mp. On entering the lowest room the
visitor saw a row of book-cases low enough to be used as desks or tables.
A few musical instruments lay about; one of the old lists tells us of a
lute, and guitars inlaid with ivory and enamel, and 'an old rebec' much
out of repair. There were 269 volumes in the book-cases. We will only
mention a few of the most remarkable. There was Queen Blanche's Bible in
red morocco, and another in white boards, Thomas Waley's rhymes from Ovid
with splendid miniatures, and Richard de Furnival's _Bestiaire d'Amour_.
One life of St. Louis stood in a '_chemise blanche_,' and another in
cloth of gold. St. Gregory and Sir John Mandeville were clothed in indigo
velvet. John of Salisbury had a silk coat and long girdle, and most of
the Arabians were in tawny silk ornamented with white roses and wreaths
of foliage. Some bindings are noticed as being in fine condition, and
others as being shabby or faded. The clasps are minutely described. They
would catch a visitor's eye as the books lay flat on the shelves: and we
suppose that the librarian intended to show the best way of knowing the
books apart rather than to dwell on their external attractions. The
Oxford fashion was to catalogue according to the last word on the first
leaf, or the first word over the page; but it was also a common custom to
distinguish important volumes by such names as _The Red Book of the
Exchequer_, or _The Black Book of Carnarvon_.

We need not proceed to describe the other rooms. On the first floor there
were 260 books, consisting for the most part of romances with miniature
illuminations. One of these was the _Destruction de Thebes_, which at one
time belonged to the Duc de la Valliere, and is now in the National
Library at Paris. The upper floor contained nearly six hundred volumes
mostly concerned with astronomy and natural science.

It appears from the memoranda in the lists that there had been a habit of
lending books to public institutions and to members of the royal family
from the time when the library was first established; and it is
estimated that about two hundred of the books must have been saved in
this way to form the beginning of a new library in the Louvre, which,
after the expulsion of the English, began to attain some importance in
the reign of Louis XI.

CHAPTER VI.

ITALY--THE RENAISSANCE.

The study of the classics had languished for a time after the deaths of
Petrarch and Boccaccio. It revived