t it. They read gross
legends, and put faith in traditionary lies--I grant it; but do not say,
for history will not prove it, that in the middle ages the monks were
wine bibbers and slothful gluttons. But let not the Protestant reader be
too hastily shocked. I am not defending the monastic system, or the
corruption of the cloister--far from it. I would see the usefulness of
man made manifest to the world; but the measure of my faith teaches
charity and forgiveness, and I can find in the functions of the monk much
that must have been useful in those dark days of feudal tyranny and
lordly despotism. We much mistake the influence of the monks by mistaking
their position; we regard them as a class, but forget from whence they
sprang; there was nothing aristocratic about them, as their constituent
parts sufficiently testify; they were, perhaps, the best representatives
of the people that could be named, being derived from all classes of
society. Thus Offa, the Saxon king, and Caedman, the rustic herdsman, were
both monks. These are examples by no means rare, and could easily be
multiplied. Such being the case, could not the monks more readily feel
and sympathize with all, and more clearly discern the frailties of their
brother man, and by kind admonition or stern reproof, mellow down the
ferocity of a Saxon nature, or the proud heart of a Norman tyrant? But
our object is not to analyze the social influence of Monachism in the
middle ages: much might be said against it, and many evils traced to the
sad workings of its evil spirit, but still withal something may be said
in favor of it, and those who regard its influence in _those days alone_
may find more to admire and defend than they expected, or their
Protestant prejudices like to own.

But, leaving these things, I have only to deal with such remains as
relate to the love of books in those times. I would show the means then
in existence of acquiring knowledge, the scarcity or plentitude of books,
the extent of their libraries, and the rules regulating them; and bring
forward those facts which tend to display the general routine of a
literary monk, or the prevalence of Bibliomania in those days.

It is well known that the great national and private libraries of Europe
possess immense collections of manuscripts, which were produced and
transcribed in the monasteries, during the middle ages, thousands there
are in the rich alcoves of the Vatican at Rome, unknown save to a choi