and his sorrows. Neither Richelieu, Cromwell, nor William the Silent ever recorded more frankly their problems and their aims. In the authentic writings of Alfred we are in the presence of one who is a teacher as much as a king, who recalls to us Augustine and A Kempis, or Bunyan and Jeremy Taylor. His Boethius served him as texts whereon he preached to his people profound sermons on the moral and spiritual life. Read his homily on Riches-' that it is better to give than to receive;' on the true Ruler-' that power is never good, unless he be good that has it;' on the uses of Adversity-'no wise man should desire a soft life.' Few men ever had so hard a life with his mysterious and cruel malady, 'his thorn in the flesh,' until his early death; with his distracted and ruined kingdom, his ferocious enemies, his neverending cares. Ánd amidst it all we have the king in his silent study pouring out poetic thoughts upon married love or friendship; on true happiness or the inner life; composing pastoral poetry or casting into English old idylls from Greek epic or myth; ending with some magnificent Te Deum of his own composition. .

"Alfred did more than contribute translations to the literature of his country; he laid the very foundations of our literature, the most noble literature that the world has ever seen. He collected and preserved the poetry based on the traditions: and legends brought from the German forests. He himself delighted to hear and to repeat these legends and traditions: the deeds of the mighty warriors who fought with monsters, dragons, wild boars, and huge serpents. He made his children learn their songs; he had them sung in his court. The tradition goes that he could himself sing them to the music of his own harp. This wild and spontaneous poetry which Alfred preserved is the beginning of our own noble choir of poets. In

other words, the foundation of that stately Palace of Literature, built up by our poets and writers for the admiration and instruction and consolation of mankind, was laid by Alfred. Well, but he did more than collect the poetry, he began the prose. Before Alfred there was no Anglo-Saxon prose.

CHAPTER VIII

SUMMARY OF THE REIGN

WE have considered Alfred as a warrior and captain, Alfred as the restorer of religion, Alfred as the law-giver, Alfred as the encourager of education, Alfred as writer. A few points remain to be considered. Returning once more to Asser.

He says:

"In the mean time the king, during the frequent wars and other trammels of this present life, the invasions of the pagans, and his own daily infirmities of body, continued to carry on the government, and to exercise hunting in all its branches; to teach his workers in gold and artificers of all kinds, his falconers, hawkers, and dog-keepers; to build houses, majestic and good, beyond all the precedents of his ancestors, by his new mechanical inventions; to recite the Saxon books, and especially to learn by heart the Saxon poems, and to make others learn them; and he alone never desisted from studying, most diligently, to the best of his ability."

It would seem as if hunting was introduced

here in a place of needless prominence. Let it be remembered, however, that hunting was more than a sport. Men did not go out with horse and hound in order to ride after a fox; they went out to fight big game-wild boar, wolves, wild cattle; they went out to provide food. Hunting was necessary. The fisher-folk went

The

after the fish in the sea and in the rivers. fowler trapped the myriad wild birds of the fen and marsh. The nobler game, the wild deer, was hunted by king and nobles; while the ladies of the court went out with falcon on wrist, to bring down heron and wild swan, small birds and great birds of the woods. Hunting, the trade of the savage, became the sport of kings. It was regulated by a complicated system of rules and customs. Not to know this unwritten code was to be uneducated and ill-bred; while the servants themselves were instructed in the whole art of the chase for the conservation of their herds and the maintenance of the royal sport. Thus we find Alfred, as stated above, instructing his falconers, hawkers, and dogkeepers.

He also encouraged the work of the craftsmen, goldsmiths, and jewellers. In these arts the Saxons greatly excelled. A single instance of the work of his goldsmiths, King Alfred's jewel, is a monument of the level attained under the trying conditions of war and defeat, in which the artist had to work. This jewel was found near Athelney in the year 1693. It is now preserved at Oxford, beside another jewel of the same period. Pauli describes the jewel as

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a polished crystal of an oval form, rather more than two inches in length and half an inch thick, inlaid with a mosaic enamel of green and yellow. This enamel represents the outline of a human figure, which appears to be in a sitting posture, holding in each hand a sort of lily-branch in blossom. This figure may be meant to represent

St. Cuthbert, or even Christ, or it may be simply a king in state attire. The reverse side of the jewel is covered by a plate of fine gold, on which, somewhat tastefully and fancifully, a flower is engraved. The oval sides are bordered by beaten gold, admirably and durably manufactured, bearing around them the words:

AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN

('Alfred ordered me to be made ').

"The letters of this inscription are all capitals, and in their somewhat stiff form agree entirely with the initial letters in the principal parts of the authentic manuscripts of Alfred's time. Still more than the letters, the form of the two middle words, by their spelling, bears witness to the age claimed by the motto. At the extreme end, where the crystal and its border join the gold, it is finished by a beautifully worked dolphin's head in gold, whose empty eye-sockets must have once contained precious stones, and from whose open jaws a small golden pin protrudes. This probably served as a fastening to a cane, or some ornamental staff, on the point of which the jewel was placed. It may, indeed, have been a part of the king's sceptre."

As a specimen of women's work in gold of nearly the same time may be taken the stole, woven with gold wire beaten flat, like narrow tape, preserved in the Chapter Library of Durham. It was worked by Saxon ladies, and given to St. Cuthbert's tomb by Athelstan in 934.

In architecture Asser speaks of royal halls and vills of stone; but nothing remains which can be assigned to Alfred himself. He repaired the walls of London, but where are they now? He built St. Paul's, but that building was destroyed by fire. It was, again, Alfred who changed the position of the London gates, and ran new streets across the old and ruined sites; but where are the gates, and who would recognize the Cheapside of to-day as the Chepe of a thousand years ago? Of Saxon churches