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Posted to commits@pulsar.apache.org by rx...@apache.org on 2020/06/11 10:13:44 UTC
[pulsar-client-go] branch master updated: Microbenchmark for
compression (#275)
This is an automated email from the ASF dual-hosted git repository.
rxl pushed a commit to branch master
in repository https://gitbox.apache.org/repos/asf/pulsar-client-go.git
The following commit(s) were added to refs/heads/master by this push:
new 4712db1 Microbenchmark for compression (#275)
4712db1 is described below
commit 4712db15c478fe193a7be5c8ce5751c34e9205ae
Author: Matteo Merli <mm...@apache.org>
AuthorDate: Thu Jun 11 03:13:34 2020 -0700
Microbenchmark for compression (#275)
Added microbenchmark to report compression and decompression speeds.
---
go.mod | 2 +-
go.sum | 1 +
.../internal/compression/compression_bench_test.go | 92 +
pulsar/internal/compression/test_data_sample.txt | 1795 ++++++++++++++++++++
pulsar/internal/compression/zstd.go | 33 +-
pulsar/internal/compression/zstd_cgo.go | 18 +-
.../internal/compression/{zstd.go => zstd_go.go} | 6 +-
7 files changed, 1912 insertions(+), 35 deletions(-)
diff --git a/go.mod b/go.mod
index 706e382..f807d50 100644
--- a/go.mod
+++ b/go.mod
@@ -15,6 +15,6 @@ require (
github.com/spf13/cobra v0.0.3
github.com/spf13/pflag v1.0.3 // indirect
github.com/stretchr/testify v1.4.0
- github.com/yahoo/athenz v1.8.55
github.com/valyala/gozstd v1.7.0
+ github.com/yahoo/athenz v1.8.55
)
diff --git a/go.sum b/go.sum
index 1008e02..393865f 100644
--- a/go.sum
+++ b/go.sum
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ github.com/jawher/mow.cli v1.0.4/go.mod h1:5hQj2V8g+qYmLUVWqu4Wuja1pI57M83EChYLV
github.com/jawher/mow.cli v1.1.0/go.mod h1:aNaQlc7ozF3vw6IJ2dHjp2ZFiA4ozMIYY6PyuRJwlUg=
github.com/klauspost/compress v1.10.5 h1:7q6vHIqubShURwQz8cQK6yIe/xC3IF0Vm7TGfqjewrc=
github.com/klauspost/compress v1.10.5/go.mod h1:aoV0uJVorq1K+umq18yTdKaF57EivdYsUV+/s2qKfXs=
+github.com/klauspost/compress v1.10.8 h1:eLeJ3dr/Y9+XRfJT4l+8ZjmtB5RPJhucH2HeCV5+IZY=
github.com/klauspost/compress v1.10.8/go.mod h1:aoV0uJVorq1K+umq18yTdKaF57EivdYsUV+/s2qKfXs=
github.com/konsorten/go-windows-terminal-sequences v1.0.1 h1:mweAR1A6xJ3oS2pRaGiHgQ4OO8tzTaLawm8vnODuwDk=
github.com/konsorten/go-windows-terminal-sequences v1.0.1/go.mod h1:T0+1ngSBFLxvqU3pZ+m/2kptfBszLMUkC4ZK/EgS/cQ=
diff --git a/pulsar/internal/compression/compression_bench_test.go b/pulsar/internal/compression/compression_bench_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b4b1a7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pulsar/internal/compression/compression_bench_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+// Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+// or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
+// distributed with this work for additional information
+// regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
+// to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+// "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+// with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+// software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+// "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+// KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
+// specific language governing permissions and limitations
+// under the License.
+
+package compression
+
+import (
+ "io/ioutil"
+ "testing"
+)
+
+var compressed int
+
+func testCompression(b *testing.B, provider Provider) {
+ data, err := ioutil.ReadFile("test_data_sample.txt")
+ if err != nil {
+ b.Error(err)
+ }
+
+ dataLen := int64(len(data))
+
+ b.ResetTimer()
+
+ for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+ // Use len() to avoid the compiler optimizing the call away
+ compressed = len(provider.Compress(data))
+ b.SetBytes(dataLen)
+ }
+}
+
+func testDecompression(b *testing.B, provider Provider) {
+ // Read data sample file
+ data, err := ioutil.ReadFile("test_data_sample.txt")
+ if err != nil {
+ b.Error(err)
+ }
+
+ dataCompressed := provider.Compress(data)
+
+ dataLen := int64(len(data))
+
+ b.ResetTimer()
+
+ for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+ provider.Decompress(dataCompressed, int(dataLen))
+ b.SetBytes(dataLen)
+ }
+}
+
+var benchmarkProviders = []testProvider{
+ {"zlib", ZLibProvider, nil},
+ {"lz4", Lz4Provider, nil},
+ {"zstd-pure-go-fastest", newPureGoZStdProvider(1), nil},
+ {"zstd-pure-go-default", newPureGoZStdProvider(2), nil},
+ {"zstd-pure-go-best", newPureGoZStdProvider(3), nil},
+ {"zstd-cgo-level-fastest", newCGoZStdProvider(1), nil},
+ {"zstd-cgo-level-default", newCGoZStdProvider(3), nil},
+ {"zstd-cgo-level-best", newCGoZStdProvider(9), nil},
+}
+
+func BenchmarkCompression(b *testing.B) {
+ b.ReportAllocs()
+ for _, provider := range benchmarkProviders {
+ p := provider
+ b.Run(p.name, func(b *testing.B) {
+ testCompression(b, p.provider)
+ })
+ }
+}
+
+func BenchmarkDecompression(b *testing.B) {
+ b.ReportAllocs()
+ for _, provider := range benchmarkProviders {
+ p := provider
+ b.Run(p.name, func(b *testing.B) {
+ testDecompression(b, p.provider)
+ })
+ }
+}
diff --git a/pulsar/internal/compression/test_data_sample.txt b/pulsar/internal/compression/test_data_sample.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..89e3e47
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pulsar/internal/compression/test_data_sample.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1795 @@
+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Child's History of England**
+#11 in our series by Charles Dickens
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+A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens
+Scanned and Proofed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+A Child's History of England
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I - ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS
+
+
+
+IF you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand
+upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the
+sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ireland. England and
+Scotland form the greater part of these Islands. Ireland is the
+next in size. The little neighbouring islands, which are so small
+upon the Map as to be mere dots, are chiefly little bits of
+Scotland, - broken off, I dare say, in the course of a great length
+of time, by the power of the restless water.
+
+In the old days, a long, long while ago, before Our Saviour was
+born on earth and lay asleep in a manger, these Islands were in the
+same place, and the stormy sea roared round them, just as it roars
+now. But the sea was not alive, then, with great ships and brave
+sailors, sailing to and from all parts of the world. It was very
+lonely. The Islands lay solitary, in the great expanse of water.
+The foaming waves dashed against their cliffs, and the bleak winds
+blew over their forests; but the winds and waves brought no
+adventurers to land upon the Islands, and the savage Islanders knew
+nothing of the rest of the world, and the rest of the world knew
+nothing of them.
+
+It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient people,
+famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to these Islands, and
+found that they produced tin and lead; both very useful things, as
+you know, and both produced to this very hour upon the sea-coast.
+The most celebrated tin mines in Cornwall are, still, close to the
+sea. One of them, which I have seen, is so close to it that it is
+hollowed out underneath the ocean; and the miners say, that in
+stormy weather, when they are at work down in that deep place, they
+can hear the noise of the waves thundering above their heads. So,
+the Phoenicians, coasting about the Islands, would come, without
+much difficulty, to where the tin and lead were.
+
+The Phoenicians traded with the Islanders for these metals, and
+gave the Islanders some other useful things in exchange. The
+Islanders were, at first, poor savages, going almost naked, or only
+dressed in the rough skins of beasts, and staining their bodies, as
+other savages do, with coloured earths and the juices of plants.
+But the Phoenicians, sailing over to the opposite coasts of France
+and Belgium, and saying to the people there, 'We have been to those
+white cliffs across the water, which you can see in fine weather,
+and from that country, which is called BRITAIN, we bring this tin
+and lead,' tempted some of the French and Belgians to come over
+also. These people settled themselves on the south coast of
+England, which is now called Kent; and, although they were a rough
+people too, they taught the savage Britons some useful arts, and
+improved that part of the Islands. It is probable that other
+people came over from Spain to Ireland, and settled there.
+
+Thus, by little and little, strangers became mixed with the
+Islanders, and the savage Britons grew into a wild, bold people;
+almost savage, still, especially in the interior of the country
+away from the sea where the foreign settlers seldom went; but
+hardy, brave, and strong.
+
+The whole country was covered with forests, and swamps. The
+greater part of it was very misty and cold. There were no roads,
+no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would think deserving of
+the name. A town was nothing but a collection of straw-covered
+huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round, and a low
+wall, made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one upon another.
+The people planted little or no corn, but lived upon the flesh of
+their flocks and cattle. They made no coins, but used metal rings
+for money. They were clever in basket-work, as savage people often
+are; and they could make a coarse kind of cloth, and some very bad
+earthenware. But in building fortresses they were much more
+clever.
+
+They made boats of basket-work, covered with the skins of animals,
+but seldom, if ever, ventured far from the shore. They made
+swords, of copper mixed with tin; but, these swords were of an
+awkward shape, and so soft that a heavy blow would bend one. They
+made light shields, short pointed daggers, and spears - which they
+jerked back after they had thrown them at an enemy, by a long strip
+of leather fastened to the stem. The butt-end was a rattle, to
+frighten an enemy's horse. The ancient Britons, being divided into
+as many as thirty or forty tribes, each commanded by its own little
+king, were constantly fighting with one another, as savage people
+usually do; and they always fought with these weapons.
+
+They were very fond of horses. The standard of Kent was the
+picture of a white horse. They could break them in and manage them
+wonderfully well. Indeed, the horses (of which they had an
+abundance, though they were rather small) were so well taught in
+those days, that they can scarcely be said to have improved since;
+though the men are so much wiser. They understood, and obeyed,
+every word of command; and would stand still by themselves, in all
+the din and noise of battle, while their masters went to fight on
+foot. The Britons could not have succeeded in their most
+remarkable art, without the aid of these sensible and trusty
+animals. The art I mean, is the construction and management of
+war-chariots or cars, for which they have ever been celebrated in
+history. Each of the best sort of these chariots, not quite breast
+high in front, and open at the back, contained one man to drive,
+and two or three others to fight - all standing up. The horses who
+drew them were so well trained, that they would tear, at full
+gallop, over the most stony ways, and even through the woods;
+dashing down their masters' enemies beneath their hoofs, and
+cutting them to pieces with the blades of swords, or scythes, which
+were fastened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond the car on
+each side, for that cruel purpose. In a moment, while at full
+speed, the horses would stop, at the driver's command. The men
+within would leap out, deal blows about them with their swords like
+hail, leap on the horses, on the pole, spring back into the
+chariots anyhow; and, as soon as they were safe, the horses tore
+away again.
+
+The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the
+Religion of the Druids. It seems to have been brought over, in
+very early times indeed, from the opposite country of France,
+anciently called Gaul, and to have mixed up the worship of the
+Serpent, and of the Sun and Moon, with the worship of some of the
+Heathen Gods and Goddesses. Most of its ceremonies were kept
+secret by the priests, the Druids, who pretended to be enchanters,
+and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each of them, about his
+neck, what he told the ignorant people was a Serpent's egg in a
+golden case. But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies
+included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of some
+suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning
+alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and animals
+together. The Druid Priests had some kind of veneration for the
+Oak, and for the mistletoe - the same plant that we hang up in
+houses at Christmas Time now - when its white berries grew upon the
+Oak. They met together in dark woods, which they called Sacred
+Groves; and there they instructed, in their mysterious arts, young
+men who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes stayed with them
+as long as twenty years.
+
+These Druids built great Temples and altars, open to the sky,
+fragments of some of which are yet remaining. Stonehenge, on
+Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, is the most extraordinary of these.
+Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House, on Bluebell Hill,
+near Maidstone, in Kent, form another. We know, from examination
+of the great blocks of which such buildings are made, that they
+could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious
+machines, which are common now, but which the ancient Britons
+certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses. I
+should not wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with
+them twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept
+the people out of sight while they made these buildings, and then
+pretended that they built them by magic. Perhaps they had a hand
+in the fortresses too; at all events, as they were very powerful,
+and very much believed in, and as they made and executed the laws,
+and paid no taxes, I don't wonder that they liked their trade.
+And, as they persuaded the people the more Druids there were, the
+better off the people would be, I don't wonder that there were a
+good many of them. But it is pleasant to think that there are no
+Druids, NOW, who go on in that way, and pretend to carry
+Enchanters' Wands and Serpents' Eggs - and of course there is
+nothing of the kind, anywhere.
+
+Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons, fifty-five
+years before the birth of Our Saviour, when the Romans, under their
+great General, Julius Caesar, were masters of all the rest of the
+known world. Julius Caesar had then just conquered Gaul; and
+hearing, in Gaul, a good deal about the opposite Island with the
+white cliffs, and about the bravery of the Britons who inhabited it
+- some of whom had been fetched over to help the Gauls in the war
+against him - he resolved, as he was so near, to come and conquer
+Britain next.
+
+So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this Island of ours, with
+eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. And he came from the
+French coast between Calais and Boulogne, 'because thence was the
+shortest passage into Britain;' just for the same reason as our
+steam-boats now take the same track, every day. He expected to
+conquer Britain easily: but it was not such easy work as he
+supposed - for the bold Britons fought most bravely; and, what with
+not having his horse-soldiers with him (for they had been driven
+back by a storm), and what with having some of his vessels dashed
+to pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great
+risk of being totally defeated. However, for once that the bold
+Britons beat him, he beat them twice; though not so soundly but
+that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace, and go
+away.
+
+But, in the spring of the next year, he came back; this time, with
+eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. The British tribes
+chose, as their general-in-chief, a Briton, whom the Romans in
+their Latin language called CASSIVELLAUNUS, but whose British name
+is supposed to have been CASWALLON. A brave general he was, and
+well he and his soldiers fought the Roman army! So well, that
+whenever in that war the Roman soldiers saw a great cloud of dust,
+and heard the rattle of the rapid British chariots, they trembled
+in their hearts. Besides a number of smaller battles, there was a
+battle fought near Canterbury, in Kent; there was a battle fought
+near Chertsey, in Surrey; there was a battle fought near a marshy
+little town in a wood, the capital of that part of Britain which
+belonged to CASSIVELLAUNUS, and which was probably near what is now
+Saint Albans, in Hertfordshire. However, brave CASSIVELLAUNUS had
+the worst of it, on the whole; though he and his men always fought
+like lions. As the other British chiefs were jealous of him, and
+were always quarrelling with him, and with one another, he gave up,
+and proposed peace. Julius Caesar was very glad to grant peace
+easily, and to go away again with all his remaining ships and men.
+He had expected to find pearls in Britain, and he may have found a
+few for anything I know; but, at all events, he found delicious
+oysters, and I am sure he found tough Britons - of whom, I dare
+say, he made the same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte the great
+French General did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when he said
+they were such unreasonable fellows that they never knew when they
+were beaten. They never DID know, I believe, and never will.
+
+Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time, there was
+peace in Britain. The Britons improved their towns and mode of
+life: became more civilised, travelled, and learnt a great deal
+from the Gauls and Romans. At last, the Roman Emperor, Claudius,
+sent AULUS PLAUTIUS, a skilful general, with a mighty force, to
+subdue the Island, and shortly afterwards arrived himself. They
+did little; and OSTORIUS SCAPULA, another general, came. Some of
+the British Chiefs of Tribes submitted. Others resolved to fight
+to the death. Of these brave men, the bravest was CARACTACUS, or
+CARADOC, who gave battle to the Romans, with his army, among the
+mountains of North Wales. 'This day,' said he to his soldiers,
+'decides the fate of Britain! Your liberty, or your eternal
+slavery, dates from this hour. Remember your brave ancestors, who
+drove the great Caesar himself across the sea!' On hearing these
+words, his men, with a great shout, rushed upon the Romans. But
+the strong Roman swords and armour were too much for the weaker
+British weapons in close conflict. The Britons lost the day. The
+wife and daughter of the brave CARACTACUS were taken prisoners; his
+brothers delivered themselves up; he himself was betrayed into the
+hands of the Romans by his false and base stepmother: and they
+carried him, and all his family, in triumph to Rome.
+
+But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison, great
+in chains. His noble air, and dignified endurance of distress, so
+touched the Roman people who thronged the streets to see him, that
+he and his family were restored to freedom. No one knows whether
+his great heart broke, and he died in Rome, or whether he ever
+returned to his own dear country. English oaks have grown up from
+acorns, and withered away, when they were hundreds of years old -
+and other oaks have sprung up in their places, and died too, very
+aged - since the rest of the history of the brave CARACTACUS was
+forgotten.
+
+Still, the Britons WOULD NOT yield. They rose again and again, and
+died by thousands, sword in hand. They rose, on every possible
+occasion. SUETONIUS, another Roman general, came, and stormed the
+Island of Anglesey (then called MONA), which was supposed to be
+sacred, and he burnt the Druids in their own wicker cages, by their
+own fires. But, even while he was in Britain, with his victorious
+troops, the BRITONS rose. Because BOADICEA, a British queen, the
+widow of the King of the Norfolk and Suffolk people, resisted the
+plundering of her property by the Romans who were settled in
+England, she was scourged, by order of CATUS a Roman officer; and
+her two daughters were shamefully insulted in her presence, and her
+husband's relations were made slaves. To avenge this injury, the
+Britons rose, with all their might and rage. They drove CATUS into
+Gaul; they laid the Roman possessions waste; they forced the Romans
+out of London, then a poor little town, but a trading place; they
+hanged, burnt, crucified, and slew by the sword, seventy thousand
+Romans in a few days. SUETONIUS strengthened his army, and
+advanced to give them battle. They strengthened their army, and
+desperately attacked his, on the field where it was strongly
+posted. Before the first charge of the Britons was made, BOADICEA,
+in a war-chariot, with her fair hair streaming in the wind, and her
+injured daughters lying at her feet, drove among the troops, and
+cried to them for vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious
+Romans. The Britons fought to the last; but they were vanquished
+with great slaughter, and the unhappy queen took poison.
+
+Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When SUETONIUS
+left the country, they fell upon his troops, and retook the Island
+of Anglesey. AGRICOLA came, fifteen or twenty years afterwards,
+and retook it once more, and devoted seven years to subduing the
+country, especially that part of it which is now called SCOTLAND;
+but, its people, the Caledonians, resisted him at every inch of
+ground. They fought the bloodiest battles with him; they killed
+their very wives and children, to prevent his making prisoners of
+them; they fell, fighting, in such great numbers that certain hills
+in Scotland are yet supposed to be vast heaps of stones piled up
+above their graves. HADRIAN came, thirty years afterwards, and
+still they resisted him. SEVERUS came, nearly a hundred years
+afterwards, and they worried his great army like dogs, and rejoiced
+to see them die, by thousands, in the bogs and swamps. CARACALLA,
+the son and successor of SEVERUS, did the most to conquer them, for
+a time; but not by force of arms. He knew how little that would
+do. He yielded up a quantity of land to the Caledonians, and gave
+the Britons the same privileges as the Romans possessed. There was
+peace, after this, for seventy years.
+
+Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, sea-faring
+people from the countries to the North of the Rhine, the great
+river of Germany on the banks of which the best grapes grow to make
+the German wine. They began to come, in pirate ships, to the sea-
+coast of Gaul and Britain, and to plunder them. They were repulsed
+by CARAUSIUS, a native either of Belgium or of Britain, who was
+appointed by the Romans to the command, and under whom the Britons
+first began to fight upon the sea. But, after this time, they
+renewed their ravages. A few years more, and the Scots (which was
+then the name for the people of Ireland), and the Picts, a northern
+people, began to make frequent plundering incursions into the South
+of Britain. All these attacks were repeated, at intervals, during
+two hundred years, and through a long succession of Roman Emperors
+and chiefs; during all which length of time, the Britons rose
+against the Romans, over and over again. At last, in the days of
+the Roman HONORIUS, when the Roman power all over the world was
+fast declining, and when Rome wanted all her soldiers at home, the
+Romans abandoned all hope of conquering Britain, and went away.
+And still, at last, as at first, the Britons rose against them, in
+their old brave manner; for, a very little while before, they had
+turned away the Roman magistrates, and declared themselves an
+independent people.
+
+Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Caesar's first invasion
+of the Island, when the Romans departed from it for ever. In the
+course of that time, although they had been the cause of terrible
+fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to improve the condition
+of the Britons. They had made great military roads; they had built
+forts; they had taught them how to dress, and arm themselves, much
+better than they had ever known how to do before; they had refined
+the whole British way of living. AGRICOLA had built a great wall
+of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending from Newcastle to
+beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out the Picts and
+Scots; HADRIAN had strengthened it; SEVERUS, finding it much in
+want of repair, had built it afresh of stone.
+
+Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by means of Roman ships,
+that the Christian Religion was first brought into Britain, and its
+people first taught the great lesson that, to be good in the sight
+of GOD, they must love their neighbours as themselves, and do unto
+others as they would be done by. The Druids declared that it was
+very wicked to believe in any such thing, and cursed all the people
+who did believe it, very heartily. But, when the people found that
+they were none the better for the blessings of the Druids, and none
+the worse for the curses of the Druids, but, that the sun shone and
+the rain fell without consulting the Druids at all, they just began
+to think that the Druids were mere men, and that it signified very
+little whether they cursed or blessed. After which, the pupils of
+the Druids fell off greatly in numbers, and the Druids took to
+other trades.
+
+Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in England. It is
+but little that is known of those five hundred years; but some
+remains of them are still found. Often, when labourers are digging
+up the ground, to make foundations for houses or churches, they
+light on rusty money that once belonged to the Romans. Fragments
+of plates from which they ate, of goblets from which they drank,
+and of pavement on which they trod, are discovered among the earth
+that is broken by the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the
+gardener's spade. Wells that the Romans sunk, still yield water;
+roads that the Romans made, form part of our highways. In some old
+battle-fields, British spear-heads and Roman armour have been
+found, mingled together in decay, as they fell in the thick
+pressure of the fight. Traces of Roman camps overgrown with grass,
+and of mounds that are the burial-places of heaps of Britons, are
+to be seen in almost all parts of the country. Across the bleak
+moors of Northumberland, the wall of SEVERUS, overrun with moss and
+weeds, still stretches, a strong ruin; and the shepherds and their
+dogs lie sleeping on it in the summer weather. On Salisbury Plain,
+Stonehenge yet stands: a monument of the earlier time when the
+Roman name was unknown in Britain, and when the Druids, with their
+best magic wands, could not have written it in the sands of the
+wild sea-shore.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II - ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS
+
+
+
+THE Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain, when the Britons
+began to wish they had never left it. For, the Romans being gone,
+and the Britons being much reduced in numbers by their long wars,
+the Picts and Scots came pouring in, over the broken and unguarded
+wall of SEVERUS, in swarms. They plundered the richest towns, and
+killed the people; and came back so often for more booty and more
+slaughter, that the unfortunate Britons lived a life of terror. As
+if the Picts and Scots were not bad enough on land, the Saxons
+attacked the islanders by sea; and, as if something more were still
+wanting to make them miserable, they quarrelled bitterly among
+themselves as to what prayers they ought to say, and how they ought
+to say them. The priests, being very angry with one another on
+these questions, cursed one another in the heartiest manner; and
+(uncommonly like the old Druids) cursed all the people whom they
+could not persuade. So, altogether, the Britons were very badly
+off, you may believe.
+
+They were in such distress, in short, that they sent a letter to
+Rome entreating help - which they called the Groans of the Britons;
+and in which they said, 'The barbarians chase us into the sea, the
+sea throws us back upon the barbarians, and we have only the hard
+choice left us of perishing by the sword, or perishing by the
+waves.' But, the Romans could not help them, even if they were so
+inclined; for they had enough to do to defend themselves against
+their own enemies, who were then very fierce and strong. At last,
+the Britons, unable to bear their hard condition any longer,
+resolved to make peace with the Saxons, and to invite the Saxons to
+come into their country, and help them to keep out the Picts and
+Scots.
+
+It was a British Prince named VORTIGERN who took this resolution,
+and who made a treaty of friendship with HENGIST and HORSA, two
+Saxon chiefs. Both of these names, in the old Saxon language,
+signify Horse; for the Saxons, like many other nations in a rough
+state, were fond of giving men the names of animals, as Horse,
+Wolf, Bear, Hound. The Indians of North America, - a very inferior
+people to the Saxons, though - do the same to this day.
+
+HENGIST and HORSA drove out the Picts and Scots; and VORTIGERN,
+being grateful to them for that service, made no opposition to
+their settling themselves in that part of England which is called
+the Isle of Thanet, or to their inviting over more of their
+countrymen to join them. But HENGIST had a beautiful daughter
+named ROWENA; and when, at a feast, she filled a golden goblet to
+the brim with wine, and gave it to VORTIGERN, saying in a sweet
+voice, 'Dear King, thy health!' the King fell in love with her. My
+opinion is, that the cunning HENGIST meant him to do so, in order
+that the Saxons might have greater influence with him; and that the
+fair ROWENA came to that feast, golden goblet and all, on purpose.
+
+At any rate, they were married; and, long afterwards, whenever the
+King was angry with the Saxons, or jealous of their encroachments,
+ROWENA would put her beautiful arms round his neck, and softly say,
+'Dear King, they are my people! Be favourable to them, as you
+loved that Saxon girl who gave you the golden goblet of wine at the
+feast!' And, really, I don't see how the King could help himself.
+
+Ah! We must all die! In the course of years, VORTIGERN died - he
+was dethroned, and put in prison, first, I am afraid; and ROWENA
+died; and generations of Saxons and Britons died; and events that
+happened during a long, long time, would have been quite forgotten
+but for the tales and songs of the old Bards, who used to go about
+from feast to feast, with their white beards, recounting the deeds
+of their forefathers. Among the histories of which they sang and
+talked, there was a famous one, concerning the bravery and virtues
+of KING ARTHUR, supposed to have been a British Prince in those old
+times. But, whether such a person really lived, or whether there
+were several persons whose histories came to be confused together
+under that one name, or whether all about him was invention, no one
+knows.
+
+I will tell you, shortly, what is most interesting in the early
+Saxon times, as they are described in these songs and stories of
+the Bards.
+
+In, and long after, the days of VORTIGERN, fresh bodies of Saxons,
+under various chiefs, came pouring into Britain. One body,
+conquering the Britons in the East, and settling there, called
+their kingdom Essex; another body settled in the West, and called
+their kingdom Wessex; the Northfolk, or Norfolk people, established
+themselves in one place; the Southfolk, or Suffolk people,
+established themselves in another; and gradually seven kingdoms or
+states arose in England, which were called the Saxon Heptarchy.
+The poor Britons, falling back before these crowds of fighting men
+whom they had innocently invited over as friends, retired into
+Wales and the adjacent country; into Devonshire, and into Cornwall.
+Those parts of England long remained unconquered. And in Cornwall
+now - where the sea-coast is very gloomy, steep, and rugged -
+where, in the dark winter-time, ships have often been wrecked close
+to the land, and every soul on board has perished - where the winds
+and waves howl drearily and split the solid rocks into arches and
+caverns - there are very ancient ruins, which the people call the
+ruins of KING ARTHUR'S Castle.
+
+Kent is the most famous of the seven Saxon kingdoms, because the
+Christian religion was preached to the Saxons there (who domineered
+over the Britons too much, to care for what THEY said about their
+religion, or anything else) by AUGUSTINE, a monk from Rome. KING
+ETHELBERT, of Kent, was soon converted; and the moment he said he
+was a Christian, his courtiers all said THEY were Christians; after
+which, ten thousand of his subjects said they were Christians too.
+AUGUSTINE built a little church, close to this King's palace, on
+the ground now occupied by the beautiful cathedral of Canterbury.
+SEBERT, the King's nephew, built on a muddy marshy place near
+London, where there had been a temple to Apollo, a church dedicated
+to Saint Peter, which is now Westminster Abbey. And, in London
+itself, on the foundation of a temple to Diana, he built another
+little church which has risen up, since that old time, to be Saint
+Paul's.
+
+After the death of ETHELBERT, EDWIN, King of Northumbria, who was
+such a good king that it was said a woman or child might openly
+carry a purse of gold, in his reign, without fear, allowed his
+child to be baptised, and held a great council to consider whether
+he and his people should all be Christians or not. It was decided
+that they should be. COIFI, the chief priest of the old religion,
+made a great speech on the occasion. In this discourse, he told
+the people that he had found out the old gods to be impostors. 'I
+am quite satisfied of it,' he said. 'Look at me! I have been
+serving them all my life, and they have done nothing for me;
+whereas, if they had been really powerful, they could not have
+decently done less, in return for all I have done for them, than
+make my fortune. As they have never made my fortune, I am quite
+convinced they are impostors!' When this singular priest had
+finished speaking, he hastily armed himself with sword and lance,
+mounted a war-horse, rode at a furious gallop in sight of all the
+people to the temple, and flung his lance against it as an insult.
+From that time, the Christian religion spread itself among the
+Saxons, and became their faith.
+
+The next very famous prince was EGBERT. He lived about a hundred
+and fifty years afterwards, and claimed to have a better right to
+the throne of Wessex than BEORTRIC, another Saxon prince who was at
+the head of that kingdom, and who married EDBURGA, the daughter of
+OFFA, king of another of the seven kingdoms. This QUEEN EDBURGA
+was a handsome murderess, who poisoned people when they offended
+her. One day, she mixed a cup of poison for a certain noble
+belonging to the court; but her husband drank of it too, by
+mistake, and died. Upon this, the people revolted, in great
+crowds; and running to the palace, and thundering at the gates,
+cried, 'Down with the wicked queen, who poisons men!' They drove
+her out of the country, and abolished the title she had disgraced.
+When years had passed away, some travellers came home from Italy,
+and said that in the town of Pavia they had seen a ragged beggar-
+woman, who had once been handsome, but was then shrivelled, bent,
+and yellow, wandering about the streets, crying for bread; and that
+this beggar-woman was the poisoning English queen. It was, indeed,
+EDBURGA; and so she died, without a shelter for her wretched head.
+
+EGBERT, not considering himself safe in England, in consequence of
+his having claimed the crown of Wessex (for he thought his rival
+might take him prisoner and put him to death), sought refuge at the
+court of CHARLEMAGNE, King of France. On the death of BEORTRIC, so
+unhappily poisoned by mistake, EGBERT came back to Britain;
+succeeded to the throne of Wessex; conquered some of the other
+monarchs of the seven kingdoms; added their territories to his own;
+and, for the first time, called the country over which he ruled,
+ENGLAND.
+
+And now, new enemies arose, who, for a long time, troubled England
+sorely. These were the Northmen, the people of Denmark and Norway,
+whom the English called the Danes. They were a warlike people,
+quite at home upon the sea; not Christians; very daring and cruel.
+They came over in ships, and plundered and burned wheresoever they
+landed. Once, they beat EGBERT in battle. Once, EGBERT beat them.
+But, they cared no more for being beaten than the English
+themselves. In the four following short reigns, of ETHELWULF, and
+his sons, ETHELBALD, ETHELBERT, and ETHELRED, they came back, over
+and over again, burning and plundering, and laying England waste.
+In the last-mentioned reign, they seized EDMUND, King of East
+England, and bound him to a tree. Then, they proposed to him that
+he should change his religion; but he, being a good Christian,
+steadily refused. Upon that, they beat him, made cowardly jests
+upon him, all defenceless as he was, shot arrows at him, and,
+finally, struck off his head. It is impossible to say whose head
+they might have struck off next, but for the death of KING ETHELRED
+from a wound he had received in fighting against them, and the
+succession to his throne of the best and wisest king that ever
+lived in England.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III - ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED
+
+
+
+ALFRED THE GREAT was a young man, three-and-twenty years of age,
+when he became king. Twice in his childhood, he had been taken to
+Rome, where the Saxon nobles were in the habit of going on journeys
+which they supposed to be religious; and, once, he had stayed for
+some time in Paris. Learning, however, was so little cared for,
+then, that at twelve years old he had not been taught to read;
+although, of the sons of KING ETHELWULF, he, the youngest, was the
+favourite. But he had - as most men who grow up to be great and
+good are generally found to have had - an excellent mother; and,
+one day, this lady, whose name was OSBURGA, happened, as she was
+sitting among her sons, to read a book of Saxon poetry. The art of
+printing was not known until long and long after that period, and
+the book, which was written, was what is called 'illuminated,' with
+beautiful bright letters, richly painted. The brothers admiring it
+very much, their mother said, 'I will give it to that one of you
+four princes who first learns to read.' ALFRED sought out a tutor
+that very day, applied himself to learn with great diligence, and
+soon won the book. He was proud of it, all his life.
+
+This great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine
+battles with the Danes. He made some treaties with them too, by
+which the false Danes swore they would quit the country. They
+pretended to consider that they had taken a very solemn oath, in
+swearing this upon the holy bracelets that they wore, and which
+were always buried with them when they died; but they cared little
+for it, for they thought nothing of breaking oaths and treaties
+too, as soon as it suited their purpose, and coming back again to
+fight, plunder, and burn, as usual. One fatal winter, in the
+fourth year of KING ALFRED'S reign, they spread themselves in great
+numbers over the whole of England; and so dispersed and routed the
+King's soldiers that the King was left alone, and was obliged to
+disguise himself as a common peasant, and to take refuge in the
+cottage of one of his cowherds who did not know his face.
+
+Here, KING ALFRED, while the Danes sought him far and near, was
+left alone one day, by the cowherd's wife, to watch some cakes
+which she put to bake upon the hearth. But, being at work upon his
+bow and arrows, with which he hoped to punish the false Danes when
+a brighter time should come, and thinking deeply of his poor
+unhappy subjects whom the Danes chased through the land, his noble
+mind forgot the cakes, and they were burnt. 'What!' said the
+cowherd's wife, who scolded him well when she came back, and little
+thought she was scolding the King, 'you will be ready enough to eat
+them by-and-by, and yet you cannot watch them, idle dog?'
+
+At length, the Devonshire men made head against a new host of Danes
+who landed on their coast; killed their chief, and captured their
+flag; on which was represented the likeness of a Raven - a very fit
+bird for a thievish army like that, I think. The loss of their
+standard troubled the Danes greatly, for they believed it to be
+enchanted - woven by the three daughters of one father in a single
+afternoon - and they had a story among themselves that when they
+were victorious in battle, the Raven stretched his wings and seemed
+to fly; and that when they were defeated, he would droop. He had
+good reason to droop, now, if he could have done anything half so
+sensible; for, KING ALFRED joined the Devonshire men; made a camp
+with them on a piece of firm ground in the midst of a bog in
+Somersetshire; and prepared for a great attempt for vengeance on
+the Danes, and the deliverance of his oppressed people.
+
+But, first, as it was important to know how numerous those
+pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified, KING ALFRED,
+being a good musician, disguised himself as a glee-man or minstrel,
+and went, with his harp, to the Danish camp. He played and sang in
+the very tent of GUTHRUM the Danish leader, and entertained the
+Danes as they caroused. While he seemed to think of nothing but
+his music, he was watchful of their tents, their arms, their
+discipline, everything that he desired to know. And right soon did
+this great king entertain them to a different tune; for, summoning
+all his true followers to meet him at an appointed place, where
+they received him with joyful shouts and tears, as the monarch whom
+many of them had given up for lost or dead, he put himself at their
+head, marched on the Danish camp, defeated the Danes with great
+slaughter, and besieged them for fourteen days to prevent their
+escape. But, being as merciful as he was good and brave, he then,
+instead of killing them, proposed peace: on condition that they
+should altogether depart from that Western part of England, and
+settle in the East; and that GUTHRUM should become a Christian, in
+remembrance of the Divine religion which now taught his conqueror,
+the noble ALFRED, to forgive the enemy who had so often injured
+him. This, GUTHRUM did. At his baptism, KING ALFRED was his
+godfather. And GUTHRUM was an honourable chief who well deserved
+that clemency; for, ever afterwards he was loyal and faithful to
+the king. The Danes under him were faithful too. They plundered
+and burned no more, but worked like honest men. They ploughed, and
+sowed, and reaped, and led good honest English lives. And I hope
+the children of those Danes played, many a time, with Saxon
+children in the sunny fields; and that Danish young men fell in
+love with Saxon girls, and married them; and that English
+travellers, benighted at the doors of Danish cottages, often went
+in for shelter until morning; and that Danes and Saxons sat by the
+red fire, friends, talking of KING ALFRED THE GREAT.
+
+All the Danes were not like these under GUTHRUM; for, after some
+years, more of them came over, in the old plundering and burning
+way - among them a fierce pirate of the name of HASTINGS, who had
+the boldness to sail up the Thames to Gravesend, with eighty ships.
+For three years, there was a war with these Danes; and there was a
+famine in the country, too, and a plague, both upon human creatures
+and beasts. But KING ALFRED, whose mighty heart never failed him,
+built large ships nevertheless, with which to pursue the pirates on
+the sea; and he encouraged his soldiers, by his brave example, to
+fight valiantly against them on the shore. At last, he drove them
+all away; and then there was repose in England.
+
+As great and good in peace, as he was great and good in war, KING
+ALFRED never rested from his labours to improve his people. He
+loved to talk with clever men, and with travellers from foreign
+countries, and to write down what they told him, for his people to
+read. He had studied Latin after learning to read English, and now
+another of his labours was, to translate Latin books into the
+English-Saxon tongue, that his people might be interested, and
+improved by their contents. He made just laws, that they might
+live more happily and freely; he turned away all partial judges,
+that no wrong might be done them; he was so careful of their
+property, and punished robbers so severely, that it was a common
+thing to say that under the great KING ALFRED, garlands of golden
+chains and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no man
+would have touched one. He founded schools; he patiently heard
+causes himself in his Court of Justice; the great desires of his
+heart were, to do right to all his subjects, and to leave England
+better, wiser, happier in all ways, than he found it. His industry
+in these efforts was quite astonishing. Every day he divided into
+certain portions, and in each portion devoted himself to a certain
+pursuit. That he might divide his time exactly, he had wax torches
+or candles made, which were all of the same size, were notched
+across at regular distances, and were always kept burning. Thus,
+as the candles burnt down, he divided the day into notches, almost
+as accurately as we now divide it into hours upon the clock. But
+when the candles were first invented, it was found that the wind
+and draughts of air, blowing into the palace through the doors and
+windows, and through the chinks in the walls, caused them to gutter
+and burn unequally. To prevent this, the King had them put into
+cases formed of wood and white horn. And these were the first
+lanthorns ever made in England.
+
+All this time, he was afflicted with a terrible unknown disease,
+which caused him violent and frequent pain that nothing could
+relieve. He bore it, as he had borne all the troubles of his life,
+like a brave good man, until he was fifty-three years old; and
+then, having reigned thirty years, he died. He died in the year
+nine hundred and one; but, long ago as that is, his fame, and the
+love and gratitude with which his subjects regarded him, are
+freshly remembered to the present hour.
+
+In the next reign, which was the reign of EDWARD, surnamed THE
+ELDER, who was chosen in council to succeed, a nephew of KING
+ALFRED troubled the country by trying to obtain the throne. The
+Danes in the East of England took part with this usurper (perhaps
+because they had honoured his uncle so much, and honoured him for
+his uncle's sake), and there was hard fighting; but, the King, with
+the assistance of his sister, gained the day, and reigned in peace
+for four and twenty years. He gradually extended his power over
+the whole of England, and so the Seven Kingdoms were united into
+one.
+
+When England thus became one kingdom, ruled over by one Saxon king,
+the Saxons had been settled in the country more than four hundred
+and fifty years. Great changes had taken place in its customs
+during that time. The Saxons were still greedy eaters and great
+drinkers, and their feasts were often of a noisy and drunken kind;
+but many new comforts and even elegances had become known, and were
+fast increasing. Hangings for the walls of rooms, where, in these
+modern days, we paste up paper, are known to have been sometimes
+made of silk, ornamented with birds and flowers in needlework.
+Tables and chairs were curiously carved in different woods; were
+sometimes decorated with gold or silver; sometimes even made of
+those precious metals. Knives and spoons were used at table;
+golden ornaments were worn - with silk and cloth, and golden
+tissues and embroideries; dishes were made of gold and silver,
+brass and bone. There were varieties of drinking-horns, bedsteads,
+musical instruments. A harp was passed round, at a feast, like the
+drinking-bowl, from guest to guest; and each one usually sang or
+played when his turn came. The weapons of the Saxons were stoutly
+made, and among them was a terrible iron hammer that gave deadly
+blows, and was long remembered. The Saxons themselves were a
+handsome people. The men were proud of their long fair hair,
+parted on the forehead; their ample beards, their fresh
+complexions, and clear eyes. The beauty of the Saxon women filled
+all England with a new delight and grace.
+
+I have more to tell of the Saxons yet, but I stop to say this now,
+because under the GREAT ALFRED, all the best points of the English-
+Saxon character were first encouraged, and in him first shown. It
+has been the greatest character among the nations of the earth.
+Wherever the descendants of the Saxon race have gone, have sailed,
+or otherwise made their way, even to the remotest regions of the
+world, they have been patient, persevering, never to be broken in
+spirit, never to be turned aside from enterprises on which they
+have resolved. In Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the whole world
+over; in the desert, in the forest, on the sea; scorched by a
+burning sun, or frozen by ice that never melts; the Saxon blood
+remains unchanged. Wheresoever that race goes, there, law, and
+industry, and safety for life and property, and all the great
+results of steady perseverance, are certain to arise.
+
+I pause to think with admiration, of the noble king who, in his
+single person, possessed all the Saxon virtues. Whom misfortune
+could not subdue, whom prosperity could not spoil, whose
+perseverance nothing could shake. Who was hopeful in defeat, and
+generous in success. Who loved justice, freedom, truth, and
+knowledge. Who, in his care to instruct his people, probably did
+more to preserve the beautiful old Saxon language, than I can
+imagine. Without whom, the English tongue in which I tell this
+story might have wanted half its meaning. As it is said that his
+spirit still inspires some of our best English laws, so, let you
+and I pray that it may animate our English hearts, at least to this
+- to resolve, when we see any of our fellow-creatures left in
+ignorance, that we will do our best, while life is in us, to have
+them taught; and to tell those rulers whose duty it is to teach
+them, and who neglect their duty, that they have profited very
+little by all the years that have rolled away since the year nine
+hundred and one, and that they are far behind the bright example of
+KING ALFRED THE GREAT.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV - ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS
+
+
+
+ATHELSTAN, the son of Edward the Elder, succeeded that king. He
+reigned only fifteen years; but he remembered the glory of his
+grandfather, the great Alfred, and governed England well. He
+reduced the turbulent people of Wales, and obliged them to pay him
+a tribute in money, and in cattle, and to send him their best hawks
+and hounds. He was victorious over the Cornish men, who were not
+yet quite under the Saxon government. He restored such of the old
+laws as were good, and had fallen into disuse; made some wise new
+laws, and took care of the poor and weak. A strong alliance, made
+against him by ANLAF a Danish prince, CONSTANTINE King of the
+Scots, and the people of North Wales, he broke and defeated in one
+great battle, long famous for the vast numbers slain in it. After
+that, he had a quiet reign; the lords and ladies about him had
+leisure to become polite and agreeable; and foreign princes were
+glad (as they have sometimes been since) to come to England on
+visits to the English court.
+
+When Athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his brother EDMUND,
+who was only eighteen, became king. He was the first of six boy-
+kings, as you will presently know.
+
+They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a taste for
+improvement and refinement. But he was beset by the Danes, and had
+a short and troubled reign, which came to a troubled end. One
+night, when he was feasting in his hall, and had eaten much and
+drunk deep, he saw, among the company, a noted robber named LEOF,
+who had been banished from England. Made very angry by the
+boldness of this man, the King turned to his cup-bearer, and said,
+'There is a robber sitting at the table yonder, who, for his
+crimes, is an outlaw in the land - a hunted wolf, whose life any
+man may take, at any time. Command that robber to depart!' 'I
+will not depart!' said Leof. 'No?' cried the King. 'No, by the
+Lord!' said Leof. Upon that the King rose from his seat, and,
+making passionately at the robber, and seizing him by his long
+hair, tried to throw him down. But the robber had a dagger
+underneath his cloak, and, in the scuffle, stabbed the King to
+death. That done, he set his back against the wall, and fought so
+desperately, that although he was soon cut to pieces by the King's
+armed men, and the wall and pavement were splashed with his blood,
+yet it was not before he had killed and wounded many of them. You
+may imagine what rough lives the kings of those times led, when one
+of them could struggle, half drunk, with a public robber in his own
+dining-hall, and be stabbed in presence of the company who ate and
+drank with him.
+
+Then succeeded the boy-king EDRED, who was weak and sickly in body,
+but of a strong mind. And his armies fought the Northmen, the
+Danes, and Norwegians, or the Sea-Kings, as they were called, and
+beat them for the time. And, in nine years, Edred died, and passed
+away.
+
+Then came the boy-king EDWY, fifteen years of age; but the real
+king, who had the real power, was a monk named DUNSTAN - a clever
+priest, a little mad, and not a little proud and cruel.
+
+Dunstan was then Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, whither the body of
+King Edmund the Magnificent was carried, to be buried. While yet a
+boy, he had got out of his bed one night (being then in a fever),
+and walked about Glastonbury Church when it was under repair; and,
+because he did not tumble off some scaffolds that were there, and
+break his neck, it was reported that he had been shown over the
+building by an angel. He had also made a harp that was said to
+play of itself - which it very likely did, as AEolian Harps, which
+are played by the wind, and are understood now, always do. For
+these wonders he had been once denounced by his enemies, who were
+jealous of his favour with the late King Athelstan, as a magician;
+and he had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, and thrown into a
+marsh. But he got out again, somehow, to cause a great deal of
+trouble yet.
+
+The priests of those days were, generally, the only scholars. They
+were learned in many things. Having to make their own convents and
+monasteries on uncultivated grounds that were granted to them by
+the Crown, it was necessary that they should be good farmers and
+good gardeners, or their lands would have been too poor to support
+them. For the decoration of the chapels where they prayed, and for
+the comfort of the refectories where they ate and drank, it was
+necessary that there should be good carpenters, good smiths, good
+painters, among them. For their greater safety in sickness and
+accident, living alone by themselves in solitary places, it was
+necessary that they should study the virtues of plants and herbs,
+and should know how to dress cuts, burns, scalds, and bruises, and
+how to set broken limbs. Accordingly, they taught themselves, and
+one another, a great variety of useful arts; and became skilful in
+agriculture, medicine, surgery, and handicraft. And when they
+wanted the aid of any little piece of machinery, which would be
+simple enough now, but was marvellous then, to impose a trick upon
+the poor peasants, they knew very well how to make it; and DID make
+it many a time and often, I have no doubt.
+
+Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the most sagacious
+of these monks. He was an ingenious smith, and worked at a forge
+in a little cell. This cell was made too short to admit of his
+lying at full length when he went to sleep - as if THAT did any
+good to anybody! - and he used to tell the most extraordinary lies
+about demons and spirits, who, he said, came there to persecute
+him. For instance, he related that one day when he was at work,
+the devil looked in at the little window, and tried to tempt him to
+lead a life of idle pleasure; whereupon, having his pincers in the
+fire, red hot, he seized the devil by the nose, and put him to such
+pain, that his bellowings were heard for miles and miles. Some
+people are inclined to think this nonsense a part of Dunstan's
+madness (for his head never quite recovered the fever), but I think
+not. I observe that it induced the ignorant people to consider him
+a holy man, and that it made him very powerful. Which was exactly
+what he always wanted.
+
+On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king Edwy, it was
+remarked by ODO, Archbishop of Canterbury (who was a Dane by
+birth), that the King quietly left the coronation feast, while all
+the company were there. Odo, much displeased, sent his friend
+Dunstan to seek him. Dunstan finding him in the company of his
+beautiful young wife ELGIVA, and her mother ETHELGIVA, a good and
+virtuous lady, not only grossly abused them, but dragged the young
+King back into the feasting-hall by force. Some, again, think
+Dunstan did this because the young King's fair wife was his own
+cousin, and the monks objected to people marrying their own
+cousins; but I believe he did it, because he was an imperious,
+audacious, ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a young lady
+himself before he became a sour monk, hated all love now, and
+everything belonging to it.
+
+The young King was quite old enough to feel this insult. Dunstan
+had been Treasurer in the last reign, and he soon charged Dunstan
+with having taken some of the last king's money. The Glastonbury
+Abbot fled to Belgium (very narrowly escaping some pursuers who
+were sent to put out his eyes, as you will wish they had, when you
+read what follows), and his abbey was given to priests who were
+married; whom he always, both before and afterwards, opposed. But
+he quickly conspired with his friend, Odo the Dane, to set up the
+King's young brother, EDGAR, as his rival for the throne; and, not
+content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen Elgiva,
+though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, to be stolen
+from one of the Royal Palaces, branded in the cheek with a red-hot
+iron, and sold into slavery in Ireland. But the Irish people
+pitied and befriended her; and they said, 'Let us restore the girl-
+queen to the boy-king, and make the young lovers happy!' and they
+cured her of her cruel wound, and sent her home as beautiful as
+before. But the villain Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo,
+caused her to be waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying
+to join her husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to
+be barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die. When Edwy the
+Fair (his people called him so, because he was so young and
+handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken heart;
+and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and husband ends!
+Ah! Better to be two cottagers in these better times, than king
+and queen of England in those bad days, though never so fair!
+
+Then came the boy-king, EDGAR, called the Peaceful, fifteen years
+old. Dunstan, being still the real king, drove all married priests
+out of the monasteries and abbeys, and replaced them by solitary
+monks like himself, of the rigid order called the Benedictines. He
+made himself Archbishop of Canterbury, for his greater glory; and
+exercised such power over the neighbouring British princes, and so
+collected them about the King, that once, when the King held his
+court at Chester, and went on the river Dee to visit the monastery
+of St. John, the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people
+used to delight in relating in stories and songs) by eight crowned
+kings, and steered by the King of England. As Edgar was very
+obedient to Dunstan and the monks, they took great pains to
+represent him as the best of kings. But he was really profligate,
+debauched, and vicious. He once forcibly carried off a young lady
+from the convent at Wilton; and Dunstan, pretending to be very much
+shocked, condemned him not to wear his crown upon his head for
+seven years - no great punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly
+have been a more comfortable ornament to wear, than a stewpan
+without a handle. His marriage with his second wife, ELFRIDA, is
+one of the worst events of his reign. Hearing of the beauty of
+this lady, he despatched his favourite courtier, ATHELWOLD, to her
+father's castle in Devonshire, to see if she were really as
+charming as fame reported. Now, she was so exceedingly beautiful
+that Athelwold fell in love with her himself, and married her; but
+he told the King that she was only rich - not handsome. The King,
+suspecting the truth when they came home, resolved to pay the
+newly-married couple a visit; and, suddenly, told Athelwold to
+prepare for his immediate coming. Athelwold, terrified, confessed
+to his young wife what he had said and done, and implored her to
+disguise her beauty by some ugly dress or silly manner, that he
+might be safe from the King's anger. She promised that she would;
+but she was a proud woman, who would far rather have been a queen
+than the wife of a courtier. She dressed herself in her best
+dress, and adorned herself with her richest jewels; and when the
+King came, presently, he discovered the cheat. So, he caused his
+false friend, Athelwold, to be murdered in a wood, and married his
+widow, this bad Elfrida. Six or seven years afterwards, he died;
+and was buried, as if he had been all that the monks said he was,
+in the abbey of Glastonbury, which he - or Dunstan for him - had
+much enriched.
+
+England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by wolves,
+which, driven out of the open country, hid themselves in the
+mountains of Wales when they were not attacking travellers and
+animals, that the tribute payable by the Welsh people was forgiven
+them, on condition of their producing, every year, three hundred
+wolves' heads. And the Welshmen were so sharp upon the wolves, to
+save their money, that in four years there was not a wolf left.
+
+Then came the boy-king, EDWARD, called the Martyr, from the manner
+of his death. Elfrida had a son, named ETHELRED, for whom she
+claimed the throne; but Dunstan did not choose to favour him, and
+he made Edward king. The boy was hunting, one day, down in
+Dorsetshire, when he rode near to Corfe Castle, where Elfrida and
+Ethelred lived. Wishing to see them kindly, he rode away from his
+attendants and galloped to the castle gate, where he arrived at
+twilight, and blew his hunting-horn. 'You are welcome, dear King,'
+said Elfrida, coming out, with her brightest smiles. 'Pray you
+dismount and enter.' 'Not so, dear madam,' said the King. 'My
+company will miss me, and fear that I have met with some harm.
+Please you to give me a cup of wine, that I may drink here, in the
+saddle, to you and to my little brother, and so ride away with the
+good speed I have made in riding here.' Elfrida, going in to bring
+the wine, whispered an armed servant, one of her attendants, who
+stole out of the darkening gateway, and crept round behind the
+King's horse. As the King raised the cup to his lips, saying,
+'Health!' to the wicked woman who was smiling on him, and to his
+innocent brother whose hand she held in hers, and who was only ten
+years old, this armed man made a spring and stabbed him in the
+back. He dropped the cup and spurred his horse away; but, soon
+fainting with loss of blood, dropped from the saddle, and, in his
+fall, entangled one of his feet in the stirrup. The frightened
+horse dashed on; trailing his rider's curls upon the ground;
+dragging his smooth young face through ruts, and stones, and
+briers, and fallen leaves, and mud; until the hunters, tracking the
+animal's course by the King's blood, caught his bridle, and
+released the disfigured body.
+
+Then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, ETHELRED, whom
+Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered brother
+riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat with a torch
+which she snatched from one of the attendants. The people so
+disliked this boy, on account of his cruel mother and the murder
+she had done to promote him, that Dunstan would not have had him
+for king, but would have made EDGITHA, the daughter of the dead
+King Edgar, and of the lady whom he stole out of the convent at
+Wilton, Queen of England, if she would have consented. But she
+knew the stories of the youthful kings too well, and would not be
+persuaded from the convent where she lived in peace; so, Dunstan
+put Ethelred on the throne, having no one else to put there, and
+gave him the nickname of THE UNREADY - knowing that he wanted
+resolution and firmness.
+
+At first, Elfrida possessed great influence over the young King,
+but, as he grew older and came of age, her influence declined. The
+infamous woman, not having it in her power to do any more evil,
+then retired from court, and, according, to the fashion of the
+time, built churches and monasteries, to expiate her guilt. As if
+a church, with a steeple reaching to the very stars, would have
+been any sign of true repentance for the blood of the poor boy,
+whose murdered form was trailed at his horse's heels! As if she
+could have buried her wickedness beneath the senseless stones of
+the whole world, piled up one upon another, for the monks to live
+in!
+
+About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan died. He was
+growing old then, but was as stern and artful as ever. Two
+circumstances that happened in connexion with him, in this reign of
+Ethelred, made a great noise. Once, he was present at a meeting of
+the Church, when the question was discussed whether priests should
+have permission to marry; and, as he sat with his head hung down,
+apparently thinking about it, a voice seemed to come out of a
+crucifix in the room, and warn the meeting to be of his opinion.
+This was some juggling of Dunstan's, and was probably his own voice
+disguised. But he played off a worse juggle than that, soon
+afterwards; for, another meeting being held on the same subject,
+and he and his supporters being seated on one side of a great room,
+and their opponents on the other, he rose and said, 'To Christ
+himself, as judge, do I commit this cause!' Immediately on these
+words being spoken, the floor where the opposite party sat gave
+way, and some were killed and many wounded. You may be pretty sure
+that it had been weakened under Dunstan's direction, and that it
+fell at Dunstan's signal. HIS part of the floor did not go down.
+No, no. He was too good a workman for that.
+
+When he died, the monks settled that he was a Saint, and called him
+Saint Dunstan ever afterwards. They might just as well have
+settled that he was a coach-horse, and could just as easily have
+called him one.
+
+Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I dare say, to be rid of this
+holy saint; but, left to himself, he was a poor weak king, and his
+reign was a reign of defeat and shame. The restless Danes, led by
+SWEYN, a son of the King of Denmark who had quarrelled with his
+father and had been banished from home, again came into England,
+and, year after year, attacked and despoiled large towns. To coax
+these sea-kings away, the weak Ethelred paid them money; but, the
+more money he paid, the more money the Danes wanted. At first, he
+gave them ten thousand pounds; on their next invasion, sixteen
+thousand pounds; on their next invasion, four and twenty thousand
+pounds: to pay which large sums, the unfortunate English people
+were heavily taxed. But, as the Danes still came back and wanted
+more, he thought it would be a good plan to marry into some
+powerful foreign family that would help him with soldiers. So, in
+the year one thousand and two, he courted and married Emma, the
+sister of Richard Duke of Normandy; a lady who was called the
+Flower of Normandy.
+
+And now, a terrible deed was done in England, the like of which was
+never done on English ground before or since. On the thirteenth of
+November, in pursuance of secret instructions sent by the King over
+the whole country, the inhabitants of every town and city armed,
+and murdered all the Danes who were their neighbours.
+
+Young and old, babies and soldiers, men and women, every Dane was
+killed. No doubt there were among them many ferocious men who had
+done the English great wrong, and whose pride and insolence, in
+swaggering in the houses of the English and insulting their wives
+and daughters, had become unbearable; but no doubt there were also
+among them many peaceful Christian Danes who had married English
+women and become like English men. They were all slain, even to
+GUNHILDA, the sister of the King of Denmark, married to an English
+lord; who was first obliged to see the murder of her husband and
+her child, and then was killed herself.
+
+When the King of the sea-kings heard of this deed of blood, he
+swore that he would have a great revenge. He raised an army, and a
+mightier fleet of ships than ever yet had sailed to England; and in
+all his army there was not a slave or an old man, but every soldier
+was a free man, and the son of a free man, and in the prime of
+life, and sworn to be revenged upon the English nation, for the
+massacre of that dread thirteenth of November, when his countrymen
+and countrywomen, and the little children whom they loved, were
+killed with fire and sword. And so, the sea-kings came to England
+in many great ships, each bearing the flag of its own commander.
+Golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts of prey,
+threatened England from the prows of those ships, as they came
+onward through the water; and were reflected in the shining shields
+that hung upon their sides. The ship that bore the standard of the
+King of the sea-kings was carved and painted like a mighty serpent;
+and the King in his anger prayed that the Gods in whom he trusted
+might all desert him, if his serpent did not strike its fangs into
+England's heart.
+
+And indeed it did. For, the great army landing from the great
+fleet, near Exeter, went forward, laying England waste, and
+striking their lances in the earth as they advanced, or throwing
+them into rivers, in token of their making all the island theirs.
+In remembrance of the black November night when the Danes were
+murdered, wheresoever the invaders came, they made the Saxons
+prepare and spread for them great feasts; and when they had eaten
+those feasts, and had drunk a curse to England with wild
+rejoicings, they drew their swords, and killed their Saxon
+entertainers, and marched on. For six long years they carried on
+this war: burning the crops, farmhouses, barns, mills, granaries;
+killing the labourers in the fields; preventing the seed from being
+sown in the ground; causing famine and starvation; leaving only
+heaps of ruin and smoking ashes, where they had found rich towns.
+To crown this misery, English officers and men deserted, and even
+the favourites of Ethelred the Unready, becoming traitors, seized
+many of the English ships, turned pirates against their own
+country, and aided by a storm occasioned the loss of nearly the
+whole English navy.
+
+There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, who was true
+to his country and the feeble King. He was a priest, and a brave
+one. For twenty days, the Archbishop of Canterbury defended that
+city against its Danish besiegers; and when a traitor in the town
+threw the gates open and admitted them, he said, in chains, 'I will
+not buy my life with money that must be extorted from the suffering
+people. Do with me what you please!' Again and again, he steadily
+refused to purchase his release with gold wrung from the poor.
+
+At last, the Danes being tired of this, and being assembled at a
+drunken merry-making, had him brought into the feasting-hall.
+
+'Now, bishop,' they said, 'we want gold!'
+
+He looked round on the crowd of angry faces; from the shaggy beards
+close to him, to the shaggy beards against the walls, where men
+were mounted on tables and forms to see him over the heads of
+others: and he knew that his time was come.
+
+'I have no gold,' he said.
+
+'Get it, bishop!' they all thundered.
+
+'That, I have often told you I will not,' said he.
+
+They gathered closer round him, threatening, but he stood unmoved.
+Then, one man struck him; then, another; then a cursing soldier
+picked up from a heap in a corner of the hall, where fragments had
+been rudely thrown at dinner, a great ox-bone, and cast it at his
+face, from which the blood came spurting forth; then, others ran to
+the same heap, and knocked him down with other bones, and bruised
+and battered him; until one soldier whom he had baptised (willing,
+as I hope for the sake of that soldier's soul, to shorten the
+sufferings of the good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe.
+
+If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of this noble
+archbishop, he might have done something yet. But he paid the
+Danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead, and gained so little by
+the cowardly act, that Sweyn soon afterwards came over to subdue
+all England. So broken was the attachment of the English people,
+by this time, to their incapable King and their forlorn country
+which could not protect them, that they welcomed Sweyn on all
+sides, as a deliverer. London faithfully stood out, as long as the
+King was within its walls; but, when he sneaked away, it also
+welcomed the Dane. Then, all was over; and the King took refuge
+abroad with the Duke of Normandy, who had already given shelter to
+the King's wife, once the Flower of that country, and to her
+children.
+
+Still, the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, could
+not quite forget the great King Alfred and the Saxon race. When
+Sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a month after he had been
+proclaimed King of England, they generously sent to Ethelred, to
+say that they would have him for their King again, 'if he would
+only govern them better than he had governed them before.' The
+Unready, instead of coming himself, sent Edward, one of his sons,
+to make promises for him. At last, he followed, and the English
+declared him King. The Danes declared CANUTE, the son of Sweyn,
+King. Thus, direful war began again, and lasted for three years,
+when the Unready died. And I know of nothing better that he did,
+in all his reign of eight and thirty years.
+
+Was Canute to be King now? Not over the Saxons, they said; they
+must have EDMUND, one of the sons of the Unready, who was surnamed
+IRONSIDE, because of his strength and stature. Edmund and Canute
+thereupon fell to, and fought five battles - O unhappy England,
+what a fighting-ground it was! - and then Ironside, who was a big
+man, proposed to Canute, who was a little man, that they two should
+fight it out in single combat. If Canute had been the big man, he
+would probably have said yes, but, being the little man, he
+decidedly said no. However, he declared that he was willing to
+divide the kingdom - to take all that lay north of Watling Street,
+as the old Roman military road from Dover to Chester was called,
+and to give Ironside all that lay south of it. Most men being
+weary of so much bloodshed, this was done. But Canute soon became
+sole King of England; for Ironside died suddenly within two months.
+Some think that he was killed, and killed by Canute's orders. No
+one knows.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V - ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE
+
+
+
+CANUTE reigned eighteen years. He was a merciless King at first.
+After he had clasped the hands of the Saxon chiefs, in token of the
+sincerity with which he swore to be just and good to them in return
+for their acknowledging him, he denounced and slew many of them, as
+well as many relations of the late King. 'He who brings me the
+head of one of my enemies,' he used to say, 'shall be dearer to me
+than a brother.' And he was so severe in hunting down his enemies,
+that he must have got together a pretty large family of these dear
+brothers. He was strongly inclined to kill EDMUND and EDWARD, two
+children, sons of poor Ironside; but, being afraid to do so in
+England, he sent them over to the King of Sweden, with a request
+that the King would be so good as 'dispose of them.' If the King
+of Sweden had been like many, many other men of that day, he would
+have had their innocent throats cut; but he was a kind man, and
+brought them up tenderly.
+
+Normandy ran much in Canute's mind. In Normandy were the two
+children of the late king - EDWARD and ALFRED by name; and their
+uncle the Duke might one day claim the crown for them. But the
+Duke showed so little inclination to do so now, that he proposed to
+Canute to marry his sister, the widow of The Unready; who, being
+but a showy flower, and caring for nothing so much as becoming a
+queen again, left her children and was wedded to him.
+
+Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valour of the English in
+his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble him at home,
+Canute had a prosperous reign, and made many improvements. He was
+a poet and a musician. He grew sorry, as he grew older, for the
+blood he had shed at first; and went to Rome in a Pilgrim's dress,
+by way of washing it out. He gave a great deal of money to
+foreigners on his journey; but he took it from the English before
+he started. On the whole, however, he certainly became a far
+better man when he had no opposition to contend with, and was as
+great a King as England had known for some time.
+
+The old writers of history relate how that Canute was one day
+disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery, and how he caused
+his chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to command the
+tide as it came up not to wet the edge of his robe, for the land
+was his; how the tide came up, of course, without regarding him;
+and how he then turned to his flatterers, and rebuked them, saying,
+what was the might of any earthly king, to the might of the
+Creator, who could say unto the sea, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and
+no farther!' We may learn from this, I think, that a little sense
+will go a long way in a king; and that courtiers are not easily
+cured of flattery, nor kings of a liking for it. If the courtiers
+of Canute had not known, long before, that the King was fond of
+flattery, they would have known better than to offer it in such
+large doses. And if they had not known that he was vain of this
+speech (anything but a wonderful speech it seems to me, if a good
+child had made it), they would not have been at such great pains to
+repeat it. I fancy I see them all on the sea-shore together; the
+King's chair sinking in the sand; the King in a mighty good humour
+with his own wisdom; and the courtiers pretending to be quite
+stunned by it!
+
+It is not the sea alone that is bidden to go 'thus far, and no
+farther.' The great command goes forth to all the kings upon the
+earth, and went to Canute in the year one thousand and thirty-five,
+and stretched him dead upon his bed. Beside it, stood his Norman
+wife. Perhaps, as the King looked his last upon her, he, who had
+so often thought distrustfully of Normandy, long ago, thought once
+more of the two exiled Princes in their uncle's court, and of the
+little favour they could feel for either Danes or Saxons, and of a
+rising cloud in Normandy that slowly moved towards England.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI - ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD
+THE CONFESSOR
+
+
+
+CANUTE left three sons, by name SWEYN, HAROLD, and HARDICANUTE; but
+his Queen, Emma, once the Flower of Normandy, was the mother of
+only Hardicanute. Canute had wished his dominions to be divided
+between the three, and had wished Harold to have England; but the
+Saxon people in the South of England, headed by a nobleman with
+great possessions, called the powerful EARL GODWIN (who is said to
+have been originally a poor cow-boy), opposed this, and desired to
+have, instead, either Hardicanute, or one of the two exiled Princes
+who were over in Normandy. It seemed so certain that there would
+be more bloodshed to settle this dispute, that many people left
+their homes, and took refuge in the woods and swamps. Happily,
+however, it was agreed to refer the whole question to a great
+meeting at Oxford, which decided that Harold should have all the
+country north of the Thames, with London for his capital city, and
+that Hardicanute should have all the south. The quarrel was so
+arranged; and, as Hardicanute was in Denmark troubling himself very
+little about anything but eating and getting drunk, his mother and
+Earl Godwin governed the south for him.
+
+They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people who had
+hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, when Edward, the
+elder of the two exiled Princes, came over from Normandy with a few
+followers, to claim the English Crown. His mother Emma, however,
+who only cared for her last son Hardicanute, instead of assisting
+him, as he expected, opposed him so strongly with all her influence
+that he was very soon glad to get safely back. His brother Alfred
+was not so fortunate. Believing in an affectionate letter, written
+some time afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother's name
+(but whether really with or without his mother's knowledge is now
+uncertain), he allowed himself to be tempted over to England, with
+a good force of soldiers, and landing on the Kentish coast, and
+being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin, proceeded into Surrey, as
+far as the town of Guildford. Here, he and his men halted in the
+evening to rest, having still the Earl in their company; who had
+ordered lodgings and good cheer for them. But, in the dead of the
+night, when they were off their guard, being divided into small
+parties sleeping soundly after a long march and a plentiful supper
+in different houses, they were set upon by the King's troops, and
+taken prisoners. Next morning they were drawn out in a line, to
+the number of six hundred men, and were barbarously tortured and
+killed; with the exception of every tenth man, who was sold into
+slavery. As to the wretched Prince Alfred, he was stripped naked,
+tied to a horse and sent away into the Isle of Ely, where his eyes
+were torn out of his head, and where in a few days he miserably
+died. I am not sure that the Earl had wilfully entrapped him, but
+I suspect it strongly.
+
+Harold was now King all over England, though it is doubtful whether
+the Archbishop of Canterbury (the greater part of the priests were
+Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) ever consented to crown him.
+Crowned or uncrowned, with the Archbishop's leave or without it, he
+was King for four years: after which short reign he died, and was
+buried; having never done much in life but go a hunting. He was
+such a fast runner at this, his favourite sport, that the people
+called him Harold Harefoot.
+
+Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in Flanders, plotting, with his
+mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder of Prince
+Alfred), for the invasion of England. The Danes and Saxons,
+finding themselves without a King, and dreading new disputes, made
+common cause, and joined in inviting him to occupy the Throne. He
+consented, and soon troubled them enough; for he brought over
+numbers of Danes, and taxed the people so insupportably to enrich
+those greedy favourites that there were many insurrections,
+especially one at Worcester, where the citizens rose and killed his
+tax-collectors; in revenge for which he burned their city. He was
+a brutal King, whose first public act was to order the dead body of
+poor Harold Harefoot to be dug up, beheaded, and thrown into the
+river. His end was worthy of such a beginning. He fell down
+drunk, with a goblet of wine in his hand, at a wedding-feast at
+Lambeth, given in honour of the marriage of his standard-bearer, a
+Dane named TOWED THE PROUD. And he never spoke again.
+
+EDWARD, afterwards called by the monks THE CONFESSOR, succeeded;
+and his first act was to oblige his mother Emma, who had favoured
+him so little, to retire into the country; where she died some ten
+years afterwards. He was the exiled prince whose brother Alfred
+had been so foully killed. He had been invited over from Normandy
+by Hardicanute, in the course of his short reign of two years, and
+had been handsomely treated at court. His cause was now favoured
+by the powerful Earl Godwin, and he was soon made King. This Earl
+had been suspected by the people, ever since Prince Alfred's cruel
+death; he had even been tried in the last reign for the Prince's
+murder, but had been pronounced not guilty; chiefly, as it was
+supposed, because of a present he had made to the swinish King, of
+a gilded ship with a figure-head of solid gold, and a crew of
+eighty splendidly armed men. It was his interest to help the new
+King with his power, if the new King would help him against the
+popular distrust and hatred. So they made a bargain. Edward the
+Confessor got the Throne. The Earl got more power and more land,
+and his daughter Editha was made queen; for it was a part of their
+compact that the King should take her for his wife.
+
+But, although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to be
+beloved - good, beautiful, sensible, and kind - the King from the
+first neglected her. Her father and her six proud brothers,
+resenting this cold treatment, harassed the King greatly by
+exerting all their power to make him unpopular. Having lived so
+long in Normandy, he preferred the Normans to the English. He made
+a Norman Archbishop, and Norman Bishops; his great officers and
+favourites were all Normans; he introduced the Norman fashions and
+the Norman language; in imitation of the state custom of Normandy,
+he attached a great seal to his state documents, instead of merely
+marking them, as the Saxon Kings had done, with the sign of the
+cross - just as poor people who have never been taught to write,
+now make the same mark for their names. All this, the powerful
+Earl Godwin and his six proud sons represented to the people as
+disfavour shown towards the English; and thus they daily increased
+their own power, and daily diminished the power of the King.
+
+They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when he had
+reigned eight years. Eustace, Earl of Bologne, who had married the
+King's sister, came to England on a visit. After staying at the
+court some time, he set forth, with his numerous train of
+attendants, to return home. They were to embark at Dover.
+Entering that peaceful town in armour, they took possession of the
+best houses, and noisily demanded to be lodged and entertained
+without payment. One of the bold men of Dover, who would not
+endure to have these domineering strangers jingling their heavy
+swords and iron corselets up and down his house, eating his meat
+and drinking his strong liquor, stood in his doorway and refused
+admission to the first armed man who came there. The armed man
+drew, and wounded him. The man of Dover struck the armed man dead.
+Intelligence of what he had done, spreading through the streets to
+where the Count Eustace and his men were standing by their horses,
+bridle in hand, they passionately mounted, galloped to the house,
+surrounded it, forced their way in (the doors and windows being
+closed when they came up), and killed the man of Dover at his own
+fireside. They then clattered through the streets, cutting down
+and riding over men, women, and children. This did not last long,
+you may believe. The men of Dover set upon them with great fury,
+killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded many more, and,
+blockading the road to the port so that they should not embark,
+beat them out of the town by the way they had come. Hereupon,
+Count Eustace rides as hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where
+Edward is, surrounded by Norman monks and Norman lords. 'Justice!'
+cries the Count, 'upon the men of Dover, who have set upon and
+slain my people!' The King sends immediately for the powerful Earl
+Godwin, who happens to be near; reminds him that Dover is under his
+government; and orders him to repair to Dover and do military
+execution on the inhabitants. 'It does not become you,' says the
+proud Earl in reply, 'to condemn without a hearing those whom you
+have sworn to protect. I will not do it.'
+
+The King, therefore, summoned the Earl, on pain of banishment and
+loss of his titles and property, to appear before the court to
+answer this disobedience. The Earl refused to appear. He, his
+eldest son Harold, and his second son Sweyn, hastily raised as many
+fighting men as their utmost power could collect, and demanded to
+have Count Eustace and his followers surrendered to the justice of
+the country. The King, in his turn, refused to give them up, and
+raised a strong force. After some treaty and delay, the troops of
+the great Earl and his sons began to fall off. The Earl, with a
+part of his family and abundance of treasure, sailed to Flanders;
+Harold escaped to Ireland; and the power of the great family was
+for that time gone in England. But, the people did not forget
+them.
+
+Then, Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a mean
+spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and sons
+upon the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending wife, whom
+all who saw her (her husband and his monks excepted) loved. He
+seized rapaciously upon her fortune and her jewels, and allowing
+her only one attendant, confined her in a gloomy convent, of which
+a sister of his - no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart -
+was abbess or jailer.
+
+Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his way, the
+King favoured the Normans more than ever. He invited over WILLIAM,
+DUKE OF NORMANDY, the son of that Duke who had received him and his
+murdered brother long ago, and of a peasant girl, a tanner's
+daughter, with whom that Duke had fallen in love for her beauty as
+he saw her washing clothes in a brook. William, who was a great
+warrior, with a passion for fine horses, dogs, and arms, accepted
+the invitation; and the Normans in England, finding themselves more
+numerous than ever when he arrived with his retinue, and held in
+still greater honour at court than before, became more and more
+haughty towards the people, and were more and more disliked by
+them.
+
+The old Earl Godwin, though he was abroad, knew well how the people
+felt; for, with part of the treasure he had carried away with him,
+he kept spies and agents in his pay all over England.
+
+Accordingly, he thought the time was come for fitting out a great
+expedition against the Norman-loving King. With it, he sailed to
+the Isle of Wight, where he was joined by his son Harold, the most
+gallant and brave of all his family. And so the father and son
+came sailing up the Thames to Southwark; great numbers of the
+people declaring for them, and shouting for the English Earl and
+the English Harold, against the Norman favourites!
+
+The King was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually have
+been whensoever they have been in the hands of monks. But the
+people rallied so thickly round the old Earl and his son, and the
+old Earl was so steady in demanding without bloodshed the
+restoration of himself and his family to their rights, that at last
+the court took the alarm. The Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, and
+the Norman Bishop of London, surrounded by their retainers, fought
+their way out of London, and escaped from Essex to France in a
+fishing-boat. The other Norman favourites dispersed in all
+directions. The old Earl and his sons (except Sweyn, who had
+committed crimes against the law) were restored to their
+possessions and dignities. Editha, the virtuous and lovely Queen
+of the insensible King, was triumphantly released from her prison,
+the convent, and once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed in
+the jewels of which, when she had no champion to support her
+rights, her cold-blooded husband had deprived her.
+
+The old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored fortune. He
+fell down in a fit at the King's table, and died upon the third day
+afterwards. Harold succeeded to his power, and to a far higher
+place in the attachment of the people than his father had ever
+held. By his valour he subdued the King's enemies in many bloody
+fights. He was vigorous against rebels in Scotland - this was the
+time when Macbeth slew Duncan, upon which event our English
+Shakespeare, hundreds of years afterwards, wrote his great tragedy;
+and he killed the restless Welsh King GRIFFITH, and brought his
+head to England.
+
+What Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the French
+coast by a tempest, is not at all certain; nor does it at all
+matter. That his ship was forced by a storm on that shore, and
+that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In those barbarous
+days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken prisoners, and obliged
+to pay ransom. So, a certain Count Guy, who was the Lord of
+Ponthieu where Harold's disaster happened, seized him, instead of
+relieving him like a hospitable and Christian lord as he ought to
+have done, and expected to make a very good thing of it.
+
+But Harold sent off immediately to Duke William of Normandy,
+complaining of this treatment; and the Duke no sooner heard of it
+than he ordered Harold to be escorted to the ancient town of Rouen,
+where he then was, and where he received him as an honoured guest.
+Now, some writers tell us that Edward the Confessor, who was by
+this time old and had no children, had made a will, appointing Duke
+William of Normandy his successor, and had informed the Duke of his
+having done so. There is no doubt that he was anxious about his
+successor; because he had even invited over, from abroad, EDWARD
+THE OUTLAW, a son of Ironside, who had come to England with his
+wife and three children, but whom the King had strangely refused to
+see when he did come, and who had died in London suddenly (princes
+were terribly liable to sudden death in those days), and had been
+buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. The King might possibly have made
+such a will; or, having always been fond of the Normans, he might
+have encouraged Norman William to aspire to
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd.go b/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd.go
index ccf84ba..1dff293 100644
--- a/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd.go
+++ b/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd.go
@@ -20,34 +20,17 @@
package compression
import (
+ "fmt"
"github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd"
- "github.com/pkg/errors"
)
-type zstdProvider struct {
- encoder *zstd.Encoder
- decoder *zstd.Decoder
-}
-
func NewZStdProvider() Provider {
- p := &zstdProvider{}
- p.encoder, _ = zstd.NewWriter(nil)
- p.decoder, _ = zstd.NewReader(nil)
- return p
-}
-
-func (p *zstdProvider) CanCompress() bool {
- return true
+ return newPureGoZStdProvider(zstd.SpeedDefault)
}
-func (p *zstdProvider) Compress(data []byte) []byte {
- return p.encoder.EncodeAll(data, []byte{})
-}
-
-func (p *zstdProvider) Decompress(compressedData []byte, originalSize int) (dst []byte, err error) {
- dst, err = p.decoder.DecodeAll(compressedData, nil)
- if err == nil && len(dst) != originalSize {
- return nil, errors.New("Invalid uncompressed size")
- }
- return
-}
+func newCGoZStdProvider(compressionLevel int) Provider {
+ // This is kept to avoid compile errors in benchmark code when cgo is disabled.
+ // The warning is only shown when running the benchmark with CGO disabled.
+ fmt.Println("WARNING: CGO is disabled, using pure Go implementation of ZStd. Use CGO_ENABLED=1 when running benchmark.")
+ return newPureGoZStdProvider(zstd.SpeedDefault)
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd_cgo.go b/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd_cgo.go
index 3f74b93..2eba0a3 100644
--- a/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd_cgo.go
+++ b/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd_cgo.go
@@ -27,20 +27,28 @@ import (
zstd "github.com/valyala/gozstd"
)
-type zstdCGoProvider struct{}
+type zstdCGoProvider struct {
+ compressionLevel int
+}
+
+func newCGoZStdProvider(compressionLevel int) Provider {
+ return &zstdCGoProvider{
+ compressionLevel: compressionLevel,
+ }
+}
func NewZStdProvider() Provider {
- return &zstdCGoProvider{}
+ return newCGoZStdProvider(zstd.DefaultCompressionLevel)
}
func (*zstdCGoProvider) CanCompress() bool {
return true
}
-func (*zstdCGoProvider) Compress(data []byte) []byte {
- return zstd.Compress(nil, data)
+func (z *zstdCGoProvider) Compress(data []byte) []byte {
+ return zstd.CompressLevel(nil, data, z.compressionLevel)
}
-func (*zstdCGoProvider) Decompress(compressedData []byte, originalSize int) ([]byte, error) {
+func (z *zstdCGoProvider) Decompress(compressedData []byte, originalSize int) ([]byte, error) {
return zstd.Decompress(nil, compressedData)
}
diff --git a/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd.go b/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd_go.go
similarity index 90%
copy from pulsar/internal/compression/zstd.go
copy to pulsar/internal/compression/zstd_go.go
index ccf84ba..da3004a 100644
--- a/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd.go
+++ b/pulsar/internal/compression/zstd_go.go
@@ -15,8 +15,6 @@
// specific language governing permissions and limitations
// under the License.
-// +build !cgo
-
package compression
import (
@@ -29,9 +27,9 @@ type zstdProvider struct {
decoder *zstd.Decoder
}
-func NewZStdProvider() Provider {
+func newPureGoZStdProvider(compressionLevel zstd.EncoderLevel) Provider {
p := &zstdProvider{}
- p.encoder, _ = zstd.NewWriter(nil)
+ p.encoder, _ = zstd.NewWriter(nil, zstd.WithEncoderLevel(compressionLevel))
p.decoder, _ = zstd.NewReader(nil)
return p
}