The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12)

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h considerable loss. This ominous defeat displayed more fully the greatness of his courage and capacity, which found in desperate hopes and a ruined kingdom such powerful resources. In a short time after he was in a condition to be respected: but he was not led away by the ambition of a young warrior. He neglected no measures to procure peace for his country, which wanted a respite from the calamities which had long oppressed it. A peace was concluded for Wessex. Then the Danes turned their faces once more towards Mercia and East Anglia. They had before stripped the inhabitants of all their movable substance, and now they proceeded without resistance to seize upon their lands. Their success encouraged new swarms of D

, and to establish themselves in it. These considerations made Alfred resolve upon equipping a fleet. In this enterprise nothing but difficulties presented themselves: his revenue was scanty, and his subjects altogether unskilled in maritime affairs, either as to the construction or the navigation of ships. He did not therefore despair. With great promises attending a little money, he engaged in his service a number of Frisian seamen, neighbors to the Danes, and pirates, as they were. He brought, by the same means, shipwrights from the continent. He was himself present to everything; and having performed the part of a king in drawing together supplies of every kin

te of indigence, supported by an heroic humility, and that spirit of piety which neither adverse fortune nor prosperity could overcome. It is much to be lamented that a character so formed to interest all men, involved in reverses of fortune that make the most agreeable and useful part of history, should be only celebrated by pens so little suitable to the dignity of the subject. These revolutions are so little prepared, that we neither can perceive distinctly the causes which sunk him nor those which again raised him to power. A few naked facts are all our stock. F

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on had no force; there was no honest industry; the most squalid poverty and the grossest ignorance had overspread the whole kingdom. Alfred at once enterprised the cure of all these evils. T

eigns of weak princes are times favorable to liberty; but the wisest and bravest of all the English princes is the father of their freedom. This great man was even jealous of the privileges of his subjects; and as his whole life was spent in protecting them, his last will breathes the same spirit, declaring that he had left his people as free as their own thoughts. He not only collected with great care a complet

; he settled beacons to spread an alarm on the arrival of an enemy; and ordered his militia in such a manner that there was always a great power in readiness to march, well appointed and well disciplined. But that a suitable revenue might no

top to his love even of the liberal arts, which are only suited to a liberal condition, he enterprised yet a greater design than that of forming the growing generation,-to instruct even the grown: enjoining all his earldormen and sheriffs immediately to apply themselves to learning, or to quit their offices. To facilitate these great purposes, he made a regular foundation of an university, which with great reason is believed to have been at Oxford. Whatever trouble he took to extend the benefits of learning amongst his subjects, he showed the example himself, and applied to the cultivation of his mind with unparalleled diligence and success. He could neither read nor write at twelve years old; but he improved his time in such a manner that he became one of the most knowing men of his age

vere and methodical custom, he had a sort of wax candles made of different colors in different proportions, according to the time he allotted to each particular affair; as he carried these about with him wherever he went, to make them burn evenly he invented horn lanterns. One cannot help being amazed that a prince, who lived in such turbulent times, who commanded personally in fifty-four pitched battles, who had so disordered a province to regulate, who was not only a legislator, but a judge, and who was continually superintending his armies, his navies, the traffic of his kingdom, his revenu

restrained their ravages, and armies well appointed to oppose them in the field; they were defeated in a pitched battle; and after several desperate marches from one part of the country to the other, everywhere harassed and hunted, they were glad to return with half their number,

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ign. But these reports, however ill imagined, are a strong proof of the high veneration in which this excellent prince has always been held; as it has been thought that the attributing these regulations to him would endear them to the nation. Be probably settled them in such an order, and made such reformations in his government, that some of the institutions themselves which he improved have been attributed to him: and, indeed, there was one work of his which se