expected solely by the power of their swords. Already had they visited Rome as the source of salvation. Already had the whole realm been subjected to a tax, by which they purchased the protection of the chief bishop. They wished to enjoy in peace the fruits of the country their ancestors had acquired at the price of their blood. War was now considered by the AngloSaxons as a duty to which they were obliged to recur, but no longer as the beloved exercise of their valour.

Farther north, in the more severe climate of Scandinavia, the rude old customs were preserved. That country was inhabited by a race of people whose only fear was a woundless death, and who awaited the reward of their courage in eternity, believing the effusion of their own blood to be the only means of obtaining the favour of Odin. Those nations then inhabited the remote regions, where the Romans had never brought their arts or their emollient manners. They considered the peaceful inhabitants of southern Europe as a booty purposely created by nature for them, as the pigeon is for the sparrow-hawk.

The Northmen,3 the inhabitants of the shores of the extensive Scandinavia, cruized in light

vessels on all the seas, landed from the rivers, surprised the defenceless villages and the unprotected towns, plundered the inhabitants of their wealth, and found a fierce pleasure in destruction and in the murder of the vanquished. They owned no other virtue than the courage of the warrior; the modesty of the peaceful clergy seemed to them a base neglect of the sole duty by which man can be honoured. They despised science as they despised the distaff, considering them merely as the occupation of cowardly natures. When they had devastated a country, when all that surrounded their camp was smoking, and the fruits of the assiduity of the innocent countrymen had been consumed, they returned to their ships, and sought another country, which had not yet felt the effects of their blood-thirsty swords and destructive torches. Thus the savages carried with them death and calamity throughout the world, and the land which bore their footsteps was doomed to misfortune. Tired of killing, and loaded with the booty of the industrious, they returned to their harbours, sung of their feats to the beauties of the country, and enjoyed the general veneration of the inhabitants. The chiefs of the barbarians often carried off some handsome woman, taking her to his rustic castle, where no tears could save her innocence, and all hope was lost of ever again

breathing the milder air of her country, or hearing the sweet voices of her parents.

Brought up in armour and amidst combats, these warriors knew no other art than the glorious one of war. They feared no wounds, and looked upon death as the passage to the palaces of the gods. They never considered the numbers of their enemies, and singly attacked whole armies. The gallant Ragnar sung his funeral hymns with gnawing snakes in his bosom. This courage was accompanied by a strength acquired by continual exercise, and by the most perfect knowledge of the use of their weapons. In their contempt of death they surpassed all other European nations, and their arrival spread terror over the whole realm; the hopeless inhabitants left their homes and fled to the fortified towns, where walls and towers opposed for a while the progress of the enemies, who were not in possession of implements to break down these fortifications.

The weak Carlovingians could not resist the rushing torrent of the Northmen, and purchased at the price of their silver an uncertain peace. The Scandinavians acknowledged no governor, every chieftain plundered on his own account. When one of the bands, bearing the ransom of the terrified

inhabitants, returned home, the next entered with the same fury, and took the lives of the miserable men, which had been purchased of the former. Resistance and submission were alike dangerous; for, to those inexperienced in war, the first was inevitable destruction, and the latter only postponed for some weeks their complete ruin.

It was under the reign of Ethelbert, brother of Ethelwulf, that Hubba and Hinguar, the sons of Ragnar Lodobroch, forced their way into England. They surprised York, then already a large town. The princes of the country advanced to their encounter with a poorly armed multitude of men, but the war-like Scandinavians defeated the enervated Saxons. They killed a part of the nobility, and extorted from the vanquished hard conditions and shameful contributions. They also soon attacked the eastern part of the island: Edmund, Prince of the East-Saxons, was likewise defeated, and made a prisoner. The barbarians killed him, and overran the whole country with their bloody weapons.1

5

Another Saxon army fortified themselves at Reading, not far from London, then only a town of middling class. Ethelred, King of the Anglo-Saxons, son and successor to Ethelwulf, at

tacked the intrenched Northmen with more courage than fortune, being repulsed with a great loss of men. At Ashdune, not far from Reading, the armies again met; the Anglo-Saxons were divided into two camps, one of which was under the command of the king himself, and the other under that of his younger brother, the active Alfred, who then made his first essay against the enemies of his country. Alfred, the favourite of his father Ethelwulf, and the youngest of his sons, had received of nature gifts seldom combined in one individual. An agreeable exterior and engaging manner won all hearts to him. He was sent by his father to Rome, then the seat of that little learning which the destructive wars of the Northmen in Europe had not buried in oblivion. The young prince was instructed in arts nearly forgotten in England, and even acquired ecclesiastical dignities, for Leo IV. bishop of Rome, anticipated, from a secret feeling, the future grandeur of the noble youth, and therefore anointed him as king, although three elder brothers existed between him and the throne.6

In England Alfred was brought up in the practice of the only exercises then considered noble, hunting, and the art of falconry. He was accustomed to support the inconveniences of a labori