God strikes a silence through you all, His dews drop mutely on the hill, Ay, men may wonder while they scan For me, my heart that erst did go And friends, dear friends, when it shall be It seems as if each Christian state had possessed a royal ancestor, for whose sake, as for that of David, the throne was established, and his seed borne with and made to prosper. Such were St. Louis in France, St. Stephen of Hungary, Rodolph of Hapsburg in Germany, and in England our own Alfred. Of these kings the wise and true observer, Schlegel, says, "that a lively sketch of such men and rulers, who acted and governed well and greatly, according to Christian principles and views, would furnish a far more complete idea of the Christian state than any laboured or artificial development." How beautiful, that men have so lived on this earth as to "prove what is that good and perfect will of God," better than any fancied dreamland or system that our imagination could frame! how it shows what the Holy Spirit, working through frail weak men, can effect even in this world, and what encouragement to us to work on cheerfully and do our best in the present state of things rather than indulge in day-dreams of what we might be if all around were different. Alfred well maintains, even a thousand years after his death, his right to his old Saxon title of England's Darling; for hardly an English child who has received any education does not delight to think of the disguised king in the swineherd's cottage; and from the first moment of hearing that pretty story each subsequent return to Alfred's history increases our honour and love for him. Even men who would not honour him for his goodness have been forced to admire his ability, and for his victories and his wisdom have given him the surname of their worldly heroes, "the Great," and have thus caused to be forgotten his more beautiful names, the Truth-Teller, England's Darling, the Shepherd of his People. Because Solomon chose wisdom, riches, honour, long life were added unto him; Alfred sought first the one thing needful, and received all these things, excepting long life, which to a Christian was not the same boon as to an Israelite of old. Alfred was the fifth son of King Ethelwolf, who was the first to make the payment of tenths to the clergy a part of the law of the land. He was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, where great pride is still taken in him, and where, in 1848, his thousandth birth-day was celebrated in the way he would probably have most preferred, by services of thanksgiving; by clearing the old Saxon white horse on the chalk down, and by the foundation of a grammar-school. Little could Alfred have guessed when he struggled to earn the precious manuscriptbook how easy and cheap of attainment the instruction would be which cost him so many efforts. It is another question whether all we learn or seek to learn is what Alfred would have chosen and have valued; and certainly the mere acquiring of knowledge will not make us wiser than he was. At seven years old Alfred went with his father on pilgrimage to Rome, where it is recorded that he was anointed by the pope. This might either be at his confirmation, or his father might have designed for him one of the divisions of England, which was not as yet regarded as a single kingdom. It was shortly after his return that the incident of the book of poetry occurred, and occasioned him to learn to read. It seems as if he might have been more inclined to study by the delicacy of his health, for he had never been strong from his infancy, and often was quite disabled by illness. When he was about fifteen or sixteen he, however, suddenly recovered, and, as he considered, in answer to his prayers in a church in Cornwall, where he had entreated that if chastisement was to be sent to him it might come in such a manner as might not disable him from actively serving his country. From this time he took his full share in all the active and manly exercises by which young men were trained for war. Still he strove hard for all the learning that could be attained, and deep and sacred truths were impressed on his mind by St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, and chancellor, and by St. Neot, a hermit of Cornwall. There is strong reason to believe the latter was his elder brother Ethelstane, who, after governing his father's kingdom of Kent for some years, retired from the world, and spent a life of devotion. The sons of Ethelwolf, as it is well known, each reigned for a few years, and then died, leaving sons so young that the Saxon laws appointed the grown-up brother to succeed in their stead. In the reign of his last brother, Ethelred, Alfred in his twentieth year was married to Elswitha, the daughter of Ethelred Muckle (or the Great), an elderman of Mercia. The festivities lasted three days; but in the midst of one of the great banquets, to the dismay of all the guests, the bridegroom suddenly gave a loud ery of agony. It was the first attack of a malady, the cause of which was never discovered, and from which he suffered all the rest of his life, never passing a day without fits of pain, often so violent that he could hardly enjoy the intervals of repose. He endured it meekly, looking on it as an answer to his prayer, since it did not render him incapable of exertion; and such was his selfcommand, that he never seems again to have betrayed how much he underwent. And how little he indulged or spared himself on this account is shown by his allotting himself, in his division of the day, only eight hours altogether for repose, recreation, and for meals. tivity and high spirit were not impaired; and His ac when his brother Ethelred mustered his forces to repel the Danes, after their conquest of East Anglia, Alfred joined him, and fought by his side in the battle of Reading. At Ashdown Alfred committed one of the few faulty actions which show how much he must have had to conquer in himself. He saw the Danes marshalled on the opposite hill, and rushing into the tent, where his brother was hearing the mass (or communion service), interrupted the priest by calling him to the battle. Ethelred knelt on, without moving, and desired the priest to proceed, refusing to go forth till he had prayed the God of hosts to bless his endeavours. Angry and impatient, Alfred hurried away, hastened to his own division of the army, and at their head fiercely attacked the enemy; but he was surrounded, his men slain on all sides, and himself in extreme danger, when Ethelred, with the rest of the forces, made in to his rescue, and gained the battle. Ethelred received a wound, of which he died after lingering a few weeks, and Alfred, bitterly repenting of his faithless impatience, found himself at twenty-two the king of a realm desolated by a foreign enemy, and shaken by the disaffection of the rude, ignorant, turbulent natives. Alfred was not of a temper to conciliate them. He was weakly and delicate, and they were likely to despise him for his want of personal strength, as well as for the love of learning, which they must have thought fitter for a clerk than a king. He was more refined than they, disliking the riotous festivities in which alone they took pleasure; and young as he was, and conscious of his own superiority, he openly showed his contempt and disgust. He was also thought proud and harsh; his administration of justice, always strict, was at this early period so severe as to be almost cruel; and he was so taken up with his own pursuits as to be difficult of access, so that the poor were unable to complain to him of their grievances. His brother, St. Neot, came from his hermitage in Cornwall to warn him of the perils of the reserve and haughtiness with which he treated his people. He did not speak of its inexpediency and of the danger of making himself unpopular, but he rebuked him for the sin of pride, and told him that punishment would surely follow. Punishment did follow, as the hermit had foretold, and after seven years of constant warfare, the Saxons, discouraged and disaffected. fell away from him, and he became a homeless wanderer. It was at this time that his bestknown adventures took place, his abode in the His bro swineherd's cottage, and his patient endurance The victory of Ethandune was gained, and was made more glorious by Alfred's treatment of the captive Guthrum, whom he brought to embrace the Christian religion, and then granted him the kingdom of East Anglia. This was the turning-point; and though other bodies of Danes under Hasting and other chieftains made one or two descents on the coast, they were always speedily defeated and driven back. Alfred was the first English prince who built ships, by which means he kept back many of the attempted incursions of the enemy; and though always obliged to be on his guard, and seldom passing a year without a sudden summons to the coast, the remainder of his reign was spent in comparative peace and prosperity. It is strange to observe how many of our best institutions are ascribed to King Alfred. Our navy, the trial by jury, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the division of the kingdom into counties, hundreds, and tithings, the study of the English as a language, all on more or less authority are dated from his time, and are believed to have been devised by his wisdom. He was one of the strictest and most just of judges, the wisest of statesmen, the most earnest of scholars, the most Then followed the spring, when the sight of some peasants flying before the Danes caused the king to seize his weapons, and put himself at the head of the fugitives, who, encouraged by his presence, turned and drove back the enemy beyond the rivers Thone and Parret, which, with the surrounding morasses, pro-active of warriors, the most devout of Christected the so-called island. There he raised a little fort, where he was joined by his wife and children, together with a few faithful warriors, and there it was that in the midst of their poverty he and Elswitha gave half their last loaf to the beggar. In this place was found a golden ornament, bearing the name of Alfred, which perhaps was taken off when he assumed this disguise. Seven months had passed in this manner, while more and more the Saxons were rallying round him in his retreat, and at length the encouraging tidings came that Cynwith, Elderman of Devon, had, in defending his castle, routed a great body of Danes, and taken the famous Raven standard. On this Alfred resolved to show himself openly, and when he had, in his minstrel disguise, reconnoitred the camp of Guthrum, he sent forth a summons to all his West Saxon subjects to come round him once more. The red dragon which marked the presence of the King of Wessex was again uplifted on the high green hill of Stourhead, in Wiltshire, commanding no less than three counties, and where a tower still marks the spot where the standard was planted, and where there gathered round it many an honest Saxon heart, prepared to make up by courage and firmness for their late desertion and faintness of spirit? tians, performing each duty so thoroughly, that it is hard to believe that his whole life, and that a long one, was not devoted to that one singly; instead of which all these together were effected by one man, in the course of a life of but fifty-two years, and constantly suffering from ill health. His apportionment of his time is well known, and only occasions more wonder at all he succeeded in doing. He is said to have been the inventor of the candles marked by coloured rings, by which the Saxons measured their time; and though it was his wonderful talent that enabled him to accomplish so much, yet this strict regard to the employment of time as a duty is one of the great lessons in his life. He found time, after the great defeat of the Danes, for his long-cherished desire of learning Latin. Asser, a learned Welsh monk, and a Scot named Erigena, both of whom he invited to his court, and Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, were his chief instructors; and Plegmund was even able to teach him a little Greek. In fact, the palace seems to have been a sort of college for good and holy teaching, where the king was at once the first scholar and the best master. There were educated his three sons-the promising and short-lived Etheling, Edmund, with Edward and Ethelwold, the youngest of whom was afterwards ENGLISH LITERATURE. By far the most considerable change which has taken place in the world of letters in our days is that by which the wits of Queen Anne's time have been gradually brought down from the supremacy which they had enjoyed without competition for the best part of a century. When we were at our studies we can perfectly remember that every young man was set to read Pope, Swift, and Addison as regularly as Virgil, Cicero, and Horace. All who had any tincture of letters were familiar with their writings and their history: allusions to them abounded in all popular discourses and all ambitious conversation; and they and their contemporaries were universally acknowledged as our great models of excellence, and placed without challenge at the head of our national literature. New books, even when allowed to have merit, were never thought of as fit to be placed in the same class, but were generally read and forgotten, and passed away like the transitory meteors of a lower sky; while they remained in their brightness, and were supposed to shine with a fixed and unalterable glory. All this, however, we take it, is now pretty well altered; and in so far as persons of our antiquity can judge of the training and habits | of the rising generation, those celebrated writers no longer form the manual of our studious youth, or enter necessarily into the institution of a liberal education. Their names, indeed, are still familiar to our ears; but their writings no longer solicit our habitual notice, and their subjects begin already to fade from our recollection. Their high privileges and proud distinctions, at any rate, have evidently passed into other hands. It is no longer to them that the ambitious look up with envy, or the humble with admiration; nor is it in their pages that the pretenders to wit and eloquence now search for allusions that are sure to captivate, and illustrations that cannot be mistaken. In this decay of their reputation they have few advocates and no imitators. And from a comparison of many observations, it seems to be clearly ascertained that they are declined considerably from “the high meridian of their glory," and may fairly be apprehended to be "hastening to their setting.' Neither is it time alone that has wrought this obscuration for the fame of Shakspeare still shines in undecaying brightness, and that of Bacon has been 1 steadily advancing and gathering new honours during the whole period which has witnessed the rise and decline of his less vigorous succes sors. There are but two possible solutions for phenomena of this sort. Our taste has either degenerated, or its old models have been fairly surpassed; and we have ceased to admire the writers of the last century, only because they are too good for us, or because they are not good enough. Now, we confess we are no believers in the absolute and permanent corruption of national taste; on the contrary, we think that it is, of all faculties, that which is most sure to advance and improve with time and experience; and that, with the exception of those great physical or political disasters which have given a check to civilization itself, there has always been a sensible progress in this particular, and that the general taste of every successive generation is better than that of its predecessors. There are little capricious fluctuations, no doubt, and fits of foolish admiration or fastidiousness, which cannot be so easily accounted for. But the great movements are all progressive; and though the progress consists at one time in withholding toleration from gross faults, and at another in giving their high prerogative to great beauties, this alternation has no tendency to obstruct the general advance, but, on the contrary, is the best and the safest course in which it can be conducted. We are of opinion, then, that the writers who adorned the beginning of the last century have been eclipsed by those of our own time, and that they have no chance of ever regaining the supremacy in which they have thus been supplanted. There is not, however, in our judgment, anything very stupendous in this triumph of our contemporaries; and the greater wonder with us is that it was so long delayed, and left for them to achieve. For the truth is, that the writers of the former age had not a great deal more than their judgment and industry to stand on, and were always much more remarkable for the fewness of their faults than the greatness of their beauties. Their laurels were won much more by good conduct and discipline than by enterprising boldness or native force; nor can it be regarded as any very great merit in those who had so little of the inspiration of genius to have steered clear of the dangers to which that inspiration is liable. Speaking generally of that generation of authors, it may be said that, as poets, they had no force or greatness of fancy—no pathos, and no enthusiasm,—and, as philosophers, no |