Alfred the Great is the only King in our annals who being guilty of misgovernment, and seeing its evils had the high courage to acknowledge his crime by amendment. At the commencement of his reign he seemed to consider his exalted dignity as an emancipation from restraint, and to have found leisure, even amidst his struggles with the Danes, to indulge the irapetuosity of his passions. His immorality and despotism provoked the censure of the virtuous; he was haughty to his subjects, neglected the administration of justice, and treated with contempt the complaints of the indigent and oppressed. In the eighth year of his reign he was driven from the throne by the Danes. Narrowly escaping death and enduring many hardships, adversity brought reflection. According to the piety of the age, instead of tracing events to their political sources, he referred them immediately to the providence of God; and considered his misfortunes as the instrument with which Divine Justice punished his past enormities. By his prudence and valour he regaiued the throne, and drew np a code of laws by which he ordained the governmeat should be administered. Magistrates trembled at his stern impartiality and inflexibility. He executed forty-four judges in one year for their informal and iniquitous proceedings. Hence their survivors and successors were careful to acquire a competent degree of knowledge, and their decisions became accordant to the law. Discovering that the only real foundation of national happiness is in the enlightenment of the people, he instructed them himself by his writings, endowed establishments for the promotion of Education, and became the guardian and benefactor of his country.*--His virtues were the fruit of early instruction. When he was a child, his mother, Osburga, awakened in him a passion for learning aud knowledge. Holding in her hand a Saxon poem, elegantly written and beautifully illnminated, she offered it as a reward to the first of her children whose proficiency should enable him to read it to her. The emulation of Alfred was excited: he ran to his master, applied to the task with diligence, performed it to the satisfaction of the queen, and received the prize of his industry. His mind thus opened by this excellent woman, she dropped in the seeds of knowledge; by careful culture they grew into wisdom, and Alfred is one of the most illustrious instances of the endless blessings conferred upon man by Education.