5. Last, and in some ways most interesting of all the literary labours of Alfred, comes his translation of the _Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius_. This is a book which, after enjoying during the early Middle Ages a popularity perhaps somewhat greater than its merits, has fallen since the revival of learning into much less deserved oblivion. In it Boethius, a Roman nobleman who was cast into prison and eventually executed by order of the Gothic king Theodoric, sets forth the comfort which came to him in his wearisome imprisonment by meditations on Divine Philosophy. The problem which perplexed him and which Philosophy, the spiritual companion of his solitude, sought to solve, was the world-old one, “Why do the wicked flourish and why are the righteous afflicted?” Strange to say, though Boethius was a Christian, and was even in a certain sense a martyr for the Catholic faith, the Christian solution of the problem is kept almost entirely out of sight, and the answers suggested are such as might have been given by Socrates or Epictetus. Boethius believes in a Divine Ruler of the universe, and the general tendency of the book is towards the strengthening of belief, but it is belief rather of a theistic than of a definitely Christian type. However with all its defects and all its strange silences, the book was one which had a great attraction for many of the noblest minds of a bewildered Europe, and not least for the great West Saxon king, who, struggling against the depressing influences of disease, and ever dreading a fresh outburst of the Danish volcano, felt that he, too, like the author, had much need of “the Consolation of Philosophy”. In his other translations he had been working for his people; in this, which was probably executed towards the close of his reign, he was, perhaps, working rather for himself, for the solace and fortification of his own troubled spirit. We have seen that Alfred did not take a slavish view of the duties of a translator; and in his _Boethius_ he is more lordly than ever, omitting, adding, altering with a sublime contempt for mere verbal accuracy. It is, however, these very changes which make the book so precious to a student of Alfred’s own character. We see therein what were the thoughts which were most akin to his nature; we learn something of the secret springs of his actions; we can almost listen to the conversations which he held with his bishops and thegns in the great wooden palace at Winchester.