dark in other parts of
Western Europe throughout the whole period of barbarian settlement. We
shall not endeavour to trace the slight influences that preserved some
knowledge of religious books at the Court of the Merovingian kings, or
among the Visigoths and Ostrogoths and Burgundians. We prefer to pause at
a moment preceding the final onslaught. The letters of Sidonius afford us
a few glimpses of the literary condition of Southern Gaul soon after the
invasion of Attila. The Bishop of Clermont gives us a delightful picture
of his house: a verandah leads from the _atrium_ to the garden by the
lake: we pass through a winter-parlour, a morning-room, and a
north-parlour protected from the heat. Every detail seems to be complete;
and yet we hear nothing of a library. The explanation seems to be that
the Bishop was a close imitator of Pliny. The villa in Auvergne is a copy
of the winter-refuge at Laurentum, where Pliny only kept 'a few cases
contrived in the wall for the books that cannot be read too often.' But
when the Bishop writes about his friends' houses we find many allusions
to their libraries. Consentius sits in a large book-room when he is
composing his verses or 'culling the flowers of his music.' When he
visited the Prefect of Gaul, Sidonius declared that he was whirled along
in a stream of delights. There were all kinds of out-door amusements and
a library filled with books. 'You would fancy yourself among a
Professor's book-cases, or in a book-shop, or amid the benches of a
lecture-room.' The Bishop considered that this library of the Villa
Prusiana was as good as anything that could be found in Rome or
Alexandria. The books were arranged according to subjects. The room had a
'ladies' side'; and here were arranged the devotional works. The
illuminated volumes, as far as can now be judged, were rather gaudy than
brilliant, as was natural in an age of decadence; but St. Germanus was a
friend of the Bishop, and as we suppose of the Prefect, and his copy of
the Gospels was in gold and silver letters on purple vellum, as may still
be seen. By the gentlemen's seats were ranged the usual classical
volumes, all the works of Varro, which now exist only in fragments, and
the poets sacred and profane; behind certain cross-benches was the
literary food of a lighter kind, more suited to the weaker vessels
without regard to sex. Here every one found what would suit his own
liking and capacity, and here on the day after their