The great king had throughout a most picturesque and adventurous life: he is hard pushed by the Danes--by rivals--by his own family; one while a wanderer on the moors--another time disguised as minstrel in the enemy’s camp; but always high-hearted, always hopeful, always working. He is oppressed by the pall of ignorance that overlays the lordly reach of his kingdom: “Scarce a priest have I found,” says he, “south of the Thames who can render Latin into English.” He is not an apt scholar himself, but he toils at learning; his abbots help him; he revises old chronicles, and makes people to know of Beda; he has boys taught to write in English; gives himself with love to the rendering of Boëthius’ “Consolation of Philosophy.” He adopts its reasoning, and plants his hope on the creed-- 1st. That a wise God governs. 2d. That all suffering may be made helpful. 3d. That God is chiefest good. 4th. That only the good are happy. 5th. That the foreknowledge of God does not conflict with Free-will. These would seem to carry even now the pith and germ of the broadest theologic teachings. It is a noble and a picturesque figure--that of King Alfred--which we see, looking back over the vista of a thousand years; better it would seem than that of King Arthur to weave tales around, and illumine with the heat and the flame of poesy. Yet poets of those times and of all succeeding times have strangely neglected this august and royal type of manhood. After him came again weary Danish wars and wild blood-letting and ignorance surging over the land, save where a little light played fitfully around such great religious houses as those of York and Canterbury. It was the dreary Tenth Century, on the threshold of which he had died--the very core and kernel of the Dark Ages, when the wisest thought the end of things was drawing nigh, and strong men quaked with dread at sight of an eclipse, or comet, or at sound of the rumble of an earthquake. It was a time and a condition of gloom which made people pardon, and even relish such a dismal poem as that of “The Grave,” which--though bearing thirteenth century form--may well in its germ have been a fungal outgrowth of the wide-spread hopelessness of this epoch:-- For thee was a house built Ere thou wert born; For thee was a mold meant Ere thou of mother cam’st. But it is not made ready Nor its depth measured, Nor is it seen How long it shall be. Now I bring thee Where thou shalt be And I shall measure thee And the mold afterward. Doorless is that house And dark is it within; There thou art fast detained And death hath the key Loathsome is that earth-house And grim within to dwell, And worms shall divide thee.