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that we may know what he is. Though it should not be our lot to know what He is, yet we should, from the dignity of the un lerstanding which he has given us, try to explore it.

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Every creature, both rational and irrational, discovers this, that God is eternal. Because so many creatures, so great and so fair, could never be subject to less creatures and to less power than they all are, nor indeed to many equal ones. “Then said I, What is eternity?'

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"He answered, Thou hast asked me a great and difficult thing to comprehend. If thou wilt understand it, thou must first have the eyes of thy mind clean and lucid. I may not conceal from thee what I know of this.

Know thou that there are three things in this world: one is temporary; to this there is both a beginning and an end: and I do not know any creature that is temporary, but hath his beginning and his end. Another thing is eternal which hath a beginning, but hath not an end: I know not when it began, but I know that it will never end: such are angels and the souls of men. The third thing is eternal, both without end, and without beginning: this is God. Between these three there is a very great discrimination. If we were to investigate all this subject we should come late to the end of this book, or never.

"But one thing thou must necessarily know of this previously Why is God called the Highest Eternity?'

-

"Then said I,

Why?'

"Then quoth he, Because we know very little of that which was before us, except by memory and by asking; and yet we know less of that which will be after us. That alone exists rationally to us which is present; but to HIM all is present, as well that which was before as that which now is; and that which after us will be. All of it is present to HIM.

"His riches increase not, nor do they ever diminish. HE never remembers any thing, because He never forgets aught: He seeks nothing, nor inquires, because He knows it all: He searches for nothing, because He loses nothing: He pursues no creature, because none can fly from Him: He dreads nothing, because he knows no one more powerful than Himself, nor even like Him. He is always giving and never wants. He is always Almighty, because He always wishes good, and never evil. To Him there is no need of any thing. He is always seeing: He never sleeps: He is always alike mild and kind: He will always be eternal. Hence there never was a time that He was not, nor ever will He is always free. He is not

be.

СНАР.

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compelled to any work. From His divine power He is every where present. His greatness no man can measure. He is not to be conceived bodily, but spiritually, so as now wisdom is and reason. But He is wisdom: He is reason itself." "103

WE can scarcely believe that we are perusing the written thoughts of an Anglo-Saxon of the ninth century, who could not even read till he was twelve years old; who could then find no instructors to teach him what he wished; whose kingdom was overrun by the fiercest and most ignorant of barbarian invaders; whose life was either continual battle or continual disease; and who had to make both his own mind and the minds of all about him. How ardent must have been Alfred's genius, that, under circumstances so disadvantageous, could attain to such great and enlightened conceptions!

103 Alfred, p. 147, 148.

CHAP. III.

ALFRED'S Geographical, Historical, Astronomical, Botanical, and other Knowledge.

III.

lation of

Orosius.

ALFRED's translation of Orosius' is peculiarly CHAP. valuable for the new geographical matter which he inserted in it. This consists of a sketch of His transthe chief German nations in his time, and an account of the voyages of Ohthere to the North Pole, and of Wulfstan to the Baltic, during his reign. Alfred does in this as in all his translations: he omits some chapters, abbreviates others; sometimes rather imitates than translates; and often inserts new paragraphs of his own.

Ir is clear, from these additions, that Alfred was His geofond of geography, and was active both to increase knowledge. graphical and diffuse the knowledge of it. Some little insertions in his Boetius implies this fact; for he introduces there a notice of the positions of the Scythians, and derives the Goths from them'; and mentions Ptolemy's description of the world. But it is in his Orosius that the extent of his researches is most displayed. The first part of his original is a geographical summary of the nations and kingdoms of the world in the fifth century. Alfred has inter

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1 Orosius ends his summary of ancient history and geography in 416, when he was alive. He quotes some historians now lost; as Claudius on the Roman conquest of Macedonia, and Antias on the war with the Cimbri and Teutones; and appears to have read Tubero's history, and an ancient history of Carthage.

2 The principal MS. of Alfred's translation is in the Cotton library, Tiber. b.i. which is very ancient and well written. A transcript of this, with a translation, was printed by Mr. Daines Barrington in 1773. 3 Alfred's Boet. p. 39. 4 Ibid. p. 1.

5 Ibid. p. 38. He enlarges on Boetius's account of Etna.

V.

BOOK spersed in this some few particulars", which prove that he had sought elsewhere for the information he loved. Having done this, he goes beyond his original, and inserts a geographical review of Germany, as it was peopled in his time; which is not only curious as coming from his pen, and as giving a chorographical map of the Germanic continent of the ninth century, which is no where else to be met with at that period; but also as exhibiting his enlarged views and indefatigable intellect. Νο common labour must have been exerted to have collected, in that illiterate age, in which intercourse was so rare and difficult, so much geographical information. It is too honourable to his memory to be omitted in this delineation of his intellectual pursuits.

Alfred's notitia of Germany.

"Then north against the source of the Donua (Danube), and to the east of the Rhine, are the East Francan; south of them are the Swæfas (Swabians); on the other part of the Danube; and south of them, and to the east, are the Bægthware (Bavarians), in the part which men call Regnes-burh7; right east of them are the Beme (Bohemians); and to the north-east the Thyringas (Thuringians); north of them are the Eald Seaxan; and north-west of them are the Frysan (Frisians).

"West of the Eald Seaxan is the mouth of the Ælfe river

6 Thus, Orosius says, Asia is surrounded on three sides by the ocean. Alfred adds, on the south, north, and east. What Orosius calls "our sea," meaning the Mediterranean, Alfred names Wendel ræ. Sarmaticus, he translates repmondic. O. speaks of Albania. A. says it is so named in Latin, "and pe hy hatach nu Liobene." O. mentions the boundaries of Europe; A. gives them in different phrases, mentions the source of the Rhine and Danube, and names the Cpæn fæ. Speaking of Gades, he adds, "On thæm ilcan Wendel fæ on hype Westende is Scotland." He adds also of the Tygris, that it flows south into the Red Sea. Several little traits of this sort may be observed.

7 Ratisbon; the Germans call it Regensburgh. The modern names added to this extract are from J. R. Forster's notes. I have in this, as in all the extracts from Alfred's works, made the translation as literal as possible, that his exact phrases may be seen.

(the Elbe), and Frysland; and thence west-north, is that land which men call Angle and Sillende (Zealand), and some part of Dena (Denmark); north of them is Apdrede; and east-north the Wilds that men call Æfeldan; and east of them is Wineda land, that men call Sysyle (Silesians), and south-east over some part Maroaro (the Moravians); and these Maroaro have west of them the Thyringas and Behemas (Bohemians), and half of the Bavarians; south of them, on the other half of the river Danube, is the land Carendre (Carinthia). South to the mountains that men call Alpis. To these same mountains lie the boundaries of the Bavarian's land, and Swabians: and then by the east of Carendra land, beyond the deserts, is Pulgara land (Bulgaria); east of this is Creca land (Greece); east of Maroaro land is Wisleland; east of this is Datia, where formerly were the Gottan (the Goths).

"North-east of Maroara are the Dulamensan 10; and east of the Dalomensan are the Horithi; and north of the Dalomensan are the Surpe 11, and west of them are the Sysele. North of the Horiti is Magthalond; and north of Magthalande is Sermende (the Sarmata), to the Riffin (Riphæan) mountains.

"South-west of the Denum is that arm of the ocean which lieth about the land Brittannia, and north of them is that arm of the sea which men call Ost Sea. 12 To the east of them, and to the north of them, are the North Dene, both on the greater lands and on the islands; and east of them are the Afdrede; south of them is the mouth of the river Ælfe, and some part of Eald Seaxna.

"The North Dene have on their north that same arm of the sea which men called Ost; and east of them are the Osti 13

8 The Obotritæ settled in Mecklenburgh.

9 Wiseland is that part of Poland which is commonly called Little Poland, for here the Vistula rises, which in Polish is called Wisla. 10 Dalamensæ are those Sclavonians who formerly inhabited Silesia from Moravia, as far as Glogau, along the Oder. Wittekind calls them Sclavi Dalamanti.

11 The Sorabi, Sorbi, or Sorvi, who lived in Lusatia, and Misnia, and part of Brandenburgh and Silesia, below Glogau ; their capital was Soraw, a town which still exists. I vary the orthography as the

MS. does.

12 The Germans have for the Baltic no other name than the Ost Sea.

13 The same whom Wulfstan calls the Estum. The northernmost part of Livonia still bears the name of Estland.

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CHAP.

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