sions were made to the originally
slender stock of English literature. The greatest and most valuable of
these accessions was made in the time and by the care of Theodorus, the
seventh Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a Greek by birth, a man of a
high ambitious spirit, and of a mind more liberal and talents better
cultivated than generally fell to the lot of the Western prelates. He
first introduced the study of his native language into this island. He
brought with him a number of valuable books in many faculties, and
amongst them a magnificent copy of the works of Homer, the most ancient
and best of poets, and the best chosen to inspire a people just
initiated into letters with an ardent love and with a true taste for the
sciences. Under his influence a school was formed at Canterbury; and
thus the other great fountain of knowledge, the Greek tongue, was opened
in England in the year of our Lord 669.

The southern parts of England received their improvements directly
through the channel of Rome. The kingdom of Northumberland, as soon as
it was converted, began to contend with the southern provinces in an
emulation of piety and learning. The ecclesiastics then [there?] also
kept up and profited by their intercourse with Rome; but they found
their principal resources of knowledge from another and a more
extraordinary quarter. The island of Hii, or Columbkill,[46] is a small
and barren rock in the Western Ocean. But in those days it was high in
reputation as the site of a monastery which had acquired great renown
for the rigor of its studies and the severity of its ascetic discipline.
Its authority was extended over all the northern parts of Britain and
Ireland; and the monks of Hii even exercised episcopal jurisdiction over
all those regions. They had a considerable share both in the religious
and literate institution of the Northumbrians. Another island, of still
less importance, in the mouth of the Tees [Tweed?], and called
Lindisfarne, was about this time sanctified by the austerities of an
hermit called Cuthbert. It soon became also a very celebrated monastery.
It was, from a dread of the ravages of pirates, removed first to the
adjacent part of the continent, and on the same account finally to
Durham. The heads of this monastery omitted nothing which could
contribute to the glory of their founder and to the dignity of their
house, which became, in a very short time, by their assiduous endeavors,
the most considerabl