Some exaggeration must be allowed for in all this account of Alfred the Great. But the fact that he left a stamp in his age so deep,--that nothing except what was good and great has been ascribed to him,--that the very fictions told of him are of such _vraisemblance_ and magnitude as to FIT IN to nothing less than an extraordinary man,--and that, as Burke says, 'whatever dark spots of human frailty may have adhered to such a character, are entirely hid in the splendour of many shining qualities and grand virtues, that throw a glory over the obscure period in which he lived, and which is for no other reason worthy of our knowledge,'--all proclaim his supremacy. Like many great men,--like Julius Caesar, with his epilepsy--or Sir Walter Scott and Byron, with their lameness--or Schleiermacher, with his deformed appearance,--a physical infirmity beset Alfred most of his life, and at last carried him off at a comparatively early age. This was a disease in his bowels, which had long afflicted him, 'without interrupting his designs, or souring his temper.' Nay, who can say that the constant presence of such a memento of weakness and mortality did not operate as a strong, quiet stimulus to do with his might what his hand found to do--to lower pride, and to prompt to labour? If Saladin had had for his companion some such faithful hound of sorrow, it would have saved him the ostentatious flag stretched over his head, in the hour of wassail, with the inscription, 'Saladin, Saladin, king of kings! Saladin must die!' Alfred wrote little that was original, but he was a copious translator. He rendered into the Anglo-Saxon tongue--which he sought to enrich with the fatness of other soils--the historical works of Orosius and of Bede; nay, it is said the Fables of Aesop, and the Psalms of David--desirous, it would seem, to teach his people morality and religion, through the fine medium, of fiction and poetry.