irretrievably lost his hold on this country, he remained firmly seated on the throne of Denmark. He was the ancestor of Canute the Great, joint King of Denmark and of England, who regained all, and more than all, that his great-grandfather had lost in this country, for Canute ruled, not over a portion of England, but over an undivided kingdom. Gorm died in 890. The latter part of Alfred’s reign was devoted to the affairs of his country. He gave his people good laws; dividing the kingdom into divisions called “hundreds” and “tythings,” which exercised a sort of internal jurisdiction over their own affairs. He rebuilt London, and over the whole of his kingdom he caused houses to be built, good and dignified beyond any that had hitherto been known in the land. He encouraged industries of all kinds, and had the artificers taught new and better methods of work in metals and gold. He encouraged religion and learning, inviting good and learned men from abroad or wherever he could hear of them, and richly rewarding their efforts. He devoted much time to prayer; but his wise and sane mind prevented him from becoming a bigot, as his activity in practical affairs prevented him from becoming a mere pedant. One of his most lasting works was the establishment of England’s first navy, to guard her shores against the attacks of foreigners. All these great reforms were carried out amid much personal suffering, for from his youth he had been afflicted with an internal complaint, beyond the surgical knowledge of his day to cure, and he was in constant pain of a kind so excruciating that Asser tells us the dread of its return tortured his mind even when his body was in comparative rest. There is in English history no character which combines so many great qualities as that of Alfred. Within and without he found his kingdom in peril and misery, crushed down, ignorant and without religion; he left it a flourishing and peaceful country, united and at rest. When his son, Edward the Elder, succeeded him on the throne, not only Wessex but the whole North of England, with the Scots, took him “for father and lord”; that is, they accepted him, for the first time in history, as king of a united England. This great change was the outcome of the many years of patient building up of his country which Alfred had brought about through wise rule. He was open-handed and liberal to all, dividing his revenue into two parts, one half of which he kept for his own necessities and the uses of the kingdom and for building noble edifices; the other for the poor, the encouragement of learning, and the support and foundation of monasteries. He took a keen interest in a school for the young nobles which he founded and endowed, determining that others should not, in their desire for learning, meet with the same difficulties that he had himself experienced. In his childhood it had not been thought necessary that even princes and men of rank should be taught to read; and the story is