visited Paris--the Paradise of the
world! There we longed to remain, where, on account of the greatness of
our love, the days ever appeared to us to be few. There are delightful
libraries in cells redolent of aromatics--there flourishing greenhouses
of all sorts of volumes: there academic meads trembling with the
earthquake of Athenian peripatetics pacing up and down: there the
promontories of Parnassus and the porticos of the stoics."

The most powerful instrument in his policy was encouraging and bringing
round him, as dependents and followers, the members of the mendicant
orders--the labourers called to the vineyard in the eleventh hour, as he
calls them. These he set to cater for him, and he triumphantly asks,
"Among so many of the keenest hunters, what leveret could lie hid? What
fry could evade the hook, the net, or the trawl of these men? From the
body of divine law down to the latest controversial tract of the day,
nothing could escape the notice of these scrutinisers." In further
revelations of his method he says, "When, indeed, we happened to turn
aside to the towns and places where the aforesaid paupers had convents,
we were not slack in visiting their chests and other repositories of
books; for there, amidst the deepest poverty, we found the most exalted
riches treasured up; there, in their satchels and caskets, we discovered
not only the crumbs that fell from the master's table for the little
dogs, but, indeed, the shew-bread without leaven--the bread of angels
containing all that is delectable." He specially marks the zeal of the
Dominicans or Preachers; and in exulting over his success in the field,
he affords curious glimpses into the ways of the various humble
assistants who were glad to lend themselves to the hobby of one of the
most powerful prelates of his day.[56]

[Footnote 56: "Indeed, although we had obtained abundance both of old
and new works, through an extensive communication with all the religious
orders, yet we must in justice extol the Preachers with a special
commendation in this respect; for we found them, above all other
religious devotees, ungrudging of their most acceptable communications,
and overflowing with a certain divine liberality; we experienced them
not to be selfish hoarders, but meet professors of enlightened
knowledge. Besides all the opportunities already touched upon, we easily
acquired the notice of the stationers and librarians, not only within
the provinces of our na