poetry, fondly loved by his own subjects, most affable and generous to all the world, endowed with prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance, he was a model of patience under his inveterate disease, acute and impartial in the administration of justice, and vigilant and devout in the service of God.-FLORENCE OF WORCESTER, c1118, Chronicle, tr. Forester, (A. D. 901), p. 85.

In the year of our Lord's incarnation 849, arose light out of darkness: Elfred, king of the English, was born in the royal vill, which is called Wanatinge by the English. SIMEON OF DURHAM, 1129, Annals.

Innate nobility hath given thee honour, Brave Alfred; and thy honour hath brought toil,

Thy toil hath given thee lasting reputation. Joy mixed with grief was thine, bope blent

with fear,

When victor, thou did'st fear to flight o' the morrow;

Beaten, wast ready for tomorrow's fight, Thy robes dropp'd sweat, thy sword dropp'd blood, and shewed,

How heavy task it was to be a king. Through all earth's climes none but thyself e'er lived,

With power to breathe 'neath such calamities. Defeat ne'er struck the sword from his hand's grasp,

Nor could the sword cut short his thread of life.

But now his toils of life and rule are done, And may Christ give him rest and rule for

ever.

And,

Peace, where he found Distraction. having reigned about four and thirty years, he dyed, and was buryed at Winchester, anno 901. He loved Religion more than Superstition, favoured learned men more than lasie Monks, which (perchance) was the cause that his memory is not loaden with Miracles, and he not solemnly Sainted with other Saxon Kings who far less deserved it.-FULLER, THOMAS, 1662, The Worthies of England, ed. Nichols, vol. I, p. 94.

The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen which the annals of any age or any nation can present to us. He seems indeed to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes of ever seeing it really existing so happily were all his virtues tempered together; so justly were they blended; and so powerfully did each prevent the other from exceeding its proper boundaries.

Nature also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily accomplishment, vigour of limbs, dignity of shape and air, with a pleasing, engaging, and open countenance. Fortune alone, by throwing him into that barbarous age, deprived him of historians. worthy to transmit his fame to posterity;

Alfrede, the fourth Son to King Athelwolph, was born at Wantage, a Markettown in this* County; an excellent Scholar, though he was past twelve years of age before he knew one letter in the Book. And did not he run fast, who starting so late came soon to the mark? He was a curious Poet, excellent Musician, a valiant and successful Souldier, who fought seven Battles against the Danes in one year, and at last made them his subjects by conquest, and God's servants by Christianity. He gave the first Institution, or (as others will have it) the best Instauration, to the University of Oxford. A Prince who cannot be painted to the life without his losse, no words reaching his worth. . He left Learning, where he found Ignorance; Justice, where he found Oppression;

*Bark-shire.

lively colours, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least perceive some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a man, it is impossible he could be entirely exempted.-HUME DAVID, 1762, The History of England, vol. I, p. 744.

But as the greatest minds display themselves in the most turbulent storms, on the call of necessity; so England has to boast among others her Alfred; a pattern for kings in a time of extremity, a bright star in the history of mankind. . . . Living a century after Charlemagne he was perhaps a greater man, in a circle happily more limited. HERDER, JOHN GODFREY, 1784-91, Philosophy of the History of Mankind, tr. Churchill, bk. xviii, ch. iv.

If this is a character to make emulation despair, it is a character also to make

despair itself patient, and to convert it into an invincible spirit.-HUNT, LEIGH, 181415, The Feast of the Poets, notes, p. 43.

One of the most august characters that any age has ever produced; and when I picture him after the toils of government and the dangers of battle, seated by a solitary lamp, translating the holy scriptures into the Saxon tongue,-when I reflect on his moderation in success, on his fortitude and perseverance in difficulty and defeat, and on the wisdom and extensive nature of his legislation, I am really at a loss which part of this great man's character most to admire. Yet above all, I see the grandeur, the freedom, the mildness, the domestic unity, the universal character of the middle ages, condensed into Alfred's glorious institution of the trial by jury.-COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1818, The Middle Ages; Miscellanies, Esthetic and Literary, p. 94.

Lord of the harp and liberating spear; Mirror of princes! Indigent Renown Might range the starry ether for a crown Equal to his deserts. -WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM, 1821-22, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, pt. 1, xxvi.

Greater and better earned glory has never been attached to the memory of any chieftain than that which encircles the name of Ælfred. What a phenomenon, when compared with the bigoted, dastardly and lawless kings, under whom the independence, prosperity and civilization of the Anglo-Saxons were destroyed! Even when we compare him with all those great princes, who in external circumstances and by the magnitude of their deeds may be likened to him-with the energetic and sagacious Ecgberht, with the lord of half and the wonder of the whole contemporary and after-world-the Frankish Charles, with the Czar Peter, or the Great Frederick, yet to none of these wonderful men can we yield precedence over the great West Saxon king, whose lifecourse at once reminds us of all those great rulers, without being sullied by pernicious ambition and lust of conquest. LAPPENBERG, JOHANN MARTIN, 1834-37, A History of England under the AngloSaxon Kings, tr. Thorpe, vol. II, p. 83.

Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named. TENNYSON, ALFRED, 1852, Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington

He was a German, and the influence of

his descent was far stronger than that which ancient Rome exercised over him. Those powerful German songs which the boy had received as a lasting gift from his beloved mother, often rang in his ears during the vicissitudes of his chequered career. The youth passionately following the chase, rejoiced in the gigantic images of his traditionary ancestors, of whom poets sung in all lands from the Danube to the Rhine, from the Apennines. to his own island; the king, in the most troubled hours of troubled hours of his sovereignty, strengthened and confirmed his anxious heart by the examples of patient endurance which this poetry revealed to him; and the father caused his own and his people's children to learn betimes those poetical treasures with which he constantly consoled himself.-PAULI, GEORG REINHOLD, 1851-53, Life of Alfred the Great, p. 166.

Under the great Alfred, all the best points of the English-Saxon character were first encouraged, and in him first. shown. It has been the greatest character among the nations of the earth.DICKENS, CHARLES, 1854, A Child's History of England, ch. iii.

It is no easy task for any one who has been studying his life and works to set reasonable bounds to their reverence, and enthusiasm, for the man.-HUGHES, THOMAS, 1869, Alfred the Great, ch. xxiv.

No other king ever showed forth so well in his own person the truth of the saying, "He that would be first among you, let him be the servant of all." GARDINER, SAMUEL RAWSON, 1890, A Student's History of England, p. 62.

Alfred's name is almost the only one in the long roll of our national worthies which awakens no bitter, no jealous. thought, which combines the honour of all; Alfred represents at once the ancient monarchy, the army, the navy, the law, the literature, the poetry, the art, the enterprise, the industry, the religion of our race. Neither Welshman, nor Scot, nor Irishman can feel that Alfred's memory has left the trace of a wound for his national pride. No difference of Church arises to separate any who would join to do Alfred honour. No saint in the Calendar was a more loyal and cherished member of the ancient faith; and yet no Protestant can imagine a purer and more

simple follower of the Gospel. Alfred was a victorious warrior whose victories have left no curses behind them: a king whom no man ever charged with a harsh act a scholar who never became a pedant a saint who knew no superstition: a hero as bold as Launcelot- as spotless as Galahad. HARRISON, FREDERIC, 1899, Alfred the Great, ed. Bowker, p. 65.

One who may rightly be regarded as one of the principal founders of the English nation and its language, a pioneer of improvement, liberty, learning and education, and who, though a thousand years have sped, still forms a mighty beacon of all the highest aims and the noblest aspirations that may dominate the hearts of men. BOWKER, ALFRED, 1899, Alfred the Great, Preface, p. xii.

Some lights there be within the Heavenly Spheres

Yet unrevealed, the interspace so vast: So through the distance of a thousand years Alfred's full radiance shines on us at last.

Of valour, virtue, letters, learning, law, Pattern and prince, His name will now abide,

Long as of conscience Rulers live in awe, And love of country is their only pride. —AUSTIN, ALFRED, 1899, Alfred the Great, ed. Bowker, p. vii.

GENERAL

Alfred, king was translator (of) this book* and he (it) from book-latin into English turned as it now is done. Whiles he set word by word, whiles sense for sense just as he it the clearest and fullest of sense speak might for the distracting and manifold world business (which) him oft both in mind (and) in body busied. The businesses to us are very hard to count which in his days on those kingdoms came that he undertaken had, and yet when he this book had learned and from Latin into English speech turned (it) then wrought he it afterwards to (a) lay so as it now done is, and now prays and for God's name implores each (of) them that this book to read lists, that he for him pray and him not blame if he it rightlier understand than he might; for that each man should by his understanding measure and by his leisure speak that he speaketh, and do that he doeth.-ALFRED, KING, ?c 897, De Consolatione Philosophiae, Preface.

*"Consolation of Philosophy."

He himself was, probably, the most learned person of his kingdom, and he stands at the head of the list of royal authors. CAMPBELL, JOHN, 1742-44, Naval History of Great Britain, vol. 1. Alfred's versification shows poorly indeed beside that of Cadmon. He seems

to have had little more command over his rhythm, than some of our modern poets. The sectional pause (always a dangerous thing to meddle with) is often used by him, and seldom happily; and the management of his accents is such, as very rarely to assist his meaning. But Alfred was something greater than a poet. Who can read these lines without emotion, when he remembers that the writer while discharging his kingly duties as no other man discharged them-was daily sinking under a painful disease, that ended only with his life?-GUEST, EDWIN, 1838, A History of English Rhythms, vol. 11, p. 60.

To praise such a wonderful man is to gild the rainbow or to paint the lily!-to criticise his writings for any other purpose than to admire, would be unjust towards their author, who had no model to copy, no rules to follow, and who was forced, in the intellectual sterility of his age, not to imitate what had gone before, but to carve out models for those who should come after him. Viewed in this light, the works of King Alfred give us a magnificent idea of his superiority over the rest of the world: for he was the inventor, if we may use the expression, of a vernacular literature. His writings are not stored up in the obscurities of monkish Latin, of which it is hard to say whether the trouble of reading it or of writing it is the greater; but they were written in plain English, which the ploughboy, as he whistled his way to the furrow in the neighbourhood of Wantage, might have read with ease, and with profit. And what adds to the merit of these works is the ascertained fact, that the king of England was working alone at that time in pioneering and opening the road to a national literature. All besides himself were grinding in the heavy mill of the Fathers and the Schoolmen, putting forth to the world masses of literary rubbish, which, without doing one atom of good to mankind, swelled the libraries of the monasteries, entailing a load of mental tribulation on posterity for centuries to

come.-GILES, J. A., 1852, ed. Works of King Alfred, Jubilee ed., Preface, vol. I, p. xi.

Although King Alfred professed to translate the work of Boethius, yet he inserted in various parts many of his own thoughts and feelings, and thus composed several moral essays, in which he has, in a manner, transmitted himself to posterity. The imperfection of King Alfred's early education will account for a few mistakes in names and historical facts. These, however, by no means lessen the value of the translation; and instead of wondering at their occurrence, one should rather feel surprised that they are not more numerous and more important, considering the disadvantages under which he laboured.-Fox, SAMUEL, 1864, ed. Boethius by King Alfred, Preface, p. v.

It is perhaps, after all, in his literary aspect that the distinctive beauty of Elfred's character shines forth most clearly. The mere patronage of learning was common to him with many princes of his age. Both Charles the Great and several of his successors had set brilliant examples in this way. What distinguished Elfred was his own personal appearance as an author. Now, as a rule, literary Kings have not been a class deserving of much honour. They have commonly stepped out of their natural sphere only to display the least honourable characteristics. of another calling. But it was not so with the Emperor Marcus; it was not so with our Ælfred. In Ælfred there is no sign of literary pedantry, ostentation, or jealousy; nothing is done for his own glory; he writes, just as he fights and legislates, with a single eye to the good of his people. He shows no signs of original genius; he is simply an editor and translator, working honestly for the improvement of the subjects whom he loved. This is really a purer fame, and one more in harmony with the other features of Elfred's character, than the highest achievements of the poet, the historian, or the philosopher.--FREEMAN, EDWARD A., 1867-69, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, vol. 1, p. 51.

This very translation translation [Boethius"] bears witness to the barbarism of his audience. He adapts the text in order to bring it down to their intelligence; the pretty verses of Boethius, somewhat

pretentious, laboured, elegant, crowded with classical allusions of a refined and polished style worthy of Seneca, become an artless, long drawn out and yet abrupt prose, like a nurse's fairy tale, explaining everything, recommencing and breaking off its phrases, making ten turns about a single detail; so low was it necessary to stoop to the level of this new intelligence, which had never thought or known anything.-TAINE, H. A., 1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol. I, p. 50.

The Anglo-Saxon translations ascribed to Alfred are among the best specimens of Anglo-Saxon prose.CORSON, HIRAM, 1871, Hand-Book of Anglo-Saxon and Early English, p. 510.

How many years had passed since the hour when an illuminated initial letter gave him his first taste for a book, before he could master even the elementary branches of knowledge! then he devoted his whole efforts to instil new life into the studies that had almost perished, and to give them a national character. He not merely translated a number of the later authors of antiquity, whose works had contributed most to the transmission of scientific culture; in the episodes which he interweaves in them he shows a desire for knowledge that reaches far beyond them; but especially we find in them a reflective and thoughtful mind, solid sense at peace with itself, a fresh way of viewing the world, a lively power of observation. This King introduced the German mind with its learning and reflection into the literature of the world; he stands at the head of the prose-writers and historians in a German tongue-the people's King of the most primeval kind, who is also the teacher of his people. We know his laws, in which extracts from the books of Moses are combined with restored legal usages of German origin; in him the traditions of antiquity are interpenetrated by the original tendencies of the German mind. We completely weaken the impression made on us by this great figure, so important in his first limited and arduous efforts, by comparing him with the brilliant names of antiquity. -RANKE, LEOPOLD VON, 1875, A History of England, vol. 1, p. 19.

Wide however and various as was the King's temper, its range was less wonderful

than its harmony. Of the narrowness, of the want of proportion, of the predominance of one quality over another which goes commonly with an intensity of moral purpose Elfred showed not a trace. Scholar and soldier, artist and man of business, poet and saint, his character kept that perfect balance which charms us in no other Englishman save Shakspere. But full and harmonious as his temper was, it was the temper of a king. Every power was bent to the work of rule.-GREEN, JOHN RICHARD, 1877, History of the English People, vol. 1, bk. i, ch. iii.

The preparation of a separate edition of Ælfred's Legal Code is due to the conviction that the nature of this work rendered desirable its consideration from a literary point of view. Philologically also its existence in one very old manuscript gives it among Anglo-Saxon LawBooks a peculiar value. But its chief claim to special consideration rests upon its author's great significance in AngloSaxon Literature. King Alfred's literary tastes and occupations strongly colour this work; indeed in the Introduction the lawgiver is plainly supplanted by the man of letters, who, even in the actual laws, often presses close to the view.-TURK, MILTON HAIGHT, 1889, The Legal Code of Elfred the Great, Preface, p. v.

Ælfred, whom men have called the "Great" and the "Truthteller;" whom the England of the Middle Ages named "England's Darling;" he who was the Warrior and the Hunter, the Deliverer and the Law-maker, the Singer and the Lover of his people, "Lord of the harp and liberating spear"-was, above all, for the purposes of this book, the creator

and then the father of English prose literature. The learning which had been lost in the North he regained for the South, and York, where the centre of literature had been, was now replaced by Winchester. There, Alfred in his king's chamber, and filled with longing to educate his people, wrote and translated hour by hour into the English tongue the books he thought useful for that purpose. They are the origins of English prose.BROOKE, STOPFORD A., 1898, English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest, p. 212.

The last, not the least, of his achievements is that to Alfred we owe the foundations of our literature: the most noble literature that the world has ever seen. He collected and preserved the poetry based on the traditions and legends brought from the German Forests. He himself delighted to hear and to repeat these legends and traditions: the deeds of the mighty warriors who fought with monsters, dragons, wild boars, and huge serpents. He made his children learn their songs: he had them sung in his Court. The tradition goes that he could himself sing them to the music of his own harp. This wild and spontaneous poetry which Alfred preserved is the beginning of our own noble choir of poets. In other words, the foundation of that stately Palace of Literature, built up by our poets and writers for the admiration and instruction and consolation of mankind, was laid by Alfred. Well, but he did more than collect the poetry, he began the prose. Before Alfred there was no Anglo-Saxon prose.-BESANT, WALTER, 1899, Alfred the Great, ed. Bowker, Introduction, p. 29.

He

It appears, in the first place, strange that the life of Alfred should have been written in his life time, when he was in the

vigour of his age (in his forty-fifth year), and particularly by a man in the position of Asser. It is not easy to conceive