Well may we exclaim with Sir Walter Besant—‘What follows is like a dream!’ Yea, verily, like a dream in its sudden transformation of the whole face and prospect of things, and equally unaccountable too; for no attempt to explain it by natural causes will ever match the stupendous result. It is not in order to dispel an illusion that we seek to trace the plan and the process—the illusion cannot be dispelled. No, rather it is in order to penetrate further into the action of a life that has kindled our admiration. Of that life we have a mirror in the enthusiasm with which his presence had fired the Welsh of Somerset beyond Pedrida. It is surely no mere accident that in the memorandum of that resolute force which mustered for his restoration, the first item should be—SUMORSÆTE ALLE. [30] Among promising fields of exercise in exploring the bed of the sea, there is the coast from Swanage Bay round to St. Aldhelm’s Head, which might yield some durable relics from the loot of ancient monasteries. And if Alfred really did purchase the evacuation of Wareham in 877, ‘pecuniam dando,’ as Ethelwerd has it, the very coins may still be there, and in a good state of preservation. [31] Þa gegaderode Æþered ealdormon and Æþelm ealdorman and Æþelnoþ ealdorman, and þa cinges þegnas þe þa æt ham æt þæm geweorcum wæron, of alcre byrig be eastan Pedredan, ge be westan Sealwuda ge be eastan; ge eac be norþan Temese, and be westan Sæfern, ge eac sum dæl þæs Norð Weal cynnes. _Sax. Chron._, Ā. 894. [32] Kemble, _Codex Diplomaticus_, vol. iii, p. 423; Birch, _Cartularium Saxonicum_, No. 814. [33] _The English Dialect Dictionary._ Edited by Joseph Wright, M.A., Ph.D., Deputy Professor of Comparative Philology in the University of Oxford. [34] 658. Her Cenwalh gefeaht æt Peonnum wiþ Walas and hie gefliemde oþ Pedridan. [35] 682. On þissum geare Centwine gefliemde Bret Wealas oþ sæ. [36] Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archæological and Natural History Society, vol. xviii. [37] From an Address by Professor Boyd Dawkins in the Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archæological and Natural History Society for the year 1872. [38] _A General History of Quadrupeds. The Figures engraved on Wood by Thomas Bewick_, 1820, p. 135. In Taunton Castle, which is the home and museum of the Somersetshire Archæological and Natural History Society, the form and beauty of the red deer may be contemplated in a fine specimen which is set up in the great hall, the very hall of the Bloody Assize. [39] Appendix E. [40] The West Saxon form of this name was Wine, but I write it Wina, as also I adopt the Latin form Ina, in place of the genuine Ine, lest the English reader should allow it to pass through his mind in the shape of a monosyllable. The Anglian forms of these names (in Bede) are Ini and Wini.