Page:Comic History of England.djvu/52

48 desolated cities,—London especially, which had become a sight to behold. A new stock-law, requiring the peasantry to shut up their unicorns during certain seasons of the year and keep them out of the crops, also protecting them from sportsmen while shedding their horns in spring, or moulting, it is said, was passed, but the English historians are such great jokers that the writer has had much difficulty in culling the facts and eliminating the persiflage from these writings.



Alfred the Great only survived his last victory over the Danes, at Kent, a few years, when he died greatly lamented. He was a brave soldier, a successful all-around monarch, and progressive citizen in age of beastly ignorance, crime, superstition, self-indulgence, and pathetic stupidity.

He translated several