on of Ethelwulph, a mild and virtuous prince, but full of
a timid piety which utterly disqualified him for the circumstances in
which he was placed. According to the historian Asser, young Alfred,
being of a more comely person and sweeter disposition than his elder
brothers, became the favorite of both his parents, and was sent by them
to Rome, while yet a child, in order that he might be anointed king by
the Pope himself. But though the feeble piety of Ethelwulph showed this
especial instance of regard for his son, he altogether neglected his
education, and the young prince in his twelfth year had not yet learned
to read or write. Fortunately for himself, and still more so for the
kingdom he was afterward to govern, he possessed a mind too active to be
entirely subdued by the most unfavorable circumstances. If he could not
read for himself, he nevertheless loved to listen to the rude but
inspiring strains of Saxon poetry when recited by others, and had he not
been a hero and a statesman, he might probably have been a poet. At
length, as the old chronicler tells us--"on a certain day, his mother
was shewing him and his brothers a Saxon book of poetry, which she held
in her hand, and said, 'Whichever of you shall the soonest learn this
volume, shall have it for his own.'" Thus stimulated, Alfred bent
himself to the task with all that steady ardor which so strongly
characterized him in after-life, and easily won the prize from his tardy
competitors. This gave a fresh impulse to his natural appetite for
learning; even his passion for the chase could not divert him from
earnest study; nor was he to be deterred by what might have been a
better excuse for indolence, the incessant tortures of the secret malady
which had attacked him while yet a child, and which never left him but
with life. What this _secret_ disease was, the old chroniclers have
forgotten, or for some reasons omitted, to explain.

In 871, Alfred succeeded his brother in the sovereignty of Wessex, at a
period when the whole country was suffering under the ravages of the
Danes, who burnt, plundered, and destroyed without the least distinction
of age, sex, or profession. Being still pagans, the convent was no more
sacred to them than the palace or the cottage. They waged war upon all
alike, and the general misery was yet farther increased by a raging
pestilence, and the internal dissensions of the people.

Alfred now for the first time took the field against the