ALFONSO de Palencia, or Alphonsus Palentinus, a Spanish historian and lexicographer, author of a chronicle of the reign of Enrique IV., a translation of Josephus, and two lexicographical works, was born in 1423. He had the honour of conducting the negotiations that preceded the auspicious marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Died in 1495.
ALFONSO, Peter, a Spanish theologian, of Hebrew origin, physician to Alfonso I. of Aragon; born in 1062, and baptized into the Christian faith in 1106. He published a refutation of Judaism. Died in 1140.
ALFONSO de Spina, or d'Espi´na, a celebrated Spanish preacher and theological writer, bishop of Orense in Galicia, flourished about the middle of the fifteenth century, and published anonymously a work entitled "Fortalitium Fidei," (The Stronghold of Faith.)—J. S., G.
ALFONSO de Talavera, author of a compilation on veterinary surgery, published at Toledo in 1564.
ALFONSO, de la Torre, a Catalonian writer of the 15th century, author of a curious medley of science, philosophy, art, and morals, which he called "La Visio Delectable."
ALFONSO de Zamora, a Spanish rabbi of Leon, who became professor of Hebrew at the university of Alcala, and was employed by Cardinal Ximenes on the Complutensian Polyglot.
ALFONSO LOPEZ de Corella, a Spanish physician, a native of Navarre, and some time professor of medicine at Alcala de Henares. Besides other works he is the author of "Annotationes in omnia Galeni opera," Madrid, 1582, 4to; "De morbo pestilente," Valentia, 1581, 4to; "Naturæ quærimonia," Saragossa, 1564, 8vo; "De arte curativa, libri iv.," Estella, 1555, 8vo; "Catalogus auctorum qui post Galeni ævum Hippocrati et Galeno contradixerunt," Valentia, 1549, 12mo; "Secretos de filosofia, astrologia, y medicina, y de las quatro mathematicas," Valladolid, 1546, 8vo.—A. M.
ALFONSO RODRIGUEZ de Guevara, professor of medicine at the university of Coimbra. He wrote a "Defensio Galeni," Coimbra, 1559, 4to.
*ALFORD, Rev. Henry, B.D., one of our most famous biblical critics, celebrated also as a poet, and as the author of some volumes of sermons, was born in London in 1810. He was educated at Trinity college, Cambridge, and was elected Fellow in 1834. In the following year he became vicar of Wymeswold, Leicestershire, and held that office till 1853, when he was appointed officiating minister in Quebec Street chapel, London. He held the Hulsean lectureship at Cambridge in 1841-2, and since that date has been examiner on logic and natural philosophy in the university of London. His best-known work is an edition of the Greek Testament, the first volume of which appeared in 1844, and the second in 1852. He has lately published a volume of sermons, entitled "The Divine Love," which has attained to great popularity. His poetical works are, "Poems and Poetical Fragments," 1831, and "The School of the Heart, and other Poems," 1835.—J. B.
AL-FRAGANIUS, often ALFERGANUS; Mohammed Ibn Cothair al Fergani:—the surname derived, as usual, from his native town Fergana, in Sogdiana. This astronomer composed an elementary work, which, for a long time, was classical in the East, and was even translated by Golius. It is a good and succinct exposition of the doctrines of the Almagest. Alfraganius treats also of solar clocks and of the Astrolabe. He was famed for his powers in calculation.—J. P. N.
ALFRED, more justly called the Great than any other sovereign to whom that term of honour has been applied, was the youngest son of Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons and of Kent, by Osburg, the daughter of Oslac, the king's cup-bearer. He was born a.d. 849, and from his earliest childhood showed that generous disposition which joined with his great qualities to make him what he was justly termed, "the darling of England." He was born at Wantage in Berkshire, a few miles from the valley of the Thames, but on the edge of that great region of wild chalk downs and upland plains, which formed the centre of the kingdom of the West Saxons. The affection of his biographers has recorded, that, as a child, his mother showed him, and he eagerly committed to memory, many of those old Saxon poems which have ever been the delight of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is said that he was taken or sent to Rome by his father in the year 853, when he was only four years old; and the monkish historians who record this circumstance add, that he was not only blessed, but anointed as king by the pope, an assertion which is scarcely credible, seeing that he was the youngest child, and had three elder brothers, all of whom reigned before him. His father, who was a weak man, governed by women and priests, introduced discord into his family, when Alfred was yet a child, by marrying in his old age a second wife, the beautiful Princess Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, king of the Franks. He also excited discontent in his kingdom by granting to the ruling pope and his successors, the right to collect in England the odious tax long known as "Peter's pence." Ethelwulf did not long survive his second marriage, dying in the year 858, when Alfred was only nine years of age.
On the death of Ethelwulf, his kingdoms of Wessex and Kent were divided between his two oldest sons, Ethelbald and Ethelbert. In this partition, Ethelbald received the kingdom of Wessex, or of the West Saxons, comprising the counties of Berks, Hants, Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, and Devon (with a supremacy over the Britons of Cornwall); and Ethelbert received the kingdom of Kent, which included the counties of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. But they were both cut off early in life. Ethelbald died in the year 860; and Ethelbert in the year 866. After the death of the latter the two kingdoms were reunited in the person of Ethelred, the third son of Ethelwulf, and the next brother of the still youthful Alfred.
It was in the reign of Ethelred, and immediately after his accession to the throne, that the grand invasion of England by the Danes commenced. Plunder and the ransom of prisoners had hitherto been the objects of the bands of northern pirates which had infested the coast of England; but in the year 866, large armies of Danes and Norwegians began to pour into the kingdom, under able leaders, thoroughly bent on conquering the whole island, and on establishing the permanent ascendancy of the Scandinavian over the Teutonic race. In the year 866, the Danes landed in Lincolnshire, and overran and partially established themselves in that district. In the year 868, they captured the city of York, the capital of the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, killed two kings who were contending for ascendancy there, and in a short time made themselves masters of that part of England which lies to the north of the Humber and the Mersey. In the following year they invaded the kingdom of Mercia, which included the midland counties of England, from the Mersey to the Thames. Here they took the strong castle of Nottingham.
In the year in which the Danes took Nottingham, Alfred married Ealhawith, a daughter of Ethelred, earl or alderman (as the Saxons named that rank) of the Gainishmen, or people in the neighbourhood of Gainsborough; and in the same year he was first seized with a terrible disease, the exact nature of which is not known, but which was attended with frightful paroxysms of pain, and to which he remained subject to the end of his life.
On the advance of the Danes in Mercia, Burhead, the king of Mercia, who had married a sister of Ethelred and Alfred, eagerly besought their aid, which was readily given. The king and his brother advanced with a West Saxon army to Nottingham; but when they arrived there, they found the Danes strongly fortified in the castle and town. After remaining there until their provisions were nearly exhausted, and until their irregular levies, consisting of raw militia, became eager to return home, Alfred and the king were compelled to retire from Mercia, though not without concluding a treaty with the Danes, by which the latter agreed to do so likewise.
No sooner, however, had the West Saxon army retired, than the Danes overran the kingdom of Mercia; and after laying it waste, advanced into the kingdom of East Anglia, which consisted of the modern counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridge, and of the southern parts of Lincolnshire. The Danes were commanded by two formidable chiefs, Ingvar, famed for his skill as a commander; and Ubba, dreaded for his terrible courage. After gaining a great victory over Earl Algar and the East Angles at Kesteven, in Lincolnshire, on the 21st September, 869, they advanced to East Thetford, in Norfolk. There they defeated and killed Ulfketul, the ablest earl of the East Angles, and, in the winter of the same year, they defeated Edward, king of the East Angles, whom they took prisoner, and put to death with cruel torments. Guthorm, one of the most celebrated of the Danish chiefs, seized the kingdom of East Anglia, and retained it to the end of his life. Other Danish
