messenger into Wales to ascertain the reason. The messenger found
that Asser was sick. His friends, however, had advised that he should
accede to Alfred's proposal to spend six months of the year in
England, as they thought that by that means, through his influence
with Alfred, he would be the better able to protect and advance the
interests of their monasteries and establishments in Wales. So Asser
went to England, and became during six months in the year Alfred's
constant friend and teacher. In the course of time, Alfred placed
him at the head of some of the most important establishments and
ecclesiastical charges in England.

One day--it was eight or nine years after Alfred's victory over
Guthrum and settlement of the kingdom--the king and Asser were engaged
in conversation in the royal apartments, and Asser quoted some Latin
phrase with which, on its being explained, Alfred was very much
pleased, and he asked Asser to write it down for him in his book. So
saying, he took from his pocket a little book of prayers and other
pieces of devotion, which he was accustomed to carry with him for
daily use. It was, of course, in manuscript. Asser looked over it to
find a space where he could write the Latin quotation, but there was
no convenient vacancy. He then proposed to Alfred that he should make
for him another small book, expressly for Latin quotations, with
explanations of their meaning, if Alfred chose to make them, in the
Anglo-Saxon tongue. Alfred highly approved of this suggestion. The
bishop prepared the little parchment volume, and it became gradually
filled with passages of Scripture, in Latin, and striking sentiments,
briefly and tersely expressed, extracted from the writings of the
Roman poets or of the fathers of the Church. Alfred wrote opposite to
each quotation its meaning, expressed in his own language; and as he
made the book his constant companion, and studied it continually,