ribus monasterii; et Pergamenum
ad brevia, et colores ad illuminandum, et necessaria ad legandum
libros." See _Dugdale's Monast._ vol. ii. p. 24.

[307] After the elapse of so many years, the research of the
antiquarian has brought this desk to light; an account of it will be
found in the Archeologia, vol. xvii. p. 278.

[308] "Emit etiam quator evangelia glosata, et Yaiam et Ezechielem
glossatos."

[309] Harleian MSS., No. 3763.

CHAPTER IX.

_Old Glastonbury Abbey.--Its Library.--John of Taunton.--Richard
Whiting.--Malmsbury.--Bookish Monks of Gloucester Abbey.--Leofric
of Exeter and his private library.--Peter of Blois. Extracts from
his letters.--Proved to have been a great classical student,
etc., etc._

The fame of Glastonbury Abbey will attract the steps of the western
traveller; and if he possess the spirit of an antiquary, his eye will
long dwell on those mutilated fragments of monkish architecture. The
bibliophile will regard it with still greater love; for, in its day, it
was one of the most eminent repositories of those treasures which it is
his province to collect. For more than ten hundred years that old fabric
has stood there, exciting in days of remote antiquity the veneration of
our pious forefathers, and in modern times the admiration of the curious.
Pilgrim! tread lightly on that hallowed ground! sacred to the memory of
the most learned and illustrious of our Saxon ancestry. The bones of
princes and studious monks closely mingle with the ruins which time has
caused, and bigotry helped to desecrate. Monkish tradition claims, as the
founder of Glastonbury Abbey, St. Joseph of Arimathea, who, sixty-three
years after the incarnation of our Lord, came to spread the truths of the
Gospel over the island of Britain. Let this be how it may, we leave it
for more certain data.

After, says a learned antiquary, its having been built by St. Davis,
Archbishop of Menevia, and then again restored by "twelve well affected
men in the north;" it was entirely pulled down by Ina, king of the West
Saxons, who "new builded the abbey of Glastonburie[310] in a fenny place
out of the way, to the end the monks mought so much the more give their
mindes to heavenly thinges, and chiefely use the contemplation meete for
men of such profession. This was the fourth building of that
monasterie."[311] The king completed his good work by erecting a
beautiful chapel,