The journeys and writings of the late Claudius Buchanan, and of other travellers; and the subsequent efforts and correspondence of our Bible and Missionary Societies, have completely confirmed the facts, not only that Syrian Christian churches were early founded in the Indian peninsula, but that they are still existing in the same parts. And as the curious reader may desire to see our former collection of authorities, it is reprinted in the appendix to this chapter.

No other notices of Alfred's foreign correspondence have been transmitted to us, besides the compliment from the Jerusalem patriarch; except some donations from the pope (1), and several messages and presents from Alfred to Rome. The king appears to have sent embassies or couriers to Rome in several successive * years (2).

When the measures are mentioned by which Alfred endeavoured to excite in his subjects a love of letters, it will not be forgotten that the University of Oxford has been connected with his memory.

The concurring testimonies of some respectable authors seem to prove, that he founded public schools in this city; and therefore the University, which has long existed with high celebrity, and which has enriched every department of literature and science by the talents it has nourished, may claim Alfred as one of its authors, and original benefactors.

But this incident, plain and intelligible as it appears to be, is environed with a controversy which demands some consideration; for it involves nothing less than the decision of the superior antiquity of the two Universities of England. We leave to abler pens the determination of the dispute, and shall only notice in the note a few particulars, concerning the first periods of the contest, and the point on which it turned (3).

His laws.

This indefatigable king made also a code of laws, with the concurrence of his witena-gemot or parliament, which has been called his Dom-boc. In this, for the first

arts. I will soon send thee forth with him.' Thomas answered, 'Send me whither thou wilt, except to the Indians.' But, on the command to go being repeated, he assented, and, when the regal officer came, they went together to the ship and reared their sail and proceeded with the wind; and they sailed forth then seven nights before they reached a shore, but it would be long to tell all the wonders that he did there. They came next to the king in India, and Abbanes boldly brought Thomas to the speech of the king, who said to him, 'Canst thou build me a kingly mansion in the Roman manner?' Thomas tried and succeeded, and had then liberty to preach, and baptized, and constructed a church, and Migdonia, the king's wife's sister, believed what he taught." Cott. MSS. Calig. A. 14. p. 112-118.

(1) Asser, 39. The pope, at Alfred's request, liberated the Saxon school in Rome from all pecuniary payments. Ibid.

(2) Asser, 55. The Saxon Chronicle states that in the years 883, 887, 888, 889, 890, Alfred's alms or letters were successively sent to Rome.

(3) See the last note of this chapter, p. 98.

time, he introduced into the Anglo-Saxon legislation, not only the decalogue, but also the principal provisions of the Mosaic legislation, contained in the three chapters which follow the decalogue, with such modifications as were necessary to adapt them to the Anglo-Saxon manners. In the laws attached to them, he mentions that, with the concurrence of his witena-gemot, he had collected together, and committed to writing, the regulations which his ancestors had established; selected such of them as he approved, and rejected the rest. He adds, that he had showed them to all his witena, who declared that it pleased them all that these should be observed. Forty heads of laws then follow, on the most important subjects of the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and legislation, obviously tending to increase the national civilization (1).

His police.

When Alfred regained his throne, and with that, the kingdom of Mercia, he found that the Danish invasions had so destroyed the ancient police of the kingdom, and the regular habits of the inhabitants, that the Anglo-Saxons were infesting each other with predatory depredations (2).

The means which he took to remedy this evil, and also to provide an efficient force to repress the Danes, are stated to have been some modification of the ancient provincial divisions of England, which had long before been known as shires. The alterations which he made with these are not detailed. But it is expressly declared that he began the system of dividing them into hundreds, and these into ten parts or tithings. Under these nominal divisions, the population of the country was arranged. Every person was directed to belong to some hundred or tithing. Every hundred and tithing were pledged to the preservation of the public peace and security in their districts, and were made answerable for the conduct of their several inhabitants. In consequence of this arrangement, the inhabitants were speedily called out to repel an invader, and every criminal accused was sure to be apprehended. If he was not produced by the hundred or tithing to which he was attached, the inhabitants of these divisions incurred a general mulct. Thus every person in the district was interested in seizing or discovering the offender. If he fled, he must go to other districts, where, not having been marshalled within their jurisdiction, he would be known and punished as an outlaw, because unpledged; for he who was not pledged by some hundred and tithing experienced all the severity of the law (3). It is added to this statement, that Alfred divided the provincial prefects into two officers, judges and she

(1) See those in Wilkin's Leg. Sax. p. 28-46. I cannot doubt that these compose the dom-boc which some ancient writers alluded to.

(2) Ingulf, 28.; Malmsbury, 44.; and the Chronicle of Johannes de Oxenedes. Cott. MSS. Nero, D. 2. This chronicle is not much more than an abridgment of Malmsbury.

(3) Ingulf, 28. Malmsb. 44.

riffs (1).--Until his time there were only sheriffs. He separated, by the appointment of justices or judges, the judicial from the executive department of the law, and thus provided an improved administration of law and justice. That golden bracelets were hung up in the public roads, and were not pilfered, is mentioned as a fact, which evidenced the efficacy of his police.

The unsettled state of society in Saxon-England, and that twilight of mind, which every where appears at this period, may have justified these severe provisions. They are, however, liable to such objections, that though we may admit them to have been necessary to Alfred, no modern government can wish to have them imitated. They may have suppressed robbery; they may have perpetuated public peace; but they were calculated to keep society in a bondage the most pernicious. They must have prevented that free intercourse, that incessant communication, that unrestricted travelling, which have produced so much of our political and literary prosperity. They made every hundred and tithing little insulated populations, to which all strangers were odious. By causing every member of each district to become responsible for the conduct of every other, they converted neighbours into spics; they incited curiosity to pry into private conduct; and as selfishness is generally malignant, when in danger of meeting injury, they must have tended to legalise habits of censoriousness and acrimonious calumny.

That Alfred was assiduous to procure to his people the blessing of a correct and able administration of justice, we have the general testimony of Asser. He not only gave the precept, but he exhibited the example; he was a patient and minute arbiter in judicial investigations, and this, chiefly for the sake of the poor, to whose affairs, amongst his other duties, he day and night earnestly applied himself (2).

When we reflect that Alfred had, in the beginning of his reign, transgressed on this point, he claims our applause for his noble self-correction. It was highly salutary to his subjects; "for,' says Asser, "in all his kingdom, the poor had no helpers, or very few

(1) Præfectos vero provinciarum qui antea vicedomini vocabantur in duo officia divisit, id est, in judices quos nunc justiciarios vocamus, et in vicecomites qui adhuc idem nomen retinent. Ingulf, 28. We will briefly remark here, that the Welsh anciently had the territorial divisions of cantref, a hundred, which contained two cymniwd; each of these had twelve maenawr, and two tref; in every macnawr were four tref, or towns; in every town four gafael, each of which contained four rhandir; every rhandir was composed of sixteen acres. Thus every cantref contained, as the name imports, an hundred towns, or 25,600 acres. Leges Wallicæ, p. 157, 158. The preface to these laws states South Wales to have contained sixty-four cantrefs, and North Wales eighteen. Ibid. p. 1. The cantref and the cymmwd had each a court to determine controversies. Ibid. p. 389. On finding these in the laws of Hoel da, we are tempted to suggest they may have been introduced among the Romanised Britons; and from the Welsh bishop Asser's communications have been imitated by Alfred in his English polity.

(2) Asser, 69.

besides him. The rich and powerful, engrossed with their own concerns, were inattentive to their inferiors. They studied their private not the public good (1)." The poor at this period comprised all the lay branches of population which were not gentry or noble.

Alfred applied to the administration of justice, because it was then so little understood, and so little valued by the people, that both noble and inferior persons were accustomed to dispute pertinaciously with each other in the very tribunals of justice. What the earls and legal officers adjudged, was disregarded. All resorted to the king's judgment, which was then respectfully fulfilled. Burdensome as so many legal appeals must have been, he never hesitated to sacrifice his own comfort for the welfare of his subjects. With great discernment, and wonderful patience, he examined every dispute; he reviewed the adjudications made by others in his absence. When he saw that the judges had erred, he called them mildly to him, and either personally, or by confidential persons, inquired if they had erred from ignorance, or malevolence, or avarice. When he found that ignorance had produced a wrong decision, he rebuked the judges for accepting an office for which they were unqualified, and commanded them to improve themselves by study, or to abandon their offices (2).

The statement of Asser is in general terms. We have already alluded to the ancient law-book, the Miroir des Justices, which presents to us many instances of Alfred's punishing judges for misconduct. Andrew Horne, who wrote this work in Norman French, in the time of Edward the Second (3), has been attacked with severity by Dr. Hickes, because he makes the institution of juries to be anterior to the Conquest (4). The objections of this respectable critic are, however, weakened by the recollections that lord Coke and Spelman, before Hickes wrote, and bishop Nicholson (5) since, have maintained, with others, that the Anglo-Saxons had juries, and we see that Horne professes to have taken his facts from the records of the court.

Some of the cases stated in the Mirror show that Alfred was assiduous in protecting the independence, the purity, and the rights of jurymen. He punished capitally some judges for deciding criminal cases by an arbitrary violation of the right of jury.

"He hanged Cadwine, because he condemned Hachwy to death without the assent of all the jurors, in a case where he put himself upon the jury of twelve men; and because Cadwine removed three who wished to save him against the nine, for three others into whose jury this Hachwy did not put himself."

(1) Asser, 69.

(2) Ibid. 70,71.

(3) It was printed in London, 1642. A translation appeared in 1646.

(4) See Hickes's Dissertatio Epistolaris, p. 34-43.

(5) See the Bishop's preface to Wilkins's Leges Anglo-Saxonicæ.

"He hanged Markes, because he adjudged During to death by twelve men not sworn."

"He hanged Freberne, because he adjudged Harpin to death when the jurors were in doubt about their verdict; for when in doubt, we ought rather to save than condemn (1).”

Alfred's disease and death. 901.

The numerous occupations, both public and private, to which this active-minded king directed his attention, seem sufficient to have occupied the longevity of a Nestor. Yet Alfred died at the age of fifty-two, and his life was literally a life of disease. The ficus molested him severely in his childhood (2). After distressing him for many years, this malady disappeared, but at the age of twenty was replaced by another of the most tormenting nature. It attacked him, before all the people, suddenly with an immense pain, during, and probably caused by, the protracted banquets, "day and night," of his nuptial festivities; and never left him (3). Its seat was internal and invisible (4); but its agony wasi ncessant. Such was the dreadful anguish it perpetually produced, that if for one short hour it happened to intermit, the dread and horror of its inevitable return poisoned the little interval of ease (5). The skill of his Saxon physicians was unable to detect its nature, or to alleviate its pain. Alfred had to endure it unrelieved (6). It is not among the least admirable circumstances of this extraordinary man, that he withstood the fiercest hostilities that ever distressed a nation, cultivated literature, discharged his public duties, and executed all his schemes for the improvement of his people, amid a perpetual agony, so distressing, that it would have disabled a common man from the least exertion (7).

(1) Mirror, p. 296-298.

(2) Asser, p. 40.

(3) Post diuturna die noctuque convivia subito et immenso atque omnibus medicis incognito confestim coram omni populo correptus est dolore. Asser, 40. It was afflicting him in the forty-fifth year of his life, when Asser wrote the paragraph which mentioned it. The expressions of Asser, "daily banquets by day and night," imply that they were continued for some days; and this exhausting continuation may have given Alfred's constitution the irretrievable blow.

(4) Asser describes it as incognitum enim erat omnibus qui tunc aderant et etiam huc usque quotidie cernentibus, p. 40.

(5) Sed si aliquando Dei misericordia unius diei aut noctis vel etiam unius horæ intervallo illa infirmitas seposita fuerat, timor tamen ac tremor illius execrabilis doloris unquam eum non deseruit. Asser, 42.

(6) From this disorder continuing so long with such acute pain, without destroying him sooner; from the period of his life when it began; from its internal situation; from its horrible agony, and from its not appearing to have ceased till his death, some conjecture may be formed of it; at least, I understand, there are some diseases incident to the human frame, as internal cancer, or some derangement of the biliary functions, to which these circumstances are applicable.

(7) We have referred to this place a cursory review of the former discussions between Oxford and Cambridge, which have been connected with the memory of Alfred. This dispute did not burst out publicly till the reign of Elizabeth. When the queen visited Cambridge in 1564, the orator of the university unfortunately de