October XXVIII

St. Simon, Surnamed The Zealot, Apostle

See Tillem. t. 1, p. 423; also Nicetas Paphiagon. In his Encomium Simonis Zelot Ap. published by F. Combefis in Auctar. Noviss. Bibl. Patr. t. 1, p. 408, and Combefis’s remarks on the apostles Simon and Jude, t. 8, Bibi. Conclonat. p. 290, Jos. Assemani In Calend. Univ. ad 10 Maij, t. 6, p. 334.¹

St. Simon is surnamed the Cananan or Canaanite, and the Zealot, to distinguish him from St. Peter, and from St. Simeon, the brother of St. James the Less, and his successor in the see of Jerusalem. From the first of these surnames some have thought that St. Simon was born at Cana, in Galilee. Certain modern Greeks pretend that it was at his marriage that our Lord turned the water into wine. It is not to be doubted but he was a Galilan: Theodoret says, of the tribe either of Zabulon or Nepthali. But as for the surname of Cananan, it has in Syro-Chaldaic the same signification which the word Zelotes bears in Greek. St. Luke translated it, the other evangelists retained the original name; for Canath in Syro-Chaldaic, or modern Hebrew, signifies Zeal, as St. Jerom observes.² Nicephorus Calixti, a modern Greek historian, tells us this name was given to St. Simon only from the time of his apostleship, wherein he expressed an ardent zeal and affection for his Master, was an exact observer of all the rules of his religion, and opposed with a pious warmth all those who swerved from it. As the evangelists take no notice of such a circumstance, Hammond and Grotius think that St. Simon was called the Zealot, before his coming to Christ, because he was one of that particular sect or party among the Jews called Zealots, from a singular zeal they professed for the honor of God, and the purity of religion. A party called Zealots were famous in the war of the Jews against the Romans. They were main instruments in instigating the people to shake off the yoke of subjection; they assassinated many of the nobility and others, in the streets, filled the temple itself with bloodshed and other horrible profanations, and were the chief cause of the ruin of their country. But no proof is offered by which it is made to appear that any such party existed in our Saviour’s time, though some then maintained that it was not lawful for a Jew to pay taxes to the Romans. At least if any then took the name of Zealots, they certainly neither followed the impious conduct, nor adopted the false and inhuman maxims of those mentioned by Josephus in his history of the Jewish war against the Romans.

St. Simon, after his conversion, was zealous for the honor of his Master, and exact in all the duties of the Christian religion; and showed a pious indignation towards those who professed this holy faith with their mouths, but dishonored it by the irregularity of their lives. No further mention appears of him in the gospels, than that he was adopted by Christ into the college of the apostles. With the rest he received the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, which he afterwards exercised with great zeal and fidelity. Nicephorus Calixti, and some other modern Greeks, pretend, that after preaching in Mauritania, and other parts of Africa, he sailed into Britain, and having enlightened the minds of many with the doctrine of the gospel, was crucified by the infidels.³ But of this there appears no shadow of probability, and the vouchers, by many inconsistencies, destroy the credit of their own assertion. If this apostle preached in Egypt, Cyrene, and Mauritania, he returned into the East; for the Martyrologies of St. Jerom, Bede, Ado, and Usuard place his martyrdom in Persia, at a city called Suanir, possibly in the country of the Suani, a people in Colchis, or a little higher in Sarmatia, then allied with the Parthians in Persia: which may agree with a passage in the Acts of St. Andrew, that in the Cimmerian Bosphorus there was a tomb in a grot, with an inscription, importing that Simon the Zealot was interred there. His death is said in these Martyrologies to have been procured by the idolatrous priests. Those who mention the manner of his death say he was crucified. St. Peter’s church on the Vatican at Rome, and the cathedral of Toulouse are said to possess the chief portions of the relics of SS. Simon and Jude.⁴

St. Jude, Apostle

See Tillemont, t. 1; Jos. Assemani, ad 19 Junij, t. 6, p. 453; Falconius, Ib. p. 105; Calmet, t. 9.

The apostle St. Jude is distinguished from the Iscariot by the surname of Thaddus, which signifies in Syriac, praising or confession, (being of the same import with the Hebrew word Judas,) also by that of Lebbus, which is given him in the Greek text of St. Matthew; that word signifying, according to St. Jerom, a man of wit and understanding, from the Hebrew word Leb, a heart; though it might equally be derived from the Hebrew word, which signifies a Lion. St. Jude was brother to St. James the Less, as he styles himself in his epistle; likewise of St. Simeon of Jerusalem, and of one Joses,¹ who are styled the brethren of our Lord, and were sons of Cleophas, and Mary, sister to the Blessed Virgin. This apostle’s kindred and relation to our Saviour exalted him not so much in his master’s eyes as his contempt of the world, the ardor of his holy zeal and love, and his sufferings for his sake. It is not known when and by what means he became a disciple of Christ; nothing having been said of him in the gospels before we find him enumerated in the catalogue of the apostles. After the last supper, when Christ promised to manifest himself to every one who should love him, St. Jude asked him, why he did not manifest himself to the world? By which question, he seems to have expressed his expectation of a secular kingdom of the Messias. Christ by his answer satisfied him, that the world is unqualified for divine manifestations, being a stranger and an enemy to what must fit souls for a fellowship with heaven; but that he would honor those who truly love him with his familiar converse, and would admit them to intimate communications of grace and favor.²

After our Lord’s ascension and the descent of the Holy Ghost, St. Jude set out with the other great conquerors of the world and hell, to pull down the prince of darkness from his usurped throne; which this little troop undertook to effect armed only with the word of God, and his spirit. Eusebius relates,³ that the apostle St. Thomas sent St. Thaddus, one of the disciples of our Lord, to Edessa, and that king Abgar and a great number of his people received baptism at his hands. St. Jerom and Bede take this Thaddus to have been the apostle St. Jude; but it is the general opinion that it was another person, one of the seventy-two disciples whom the Greeks commemorate in the Mena on the 21st of August.^* Nicephorus, Isidore, and the Martyrologies tell us, that St. Jude preached up and down Juda, Samaria, Iduma, and Syria; especially in Mesopotamia. St. Paulinus says,⁴ that St. Jude planted the faith in Libya. This apostle returned from his missions to Jerusalem in the year 62, after the martyrdom of his brother, St. James, and assisted at the election of St. Simeon, who was likewise his brother.⁵ He wrote a Catholic or general epistle to all the churches of the East, particularly addressing himself to the Jewish converts, amongst whom he had principally labored. St. Peter had written to the same two epistles before this, and in the second, had chiefly in view to caution the faithful against the errors of the Simonians, Nicholaits, and Gnostics. The havoc which these heresies continued to make among souls stirred up the zeal of St. Jude, who sometimes copied certain __EXPRESSION__s of St. Peter,⁶ and seems to refer to the epistles of SS. Peter and Paul as if the authors were then no more.⁷ The heretics he describes by many strong epithets and similes, and calls them wandering meteors which seem to blaze for a while, but set in eternal darkness. The source of their fall he points out by saying, they are murmurers, and walk after their own lusts; for being enslaved to pride, envy, the love of sensual pleasure, and other passions, and neglecting to crucify the desires of the flesh in their hearts, they were strangers to sincere humility, meekness, and interior peace. The apostle exhorts the faithful to treat those who were fallen with tender compassion, making a difference between downright malice and weakness, and endeavoring by holy fear to save them, by plucking them as brands out of the fire of vice and heresy, and hating the very garment that is spotted with iniquity. He puts us in mind to have always before our eyes the great obligation we lie under of incessantly building up our spiritual edifice of charity, by praying in the Holy Ghost, growing in the love of God, and imploring his mercy through Christ.^* From Mesopotamia St. Jude travelled into Persia, as Fortunatus⁸ and several Martyrologies tell us. Those who say, that he died in peace at Berytus, in Phenicia, confound him with Thaddus, one of the seventy-two disciples, and the apostle of Edessa, of whom the Mena gives that account.⁹ Fortunatus and the western Martyrologists tell us, that the apostle St. Jude suffered martyrdom in Persia; the Menology of the emperor Basil, and some other Greeks say at Arat or Ararat, in Armenia, which at that time was subject to the Parthian empire, and consequently esteemed part of Persia. Many Greeks say he was shot to death with arrows: some add while he was tied on a cross. The Armenians at this day challenge him and St. Bartholomew for the first planters of the faith among them.^10†

We owe to God a homage of eternal praise and thanks for the infinite mercy by which he has established a church on earth, and a church so richly furnished with every powerful means of sanctity and grace; a church in which his name is always glorified, and many souls, both by the purity of their love and virtue, and by their holy functions, are associated to the company of the blessed angels. It ought also to be our first and constant petition in our most earnest addresses to God, as we learn from our Lord’s prayer, and as the first dictates of divine charity and religion teach us, that for the glory of his holy name he vouchsafes to protect and preserve his church, according to his divine word; to dilate its pale, to sanctify its members, and to fill its pastors with the same spirit with which he so wonderfully enriched his apostles, whom he was pleased to choose for the foundation of this sacred edifice. If we desire to inherit a share of those abundant and precious graces which God pours forth upon those souls which he disposes to receive them, we must remember that he never imparts them but to those who sincerely study to die to themselves, and to extirpate all inordinate attachments and affections out of their hearts; so long as any of these reign in a soul, she is one of that world to which God cannot manifest himself, or communicate the sweet relish of his love. This is the mystery which Christ unfolded to St. Jude. The world hath not known him. Few even among those who know God by faith, attain to the experimental knowledge of God, and the relish of his love, because few, very few, disentangle their affection from creatures. So long as their hearts remain secretly wedded to the world, they fall in some degree under its curse. And how few study perfectly to extinguish its spirit in their hearts.

St. Faro, Bishop Of Meaux, C.

The city of Meaux, situated on the Marne, ten leagues from Paris, in the time of the ancient Gauls, was subject to the Parisii, and received the first seeds of faith by the preaching of St. Dionysius of Paris about the year 250. St. Sanctinus, or Saintin, first bishop of Meaux, is said by some to have been a disciple of that saint in the third age; but Du Plessis¹ thinks him to have been the same Saintin who was bishop of Verdun in the fourth century, and whose relics were translated from Meaux to the abbey of St. Vanne at Verdun, in the eleventh century. His successor Antoninus, and Rigomer the ninth bishop of Meaux, are honored among the saints. But the eminent sanctity of St. Faro, the fourteenth bishop of this see, has rendered his name the most illustrious of all the prelates of this see, who are mentioned in the calendars of the church. His original name is Burgundofaro, and that of his holy sister Burgundofara; the words faro and fara in the Burgundian language signifying of a lineage; so that these names imply that they were of an ancient noble Burgundian family,² which is attested in the ancient life of St. Faro,³ and by a hymn on St. Faro used in the ninth age. Their father Agneric was one of the principal lords and officers at the court of Theodobert II., king of Austrasia; for Meaux and Brie then belonged to that kingdom, not to Burgundy, as Baillet pretends.⁴ For though Gontran, king of Orleans and Burgundy, from 561 to 592, possessed the county of Sens which had formerly been part of Austrasia, the kings of Austrasia were all that time in possession of Meaux. Agneric had by his wife Leodegondis four children, St. Cagnoald, (who took the monastic habit at Luxeul, under St. Columban,) St. Faro, St. Fara, and St. Agnetrudis. His seat was at Pipimisium, two leagues from Meaux, in the forest of Brie, according to the lives of St. Eustatius and St. Faro; which seems the village of Champigne in Brie, rather than Aubigny, as Mabillon conjectured,⁵ but which lies on the other side. There Agneric harbored St. Columban in 610, and that holy abbot gave his blessing to him and to each of his children, Cagnoald, the eldest, having lived under his discipline since the year 594, and then bearing him company.

St. Faro spent his youth in the court of king Theodobert II., where his life was rather that of a recluse than a courtier. After the death of Theodobert, and that of his brother and successor Theodoric, the saint, in 613, passed to the court of Clotaire II., who reunited the whole French monarchy. When that prince, provoked at the insolent speeches of certain Saxon ambassadors, had cast them into prison, and swore he would cause them to be put to death, St. Faro first prevailed on him to defer the execution twenty-four hours, and afterwards not only to pardon them, but also to send them home loaded with presents.

Mabillon quotes certain charters which St. Faro subscribed in quality of referendary or chancellor⁶ Dom. Du Plessis observes,⁷ that it is an unpardonable blunder of Yepez,⁸ who tells us, that St. Faro made his monastic profession at Rebais, when that abbey was not in being. Trithemius says⁹ he took the habit at Luxeul; which is also an evident mistake. For it is certain, that from a secular military state he passed to that of the secular clergy. At court he employed his credit with his prince to protect the innocent, the orphan, and the widow; and to relieve and comfort all that were in distress. The life which he led there was most edifying and holy prayer and pious meditation were his principal delight, and he inflamed his soul every day more and more with the love of heavenly things. His great virtues and abilities engaged the esteem and affection of the king and the whole nation; yet the world, while it flattered and smiled on him, displeased him. His employments in it, how just soever, seemed to distract his mind too much from God, and he saw nothing in it but snares and dangers. One day he entertained his sister St. Fara, who was at that time abbess, on this subject, in such a manner that, being penetrated more than ever with these sentiments, he was inspired with an earnest desire to forsake the world. Blidechilde, his wife, whose consent he asked, was in the same dispositions; and they parted by mutual consent. She took the religious veil, and retired to a solitary place upon one of her own estates, which seems to have been at Aupigny, where, some years after, she died in the odor of sanctity. St. Faro received the clerical tonsure, and was the ornament of the clergy of Meaux; which episcopal see becoming vacant by the death of the Bishop Gondoald, he was unanimously chosen to fill it, about the year 626.

The holy prelate labored for the salvation of the souls committed to his charge, with unwearied zeal and attention, and promoted exceedingly their advancement in Christian perfection, and the conversion of those who had not yet forsaken the errors of idolatry. The author of his life tells us that he restored sight to a blind man by conferring on him the sacrament of confirmation, and wrought several other miracles. In 650 he assisted at the council of Sens: he invited holy men into his diocese, and encouraged and promoted pious foundations to be sanctuaries of religion, and nurseries and schools of piety and virtue. Excited by his exhortations and example, many others entered into the same zealous views, and gave themselves up to the most heroic practices of virtue.^*

St. Faro afforded a retreat to St. Fiaker, and directed many saints of both sexes in the paths of perfection, and had a share in many pious establishments made by others. A little before his death he founded in the suburbs of the city of Meaux, where he possessed a large estate, the great monastery of the Holy Cross, which now bears his name, and is of the reformed congregation of St. Maur St. Faro placed in it monks from Luxeul, of the institute of St. Columban; but the rule of St. Bennet was afterwards received here, and the famous abbey of Prum, founded by king Pepin in the Ardennes, in 763, was a filiation of this house. St. Faro, after having peopled his diocese with so many saints, went to receive the recompense of his labors on the 28th of October, in 672, being about fourscore years old, and having governed the church of Meaux forty-six years.¹⁰ See the three Latin lives of St. Faro, one compiled by Hildeger, bishop of Meaux, in the ninth century, (ap. Mabil. Act. Ben. t. 2, p. 606,) another in verse, written by Fulcoius, subdeacon of Meaux, in the eleventh century; and a third published by Surius, with alterations of the style; extant genuine in manuscripts at St. Faro’s, &c. See also Dom. Toussaints Du Plessis, the Maurist monk, Hist. de l’Eglise de Meaux, t. 1, l. 1, n. 41, 42, 43, 64, 73, note 22, 23, 24, 36; and on the plundering of St. Faro’s church by the Huguenots, ib. l. 4, n. 49, 50, p. 358, t. 2, p. 664.

St. Neot, Anchoret, C.

To this holy hermit is generally ascribed the glorious project of the foundation of our first and most noble university, in which he was king Alfred’s first adviser.^† St. Neot was born of noble parentage, and, according to many authors, related to King Alfred. In his youth he took the monastic habit at Glastenbury, and pursued his studies with great application, in which a natural strong inclination from his infancy was the index of his extraordinary genius and capacity. He became one of the greatest scholars of the age, but was yet more admirable for his humility, piety, and devotion. The bishop of the diocese was so taken with his saintly deportment and conversation, that when the saint was yet very young, he, by compulsion, ordained him first deacon, and soon after priest. St. Neot dreaded the danger of being drawn out of his beloved obscurity, which he coveted above all earthly blessings; being more desirous to slide gently through the world without being so much as taken notice of by others, and without being distracted from applying his mind to his only great affair in this life, than most men are to bustle and make parade on the theatre of the world. He feared particularly the insinuating poison of vanity, which easily steals into the heart amidst applause, even without being perceived. Therefore, with the leave of his superior, he retired to his solitude in Cornwall, which was then called St. Guerir’s, from a British saint of that name, but is since called, from our holy anchoret, Neot-stoke. In this hermitage he emaciated his body by rigorous fasts, and nourished his soul with heavenly contemplation, in which he received great favors of God, and was sometimes honored with the visits of angels. After seven years spent in this retreat, he made a pilgrimage to Rome; but returned again to the same cell. Several persons of quality and virtue began to resort to him to beg the assistance of his prayers and holy counsels; and the reputation of his wisdom and experience in the paths of an interior life reached the ears of king Alfred.^* That great prince, from that time, especially while he lay concealed in Somersetshire, to the death of the holy hermit, frequently visited him, and doubtless, by his discourses, received great light, and was inflamed with fresh ardor in the practice of virtue. St. Neot’s counsels were also to him of great use for regulating the government of his kingdom. Our saint particularly recommended to him the advancement of useful and sacred studies, and advised him to repair the schools of the English founded at Rome, and to establish others at home. Both which things this king most munificently executed.

Our historians agree that the plan of erecting a general study of all the sciences and liberal arts was laid by this holy anchoret; and upon it Alfred is said to have founded the university of Oxford. By his advice the king invited to his court Asserius, a monk of Menevia or St. David’s, in Wales, Grimbald, a monk of St. Bertin’s, (from whom part of the chancel in St. Peter’s old church at Oxford, is called, to this day, St. Grimbald’s seat,) and John the Saxon, from Old Saxony, whom he nominated abbot of the new monastery which he founded at Athelingay in Somersetshire. This John the Saxon is by some confounded with John Scotus Erigena, who, without any invitation or encouragement of king Alfred, was obliged to leave France for certain heterodox opinions which he had advanced, taught a private school at Malmesbury, and was murdered by his own scholars. Alford, Wood, and Camden, upon the authority of certain annals of Worcester, make St. Neot the first professor of theology at Oxford; but this seems not consistent with the more ancient authentic accounts of those times; and St. Neot seems to have died about the time when that university was erected, in 877, or, according to Tanner, 883. His death happened on the 31st of July, on which day his principal festival was kept; his name was also commemorated on the days of the translations of his relics. His body was first buried in his own church in Cornwall, where certain disciples to whom he had given the monastic habit, had founded a little monastery. His relics, in the reign of king Edgar, were removed by Count Ethelric and his famous lady Ethelfleda, out of Cornwall into Huntingdonshire, and deposited at Einulfsbury, since called St. Neot’s or St. Need’s, where an abbey was built by count Alfric, which bore his name.¹ When Osketil was the ninth abbot of Croyland, his sister Leviva, to whom the manor of Einulfsbury belonged, caused these relics to be transferred to Croyland; but they were afterwards brought back to the former church, which from that time took the name of St. Neot’s. Many memorials of this saint were preserved at Glastenbury, with an iron grate (or rather a step made of iron bars) upon which the holy man used to stand at the altar when he said mass, being of a very low stature, as John of Glastenbury, and Malmesbury testify. Asserius assures us that king Alfred experienced the powerful assistance of St. Neot’s intercession when the saint had quitted this mortal life. Being much troubled in his youth with temptations of impurity he earnestly begged of God that he might be delivered from that dangerous enemy, and that he might rather be afflicted with some constant painful distemper. From that time he was freed from these alarming assaults, but felt a very painful disorder, which seems by the description which Asserius has given of it, to have chiefly been an excruciating sort of piles, or a fistula. He sometimes poured forth his prayers and sighs to God a long time together at the tomb of St. Neot, formerly his faithful director, whose body then remained in Cornwall; and found both comfort and relief in his interior troubles. The corporal distemper above mentioned only left him to be succeeded by violent colics. See John of Glastenbury’s Historia de rebus Glastoniensibus, published by Hearne, t. 1, pp 110, 111, 112. This author copied his account of St. Neot from the life of the saint compiled by one who was contemporary, and is quoted by Asserius himself. See also in Leland an extract of another life of St. Neot, written by a monk, Itiner. t. 4, Append. pp. 126, 134, ed. Hearne, an. 1744. The same inquisitive antiquarian, l. de scriptor. Angl. mentions two lives of St. Neot which he saw at St. Neot’s, one of which was read in the office of this saint on his festival; he also quotes concerning him certain annals which he calls the Chronicle of St. Neot’s, because he found them in that monastery. They are published by the learned Gale, inter. Hist. Brit. script. 15, p. 141, which work he ascribes to Asserius, and calls his Annals. (Prf. n. 10.) See Tanner’s Bibl. in Asserio, p. 54. Also F. Alford’s Annals, t. 3, ad an. 878, 886, 890. The life of St. Neot in Capgrave, Mabillon, and the Bollandists is spurious. See Leland in Collect. t. 3, pp. 13, 14.

¹ Luke 6:15; Acts. 1:3.

² S. Hieron. in Mat 10:4, t. 4. p. 35.

³ See Usher, De primordiis Eccl. Britan. Alford’s Annals Cressy, l. 1 Baron., &c. from Nicephorus, l. 2, c. 40, and the Menæa, ad 20 Apr. et 10 Maij

⁴ See Florentinius in Martyr. S. Hieron, p. 176; Saussaye, Mart. Gallic. ad 28 Oct.

¹ Mat. 13:55.

² John 14:24.

³ Eus. Hist. l. 1, c. 13.

^* On the disciple of our Lord named Thaddæus, and on this transaction, see Baillet Vie de S. Thaddée. 21 Aug. and the life of St. Thomas the Apostle, Dec. 21

⁴ S. Paulin. Carm. 26.

⁵ Eus. Hist. l. 3, c. 11.

⁶ See Jude 11, 17, and 2 Pet. 2:15, &c.

⁷ Jude 17, referring to 2 Pet. 3:2, 3, and 1 Tim. 4:1, 2.

^* Luther, the Century writers, and Kemnitius, call in question the divine authority of this epistle, because several ancients doubted of it: and Grotius fancies it to have been written by Jude, the fifteenth bishop of Jerusalem, in the reign of Adrian. The tradition of the church makes its divine authority and original unquestionable in the Catholic Church. The learned Dr. Edward Pocock, who died at Oxford, in 1691. and whose name is famous for his skill in the Oriental languages and literature, has displayed his talents in several translations and disquisitions, and in comments on Micheas, Malacuy, Osee, and Joel. But, among all his works, that on the epistle of St. Jude, printed at Leyden, in 1630, is esteemed the most curious.

⁸ Fortun. l. 8; Carm. 4.

⁹ Menæa, ad 21 Aug.

¹⁰ See Joachim Schroder, in Thesaur. Linguæ Armeni. p. 149, edit. an. 1711, Le Quien, Orient. Christian t. 1, p. 419.

^† St. Jude was a married man before he was called to the apostleship. Eusebius informs us, (l. 3. c. 20,) that two grandsons of this apostle, who were possessed jointly of thirty-nine acres of land which they tilled with their own hands, were accused by the Jews out of hatred to the same of Christ, as descendants from king David, when Domitian had ordered all such to be put to death, to prevent rebellions among the Jews. They boldly confessed Christ, but the emperor, charmed with their simplicity, and seeing by their low condition, and their hands, callous and rough with labor, they were not persons any way dangerous to the state dismissed them. Returning home, they were promoted to the priesthood, and governed considerable churches. That St. Jude was himself a husbandman before he was called to the apostleship, we are assured by the Apostolic Constitutions. l. 2, c. 63, p. 303

¹ Du Plessis, t. 1, p. 4.

² Ruinart, Not. in Chronic. Fredegar. p. 621; Du Plessis. note 11, t. 1, p. 631.

³ Ap. Mabil. Act. Bened. t. 2. p. 611.

⁴ Baillet Vie de S. Fara. 28 Oct.

⁵ Annal. Bened. t. 1, p. 304, not.

⁶ Annal. Bened. t. 1, p. 343, and App., p. 685.

⁷ L. 1, n. 41, p. 31.

⁸ Chron. de S. Benoit, t. 2, p. 176.

⁹ De Vir. illustr. ord. S. Bened., l. 4, c. 129.

^* Among these no one seems to have been more remarkable than a certain lord of the court, and near relation of our saint, called St. Authaire, and, by the common people, St. Oys, who resided at Ussy on the Marne, of the parish church of which village he is the titular saint. His two virtuous sons, Ado and Dado, (or St. Owen,) were brought up in the court of Dagobert I., and the former was made treasurer, the latter referendary; but both, while they served their prince, aspired only after the solid goods of the life to come. Ado first took the resolution of dedicating himself entirely to God in silence and retirement, and, about the year 630, founded the great monastery of Jouarre, in a forest of that name, in Brie, four leagues from Meaux, to the east, a league beyond Ussy. Here burying himself alive, he broke off all commerce with the world to entertain himself only with God and his own soul on the great affair for which he was created. After a most holy and penitential life of many years, he arrived at the happy term which opened to him a passage to a glorious eternity. Many lords of the first distinction embraced the monastic state in this house under his direction; and, among others, Agilbert, who, going into England, was chosen bishop of Dorchester, when that see had been some time vacant after the death of St. Birinus; but, returning into France, he died bishop of Paris. His sister, St. Thelehilde, was appointed first abbess of the nunnery of Jouarre, this being a double monastery. She died about the year 660, and is honored at Meaux on the 10th of October. St. Bertile, one of her nuns, after having been long prioress of this house, and assistant to the abbess, was called to Chelles by St. Bathildes, in 646, and made the first abbess of that royal monastery, situated four leagues from Paris. She governed the abbey of Chelles forty-six years, and died about the year 692. While Ado sanctified the forest of Jouarre by his holy establishments, St. Owen founded, about the year 634, the abbey of Resbac, now called Rebais, three leagues from Jouarre: of this house St. Agilis, called in French Aile, pronounced El, a monk of Luxeul, was appointed first abbot, and is honored among the saints on the 30th of August. His disciple St. Philibert succeeded him at Rebais, and afterwards founded the abbeys of Jumieges, Nermoutier, Pavilly, Montivilliers, and St. Bennet of Quincy. His disciple St. Regulus, was chosen archbishop of Rheims, and instituted the abbey of Orbais, in the diocese of Solssons. St. Walter, a monk of Rebais, in 1060, instituted and was made first abbot of the famous monastery of St. Germanus, now called St. Martin’s at Pontoise, and is mentioned in the calendars on the 8th of April. On the histories and miracles of these saints see Mabillon’s Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Bened, and his Annales Benedictini, &c. On other pious foundations made at that time at Meaux, see the life of St. Fara.

¹⁰ See Le Cointe. Annal. Eccl. Franc.

^† The chief schools which, by the advice of St. Neot, king Alfred founded, were those of Oxford, as the archives of that university, produced by Wood, and as Brompton, Malmesbury, Higden, Harpsfield, and others assure us. Wood thinks this king founded there one college for all the sciences, besides grammar-schools. Ayliffe, who is less accurate, in his history of Oxford, pretends that three halls or colleges were erected there by this prince, which is, indeed, affirmed by John Rouse or Ross, the Warwick historian, who died in 1491. Asserius of Menevia, in his life of king Alfred, names not Oxford, and may be understood of schools set up by the king in his own palace; but that St. Grimbald taught at Oxford seems clear from his seat there in St. Peter’s church. John the Saxon and others were his colleagues. But St. Neot never left his solitude; and Asserius mentions of himself only his staying in Alfred’s court six months every year; for he would always spend the other six months in his monastery at Menevia or St. David’s. There is indeed a passage in Asserius, which mentions a dispute between the new and the old scholars at Oxford under St. Grimbald; but this seems an interpolation, and is wanting in archbishop Parker’s edition, though defended as genuine by Mr. Wise, in his edition of this life of king Alfred, at Oxford, in 1722. Wood (p. 4) and others (Annot. in vit. Alfredi, p. 136) imagine schools at Grecelade and Lechelade to have flourished under the Britons and Saxons, and to have been only translated to Oxford and there revived by king Alfred after the wars had interrupted them. But the monuments in which mention is made of them are at best very uncertain; and Lechelade, so called from physicians, is a Saxon, not a British word. The schools at Oxford decayed after Alfred’s reign, and that city was burnt by the Danes in 979, and again in 1009. Robert Poleyn or Pullus, an Englishman who had studied at Paris, returning home, restored sacred studies at Oxford, in 1133, in the reign of Henry I. and carried the glory of this university to the highest pitch. Being made cardinal and chancellor of the Roman Church by Lucius II., he obtained the greatest privileges for this university about the year 1150. His treatise on the sacrament of penance was printed at Paris in 1654. Several of his sermons and other works of piety are extant in manuscripts. See Leland and Tanner, De scriptor; Brit. p. 602; Leland’s Itin. t. 4, App. p. 156; and Wood’s Hist. Univ. Oxon. t. 1, p. 49, t. 2, p. 31.

Nothing more sensibly betrays the weakness of human nature than the folly of seeking a false imaginary glory, especially in those who incontestably possess every most illustrious title of true greatness. Some weak and lying impostors pretended to raise the reputation of the university of Cambridge by forgeries which it is a disgrace not to despise and most severely censure. Nicholas Cantelupes, or Cantlow, a Carmelite friar, in 1440, published a collection of forged grants of British kings, Gurgunt, Lucius, Arthur, and Cadwald, and of several ancient popes, under the title of The History of Cambridge; in which his simplicity and credulity, which do not obscure the character of great piety, which Leland gives him, ought not to impose upon our understandings. See Parker’s History of Cambridge. Cair-Grant was one of the twenty-eight cities of Britain under the Romans; but fallen to decay when Bede wrote. (Hist. l. 4, c. 19.) From its ruins Cambridge arose at a small distance, as appears from Henry of Huntington, and the writers of Croyland and Ramsey. Some have pretended that here was the school which Bede, or the schools which Malmesbury, Florentius, and H. of Huntington say king Sigebert founded, by the advice of St. Felix, in 636. But it is more reasonable to believe those foundations to have been made near Dummoc in Suffolk. And, whatever schools might nourish at Cambridge under the Saxons, it is certain there were no remains under the first Norman kings. The foundation of this seat of the sciences was laid in the reign of Henry II. Peter of Blois, a contemporary writer, in his Continuation of Ingulphus’s History, published by Gale, (script. Hist. Angl. t. 1, p. 114,) relates, that Soffrid, abbot of Croyland, sent some learned monks of that house to their manor of Cotenham, near Cambridge, who, hiring a great house in Cambridge, went thither every day, and taught at different hours the whole circle of the sciences, a great concourse of students resorting to their lessons. From these beginnings that university soon rose to the highest degree of splendour, and Peterhouse was the first regular college that was erected there, Hugh Balsham, bishop of Ely, founding it in 1284.

The general study of Paris is said to have been founded by Charlemagne before the year 800. But Eginhard, that prince’s secretary and historian, mentions in his life only the general schools of all the sciences, founded by him in his own palace. And Alcuin, his adviser, (who proposed to him for his model, in erecting his colleges, the great school at York, from whence he came,) when he left the court, retired to Tours, not to Paris. At least the schools erected by that prince at Paris became not very general or famous before the twelfth century. See Egassius Bulæus, Hist. Universitatis Paris, ann. 1665; and Dom. Rivet, Hist. Liter. t. 5, 6, 7.

^* Alfred the Great is named among the saints on the 26th of October, in two Saxon calendars mentioned in a note on the Saxon translation of the New Testament; also in some other private calendars, and in Wilson’s inaccurate English Martyrology on the 28th of October. Yet it does not appear that he was ever proposed in any church to the public veneration of the faithful. In this incomparable prince were united the saint, the soldier, and the statesman in a most eminent degree. Sir Henry Spelman (Conc. Brit.) gives us his character in a rapture. “O, Alfred,” says he, “the wonder and astonishment of all ages! If we reflect on his piety and religion, it would seem that he had always lived in a cloister; if on his warlike exploits, that he had never been out of camps; if on his learning and writings, that he had spent his whole life in a college; if on his wholesome laws and wise administration, that these had been his whole study and employment.” It may be doubted whether ever any king showed greater abilities on a throne; but in this circumstance he was perfectly happy,—that all his wonderful achievements and great qualifications were directed and made perfect by the purest motives of piety and religion, and a uniform heroic sanctity. Alfred was the fourth and youngest son of Ethelwolph, the pious king of the West-Saxons, and second monarch of all England. He was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in 849. His wit, beauty, and towardly disposition endeared him from his infancy to the whole kingdom, especially to his father, who sent him to Rome when he was only five years old, that he might receive the pope’s blessing. Leo IV., who then sat in St. Peter’s chair, adopted him for his son, and, as Malmesbury says, by a happy presage of his future dignity, anointed him king. Leland rather thinks this unction was the sacrament of confirmation; but this, according to the discipline of the English, Spanish, and several other churches, was given to infants as soon as it could be done after they were baptized. Montfaucon and other French historians observe, that Pepin in France was the first Christian king who (in imitation of the Jewish kings by God’s appointment) was anointed at his coronation; and Alfred was the first among our English princes who received that rite. Whether the pope thought it due to so promising a son of a great king, or whether he looked upon it that some sovereignty in England would fall to his lot, is uncertain. Ethelwolph soon after, making himself a pilgrimage to Rome, carried Alfred thither a second time.

Through the confusion of the times, amidst the Danish invasions, this prince was twelve years old before he learned to read. He had a happy memory and an excellent genius, and we have a proof of his eagerness and application in the following instance. His mother one day showed him and his brothers a fine book in Saxon verse, promising to give it him who should first read and understand it. Alfred was only beginning to learn to read; but, running straight to his master, did not rest till he not only read it but got it by heart. He naturally loved poetry, and in his childhood got several poems by heart. He excelled more in all other arts and sciences than in grammar, that study being then at a low ebb in this country, says bishop Tanner, from an ancient chronicle. His elder brothers, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred, successively filled the throne; Alfred, though very young, appeared often at the head of their armies. The death of Ethelred, which happened on the 22d of April, set the crown upon his head in the year 871, the twenty-second of his age. The Danes at that time poured upon this island like a tempest, landing in several parts at once; they had lately martyred St. Edmund, were possessed of the three kingdoms of the East-Angles, Northumbrians, and Mercians, and with several armies were in the very heart of that of the West-Saxons, which then comprised all the rest. The English having fought eight or nine great battles within the compass of the preceding year, were exhausted and dispirited, and seeing new armies rise up against them on every side, were at a loss whither to betake themselves. The young king had scarce solemnized his brothers’ funerals, when, in a month’s time, he was obliged with an inconsiderable army to engage the whole power of the Danes near Wilton. By his courage and valor they were at first forced to fly; but, finding the number of the pursuers to be small, they rallied, and became masters of the field. Twice they were compelled to leave West-Sex, and to promise never to return; but new armies immediately renewed their depredations. Contrary to their oaths and obligations, in the beginning of the year 878, they entered West-Sex with a great power, took Chippenham, the royal palace in Wiltshire, and laid waste the whole country. King Alfred was constrained, with a small number of attendants, to retire among the woody and boggy parts of Somersetshire, and conceal himself between the rivers of Thone and Paret, in the isle of Athelingay, now called Athelney, where he built a little castle. Here he lay hid six months, making reading and prayer his chief employment, and frequently visiting St. Neot, his spiritual director. With a small troop of stout men he often surprised his enemies with good success, and if he happened to be overpowered by numbers, he always appeared formidable to them in the manner in which he made his retreat. His afflictions were to him a school for the exercise of all virtues, and he sought, in the first place, by his penance, patience, and confidence in God, to appease the divine indignation. While he lay in this little castle, or rather, according to the terms of the historian, in a poor cottage, in that country, it being winter, and the waters being all frozen so that no fish could be got in that place, his companions went out at some distance to get some fowl or fish for provisions. In the mean time a poor man came to the door, begging an alms. The king, who was reading, ordered some bread to be given to him. His mother, who was alone with him, said there was but one loaf in the castle, which would not suffice for themselves that day. Yet he prayed her to give half of it to the poor man, bidding her trust in him who fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes. Several of our best historians add that the king, soon after falling into a slumber, received, in recompense of his charity, an assurance from St. Cuthbert in a vision, that God would shortly restore him to his kingdom. Soon after he heard that Hubba, the Danish general, brother to Hinguar, landing in Devonshire, had been defeated and slain by Odun, the loyal earl of Devon, near the castle of Kenwith. The place where Hubba was buried, under a great heap of stones, is called to this day Hubble-stones. The Reafan, or Raven, the sacred standard of the Danes, who placed in it a superstitious confidence, and on which that bird was painted, was found among the spoils. Upon this news Alfred left his retreat, assembled an army in Selwood forest, and marched against the Danes at Edingdun, where, having chosen his post on a rising ground, he gave the infidels a total overthrow, so that they were obliged to receive his conditions. The chief of these were, that all the idolaters should quit the island, and that those Danes that embraced the Christian faith should confine themselves to the kingdom of the East-Angles, which they had possessed ever since the martyrdom of St. Edmund, in 870: but which they were now to hold of king Alfred. Gunthrum, one of their vanquished kings, received baptism, with a multitude of his people, at Aller, Alfred’s palace, in Somersetshire. King Alfred stood godfather to him, and made him king of the East-Angles, where he reigned twelve years; and after him Eoric; after whose decease Edward the Elder reunited that kingdom to the English monarchy. Alfred drew up a particular body of laws, adapted to the Danish converts, which he gave to king Gunthrum, and obliged him and his people to observe. They are extant in Spelman, Wilkins, and the ninth volume of Labbe’s Councils.

In 883, Alfred vanquished and slew Hinguara and Haltdene, two Danish leaders in the north, took great care to repeople and cultivate those depopulated provinces, and constituted Guthred king of the Northumbrians, who, being a most religious and valiant man, defended his dominions, and gave to the church of St. Cuthbert at Durham, the country which is since called the bishopric of Durham, as Simeon of Durham and the Chronicle of Mailros relate. Alfred was no less active in restoring the desolate provinces of Mercia, where the Danes, in 874, had burnt Rependune, now Repton upon Trent, in Derbyshire, the ancient burial-place of the Mercian kings, and had laid waste the whole country. The infidels made again formidable descents in Kent and other places in the following years; but were as often totally routed by this vigilant and valiant king, who is said to have fought fifty-six battles. He everywhere encouraged the English to resume their spirits, and taught them to conquer. But the detail of his military exploits we leave to the writers of the civil history of our country, and only repeat with William of Malmesbury, that when this king seemed cast down on the earth, he was still a terror to his enemies; that in all battles he was everywhere present, striking fear into their breasts, and paleness over their countenances, and inspiring his own soldiers with courage. He alone would restore the combat when his army was ready to disperse; he alone would present his breast to the swords of the enemy, and by his example force his soldiers to repulse the insulting and pursuing infidels. About the year 890, the Normans, or barbarians from the northern coasts of the Baltic, landed in England, but being repelled by king Alfred made a descent upon the western coasts of France, carried their aims into the heart of that kingdom, thrice laid siege to Paris, and during fourscore years compelled the provinces to redeem themselves from plunder by exorbitant sums of money, which were an allurement to repeat their invasions, till Charles the Simple gave his daughter Gisele in marriage to Rollo, their leader, in 912, with part of Vexin, and that part of Neustria which from that time has been called the duchy of Normandy. Rollo, receiving baptism, took the name of Robert.

King Alfred, being aware that the safety and natural strength of this island consists in its navies, became himself well skilled in maritime affairs, and spent three years in building and fitting out a fleet, by which, in 883, he gave the Danish pirates everywhere the chase, and asserted the dominion of the British seas. This fleet he afterwards much increased, and, with wonderful sagacity, devised himself a kind of ships of a new construction, which gave him infinite advantages over a people continually practised in naval armaments. Sir John Spelman was not able to determine whether they were ships or galleys. But it appears, says Mr. Campbell, (Lives of Admirals, t. 1, p. 56,) that they were galleys, for the facility of running them close unto shore, or up into creeks. We are at least assured, that they were longer, higher, and swifter than the vessels in common use in a duplicate proportion. At the same time this king extended the commerce of his subjects with other nations, knowing of what advantage this is to a kingdom, by which foreign riches perpetually flow into it; also how necessary it is for the improvement of navigation, and for a constant supply of able and skilful seamen for the navy. He sent out ships to discover and describe far distant countries, and employed Ohther the Dane for the discovery of a north-east passage, and afterwards Wulfstan, an Englishman, to explore the northern countries. In the manuscript accounts of these voyages, and the survey of the coasts of Norway and Lapland, we find, says Mr. Campbell, so surprising accuracy and judgment as must oblige us to confess, that the age of Alfred was an age of good sense; and far superior in knowledge to those that succeeded it. Alfred’s victories over the Danes procured him frequent intervals of peace; and this became at length fixed and lasting, the latter part of his reign not being disturbed with any fears of invasions.

If the conduct and courage of this great king in war was admirable, his wisdom appeared still more conspicuous in the care and prudence wherewith he improved his kingdom by the arts of peace, and by wholesome laws and a constant attention to see them well executed. When he came to the throne, the whole country was become a desert, and it was a difficult matter for men to find subsistence even when they were freed from the fear of enemies. Alfred encouraged agriculture, and all the necessary and useful arts, in which he was himself the author of many new improvements. For, by conversing with men of abilities, and by comparing together his informations not only in the sciences, but also in various arts, he came to the knowledge of many things; and by his penetration, the justness of his reasoning and reflections, and a superior judgment, he made many important discoveries, and arrived at a degree of skill, of which even they from whom he received his intelligence, were often ignorant. Such was the desolate condition to which several provinces were reduced by the late devastations and wars, that he was obliged to order seed to be distributed gratis to sow the earth, and to encourage tillage by premiums. It is a just remark of Felibien, that the state of architecture has always been in every country the sure proof in what degree arts flourished, and true taste and elegance prevailed. This appeared in the reign of Alfred, as it had done among the Greeks and Romans. This prince adorned his kingdom with many magnificent churches, and other buildings, directing himself the artificers. He taught the people to build their houses of brick or stone, which till then had been usually made of wood and mortar. He erected several castles and fortresses, repaired the walls of London, and founded three monasteries, a rich nunnery at Shaftesbury, in which his daughter Algiva or Ethelgiva was the first abbess, and a monastery at Athelingay, now Athelney, into which he turned the castle in which he lived during his retreat there.

London was a flourishing Roman colony under Nero, and probably had been founded under Julius Cæsar soon after his landing in Britain. King Alfred is justly styled its second founder, as he was of the constitution of this kingdom, of its legislation, and of its fleet and navigation. He was himself the inventor of many necessary arts to the great advantage of all his subjects, and the restorer of the military art, in the highest perfection, and established in every branch of the administration, perspicuity, order, wisdom, activity, and life. He protected and cultivated the arts and sciences; was the wisest, the most eloquent, and the most learned man in his kingdom, and the best poet, which adds a true lustre to his name and dignity, as he was not less attentive to every branch of his government, and was at the same time the greatest, the most excellent, and watchful of kings. The ingenious Gaillard, in his history of the rivalship of France and England, t. 1, p. 75, says of him, that Charlemagne, the glory and founder of the western empire, and the greatest of all the kings of France, formed the English Egbert in the arts of war and of government, and taught him by uniting kingdoms to form an empire. But confesses that England seems to have possessed a greater prince than Charlemagne in Alfred, grandson to Egbert: though conqueror in fifty battles by land and sea, which he fought in person against barbarous invaders flushed with victory, and though he was obliged to be always armed, yet it was only on the defence, and against the most cruel and unjust oppressors of his own kingdoms, and of all the rights of humanity. His reign is more interesting than that of Charlemagne in this circumstance, that he had learned to suffer with heroic constancy, and had learned all perfect virtues by practising them in the school of adversity; that having raised his kingdom from a state of entire ruin into which it was fallen by his personal valor, military skill, and prudence, and subdued all his enemies, he was always an enemy to conquests, and a stranger to the rage and ambition of commanding great empires; the love of peace was the constant reigning disposition of his great soul: and he consecrated all his talents to its arts and to the study of the happiness of his people. One useful discovery or institution does more honor to his memory than a hundred great victories could ever have done. If, like Charlemagne, he converted his enemies to the Christian faith, he did this by the rules of the gospel and the apostles, without baptizing them through rivers of blood. His reign had not the taste of that of Charlemagne, but it had more of the paternal character of the truly great king and Christian saint. Master of all his passions, (no small miracle of grace, especially in his station,) he never was enslaved to or warped from the purest view of justice and virtue by any; was equally free from the allurements of all the soft passions, and from the rage of the fiercer. He was a prince of so great abilities, natural and acquired, and endowed with so extraordinary virtues and prudence, that no historian was ever able to find a but or flaw in his reign, or charge him with the least reproach, or the want of any single virtue, either in his regal, religious, or civil character. In him we have an exception to the trite distich:

Si Nisi non esset, perfectus quilibet esset

Et non sunt visi, qui caruere Nisi.

While Charles the Simple dismembered Neustria to settle a fierce enemy within his own kingdom, to be a seed of an eternal rivalship and unquenchable wars carried with the Normans into England and Sicily and perpetuated during above nine hundred years, Alfred, far more wisely, incorporated the converted Danes into his own people, and strengthened himself by increasing the number of useful subjects at home. Mons. Gaillard’s work would have been more impartial and accurate if he studied the history of England in the original sources; with which he had no acquaintance except the collections of Mr. Brequiny, from the MSS. of the British Museum, &c. If we are still at a loss for a good modern history of France (in which all later attempts fall short of Mezerai’s) amid our numerous swarms of modern histories of England, our poverty is still greater. Brady, the original writers collected by Kennet, down to his jejune supplement, Hume’s Stuarts, and Ralph’s two brothers, Charles II. and James II., and his William III., afford us the best, though very imperfect accounts. The generality of the rest are more apt to lead a reader astray than to give just or judicious and impartial informations. It is to be wished we had a complete collection of original writers and monuments upon the model of Dom Bouquet’s of France, &c. The expense indeed would require a public undertaking.

Nothing is more famous in the reign of this king than his care and prudence in settling the public tranquillity of the state, by an exact administration of justice. In the preceding times of war and confusion, especially while the king and his followers lurked at Athelney, or up and down and in cottages, the English themselves became lawless, and in many places revolted and plundered their own country. Alfred, by settling a most prudent polity, and by a rigorous execution of the laws, restored so great a tranquillity throughout the whole kingdom, that, according to the common assertion of our historians, if a traveller had lost a purse of money on the highway, he would find it untouched the next day. We are told in Brompton’s Chronicle, that gold bracelets were hung up at the parting of several highways, which no man durst presume to touch.

Alfred compiled a body of laws from those of Ina, Offa, and Ethelbert, to which he added several new ones, which all tended to maintain the public peace and safety, to enforce the observance of the divine precepts, and to preserve the respect which is due to the church and its pastors. For crimes they inflict fines or mulcts proportioned to the quality and fortune of the delinquent: as, for withholding the Peter-pence, for buying, selling, or working on the Lord’s Day, or a holyday, a Dane’s fine was twelve ores or ounces, an Englishman’s thirty shillings: a slave was to forfeit his hide, that is, to be whipped. The mulct of a Dane was called Lash-lite, that of an Englishman, Weare-wite, or gentleman’s mulct. Were, or Weregild, was the mulct or satisfaction for a crime: it was double for a crime committed on a Sunday, or holyday, or in Lent. By these laws it appears that slaves in England enjoyed a property, and could earn for themselves, when they worked at times in which they were not obliged to work for their masters: in which they differed from strict slaves of whom the Roman laws treat. Alfred’s laws were mild, scarce any crimes except murder being punished with death; but only with fines, or if these could not be paid, with the loss of a hand or foot. But the severity with which these laws were executed, maintained the public peace. Alfred first instituted trials to be determined by juries of twelve unexceptionable men, of equal condition, who were to pass judgment upon oath as to the evidence of the fact or crime: which is to this day one of the most valuable privileges of an English subject. To extirpate robberies which, by the confusion occasioned by Danish devastations, were then very common, this king divided the kingdom into shires, (though there were some shires before his time,) and the shires into hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings or tenths, or in some places into wapentakes, and every district was made responsible for all robberies committed within its precincts. All vagabonds were restrained by every one being obliged to be enrolled in some district. The capital point in Alfred’s administration was, that all bribes or presents were most rigorously forbid the judges, their conduct was narrowly inspected into, and their least faults most severely punished. Upon any information being lodged against a judge or magistrate, he was tried by a council established for that purpose by the king, who himself presided in it: he is said to have condemned in one year forty-five judges to be hanged for crimes committed by them in their office. By this severity he struck a terror into all his magistrates; and such was the effect of his perspicacity and watchfulness in this respect, that, as Milton says, in his days justice seemed not to flourish only, but to triumph.

This prince who was born for every thing that is great, was a lover and zealous patron of learning and learned men. He considered that arts and sciences cultivate and perfect those faculties in men in which the excellency of their nature consists, and bestow the empire of the mind, much more noble, pleasant, and useful than that of riches; they exceedingly enhance all the comforts and blessings of life, and extend the reputation and influence of a nation beyond any conquests. By this encouragement of learning have so many great geniuses been formed, to which the world stands most indebted; and to this the greatest nations owe their elegance, taste, and splendor, by which certain reigns have been distinguished. By what else did the golden elegant ages of Rome and Athens differ from the unknown brutal times of savage nations? Certainly nothing so much exalts the glory of any reign, or so much improves the industry and understanding, and promotes the happiness of a people, as the culture of leading geniuses by well-regulated studies. As Plato says, (l. 6. de leg.,) man without culture and education is the most savage of all creatures which the earth nourishes. But sciences are still of infinitely greater importance with regard to religion; and this consideration above all others recommended the patronage of learning to this pious king. The ancient public schools being either destroyed or almost fallen to decay with the monasteries during the wars, Alfred founded the university of Oxford. Alfred, canon of Beverly, in 1120, writes in his manuscript history, that king Alfred stirred up all gentlemen to breed their sons to the study of literature, or if they had no sons, some servants or vassals whom they should make free. He obliged every freeman who was possessed of two hides of land, to keep their sons at school till they were fifteen years of age: for, said the king, a man born free, who is unlettered, is to be regarded no otherwise than a beast, or a man void of understanding. It is a point of importance, that persons of birth, whose conduct in life must necessarily have a strong and extensive influence over their fellow-creatures, and who are designed by Providence to be charged with the direction of many others, be formed from their infancy to fill this superior rank which they hold with dignity, and to the general advantage of their species. In order to be qualified for this purpose, their tender hearts must be deeply impressed with the strongest and most generous sentiments of sincere piety and religion, and of true honors: by being inured to reason in their youth they must acquire a habit of reasoning well and readily, and of forming right judgments and conclusions. Their faculties must be raised and improved by study, and whe