he criminals;[*] and so exact was the general police, that Alfred,
it is said, hung up, by way of bravado, golden bracelets near the
highways, and no man dared to touch them.[**] Yet, amidst these rigors
of justice, this great prince preserved the most sacred regard to the
liberty of his people; and it is a memorable sentiment preserved in
his will, that it was just the English should forever remain as free as
their own thoughts.[***]

[* Ingulph. p. 27.]

[* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4.]

[* Asset, p. 24.]

As good morals and knowledge are almost inseparable, in every age,
though not in every individual, the care of Alfred for the encouragement
of learning among his subjects was another useful branch of his
legislation, and tended to reclaim the English from their former
dissolute and ferocious manners; but the king was guided, in this
pursuit, less by political views than by his natural bent and propensity
towards letters. When he came to the throne, he found the nation sunk
into the grossest ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from the continued
disorders in the government, and from the ravages of the Danes. The
monasteries were destroyed, the monks butchered or dispersed, their
libraries burnt; and thus the only seats of erudition in those ages were
totally subverted. Alfred himself complains, that on his accession he
knew not one person, south of the Thames, who could so much as interpret
the Latin service, and very few in the northern parts who had reached
even that pitch of erudition. But this prince invited over the most
celebrated scholars from all parts of Europe; he established schools
every where for the instruction of his people; he founded, at least
repaired, the University of Oxford, and endowed it with many privileges
revenues, and immunities; he enjoined by law all freeholders possessed
of two hides[*] of land, or more, to send their children to school, for
their instruction; he gave preferment both in church and state to
such only as had made some proficiency in knowledge; and by all these
expedients he had the satisfaction, before his death, to see a great
change in the face of affairs; and in a work of his, which is still
extant, he congratulates himself on the progress which learning, under
his patronage, had already made in England.

[* 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 o