should be on duty one month at the king's court, while the other two were employed on military expeditions. And then, when the month was over, and they returned from the war, fresh warriors succeeded them ; and in this way he adhered to these regular turns of service during the whole period ofhis life. The second share of this first part of his revenues he allotted to the numerous artisans whom he employed, and who were skilful in every kind of work on land. The third share he expended on the foreigners who flocked to his court from different nations. The second part of what came into him from his annual revenues he likewise subdivided into three shares, allotting the first to the poor, the second to the monasteries which he had founded, "and the third to the school which he had assembled from several parts of Gaul, and from other countries, consisting of learned clerks and doctors, according to the competency and deserts of each individual. He also ordered six candles to be made of wax, of equal size, to the weight of seventy-two denarii, so that each' should be twelve inches in length, and which should burn for twenty-four hours, night and day, without intermission, before the relics of many of the saints. In executing judgment, he was so acute an investigator of the truth, that be enquired into everything which had been done in his absence, whether it was just or unjust ; and if he discovered any iniquity, he interrogated the judges as to whether they had come to their decision through ignorance or through malevolence, out of love or hatred, out of fear or favour, or because they were influenced by desire of gain. And if they confessed that they had decided as they had, because they did not know how to judge more correctly, then he rebuked their unskilfulness with discretion and moderation, speaking to them thus : " I marvel at your inexperience, since, by the gift of God and of me, you have been promoted to the rank and office of wise men, but you have neglected the study of wisdom ; now, then, you must either give up your office of regulating the aftairs of the world, or else you must apply yourselves to the study of wisdom with much more devotion than you have hitherto done." The judges, being alarmed when they heard these admonitions, as if they had been corrected with the severest vengeance, began to employ themselves with all their might to the study of learning equity, so that Alfred thus caused illiterate