the very sweetest fruits of former studies.’” The brethren of St. Martin of Tours had not a high character for propriety of conduct. There are many evidences of this. It is interesting to know that the earliest letter of Alcuin to which we can reasonably assign a date is a letter appealing for a lapsed brother of this same abbey of St. Martin of Tours, over which Alcuin was now called to preside as an old man. The abbat to whom Alcuin addressed this letter was Wulfhard, of whom the life of Hadrian I, as printed by Muratori (iii. 1, 184, _Rer. Ital. Script._), states that he was sent along with Albinus, that is, Alcuin, to Hadrian, by Karl in 773.[187] The letter was probably written in 774. [Sidenote: Ep. 1. A.D. 774.] “To the pious father Uulfhard the abbat Albinus the humble levite wishes health. “I found this poor lamb wandering through the rough places of neglect. Moved by pity, I brought him by sedulous admonition to the home of our discipline, binding up his wounds, pouring in wine and oil. To your piety, gentlest of fathers, I send him back, beseeching you to receive him for the love of Him who, amid the joy of the angels, has brought back on His own shoulders into the home of His delights all of us, who were wandering among the precipices of sins. Do not in austerity repel from thee one whom Christ has for pity gathered back to Himself, nay, has met penitent, has run to and embraced, has brought back to the house of feasting. And if any envious man advise you to reject him, let such an one fear lest he himself be rejected by Him who has said, ‘With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’... And though he have sinned ten times, have not we sinned an hundred times; and though he owe an hundred pence, do we not owe ten thousand talents?...” Alcuin had a high regard for the wines of the Loire, and he particularly liked them old. The best wine of that time would appear to have been grown about the city of Orleans, and to have been kept under the charge of the Bishop of Orleans as the chief owner of the terraced lands on which the vines grew.[188] Here is a frolicsome letter about a present of wine from Orleans. It is full of quotations from the Song of Songs applied to local conditions, for the most part rather obscure. When he comes to his concluding words, there is no obscurity in his request that if wine is coming, good old wine may be sent. [Sidenote: Ep. 153. A.D. 796-800.] “To Theodulf, bishop of Orleans. “To the great pontiff and father of vineyards, Teodulf[189], Albinus sends greeting.