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.

[Illustration: 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 a