profound mathematician, and the prince of Saxon poesy; with these exalted
talents he united those of an historian, an architect, and an
accomplished musician. A copious list of his productions, the length of
which proves the fertility of his pen, will be found in the Biographica
Britannica,[242] but names of others not there enumerated may be found
in monkish chronicles; of his Manual, which was in existence in the time
of William of Malmsbury, not a fragment has been found. The last of his
labors was probably an attempt to render the psalms into the common
language, and so unfold that portion of the Holy Scriptures to our Saxon
ancestors.

Alfred, with the assistance of the many learned men whom he had called to
his court, restored the monasteries and schools of learning which the
Danes had desecrated, and it is said founded the university of Oxford,
where he built three halls, in the name of the Holy Trinity; for the
doctors of divinity, philosophy, and grammar. The controversy which this
subject has given rise to among the learned is too long to enter into
here, although the matter is one of great interest to the scholar and to
the antiquary.

In the year 901, this royal bibliophile, "the victorious prince, the
studious provider for widows, orphanes, and poore people, most perfect in
Saxon poetrie, most liberall endowed with wisdome, fortitude, justice,
and temperance, departed this life;"[243] and right well did he deserve
this eulogy, for as an old chronicle says, he was "a goode clerke and
rote many bokes, and a boke he made in Englysshe, of adventures of kynges
and bataylles that had bene wne in the lande; and other bokes of gestes
he them wryte, that were of greate wisdome, and of good learnynge, thrugh
whych bokes many a man may him amende, that well them rede, and upon
them loke. And thys kynge Allured lyeth at Wynchestre."[244]

FOOTNOTES:

[238] Flor. Vigorn. sub. anno. 871. Brompton's Chron. in Alferi, p.
814.

[239] Asser de Alfredi Gestis., Edit. Camden i. p. 5. William
Malmsbury, b. ii. c. iv.

[240] Preface to Pastoral.

[241] Much controversy has arisen as to the precise meaning of this
word. _Hearne_ renders this passage "with certain macussus or marks
of gold the purest of his coin," which has led some to suppose gold
coinage was known among the Saxons. _William of Malmsbury_ calls it
a golden style in which was a maucus of gold. "In Alfred's Preface