before the ravages of the Norsemen began. "The writer complains that for some time past he was not deemed worthy to receive any of those letters 'so precious in my sight from your fatherhood,' but he daily feels the benefit of his absent father's prayers." Here we have clear testimony that, for personal correspondence, there existed a way of sending letters from Ireland to the Rhineland and receiving replies, approaching as near to a regular postal service as we could expect to find in that age. The sequence of the letter shows that the medium of this correspondence was merchant shipping engaged in trade between the two countries. Alcuin adds "that he sends by the same messenger an alms of fifty sicles of silver from the bounty of King Charles (_i.e._ Charlemagne) and fifty more from his own resources for the brotherhood. He also sends a quantity of olive oil ... and asks that it may be distributed amongst the Bishops in God's honour for sacramental purposes." And what about Greek? Much has been written about the singular knowledge of Greek possessed by Irish scholars and their pupils of other nationalities in the time of Charlemagne and thereabouts. Zimmer in particular has laid great stress on this proposition. Some years ago, I went one day to look for help from Professor Corcoran in something I was trying to work out. I found him in his room, busy with his students. I retreated, but he called me back. "We are discussing," he said, "the question of the knowledge of Greek in the ancient Irish schools. You have come in a good time to let us know your view about it." "Well," I said, "I cannot claim to have examined the matter at all. I know that some remarkable things have been said about it. I can only claim to have formed a general impression from what I have observed." "Will you let us know what impression you have formed?" "Certainly," I said. "My impression is that such evidences of a knowledge of Greek as have been found are well enough explained as the outcome of the teaching of Greek in Canterbury by Archbishop Theodore." Since that time, Mr. Mario Esposito has discussed the matter at length in "Studies," and his conclusion is that the knowledge of Greek in those Irish schools was very meagre indeed and mainly or wholly based on mere vocabularies. Kuno Meyer, I think, disagreed with this conclusion. I can remember that Mr. Esposito's treatment of the question jarred on me to some extent--I thought his argument was too sharp in some places and too flat in others. Nevertheless, I think he was in the right on the main point. Knowledge of a language means either conversational knowledge or textual knowledge or both together. I certainly could not name a single Greek author who was textually known in the Irish schools--on the evidence; and I know no evidence of the conversational use of Greek in those schools. It may have been in them for a time. Bede, a contemporary, says that Theodore's pupils learned to speak Greek with fluency.