V. BOOK nestly, because of all things I need this path. My desire is to Thee, and this most chiefly because without Thee I cannot come to Thee. If thou abandonest me, then I shall be removed from Thee: but I know that Thou wilt not forsake me unless I forsake Thee. But I will not forsake Thee, because Thou art the highest good. There is none of those who seek Thee rightly that may not find Thee. But they only will seek Thee rightly whom Thou instructest to seek Thee, and teachest how to find Thee." 28 FROM the preceding extracts, and from those before given from his Boetius, it will appear that Alfred connected his belief in Christianity with high-minded feelings. In his Boetius he takes repeated occasions, and with a peculiar pleasure, to expatiate upon the power, perfections, and providence of the Deity, with all the clearness of perception, and largeness of thought, and warmth of sentiment, of a Platonic or Pythagorean philosopher, though with the superior light of a Christian thinker. THE subject never occurs to his pen but he dilates upon it with such visible affection, as to show that it was the habitual and predominant feeling of his cultivated mind. Yet, frequently as he has discussed it, he never betrays any narrowminded superstition. All his conceptions are intelligent and expanded. He views the greatest of beings not only as the sovereign, but as the father, the guide, the instructor, and the benefactor of his creatures. He loves to contemplate this awful theme, and to interest others with his contemplations. It is surprising, in an age so dark and tumultuous, and amid cares and employments so harassing and multifarious, and when relics and rites were the religion which was most valued, that 28 These extracts are taken from the Cotton MSS. Vitell. A. 15. the mind of Alfred could have thus enlarged its religious meditations, have conceived them so justly, and expressed them so rationally, and yet so fervently. Nothing displays more emphatically the habitual greatness of his mind than his pure, and lofty, and affectionate theism, and the natural and earnest diction into which it effuses. THAT Alfred, who lost both his parents before he was ten years old; who was on the throne at the age of twenty-one, and was immersed so long in the occupations and vicissitudes of the most deadly warfares; who lived amid such desolations and ignorance, and had no education but such as in his maturer life he was enabled to give himself; should yet have formed his mind to that admirable combination of great piety with great wisdom, enlarged intellect, liberal feelings, and as much knowledge as his inquisitive curiosity could obtain, is a phenomenon that, in far happier times, has rarely, if ever, been exhibited on the throne. As all effects have adequate causes, we are led to inquire into the origin, or first author, of this attainment. The individual within his reach to whom the commencement of his religious feelings can be most justly attributed is his kinsman 29 St. Neot. Alfred is declared to have frequently visited this pious man; to have conversed much with him on devotional subjects; to have profited greatly, both in his moral conduct and knowledge of Christianity 30, from these 29 Asser calls Neot "Cognatus suus," p. 32. Ingulf says, he was frequently at the feet of St. Neot and Werefrith, p. 27. 30 The Saxon life of Neot says, "On than time pær Ælfred king and to than halzen gelomen (often) com emb hir raple theappe.' Ms. Vesp. D. 14. p. 145. The oldest Latin life adds, that Neot received him as his lord with honour, and as his brother with love, blessed him, taught and instructed him, and showed him the way of prudence. Claud. A. 5. p. 153. Ramsay's prose life mentions that CHAP. V. BOOK interviews; and to have been reproved by him, as already mentioned, for his faults. V. It is not clear whether St. Neot was his brother or his uncle." He was a king before he abandoned the world 32, but as to what province he reigned in in England, and of his former name, we have no satisfactory information; and where this is wanting, no conjecture, however ingenious, can in history be substituted for it.34 But of his spirit and subsequent conduct the details are clear and abundant. NEOT is described to have been a very meek and mild man to have become a monk at Glaston Neot taught him "multa in divinis et quæ Christianismo pertinebant, regi disseruit." Whit. Neot. p. 347. His metrical life mentions that "ad sanctum persepe requirit." Ibid. p. 334. 31 The MSS. Claud. A. 5. makes him the son of Ethelwulph, and therefore brother of Alfred. So does the metrical life of Ramsay, Whit. p. 318., and the lives of St. Neot, extracted by Leland in his Collect. vol. iv. p. 13., and so Leland himself. De Script. Brit. p. 143. Other authorities state him to be the son of Egbert. I think if he had been Alfred's brother, Asser would have hardly called him cognatus." 66 32 So the Claudius MS. intimates: "Neque enim alienus vel ipso genere inferior sanctus erat Neotus: sed ex eodem sanguine creatus rex." p. 153. One of the inscriptions on the window in his Cornish church was, "Hic tradidit coronam fratri suo juniori." Whit. Neot. p. 74. 33 Ramsay's prose life implies East Anglia, p. 340., and so Leland understood it. Itin. iv. p. 135. 34 Dr. Whitaker's theory is, that he was Ethelstan, the son of Ethelwulph, and king of Kent, p.73. It is a very spirited conjecture, and not wholly improbable; but Malmsbury has declared that he did not know what end Ethelstan had; and the Saxon life says of Neot, "He was in his youth addicted to book-like learning, and to religious practices, and diligently inquired about the eternal life, and how he might most firmly live for God." MSS. Vesp. This does not exactly suit with Ethelstan's reign in Kent, and battle in 851 with the Danes. See before, vol. i. p. 490. Fordun, who mentions his death in a conflict with the Scots, does not state his earlier authority for this incident. On the whole, we cannot identify the saint with the king as an historical certainty. He bury; to have visited Rome seven times; and to It is not extraordinary that such a man should have led the mind of Alfred to favourable impressions of sincere religion. It is an agreeable instance of Alfred's good humour, that after his restoration, he was in the habit of narrating to his friends the adventures of his adversity, with lively pleasantry." THERE is one little incident attached to the memory of Alfred, which, as it exists in an author who seems to have been curious in searching into ancient remains 38, may be mentioned here, that nothing concerning so great a man be lost. ONE day as he was hunting in a wood, he heard 35 See the preceding lives, and Whitaker's account. 36 Ramsay's life, p. 341.; Whitaker, p. 93.; and see his further account, p. 94, 95. 37 Malmsbury, 43. 38 This is Johannes Tinmuth, whose MSS. have not yet been published, though they appear to contain some curious particulars. I find an extract from his history in the Bodleian library, lib. xxi., quoted by Dugdale, Monasticon, i. p. 256. CHAP. V. BOOK the cry V. of an infant in a tree, and ordered his huntsmen to examine the place. They ascended the branches, and found at top, in an eagle's nest, a beautiful child, dressed in purple, with golden bracelets, the marks of nobility, on his arms. The king had him brought down and baptized, and well educated; from the accident, he named the foundling Nestingum. His grandson's daughter is stated to have been one of the ladies for whom Edgar indulged an improper passion. WE will close our account of Alfred's moral character by one remarkable trait. An author who lived at the period of the Norman conquest, in mentioning some of the preceding kings with short appropriate epithets, names Alfred, with the simple but expressive addition of "the truth-teller"," as if it had been his traditional character. 39 Hermanni miracula Edmundi script. circa 1070. MS. Cotton library, Tiberius, b. ii. It follows Abbo's life of this king. It is very beautifully written. P. 21. he says "Elueredi Veridici." In his epithets of the kings, he seems to have closely followed their traditional biography, for he calls Edred "debilis pedibus," which is a very marking trait. |