they did not invent it for themselves. Our existing culture is not home-bred at all; it is simply the inherited and widened culture of Greece and Italy.

ས.

ALFRED'S EARLY YEARS.-FREEMAN.

[It was in the reign of Ecgberht, king of Wessex, that all the English kingdoms were united for the first time under one ruler. But the young State was no sooner formed than it was forced to face a new danger in the invasion of the Northmen or Danes. These people came from the Scandinavian kingdoms of the north of Europe, were of the same blood as the English, but were far behind them in civilization, and were still heathen. They began to land in England, to harry the country, and to carry off their spoil. At first as robbers, then as settlers, and finally as conquerors, for two centuries they occupy a large space in English history. In the midst of their invasions Alfred ascended the West-Saxon throne, and a large portion of his life was devoted to beating off their attacks.]

WE now come to our great King Alfred, the best and greatest of all our kings. We know quite enough of his history to be able to say that he really deserves to be so called, though I must warn you that, just because he left so great a name behind him, people have been fond of attributing to him things which really belonged to others. Thus you may sometimes see nearly all our laws and customs attributed to Alfred, as if he had invented them all for himself. You will sometimes hear that Alfred founded trial by jury, divided England into counties, and did all kinds of other things. Now the real truth is that the roots and beginnings of most of these things are very much older than the time of Alfred, while the particular forms in which we have them now are very much later. But people have a way of fancying that every thing must have been invented by some particular man, and, as Alfred was more famous than any body else, they hit upon

Alfred as the most likely person to have invented them. But, putting aside fables, there is quite enough to show that there have been very few kings, and very few men of any sort, so great and good as King Alfred. Perhaps the only equally good king we read of is Saint Lewis of France; and, though he was quite as good, we cannot set him down as being so great and wise as Alfred. Certainly no king ever gave himself up more thoroughly than Alfred did fully to do the duties of his office. His whole life seems to have been spent in doing all he could for the good of his people in And it is wonderful in how many ways his powevery way. ers showed themselves. That he was a brave warrior is in itself no particular praise in an age when almost every man was the same. But it is a great thing for a prince, so large a part of whose time was spent in fighting, to be able to say that all his wars were waged to set free his country from the most cruel enemies. And we may admire, too, the wonderful way in which he kept his mind always straight and firm, never either giving way to bad luck or being puffed up by good luck. We read of nothing like pride or cruelty or injustice of any kind either toward his own people or toward his enemies. And if he was a brave warrior, he was many other things besides. He was a lawgiver; at least he collected and arranged the laws, and caused them to be most carefully administered. He was a scholar, and wrote and translated many books for the good of his people. He encouraged trade and enterprise of all kinds, and sent men to visit distant parts of the world and bring home accounts of what they saw. And he was a thoroughly good man and a devout Christian in all relations of life. In short, one hardly knows any other character in all history so perfect, there is so much that is good in so many different ways; and, though no doubt Alfred had his faults, like other people, yet he clearly had none, at any rate in the greater part of his life, which took away at all seriously from his general goodness.

One wonders that such a man was never canonized as a saint; most certaintly many people have received that name who did not deserve it nearly so well as he did.

Alfred, or, as his name should really be spelled, Ælfred, was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf, and was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in 849. His mother was Osburh, the first, or perhaps the second, wife of Ethelwulf, She was the daughter of Oslac, the king's cup-bearer, who came of the royal house of the Jutes in Wight. Now a story is told of Alfred and his mother, which you may, perhaps, have heard already, and which is such a beautiful tale that I am really sorry to have to say that it cannot possibly be true. We are told that up to the age of twelve years Alfred was fond of hunting and other sports, but that he had not been taught any sort of learning, not so much as to read his own tongue. But he loved the old English songs; and one day his mother had a beautiful book of songs, with rich pictures and fine painted initial letters, such as you may often see in ancient books. And she said to her children, “I will give this beautiful book to the one of you who shall first be able to read it." And Alfred said, "Mother, will you really give me the book when I have learned to read it?" And Osburh said, "Yes, my son." So Alfred went and found a master, and soon learned to read. Then he came to his mother and read the songs in the beautiful book, and took the book for his own.

Now it is a great pity that so pretty a story cannot be true, and I must tell you why it cannot. Alfred was sent to Rome to the pope when he was four years old; and if the pope took him as his "bishop-son," and anointed him to be king, one cannot help thinking that he would have taught him to read, and to learn Latin. And it is quite certain that he could do both very well in after life. Still this is not quite certain proof, as he might have learned afterward. But one thing is quite certain. Alfred was not twelve years old till 861. By

that time his brothers were not children playing round their mother, but grown men and kings, and two of them, Æthelstan and Æthelbald, were dead. Moreover, in 861 Alfred's father, Æthelwulf, was dead, and his mother must have been dead also, as Æthelwulf married Judith in 856, when Alfred was only seven years old. If, then, any thing of the kind happened, it could not have been when Alfred was twelve years old, but before he was four. For in that year he went to Rome, and could never have seen his mother again, even if she were alive when he went. And for a child of four years old not to be able to read, is not so very wonderful a thing, even in our own time.*

*

In 871, on Æthelred's death, Alfred came to the crown, and he had at once to fight for his kingdom. The battle was at Wilton, near Salisbury, and does not seem to have been a very decisive one, as we read that the Danes were put to flight, and yet that they kept possession of the place of battle. And after the battle the Danes seem to have been tired: we read that they made peace with the West-Saxons, and there was peace, as far as Wessex was concerned, for a few years.

* I have seen in different books two attempts to get out of this difficulty, but I do not think either of them will do.

First, some suggest that Osburh was not dead when Ethelwulf married Judith, but that he had put her away, and that she might still have had her children about her. But of this there is no sort of proof, and when we read that a man, and especially a good man like Æthelwulf, married a second wife, we are bound to suppose that his first wife was dead, unless we have some clear proof that she was alive. And granting this, we still have the difficulty that, when Alfred was twelve years old, his brothers were not, as the story clearly implies, boys, but grown men and kings, and that some of them were dead.

Secondly, some suggest that the story really belongs, not to Alfred's mother, Osburh, but to his step-mother, Judith. Now it is really ridiculous to fancy that this young foreign girl would act as a careful mother to Æthelwulf's sons, some of whom must have been older than herself, and one of whom (Æthelbald) she was unprincipled enough to marry. Moreover, in 861 Æthelbald was already dead, and Judith had gone back into Gaul.

But they were all the while fighting and plundering and settling in other parts of Britain, and in 876 they came again into Wessex. We thus come to that part of Alfred's life which is at once the saddest and the brightest. It was the time when his luck was lowest and his spirit was highest. The army under Guthrum, the Danish king of East-Anglia, came suddenly to Wareham, in Dorsetshire. The "Chronicle" says that they "bestole "-that is, came secretly, or escapedfrom the West-Saxon army, which seems to have been waiting for them. This time Alfred made peace with the Danes, and they gave him some of their chief men for hostages, and they swore to go out of the land, but they did not keep their oath.

And now we come to the terrible year 878, the greatest and saddest and most glorious in all Alfred's life. In the very beginning of the year, just after Twelfth-night, the Danish host again came suddenly-"bestole," as the Chronicle says-to Chippenham. Then "they rode through the WestSaxon's land, and there sat down, and mickle of the folk over sea they drove, and of the others the most deal they rode over, all but the King Alfred; he with a little band hardly fared (went) after the woods and on the moor-fastnesses." How can I tell you this better than in the words of the Chronicle itself, only altering some words into their modern shape, that you may the better understand them? But it is quite certain that this time of utter distress lasted only a very little while, for in a few months Alfred was again at the head of an army and able to fight against the Danes. It must have been at this time that the story of the cakes happened, if it ever happened at all. The tale is quite possible, but there is no proof of it being true. It is said that Alfred went and stayed in the hut of a neatherd or swineherd of his, who knew who he was, though his wife did not know him. One day the woman set some cakes to bake, and bade the king, who was sitting by the fire mending his bow and arrows, to