Chapter VIII The King as "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”—Milton. "He mingles the ideas with a kind of enthusiasm."-Goldsmith. "Tis good to have translations, because they serve as a comment, so far as the judgment of one man goes."-Selden's Table Talk. IT has already been mentioned that Alfred issued a number of books for the instruction of his people. Several of these are now accessible in excellent and scholarly editions. The Universal History of Orosius, which was was written early in the fifth century, and translated and edited by Alfred, has been published for the Early English Text Society by Dr Sweet. The Latin text is printed opposite the translation, and italics are used to indicate Alfred's modifications of the original. The translation of Bede's "Church History of the English," probably prepared under Alfred's orders by one of the Mercian scholars in his service, has been edited, with a translation, in the same Society's series by Mr Thomas Miller. Pope Gregory's "Cura Pastoralis," to which reference has already been made, has also been edited by the same skilful hand. Professor Napier is preparing "The Flores or Blooms." An attractive edition and a translation of Alfred's version of Boethius" On the Consolations of Philosophy" have recently been issued from the Clarendon Press by Mr Sedgefield. These may be specially mentioned as accurate, convenient, and accessible. Before the millenary celebration of Alfred's reign is over, it is reasonable to hope that the materials for an Alfred Library will be reasonably complete. Under these circumstances, the object of such a chapter as this should rather be to whet than to satisfy curiosity as to the king's literary work. For it is better that Alfred should speak for himself than that any one should speak for him. But there is one thing which can probably be better done here than in any single or separate edition of one of his books his literary work as a whole may be used as a gateway into the mind of the king, a key to his interests, which may help in understanding his many-sided personality. It may be fitted into its place as part of his life-work. For this purpose it is convenient to take first the book into which the king put most of himself, Boethius "On the Consolations of Philosophy." The original has a very extraordinary history. It was composed by the Senator Amicius Manlius Severinus. Boethius, a man of high descent, great wealth, and exceptional intellectual force, who lived under the Ostro-Gothic King Theodoric in Italy between 480 and 526 A.D. Boethius rose from one honour to another until he came to be the most powerful man in Italy under the Emperor. His upright rule made him many enemies, and after he had enjoyed a long spell of power, they at last enlisted the king's sympathy in overthrowing Boethius. The great Senator was accused of being concerned in a conspiracy against the king, and in spite of an eloquent defence was convicted and thrown into a dungeon at Ticinum. His property was confiscated, and after months of imprisonment he was tortured and put to death. The extraordinary light and shade in his career, the dramatic contrast between the years of beneficent power and universal respect, and the sudden fall to the dungeon and to death, the really great qualities of the man, his familiarity with the literature of Greece, his inheritance of the culture of an ancient civilisation as well as the titles of Rome, and the fact that neither his high birth nor his exceptional privileges and virtues could save him from the stroke of misfortune, made a profound impression both on his own time and on the generations which followed. Boethius was to the Middle Ages what Job was to the Hebrew-the typical person in whom the ironies of fate and the inequalities of Providence were arraigned and brought to judgment. No doubt every man of culture with whom fortune played freaks, as it certainly had seemed to do with Alfred, felt drawn to identify his troubles with those of the Roman Senator. This is probably to be reckoned as one of the factors which led Alfred to translate the book. Apart from the interesting personality of the author, the "Consolations of Philosophy" has real merit. It is one of the select books, among the best in literature, that have issued from prison.1 Marco Polo's "Travels," Malory's "Morte d'Arthur," Villon's "Ballads and Testament," are characteristic prisonbooks of the Middle Ages. Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is the greatest of them all. The "Consolations of Philosophy" consists of a sustained dialogue between the mind of Boethius and the Spirit of Wisdom. It would have been a great gain if Alfred had ventured to use his own word in the title, as he has done in the text, and had called the book the "Consolations of Wisdom." Where the Latin has "Philosophy, that is the Spirit of Wisdom," Alfred has "se wisdom and seo gesceadwisnes "-i.e. “Wisdom and Reason." If this translation had been adopted, it would have given the clue to the process by which the musings of a philosopher more versed in Pagan than Christian learning came to be regarded for ages as a Christian's vade mecum in the troubles of life. 1 Chapter iii. Book I.: "After that Philosophy, that is to say, the Spirit of Reason."-Sedgefield. The link is supplied by the conception of a personalised Wisdom or Reason (the Logos) revealing and expressing the mind of God, which is so deeply implanted in all Greek-Christian thought. The Logos or Word of God, which in the first eighteen verses of St John's Gospel is expressly identified with the pre-incarnate Christ, was also identified with the "Wisdom" which is personalised in the canonical book of Proverbs, and still more strikingly in the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon. It is only necessary to read together such a passage as that quoted below, and the passages in Boethius where Philosophy speaks, to see how natural it was for men who knew both books to supply the absent link and believe that Boethius found his consolation in communion with the Eternal Word. The following verses are from the Wisdom of Solomon: - "1. When a righteous man was a fugitive from a brother's wrath 2. Wisdom guided him in straight paths: 3. She shewed him God's kingdom, 4. And gave him knowledge of holy things. 5. When in their covetousness men dealt hardly with him, 6. She stood by him and made him rich. 7. She guarded him from enemies, 8. And from those that lay in wait she kept him safe. 9. And over his sore conflict she watched as judge, 10. That he might know that godliness is more powerful than all. II. When a righteous man was sold |