Gregory the Great, who in A.D. 597 sent Augustine with his missionary band to the King of Kent, is a name which through the whole extent of Anglo-Saxon literature is mentioned with a peculiar veneration. From his writings the king took two books to be included in his library of English translations. The first was his _Pastoral Care_ (_Cura Pastoralis_), a guide-book for the use of the priest, to instruct the consciences of those who come to him for spiritual counsel; and as it is the first, so it may safely be pronounced the best of all manuals of the kind. Gregory’s ideal is a world governed by conscience, and the spirit of the _Cura Pastoralis_ would transform all men into worthy citizens of such a polity. The other book of Gregory’s which Alfred took was of a different kind. The _Dialogues_ are stories of a sensational or even grotesque character, with a religious moral. They are calculated for a childish level of intelligence, and were designed to compete with the degrading tales which were the entertainment of barbarian circles. This book, which enjoyed the highest popularity for centuries, and was among the earliest books to be printed, is now entirely neglected, and Alfred’s translation has not yet been edited. Bede was born in the neighbourhood of Wearmouth in 672. In his seventh year he entered the abbey recently founded there by Benedict Biscop, who was the first abbot. In that and the sister house of Jarrow he continued to his death in 735. He wrote _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, the History of the Conversion of the Angles and Saxons and of their Earliest Ecclesiastical Institutions. No other national church possesses a history of equal merit.[27] This was the youngest book on Alfred’s list, and as Orosius was, what Pauli calls it,[28] a Chronicle of the World, so this was a History of England.