“The Alfred Jubilee,” on that great king’s thousandth year, 1848, is one of the exploits of my literary life, undertaken and accomplished by Mr. Evelyn, the brothers Brereton, Dr. Giles, and myself in the year 1848, chiefly at Wantage, where Alfred was born.  We arranged meetings and banquets in several places, notably Liverpool, where Mr. Bramwell Moore, the mayor, gave a great feast in commemoration, a medal was struck, the Jubilee edition of King Alfred’s works was at least begun at Dr. Giles’s private printing-press, whilst at Wantage itself 20,000 people collected from all parts for old English games, speeches, appropriate songs, such as “To-day is the day of a thousand years” from my pen, collections for a local school and college as a lasting memorial, and—­to please the commonalty—­a gorgeous procession and an ox roasted whole, with gilded horns and ribbons,—­the huge carcase turned like a hare on a gigantic spit by help of a steam-engine before a furnace of two tons of blazing coal; and that ox was consumed after a most barbaric Abyssinian fashion in the open air.  My Anglo-Saxon Magazine came out strong on the occasion,—­but it is obsolete now; and I care not to use up space in reprinting patriotic indignation:  for let me state that, considered as a national commemoration of the Great King, the chief founder of our liberties, this Wantage jubilee was all but a failure; the British lion slumbered, and it was flogging a dead horse to try to wake him up; very few of the magnates responded to our appeal:  but we did our best, nevertheless, as independent Englishmen, and locally achieved a fair success.

If I went into the whole story with anecdotical detail, I should weary my reader:  let me only reproduce my song at the grand Liverpool banquet, by way of ending cheerily.

    The Day of a Thousand Years.

    “To-day is the day of a thousand years! 
    Bless it, O brothers, with heart-thrilling cheers! 
    Alfred for ever!—­to-day was He born,
    Day-star of England, to herald her morn,
    That, everywhere breaking and brightening soon,
    Sheds on us now the full sunshine of noon,
    And fills us with blessing in Church and in State,
    Children of Alfred, the Good and the Great!
      Chorus—­Hail to his Jubilee Day,
                        The Day of a thousand years.

    “Anglo-Saxons!—­in love are we met,
    To honour a Name we can never forget! 
    Father, and Founder, and King of a race
    That reigns and rejoices in every place,—­
    Root of a tree that o’ershadows the earth,
    First of a Family blest from his birth,
    Blest in this stem of their strength and their state,
    Alfred the Wise, and the Good, and the Great!
      Chorus,—­Hail to his Jubilee Day,
                        The Day of a thousand years!