=76. Alfred’s Varied Pursuits.=[173]--In the meantime, the king, during the wars and frequent trammels of this present life, the invasions of the heathen, and his own daily infirmities of body, continued to carry on the government, and to practise hunting in all its branches; to teach his goldsmiths[174] and all his artificers, his falconers, hawkers, and dog-keepers; to build houses, majestic and rich beyond all custom of his predecessors, after his own new designs; to recite the Saxon books, and especially to learn by heart Saxon poems,[175] and to make others learn them, he alone never ceasing from studying most diligently to the best of his ability. He daily attended mass and the other services of religion; recited certain psalms, together with prayers, and the daily and nightly hour-service; and frequented the churches at night, as I have said, that he might pray in secret, apart from others. He bestowed alms and largesses both on natives and on foreigners of all countries; was most affable and agreeable to all; and was skilful in the investigation of things unknown.[176] Many Franks, Frisians,[177] Gauls, heathen,[178] Welsh, Irish,[179] and Bretons,[180] noble and simple, submitted voluntarily to his dominion; and all of them, according to their worthiness,[181] he ruled, loved, honored, and enriched with money and power, as if they had been his own people.[182] Moreover, he was sedulous and zealous in the habit of hearing the divine Scriptures read by his own countrymen, or if, by any chance it so happened that any one arrived from abroad, to hear prayers in company with foreigners. His bishops, too, and all the clergy, his ealdormen and nobles, his personal attendants and friends, he loved with wonderful affection. Their sons, too, who were bred up in the royal household, were no less dear to him than his own; he never ceased to instruct them in all kinds of good morals, and, among other things, himself to teach them literature night and day. But as if he had no consolation in all these things, and suffered no other annoyance either from within or without, he was so harassed by daily and nightly sadness that he complained and made moan to the Lord, and to all who were admitted to his familiarity and affection, that Almighty God had made him ignorant of divine wisdom and of the liberal arts; in this emulating the pious, famous, and wealthy Solomon, King of the Hebrews, who at the outset, despising all present glory and riches, asked wisdom of God, and yet found both, namely, wisdom and present glory; as it is written, ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’[183] But God, who is always the observer of the thoughts of the inward mind, the instigator of meditations and of all good purposes, and a plentiful aider in the formation of good desires--for He would never inspire a man to aim at the good unless He also amply supplied that which the man justly and