"He [Alfred] having, it seems, observed the course that Solomon took in preparing timber at Lebanon for the Temple, where thirty thousand, assigned to the work, went by ten thousand at a time, wrought there a month, and then returning, stayed two months at home, until their turn in the fourth month came about again[80]--he, applying this to his own occasions, ordained the like course in his attendance, making a triplicate thereof, insomuch that he had a three-fold shift of all Domestic Officers; each of which were, by themselves, under the command of a several _Major-domo_[81], or Master of the Household, who, coming with his servants under his charge, to wait at Court, stayed there a month, and then returning home, were supplied by the second ternary, and they again by the third, until the course coming about, the first of them (after two months recess at home) did, with the quarter[82], renew their monthly service at the Court. I should conjecture (continues he) that the King, for his more honourable attendance, took this course in point of Royalty and State, there being (as it then stood with the State) very few men of quality fit to stand before a King, who, by their fortunes or dependency, were not otherwhere besides engaged; neither was there, in those times, any great assurance to be had of any man, unless he were one of such condition, whose service, when the King was fain to use one month in the quarter, it was necessary for the common-wealth that he should remit them the other two months unto their own occasions. Neither used he this course with some of his Officers only (as there are those who understand it to have been a course taken only with those of his Guard), but with all his whole attendance; neither used he it for a time only, but for his whole life; and I little doubt but that the use at Court, at this day, of Officers, _Quarter-waiters_, had the first beginning even from this invention of the King[83]." [80] Ingulph. ubi supra. [81] Princeps. Ingulphus, in eod. [82] This, I suppose, led Sir John into the above supposition about the Quarter-Waiters. [83] Spelman's Life of Alfred, edit. Hearne, p. 198. The Translator of this Life of Alfred into Latin, Dr. Obadiah Walker, has taken a little latitude in the last sentence of this passage, and has wandered totally from the mark. His words are, "Neque multum dubito quin _Dapiferi_ hodierni (quos _Quarter-waiters_ appellamus) qui per singulos anni quadrantes, Regi ad _mensam_ ministrant, ab hoc Regis instituto, manarint." Now it is pretty certain that the Quarter-waiters are not Officers at all connected, by their post, with the King's _table_, they being a secondary degree of _Gentlemen Ushers_, called in a grant of Fees temp. Car. I. (in Rymer's Fœdera) _Ante-Ambulones_. The Doctor seems, by the word _Dapiferi_, to have confounded them with the _Sewers_; which is strengthened by the following words, "qui ad _mensam_ ministrant."