And now, in the rest of my lecture, I had intended to give you a broad summary of the rise and fall of English art, born under this code of theology, and this enthusiasm of duty;—­of its rise, from the rude vaults of Westminster, to the finished majesty of Wells;—­and of its fall, from that brief hour of the thirteenth century, through the wars of the Bolingbroke, and the pride of the Tudor, and the lust of the Stewart, to expire under the mocking snarl and ruthless blow of the Puritan.  But you know that I have always, in my most serious work, allowed myself to be influenced by those Chances, as they are now called,—­but to my own feeling and belief, guidances, and even, if rightly understood, commands,—­which, as far as I have read history, the best and sincerest men think providential.  Had this lecture been on common principles of art, I should have finished it as I intended, without fear of its being the worse for my consistency.  But it deals, on the contrary, with a subject, respecting which every sentence I write, or speak, is of importance in its issue; and I allowed, as you heard, the momentary observation of a friend, to give an entirely new cast to the close of my last lecture.  Much more, I feel it incumbent upon me in this one, to take advantage of the most opportune help, though in an unexpected direction, given me by my constant tutor, Professor Westwood.  I went to dine with him, a day or two ago, mainly—­being neither of us, I am thankful to say, blue-ribanded—­to drink his health on his recovery from his recent accident.  Whereupon he gave me a feast of good talk, old wine, and purple manuscripts.  And having had as much of all as I could well carry, just as it came to the good-night, out he brings, for a finish, this leaf of manuscript in my hand, which he has lent me to show you,—­a leaf of the Bible of Charles the Bald!

A leaf of it, at least, as far as you or I could tell, for Professor Westwood’s copy is just as good, in all the parts finished, as the original:  and, for all practical purpose, I show you here in my hand a leaf of the Bible which your own King Alfred saw with his own bright eyes, and from which he learned his child-faith in the days of dawning thought!

There are few English children who do not know the story of Alfred, the king, letting the cakes burn, and being chidden by his peasant hostess.  How few English children—­nay, how few perhaps of their educated, not to say learned, elders—­reflect upon, if even they know, the far different scenes through which he had passed when a child!

Concerning his father, his mother, and his own childhood, suppose you were to teach your children first these following main facts, before you come to the toasting of the muffin?

His father, educated by Helmstan, Bishop of Winchester, had been offered the throne of the great Saxon kingdom of Mercia in his early youth; had refused it, and entered, as a novice under St. Swithin the monastery at Winchester.  From St. Swithin, he received the monastic habit, and was appointed by Bishop Helmstan one of his sub-deacons!