umptuous chronicle books and French versions
of secular history and romances were turned out. Edward IV. had a
considerable number of such in his library.

These private Prayer Books are, of course, incomparably the commonest of
all illuminated manuscripts. They vary from loveliness to
contemptibility. Perversely, they figure in catalogues, and are lettered
on their backs, as Missals; our ancestors of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries forgot that a Missal must contain the service of
the Mass, and that none of these books do.

There, then, is a second survey of our ground, somewhat more detailed
than the first, but woefully sketchy. Everyone who has studied MSS. of
any class or period would detect omissions in it which for him would
vitiate the whole story. The best I can hope is that the assertions in
it are not incorrect, and that it gives a true notion of the general
course of book-production in medieval times.

WANDERINGS OF LATIN MSS.: THE CONTINENT

We are now to concern ourselves with the later destinies of the books
which we have seen in the making. Here generalities will be less in
place; nevertheless, I must begin with some.

There are two main classes of persons interested in MSS.: those who care
for their literary contents, and those who prize them for their artistic
beauty. Roughly speaking--very roughly--the precious literary things of
ancient times were preserved in monastic and cathedral libraries, and
the beautiful things in palaces and castles and church treasuries. I do
not forget that poetry and romance in the vernacular were chiefly in the
hands of the laity, nor do I depreciate their value as literature.

The ancient books, pagan and Christian, are perhaps to be regarded as
the backbone of the subject, and therefore the first part of my enquiry
shall be devoted to the ecclesiastical libraries, and considerations of
space shall rule me on the other head.

The monastic and cathedral libraries can be best treated by countries.
France, Germany, and England will serve as specimens. Of Italy perhaps
enough has been said incidentally to attract attention to the most
important centres, such as Bobbio, Monte Cassino, and Verona, and upon
the whole I do not think that in Italy this class of library played so
great a part in the later Middle Ages as it did in the rest of Europe.

France is full of Latin MSS. Every considerable town, besides many that
are inconsiderable, has its public library,