he had commissioned his friends to
purchase for him.[245] After the completion of his monastery he undertook
his fourth journey to Rome; he obtained from the Pope many privileges for
the abbey, and returned in the year 680, bringing with him many more
valuable books; he was accompanied by John the Chantor, who introduced
into the English churches the Roman method of singing. He was also a
great _amator librorum_, and left many choice manuscripts to the monks,
which Bede writes "were still preserved in their library." It was about
this time that Ecgfrid[246] gave Benedict a portion of land on the other
side of the river Wire, at a place called Jarrow; and that enterprising
and industrious abbot, in the year 684, built a monastery thereon. No
sooner was it completed, than he went a fifth time to Rome to search for
volumes to gratify his darling passion. This was the last, but perhaps
the most successful of his foreign tours, for he brought back with him a
vast quantity of sacred volumes and curious pictures.[247] How deeply is
it to be regretted that the relation of the travels which Ceolfrid his
successor undertook, and which it is said his own pen inscribed, has been
lost to us forever. He probably spoke much of Benedict in the volume and
recorded his book pilgrimages. How dearly would the bibliomaniac revel
over those early annals of his science, could his eye meet those
venerable pages--perhaps describing the choice tomes Benedict met with in
his Italian tours, and telling us how, and what, and where he gleaned
those fine collections; sweet indeed would have been the perusal of that
delectable little volume, full of the book experience of a bibliophile in
Saxon days, near twelve hundred years ago! But the ravages of time or the
fury of the Danes deprived us of this rare gem, and we are alone
dependent on Bede for the incidents connected with the life of this great
man; we learn from that venerable author that Benedict was seized with
the palsy on his return, and that languishing a few short years, he died
in the year 690; but through pain and suffering he often dwelt on the
sweet treasures of his library, and his solemn thoughts of death and
immortality were intermixed with many a fond bookish recollection. _His
most noble and abundant library which he brought from Rome_ he constantly
referred to, and gave strict injunctions that the monks should apply the
utmost care to the preservation of that rich and costly treasure,