discussions about the calendar, the date of Easter, the intercalations necessary to bring the solar and the lunar years into harmony. The king half mischievously refers these calculations to the well-taught pages of his palace, who discover in them some errors, which, after much mutual banter, the elder scholar is compelled to acknowledge. Always, however, the intercourse is friendly, sincere, elevating. The king does not patronize, and the deacon does not cringe. One cannot but feel in reading these letters that both men were made to be loved. Such was the man who, as there is every reason to believe, had whispered to many of his friends the fateful word “Imperator” before Pope Leo III. arrived, a hunted and half-blinded fugitive, at Charles’s court. In the month of May (799) Alcuin had written to his royal master a remarkable letter, commenting on the tidings which Charles had sent him of the assault on Pope Leo. From this letter it will be well to extract some sentences. “To his peace-making lord King David, Albinus wishes health. I thank your Goodness, sweetest David, for remembering my littleness and making me acquainted with the facts which your faithful servant has brought to my ears. Were I present with you I should have many counsels to offer to your Dignity, if you had opportunity to listen or I eloquence to speak. For I love to write concerning your prosperity, the stability of the kingdom given you by God and the advancement of the Holy Church of Christ. All which are much troubled and stained by the daring deeds of wicked men which have been perpetrated, not on obscure and ignoble persons, but on the greatest and the highest. “For there have been hitherto three persons higher than all others in this world. One is the Apostolic Sublimity who rules by vicarious power from the seat of St. Peter, prince of the apostles. And what has been done to him, who was the ruler of the aforesaid see, you have in your goodness informed me. “The second is the Imperial dignity and power of the second Rome. How impiously the governor of that empire [Constantine VI.] has been deposed, not by aliens but by his own people and fellow citizens, universal rumor tells us. “The third is the royal dignity in which the decree of our Lord Jesus Christ has placed you as ruler of the Christian people, more excellent in power than the other aforesaid dignities, more illustrious in wisdom, more sublime in the dignity of your kingdom. Lo! now on you alone the salvation of the churches of Christ falls and rests. You are the avenger of crimes, the guide of the wanderers, the comforter of the mourners, the exalter of the good.