towers which may well have existed at the beginning of the tenth century. Barnack and Earls Barton may be named, and with them should be classed St. Michael’s at Oxford, and St. Benedict’s at Cambridge. Traces of Saxon work are often found in old churches, but they can seldom be dated in the age of Alfred. It may, in fact, be laid down as a rule that where there were no fortifications, building was of but a temporary character, and where stone did not greatly abound, churches were made of wood and were very perishable. In a few places towers were built specially, like the Irish round towers, for storage and defence. In these cases we usually find great height in proportion, and an arrangement of the entrance so that it can only be reached by a ladder, such as we may still trace in the Tower of London, the keep of which had no entrance on the ground level before the reign of Henry VIII. Of dwelling-houses we see no examples. In London, as much as two centuries later, ordinances were made for the improvement of town dwellings, but that previously this branch of architecture had been sadly neglected we may infer from reading that even chimneys were usually made of wood. We know that castles were built by Alfred, and in his time, but in a majority of cases they consisted only of mounds and stockades, strengthened by great beams and balks of timber. To withstand attacks like those of the Danes, sudden and usually brief, these defences may have been very powerful. At a few places like Tamworth, where some supposed Saxon masonry is still pointed out, or at Colchester, where, as at London, Roman walls were restored, a little building took the place of woodwork. Mr. Clark, the best authority about _Medieval Military Architecture_, says plainly that though “the English were from a remote period conversant with masonry, and constructed churches of stone or timber as suited them best,” they avoided everything but timber where they made a mound or an artificial earthwork of any kind. The Norsemen from the mouth of the Elbe were not very different from the Danes and the Saxons, Jutes and Angles were only earlier immigrants from the same regions. It is not possible now to distinguish the earthworks thrown up by Alfred and his men from those of the Danes which they overthrew. One thing only we can recognise as his peculiar work, namely, the formation in his own mind of clearly devised plans by which, with inferior strength, with fewer men and arms, and in face of frequent disaster, he was able to consolidate his power, to turn even defeat into success, and at last, before his early death, both to obtain a time of respite for his people and to show them how in the future they might always hopefully resist the invader. If the Danish attack was for the moment overwhelming, it was desultory. The defence offered by Alfred was far-seeing, part of a consistent whole, a scheme which must eventually prevail.