all countries; he was affable and pleasant to all, and curiously eager to investigate things unknown.'" _M. J. Guest, Lectures on the History of England, lecture 9._ "It is no easy task for anyone who has been studying his [Alfred's] life and works to set reasonable bounds to their reverence, and enthusiasm, for the man. Lest the reader should think my estimate tainted with the proverbial weakness of biographers for their heroes; let them turn to the words in which the earliest, and the last of the English historians of that time, sum up the character of Alfred. {787} Florence of Worcester, writing in the century after his death, speaks of him as 'that famous, warlike, victorious king; the zealous protector of widows, scholars, orphans and the poor; skilled in the Saxon poets; affable and liberal to all; endowed with prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance; most patient under the infirmity which he daily suffered; a most stern inquisitor in executing justice; vigilant and devoted in the service of God.' Mr. Freeman, in his 'History of the Norman Conquest,' has laid down the portrait in bold and lasting colours, in a passage as truthful as it is eloquent, which those who are familiar with it will be glad to meet again, while those who do not know it will be grateful to me for substituting for any poor words of my own. 'Alfred, the unwilling author of these great changes, is the most perfect character in history. He is a singular instance of a prince who has become a hero of romance, who, as such, has had countless imaginary exploits attributed to him, but to whose character romance has done no more than justice, and who appears in exactly the same light in history and in fable. No other man on record has ever so thoroughly united all the virtues both of the ruler and of the private man. In no other man on record were so many virtues disfigured by so little alloy. A saint without superstition, a scholar without ostentation, a warrior all whose wars were fought in the defence of his country, a conqueror whose laurels were never stained by cruelty, a prince never cast down by adversity, never lifted up to insolence in the day of triumph--there is no other name in history to compare with his. Saint Lewis comes nearest to him in the union of a more than monastic piety with the highest civil, military, and domestic virtues. Both of them stand forth in honourable contrast to the abject superstition of some other royal saints, who were so selfishly engaged in the care of their own souls that they refused either to raise up heirs for their throne, or to strike a blow on behalf of their people. But even in Saint Lewis we see a disposition to forsake an immediate sphere of duty for the sake of distant and unprofitable, however pious and glorious, undertakings.