and milk
without money and without price_.'

"Your Majesty is not ignorant how earnestly we are exhorted throughout
the Holy Scriptures to search after wisdom; nothing so tends to the
attainment of a happy life; nothing more delightful or more powerful in
resisting vice; nothing more honorable to an exalted dignity; and,
according to philosophy, nothing more needful to a just government of a
people. Thus Solomon exclaims, '_Wisdom is better than rubies, and all
the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it_.' It
exalteth the humble with sublime honors. '_By wisdom kings reign and
princes decree justice: by me princes rule; and nobles, even all the
judges of the earth. Blessed are they that keep my ways, and blessed is
the man that heareth me._' Continue, then, my Lord King, to exhort the
young in the palaces of your highness to earnest pursuit in acquiring
wisdom; that they may be honored in their old age, and ultimately enter
into a blessed immortality. I shall truly, according to my ability,
continue to sow in those parts the seeds of wisdom among your servants;
remembering the command, '_In the morning sow thy seed, and in the
evening withhold not thine hand._' In my youth I sowed the seeds of
learning in the prosperous seminaries of Britain; and now, in my old age,
I am doing so in France without ceasing, praying that the grace of God
may bless them in both countries."[278]

Such was the enthusiasm, such the spirit of bibliomania, which actuated
the monks of those _bookless_ days; and which was fostered with such
zealous care by Alcuin, in the cloisters of St. Martin of Tours. He
appropriated one of the apartments of the monastery for the transcription
of books, and called it the _museum_, in which constantly were employed a
numerous body of industrious scribes: he presided over them himself, and
continually exhorted them to diligence and care; to guard against the
inadvertencies of unskilful copyists, he wrote a small work on
orthography. We cannot estimate the merits of this essay, for only a
portion of it has been preserved; but in the fragment printed among his
works, we can see much that might have been useful to the scribes, and
can believe that it must have tended materially to preserve the purity of
ancient texts. It consists of a catalogue of words closely resembling
each other, and consequently requiring the utmost care in
transcribing.[279]

In these pleasing labors Alcuin was assisted b