come down to our own times, animated his countrymen to battle and to vengeance a.

a On the subject of this Scandinavian warrior, see particularly Turner's Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, book iv. ch. iii. and the authorities there quoted.

CHAP. VIII.

THE PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE OF KING ALFRED HIS EDUCATION -STORY OF THE BOOK OF POEMS-IS AFFLICTED WITH A SEVERE DISEASE.

THE Chroniclers have delighted to trace the lineage of ALFRED THE GREAT into those early times of obscurity, where the dispassionate historian declines to follow them. He was the fourth son of Ethelwolf, and grandson of Egbert, through whom his pedigree ascended to Woden, and from thence upwards through twenty-three generations, to Adam". The juvenile years of Alfred were, no doubt, occupied with the sports and recreations which generally engage the minds of children. The first circumstance which has been recorded of him, is his journey to Rome, as we have already described it, in the company of Swithun bishop of Winchester: he was hardly seven years old, when he again made the journey in his father's company; and it has been remarked by a modern historian", whose opinions generally deserve attention from their soundness, whilst his writings are charac

This pedigree, according to Asser, Florence, and Simeon, is as follows: Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleel, Enoch, Methusalem, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Bedwig, Huala, Hathra, Itermod, Heremod, Sceldwea, Beaw, Catwa, Geata, Fingodwolf, Frithwolf, Frealaf, Frithowalde, Woden, Beldeg, Brond, Gewis, Elesa, Cerdic, Creoda, Cynric, Ceaulin, Cuthwine, Cutha, Ceolwalde, Coenred, Ingild brother of Ine, Eoppa, Eafa, Elmund, Egbert, Ethelwolf.

b S. Turner, Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons.

terised by the depth of his research, that to the impressions made upon the child's mind at this time is to be traced that strong bias towards improvement, which throughout his whole life was the mainspring of all his actions. But the impressions which were made upon the tender age of Alfred must have been unusually strong to have outlived the rude and boisterous scenes in which the next fifteen years of his life were spent. With this question, however, is blended another historical difficulty which arrests us in our enquiry, too important to be overlooked. Was Osburga, Alfred's mother, still alive when her little boy returned from Rome? His father king Ethelwolf, as we have seen, took another wife, Judith, daughter to the king of France; which would seem to imply that queen Osburga was no longer living. But when we remember that his mother-in-law was scarcely thirteen years of age, at the time of her marriage with Ethelwolf, it seems improbable-in my own opinion, impossible that to her can be ascribed that maternal solicitude, to which Alfred, scarcely six years younger than herself, could have been indebted for the superiority of his attainments, his initiation in literature, and the general amiability and worth of his character.

That we may be the better able to judge on this point, it will be useful to listen to the narrative of the contemporary writer-and in his own words. "He was loved by his father and mother, and even by the people generally, above all his brothers, and was educated altogether at the court of the king. As he advanced through the years of infancy and youth, his form appeared more comely than that of his brothers; in look, in speech, and in manners, he was more graceful than they. His noble nature implanted in

G

him from his cradle a love of wisdom above all things, but with shame be it spoken-by the unworthy neglect of his parents and nurses, he remained illiterate even till he was twelve years old or more; but he listened with serious attention to the Saxon poems which he often heard recited, and easily retained them in his docile memory. He was a zealous follower of the chase in all its branches, and hunted with great assiduity and success; for skill and good fortune in this art, as in all others, are among the gifts of God, as we have often also witnessed.

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Now, on a certain day, his mother was shewing him and his brothers a Saxon book of poetry, which she held in her hand, and said, 'Whichever of you shall the soonest learn this volume, shall have it for his own.' Stimulated by these words, or rather by the Divine inspiration, and allured by the beautifully illuminated letter at the beginning of the volume, Alfred spoke before all his brothers, who, though his seniors in age, were not so in grace, and answered, Will you really give that book to one of us, that is to say, to him who can first understand and repeat it to you?' At this his mother smiled with satisfaction, and confirmed what she had before said: upon which the boy took the book out of her hand, and went to his master and read it to him, and in due time brought it to his mother, and recited it "."

If we subject this story to the severe test which criticism and chronology supply, we shall find it involved in many difficulties; but the operation is necessary for the cause of truth; and happily the conclusion, to which the argument leads us, will re-unite the

Asser gives this account retrospectively under the year 864.

connection that has been severed between Osburga and her child between the greatest of English kings and that fond mother, to whom he owed the real virtues of his shining character. It will, then, be remarked, in the narrative which has been just recited, that Alfred's education did not commence until he was twelve years old or more; i. e. in the year 861, for he was born in 849, as all our historians agree. It is unimportant to our argument, whether he then began first to read, or whether, having already acquired the art of reading, he then learnt by heart the book which his mother gave him. If the latter be the true statement of the case, he must have been still older, and the same observations apply with greater force. In the year 861, his father Ethelwolf had been dead five years; his eldest brother Ethelbald had succeeded to the throne, married his step-mother Judith, and after a reign of between two and three years, had also descended to the grave. In his stead was reigning Ethelbert, the second brother, who, having already been king of Kent, must have arrived at man's estate, and consequently could not have been one of the children to whom the queen displayed the Book of Poems which caught the attention of Alfred. It is clear, therefore, that Ethelred and Alfred only could have been residing under the mother's care, when the little incident took place in Alfred's life, which has attracted the notice of all his biographers. But who was the mother that, in a dark age, directed the minds of her children to the only means by which they could emerge into a light that should benefit themselves, their country, and the world? It could not be Judith, for that princess, still little more than seventeen years of age, retired in 861 to the court of her father the king of France, where she