter as an antidote to the poison spread by the countless coarse stories which were all the people had to amuse them. Nor is this all. If, as is most probable, Alfred and his literary movement gave the first centralised force to the Saxon chronicle, we have further instance of the capital nature of the selection in which Boethius figures as the pattern of the philosopher.

In view of Alfred's literary motive and personal tastes, the reader of his translations must not look for any strict adherence to the original. He expands and curtails as the spirit moves him. He adds a whole chapter on the geography of Germany to the history of Orosius; he interweaves with the

Soliloquies' of Augustine many a page from that

precious hand-book, which, alas! has not come down to us, wherein he was wont to jot down his passing thoughts and impressions. But if he left his mark on the works of Orosius and Beda, it is in his translation of Boethius that Alfred's personality is most strongly stamped. The theme was a congenial one. He, too, had had some taste of changing fortune in his own life; he, too, had felt the shock of a fall from high estate; and though he had now won his way to his throne again, and could look calmly back at the dangers and vicissitudes he had come through, he would not for that reason feel the less sympathy with the Roman patriot whose only crime-no crime, indeed, in Alfred's eyes-was that he had lent an ear to the prayers of those who would fain be delivered from the yoke of a barbarian tyrant. very sympathy, while it blinded his judgment with regard to Theodoric, whom he is never tired of abusing, led him to identify himself so entirely with Boethius, that the latter is often quite lost sight of, the king taking his place and giving utterance to sentiments of which the Roman never dreamt. Thus in his seventeenth chapter (corresponding to Book II. prose 7 of the Latin) he takes the opportunity of setting forth his ideas as to the duties of a monarch, and of recording his desire so to live that after life

1

This

his memory should still shine bright in the good works he had wrought.

That Alfred had from the first no intention of adhering closely to the text before him, either in thought or form, is shown by his changing the original arrangement of five books of alternate verse and prose into forty-two chapters, and by his substituting for the two persons of the dialogue, Wisdom and Reason in place of Philosophy; and now the Mind, now Boethius, now the personal pronoun, in place of the Philosopher. It is impos

sible to assign an adequate cause for this frequent change of the grammatical subject; when once his mind had taken fire at some suggestion in the text, he seems to have cast aside his cloak of translator, and to have been sublimely careless in whose mouth he placed the lessons of faith and fortitude which were to lead and guide his readers. In his naïve and delightful preface, he pleads "the various and manifold occupations which often busied him in mind and body" in excuse for any imperfection of scholarship or obscurity of meaning. His method of dealing with the difficulty and obscurity of the Latin is summary. He finds out the gist of the philosopher's meaning, and proceeds to adapt and weld it to his liking, as he thinks will be most

profitable to the readers of his time, adding here a homely illustration, there an explanatory note, now expanding the frequent sentences into a long paraphrase, and now cutting the knot of an abstruse passage by the simple expedient of omission, and interpreting the whole by the light of Christian doctrine. One would have thought that Boethius's verse, with its rigid metre and its strict antithesis of thought and diction, would have offered an almost insurmountable obstacle to a translator whose genius was rather initiative than obsequious; yet it is in his renderings of the Latin verses that Alfred shows most respect for his original. It is true that when difficulties begin to gather in the later books, he steers clear of verse altogether, and that on the other hand he cannot resist the temptation of making known to his unlearned reader-though it may cost him a score of lines to do so-the story of Ulysses or of Orpheus, which the Latin poet is content to indicate with a well-chosen epithet. But for all that, the rendering of the metres may be pronounced the most successful, as well as the most accurate, portion of the whole translation.1 His

1 It is debated whether the translation of the metres in alliterative verse ascribed to Alfred, and appended to the Consolation in Fox's edition, are the work of his hand; but it is proved beyond debate that the verse translation was founded on the prose.

prose is informed with intensity and fire, and possesses all the vigour and swing of verse.

In a work that is much more of an original composition than a translation, it is wellnigh impossible to point out categorically where and to what extent Alfred deviates from Boethius. His main additions to the original may, however, be roughly classed under three heads—historical (including geographical allusions, which came readily to his pen, fresh from a translation of Orosius), mythological, and Christian. Thus the first chapter is a brief abstract of the story of Boethius, his suffering and death under Theodoric, and that king's various oppressions. Chap. xvi. contains a further allusion to the Amal, supported by a comparison with that other tyrant Nero, together with an explanation of the causes that drove the kings from Rome. The mention of Cicero always calls up a note on his full name and on his title of philosopher.

Theodoric is again chastised in chap. xxiv.; and Nero and Antoninus, two chapters later, feel the full weight of Alfred's indignation.

The geographical allusions call for little comment. Whenever a name such as Etna or Circe's island occurs, a note is added about its position and distinctive features.