which, in passing through so great a mind as Alfred's, came out enriched and invigorated. They are to be read now by whoever chooses to read them. A jubilee edition we see is advertised; and whatever we may please to think of the doctrine, or the philosophy, or the actual knowledge, in all these he was as far in advance of his own age as he was in everything else which he undertook. He did not want to drive out the Scandinavian poetry; no man's heart could be the worse for reading that. And in the English versions of the old myths, the Titanic unearthly spirit which was first breathed into them among the snow mountains and lakes of Norway, had softened off into a warm and human heroism. Substantially and humanly Beowulf is more Christian than Norwegian, and no better Præparatio Evangelica could be given to young, high-hearted boys, provided there was an Evangile to interpret and to appropriate. It was not for Alfred to train a nation of devotees. He would make his people men-men because Christians, and Christians because men; and whatever was really manly and noble was sure of welcome with him.

But of course he would consider something more directly Christian as indispensable, and to this he set himself. Dr. Pauli follows lovingly through it all, and with the help of Asser lets us see how he went to work. First, there was the Common-place Book, which is now lost, but which William of Malmsbury had seen and studied; and the story of this is characteristic both of Asser and his master. The good Welshman, it seems, was employed in reading every book he could lay hands on aloud to the king, who had made it a second nature, day and night, no matter in what trouble he might be, either to read or to have some one read to him. And now that he had an understanding person about him, he would talk over the books; and, no matter what they were, never failed to make something out of them.

'One day,' says Asser, we were sitting together in his room conversing as usual, when I quoted to him a certain passage. He listened with an eager attention; and then pointing to his little manuscript book,

1

kept always about him, and

which contained among other things the Daily Lessons, Psalms, and Prayers, bade me write into it what I had told him.'

Asser, thanking heaven for the good mind of the king, set himself immediately to work, when he found every corner of the parchment occupied-crammed full of notes on all sorts of subjects. He hesitated, he tells us, not knowing what to do. The king repeated his order. Asser replied (what a strange, loving imbecility there is in the way in which he tells the story): May it please you that I take a fresh parchment to write upon? Who knows but what we may soon light on something else which you may wish to have noted down; and then happily we may make a fresh collection.'-' That is a good idea,' replied he. And so Asser took a large, fresh square sheet, and wrote in his quotation; and he had rightly foreseen what might happen, for the very same day three new notes had to be inserted.

Most amiable and most sweet!but it is not without its piteous side, when we have to remember that this poor Welshman was not only one of the best, but one of the ablest, men to be found in the island.

And

if such were his instruments, we may understand a good deal of work would remain on Alfred's own shoulders.

Besides this Common-place Book he translated or paraphrased the celebrated work of Boëthius, of which Dr. Pauli has given a sufficient account, with Anglo-Saxon extracts, as specimens of the style. The English reader will find an excellent analysis of it, with con. siderable portions very well translated, in Mr. Sharon Turner's AngloSaxons.

After this, Orosius' History of the World, which was written at the instigation of Augustin, as a controversial work, containing, from a Christian's point of view-but not an intolerant or ignorant one-a summary of the acts and fortunes of the great heathen nations:

St. Gregorie's Pastorals, a collection of legends of the Italian saints: to our palates insipid and tasteless enough; pretty much what the best of our modern novels may seem (if any are so unfortunate

as to survive so long) a thousand years deeper on in history. But they had their day of popularity and perhaps of usefulness, and were translated early into Greek and even Arabic:

And Bede's History; all these being composed in the same manner; Asser or some one else translated the Latin viva voce, and Alfred supplied or omitted as he thought good, and rendered the whole into his own sqund solid English.

Besides these, he composed a work on geography: an account of northern Europe, and the position in it of the various Teutonic nations. Dr. Pauli says it is far better than any that were then extant, and he was assisted in it by Ohthere, a mighty whalefisher, and otherssea-going adventurers, whose lives would as ill bear close scrutiny, perhaps, as that of old Ulysses. But they were the men for Alfred's purpose, and he used them for it.

Such was the first germ of a literature which Alfred bequeathed to his people. There was philosophy for them, and history and geography, and devotional books, and saints' lives for light reading; good food for all tastes and all capacities, and supplied, as we said, by himself, in the interval of other labours enough of themselves for ten ordinary men οἷοι νὺν βρότοι εἴσι.

Truly might Alfred say of himself -While I live, I have no care except to live worthily, and to leave good works well done, to remain as my monument when I am gone.'

Such is something of the real life and actions of this great man, as Dr. Pauli presents them to us. In this rapid sketch we have had to leave altogether much which is most beautiful; and we could only touch lightly even what was of highest importance. In a short octavo, however, (only 300 pages long, and the writer of it a German!) Dr. Pauli's delicate criticism has drawn out the man before us, with his work all about him, in fine full-coloured human proportions, and given life to the soul and sinew to the limbs of the stiff and feeble portraits which the monks have left us. Many extracts press upon us, but we must leave them now where they are, and half the incidents of his reign

remain untold. It closed as it began-in storm; and the Chronicle, in its catalogue of years, contains still the same old recurring stories of Danish armies landing and fighting, though not any more with the old success attending them. In his own family, Alfred was as happy as he deserved to be. From Asser's story one might have feared that his children would have been brought up little bookworms, who, at the first shock of life, would have bent and trembled down into a cloister. It is as unlike the truth as may be. His son, Edward, and his grandson, Athelstan, who had sat on his knee, and had learnt to bend bow and draw sword under his eyes, were men of his own noble metalstout Christian warriors, who followed in his own ways; the grandest princes, except himself, who bore sword and sceptre among the Saxons. While Ethelfleda, his daughter, the Lady of the Mercians, as she was called, (she had early married and early lost Ethelred, the Mercian prince,) fought and won as many battles against the Danes, in her own person, as even her father. Never anywhere, since Homer's heroes disappeared, are there to be found such fiery fighters, so brave, and yet so tender and so humane, as in these three generations of this family.

One beautiful trait in Alfred Dr. Pauli has, we believe, been the first to notice in an unquestionable document-Alfred's will. The royal vill of Wantage, where he was born, and Ethendun, the deciding scene of his life, he bequeaths-not to the nation, not to the church, for pillars, or churches, or shrines, or statues to rise as ostentatious memorials of his greatness, not to these at all, or for any such purpose, but to his wife. It is by her that the great king is still most proud to be remembered in connexion with his highest achievements. He died at the age of 53, worn out early by work and disease. Singularly, it is the same age at which England lost her other greatest man, William Shakespeare. A devout, God-fearing man he was from his childhood to his end. Pauli sees this, and sees in it the soul of his greatness; but he will hear of no parallel between him

So stands his monument, shining brightly in the book of the world's history; disfigured neither by ill-will nor by ignorance, and unblemished by any faults in himself. . . . Not any prince or hero of old or modern times can be compared with him for so many excellences, and every one so pure. ... With all the strength and all the greatness of the world's famous chieftains who have ruled over mightier peoples, there is ever some defect on the moral side which disfigures the impression of the intellectual magnificence; and though by the side of Alfred, reigning in his narrow Wessex, their high forms may seem to tower into the stars, yet his

figure, in its smaller proportions, remains among the most perfect which the hand of God has held up before the world and before its rulers as their model.

And here we leave Dr. Pauli, trusting soon to see his book in our own English; and in the meantime, not jealous that we owe the best history which has yet been written of our Alfred to a foreigner, nor grudging the loving claim which he makes to him as a German and one in race with himself; but giving him warm thanks for what he has done, and accepting it as one more evidence of the growing union between the two old families, so many centuries divided, and in whose closer intercourse and cheerful appropriation, each from each, of the lessons which each can teach the other, seems to lie the happiest prospect of solution for the problems which are already weighing upon

them both.

CHARLATANS have existed in

every age and in every country, and their antics will still be played until the general level of intelligence has been raised, and communities have learnt to seek the qualified practitioner. But in no form in which quackery has hitherto developed itself has it been able to do more than imitate the thing it aspired to be. There has always been a broad line between charlatanism and the true professional calling-running, it is true, in these days of manufactured opinion, a risk of being rubbed out. A quack of fifty years ago would advertise his nostrum in terms so preposterous, that none but fools would buy. The sum demanded for the elixir or the drug was so ridiculously disproportionate to the gravity of the disease, and the medicine itself was, in all probability, so impotent to cure, that sensible people held aloof from the Esculapian miracle-worker, and sought the true physician. Nevertheless, the quack pursued his calling alone, left by the honest tradesman

to the enjoyment of an evanescent success, or to the retribution of a summary exposure. As newspapers multiplied, advertising became more and more a medium for notoriety. As locomotion improved, and society was set more in motion, the tradesman, who had hitherto been content with the profits of private custom, found it to his account to seek a more extended patronage. The advantages of this publicitywere enormous, and advertising, in time, became regularly reduced to a system. It is only within a comparatively recent period, however, that the practice has been scientifically employed. Advertising may be said first to have attained the dignity of an art when it employed its own Laureate, and court poetry sought inspiration in the neighbourhood of Aldgate. The occasional card of a professional corn-cutter 'from Paris,' now gives way to the daily advertisement of the London tradesman. The morning newspapers were found to be an admirable medium of communication between the buyer and

the seller, and the advantage to be thus derived was not to be lightly played with. Everything looks so imposing in print, that the advertiser quickly sought the columns of the diurnal and hebdomadal journals, and stipulated for the largest type. The art employed by modern advertisers far transcends, too, the primitive attempts of quackery upon the public credulity; and even SouthSea schemes might derive an additional charm from the insinuating graces of the contemporary Robins. The quack doctor, equally unskilled in the finesse of argument and in the calling he professed, committed the invariable error of proving too much. The relation of the means to the end was so remote, that none but the most easily imposed upon were taken in, and the Dulcamara of the period sought in itinerancy that refuge from condign exposure which he could not hope for in a fixed locality. Not so the more adroit advertiser of to-day, who contrives to convey the requisite impression upon the public mind without committing himself to words and, promises which would fix his responsibility. He seeks to dazzle the eye and awaken curiosity. He invites people to come and see,' and, professing the voluntary system of purchase, generally contrives to choose the article himself. He is everything to the public by turns. He is alternately the patron and the suppliant. Fits of transcendant generosity, sufficient to plunge a consistent political economist into despair, are followed by the wailings of impending or accomplished bankruptcy. Now we find a chivalrous draper literally giving away' his stock in trade under the gentle pressure of a removal from No. 1 to No. 2; in the following week we hear of the same adventurer making a 'tremendous sacrifice' of his fresh goods under the 'unpleasant' coercion of the Court of Bankruptcy. 'Ladies' are winningly invited to the most sumptuous banquets of ribbons the most tantalizing displays of remnants-for the price of coins ridiculously low; other pilgrims to the shrine of dress, w can swallow the camel of 17 strain much at the gnat of pence three farthing

faintest tints of Cumberland lead proclaim to be the trifling addition to the visible price charged for the article.

The George Robins school of advertising was long in the ascendant. It still has its disciples; but the spirit of the mighty founder has been laid, and his imitators follow at a respectful distance. The age of puffing lost a most distinguished champion when that redoubted knight of the hammer was finally removed from the arena of fairyland in which he so long and so chivalrously fought. At his magic touch, estates became a paradise; at a wave of his hand, a barren heath was changed into a glowing harvest field. Ponds swelled into lakes, molehills into mountains; roods and perches struggled into acres; a clump of trees became metamorphosed into a forest of timber. A modest dwelling-house was mystically changed into a palace; a struggling tenantry, amongst whom a lordly purchaser was invited to take up his dwelling, was made to enjoy the perfection of rural bliss-the acme of agricultural prosperity. Rates and taxes vanished at his approach, and rack-rents fell to zero. The lot of his happy peasantries always contrasted favourably with the condition of those in town. His hamlets tasted all the

happiness of an Arcadia, and his model communities had long since accomplished the millennium. Common auctioneers consulted Euclid for their measurements-Cocker for their calculations. George Robins invented systems of geometry and arithmetic for himself, which possessed this remarkable virtue-that as he worked the problems and the sums, the result was invariably in favour of his client.

Friendship was never more oblivious to a fault than George Robins to a flaw. If a redeeming feature appeared in his catalogue of sale, it was cast in type the largest-all qualifying particulars found publicity in miniature. Facts were marshalled in th Fer by notes of

often saved by an accommodating comma. But George Robins and his oratory have passed away. The public were amused, but not deceived by him; for his highly coloured descriptions were known as the stereotyped productions of the counting-house, and his official promises read as harmless bait to curiosity. Public sales were invested by him with all the mysteries of romance, and those who became purchasers were perhaps the only parties to the transaction who regarded it as a reality. To this merry mode of hoodwinking the public a more subtle system has succeeded. The advertisements penned by Geoge Robins bore the genuine marks of fabrication or exaggeration. Everybody knew that he dealt in fiction, and that his surcharged promises were intended to tickle the public curiosity, and were not deliberately framed to deceive. His effusions were relished as perfect specimens of rodomontade, and Punch was often happy with a paraphrase of him. One of his catalogues, beginning with the wellknown To be sold-that capital mansion, &c.,' and generally closing with the welcome tidings of Landtax redeemed,' has often formed the model of a successful imitation in the pages of our facetious contemporary; and even graver prints have dashed their controversies with a little humour when they have banished the disputed facts of some contemporary to the realms of fiction over which George Robins ruled

he can appeal to twenty years of service to the public for a character! Nobody has complained of him in all those years; and, if additional proof of honesty be required, over and above that favourable testimony to which he can so confidently appeal, why he is in the proud position to say that he has made his fortune at his business, which, of course, he could not have done if he had not given satisfaction;'-if the quality of the goods he sold had not been attested by their having issued from the wareroom of Tomkins ;' and if, as a crowning disqualification, there had ever been a complaint' as to his mode of doing business,' Mr. Smith has great pleasure in informing his numerous patrons, and the public in general, that he has just received a stock of, &c., which he intends almost giving away.'

Mr. S., if he really means what he says, is about to perpetrate a great folly, and perhaps a great injustice. We have far too great a respect for Mr. S. to suppose that his possession of his new stock of merchandize was the result of expropriation. Believing that he did not procure his goods for nothing; that, if they were immediately the result of the journeyman's toil, or the assets of misfortune even, they must have been bought for a consideration, we are at a loss to conceive why this fit of generosity has seized him. This extraordinary sacrifice of what he announces to be his due, ought really to receive the dignity of martyrdom. Could we, for one moment, conceive that Mr. S. placed himself, with respect to this particular transaction, on a level with those mysterious apostles of Free-trade, who, in nooks of the public streets, which contending gas companies have left in only partial illumination, offer you cigars -ostensibly at a low price, they say, for the sake of a small profit and a quick return, but really that they may be eased of their merchandize before the unfriendly policeman shall have claimed an acquaintance with them, on returning from his beat-could we, we say, suppose such an identity of circumstances, this generous act of devotion on the part of our tradesman might be capable of some explanation. But