men, the masters of Anglo-Saxon song. Day and night would he employ in hearkening to these poems; he treasured them in his memory, and during the whole of his life poetry continued to be his solace and amusement in trouble and care. 2. It chanced one day that Alfred's mother, Osburga, showed to him and his brothers a volume of Anglo-Saxon poetry which she possessed. "He who first can read the book shall have it," said she. Alfred's attention was attracted by the bright gilding and coloring of one of the illuminated capital letters. He was delighted with it, and inquired of his mother,―would she really keep her word? She confirmed the promise, and put the book into his hands; and he applied so steadily to his task that the book became his own. 3. The information which Alfred now possessed rendered him extremely desirous of obtaining more; but his ignorance of Latin was an insuperable obstacle. Science and knowledge could not then be acquired otherwise than from Latin books; and earnestly as he sought for instruction in that language, none could be found. Sloth had overspread the land; and there were so few "Grammarians," that is to say Latinists, in Wessex, that he was utterly unable to discover a competent teacher. In after-life Alfred was accustomed to say, that of all the hardships, privations, and mis fortunes which had befallen him, there was none which he felt so grievous as this, the enforced idleness of his youth, when his intellect would have been fitted to receive the lesson and his time was unoccupied. At a more advanced period, the arduous toils of royalty and the pressure of most severe and constant pain interrupted the studies which he was then enabled to pursue, and harassed and disturbed his mind,-yet he persevered; and the unquench able thirst for knowledge, which the child had manifested, continued without abatement until he was removed from this stage of exertion. 4. In the eighth century, the age of Bede, Britain was distinguished for learning: the rapid decline of cultivation had been occasioned by the Danish invasions. Alfred's plans for the intellectual cultivation of his country were directed, in the first instance, to the diffusion of knowledge amongst the great body of the people. Hence he earnestly recommended the translation "of useful books into the language which we all understand; so that all the youth of England, but more especially those who are of gentle kind and at ease in their circumstances, may be grounded in letters, for they cannot profit in any pursuit until they are well able to read English." 5. Alfred taught himself Latin by translating. You will recollect his regret at the want of masters in early life. As soon as he was settled in his kingdom he attempted to supply this deficiency, not only for himself, but also for his people, by inviting learned men from foreign parts. Asser, a native of St. David's, in Wales, whom he appointed Bishop of Sherbourne, was one of them. Great friendship and confidence prevailed between Alfred and the British priest; and to the pen of Asser we owe a biography of the Anglo-Saxon monarch, written with equal simplicity and fidelity. Grimbald, at the invitation of Alfred, left Gaul, his own country, and settled in England. A third celebrated foreigner was called Johannes Scotus, from his nation, or Erigena, the Irishman, from the place of his birth. From these distinguished men, to whom must be added Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, Alfred was enabled to acquire that learning which he had so long sought. 6. Asser permits us to contemplate Alfred beginning his literary labors. They were engaged in pleasant converse; and it chanced that Asser quoted a text or passage either from the Bible or from the works of one of the Fathers. Alfred asked his friend to write it down in a blank leaf of that collection of psalms and hymns which he always carried in his bosom; but not a blank could be found of sufficient magnitude. Pursuant therefore to Asser's proposal, a quire, that is to say, a sheet of vellum folded into fours, was produced, on which these texts were written; and Alfred, afterward working upon them, translated the passages so selected into the Anglo-Saxon tongue. 7. He continued the practice of writing down such remarkable passages as were quoted in conversation. His "handboc" or manual, however, included some matters of his own observation, anecdotes, or sayings of pious men ; but the body of the collection appears to have consisted of extracts from the Scriptures, intermingled with reflections of a devotional cast. Alfred appears to have been induced to attempt a complete version of the Bible. Some writers have supposed that he completed the greater portion of the task. It seems, however, that the work was prevented by his early death. 8. We must now advert to Alfred's "Family Library,' or "Library of Useful Knowledge." As far as we can judge from those portions of the plan which were carried into execution, he intended to present his subjects with a complete course of such works as were then considered the most useful and best calculated to form the groundwork of a liberal education. The chronicle of Orosius, containing a history of the world to the fifth century, was the best compendium which had yet been composed. Alfred, in the work of the Spaniard-for Orosius was a native of Seville -enlarged the text by additions of great curiosity. He presents us with a geographical account of the natives of Germany; and the voyages of Audher toward the North Pole, and of Wulstan in the Baltic, are detailed as these travelers related them to the king. The History of Venerable Bede, also rendered into Anglo-Saxon by Alfred, instructed the learner in the annals of his own country. It is the earliest history of any of the States formed during the Middle Ages which can be read in the language of the people. In this work Alfred did not depart from his original. In translating the "Consolations of Philosophy" by Boëthius, Alfred seems to have delighted in his task. The narratives taken from ancient mythology, such as the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, are expanded by Alfred into pleasing tales, such as the gleeman recited during the intervals of his song. FRANCIS PALGRAVE. Alfred the Great, here described as the "Royal Scholar," was born about the year 849. He was a wise and thoughtful prince; systematic in his labors, giving one-third of his time to God, one-third to his subjects, and one-third to rest and recreation. Besides being a learned man he was a skillful general: he drove the Danes from England, and was the founder of a regular government in that country. He died in 901. Sir Francis Palgrave was born in London in July, 1788. He was the author of many valuable historical and other works. He died July 6, 1861. Venerable Bede (4), a monk of the eighth century, was born about the year 673 and died about the year 735. He was the first writer of English prose, and was eminent as scholar, historian, and divine. Though works of piety made up the bulk of his productions, he wrote treatises on philosophy, astronomy, arithmetic, grammar, and history, besides biographies, homilies, and comments on the Scripture. He was a prodigy of learning, and has left a list of forty-five different works which he composed, to which others have been added. He died on the floor of his cell chanting with his last breath the Gloria Patri. “Illuminated capital letters" (2) refers to the beautiful initial letters, at the head of chapters and elsewhere, painted in gold and colors by the monks. "Of gentle kind" (4) means of noble birth. LESSON LVIII. 1. sear; a. withered; dried up. 1. ěd' dỹ ing; a. moving in a circular direction. 3. ŭp'land; n. high or elevated land; land which is generally dry. 1. gùst; n. a sudden rushing of | 3. glĕn; n. a secluded and narthe wind. row valley. The Death of the Flowers. 1. The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbits' tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day. 2. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves-the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. 3. The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; |