spective labors. The
hundreds, which in the old time were deemed a respectable if not an
extensive collection, would look insignificant beside the ostentatious
array of modern libraries.

But the very tenor of a monastic life compelled the monk to seek the
sweet yet silent companionship of books; the rules of his order and the
regulations of his fraternity enforced the strictest silence in the
execution of his daily and never-ceasing duties. Attending mass, singing
psalms, and midnight prayers, were succeeded by mass, psalms and prayers
in one long undeviating round of yearly obligations; the hours
intervening between these holy exercises were dull and tediously
insupportable if unoccupied. Conversation forbidden, secular amusements
denounced, yet idleness reproached, what could the poor monk seek as a
relief in this distress but the friendly book; the willing and obedient
companion of every one doomed to lonely hours and dismal solitude?

The pride and glory of a monastery was a well stored library, which was
committed to the care of the armarian, and with him rested all the
responsibility of its preservation. According to the Consuetudines
Canonicorum Regularium, it was his duty to have all the books of the
monastery in his keeping catalogued and separately marked with their
proper names.[16] Some of these old catalogues have been preserved, and,
viewed as bibliographical remains of the middle ages, are of considerable
importance; indeed, we cannot form a correct idea of the literature of
those remote times without them. Many productions of authors are recorded
in these brief catalogues whose former existence is only known to us by
these means. There is one circumstance in connexion with them that must
not be forgotten: instead of enumerating all the works which each volume
contained, they merely specified the first, so that a catalogue of fifty
or a hundred volumes might probably have contained nearly double that
number of distinct works. I have seen MSS. formerly belonging to
monasteries, which have been catalogued in this way, containing four or
five others, besides the one mentioned. Designed rather to identify the
book than to describe the contents of each volume, they wrote down the
first word or two of the second leaf--this was the most prevalent usage;
but they often adopted other means, sometimes giving a slight notice of
the works which a volume contained; others took the precaution of noting
down the last