From these abortive attempts at interpretation, we gather that this singularly elaborate phenomenon of a Jewel had the effect of setting curiosity and imagination awork in the minds of those who contemplated it, and that some theory, however precipitate, became a sort of necessity. To this category must be added a more recent conjecture, which, as it proceeded from a highly honoured source, as it was persistently and circumstantially argued out, and as it has been widely accepted, demands a chapter by itself. [7] Macaulay, _History_, c. iii. [8] Appendix A. [9] Appendix B. CHAPTER IV BISHOP CLIFFORD’S THEORY[10] The theories about the Alfred Jewel which have been noticed hitherto, belong to the crude attempts at interpretation which were evoked by the surprize of the strange discovery in the last decade of the seventeenth century. We come now to a new theory which was broached in our own time by Bishop Clifford, in his Inaugural Address as President of the Somersetshire Archæological Society in 1877, when the Annual Meeting of that Society was held at Bridgwater. This theory demands a fuller attention than any of the foregoing, first, because it bears manifest tokens of maturer thought, but further, because there is much curious material woven into its fabric, which gives it independent value. If only for the single fact that it introduces a new explanation of the problematic ‘æstel,’ it ought to quicken the interest of every reader. It will be better on all accounts that the ideas of the author be presented in his own words: