§ 104. We have seen[779] that in the case of the Orosius, the only direct hint of authorship contained in the book itself is the address of Ohthere to ‘his lord King Alfred’; and the earliest external testimony on the subject is to be found in William of Malmesbury in the early part of the twelfth century. But no one has ever doubted King Alfred’s authorship. Till recently the same might have been said of the Bede; in 1877 Professor Wülker spoke of Alfred’s authorship of the Bede as ‘a fact which no one hitherto has doubted or could doubt[780].’ Since then, however, Mr. Sweet, in his Anglo-Saxon Reader[781], and Dr. Thomas Miller in his edition of the Bede translation, published by the Early English Text Society[782], have tried to overthrow the traditional view; the former, mainly on the ground of that occasional over-literalness of the version already alluded to[783]; the latter, because he thinks that it shows Mercian characteristics incompatible with a West Saxon origin. Now we must admit at once that the book itself contains no direct evidence of authorship, not even such a hint as is dropped in the Orosius. On the other hand the external evidence is very much earlier. Ælfric, the homilist, distinctly quotes the book as Alfred’s. In his homily on St. Gregory he says: ‘Many books tell of his conversation and holy life, as does Historia Anglorum, which King Alfred translated out of English into Latin.… We will however tell you something about him because the fore-said book is not known to all of you, although it is translated into English[784].’ This was written within a hundred years of Alfred’s death. For many books of which the authorship has never been doubted we cannot produce evidence anything like as early. I may note in passing that in speaking of the translation of Gregory’s Dialogues Ælfric makes no assertion as to the Alfredian authorship, merely saying ‘the book has been translated into English, and in it any one who will read it may learn profitably of these matters[785].’ In another place he gives interesting evidence that, till he himself took pen in hand, Alfred’s translations were the only books accessible to those who did not know Latin[786].

Moreover the Cambridge University MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Bede, which is said to be of the middle of the eleventh century, has at the beginning and end the following distich:—

The same MS. contains, between Bede’s Preface and the History proper, a copy of the West Saxon genealogy in the exact form in which it appears in MS. A of the Saxon Chronicle; i.e. it comes down to the accession of Alfred, and no further. This again connects the work with Alfred. The Cambridge MS. is, as far as we can test it, an undoubted copy of one which exists in the library of my own college. This is unfortunately imperfect, both at the beginning and the end. But if, as is likely, it also contained originally the distich and the pedigree, the evidence is thrown yet further back[787].

Curiously enough both Laȝamon[788] and Rudborne[789] speak of the Saxon version as if it were Bede’s own.

§ 105. The question of its authorship must not be regarded as outside the pale of discussion. Only I do not think that the arguments hitherto advanced are sufficient to establish a negative conclusion. As to Dr. Miller’s Mercian theory, I may say at once that I have no pretensions to pose as an expert in early English dialects. I can get up no enthusiasm for the minute distinctions of form and spelling which form their criteria. They have for me only the practical and unpleasant interest that they oblige me often to look up a word in three or four different places in the dictionary before finding it. I may however mention that Professor Schipper, the latest editor of the Anglo-Saxon Bede[790], does not regard the Mercian theory as established[791]. But even if it were established, it does not seem to me incompatible with Alfred’s authorship. It is agreed that all our existing MSS. go back to a single archetype, though they branch off into two groups which form to some extent a twofold recension[792]. The scribe of that archetypal MS. may have been a Mercian, and there may have been other MSS. in which these Mercian peculiarities were wanting. Even if it be assumed (for it certainly could not be proved), that this Mercian archetype was the original MS. of all, it is equally open to us to suppose that the scribe to whom Alfred dictated his translation in the first instance may have been a Mercian. Or again it is quite possible that the Mercian characteristics, if they exist, may be due to the influence of the Mercian scholars who assisted Alfred in his work—Plegmund, Werferth, and the two Mercian chaplains mentioned by Asser[793]. And it is some confirmation of this that there is a certain affinity noticeable between the diction and style of the Bede translation and that of the earlier or unrevised version of the Dialogues, which, as we have seen, there is good reason to attribute to Werferth[794].

§ 106. As to the over-literalness of the translation in places, the fact must be admitted, though the extent of it has been, I think, somewhat exaggerated. The cases fall under three heads: (1) where a Latin construction is unidiomatically imitated in the Saxon[795]; this applies especially to constructions with the ablative absolute[796], the accusative and infinitive[797], and the use of the passive voice[798], the range of which is much more restricted in Saxon than in Latin[799]; (2) where a Latin word is translated by a Saxon one which may correspond fairly well with the general meaning of the Latin word, but does not give its sense in the particular passage[800]; (3) where a phrase or sentence is translated, to use Alfred’s own expression, ‘word by word,’ instead of ‘sense by sense[801].’ To all these classes the explanation suggested by Professor Schipper would often apply, viz. that the translator may have embodied in his work interlinear glosses which had been made to assist him; and he cites in illustration the difference between the West Saxon and Northumbrian versions of the Gospels, the former of which is a genuine translation, while the latter is an interlinear gloss made word for word[802]. Some however of the cases where Latin constructions are reproduced, and also one or two of the second class, give me the impression, not that the translator could not have translated more idiomatically if he had pleased, but rather that he was trying experiments with the language. The development of early prose in almost all European languages has been largely influenced by Latin models, and it was only experience which could show how far the process of assimilation might be carried. Similarly for some two centuries after the Renaissance English prose literature is full of experimentally transplanted Latinisms, of which a large proportion failed to make good their footing in the language. Another possibility must also be borne in mind; that the Bede may never have received Alfred’s final revision. We have seen that in the case of the Dialogues an extensive revision was found desirable at a later time, and we seem to have traces of a partial revision of the Bede in the younger group of MSS. mentioned above, in which not only does the translation vary, at times very considerably[803], but a passage is inserted which the earlier recension omits[804], and conversely[805]. When this partial revision was made I cannot say, but probably not by Alfred himself. On the whole, then, I do not regard Mr. Sweet’s or Dr. Miller’s argument as conclusive, either against Alfred’s authorship of the Bede translation, or against the priority of the Orosius.

§ 107. I have already said[806] that the principal changes made by Alfred in the Bede are in the way of omission, the additions being comparatively slight. It is worth while to see what considerations guided him in this. First of all he omits almost all documents[807], in two instances he just gives a brief summary of a letter in oratio obliqua[808]. He seems at first to have intended to omit the interrogations and responses of Augustine and Gregory, but afterwards to have changed his mind, as in all the MSS. they occur after the third book instead of in their proper place near the end of the first[809]. He also omits all the metrical compositions, epitaphs, &c.[810], which occur in the course of the work. Then, too, he omits almost everything bearing on the Easter Controversy[811]; partly no doubt because he felt, as modern readers feel, the intolerable tediousness of the whole thing; but partly also, we may well believe, because he disliked the bitterness which even the gentle Bede shows on this question[812], for there are little touches which seem to prove that the piety and self-devotion of the Celtic missionaries had made a deep impression on his heart[813]. The early history prior to the conversion of the Saxons is also a good deal abbreviated[814], no doubt as having less direct interest for his readers. So the description of the sacred places which Bede largely borrowed from Arculfus is omitted, probably for similar reasons[815].

§ 108. It has often formed a subject both of wonder and regret that Alfred should not have enriched the Bede with additions drawn from his own knowledge of the traditions of his people, as he might so easily have done. Reverence for his original may have had something to do with this; but I agree with Professor Wülker[816] that the main reason probably was, because all that Alfred desired in this line had already been done in the compilation of the Saxon Chronicle. It is confirmatory of this that the chronological summary appended to his history by Bede, which had, as I have elsewhere shown[817], such an important influence on the development of annalistic writing in general, and of the Saxon Chronicle in particular, is omitted in the Bede translation.

Smaller additions and expansions there are, but they seldom really add anything to the narrative. They are as a rule merely inserted to make it a little more clear[818], or a little more vivid, or a little more in accordance with the translator’s ideas[819]. Occasionally, though rarely, they show a touch of personal feeling; as where Diocletian is characterised as the bad emperor[820], Constantine as the good emperor[821], and Aidan as the good bishop[822]. Sometimes, as in the other works, they are brief explanations of things which the readers might not know[823]. Occasionally statements of Bede’s are altered[824], or omitted[825], because they were no longer applicable, or they are marked distinctly as being Bede’s and not Alfred’s[826]. But in other cases similar statements are retained, though it would not be safe to argue from this that the state of things indicated still subsisted in Alfred’s day[827].

Here too there are mistakes[828], though fewer and less serious than in the Orosius. In some cases they may be due to erroneous readings in the MS. which Alfred used[829]. In one or two instances Alfred’s version shows a remarkable divergence of historical fact, which can hardly arise wholly from misunderstanding[830].

But on the whole the translation is a worthy one, preserving, and in one or two instances enhancing[831], the beauty of the original, the most beautiful historical work which the Church had produced since Luke and John wrote their Gospels.

One incidental merit of the translation, as Stubbs has remarked[832], is that it enables us to equate the Saxon technical terms of officers and institutions with the corresponding Latin ones[833].

§ 109. We come now to what is in many respects the most interesting and important of all Alfred’s literary works, viz. the translation of Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy. It is here that the additions made by Alfred to his original give us the clearest insight into his own character and modes of thought. And the original is in itself one of the most noteworthy books of the Middle Ages. Just as Orosius was to those ages the accepted manual of universal history[834], and the Cura Pastoralis their accepted manual of Spiritual Counsel, so the Consolatio of Boethius was their accepted manual of practical and speculative philosophy; the one channel through which some tincture of ancient speculation passed into the popular thought of the early Middle Ages. Perhaps no book except the Bible and the Imitatio has been translated into so many languages; and in more than one European country the early translations of the Consolatio have had an important influence on the development of a vernacular literature[835]. For this popularity several reasons may be given. Something was probably due to the form of the work, which is written in that mixture of verse and prose known as the Satura Menippaea[836]. The lyrics of the Consolatio won the enthusiastic admiration of the great Renaissance scholar, F. C. Scaliger[837], and I must confess that to me they seem extremely beautiful, though their beauty is of a somewhat frosty order. But if they have something of the hardness and coldness of marble, they have also its purity and high polish[838]. But the chief reason was, no doubt, sympathy with the author’s misfortunes, whose sudden fall, from being the favourite and chief minister of Theodoric, to prison and to death, made him one of the most signal examples in that ever-lengthening treatise De casibus illustrium uirorum, on which the Middle Ages pondered with intense and morbid interest, feeding that contempt for the world[839] and all things human, which finds such passionate expression in many mediaeval writings:—

To this power of the work as a record of human suffering pathetic testimony is borne by the title of an anonymous French translation of the fifteenth century, which announces itself as the work of ’un pauvre clerc désolé, quérant sa consolation par la traduction de cestui livre[841]’; it is the book to which Dante resorted for comfort after the death of Beatrice[842]; and our own Sir Thomas More while in prison wrote an imitation of Boethius, which he calls ‘Three Books of Comfort in Tribulation[843].’ ‘Dost thou think,’ asks Philosophy of Boethius in Alfred’s translation, ‘that to thee alone such change of state and sorrow have come[844]?’ And, in spite of Tennyson, the fact ‘that loss is common’ does ‘make Our own less bitter[845]’; and the ‘sense of tears in mortal things[846]’ knits mankind together in bonds of sympathy which do make the common burden lighter. And in the case of Boethius this natural feeling was heightened by the erroneous impression, which prevailed in the Middle Ages, that the sufferings of Boethius were due to the rage of an Arian ruler against his Catholic servant[847]. A superficial inspection of dates is sufficient to dispel this illusion[848]; and how little support it derives from the work itself is shown by the fact, that few questions in literary history have been more keenly debated than the question, whether the author was a Christian at all[849]. The question turns largely on the authenticity of certain theological tracts which bear the name of Boethius, and do not concern us here[850]. On the whole it is probable that Boethius was by profession a Christian, though it would seem that his Christianity did not go very deep. Certainly in the hour of trouble, which generally shows the real basis of a man’s thought and character, he turns for consolation, not to the doctrines of Christianity, but to the teachings of Neo-platonic philosophy; and I unhesitatingly affirm that there is far more of the spirit of Christianity in the writings of acknowledged pagans like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, than in this work of a nominal Christian, who enforces the duty of prayer, not by the authority of Christ and His Apostles, but by that of Plato in the Timaeus[851].

§ 110. It might have been thought that this absence of any distinctively Christian character would have militated against the popularity of the Consolatio in the Middle Ages. That it did not do so was due partly to causes already enumerated, partly to the fact that the non-Christian character of the work was to some extent concealed by the Christian interpretation given to various passages in the commentaries and glosses on Boethius; which interpretations were in turn embodied in the different translations of the Consolatio, at the head of which stands Alfred’s version.

This interesting fact, that many of the additions in Alfred’s Boethius, especially those of a distinctly Christian character, are not really due to Alfred himself but to the glosses and commentaries which were used by him or his learned assistants, was first pointed out by Dr. Schepss in a very suggestive article in the Archiv für’s Studium der neueren Sprachen[852]. It is much to be regretted that Dr. Schepss’ death prevented him from pursuing this line of investigation further. Till this field has been fully explored, we incur the danger of citing as specially characteristic of Alfred something which he only borrowed from others. In some instances I have noticed that the additions made by Alfred are really taken from, or at least suggested by other passages in the text of Boethius[853]. But, when all deductions have been made, there remains enough that we may safely take as evidence of Alfred’s thought and feeling. I have already cited the passage bearing on the needs and instruments of a king[854]. This was to some extent suggested by a commentary, but it is instinct with the mind of Alfred, as is the oft-quoted sentence with which the chapter closes: ‘My will was to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that should come after my memory in good works[855].’ Very Alfredian too are the thoughts that reward should not be looked for in this world[856], but should be sought from God alone[857]; that a good name is better than any wealth[858]; that true nobility is of the mind, not of the body[859]; that an honest purpose is accepted, even though its accomplishment be frustrated[860]; that a king without free subjects is nothing worth[861]; that no one should be idle[862], or wish to live a soft life[863]. But perhaps the noblest passage is that in which by a splendid metaphor Philosophy is made to say: ‘When I with my servants mount aloft, then do we look down upon the stormy world, even as the eagle when he soars above the clouds in stormy weather, so that the storms cannot hurt him[864]’;—a metaphor which so strikingly expresses Alfred’s own soaring superiority to what he elsewhere calls ‘the wind of stern labours, and the rain of excessive anxiety[865].’

And this brings me to another point. If any one will look through the additions made by Alfred to the text of Boethius, which are very conveniently distinguished by italic type in Mr. Sedgefield’s handy rendering of Alfred’s version into modern English[866], he can hardly fail to notice how many of them consist in metaphors and similes; none perhaps so fine as that just quoted, but often of great interest and beauty[867]. Even where the simile was suggested by something in the text or commentary which Alfred had before him, it is often developed at much greater length. This is a point of some interest, because it shows that Alfred’s mind was of the class which delights in parable and figure, and makes it not unreasonable to look for deeper meanings in what he wrote and wrought[868].

§ 111. I have said that the subject of fate occupies a prominent place in the Consolatio and in Alfred’s translation of it[869]. The relation of fate to providence, of divine foreknowledge to human freedom, the nature of evil, the existence of chance, these are the high themes round which much of the latter part of the argument circles. They are the themes which occupied the more intellectual spirits among Milton’s fallen angels:—

And fallen man has succeeded as little as fallen angel in solving these high doubts. Alfred realises, as indeed does Boethius, the arduous nature of the inquiry; and his conclusion is, as we should expect, much more than is the case with Boethius, the conclusion of Christian faith and practical Christian piety: ‘I say, as do all Christian men, that it is the divine purpose that rules, and not Fate[871].’ He sees, as all moralists have seen, that morality is only possible on a basis of freedom, that fatalism reduces vice and virtue, punishment and reward to unmeaning terms[872]. ‘To men and to angels God gave the gift of freedom that they might do good or evil, whichever they pleased[873].… But if it be true that the good and the wicked are so made as to be unable to act otherwise than they do, then vain is our labour when we pray, and fast, or give alms, if we have no more thank therefor than those who in all things … run after their fleshly lusts[874]; … and vain too is the commandment which God gave to man that he should eschew evil and do good[875].’ God knows all our works, before we even conceive them in our thought; but this knowledge is not a cause compelling us so to act, any more than the knowledge of the steersman that a storm is coming, is the cause of the storm[876].

There are other points which illustrate Alfred’s studies, tastes, and circumstances; the saying that in the golden age no one had heard of a pirate host[877]; the allusion to the wise goldsmith, Weland[878]; the explanations about India and Thule[879].

And there are things in the text itself which evidently come home to Alfred; the beauty of gems[880], the fairness of the country-side—the fairest of all God’s creations[881], the song of the birds in the woods[882], the worth of friends[883]; the stories of kings reduced to poverty[884], of the sword of Damocles[885], the joy of a calm haven after storms[886].

Here too, as in the case of the Orosius, Alfred has modified his original by omissions as well as additions; but it is unnecessary to go minutely into this point, as Mr. Sedgefield has prefixed to his edition of Alfred’s version an elaborate table showing the relation of that version to the original[887].

§ 112. In regard to the translation as a whole no doubt has ever been expressed as to the authorship of Alfred[888]; and it is the only one of Alfred’s works which is mentioned by name by Ethelwerd, who wrote towards the end of the tenth century[889]. There is, however, an interesting literary question connected with it, which is this. The translation exists in only two MSS., one in the Cottonian Collection[890], the other in the Bodleian[891]. In the older or Cottonian MS. the metrical parts of Boethius are, with three exceptions[892], rendered into alliterative Saxon verse; in the later or Bodleian MS. they are rendered into prose. It is as to Alfred’s authorship of the alliterative poems that the controversy has raged; and those who deny their authenticity are compelled to deny also the authenticity of the two proems in prose and verse[893], in both of which the poems are distinctly ascribed to Alfred. The question, though interesting as a literary problem, is not intrinsically of great importance. The poems are not of the highest order, though they have been, I think, unduly depreciated. Alfred’s fame will not be much exalted if he wrote them, or much depressed if they should be adjudged to another. I must confess, however, that a great deal of the argument on the negative side seems to me to be of that purely arbitrary and subjective kind which in its ultimate analysis amounts to this: ‘it can’t have been so, because I don’t think that it was[894].’

§ 113. One thing is agreed on all sides; the verse translation is made from the prose translation, and is not an independent rendering made direct from the Latin; and the main argument of the negative critics is that it is impossible to suppose that a man like Alfred can have occupied himself in turning his own vigorous prose into indifferent verse. On this I would remark: first, does it follow, because Alfred was a great man and a great prose-writer, that he was also necessarily a considerable poet[895]? Secondly, if Alfred wrote the verses, does it necessarily follow that he thought them poor and unworthy of the trouble of making? Great writers are not always gifted with the faculty of self-criticism; otherwise we should not have Wordsworth taking apparently equal pleasure in the composition of Betty Foy and of Laodamia. Indeed, on my conscience, I believe that he liked Betty Foy the better of the two[896]. Thirdly, even if Alfred were conscious of his limitations as a poet, is it not possible that his conscientious spirit may have felt bound to give as true a representation of the original as possible, by reproducing one of its most salient features, the alternation of verse and prose? In truth this style of criticism, if logically carried out, would lead us very far. It would prove, for instance, that at least two hands were concerned in the composition of the third book of Wordsworth’s Prelude. That book contains the glorious and well-known lines:—

But it also contains the no less well-known, but most inglorious line:

It would also prove (to take a closer parallel) that the late Professor Conington never wrote a verse translation of the Aeneid. Unlike Alfred, Mr. Conington was, as we all know, a very considerable Latin scholar; but I must be pardoned for saying that, like Alfred, he was not a very considerable poet. He wrote a prose translation of the Aeneid, of which he thought so little that it was not published till after his death; he wrote a verse translation of the same poem, of which he evidently thought a good deal. Yet can we not imagine a German critic a thousand years hence arguing that the author of the prose translation could never have penned a couplet like the following?—