thirty-seven years and seven months, he departed this life, and was buried at Winchester; leaving an ample field of glory for his son, and declaring, that he must be happy, if he was careful not to destroy, by the indolence natural to his race, a kingdom that himself had consolidated with such consummate industry. CHAP. II. _Of king Ethelwulf._ [A.D. 839-858.] [Sidenote: [A.D. 838-851.] OF KING ETHELWULF.] In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 837,[120] Ethelwulf, whom some call Athulf, the son of Egbert, came to the throne, and reigned twenty years and five months. Mild by nature he infinitely preferred a life of tranquillity to dominion over many provinces; and, finally, content with his paternal kingdom, he bestowed all the rest, which his father had subjugated, on his son Ethelstan; of whom it is not known when, or in what manner, he died. He assisted Burhred, king of the Mercians, with an army against the Britons, and highly exalted him by giving him his daughter in marriage. He frequently overcame the piratical Danes, who were traversing the whole island and infesting the coast with sudden descents, both personally and by his generals; although, according to the chance of war, he himself experienced great and repeated calamities; London and almost the whole of Kent being laid waste. Yet these disasters were ever checked by the alacrity of the king’s advisers, who suffered not the enemy to trespass with impunity, but fully avenged themselves on them by the effect of their united counsels. For he possessed at that time, two most excellent prelates, St. Swithun of Winchester, and Ealstan of Sherborne, who perceiving the king to be of heavy and sluggish disposition, perpetually stimulated him, by their admonitions, to the knowledge of governing. Swithun, disgusted with earthly, trained his master to heavenly pursuits; Ealstan, knowing that the business of the kingdom ought not to be neglected, continually inspirited him against the Danes: himself furnishing the exchequer with money, as well as regulating the army. Any peruser of the Annals[121] will find many affairs of this kind, both entered on with courage, and terminated with success through his means. He held his bishopric fifty years; happy in living for so long a space in the practice of good works. I should readily commend him, had he not been swayed by worldly avarice, and usurped what belonged to others, when by his intrigues he seized the monastery of Malmesbury for his own use. We feel the mischief of this shameful conduct even to the present day, although the monastery has baffled all similar violence from the time of his death till now, when it has fallen again into like difficulty.[122] Thus the accursed passion of avarice corrupts the human soul, and forces men, though great and illustrious in other respects, into hell.