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The Author's Apology

THIS book was undertaken at the request of a friend who found himself prevented under doctor's orders from preparing a Life of King Alfred for this series in time for the millenary celebration of his reign. Though undertaken to oblige someone else, it has been finished to please myself, and to gratify my reverence and liking for the hero of the book. It has fallen to me, during the twelve months while the book was in preparation, to work much among squalid and sordid scenes and under anxieties unusually oppressive and depressing; and it has been a pleasure to me beyond my own expectation and power to explain, to find myself at the beginning or end of the day in Alfred's strenuous and inspiring company; to forget the burdens of a present warfare in watching Alfred wage his; to see him battling against enemies within and without, and compelled in the interests of order and truth to wrestle for mastery as much

with his own friends as with the untoward circumstances of his time; and to recall how he gave

"to meanest issues fire of the Most High."

If the reading of this story gives to anyone a tithe of the pleasure which the writing of it has given a very improbable supposition, or enables someone to discover or to find again the attraction of King Alfred's personality, the ambitious aim entertained by the Editor of the series will not be wholly missed.

Though the book has been confessedly a bywork, and has, no doubt, defects which would have. been avoided had it come from a master hand, disciplined by previous work on this period, it aims at being faithful to the data accepted by the best informed and most recent students of King Alfred's time and work. It makes no pretension to expert Anglo-Saxon scholarship, but it is hoped that it may be found to be scholarly in the larger sense of discriminating between truth and legend, and of stating the facts of Alfred's life in an order and proportion which should make the whole narrative neither false nor unfair to the impression left by the great king on his own and subsequent gener

ations.

It is impossible to write history without rethinking it, and in that process the introduction of a personal equation is inevitable. For this and other reasons it cannot be said too often that the best way to read Early English History is to read it in the English Chronicle and the earliest obtainable records. The language of a period is itself a part of the period, a crystallised expression of its spirit, so that through the very words and turns of expression used, we get a feeling for the men who used them. The further the author is from the time of which he writes, the more do we lose this particular clue to understanding an age. But to many the want of continuity and consecutive thought, and the absence of familiar categories and processes of thinking in early authors, will always be an insuperable difficulty. Short of the originals, the next best thing is a record which, while arranging the original materials in an orderly fashion, shall let as much of them be seen as possible. This, however inadequately, has been attempted in this book. Wherever possible, quotations have been given in preference to working over the originals and putting them into another dress. It has been one of the pleasures of this work

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(or should it be play?) that I have received help from many sources which I now have the satisfaction of acknowledging. Mr F. York Powell, Regius Professor of History in the University of Oxford, has been unfailingly patient, suggestive, and prompt in the help he has given. The Rev. A. H. Johnson, M.A. of All Souls College, Oxford, has kindly read the proofs and made some suggestions. Mr Milward, the Librarian of the Hanley Public Library, has spared no pains in obtaining from other libraries books required to supplement the somewhat meagre historical equipment of our local library; and there are others who would not wish to be mentioned publicly to whom I am equally indebted.

DUGALD MACFADYEN.

HANLEY, December 1900.

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