deep and solemn to interest unlearned ears or to brook unlearned interruption.[33] Of the meal itself Thomas partook but sparingly;[34] its remainder was always given away;[35] and every day twenty-six poor men were brought into the hall and served with a dinner of the best, before Thomas would sit down to his own midday meal.[36] [30] MS. Lansdown. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 156. [31] Anon. I. (_ibid._), p. 20. The Anon. II. (_ibid._), p. 90, and Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 307, say that to this purpose he appropriated a _tithe_ of all his revenues--a statement which reflects rather strangely upon the former archbishops. [32] Joh. Salisb. and Anon. I. as above. Anon. II. (as above), pp. 89, 90. [33] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp. 225–229. On the _eruditi_ see _ib._ pp. 206, 207, 523–529. [34] _Ib._ pp. 231–236. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._), p. 37. Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 308. Anon. II. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 89. [35] Joh. Salisb. (as above), p. 307. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 20, 21. [36] Anon. II. (_ib._), p. 89. The amount of work which he had got through by that time must have been quite as great as in the busiest days of his chancellorship. The day’s occupations ostensibly began about the hour of tierce, when the archbishop came forth from his chamber and went either to hear or to celebrate mass,[37] while a breakfast was given at his expense to a hundred persons who were called his “poor prebendaries.”[38] After mass he proceeded to his audience-chamber and there chiefly remained till the hour of nones, occupied in hearing suits and administering justice.[39] Nones were followed by dinner,[40] after which the primate shut himself up in his own apartments with his _eruditi_[41] and spent the rest of the day with them in business or study, interrupted only by the religious duties of the canonical hours, and sometimes by a little needful repose,[42] for his night’s rest was of the briefest. At cock-crow he rose for prime; immediately afterwards there were brought in to him secretly, under cover of the darkness, thirteen poor persons whose feet he washed and to whom he ministered at table with the utmost devotion and humility,[43] clad only in a hair-shirt which from the day of his consecration he always wore beneath the gorgeous robes in which he appeared in public.[44] He then returned to his bed, but only for a very short time; long before any one else was astir he was again up and doing, in company with one specially favoured disciple--the one who tells the tale, Herbert of Bosham. In the calm silent hours of dawn, while twelve other poor persons received a secret meal and had their feet washed by the primate’s almoner in his stead, the two friends sat eagerly searching the Scriptures together, till the archbishop chose