, from the
very nature of their lives being so devoted to religion and piety, expect
this; and knowing, too, what "heathen dogs" the monks thought these
authors of idolatry, combined with our notion, that they, far from being
the conservers, were the destroyers, of classic MSS., for the sake, as
some tell us, of the parchment on which they were inscribed, we are
somewhat staggered in our opinion to find in their library the following
brilliant array of the wise men of the ancient world:

Aristotle,
Boethius,
Cicero,
Cassiodorus,
Donatus,
Euclid,
Galen,
Justin,
Josephus,
Lucan,
Martial,
Marcianus,
Macrobius,
Orosius,
Plato,
Priscian,
Prosper,
Prudentius,
Suetonius,
Sedulus,
Seneca,
Terence,
Virgil,
Etc., etc.

Nor were they mere fragments of these authors, but, in many cases,
considerable collections; of Aristotle, for instance, they possessed
numerous works, with many commentaries upon him. Of Seneca a still more
extensive and valuable one; and in the works of the eloquent Tully, they
were also equally rich. Of his _Paradoxa, de Senectute, de Amiticia_,
etc., and _his Offices_, they had more copies than one, a proof of the
respect and esteem with which he was regarded. In miscellaneous
literature, and in the productions of the middle age writers, the
catalogue teems with an abundant supply, and includes:

Rabanus Maurus,
Thomas Aquinas,
Peter Lombard,
Athelard,
William of Malmsbury,
John of Salisbury,
Girald Barry,
Thomas Baldwin,
Brutus,
Robert Grosetete,
Gerlandus,
Gregory Nazianzen,
History of England,
Gesti Alexandri Magni,
Hystoria Longobardos,
Hystoriae Scholasticae,
Chronicles _Latine et Anglice_,
Chronographia Necephori.

But I trust the reader will not rest satisfied with these few samples of
the goodly store, but inspect the catalogue for himself. It would occupy,
as I said before, too much space to enumerate even a small proportion of
its many treasures, which treat of all branches of literature and
science, natural history, medicine, ethics, philosophy, rhetoric,
grammar, poetry, and music; each shared the studious attention of the
monks, and a curious "_Liber de Astronomia_" taught them the rudiments of
that sublime science, but which they were too apt to confound with its
offspring, astrology, as we may infe