It would be remote from our purpose to notice these piratical excursions, were it not that they sometimes resulted in discovery or commerce. Many of the marauders settled permanently in England in the seventh century, and established there the Anglo-Saxon dominion. Alfred, their most celebrated king, obliged to defend his territory from the Danes, turned his attention zealously to every thing connected with ships, commerce, discovery, and geography, and became the first founder of that naval power which was at a later period to be the world's dread and admiration. The idea of ship-building once conceived, it was prosecuted with astonishing vigor. Alfred not only multiplied their number, but introduced material improvements. Towards the latter part of his reign, his fleet numbered one hundred sail: it was divided into small squadrons and stationed at various places along the coast. The oldest epic in any modern language, the Anglo-Saxon poem of "Beowulf," the Sea-Goth, written in forty-three cantos, and containing some six thousand lines, is occupied mainly in narrating the marvellous exploits of its hero, his combats with a pestilential fire-drake, and his slaying of "a grim giant named Grendel, a descendant of Cain." It incidentally describes a voyage made by Beowulf previous to the ninth century, and from this we may gather a few details, at best barren and unsatisfactory, of the equipments of a vessel in those days. In the extract which we give, the word "sea-nose" will readily be understood as meaning headland, or promontory: "When the king had awaited The time he should stay, Came many to fare On the billows so free. His ship they bore out To the brim of the ocean, And his comrades sat down At their oars as he bade. A word could control His good fellows, the Shylds. On the deck of the ship He stood, by the mast. Ne'er did I hear Of a vessel appointed Better for battle, With weapons of war, And waistcoats of wool, And axes and swords. * * * * The ship was on the waves, Boat under the cliffs. The barons ready To the prow mounted. The chieftains bore On the naked breast Bright ornaments, War-gear, Goth-like. The men shoved off, Men on their willing way, The bounden wood. Then went over the sea-waves, Hurried by the wind, The ship with foamy neck, Most like a sea-fowl, Till about one hour Of the second day The curved prow Had passed onward. So that the sailors The land saw, The shore-cliffs shining, Mountains steep, And broad sea-noses. Then was the sea-sailing Of the Earl at an end. God thanked he That to him the sea-journey Easy had been."