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Taglagallo Remarcafkus Directory 09
Page 05
After thus successfully accomplishing the great object of their expedition, it was to have been hoped that they would leave the island and return to their Danish homes. But they evinced no disposition to do this. On the contrary, they commenced a course of ravage and conquest in all parts of England, which continued for several years. The parts of the country which attempted to oppose them they destroyed by fire and sword. They seized cities, garrisoned and occupied them, and settled in them as if to make them their permanent homes. One kingdom after another was subdued. The kingdom of Wessex seemed alone to remain, and that was the subject of contest. Ethelred was the king. The Danes advanced into his dominions to attack him. In the battle that ensued, Ethelred was killed. The successor to his throne was his brother Alfred, the subject of this history, who thus found himself suddenly and unexpectedly called upon to assume the responsibilities and powers of supreme command, in as dark and trying a crisis of national calamity and danger as can well be conceived. The manner in which Alfred acted in the emergency, rescuing his country from her perils, and laying the foundations, as he did, of all the greatness and glory which has since accrued to her, has caused his memory to be held in the highest estimation among all nations, and has immortalized his name.
Melbourne can hardly be called a very great man,--he had not the purpose or tenacity for that, and he thought both too contemptuously and too indulgently of human nature,--but I know of no historical figure who is more wholly transfused and penetrated by the aroma of charm. Everything that he did and said had some distinction and unusualness: perceptive observation, ripe wisdom, and, with it all, the petulant attractiveness of the spoiled and engaging child. And yet even so, one is baffled, because it is not the profundity or the gravity of what he said that impresses; it is rather the delicate and fantastic turn he gave to a thought or a phrase that makes his simplest deductions from life, his most sensible bits of counsel, appear to have something fresh and interesting about them, though prudent men have said much the same before, and said it heavily and solemnly.
Let us now inquire as to the animals that roamed through these great forests we have been describing. The Miocene period extended over a long lapse of time, and considerable change took place among the animals belonging to the different parts of this age. We will only give a general outline for the whole period. The marsupials lingered along into the early stages of this period, and then disappeared from Europe. The rhinoceros were present in the early stages, and continued through the entire age. We meet in this period animals of the elephant kind, two species, the mastodon and deinotherium. Antelopes and gazelles wandered in vast troops over the plains of Hungary, Spain, and Southern France. Carnivorous animals resembling tigers and hyenas found abundance of animal food. Herds of horse-like animals fed on the rich herbage of the meadows. The birds were largely represented. In the woods were to be seen flocks of gayly feathered paroquets and trogons. On the plains secretarybirds hunted the serpents and reptiles, which furnished them food--and eagles were on the watch for their prey. Cranes waded in the rivers for fish. Geese, herons, and pheasants must have been abundant.
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