to the Germanic race by his blood, and to the Latin realm by
his culture, keeping as much as he could the Roman ideal before his
eyes, Alfred evinced during all his life that composite genius, at once
practical and passionate, which was to be, after the Norman Conquest,
the genius of the English people. He was thus an exceptional man, and
showed himself a real Englishman before the time. Forsaken by all, his
destruction being, as it seemed, a question of days, he does not yield;
he bides his time, and begins the fight again when the day has come. His
soul is at once noble and positive; he does not busy himself with
learning out of vanity or curiosity or for want of a pastime; he wishes
to gather from books substantial benefits for his nation and himself. In
his wars he remembers the ancients, works upon their plans, and finds
that they answer well. He chooses, in order to translate them, books
likely to fill up the greatest gaps in the minds of his countrymen,
"some books which are most needful for all men to know,"[106] the book
of Orosius, which will be for them as a handbook of universal history;
the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, that will instruct them concerning
their own past. He teaches laymen their duties with the "Consolation" of
Boethius, and ecclesiastics with the Pastoral Rule of St. Gregory.[107]

His sole aim being to instruct, he does not hesitate to curtail his
authors when their discourses are useless or too long, to comment upon
them when obscure, to add passages when his own knowledge allows him. In
his translation of Bede, he sometimes contents himself with the titles
of the chapters, suppressing the rest; in his Orosius he supplements the
description of the world by details he has collected himself concerning
those regions of the North which had a national interest for his
compatriots. He notes down, as accurately as he can, the words of a
Scandinavian whom he had seen, and who had undertaken a voyage of
discovery, the first journey towards the pole of which an account has
come down to us:

"Ohthere told his lord, king Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all
Northmen. He said that he dwelt in the land to the northward, along the
west sea.[108] He said, however, that that land is very long north from
thence, but it is all waste, except in a few places where the Fins here
and there dwell, for hunting in the winter, and in the summer for
fishing in that sea. He said that he was desirous to try, once o