d from public to monastic
life, and his last years were devoted to equipping the monks he had
gathered about him for study--first and foremost the study of the
Scriptures, but also, as leading up to that, the study of languages, of
history and geography, and, as conducing to the general welfare, of
medicine, botany, and other useful arts. It had been a cherished project
of his to found an academy at Rome where all such learning might be
fostered, but that plan failed, and Cassiodorus took into his retreat at
Vivarium all the store of books he had accumulated, and wrote a little
manual to guide his monks to the right use of them. His _Institutes_ (as
the book is called) do not give a set catalogue of his library, but
there are many and striking coincidences between the manual and the
literary works which can be traced to Bobbio. A specimen may be given:
he recommends a writer on gardening called Gargilius Martialis. Hardly
anyone else mentions this person, and his work had disappeared until Mai
found pieces of it in a palimpsest at Naples which had come from Bobbio.
We owe much to Cassiodorus in any case, for it was he who commended
secular learning to monks, and the fact that monks were the great
preservers of ancient literature cannot be dissociated from his
influence. I shall be glad if the theory I have stated (it is that of
the late Dr. Rudolf Beer) proves sound; to have some of the very volumes
which Cassiodorus handled would be worth much.

There is a link between the library of Cassiodorus and our own country.
A famous Latin Bible now at Florence, the _Codex Amiatinus_, is known to
have been once in England, at Wearmouth or Jarrow, and to have been
taken abroad by Ceolfrid, Abbot of those monasteries, in 716 as a
present to the Pope, whom it never reached, for Ceolfrid died at Langres
on his way to Rome. The story has often been told, and needs not to be
dwelt upon here; but a view has been broached, and is stoutly maintained
by Sir Henry Howorth, which does deserve mention and is not yet
familiar. It is that the first quire in the Amiatine Bible, which
contains pictures and lists of Biblical books, is actually a portion of
a Bible written for Cassiodorus. There is much to be said for this, and
at the least we may be sure that it is a direct copy from such a Bible.
Sir Henry would go farther, and claim the whole book as Cassiodorian. I
do not know that expert opinion is prepared to endorse this.

The mention of