well
_After the painting by Pieter van der Picas_.

Louis XIV. and Mlle. de la Valliere
_After the painting by A.P.E. Morlon_.

Peter the Great
_After a Contemporaneous Engraving_.

Peter the Great Learns the Trade of Ship-Carpentry at Zaardam
_After the painting by Felix Cogen_.

Frederic the Great
_After the painting by W. Camphausen_.

ALFRED THE GREAT.

A.D. 849-901.

THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.

Alfred is one of the most interesting characters in all history for
those blended virtues and talents which remind us of a David, a Marcus
Aurelius, or a Saint Louis,--a man whom everybody loved, whose deeds
were a boon, whose graces were a radiance, and whose words were a
benediction; alike a saint, a poet, a warrior, and a statesman. He ruled
a little kingdom, but left a great name, second only to Charlemagne,
among the civilizers of his people and nation in the Middle Ages. As a
man of military genius he yields to many of the kings of England, to say
nothing of the heroes of ancient and modern times.

When he was born, A.D. 849, the Saxons had occupied Britain, or England,
about four hundred years, having conquered it from the old Celtic
inhabitants soon after the Romans had retired to defend their own
imperial capital from the Goths. Like the Goths, Vandals, Franks,
Burgundians, Lombards, and Heruli, the Saxons belonged to the same
Teutonic race, whose remotest origin can be traced to Central
Asia,--kindred, indeed, to the early inhabitants of Italy and Greece,
whom we call Indo-European, or Aryan. These Saxons--one of the fiercest
tribes of the Teutonic barbarians;--lived, before the invasion of
Britain, in that part of Europe which we now call Schleswig, in the
heart of the peninsula which parts the Baltic from the northern seas;
also in those parts of Germany which now belong to Hanover and
Oldenburg. It does not appear from the best authorities that these
tribes--called Engle, Saxon, and Jute--wandered about seeking a
precarious living, but they were settled in villages, in the government
of which we trace the germs of the subsequent social and political
institutions of England. The social centre was the homestead of the
_oetheling_ or _corl_, distinguished from his fellow-villagers by his
greater wealth and nobler blood, and held by them in hereditary
reverence. From him and his brother-oethelings the leaders of a warlike
expedition were chosen. He alone was armed with spear and sword, and his
l