and "The King of Men;" and apply to him feveral epithets that the inspired writers of the New Testament have bestowed on Jefus Chrift, for whom Ali himself is faid to have entertained a particular veneration. The following fpecimen of the readiness of his wit, among many others, is handed down to us: One of his general officers had the affurance to ask him the reason why the reigns of Abu Beker and Omar were fo tranquil at home, and thofe of Othman and himself fo unquiet and boisterous?" Because,” replied Ali, "Abu Beker and Omar had Othman and myself for their fervants; but Othman and I found none but you, and fuch as you, to ferve us."

After the decease of Ali, a long train of caliphs afcended the throne that Mahomet had established, most of whom were the progeny of the principal generals that had been employed in the fervice of the prophet; and their power continued to increase, till it had extended itself over the greatest part of Afia and Africa, together with the fouthern parts of Europe, and conftituted an empire the moft extenfive ever known. The feat of the Mahommedan caliphs remained for fome years at Medina. It was from thence removed to

Bagdad;

Bagdad; but in procefs of time, the Turks, who had at first been only employed as mercenary troops in the contefts between fome of the competitors for the Mahommedan throne, acquired fuch an afcendancy, that having taken Conftantinople from the Greeks, they fixed the fovereignty in that city, and there it ftill remains.

INSTANCE THE THIRTEENTH.

ALFRED*.

The wifeft head, and best intention'd heart,
Cannot avert misfortune's barbed dart;
But thefe alone its venom'd wound can cure,
Or teach its unheal'd ranklings to endure.

T

HOUGH this famous king was born

to the expectation of a throne, and died in poffeffion of the fovereign authority, yet, during a part of his life, he underwent a reverse of fortune fo extreme, (being obliged to abandon his throne, and live a reclufe life), that he undoubtedly ought to be numbered among those who have experienced, in a fingular degree, the mutability of fortune.

Egbert having fubdued the other kingdoms of the Saxon heptarchy, and united them into one fovereignty, under the title of Life of Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxons. By A. B. Engle

圈

Engle-land, or England, he died after à reign of thirty-feven years; twenty as king of Weffex only, feven with the dignity of fovereign of the heptarchy, and ten years as monarch of all England; leaving behind him the character of an accomplished commander, a confummate politician, and a humane fovereign.

Egbert was fucceeded, in the year 838, by his fon Ethelwulph. This prince having, during the life of an elder brother, profeffed himself a monk, he thereby contracted fuch an habitual propenfity to indolence and devotion, that, except when an invafion of the Danes obliged him to exert himself, his time was totally devoted to his religious concerns. His munificence to the church and the clergy degenerated into extravagance and the most lavish profufion; and in order to convince the Pope of the fincerity of his devotion, he fent his fon Alfred, then about five years old, with a numerous retinue, to Rome, where the young prince received confirmation from the Pope at that early age, as fome return for his father's zeal and liberality.

This mark of Ethelwulph's piety and devotion to the court of Rome, was not, howR 2

ever,

Mahomet, fhe lived with him to the time of his decease, always glorying in her exaltation, and vaunting herself in the manner in which fhe became his wife. "You," faid fhe to the others, were given in marriage to the prophet by your parents and kinsfolk; but I had the honour of being united to him by God himself, who dwells above the feven heavens."

Befides his wives, he had feveral concubines, to one of whom he was particularly attached. She was an Egyptian, and a Chriftian of the fect of Jacobites. The governor of Egypt having occafion to treat with Mahomet about fome affairs which required addrefs in the negociation, and knowing the frailty of the prophet with regard to women, the better to incline him to his purpose, sent him this beautiful maiden as a prefent. She was then in all the bloom of youth, having juft attained her fifteenth year.

The pretended apostle snapped at the bait, and placed her, as he thought, where he could vifit her, without being expofed to the prying eye of jealoufy. But notwithstanding Mahomet conducted this amour with all poffible privacy, Ayesha and Haphsha found

means