"GREAT LIVES."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

"GREAT LIVES."

Alfred the Great, as lie is usually called, though he has not been estimated in general as highly of late years as he had been previously, is deserving of the title, and Messrs. Duckworth have done good service in making him the subject of one of the latest volumes in their series of Ore at Lives. It is the work of Dr. F. 11. Hayward. Every one may not agree with Frederick Harrison's description of him as the only perfect man of action recorded in history, but no one who knows anything of tlie dark ages in which he lived and his work as a soldier, a ruler, a lawgiver and a writei, will deny that he was a very remarkable man. Dr. Hayward has given us an interesting story, though it would have been better had it been less diffuse. He has been somewhat handicapped, too, by his need for depending on translators. And there are curious omissions in the list of names he gives in his bibliography.