is shamefully mutilated
contrary to the meaning of the author! Truly noble would have been the
condition of books if it had not been for the presumption of the tower
of Babel, if but one kind of speech had been transmitted by the whole
human race.

We will add the last clause of our long lament, though far too short
for the materials that we have. For in us the natural use is changed to
that which is against nature, while we who are the light of faithful
souls everywhere fall a prey to painters knowing nought of letters, and
are entrusted to goldsmiths to become, as though we were not sacred
vessels of wisdom, repositories of gold-leaf. We fall undeservedly
into the power of laymen, which is more bitter to us than any death,
since they have sold our people for nought, and our enemies themselves
are our judges.

It is clear from what we have said what infinite invectives we could
hurl against the clergy, if we did not think of our own reputation.
For the soldier whose campaigns are over venerates his shield and arms,
and grateful Corydon shows regard for his decaying team, harrow, flail
and mattock, and every manual artificer for the instruments of his
craft; it is only the ungrateful cleric who despises and neglects those
things which have ever been the foundation of his honours.

CHAPTER V

THE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE POSSESSIONERS

The venerable devotion of the religious orders is wont to be solicitous
in the care of books and to delight in their society, as if they were
the only riches. For some used to write them with their own hands
between the hours of prayer, and gave to the making of books such
intervals as they could secure and the times appointed for the
recreation of the body. By whose labours there are resplendent to-day
in most monasteries these sacred treasuries full of cherubic letters,
for giving the knowledge of salvation to the student and a delectable
light to the paths of the laity. O manual toil, happier than any
agricultural task! O devout solicitude, where neither Martha nor Mary
deserves to be rebuked! O joyful house, in which the fruitful Leah
does not envy the beauteous Rachel, but action and contemplation share
each other's joys! O happy charge, destined to benefit endless
generations of posterity, with which no planting of trees, no sowing of
seeds, no pastoral delight in herds, no building of fortified camps can
be compared! Wherefore the memory of those fathers sh