unlike the Kiver for the Gospell book, given to the chapell
of Glastonbury by king Ina." p. 773. Can the enlightened
reader want further proof of the existence of the
BIBLIOMANIA in the nunnery of Godstow? As to _Peterborough_
abbey, Gunston, in his history of the same place, has copied
the catalogue of the different libraries belonging to the
abbots. Benedict, who became abbot in 1177, had a collection
of no less than _fifty-seven_ volumes. But alas! the book
reputation of this monastery soon fell away: for master
Robert, who died abbot in 1222, left but _seven_ books
behind him; and Geoffrey de Croyland, who was abbot in 1290,
had only that dreary old gentleman, _Avicenna_, to keep him
company! At its dissolution, however, it contained 1700
volumes in MSS. _Gunton's Peterborough_, p. 173.
_Glastonbury_ seems to have long maintained its reputation
for a fine library; and even as late as the year 1248 it
could boast of several classical authors, although the
English books were only four in number; the rest being
considered as "vetustas et inutilia." The classical authors
were Livy, Sallust, Tully, Seneca, Virgil, and Persius. See
_Joh. Confrat. Glaston._, vol. ii., p. 423, 435: Hearne's
edit. "Leland," says Warton, "who visited all the
monasteries just before their dissolution, seems to have
been struck with the venerable air and amplitude of this
library." _Hist. Engl. Poetry_, Diss. ii.]

I should be wanting in proper respect to the gentlemanly and
scholar-like editor of his works, if I omitted the mention of that
celebrated tourist and topographer, GIRALD BARRI, or Giraldus
Cambrensis; whose Irish and Welch itinerary has been recently so
beautifully and successfully put forth in our own language.[255]
Giraldus, long before and after he was bishop of St. David's, seems
to have had the most enthusiastic admiration of British antiquities;
and I confess it would have been among the keenest delights of my
existence (had I lived at the period) to have been among his auditors
when he read aloud (perhaps from a stone pulpit) his three books of
the Topography of Ireland.[256] How many choice volumes, written and
emblazoned upon snow-white vellum, and containing many a curious and
precious genealogy, must this observing traveller and curious
investigator have examined, when he was making the tour of Irela