The merit of this prince both in private and public life may with advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen which the annals of any age or nation can present to us. He seems, indeed, to be the model of that perfect character which, under the denomination of sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of delineating rather as a fiction of their own imagination than in hopes of seeing it existing, so happily were all his virtues tempered together, so justly were they blended, and so powerfully did each prevent the other from exceeding its proper boundaries. He knew how to reconcile the most enterprising spirit with the coolest moderation, the most obstinate perseverance with the easiest flexibility; the most severe justice with the gentlest lenity; the greatest vigor in commanding with the most perfect affability of deportment; the highest capacity and inclination for science with the most shining talents for action. His civil and his military virtues are almost equally the objects of our admiration, excepting only that the former being more rare among princes as well as more useful seem chiefly to challenge our applause. Nature, also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily accomplishment--vigor of limbs, dignity of air and shape, with a pleasant, engaging, and open countenance. Fortune alone by throwing him into that barbarous age deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively colors, and with more peculiar strokes, that we may at least perceive some of those specks and blemishes from which as a man it is impossible he could be entirely exempted. The better to guide the magistrates in the administration of justice, Alfred framed a body of laws, which, though now lost, served long as the basis of English jurisprudence, and is generally deemed the origin of what is denominated the Common Law. The similarity of these institutions to the customs of the ancient Germans, to the practice of the other Northern conquerors, and to the Saxon laws during the heptarchy, prevents us from regarding Alfred as the sole author of this plan of government, and leads us rather to think that, like a wise man, he contented himself with reforming, extending, and executing the institutions which he found previously established.