ious parchment was written in two
columns, and in two languages. What idiom could the other be? The
French, it is said, took it for Greek: more probably for Coptic. In
1789, a learned English traveller, Thomas Ford Hill, was shown some
Glagolitic manuscripts in the imperial library at Vienna; whereupon he
declared without hesitation, that this was the mysterious writing of
the Rheims manuscript. Before the Vienna scholars, Dobner and Alter,
then at the head of Slavic matters, had time to investigate the matter
further, the revolution broke out, and the precious document
disappeared. No trace was left of it; and for half a century the
patriotic Slavic scholars supposed they had cause to lament the loss
of a document of the very highest antiquity. It was conjectured that
the book had originally been brought to France by some Slavic
princess; for instance, by a princess of Kief, who is said to have
been sent for by Henry I., son of Hugh Capet and king of France in the
beginning of the eleventh century. Application was made on the subject
to Sylvestre de Sacy; whose report gave some hope, that the precious
relic might still be preserved. Search was made by Kopitar in Italy
and at Paris, but all in vain. At last it was again found at Rheims by
the Russian scholar Stroyef;[20] who, however, seems not to have been
acquainted with the Glagolitic writing, and therefore laid little
stress on it. The volume was stripped of its costly ornaments, and had
therefore been the more easily recovered during the reign of Napoleon;
who endeavoured, as much as was in his power, to restore the spoils of
the revolution, while he himself filled Paris with the spoils of all
other nations.

The librarian at Rheims, in order best to meet the numerous inquiries
of Slavic scholars, caused a _fac simile_ of it to be taken; audit was
finally committed to the learned Kopitar's care. It was now
discovered, that this long deplored document contained two
unconnected portions of the Gospels; one in Cyrillic letters, the
other, considerably longer, in Glagolitic; and both executed with
remarkable calligraphic skill. The Glagolitic portion was marked with
the date 1395. It was written at Prague, and presented by the emperor
Charles IV. to the Abbot of Emaus; with the injunction, that these
_Evangelia_ should be chanted at mass; and the remark was added, that
the accompanying Cyrillic portion was written by St. Procopius with
his own hand. Procopius was one