The Life and Times of Aired the Great. By Charles
Pltuxuner, MA. (The Clarendon Press. 5s. net.)—This volume contains the Ford Lectures for 1901. Lectures L and II. are devoted to the "Sources," and contain, of course, an examination of what is known as "Assees Life of Alfred," a document which has, especi- ally of late, become the object of the gravest suspicions. This examination occupies nearly forty pages, and the general result is that there is "a nucleus which is the genuine work of a single writer, a South Walian contemporary of Alfred," and, further, that there seems to be "no reason why that South Walian con- temporary should not be Asser of Menevia." If Asser had been a Biblical writer he would not have got off so easily. What Mr. Plummer has to say about Ingulf is well worth noting. That the Croyland Chronicle is a forgery no one doubts, yet there may well be not a few grains of truth in it. Another curious thing is how' little is said about the great Xing in many of the later chronicles. Lecture III. gives Alfred's history up to the time of his accession, IV. deals partly with his campaigns against the Danes and partly with his civil administration, a subject which is continued in V. In this and in VI. we have also an account of education and literary works. It would hardly be possible to say too much in praise of the very complete and adequate way in whi:th Mr. Plummer deals with these subjects. There has been a considerable production of Alfred literature during the last two years, but we know of nothing which can be classed with Mr. Plummer's volume. It was a happy choice by which he was appointed to the Ford Lectureship, and a happy suggestion which gave him this subject.
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