Page 19. If the view taken in the text is correct, we might borrow a
phrase from the Saxon Chronicle, and say that Asser was bishop _at_
Exeter, rather than bishop _of_ Exeter. See Chron. 897 and note.
Page 28. The medical friend who is cited on p. 21 has also given me his
opinion with reference to the passage in Asser describing the mysterious
disease with which Alfred was said to have been attacked during his
marriage festivities. He thinks the malady indicated was probably stone
in the bladder; and that it possibly _was_ connected with the ‘ficus’
from which Alfred is said to have suffered. The latter was either piles
or prolapsus of the rectum, conditions often caused in the young by the
straining induced sympathetically by the presence of a stone in the
bladder. This makes the medical aspect of the case more intelligible. It
does not, however, affect the literary and historical inconsistencies of
the account which I have pointed out in the text.
Page 52. Opponents of the genuineness of Asser endeavour to meet some
of the arguments advanced in the text, by saying that the forger made
use of genuine documents. This does not touch the argument from the
unity of style and diction. Waiving this, the difference between us is
reduced to the question: Is Asser a genuine work which has been largely
interpolated? or is it a spurious work embodying many genuine elements?
The former seems to me more probable. But thus stated, the question
rather resembles the famous problem in the _Oxford Spectator_, whether
a certain College ribbon was a blue ribbon with two white stripes, or a
white ribbon with three blue stripes. And there I am content to leave the
matter.