barous habits of the people. When he came to the throne, he found the English sunk into the grossest ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from the continued disorders of the government, and from the ravages of the Danes. He himself complains, that, on his accession, he knew not one person south of the Thames who could so much as interpret the Latin service. To remedy this deficiency, he invited over the most celebrated scholars from all parts of Europe; he founded, or at least reestablished, the university of Oxford, and endowed it with many privileges; and he gave, in his own example, the strongest incentives to study. He usually divided his time into three equal portions: one was given to sleep, and the refection of his body, diet, and exercise; another to the despatch of business; and the third to study and devotion. He made a considerable progress in the different studies of grammar, rhetoric,

philosophy, architecture, and geometry. He was an excellent historian; he understood music; he was acknowledged to be the best Saxon poet of the age, and left many works behind him, some of which remain to this day. To give a character of this prince would only be to sum up those qualities which constitute perfection." Happy, indeed, would it have been for England had all her kings been like this great and good monarch. It is interesting to remember that the present occupant of the throneour beloved Queen Victoria-has some of the blood of Alfred in her veins, and we can trace back the succession to that remote period. We can gladly realise the fact, that a great portion of the spirit of Alfred has also descended to her, and by the same wise care and nobility of life and character' she is like her great ancestor-a blessing to her people, and an example to all rulers.

ITHOUT troubling our readers with a detailed account of the claim which William of Normandy set up to the crown of England, we shall lay before them briefly the events of the great invasion by which that

crown was won.

"William, having successfully evaded the great fleet which Harold, the last purely Saxon ruler of England, had prepared to bar his passage, arrived, without any material loss, at Pevensey, in Sussex; and the army quietly disembarked.

The duke himself, as he leaped on shore, happened to stumble and fall; but had the presence of mind, it is said, to turn the omen to his advantage, by calling aloud that he had taken possession of the country. And a soldier, running to a neighbouring cottage, plucked some thatch, which, as if giving him seizin of the kingdom, the kingdom, he presented to his general, The joy and alacrity of William and his whole army was so great, that they were nowise discouraged, even when they heard of Harold's great victory over the Norwegians: they seemed rather to wait with impatience the arrival of the enemy.

The victory of Harold, though great and honourable, had proved in the main

prejudicial to his interests, and may be regarded as the immediate cause of his ruin. He lost many of his bravest officers and soldiers in the action; and he disgusted the rest by refusing to distribute the Norwegian spoils among them; a conduct which was little agreeable to his usual generosity of temper; but which his desire of sparing the people in the war that impended over him from the Duke of Normandy, had probably occasioned. He hastened by quick marches to reach this new invader;

mandy made it requisite for that prince to bring matters to a speedy decision, and put his whole fortune on the issue of a battle; but that the king of England, in his own country, beloved by his subjects, provided with every supply, had more certain and less dangerous means of insuring to himself the victory; that the Norman troops, elated on the one hand with the highest hopes, and seeing, on the other, no resource in case of a discomfiture, would fight to the last extremity; and being the flower of all the

but though he was reinforced at London and other places with fresh troops, he found himself also weakened by the desertion of his old soldiers, who from fatigue and discontent secretly withdrew from their colours. His brother Gurth, a man of bravery and conduct, began to entertain apprehensions of the event, and remonstrated with the king, that it would be better policy to prolong the war: at least to spare his own person in the action. He urged to him that the desperate situation of the Duke of Nor

warriors of the continent, must be regarded as formidable to the English; that if their first fire, which is always the most dangerous, were allowed to languish for want of action; if they were harassed with small skirmishes, straitened in provisions, and fatigued with the bad weather and deep roads during the winter season which was approaching, they must fall an easy and bloodless prey to their enemy; that if a general action were delayed, the English, sensible of the imminent danger to

which their properties as well as their liberties were exposed from those rapacious invaders, would hasten from all quarters to his assistance, and would render his army invincible; that, at least, if he thought it necessary to hazard a battle, he ought not to expose is own person; but reserve, in case of disastrous accidents, some resource to the liberty and independence of the kingdom. Harold was deaf to all these remonstrances, and the English and Normans now prepared themselves for the combat. The aspect of things on October 14, 1066, the night before the battle, was very different in the two camps. The English spent the time in festive riot; the Normans in prayer, and the practice of the rites of religion. Next morning, the duke divided his army into three lines. He himself commanded the cavalry. These were so disposed that they stretched beyond the infantry, and flanked each wing of the army. He ordered the signal of battle to be given; and the whole army moving at once, and singing the hymn or song of Roland, the famous peer of Charlemagne, advanced in order, and with alacrity, towards the enemy.

Harold had seized the advantage of a rising ground, and having likewise drawn some trenches to secure his flanks, he resolved to stand upon the defensive, and to avoid all action with the cavalry, in which he was inferior. The Kentish men were placed in the van, a post which they had always claimed as their due; the Londoners guarded the standard; and the king himself, accompanied by his two valiant brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dismounting, placed himself at the head of his infantry, and expressed his resolution to conquer or to perish in the action. The first attack of the Normans was desperate, but was received with equal valour by the English; and after a furious combat, which remained long undecided, the former, overcome

by the difficulty of the ground, and hard pressed by the enemy, began first to relax their vigour, then to retreat; and confusion was spreading among the ranks, when William, who found himself on the brink of destruction, hastened with a select band to the relief of his dismayed forces. His presence restored the action; the English were obliged to retire with loss; and the duke, ordering his second line to advance, renewed the attack with fresh forces and with redoubled courage. Finding that the enemy, aided by the advantage of ground, and animated by the example of their prince, still made a vigorous resistance, he tried a stratagem, which was very delicate in its management, but which seemed advisable in his desperate situation, where, if he gained not a decisive victory, he was totally undone; he commanded his troops to make a hasty retreat, and to allure the enemy from their ground by the appearance of flight. The artifice succeeded against those inexperienced soldiers, who, heated by the action, and sanguine in their hopes, precipitately followed the Normans into the plain. William gave orders, that at once the infantry should face about upon their pursuers, and the cavalry make an assault upon their wings, and both of them pursue the advantage, which the surprise and terror of the enemy must give them in that critical and decisive moment. The English were repulsed with great slaughter, and driven back to the hill; where, being rallied by the bravery of Harold, they were able, notwithstanding their loss, to maintain the post and continue the combat. The duke tried the same stratagem a second time with the same success; but even after this double advantage, he still found a great body of the English, who, maintaining themselves in firm array, seemed determined to dispute the victory to the last extremity. He ordered his heavy-armed infantry to make an assault upon them;