style as the panels below, and the whole is surmounted by a low pyramid,
on the side of which facing the spectator is a cross, beneath which are
two peacocks drinking from a water-trough.

I regret that I could not place this remarkable drawing before my readers
in the rich colouring of the original. The press is of a reddish brown:
the books are bound in crimson. Ezra is clad in green, with a crimson
robe. The background is gold. The border is blue, between an inner and
outer band of silver. The outermost band of all is vermilion.

I formerly thought that this book-press might represent those in use in
England at the beginning of the eighth century; but, if the above
attribution to Cassiodorus be accurate, it must be accounted another
Italian example. It bears a general similarity to the Ravenna book-press,
as might be expected, when it is remembered that Cassiodorus held office
under Theodoric and his successors, and resided at Ravenna till he was
nearly seventy years old.

The foundation of Christianity did not alter what I may call the Roman
conception of a library in any essential particular. The philosophers and
authors of Greece and Rome may have occasionally found themselves in
company with, or even supplanted by, the doctors of the Church; but in
other respects, for the first seven centuries, at least, of our era, the
learned furnished their libraries according to the old fashion, though
with an ever increasing luxury of material. Boethius, whose _Consolation
of Philosophy_ was written A.D. 525, makes Philosophy speak of the "walls
of a library adorned with ivory and glass[104]"; and Isidore, Bishop of
Seville A.D. 600-636, records that "the best architects object to gilded
ceilings in libraries, and to any other marble than _cipollino_ for the
floor, because the glitter of gold is hurtful to the eyes, while the green
of _cipollino_ is restful to them[105]."

A few examples of such libraries may be cited; but, before doing so, I
must mention the Record-Office (_Archivum_), erected by Pope Damasus
(366-384). It was connected with the Basilica of S. Lawrence, which
Damasus built in the Campus Martius, near the theatre of Pompey. On the
front of the Basilica, over the main entrance, was an inscription, which
ended with the three following lines:

ARCHIVIS FATEOR VOLUI NOVA CONDERE TECTA ADDERE PRAETEREA
DEXTRA LAEVAQUE COLUMNAS QUAE DAMASI TENEANT PROPRIUM PER
SAECULA NOMEN.

I confess that