Dictionary.
X. ANGLO-SAXON IN THE TIME OF KING ALFRED.
61. Alfred the Great, who was the youngest son of Ethelwolf, king of the West Saxons, succeeded to the crown on the death of his brother Ethelred, in the year 871, being then twenty-two years old. He had scarcely time to attend the funeral of his brother, before he was called to the field to defend his country against the Danes. After a reign of more than twenty-eight years, rendered singularly glorious by great achievements under difficult circumstances, he died universally lamented, on the 28th of October, A. D. 900. By this prince the university of Oxford was founded, and provided with able teachers from the continent. His own great proficiency in learning, and his earnest efforts for its promotion, form a striking contrast with the ignorance which prevailed before. "In the ninth century, throughout the whole kingdom of the West Saxons, no man could be found who was scholar enough to instruct the young king Alfred, then a child, even in the first elements of reading: so that he was in his twelfth year before he could name the letters of the alphabet. When that renowned prince ascended the throne, he made it his study to draw his people out of the sloth and stupidity in which they lay; and became, as much by his own example as by the encouragement he gave to learned men, the great restorer of arts in his dominions."--Life of Bacon.
62. The language of eulogy must often be taken with some abatement: it does not usually present things in their due proportions. How far the foregoing quotation is true, I will not pretend to say; but what is called "the revival of learning," must not be supposed to have begun at so early a period as that of Alfred. The following is a brief specimen of the language in which that great man wrote; but, printed in Saxon characters, it would appear still less like English.
"On thære tide the Gotan of Siththiu mægthe with Romana rice gewin upahofon. and mith heora cyningum. Rædgota and Eallerica wæron hatne. Romane burig abræcon. and eall Italia rice that is betwux tham muntum and Sicilia tham ealonde in anwald gerehton. and tha ægter tham foresprecenan cyningum Theodric feng to tham ilcan rice se Theodric wæs Amulinga. he wass Cristen. theah he on tham Arrianiscan gedwolan durhwunode. He gehet Romanum his freondscype. swa that hi mostan heora ealdrichta wyrthe beon."--KING ALFRED: Johnson's Hist. of E. L., 4to Dict., p. 17.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF THE GRAMMATICAL STUDY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
"Grammatica quid est? ars rectè scribendi rectèque loquendi; poetarum enarrationem continens; omnium Scientiarum fons uberrimus. * * * Nostra ætas parum perita rerum veterum, nimis brevi gyro grammaticum sepsit; at apud antiques olim tantum auctoritatis hic ordo habuit, ut censores essent et judices scriptorum omnium soli grammatici; quos ob id etiam Criticos vocabant."--DESPAUTER. Præf. ad Synt, fol. 1.
1. Such is the peculiar power of language, that there is scarcely any
subject so trifling, that it may not thereby be plausibly magnified into
something great; nor are there many things which cannot be ingeniously
disparaged till they shall seem contemptible. Cicero goes further: "Nihil
est tam incredibile quod non dicendo fiat probabile;"--"There is nothing so
incredible that it may not by the power of language be made probable." The
study of grammar has been often overrated, and still oftener injuriously
decried. I shall neither join with those who would lessen in the public
esteem that general system of doctrines, which from time immemorial has
been taught as grammar; nor attempt, either by magnifying its practical
results, or by decking it out with my own imaginings, to invest it with any
artificial or extraneous importance.
