For the Cambridge professors having, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, unblushingly claimed for their founder, Eneas, the son of Brute, those of Oxford cast about for some way of lengthening their own pedigree to “pre-historic” times, and not content with the reputation of having Alfred for their founder, boldly asserted that Oxford had been a place of study for at least a thousand years before the Christian era; and appealed to the “old scholastics” whom Grimbald is said to have found in possession, in support of their statement. But though the disputed passage is not to be found in the more authentic manuscripts of Asser, yet in them he makes mention of certain schools founded by Alfred, the locality of which he does not name, and there seems no solid ground for rejecting the tradition that fixes them at Oxford, and represents Grimbald as exercising there the office of teacher. The same tradition assigns St. Peter’s Church as the scene of his labours, and the Saxon crypt of that church, which is beyond all doubt one of the highest antiquity, is commonly called St. Grimbald’s crypt, and is said to have been built by him and intended as his own place of sepulture. But even granting thus much to the Oxford antiquarians it is evident that the circumstantial account which represents the university as founded by Alfred in the same regular form which it assumed in the thirteenth century is altogether fabulous. And it must be allowed that national pride has considerably overstated the work achieved by Alfred as a reviver of learning, and a reformer of discipline. How small an improvement had taken place in the general tone of the Anglo-Saxon clergy may be gathered from the severe reproof addressed to them in the following reign by Pope Formosus, in which it is declared that the impieties of paganism had been suffered to revive in England, while the bishops “remained silent like dogs unable to bark.” Such a deplorable state of things can in no way be attributed to any negligence on the part of Alfred, but as he himself has told us, “without tools no man can do his work,” and in his day the right tools were wanting. Hence, though several of his successors inherited his learned tastes, they were able to accomplish but little for the promotion of letters. Edward the Elder is said to have founded or restored some schools at Cambridge, and Athelstan is not only styled a _doctarum artium amator_, but is even to be numbered in our list of royal authors, some of his books being discovered by Leland in the library of Bath abbey. But the renewed incursions of the Danes, and the continued wars in which these princes were engaged, prevented their devoting much attention to the encouragement of literature, and, as Wood expresses it, the drum of Mars forced Minerva into a corner. The dearth at this time of monastic houses, and consequently of schools, is proved by the fact that the very few Englishmen who were attracted