before he had mastered Latin, they claim a distinguished place among victories of the human intellect.

On reaching maturity, Alfred served gloriously and incessantly in the armies of his brothers. Of these, the two eldest, Ethelbald and Ethelbert, reigned concurrently; the latter holding a subordinate authority over Kent, Sussex, and Essex; the portion of his paternal dominions left for their father's administration during his last two years. Both these princes quickly followed Ethelwulf to the tomb; and his third son, Ethered, became head of the royal family'. Alfred appears now to have had an opportunity, either of assuming the subordinate eastern sovereignty, or of being recognised as King of Wessex'. He contented himself with a secondary place under Ethered. Rarely has a sceptre been less tempting. But Alfred was unable to decline it long; Ethered, like former sons of Ethelwulf, being released early from an uneasy throne. An elder brother had left children, whose prior claim Alfred, probably, would have willingly admitted. Any such forbearance was, however, so manifestly unsuitable to a time of urgent difficulty and danger, that these infant claimants

2 ASSER. 24.

'Ethelbald died in 860, three | Ethelwerd, write it Ethered, which, years after his father. Ethelbert probably, comes more nearly to its then added to the kingdom of ordinary pronunciation. It seems Wessex his former dominion over to be the Edridge or Etherege of the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, and later times.-Sax. Chr. 96, 97. Essex. He governed this united Script. post Bed. f. 479. Asser, kingdom with considerable success, 14, 24. during six years, and died in the year 866. Ethered succeeded in that year. Mr. Turner calls him Ethelred, as does Malmesbury; and there can be no doubt that this is the correct form of his name. But King Alfred's Will, Asser, the Saxon Chronicle, and

3 Alfred left estates to Æthelm and Athelwold, each of them designated "my brother's son." Ethelbert appears to have been the father of both.-King Alfred's Will, 16, 17.

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were unhesitatingly set aside. The nation would hear of no reluctance in their uncle, now in the very flower of manhood, but called him loudly to the royal dignity'. Alfred's reign opened with a serious disaster, undergone at Wilton, where the Danish arms gained a decided victory. Various ill successes followed, which were constantly aggravated by a weak and temporising policy. Thus unfortunate, Alfred naturally became unpopular, and he completed the alienation of his people by haughtiness and tyranny3. His kinsman, St. Neot, rebuked him sharply for these intolerable defects, and foretold their sinister operation on his happiness. The youth, even of an Alfred, was, however, proof against unpalatable warnings. The young king of Wessex found himself,

barbarous people, during a season of extraordinary public difficulty; but severity like this was cruel, and must have been grossly unjust in several instances.

1 Asser (24) says that Alfred | 80.) Considerable severity was, began to reign quasi invitus. His no doubt, necessary to overawe a accession is placed in 871 by Asser and the Saxon Chronicle. Mr. Turner adopts this date; but the Editor of King Alfred's Will (6) refers Ethered's death to Apr. 23, 872. This is the year to which it is referred by Ingulf.―(Script. post Bed. 494.) Malmesbury also places Alfred's accession in that year.-Ib. 23.

2 ASSER. 25.

* ASSER. 32. A speech to this effect, attributed to St. Neot, is to be found in a Saxon homily.

(Brit. Mus. MSS. Cotton. Vespasian, D. 14. f. 146.) This homily is printed in Gorham's Ib. 31. From Alfred's con- History and Antiquities of Eynesduct his friend and biographer, bury and St. Neot's. Lond. 1824, Asser, honestly admits that adver- ii. 257. Part of St. Neot's sity came upon him non immeritò. speech is also given by Mr. To the stern severity of his rule, | Turner.-(Hist. Angl.-Sax. i. 549.) striking testimony is born by the Mr. Gorham says of St. Neot, Miroir des Justices, a production "The precise year of his death of Edward the First's reign, well is not stated by any ancient auknown among legal antiquaries. thority, and can only be collected Thence we learn that Alfred from circumstantial evidence: the hanged forty-four judges in one most probable date is 877.” (i. 44.) year, for errors and malversations Mr. Turner places Alfred's retirein the exercise of their functions. ment in 878. -(SPELM. Ælf. M. Vit. note, p.

accordingly, as little able to gain any mastery over his own impetuous passions, as any respite from the fierce rovers of Scandinavia. At length public affairs were apparently overwhelmed by hopeless ruin, and his lofty spirit was all but broken under a mortifying sense of general desertion. Unable further to resist aggression, or to rally his own dejected, offended people, he crouched indignantly before the storm, and wholly disappeared from public observation.

His place of retreat was a small thickly-wooded spot in Somersetshire, surrounded so completely and extensively by waters and morasses as to be almost inaccessible. In this deep and safe seclusion, the memorable isle of Athelney, he sought shelter and concealment with one of the royal herdsmen. By the mistress of his humble refuge he appears to have been unknown: probably, with her husband it was otherwise. The woman's ignorance of his quality may fairly be presumed from that very ancient and fascinating tale, which represents her as expecting him to watch some cakes baking by the fire, and venting angry verse, when she found him to have negligently let them burn. So, man! her irritated

measures run:

What? Slack and blind when the cakes want a turn!
You're greedy when they smoke upon the board'.

But whatever might have been exactly Alfred's condition, while out of sight, it was not such, undoubtedly, as to cut off communication with his confidential friends. Hence he soon organized small but courageous bands of trusty followers, by whom the Danes were severely harassed in a quick succession of incursions mocking every calculation. Thus his people's ardour rapidly revived. Vigour, ability, and success, gave an importance to every sally from his lurking-place, which forbade remembrance of his late reverses and unpopularity. When ready for striking the decisive blow, early tradition paints him disguised as a wandering minstrel, and unguardedly admitted into the Danish camp. Its hostile inmates rise before the reader, enchanted by his matchless music, and rich profusion of legendary lore. They could not fail of greeting eagerly such a harper wherever his inquiring eye directed him'. Thus he must have entered on the field which saw the crisis of his fate, with information that a general very rarely can command. It proved an obstinate and sanguinary fight; but Alfred's military skill, admirably guiding the desperate valour of his troops, at length gladdened him with victory. His brave but baffled foe sought safety within the ramparts of an impregnable fortification. Around its base, Alfred

D. 14. f. 146.) But this MS. is | 39.) Against this tale the silence in a Normanno-Saxon hand. The of the Saxon Chronicle is also a several pieces in it, of course, were presumption. In fact, that venetranscribed from older MSS. Mr. rable record might us lead to conGorham conjectures with consi- sider Alfred's condition something derable probability, that the Ho- less desperate than it has commily on St. Neot was written about monly been represented. Ethelthe middle of the eleventh century, werd likewise has nothing of the and the tale of Alfred and the tale, nor even Ingulf. cakes interpolated from it into Asser. (Hist. of Eynesbury and St. Neot's. Suppl. ii. cii. vol. i.

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494.

INGULF. Script. post Bed.

maintained a strict blockade, leaving the consummation of his hopes to privation and alarm. In fourteen days these irresistible allies proved him to have decided wisely. The Danes capitulated, on condition of receiving baptism, and settling as a peaceful colony in the eastern counties'. Henceforth Alfred, although ever harassed by apprehensions of invading Northmen, shone without eclipse the father of his people, the glory of his age.

Among proofs of his title to contemporary gratitude and posthumous admiration, few are more conclusive than his literary labours. Of professed scholars once embarked in active life, it is often said that future opportunities for learned industry are hopeless. Alfred, a soldier and a statesman from education, office, and stern importunate necessity, found ample time for proving himself a student also. He nobly designed a vernacular literature, and his own personal exertions realised very considerably that wise and generous intention. No author had thrown so much light upon the national affairs as Bede: but he wrote in Latin. Unwilling that learned men alone should have access to their country's annals, Alfred rendered into Anglo-Saxon the venerable Northumbrian's Ecclesiastical History. To spread information respecting foreign countries, he translated

1ASSER. 34. Ethandum, supposed to be Yatton, near Chippenham, was the place of Alfred's decisive victory. The date of it is 878. Alfred himself stood godfather to Godrun, or Guthrum, the Danish chieftain. The Danish colony was to possess the country north of the Thames from its mouth to the mouth of the Lea, thence to the source of that river, thence

it was to be bounded by the Watling Street to Bedford, thence the Ouse was to be its boundary to the sea.-SPELM. Vit. Ælf. M. 36, note.

2 Alfred's Bede was first published by Whelock, at Cambridge, in 1643, afterwards by Smith, in 1722. It is not a servile translation, some things being omitted in it, and others abridged.