Publisher to the University of Oxford
London, Edinburgh, and New York
WITH SEPARATE FIGURE OF ENAMEL
The Alfred Jewel:
Rector of Swanswick, Prebendary of Wells
Rawlinsonian Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford
At the Clarendon Press
mdcccci
Printed at the Clarendon Press
By Horace Hart, M.A.
Printer to the University
PREFACE
IT is full fifty years since I began to contemplate the Alfred Jewel with a wonder and curiosity which became a habit. At length, in the latter half of that period, the vague attitude of enquiry began to point in a definite direction, and to exhibit susceptibility of development suggesting promise of possible discovery. Prompted by such anticipations, I one day ventured to express a wish to the Principal of Hertford College that he would exercise his well-known graphic talent upon the Alfred Jewel, and make some enlarged drawings of it suitable for a Public Lecture. The result was that he gave me a beautiful set of coloured drawings of the Jewel in various aspects admirably calculated for exhibition in the Lecturevi Room. Thus equipped, I was able to make the subject more intelligible and more attractive, and I lectured upon it the oftener. As it has not been my wont to write my lectures out in full, it was all the more necessary for me on ev