he spoil of the
Egyptians, and the very precious gifts which Queen Sheba brought to
Solomon.

These men are as ants ever preparing their meat in the summer, and
ingenious bees continually fabricating cells of honey. They are
successors of Bezaleel in devising all manner of workmanship in silver
and gold and precious stones for decorating the temple of the Church.
They are cunning embroiderers, who fashion the breastplate and ephod of
the high priest and all the various vestments of the priests. They
fashion the curtains of linen and hair and coverings of ram's skins
dyed red with which to adorn the tabernacle of the Church militant.
They are husbandmen that sow, oxen treading out corn, sounding
trumpets, shining Pleiades and stars remaining in their courses, which
cease not to fight against Sisera. And to pay due regard to truth,
without prejudice to the judgment of any, although they lately at the
eleventh hour have entered the lord's vineyard, as the books that are
so fond of us eagerly declared in our sixth chapter, they have added
more in this brief hour to the stock of the sacred books than all the
other vine-dressers; following in the footsteps of Paul, the last to be
called but the first in preaching, who spread the gospel of Christ more
widely than all others. Of these men, when we were raised to the
episcopate we had several of both orders, viz., the Preachers and
Minors, as personal attendants and companions at our board, men
distinguished no less in letters than in morals, who devoted themselves
with unwearied zeal to the correction, exposition, tabulation, and
compilation of various volumes. But although we have acquired a very
numerous store of ancient as well as modern works by the manifold
intermediation of the religious, yet we must laud the Preachers with
special praise, in that we have found them above all the religious most
freely communicative of their stores without jealousy, and proved them
to be imbued with an almost Divine liberality, not greedy but fitting
possessors of luminous wisdom.

Besides all the opportunities mentioned above, we secured the
acquaintance of stationers and booksellers, not only within our own
country, but of those spread over the realms of France, Germany, and
Italy, money flying forth in abundance to anticipate their demands; nor
were they hindered by any distance or by the fury of the seas, or by
the lack of means for their expenses, from sending or bringing to u