in the north of Europe.  This is preserved in the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum.  His fourth translation was the ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation,’ by Bede.  To this last may be added the ‘Blossom Gatherings from St. Augustine,’ and many minor compositions in prose and verse, translations from the Latin fables and poems, and his own note-book, in which he jots, with what may be termed a journalistic instinct, scenes that he had witnessed, such as Aldhelm standing on the bridge instructing the people on Sunday afternoons; bits of philosophy; and such reflections as the following, which remind one of Marcus Aurelius:—­“Desirest thou power?  But thou shalt never obtain it without sorrows—­sorrows from strange folk, and yet keener sorrows from thine own kindred.” and “Hardship and sorrow!  Not a king but would wish to be without these if he could.  But I know that he cannot.”  Alfred’s value to literature is this:  he placed by the side of Anglo-Saxon poetry,—­consisting of two great poems, Caedmon’s great song of the ‘Creation’ and Cynewulf’s ‘Nativity and Life of Christ,’ and the unwritten ballads passed from lip to lip,—­four immense translations from Latin into Anglo-Saxon prose, which raised English from a mere spoken dialect to a true language.  From his reign date also the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Anglo-Saxon Gospels; and a few scholars are tempted to class the magnificent ‘Beowulf’ among the works of this period.  At any rate, the great literary movement that he inaugurated lasted until the Norman Conquest.

In 893 the Danes once more disturbed King Alfred, but he foiled them at all points, and they left in 897 to harry England no more for several generations.  In 901 he died, having reigned for thirty years in the honor and affection of his subjects.  Freeman in his ‘Norman Conquest’ says that “no other man on record has ever so thoroughly united all the virtues both of the ruler and of the private man.”  Bishop Asser, his contemporary, has left a half-mythical eulogy, and William of Malmesbury, Roger of Wendover, Matthew of Westminster, and John Brompton talk of him fully and freely.  Sir John Spellman published a quaint biography in Oxford in 1678, followed by Powell’s in 1634, and Bicknell’s in 1777.  The modern lives are by Giles, Pauli, and Hughes.

KING ALFRED ON KING-CRAFT

Comment in his Translation of Boethius’s ‘Consolations of Philosophy’

The mind then answered and thus said:  O Reason, indeed thou knowest that covetousness and the greatness of this earthly power never well pleased me, nor did I altogether very much yearn after this earthly authority.  But nevertheless I was desirous of materials for the work which I was commanded to perform; that was, that I might honorably and fitly guide and exercise the power which was committed to me.  Moreover, thou knowest that no man can show any skill nor exercise or control any power, without tools and materials.