1899.] Sir Frederick Pollock on King Alfred. 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 3, 1899. 



Sir Henry Thompson, Bart., F.R.C.S. F.R.A.S., Vice-^q, 

 in the Chair, 



Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., M.A. LL.D. F.S.A. N.B.L 



King Alfred. 



The position of King Alfred * in English history — one might almost 

 say in European history — is unique. He is the first commanding 

 figure in the roll of English princes after the Saxon conquest of 

 South Britain, and after a thousand years there is still none greater. 

 Other kings and statesmen have worked on a larger scale, with more 

 powerful instruments, and for more brilliant immediate results. But 

 none has wrought more strenuously or more successfully with the 

 means at his command. Others, such as Henry II., have left the 

 record of lives as full of activity and public zeal ; others, again, like 

 Simon de Montfort and Edward I., have worked long and valiantly for 

 aims which on the whole were noble, with judgment which on the 

 whole was wise, and by means which, if not always or altogether 

 laudable in themselves, were no worse, or indeed better, than those in 

 common use and allowance at the time. But very few, if any, have 

 remained so free as Alfred from any kind of censure, or have actually 

 stood higher and not lower in the esteem of later generations as their 

 circumstances came to be more fully understood. This can be said of 

 Alfred, and said without reserve. A blameless life, if we mean there- 

 by a life not chargeable with definite wrongs or vices, or with culpable 

 incompetence, is not necessarily a matter for great praise in a private 

 citizen. Often it imports little more than the absence of temptation; 

 sometimes nothing better than other men's usual ignorance of his 

 intimate character and relations. It may even be the result of an 

 unworthy shrinking from difficult or dangerous tasks which might have 

 brought great temptations, but also great occasions, and in this case it 

 may deserve only the faintest degree of external approbation, or rather 

 should be ranked with the deceitful, so-called good works which have 



* The contemporary form "iElfred" is preserved even in Asser's Latin. Our 

 modern literary form gives the correct pronunciation to modern readers, and I see 

 no reason for departing from it ; though, if English spelling is ever reformed, we 

 certainly ought to restore the Anglo-Saxon notation ' a? ' for our peculiar short 

 vowel, and also p and ^ for the two distinct sounds expressed by ' th' (I am 

 aware that they are used indiscriminately in A.-S. writings). On the other hand, 

 I preserve ittthelwulf, &c, because those names have no accepted forms in 

 modern English. 



