But the noblest presentation of character in pagan Anglo-Saxon poetry is afforded by the epic poem of _Beowulf_, which tells the story of a Geatic hero who sets out for Denmark to slay a monster, accomplishes the feat, is nobly rewarded by the Danish king, and returns to rule his own people justly for fifty winters, when his valiant and beneficent life ends in a last victorious conflict with a hoard-guarding dragon. Here myth and tradition were not peculiarly Anglo-Saxon; but the finally recast and finished work, noble in diction, sentiment, and action, expresses the highest ethics of Anglo-Saxon heathendom. Beowulf does what he ought to do, heroically; and finds satisfaction and reward. He does not seek his pleasure, though that comes with gold and mead-drinking; consciousness of deeds done bravely and the assurance of fame sweeten death at last.[176] A century or more after the composition of this poem, there lived an Anglo-Saxon whose aims were spiritualized through Christianity, whose vigorous mind was broadened by such knowledge and philosophy as his epoch had gathered from antique sources, and whose energies were trained in generalship and the office of a king. He presents a life intrinsically good and true, manifesting itself in warfare against heathen barbarism and in endeavour to rule his people righteously and enlarge their knowledge. Many of the qualities and activities of Alfred had no place in the life of Beowulf. Yet the heathen hero and the Christian king were hewn from the same rock of Saxon manhood. Alfred’s life was established upon principles of right conduct generically the same as those of the poem. But Christianity, experience, contact with learned men, and education through books, had informed him of man’s spiritual nature, and taught him that human welfare depended on knowledge and intent and will. Accordingly, his beneficence does not stop with the armed safe-guarding of his realm, but seeks to compass the instruction of those who should have knowledge in order the better to guide the faith and conduct of the people. “He seems to me a very foolish man and inexcusable, who will not increase his knowledge the while that he is in this world, and always wish and will that he may come to the everlasting life where nothing shall be dark or unknown.”[177] II