panies the Danes to Exeter, where by treaty made with the king they agree to leave his dominions; but instead of doing so, they soon after surprise Chippenham, and bring on the king and his subjects the calamities which are known then to have befallen them. Here, however, Brompton is remarkably brief, even more so than his predecessors; and when he proceeds to tell us, that Alfred led an unquiet life among the woodlands of Somersetshire, the connection of the story is broken, and the mind meets with a shock as if it would recoil from an issue of things so little to be expected from any preceding events. If we suppose that our chronicler, who is not generally very accurate in his dates or even in his facts, has mistaken the year in which the battles of Chippenham and Abingdon occurred, all becomes comparatively intelligible, and the disasters of the king flow no longer from some mysterious source, but from the overwhelming opposition which he had to encounter, and from the defeat which he met with in two great battles, fought one after the other, with all the skill of an able general, and the fortitude of a brave soldier, against odds that were irresistible.

If we are required to account for this curious preservation of so important a fact in the work of so late a writer, and misplaced also in that work, I can only reply, that there are many instances of facts being preserved by single writers, some of them of a much later period than the events which they relate. If this were the place for such a disquisition, it would be easy to shew, that every chronicler of the Middle Ages has recorded at least one fact peculiar to himself. We know that Brompton in his work has handed down to us the most complete, if not the only, copy of King

Alfred's laws; and it is far from improbable that he should also have preserved to us the memory of the battles of Chippenham and Abingdon, as fought by Alfred in the beginning of the year 878, when his troops were overwhelmed by numbers, his hopes apparently crushed, and he fled, with a few nobles, knights, and common soldiers, into the woods and morasses, which at that time covered the length of fifty miles in Somersetshire.

* A second and very legitimate enquiry would be, whether Brompton has not written Abendune instead of Edandune. If so, the battle at Abingdon, which he relates, and the battle of Ethandune, which he omits, are one and the same.

CHAP. XV.

OF THE DISEASE WHICH SEIZED ALFRED AT HIS WEDDING-CHARGES AGAINST ALFRED'S CHARACTER INVESTIGATED-REFLECTIONS OF TURNER AND SPELMAN ON THAT SUBJECT.

It is generally believed, on the authority of Asser, who was Alfred's bishop, biographer, and friend, that our great king suffered much, through the whole of his life, from some internal disease, the nature of which was unknown to the physicians of his time. To enquire into the nature of this complaint seems useless, because science alone could explain it to us, and at that time the medical science, perhaps, was at its lowest ebb: and it is more consistent with the dignity of a name, that has always borne on it a halo of reverence in the eyes of mankind, to touch with a gentle hand the infirmities from which even the body of the great Alfred was not exempted by his Creator. It is sufficient for our purpose to observe, that although the original disease, which he had borne about him, as we have already related, from his childhood, left him whilst he was still a youth, yet the relief was but temporary: for when his nuptials were, in 868, "honourably celebrated in Mercia, among innumerable multitudes of people of both sexes," his former disease was replaced by another, which incessantly tormented him night and day, from the twentieth year of his age until his death. "If ever,"

says Asser, "he was relieved, by God's mercy, from this infirmity for a single day and night, yet the fear and dread of that terrible malady never left him, but rendered him almost useless, as he thought, for every duty, whether human or divine!" The approach of this afflicting complaint was also as sudden as its effects were lasting the wedding ceremony, as is natural, was solemnized with great splendour, and with fastings which lasted night and day, when, on a sudden, in the presence of all the people, the young prince was seized with immediate and excruciating pains, so that no one, either of those who were then present, or who afterwards witnessed the effects of his disorder, during the many years that he suffered from it, could either discover its origin, or devise a remedy. "For many

thought that this was occasioned by the favour and fascination of the people around him; others, by some spite of the devil, who is ever jealous of the good; and some believed that it was an unusual kind of fever." Yet such was the vigour of Alfred's mind, such the submission of his body to the control of his powerful intellect and will, that the malady, from which he suffered, seems never, after its first access, to have gained dominion over him, or to have displayed itself in public. On the contrary, his energy of mind was, if possible, sharpened by the warnings of his bodily tormentor. Nor does his disease seem to have affected even the vigour of his body. An invalid can with difficulty go through the hardships of an ordinary campaign in war.

The belief in fascination has prevailed in all ages and countries: thus Virgil;

Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos. It is connected with the belief in magic. Did it arise from manifestations of Animal Magnetisın?

any obscure

But what did not Alfred encounter during the many years that he upheld, first by the side of his brave brother, and afterwards alone, the tottering condition of the West-Saxon monarchy? We have traced his reign, as minutely as our authorities will permit, through seven years, and three Danish invasions, each more formidable than the preceding. Twice the wave of conquest was thrown back from the rock on which it beat; and though at its third flow that rock was submerged by the increasing mass of waters which assailed it, yet Alfred still floated above the tide, and served as a buoy on which the eyes of his people were fixed, that they might regain their footing, and repel the hostile. inundation.

It has been said by some writers, that Alfred was without a fault. If it were so, he would be no longer to be regarded as a man, but as an especial creation of the Deity, free, in his nature, from all those spots that humanity is apt to derive from the hard and unpropitious circumstances in which it is placed. But a specific catalogue of charges has been drawn up against him, and of such a nature, that they demand investigation. It has been thought, that in his early years, and until the seventh year of his reign, Alfred shewed an inclination to indulge in three odious vices, drunkenness, voluptuousness, and tyranny. If these vices may with truth be laid at the door of Alfred, they must seriously detract from a character which in other respects is bright and shining the first of these propensities would sink him for a time to a level with the brute creation; the second would imply, that he had less prudence and self-control than the rest of his conduct leads us to

• Dr Whitaker, in his St. Neot, is indignant that any one should find imperfections in the character of Alfred.