f, with unabated diligence, to
the studies of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy; and after these first
accomplishments, to the civil law and the canons of the church, in which
he was perfectly skilled. He was only thirty-four years old when, in
574, he was made, by the emperor Justin the Younger, pretor, or governor
and chief magistrate of Rome. By this dignity he was the chief judge of
the city; his pomp and state differed little from that of a consul, and
he was obliged to wear the Trabea, which was a rich robe of silk,
magnificently embroidered, and sparkling with precious stones: a garment
only allowed to the consuls and pretor. But he could say, with Esther,
that his heart always detested the pride of the world. From his infancy
he loved and esteemed only heavenly things, and it was his chief delight
to converse with holy monks, or to be retired in his closet, or in the
church at his devotions. After the death of his father, he built and
endowed six monasteries in Sicily out of the estates which he had in
that island, and founded a seventh in his own house in Rome, which was
the famous monastery of St. Andrew, on the hill Scaurus,[1] now
possessed by the Order of Camaldoli. The first abbot of this house was
Hilarion, the second Valentinus, under whom St. Gregory himself took the
monastic habit, in 575, he being thirty-five years old. In this
retirement, Gregory applied himself with that vigor to fasting and the
study of the sacred writings, that he thereby contracted a great
weakness in his stomach, and used to fall into fits of swooning if he
did not frequently eat. What gave him the greatest affliction was his
not being able to fast on an Easter-Eve, a day on which, says John the
deacon, every one, not even excepting little children, are used to fast.
His great desire of conforming to the universal practice on that day
occasioned his applying to a monk of eminent sanctity, named
Eleutherius, with whom having prayed, and besought God to enable him to
fast at least on that sacred day, he found himself on a sudden so well
restored, that he not only fasted that day, but quite forgot his
illness, as he himself relates.[2]

It was before his advancement to the see of Rome, or even to the
government of his monastery, that he first, as Paul the deacon
testifies, projected the conversion of the English nation. This great
blessing took its rise from the following occasion.[3] Gregory happened
one day to walk through the ma