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The knowledge of books might almost have disappeared in the seventh century, when the cloud of ignorance was darkest, but for a new and remarkable development of learning in the Irish monasteries.

This development is of special interest to ourselves from the fact that the church of Northumbria was long dependent on the Irish settlement at Iona. The Anglians taught by Paulinus very soon relapsed into paganism, and the second conversion of the North was due to the missionaries of the school of St. Columba. The power of Rome was established at the Council of Whitby; but in the days when Aidan preached at Lindisfarne the Northumbrians were still in obedience to an Irish rule, and were instructed and edified by the acts and lives of St. Patrick, of St. Brigit, and the mighty Columba.

We shall quote some of the incidents recorded about the Irish books, a few legends of Patrick and dim traditions from the days of Columba, before noticing the rise of the English school.

The first mention of the Irish books seems to be contained in a passage of Æthicus. The cosmography ascribed to that name has been traced to very early times. It was long believed to have been written by St. Jerome; but in its present form, at least, the work contains entries of a much later date. The passage in which Ireland is mentioned may be even as late as the age of Columbanus, when Irish monks set up their churches at Würzburg and on the shores of the Lake of Constance, or illuminated their manuscripts at Bobbio under the protection of Theodolind and her successors in Lombardy. A wandering philosopher is represented as visiting the northern regions: he remained for a while in the Isle of Saints and turned over the painted volumes; but he despised the native churchmen and called them 'Doctors of Ignorance.' 'Here am I in Ireland, at the world's end, with much toil and little ease; with such unskilled labourers in the field the place is too doleful, and is absolutely of no good to me.'

Palladius came with twelve men to preach to the Gael, and we are told that he 'left his books' at Cellfine. The legendary St. Patrick is made to pass into Ulster, and he finds a King who burns himself and his home 'that he may not believe in Patrick.' The Saint proceeds to Tara with eight men and a little page carrying the book-wallet; 'it was like eight deer with one fawn following, and a white bird on its shoulder.'

The King and his chief Druid proposed a trial by ordeal. The King said, 'Put your books into the water.' 'I am ready for that,' said Patrick. But the Druid said, 'A god of water this man adores, and I will not take part in the ordeal.' The King said, 'Put your books into the fire.' 'I am ready for that,' said Patrick. 'A god of fire once in two years this man adores, and I will not do that,' said the Druid.

In the church by the oak-tree at Kildare St. Brigit had a marvellous book, or so her nuns supposed. The Kildare Gospels may have been illuminated as early as Columba's time. Gerard de Barri saw the book in the year 1185, and said that it was so brilliant in colouring, so delicate and finely drawn, and with such enlacements of intertwining lines that it seemed to be a work beyond the powers of mortal man, and to be worthy of an angel's skill; and, indeed, there was a strong belief that miraculous help had been given to the artist in his dreams.

The 'Book of Durrow' called The Gospels of St. Columba, almost rivals the famous 'Book of Kells' with which Mr. Madan will doubtless deal in his forthcoming volume on Manuscripts. A native poet declared that when the Saint died in 597 he had illuminated 'three hundred bright noble books'; and he added that 'however long under water any book of the Saint's writing should be, not one single letter would be drowned.' Our authorities tell us that the Book of Durrow might possibly be one of the three hundred, 'as it bears some signs of being earlier in date than the Book of Kells.'

St. Columba, men said, was passionately devoted to books. Yet he gave his Gospels to the Church at Swords, and presented the congregation at Derry with the volume that he had fetched from Tours, 'where it had lain on St. Martin's breast a hundred years in the ground.' In one of the biographies there is a story about 'Langarad of the White Legs,' who dwelt in the region of Ossory. To him Columba came as a guest, and found that the sage was hiding all his books away. Then Columba left his curse upon them; 'May that,' quoth he, 'about which thou art so niggardly be never of any profit after thee'; and this was fulfilled, 'for the books remain to this day, and no man reads them.' When Langarad died 'all the book-satchels in Ireland that night fell down'; some say, 'all the satchels and wallets in the saint's house fell then: and Columba and all who were in his house marvelled at the noisy shaking of the books.' So then speaks Columba: 'Langarad in Ossory,' quoth he, 'is just now dead.' 'Long may it be ere that happens,' said Baithen. 'May the burden of that disbelief fall on him and not on thee,' said Columba.

Another tradition relates to St. Finnen's book that caused a famous battle; and that was because of a false judgment which King Diarmid gave against Columba, when he copied St. Finnen's Psalter without leave. St. Finnen claimed the copy as being the produce of his original, and on the appeal to the court at Tara his claim was confirmed. King Diarmid decided that to every mother-book belongs the child-book, as to the cow belongs her calf; 'and so,' said the King, 'the book that you wrote, Columba, belongs to Finnen by right.' 'That is an unjust judgment,' said Columba, 'and I will avenge it upon you.'

Not long afterwards the Saint was insulted by the seizure and execution of an offender who had taken sanctuary and was clasped in his arms. Columba went over the wild mountains and raised the tribes of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, and defeated King Diarmid in battle. When the Saint went to Iona he left the copy of Finnen's Psalter to the head of the chief tribe in Tyrconnell. It was called the Book of the Battle, and if they carried it three times round the enemy, in the sun's course, they were sure to return victorious. The book was the property of the O'Donnells till the dispersion of their clan. The gilt and jewelled case in which it rests was made in the eleventh century: a frame round the inner shrine was added by Daniel O'Donnell, who fought in the Battle of the Boyne. A large fragment of the book remained in a Belgian monastery in trust for the true representative of the clan; and soon after Waterloo it was given up to Sir Neal O'Donnell, to whose family it still belongs. It is now shown at the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. 'The fragment of the original Book of the Battle', says O'Curry, 'is of small quarto form, consisting of fifty-eight leaves of fine vellum, written in a small, uniform, but rather hurried hand, with some slight attempts at illumination.'

We have now to describe the great increase of books in Northumbria. In the year 635 Aidan set up his quarters with a few Irish monks on the Isle of Lindisfarne, and his Abbey soon became one of the main repositories of learning.

The book called The Gospels of St. Cuthbert was written in 688, and was regarded for nearly two centuries as the chief ornament of Lindisfarne. The monastery was burned by the Danes, and the servants of St. Cuthbert, who had concealed the 'Gospels' in his grave, wandered forth, with the Saint's body in an ark and the book in its chest, in search of a new place of refuge. They attempted a voyage to Ireland, but their ship was driven back by a storm. The book-chest had been washed overboard, but in passing up the Solway Firth they saw the book shining in its golden cover upon the sand. For more than a century afterwards the book shared the fortunes of a wandering company of monks: in the year 995 it was laid on St. Cuthbert's coffin in the new church at Durham; early in the twelfth century it returned to Lindisfarne. Here it remained until the dissolution of the monasteries, when its golden covers were torn off, and the book came bare and unadorned into the hands of Sir Robert Cotton, and passed with the rest of his treasures into the library of the British Museum.

INITIAL LETTER FROM THE GOSPELS OF ST. CUTHBERT.

Theodore of Tarsus had been consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 669. He brought with him a large quantity of books for use in his new Greek school. These books were left by his will to the cathedral library, where they remained for ages without disturbance. William Lambarde, the Kentish antiquary, has left an account of their appearance. He was speaking of Archbishop Parker, 'whose care for the conservation of ancient monuments can never be sufficiently commended.' 'The reverend Father,' he added, 'showed me the Psalter of David, and sundry homilies in Greek, and Hebrew also, and some other Greek authors, beautifully written on thick paper with the name of this Theodore prefixed,' to whose library the Archbishop thought that they had belonged, 'being thereto led by a show of great antiquity.'

The monks of Canterbury claimed to possess the books on pink vellum, with rubricated capitals, which Pope Gregory had sent to Augustine. One of these afterwards belonged to Parker, who gave it to Corpus Christi at Cambridge: the experts now believe that it was written in the eighth century 'in spite of the ancient appearance of the figure-painting.' Another is the Psalter of St. Augustine, now preserved among the Cottonian mss. This is also considered to be a writing of the eighth century.

In the Bodleian library there is a third example, written in quarto with large uncial letters in double columns, in much the same style as the book given by Parker to Corpus Christi. The Bodleian specimen is especially interesting as containing on the fly-leaf a list in Anglo-Saxon of the contents of the library of Solomon the Priest, with notes as to other small collections.

We have reached the period in which Northumbria became for a time the centre of Western culture. The supremacy of Rome, set up at the Council of Whitby, was fostered and sustained by the introduction of the Italian arts. Vast quantities of books were imported. Stately Abbeys were rising along the coast, and students were flocking to seek the fruits of the new learning in well-filled libraries and bustling schools. We may judge how bright the prospect seemed by the tone of Alcuin's letters to Charles the Great. He tells the Emperor of certain 'exquisite books' which he had studied under Egbert at York. The schools of the North are compared to 'a garden enclosed' and to the beds of spices: he asks that some of the young men may be sent over to procure books, so that in Tours as well as at York they may gather the flowers of the garden and share in the 'outgoings of Paradise.' A few years afterwards came the news of the harrying of Northumbria by the Vikings. The libraries were burned, and Northumbria was overwhelmed in darkness and slavery; and Alcuin wrote again, 'He who can hear of this calamity and not cry to God on behalf of his country, must have a heart not of flesh but of stone.'

Benedict Biscop was our first English book-collector. The son of a rich Thane might have looked to a political career; he preferred to devote himself to learning, and would have spent his life in a Roman monastery if the Pope had not ordered him to return to England in company with Theodore of Tarsus. His first expedition was made with his friend St. Wilfrid. They crossed in a ship provided by the King of Kent. Travelling together as far as Lyons, Wilfrid remained there for a time, and Benedict pushed on to Mont Cenis, and so to Rome, after a long and perilous journey. On a second visit he received the tonsure, and went back to work at Lindisfarne; but about two years afterwards he obtained a passage to Italy in a trading-vessel, and it was on this occasion that he received the Pope's commands. Four years elapsed before he was in Rome again: throughout the year 671 he was amassing books by purchase and by the gifts of his friends; and returning by Vienne he found another large store awaiting him which he had ordered on his outward journey. Benedict was able to set up a good library in his new Abbey at Wearmouth; but his zeal appears to have been insatiable. We find him for the fifth time at the mart of learning, and bringing home, as Bede has told us, 'a multitude of books of all kinds.' He divided his new wealth between the Church at Wearmouth and the Abbey at Jarrow, across the river. Ceolfrid of Jarrow himself made a journey to Rome with the object of augmenting Benedict's 'most noble and copious store'; but he gave to the King of Northumbria, in exchange for a large landed estate, the magnificent 'Cosmography' which his predecessor had brought to Wearmouth.

St. Wilfrid presented to his church at Ripon a Book of the Gospels on purple vellum, and a Bible with covers of pure gold inlaid with precious stones. John the Precentor, who introduced the Roman liturgy into this country, bequeathed a number of valuable books to Wearmouth. Bede had no great library of his own; it was his task 'to disseminate the treasures of Benedict.' But he must have possessed a large number of manuscripts while he was writing the Ecclesiastical History, since he has informed us that Bishop Daniel of Winchester and other learned churchmen in the South were accustomed to supply him constantly with records and chronicles.

St. Boniface may be counted among the collectors, though he could carry but a modest supply of books through the German forests and the marshes of Friesland. As a missionary he found it useful to display a finely-painted volume. Writing to the Abbess Eadburga for a Missal, he asked that the parchment might be gay with colours—'even as a glittering lamp and an illumination for the hearts of the Gentiles.' 'I entreat you,' he writes again, 'to send me St. Peters Epistle in letters of gold.' He begged all his friends to send him books as a refreshment in the wilderness. Bishop Daniel is asked for the Prophecies 'written very large.' Bishop Lulla is to send a cosmography and a volume of poems. He applies to one Archbishop for the works of Bede, 'who is the lamp of the Church,' and to the other for the Pope's Answers to Augustine, which cannot be found in the Roman bookshops. Boniface was Primate of Germany; but he resigned his high office to work among the rude tribes of Friesland. We learn that he carried some of his choicest books with him on his last ill-fated expedition, when the meadow and the river-banks were strewn with the glittering service-books after the murder of the Saint and his companions.

Egbert of York set up a large library in the Minster. Alcuin took charge of it after his friend's death, and composed a versified catalogue, of such merit as the nature of the task allowed. 'Here you may trace the footsteps of the Fathers; here you meet the clear-souled Aristotle and Tully of the mighty tongue; here Basil and Fulgentius shine, and Cassiodorus and John of the Golden Mouth.' As Alcuin was returning from book-buying at Rome he met Charles the Great at Parma. The Emperor persuaded the traveller to enter his service, and they succeeded by their joint efforts in producing a wonderful revival of literature. The Emperor had a fine private collection of mss. adorned in the Anglo-Frankish style; and he established a public library, containing the works of the Fathers, 'so that the poorest student might find a place at the banquet of learning.' Alcuin presented to the Emperor's own collection a revised copy of the Vulgate illuminated under his personal supervision.

Towards the end of Alcuin's career he retired to the Abbey of St. Martin at Tours, and there founded his 'Museum,' which was in fact a large establishment for the editing and transcription of books. Here he wrote those delightful letters from which we have already made an extract. To his friend Arno at Salzburg he writes about a little treatise on orthography, which he would have liked to have recited in person. 'Oh that I could turn the sentences into speech, and embrace my brother with a warmth that cannot be sent in a book; but since I cannot come myself I send my rough letters, that they may speak for me instead of the words of my mouth.' To the Emperor he sent a description of his life at Tours: 'In the house of St. Martin I deal out the honey of the Scriptures, and some I excite with the ancient wine of wisdom, and others I fill full with the fruits of grammatical learning.'

Very few book-lovers could be found in England while the country was being ravaged by the Danes. The Northern Abbeys were burned, and their libraries destroyed. The books at York perished, though the Minster was saved; the same fate befell the valuable collections at Croyland and Peterborough. The royal library at Stockholm contains the interesting 'Golden Gospels,' decorated in the same style as the Book of Lindisfarne, and perhaps written at the same place. An inscription of the ninth century shows that it was bought from a crew of pirates by Duke Alfred, a nobleman of Wessex, and was presented by him and his wife Werburga to the Church at Canterbury.

It seems possible that literature was kept alive in our country by King Alfred's affection for the old English songs. We know that he used to recite them himself and would make his children get them by heart. He was not much of a scholar himself, but he had all the learning of Mercia to help him. Archbishop Plegmund and his chaplains were the King's secretaries, 'and night and day, whenever he had time, he commanded these men to read to him.' From France came Provost Grimbald, a scholar and a sweet singer, and Brother John of Corbei, a paragon in all kinds of science. Asser came to the Court from his home in Wales: 'I remained there,' he says, 'for about eight months, and all that time I used to read to him whatever books were at hand; for it was his regular habit by day and night, amidst all his other occupations, either to read to himself or to listen while others read to him.' St. Dunstan was an ardent admirer of the old battle-chaunts and funeral-lays. He was, it need hardly be said, the friend of all kinds of learning. The Saint was an expert scribe and a painter of miniatures; and specimens of his exquisite handiwork may still be seen at Canterbury and in the Bodleian at Oxford. He was the real founder of the Glastonbury library, where before his time only a few books had been presented by missionaries from Ireland. His great work was the establishment of the Benedictines in the place of the regular clergy: and the reform at any rate insured the rise of a number of new monasteries, each with its busy 'scriptorium,' out of which the library would grow. We must say a word in remembrance of Archbishop Ælfric, the author of a great part of our English Chronicle. He was trained at Winchester, where the illuminators, it is said, were 'for a while the foremost in the world.' He enacted that every priest should have at least a psalter and hymn-book and half a dozen of the most important service-books, before he could hope for ordination. His own library, containing many works of great value, was bequeathed to the Abbey of St. Alban's. We end the story of the Anglo-Saxon books with a mention of Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter, who gave a magnificent donation out of his own library to the Cathedral Church. The catalogue is still extant, and some of the volumes are preserved at Oxford. There were many devotional works of the ordinary kind; there were 'reading-books for winter and summer,' and song-books, and especially 'night-songs'; but the greatest treasure of all was the 'great book of English poetry,' known as the Exeter Book, in which Cynewulf sang of the ruin of the 'purple arch,' and set forth the Exile's Lament and the Traveller's Song.