undant with quotations
from the poets.

[343] Ep. xciv. p. 170.

[344] Ep. lvii.

[345] Ep. xii.

[346] Ep. lxxvi. p. 132.

[347] Ep. cxl. p. 253.

[348] Ep. lxvi. p. 115.

[349] Ep. xxxvii. p. 68.

[350] Ep. cli.

CHAPTER X.

_Winchester famous for its Scribes.--Ethelwold and
Godemann.--Anecdotes.--Library of the Monastery of Reading.--The
Bible.--Library of Depying Priory.--Effects of Gospel
Reading.--Catalogue of Ramsey Library.--Hebrew MSS.--Fine
Classics, etc.--St. Edmund's Bury.--Church of Ely.--Canute, etc._

In the olden time the monks of Winchester[351] were renowned for their
calligraphic and pictorial art. The choice book collectors of the day
sought anxiously for volumes produced by these ingenious scribes, and
paid extravagant prices for them. A superb specimen of their skill was
executed for Bishop Ethelwold; that enlightened and benevolent prelate
was a great patron of art and literature, and himself a grammaticus and
poet of no mean pretensions. He did more than any other of his time to
restore the architectural beauties which were damaged or destroyed by the
fire and sword of the Danish invaders. His love of these undertakings,
his industry in carrying them out, and the great talent he displayed in
their restoration, is truly wonderful to observe. He is called by
Wolstan, his biographer, "a great builder of churches, and divers other
works."[352] He was fond of learning, and very liberal in diffusing the
knowledge which he acquired; and used to instruct the young by reading to
them the Latin authors, translated into the Saxon tongue. "He wrote a
Saxion version of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which was so much admired,
and so pleased King Edgar, that he granted to him the manor of
Sudborn,[353] as a token of his approbation."

Among a number of donations which he bequeathed to this monastery, twenty
volumes are enumerated, embracing some writings of Bede and Isidore.[354]
As a proof of his bibliomanical propensities, I refer the reader to the
celebrated Benedictional of the Duke of Devonshire; that rich gem, with
its resplendent illuminations, place it beyond the shadow of a doubt, and
prove Ethelwold to have been an _amator librorum_ of consummate taste.
This fine specimen of Saxon ingenuity is the production of a cloistered
monk of Winchester, named Godemann, who transcribed it at the bishop's
special desire, as we learn, from the following lines:-