that had been tried by fire. ¹ In the Boethius, too,
Alfred compares the union of many forms of good-
ness in the Highest Good, to the melting of metal
into an ingot, and speaks of the cleansing and
refining of men by the heavenly fire as like the
refining of silver. ² Already, then, some system
of "blanching" or assaying gold and silver had
been established. Already the foundations were
laid for the elaborate organisation of the later
Exchequer. Rustic still, and simple, primitive
even to barbarism, Alfred's England yet held
within it a mighty force of life, the youthful
promise of a splendid maturity.

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