We have long given up the venerable fables which once gathered round the name of Alfred, as round Romulus, or Theseus, King Arthur, or the Cid. Every schoolboy knows that Alfred was not formally King of all England; nor did he introduce trial by jury, or electoral institutions; he did not found the University of Oxford; nor write all the pieces which are attributed to his pen; he was perhaps too practical a man to let his own supper get burnt on the hearth; and too wary a general to go about masquerading with a harp in the enemy’s camp. But the historic Alfred whom we know to-day is a personage more splendid and lifelike than the legendary Alfred ever was. Though much of what our grandsires believed about Alfred is now known to be poetry and pious fraud, the traditional Alfred was quite just in general effect, and modern research has given us a portrait both nobler and more definite than that drawn by the patriotic imagination of a less critical age. Patriotic imagination itself falls far short of scrupulous scholarship when it seeks to draw the likeness of a real hero. It is true that the field of Alfred’s achievements was relatively small, and the whole scale of his career was modest indeed when compared with that of his imperial compeers. He inherited a kingdom which covered only a few English counties, and at one time his realm was reduced to a smaller area than that of some private landlords of modern times. Beside the great Emperor Charles, or the German Ottos, Henrys, and Fredericks of the Middle Ages, his dominions, his resources, his armies, his battles, his fleets, his administrative machinery, his contemporary glory—all these were almost in miniature—hardly a tithe of theirs. But, we should remember, it is _quality_ not _quantity_ that weighs in the impartial scales of History. True human greatness needs no vast territories as its stage—nor do multitudes add to its power. That which tells in the end is the living seed of the creative mind, the heroic example, the sovereign gift of leadership, the undying inspiration of genius and faith.