contemporaries. The more this subject is studied, CHAP. the more clearly it will be perceived that there was less difference between the intellectual state of the mass of the people before and after the Gothic irruptions, than has been usually supposed. It is the art of printing which, by making the dif fusion of knowledge so easy, has created that vast distinction, in this respect, which is now every where observable in Europe, and in which we so justly exult; and yet, until lately, how many, even amongst ourselves, have passed through life, not unreputably, without that instruction, for the absence of which our predecessors have been so strongly arraigned! What was our national multitude in this respect even a single century ago? Before Addison made reading popular, what were our farmers, artisans, tradesmen, females, and the generality of our middling gentry? It was therefore a defect, but no peculiar stain, that our AngloSaxon ancestors were an illiterate population. More gratitude is due to those who, in an age so unfavourable, could desire and attain an intellectual cultivation.

BUT in this state, even before increased wealth and population had given to some part of society both leisure and desire for objects of mere intellectual curiosity, a few soaring minds occasionally emerged among the Anglo-Saxons, who became inquisitive beyond the precincts of their day. One of these was Alfred. Led by the encouragement of his step-mother to attain the art of reading, it was happy for his country that he endeavoured to pursue it. it. If he had not made this acquisition, he would have been no more than many of the race of Cerdic had been before him. But the love of study

V.

BOOK arising within him, and gradually bringing to his view the anterior ages of human history, and all their immortalised characters, the spark of moral emulation kindled within him; he strove for virtues which he could not else have conceived; he aspired to the fame which only these will bestow; and became a model of wisdom and excellence himself for other generations to resemble. In no instance has an immortal renown been more clearly the result of literary cultivation, than in our venerated Alfred. It was his intellectual improvement which raised him from a half-barbaric Saxon to a high-minded, patriotic, and benevolent sage, whose wisdom, as will be presently shown, still lives to instruct and interest even an age so superior as

our own.

BUT the Anglo-Saxon poetry, to which Alfred first directed his application, was but scanty and barren, and must have been soon exhausted. To gratify his increasing intellectual propensities, he had to go far beyond his contemporaries, and to become himself the architect of his knowledge. Modern education deprives modern men of this merit, because all parents are at present anxious to have their children taught whatever it is honourable to know. To be intelligent now is even more necessary than to be affluent, because Mind has become the invisible sovereign of the world; and they who cultivate its progress, being diffused every where in society, are the real tutors of the human race; they dictate the opinions, they fashion the conduct of all men. To be illiterate, or to be imbecile, in this illumined day, is to be despised and trodden down in that tumultuous struggle for wealth, power, or reputation, in which every individual is too eagerly conflicting. In the days of Alfred, the

I.

intellect was a faculty which no one considered dis- CHAP. tinct from the pursuits of life: and therefore few thought of cultivating it separately from these, or even knew that they possessed it as a distinct property of their nature.

66 on

of the

IT is difficult to conceive how much even church- Illiteracy men partook of the most gross ignorance of the clergy. times; "Very few were they," says Alfred, this side the Humber (the most improved parts of England), who could understand their daily prayers in English, or translate any letter from the Latin. I think there were not many beyond the Humber; they were so few, that I indeed cannot recollect one single instance on the south of the Thames, when I took the kingdom." On less authority than his own we could hardly believe such a general illiteracy among the clergy, even of that day : it is so contrary to all our present experience. The earls, governors, and servants of Alfred, were as uninformed. When the king's wise severity afterwards compelled them to study reading and literature, or to be degraded, they lamented that in their youth they had not been instructed; they thought their children happy who could be taught the liberal arts, and mourned their own misfortune, who had not learnt in their youth; because in advanced life they felt themselves too old to acquire what Alfred's commands imposed as a duty, and by his example had made a wish.

8

7 Spiche reape pænon behionan pumbpe the hiopa chenunga cuthen understandan on Englire oththe funthum an æpendzeppit of Læbene on Englisc apeccan and ic pene that te nauht monize bezeondan pumhpe næpen: rpa feape hiopa pæpon thætte ic funthum anne anlepne ne mæz zethencean be ruthan Temere tha tha ic to pice Fenz. Alfred's Preface, p. 82.

Asser.

8 Asser, 71.

Wise's

BOOK

V.

Alfred's self-edu

cation.

WHEN Alfred began his own education, he had not only to find the stimulus in himself, to cherish it in opposition to the prejudices and practice of his countrymen, and to search out his own means, but he had also to struggle against difficulties which would have extinguished the infant desire in a mind of less energy. His principal obstacle was the want of instructors. "What," says his friend, who happily for posterity has made us acquainted with the private feelings as well as public pursuits of this noble-minded sovereign, "what, of all his troubles and difficulties, he affirmed with frequent complaint and the deep lamentations of his heart to have been the greatest, was, that when he had the age, permission, and ability to learn, he could find no masters."" When Alfred had attained the age of maturity and by the dignity to which he succeeded had gained the means of obtaining instruction, he was almost disabled from profiting by the advantage. A disease, his daily and nightly tormentor, which his physicians could neither remedy nor explore; the duties and anxieties inseparable from his royal station; the fierce aggressions of the Northmen, which on sea and land demanded his presence and exertions, so afflicted and consumed his future life, that though he got a few masters and writers he was unable to enjoy their tuition.10 It is admirable to see, that notwithstanding impediments, which to most would have been insuperable, Alfred persevered in his pursuit of improvement. The desire of knowlege, that inborn instinct of the truly great, which no gratifications could saturate, no obstacles discourage, never left him but with

life." If Alfred succeeded in his mental cultiv- CHAP. ation who should despair?

IT has been already hinted, that the AngloSaxon language had been at this period very little applied to the purposes of literature. In their vernacular tongue, Cedmon and Aldhelm had sung, but almost all the learning of the nation was clothed in the Latin phrase. Bede had in this composed his history, and his multifarious treatises on chronology, grammar, rhetoric, and other subjects of erudition. The other lettered monks of that day, also expressed themselves in the language, though not with the eloquence of Cicero. In the same tongue the polished Alcuin expressed all the effusions of his cultivated mind. The immortalised classics had not been as yet familiarised to our ancestors by translations; he therefore, who knew not Latin, could not know much.

FROM the period of his father's death in 858, to his accession in 871, Alfred had no opportunity of procuring that knowlege which he coveted. Such feelings as his could not be cherished by elder brothers who were unacquainted with them, or by a nation who despised them. When he verged towards manhood he was still unable to obtain instructors, because his influence was small, and his patrimony was withheld, 12 The hostilities of the Northmen augmented every obstacle: on every occasion they burnt the books which the Anglo-Saxons had col11 Asser, 17.

12 Alfred details the particulars in his will: he says, that Ethelwulf left his inheritance to Ethelbald, Ethelred, and Alfred, and to the survivor of them; and that on Ethelbald's death, Ethelred and Alfred gave it to Ethelbert, their brother, on condition of receiving it again at his decease; when Ethelred acceded, Alfred requested of him, before all the nobles, to divide the inheritance, that Alfred might have his share, but Ethelred refused. Asser, 73.

I.