epistles bear ample testimony to his
extensive reading and intimate acquaintance with the authors of
antiquity;[114] in one of his letters he praises a monk named Maurice,
for his success in study, who was learning _Virgil_ and some other old
writers, under Arnulph the grammarian.

All day long Anselm was occupied in giving wise counsel to those that
needed it; and a great part of the night _pars maxima noctis_ he spent in
correcting his darling volumes, and freeing them from the inaccuracies of
the scribes.[115] The oil in the lamp burnt low, still that bibliomaniac
studiously pursued his favorite avocation. So great was the love of
book-collecting engrafted into his mind, that he omitted no opportunity
of obtaining them--numerous instances occur in his epistles of his
begging the loan of some volume for transcription;[116] in more than one,
I think, he asks for portions of the Holy Scriptures which he was always
anxious to obtain to compare their various readings, and to enable him
with greater confidence to correct his own copies.

In the early part of the twelfth century, the monks of Canterbury
transcribed a vast number of valuable manuscripts, in which they were
greatly assisted by monk Edwine, who had arrived at considerable
proficiency in the calligraphical art, as a volume of his transcribing,
in Trinity college, Cambridge, informs us;[117] it is a Latin Psalter,
with a Saxon gloss, beautifully illuminated in gold and colors; at the
end appears the figure of the monkish scribe, holding the pen in his hand
to indicate his avocation, and an inscription extols his ingenuity in the
art.[118]

Succeeding archbishops greatly enriched the library at Canterbury. Hubert
Walter, who was appointed primate in 1191, gave the proceeds of the
church of Halgast to furnish books for the library;[119] and Robert
Kildwardly, archbishop in 1272, a man of great learning and wisdom, a
remarkable orator and grammarian, wrote a great number of books, and was
passionately fond of collecting them.[120]

I learn from Wanley, that there is a large folio manuscript in the
library of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, written about the time of Henry V. by
a monk of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, containing the history of
Christ Church; this volume proves its author to have been something of a
bibliophile, and that is why I mention it, for he gives an account of
some books then preserved, which were sent over by Pope Gregory to St.
Augustine;