Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/544

Rh 506 A L F A L F book of family devotion; and in 1867, a collection of original hymns called The Year of Praise, works of little pretension, but by which his name was widely popularised. His latest poetic effusion of any considerable length was The Children of the Lord s Prayer, which appeared in 1869 as the letterpress accompaniment to designs by F. K. Pickersgill, E.A. The miscellaneous papers he had con tributed to periodicals were, the same year, collected under the name of Essays and Addresses, He brought out, in 1865, his Letters from Abroad, eminently characteristic records of travel, mainly descriptive of Italian cities and scenery; and in 1870, a collection of spirited pen and pencil sketches of The Riviera, the latter being reproduced from his water-colour drawings by the aid of chromo-litho- graphy. The artist faculty, it has been observed, and not extravagantly, &quot;would have made him a great land scape painter had he not, either from preference or neces sity, become a great Greek scholar and a dean.&quot; Such were the pliancy and the resilience of his nature that he would turn with zest, after hours of severe study given to the collation of a Hebrew manuscript or to the examination of the exegetical subtleties of a German commentator on the Greek Testament, to doctoring the hall clock and making it strike the half-hours, to tuning the piano in the drawing-room, or to playing games with his children in the nursery. The wooden front of the organ (which instrument he could play with the hand of a master) was carved according to his own ingenious design and by his own dexterous chiselling. A Masque of the Seasons, per formed as a holiday pastime on New Year s Day 1861, in the deanery, owed to him both the words and the music he himself, besides, enacting in it the part of &quot; Father Christmas.&quot; A couple of years before his death he appeared as a novelist, conjointly with his niece producing the story of NetkeHon on Sea. The last work of any magnitude upon which he adventured as a biblical scholar was his Com mentary on the Old Testament. In the diversity of his avoca tions, and the thoroughness with which they were, one and all, carried to a successful issue, he was his own severest taskmaster. Throughout life, until he was stretched upon his deathbed, he never seemed to indulge in the luxury of inaction. The end came at length to him calmly, on the 12th January 1871, and five days afterwards his remains were interred under a yew tree in St Martin s churchyard, vithin view of the towers of Canterbury Cathedral. It is aignificant of the tender poetical quaintness of his whole character, that there is inscribed above his tomb, in obedience to his own directions, &quot; Diversorium Viatoris Hierosolymam Proficiscentis.&quot; A statue of the dean, by Pfyffers, was un veiled, before the year of his demise had run out, in a niche on the west front of the most ancient of our cathedrals. Dean Alford was a man as variously accomplished as any of his generation; and he would unquestionably have risen to far greater eminence than he ever achieved in poetry, in oratory, in music, in painting, in theology, or in general literature, if he had aimed at excelling in one or two alone of those arts or sciences, instead of endeavouring to shine in all of them alike. (c. K.) ALFRED, or ^ELFEED, THE GREAT, the youngest son of ^Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons, was born at Wantage in Berkshire in 849 A.D. At an early age he was summoned to the assistance of his brother vEthelred against the Danes. These formidable enemies, whose object hitherto had been mere plunder, were now aiming at a permanent settlement in the country, and after ravag ing and subduing Northumbria, East Anglia, and the greater part of Mercia, they fell with their united forces on Wessex itself. A series of encounters took place, in which Alfred greatly distinguished himself, especially at Ashdown, where the Danes were routed with great slaughter, and left several of their most famous leaders dead on the field of battle. ^Ethelred dying in the midst of the struggle, Alfred was unanimously elected king (871), in the twenty- second year of his age. About a month after his accession he met the enemy at Wilton, where, after a long and doubtful struggle, he was defeated. Both parties were now becoming tired of the war. Immense loss had been suffered on both sides, and although the Danes on the whole had been victorious, their victories had brought them no substantial results. A treaty of peace was con cluded, and the Danes withdrew to London. On the cessation of hostilities, Alfred was enabled to turn his attention to naval affairs. The sea was swarming with pirates, and their descents on the coast kept the country in a state of perpetual alarm. To cope with them successfully Alfred resolved to meet them on their own element, and a naval victory which he gained over seven Danish rovers in 875 is the first on record won by Englishmen. In the following year the peace of 871 was broken. An army of Danes from East Anglia, under their king, Guthrum, sailing along the south coast, landed in Wessex, seized upon Wareham, and afterwards upon Exeter, then the centre of a disaffected Celtic population, and it was not till 877 that the country was once more free from the invader. The year 878 was the most eventful in the course of Alfred s reign. At mid-winter, without any warning, the Danes came pouring into Wessex from the north, seized Chippenham, and making it the centre of their operations, quickly overran the country. Many of the inhabitants, in despair, fled into foreign lands, and Alfred, totally unpre pared to meet the storm, retired to the marshes of Somerset. Never at any other period, either before or after, were his fortunes so low, and the national existence itself was at stake. Had Alfred, like his kinsman Burhed of Mercia, left his people in their hour of need, the heathen Dane in all probability would have acted like the heathen Englishmen before him a new race would have possessed the land, and the names of England and Englishmen would have disappeared from the page of history. Alfred s mis fortunes only roused him to fresh exertions, and his military skill and valour enabled him to carry his people in safety through this momentous crisis. Fortifying him self at Athelney about Easter, he secretly matured his plans for meeting the enemy, and seven weeks after, having collected his forces at Brixton near Selwood, he rapidly advanced in a north-easterly direction, and was close upon the Danes before they had any intelligence of his approach. A fierce conflict ensued at Ethandun, now Edington, in which the Danes were entirely defeated; and about fourteen days after this they were compelled to sue for peace. By the treaty of Wedmore, Watling Street (the old road running across the island from London to Chester and the Irish Channel) was to be the boundary between Alfred and the Danes, the latter were to be vassals to the kings of Wessex, and their chiefs to receive baptism. This treaty was observed by the Danes with much greater fidelity than those of an earlier date had been. Guthrum their king and about thirty of their chiefs were baptised at Wedmore, and Alfred, who stood sponsor for Guthrum, gave him the name of ^Ethelstan. The Danish army after this slowly withdrew, and eventually settled down peaceably in East Anglia. The acceptance of Christianity by their chiefs seems indeed to have broken for a time the fierce crusading energy which gave a special animus to the piratical expedi tions of the heathen Danes. As soon as peace had been concluded Alfred turned his attention to the internal affairs of his kingdom. He vigorously set to work to put the country in a complete state of defence. Old fortifications were repaired and new