profound tranquillity, which lafted for twelve years, Alfred was diligently employed in cultivating the arts of peace, and in repairing the damages which the kingdom had sustained by war. After rebuilding the ruined cities, which had been destroyed by the Danes, he established a regular militia for the defence of the kingdom. He took care that all his fubjects should be armed and registered; he affigned them a regular rotation of duty; a part was employed to cultivate the land, while others were appointed to repel any fudden invafion from the enemy. He took care to provide a naval force that was more than a match for the invaders, and trained his fubjects as well in the practice of failing as of naval engagements. A fleet of an hundred and twenty fhips of war was thus ftationed along the coafts; and being well supplied with all things neceffary, both for subsistence and war, it impreffed the incurfive enemy with awe. Not but that there fucceeded fome very formidable descents, which the king found it difficult to reprefs. Haftings, the Danish chieftain, in particular, appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of three hundred and fifty fail; and although his forces were vigorously opposed and repulfed by the vigilance of Alfred, yet he found means to fecure himself in the poffeffion

of Bamflete, near the Ile of Canvey, in the county of Effex. But he was not long fettled there, when his garrifon was overpowered by a body of the citizens of London, with great flaughter, and his wife and two fons made captives. These experienced the king's clemency he restored them to Haftings, on condition that he should depart the kingdom. Nor were the Eaft-Anglian Danes, as well as infurgents of Northumberland, much more fuccessful. These broke into rebellion; and, yielding to their favourite habits of depredation, embarked on board two hundred and forty veffels, and appeared before Exeter. There, however, they met a very bloody reception from Alfred, and were fo difcouraged, that they put to fea again without attempting any other enterprize. A third body of piratical Danes were even more unsuccessful than either of the former. Great numbers of them, after the departure of Haftings, feized and fortified Shobury, at the mouth of the Thames, and having left a garrison there, marched along the banks of the river till they came to Bodington, in the county of Gloucefter, where being reinforced by a body of Welshmen, they threw up entrenchments, and prepared for defence. There they were furrounded by the king's forces, and reduc

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ed to the utmost extremity. After having eaten their horses, and having many of them perished with hunger, they made a defperate fally, in which numbers were cut to pieces. Those who escaped, being purfued by the vigilance of Alfred, were finally difperfed, or totally destroyed. Nor did he treat the Northumbrian freebooters with lefs feverity. Falling upon them while they were exercising their ravages in the weft, he took twenty of their fhips; and having tried all the prisoners at Winchester, he hanged them as pirates, and as the common enemies of mankind.

Having, by this vigilance and well-timed feverity, given peace and total fecurity to his fubjects, his next care was to polish the country by arts, as he had protected it by arms. He is faid to have drawn up a body of laws; but those which remain to this day under his name seem to be only the laws already practifed in the country by his Saxon ancestors, and to which, probably, he gave his fanction. The trial by juries, mulets and fines for offences, by fome afcribed to him, are of a much more ancient date. The care of Alfred for the encouragement of learning did not a little tend to improve the morals and reftrain the barbarous habits of the people. When he came to the VOL. I. throne,

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throne, he found the English funk into the groffeft ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from the continued diforders of the government, and from the ravages of the Danes. He himself complains, that, on his acceffion, he knew not one perfon fouth of the Thames who could so much as interpret the Latin fervice. To remedy this deficiency, he invited over the moft celebrated scholars from all parts of Europe; he founded, or at least re-established, the univerfity of Oxford, and endowed it with many privileges. He gave, in his own example, the strongest incentives to ftudy. He usually divided his time into three equal portions; one was given to fleep, and the refection. of his body, diet, and exercife; another to the dispatch of business; and the third to study and devotion. He made a confiderable progrefs in the different studies of grammar, rhetoric, philofophy, architecture, and geometry. He was an excellent hiftorian, he understood mufic, and was acknowledged to be the best Saxon poet of the age. He left many works behind him, many of which remain to this day. He tranflated the paftoral of Gregory I. Boetius de Confolatione, and Bede's Ecclefiaftical History, into the Saxon language. Senfible that his illiterate fubjects were not much fufceptible of fpeculative

culative inftruction, he endeavoured to convey his morality by parables and stories, and is said to have tranflated from the Greek the fables of Æfop. Nor did he even neglect the more mechanical arts of life. Before his time, the generality of the people chiefly made use of timber in building. Alfred raised his palaces of brick, and the nobility by degrees began to imitate his example. He introduced and encouraged manufactures of all kinds, and no inventor or improver of any ingenious art was fuffered to go unrewarded. Even the elegancies of life were brought to him from the Mediterranean; and his fubjects, by feeing these productions of the peaceful arts, were taught to respect the virtues of justice and industry, by which alone they could be procured. It was after a glorious reign of twenty-nine years thus fpent, in the advancement of his fubjects happiness, that he died A. D. 901. in the vigour of his age and the full enjoyment of his faculties, an example to princes, and an ornament to human nature. To give a character of this prince would only be, to fum up thofe qualities which conftitute perfection. Even virtues seemingly oppofite, were happily blended in his difpofition; perfevering, yet flexible; moderate, yet enterprifing; juft, yet merciful; ftern in command, yet gentle in