end my remarks on
this first and shorter portion of my subject. In the library of Corpus
Christi College at Cambridge is a Greek Psalter written in the middle
of the twelfth century. On one of its last pages is scribbled in Greek
letters by a later hand the name of John Farley ("[Greek: Hiohannes
pharlehi]"). Only about five-and-twenty volumes away from this stands a
MS. containing letters written by the University of Oxford on public
occasions. One of these is signed by J. Farley. A little enquiry elicits
the fact that John Farley was official scribe of that University near
the end of the fifteenth century. The Greek Psalter, then, was pretty
certainly at Oxford in Farley's time. What do we know of Greek MSS. then
at Oxford? We know that Bishop Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln owned such
things, and that he bequeathed his books to the Franciscans of Oxford at
his death in 1254; and when we examine the Psalter again, we find that
it is full of notes in a hand which occurs in other Greek MSS. known to
have belonged to Grosseteste, and which I take to be Grosseteste's
autograph. So the mere occurrence of John Farley's name helps us to
write the history of the book from within a hundred years of its making
until the present day. Procured by Grosseteste some time before 1254, it
passes to Oxford, and remains there till the Grey Friar's Convent is
dissolved by Henry VIII. Then there is a gap of a generation at most.
Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, acquires it (believing it,
absurdly enough, to have belonged to Archbishop Theodore in the seventh
century), and bequeaths it to his college of Corpus Christi in 1574.

LATIN MSS.

We turn to the Latin division, and here the difficulty of selecting
lines of procedure is very great. A paragraph of historical preface, at
any rate, must be attempted.

At the period of the Barbarian invasions--the fifth century--the learned
countries were Italy, France (especially Southern France) and Spain. Of
these three, Italy may be described as stationary or even decadent, but
she possessed greater accumulations of books than either of the other
two. The result of the invasions was, no doubt, that libraries were
destroyed and education dislocated; but there was another result, as we
have lately begun to realize--namely, that in the case of France there
was a transplanting of culture to another soil. A number of teachers
fled the country, and some at least came to Ireland. This, as far