[* A hide contained land sufficient to employ one plough. See H. Hunting, lib. vi. in A. D. 1008. Annal. Waverl. in A. D. 1083. Gervase of Tilbury says, it commonly contained about one hundred acres.]
But the most effectual expedient, employed by Alfred for the encouragement of learning, was his own example, and the constant assiduity with which, notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of his affairs, he employed himself in the pursuits of knowledge. He usually divided his time into three equal portions: one was employed in sleep, and the refection of his body by diet and exercise; another, in the despatch of business; a third, in study and devotion; and that he might more exactly measure the hours, he made use of burning tapers of equal length, which he fixed in lanterns,[*] an expedient suited to that rude age, when the geometry of dialling, and the mechanism of clocks and watches, were totally unknown. And by such a regular distribution of his time though he often labored under great bodily infirmities,[**] this martial hero, who fought in person fifty-six battles by sea and land,[***] was able, during a life of no extraordinary length, to acquire more knowledge, and even to compose more books, than most studious men, though blessed with the greatest leisure and application, have, in more fortunate ages, made the object of their uninterrupted industry.
[* Asser. p. 20. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4. Ingulph. p. 870.]
[** Asser. p.4, 12, 13, 17, J W. Malms, lib. iv. cap. 4.]
Sensible that the people, at all times, especially when their understandings are obstructed by ignorance and bad education, are not much susceptible of speculative instruction, Alfred endeavored to convey his morality by apologues, parables, stories, apothegms, couched in poetry; and besides propagating among his subjects former compositions of that kind, which he found in the Saxon tongue,[*] he exercised his genius in inventing works of a like nature,[**] as well as in translating from the Greek the elegant Fables of Æsop. He also gave Saxon translations of Orosius’s and Bede’s histories; and of Boethius concerning the consolation of philosophy.[***] And he deemed it nowise derogatory from his other great characters of sovereign, legislator, warrior, and politician, thus to lead the way to his people in the pursuits of literature.