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capable of initiating him in that language, in which the minds he afterwards studied had conversed and written, were at that time to be found in all the kingdom of Wessex. 19

His love for knowledge made him neither effeminate nor slothful. The robust labours of the chase ingrossed a large portion of his leisure; and he is panegyrised for his incomparable skill and felicity in this rural art. 20 To Alfred, whose life was indispensably a life of great warlike exertion, the exercise of hunting may have been salutary and even needful. Perhaps his commercial and polished posterity may wisely permit amusements more philanthropic to diminish their attachment to this dubious pursuit.

He followed the labours of the chase as far as Cornwall. His fondness for this practice is a striking proof of his activity of disposition, because he appears to have been afflicted with a disease which would have sanctioned indolence in a person less alert. This malady assumed the appearance of a slow fever, of an unusual kind, with symptoms that made some call it the piles. It pursued him from his infancy. But his life and actions show, that, though this debilitating disease was succeeded by another that haunted him incessantly with tormenting agony, nothing could suppress his unwearied and inextinguishable genius. Though en

19 Asser, p. 17.

20 Asser, p. 16. Though men fond of literature have not often excelled in the robust exercises, yet some remarkable characters have been distinguished for corporal agility. Thus the great Pythagoras was a successful boxer in the Olympic games; the first who boxed according to art. Cleanthes, the Stoic, was a similar adept. His scholar, Chrysippus, the acutest of the Stoics, was at first a racer; and even Plato himself was a wrestler at the Isthmian and Pythian games. Bentley on Phalaris, 51-54.

CHAP.

V.

866.

· IV.

866.

vironed with difficulties which would have shipwrecked any other man, his energetic spirit converted them into active instruments to advance him to virtue and to fame.

His religious impressions led him from his childhood to be a frequent visitor at sacred places, for the purposes of giving alms, and offering prayer. It was from this practice, that as he was hunting in Cornwall, near Liskeard, and observing a village church near, he dismounted, and went into it. A Cornish man of religion, called St. Gueryr, had been buried there. The name implied that he had possessed medical powers or reputation; and with a sudden hope of obtaining relief from his distressing malady Alfred prostrated himself there in silent prayer to God, and remained a long time mentally petitioning that his sufferings might be alleviated. He solicited any change of the divine visitations that would not make him useless in body or contemptible in his personal appearance; for he was afraid of leprosy or blindness, but he implored relief. His devotions ended, he quitted the tomb of the saint, and resumed his journey. No immediate effect followed. He had often prayed before for relief in vain but now, in no long space afterwards, his constitution experienced a beneficial alteration, and this complaint entirely ceased, though after his marriage it was succeeded by another and a worse, which lasted till his death. 21

For a while we must leave Alfred aspiring to

21 Asser, 40. Flor. Wig. 309. Guerir, in Cornish, signifies to heal or cure. Camden places the church near Liskeard. St. Neot lived here after Guerir, and it acquired the name from him of Neotstoke. Whit. Neot. 109.

V.

868.

become the student, to describe that storm of CHAP. desolation and ferocious war which was proceeding from the North to intercept the progress, and disturb the happiness of the future king; and to lay waste the whole island, with havock the most sanguinary, and ruin the most permanent.

IV.

866-871.

CHAP. VI.

The Accession of ETHELRED, the third Son of ETHELWULPH.-The
Arrival of the Sons of RAGNAR LODBROG in ENGLAND. - Their
Revenge on ELLA.- Conquests and Depredations. — ETHELRED's
Death.

BOOK As the life of Ragnar Lodbrog had disturbed the peace of many regions of Europe, his death became the source of peculiar evil to England. When his sons heard of his fate in the prison in Northumbria, they determined on revenge. Their transient hostilities as sea-kings were laid aside for the gratification of this passion; and as their father's fame was the conversation and pride of the North, they found that wherever they spread news of his catastrophe, and their own resolutions to avenge it, their feelings were applauded, and auxiliaries procured to join them, from every part. Bands of warriors confederated from every region for this vindictive object. Jutes, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Russians, and others; all the fury and all the valour of the North assembled for the expedition', while none of the Anglo-Saxon kings even suspected the preparations.

EIGHT kings and twenty earls, the children, relatives, and associates of Ragnar, were its leaders.2

1 2 Langb. 278. Saxo, 176. Al Beverl. 92. Hunt. 347. M.West. 316. Bromton, 803. Sim. Dun. 13. Al. Riev. 353.

2 The kings were Bacseg, Halfden, Ingwar, Ubba, Guthrums, Oskitel, Amund and Eowls. Al. Bev. 93. Simeon adds to the kings, Sidroc, with a jarl of that name; Frena and Harald, p. 14.

CHAP.

VI.

Their armament assembled without molestation, and when it had become numerous enough to promise success to their adventure, Halfden, Ingwar, 866-871. and Hubba, three of Ragnar's sons, assumed the command, sailed out of the Baltic, and conducted it safely to the English coasts By some error in the pilotage, or accident of weather, or actual policy, it passed Northumbria, and anchored off the shores of East Anglia.

ETHELRED was scarcely seated on his brother's throne, before the great confederacy began to arrive. It found the country in a state auspicious to an invasion. Four distinct governments divided its natural force, whose narrow policy saw nothing but triumph and safety in the destruction of each other. One of these, the peculiar object of the hostility of the North, was plunged in a civil warfare.

Of the Anglo-Saxon governments, the kingdom of Northumbria had been always the most perturbed. Usurper murdering usurper, is the pervading incident. A crowd of ghastly monarchs pass swiftly along the page of history as we gaze; and scarcely was the sword of the assassin sheathed before it was drawn against its master, and he was carried to the sepulchre which he had just closed upon another. In this manner, during the last century and a half, no fewer than seventeen sceptred chiefs hurled each other from their joyless throne, and the deaths of the greatest number were accompanied by hecatombs of their friends.

WHEN the Northern fleet suddenly appeared off East Anglia, such sanguinary events were still disturbing Northumbria. Osbert had been four years expelled by Ella from the throne which he

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