Now the earlier rules for monks had been drawn up either in the east or after eastern patterns. And although, when they were brought into the west, people for a time obeyed them as well as they could, it was found that they would not obey them any longer when the first heat of zeal for monkery had passed away. Hence it followed, that, throughout the monasteries of the west, there was a general neglect of the rules by which they professed to be governed; and it was high time that there should be some reformation. A reformer arose in the sixth century. This was Benedict, who was born near Nursia, in Italy, in the year 480. At the age of twelve he was sent to school at Rome, under the care of a nurse, as seems to have been usual in those days. He worked hard at his studies, but the bad behaviour of the other boys and young men at Rome so shocked him, that, when he had been there two years, he resolved to bear it no longer. He therefore suddenly ran away from the city, and, after his nurse had gone a considerable distance with him, he left her, and made his way into a rough and lonely country near Subiaco, where he took up his abode in a cave. Here he was found out by a monk of a neighbouring house, named Romanus, who used daily to save part of his own allowance of food, and to carry it to his young friend. The cave opened from the face of a lofty rock, and the way that Romanus took of conveying the food to Benedict was by letting it down at the end of a string from the top of the rock. Benedict had lived in this manner for three years when he was discovered by some shepherds, who at first took him for some wild animal; but they soon found that he was something very different. He taught them and others to whom they made his abode known, and his character came to be so much respected in the neighbourhood that he was chosen abbot of a monastery. He warned the monks that they would probably not like him, but they were resolved to have him nevertheless. Their habits, however, were so bad, that Benedict felt himself obliged to check them rather sharply; and the monks then attempted to get rid of him by mixing poison in his drink. But he found out their wicked design, and the only reproof which he gave them was by reminding them how he had warned them not to make him their abbot. With this he left them to themselves, and went quietly back to his cave.