of a classic age, whose names grace that
humble catalogue, and remember that the studies of the Whitby monks were
divided between the miraculous lives of holy men, and the more pleasing
pages of the "Pagan Homer," the eloquence of Tully, and the wit of
Juvenal, of whose subject they seemed to have been fond; for they read
also the satires of Persius. I extract the names of some of the authors
contained in this monkish library:

Ambrose.
Hugo.
Theodolus.
Aratores.
Bernard.
Avianus.
Gratian.
Odo.
Gilda.
Maximianus.
Eusebius.
Plato.
Homer.
Cicero.
Juvenal.
Persius.
Statius.
Sedulus.
Prosper.
Prudentius.
Boethius.
Donatus.
Rabanus Maurus.
Origen.
Priscian.
Gregory Nazianzen.
Josephus.
Bede.
Gildas.
Isidore.
Ruffinus.
Guido on Music.
Diadema Monachorum.

Come, the monks evidently read something besides their _Credo_, and
transcribed something better than "monastic trash." A little taste for
literature and learning we must allow they enjoyed, when they formed
their library of such volumes as the above. I candidly admit, that when I
commenced these researches I had no expectations of finding a collection
of a hundred volumes, embracing so many choice works of old Greece and
Rome. It is pleasant, however, to trace these workings of bibliomania in
the monasteries; and it is a surprise quite agreeable and delicious in
itself to meet with instances like the present.

At a latter period the monastery of Rievall, in Yorkshire, possessed an
excellent library of 200 volumes. This we know by a catalogue of them,
compiled by one of the monks about the middle of the fourteenth century,
and now preserved in the library of Jesus College, Cambridge.[291] A
transcript of this manuscript was made by Mr. Halliwell, and published in
his "Reliqua Antiqua,"[292] from which it may be seen that the Rievall
monastery contained at that time many choice and valuable works. The
numerous writings of Sts. Augustine, Bernard, Anselm, Cyprian, Origin,
Haimo, Gregory, Ambrose, Isidore, Chrysostom, Bede, Aldhelm, Gregory
Nazienzen, Ailred, Josephus, Rabanus Maurus, Peter Lombard, Orosius,
Boethius, Justin, Seneca, with histories of the church of Britain, of
Jerusalem, of King Henry, and many others equally interesting and costly,
prove how industriously they used their pens, and how much they
appreciated literature and learning. But in the fourteenth century the
inhabitants of the monasteries were very industrious in transcribing