on, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due
balance of priest, soldier, and churl. The mention of Nero spurs him to
an outbreak on the abuses of power. The cold providence of Boethius
gives way to an enthusiastic acknowledgment of the goodness of God.

As he writes, his large-hearted nature flings off its royal mantle, and
he talks as a man to men. "Do not blame me," he prays with a charming
simplicity, "if any know Latin better than I, for every man must say
what he says and do what he does according to his ability."

But simple as was his aim, Alfred changed the whole front of our
literature. Before him, England possessed in her own tongue one great
poem and a train of ballads and battle-songs. Prose she had none. The
mighty roll of the prose books that fill her libraries begins with the
translations of Alfred, and above all with the chronicle of his reign.
It seems likely that the King's rendering of Bede's history gave the
first impulse toward the compilation of what is known as the English or
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which was certainly thrown into its present
form during his reign. The meagre lists of the kings of Wessex and the
bishops of Winchester, which had been preserved from older times, were
roughly expanded into a national history by insertions from Bede; but it
is when it reaches the reign of Alfred that the chronicle suddenly
widens into the vigorous narrative, full of life and originality, that
marks the gift of a new power to the English tongue. Varying as it does
from age to age in historic value, it remains the first vernacular
history of any Teutonic people, and, save for the Gothic translations of
Ulfilas, the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose.

But all this literary activity was only a part of that general
upbuilding of Wessex by which Alfred was preparing for a fresh contest
with the stranger. He knew that the actual winning back of the Danelagh
must be a work of the sword, and through these long years of peace he
was busy with the creation of such a force as might match that of the
Northmen. A fleet grew out of the little squadron which Alfred had been
forced to man with Frisian seamen.

The national _fyrd_ or levy of all freemen at the King's call was
reorganized. It was now divided into two halves, one of which served in
the field while the other guarded its own _burhs_ (burghs or boroughs)
and townships, and served to relieve its fellow when the men's