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The Emperor corresponded with men of learning, on subjects of literature; they generally related to religion. In one of his letters, he requires of Alcuin an explanation of the words Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima, which denote the Sundays which immediately precede, and the word Quadragesima, which denotes the first Sunday which occurs in Lent.

The denominations of those Sundays give rise to two difficulties; one, that they seem to imply that each week consists of ten, not of seven days; the other, that the words sound as if Septuagesima were the seventieth, when it is only the sixty-third day before Easter Sunday; Sexagesima, as if it were the sixtieth, when it is only the fifty-sixth; Quinquagesima, as if it were the fiftieth, when it is the forty-ninth; Quadragesima, as if it were the fortieth, when it is the forty-second.

By such vices and by enormous cruelties, he became a burthen to himself, and odious to all mankind. Having become insupportable to the inhabitants of Rome, the legions of the east unanimously resolved to make Vespa'sian emperor. Vespa'sian was by no means of an illustrious family, his father being only a collector of the tax called quadragesima.