"I then said, 'I wish that thou wouldest explain to me yet more clearly, about the other goods that belong to the true felicity.'

"He answered, 'Did I not inform thee before, that the true happiness is God?'' Yes,' I replied, thou hast said he was the supreme good.' Then quoth he, Art thou now consenting that power, and dignities, and fame, and plenty, and joy, and happiness, and the supreme good, are all one; and that this one must be the Deity?'

"I said, "How should I now deny this?' Then he answered, 'Whether dost thou think that those things which are the limbs of the true felicity is that felicity itself?'

“I replied, “I know now what thou wouldest say; but it will please me better that you should speak to me some while about it than ask me.' He then said, 'How! couldest thou not reflect that if these goods were limbs of the true felicity, they would be somewhat distinct from it as a man's limbs are from his body? But the nature of these limbs is that they make up one body, and yet are not wholly alike.'

"I then remarked, 'Thou needest no more speak about it. Thou hast explained it to me clearly enough that these goods are no whit separated from the true felicity.'

"Then quoth he, "Thou comprehendest it right enough. Thou now understandest that all good is the same that happiness is, and this happiness is the supreme good, and the supreme good is GOD, and GOD is always inseparably one.'

"I said, "There is no doubt of it. But I wish you now to discourse to me a little on what is unknown (1).'”

All the preceding is the addition of Alfred to the short suggestion already given from Boetius.

Shortly after the above occurs the tenth metrum of Boctius (2), which Alfred paraphrases, or rather imitates, so as to make the whole of it, in point of composition, his own, and nearly so in its thoughts.

It is Alfred's corollary from the preceding dialoguc.

"Well! O men! Well! Every one of you that be free tend to this good, and to this felicity; and he that is now in bondage with the fruitless love of this world, let him seek liberty, that he may come to this felicity. For this is the only rest of all our labours. This is the only port always calm after the storms and billows of our toils. This is the only station of peace; the only comforter of grief after all the sorrows of the present life. The golden stones and the silvery ones, and jewels of all kinds, and all the

(1) Alfred, p. 84-86.

(2) The original is: "Come here, all ye that are thus captivated; whom deceitful desire, dulling your earthly minds, binds with its wicked chains; here will be rest from your labours; here, a serene part where you may remain quiet. This is the only asylum open to the wretched. Tagus never gave any thing in its golden sands, nor Hermus from his ruddy bank, or Indus near the heated circle, mingling green with white stones. They blaze to the sight, and the more conceal the blinded mind within their darkness. In this, whatever pleases and excites the mind, the low earth nourishes in its caverns. The splendour with which heaven is governed and flourishes shuns the obscure ruins of the soul. Whoever can note this light, will deny the bright rays of Phoebus." Boet. lib. iii. met. 10.

riches before us, will not enlighten the eyes of the mind, nor improve their acuteness to perceive the appearance of the true felicity. They rather blind the mind's eyes than make them sharper; because all things that please here, in this present life, are earthly; because they are flying. But the admirable brightness that brightens all things and governs all; it will not destroy the soul, but will enlighten it. If, then, any man could perceive the splendour of the heavenly light with the pure eyes of his mind, he would then say that the radiance of the shining of the sun is not superior to this, is not to be compared to the everlasting brightness of God (1).” The last chapter of his Boetius is Alfred's composition. He has taken a few hints from his original (2), but he has made what he has borrowed his own, by his mode of expression, and he has added from his own mind all the rest. It is a fine exhibition of his enlightened views and feelings on that great subject, which has, in every age, so much interested the truly philosophical mind; and we may add, that no one has contemplated it with more sympathy, rationality, and even sublimity, than our illustrious king, His description of the Deity is entirely his own.

"Hence we should with all our power inquire after God, 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 understanding which he has given us, try to explore it.

66

'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?'

t

"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.

(1) Alfred, p. 87, 88.

(2) How few these are may be seen by those who read the last chapter of Boetius. Lib. v. pr. 6.

"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 be. He is always free. He is not 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 (1).""

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!

CHAPTER III.

Orosius.

Alfred's Geographical, Historical, Astronomical, Botanical, and other Knowledge. Alfred's translation of Orosius (2) is peculiarly va- His translation of luable for the new geographical matter which he inserted in it (3). This consists of a sketch of the 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.

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knowledge.

It is clear, from these additions, that Alfred was His geographical fond of geography, and was active both to increase and diffuse the knowledge of it. Some little insertion in his Boetius

(1) Alfred, p. 147, 148.

(2) 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.

(3) 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 M. Daines Barrington in 1773.

implies this fact; for he introduces there a notice of the positions of the Scythians (1), and derives the Goths from them (2); and mentions Ptolemy's description of the world (3). 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 interspersed in this some few particulars (4), 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. No 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

"Then north against the source of the Donua (Danube), Germany. 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-burh (3); 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 Elfe river (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 (6); 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 (1) Alfred's Boet. p. 39. (2) Ibid. p. 1.

(3) Ibid, p. 38. He enlarges on Boetius's account of Etna. (4) 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 sæ. Sarmaticus, he translates sermondisc. O. speaks of Albania. A. says it is so named in Latin, " and we hy hatath nu Giobene." O. mentions the boundaries of Europe; A. gives them in different phrases, mentions the source of the Rhine and Danube, and names the Cwæn sæ. Speaking of Gades, he adds, "On thæm ilcan Wendel sa on hyre 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.

(5) 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.

(6) The Obotritæ settled in Mecklenburgh.

ship-ropes, each to be sixty ells long; some are made of whales' hide, some of seals.

"He said, that Northmanna land was very long and very small; all that men could use of it for pasture or plough lay against the sea, and even this is in some places very stony. Wild moors lay against the east, and along the inhabited lands. In these moors the Finnas dwell.

"The inhabited land is broadest eastward, but northward becomes continually smaller. Eastward, it may be sixty miles broad, or a little broader; midway, thirty or broader; and to the north, he said, where it was smallest, it might be three miles broad to the moors. The moors are in some places so broad, that a man might be two weeks in passing over them. In some places their breadth was such that a man might go over them in six days.

"Even with these lands, southward, on the other side of the moors is Sweo-land; to that land, northward, and even with those northward lands, is Cwenaland. The Cwenas make depredations, sometimes on the Northmen over the moors (sometimes the Northmen on them); and there are many great fresh lakes over these moors, and the Cwenas carry their ships overland to the lakes, and thence plunder the Northmen. They have ships very little and very light.

"Ohthere said, the shire was called Halgoland that he abode in. He declared that no man abode north of him. There is one port on the southward of these lands; this men call Sciringes-heale; thither he said a man might not sail in a month, if he rested at night, and every day had a favourable wind: all the while he shall sail by the land and on the starboard, the first to him would be Iraland, and then the islands that are betwixt Iraland and this land; then is this land till he comes to Sciringesheale.

"All the way on the larboard is Norway; against the south of Sciringesheale a very great sea falleth upon that land. It is broader than any man may see over. Gotland is opposite on the other side, afterwards Sillende. The sea lieth many hundred miles up in on that land.

"He said, he sailed from Sciringes-heale in five days to that port which men call æt Hethum. It stands between the Winedum and Saxons and Angles, and belongs to Denmark.

“When he thitherward sailed from Sciringes-heale, Denmark was on his larboard, and on his starboard was a wide sea for three days; and then two days before he came to Hathum, Gothland was on his starboard, and Sillende and many islands; on those lands the Engle dwelt before they came to this country; and for two days the islands were on his larboard that belong to Denmark."

This voyage of Ohthere presents us with an interesting and authentic picture of the manners and political state of a great portion of the north. The next is the voyage of Wulfstan towards the east of the Baltic.

Wulfstan's

voyage.

"Wulfstàn said, that he went from Hæthum; that in seven days and nights he was in Truso; that the ship was all the way running under sail. Weonothland was to him on the starboard, and on his larboard was Langaland and Leland, and Falster and Sconeg, and