r their opulence, and, perhaps, for their
piety and learning.

The libraries of the monasteries were wasted, dispersed, and destroyed,
during the revolution; but the wrecks have since been collected in the
principal towns; and thus originated the public library of Rouen, which
now contains, as it is said, upwards of seventy thousand volumes. As may
be anticipated, a great proportion of the works which it includes
relate to theology and scholastic divinity; and the Bollandists present
their formidable front of fifty-four ponderous folios.

[Illustration: Initial Letter from a MS. of the History of William of Jumieges]

The manuscripts, of which I understand there are full eight hundred, are
of much greater value than the printed books. But they are at present
unarranged and uncatalogued, though M. Licquet, the librarian, has been
for some time past laboring to bring them into order. Among those
pointed out to us, none interested me so much as an original autograph;
of the _Historica Normannorum_, by William de Jumiegies, brought from
the very abbey to which he belonged. There is no doubt, I believe, of
its antiquity; but, to enable you to form your own judgment upon the
subject, I send you a tracing of the first paragraph.

[Illustration: Historica Normannorum tracing of autograph]

I also add a fac-simile of the initial letter of the foregoing epistle,
illuminated by the monk, and in which he has introduced himself in the
act of humbly presenting his work to his royal namesake. I am mistaken,
if any equally early, and equally well authenticated representation of a
King of England be in existence. The _Historia Normannorum_ is
incomplete, both at the beginning and end, and it does not occupy more
than one-fifth of the volume: the rest is filled with a comment upon the
Jewish History.

The articles among the manuscripts, most valued by antiquaries, are a
_Benedictionary_ and a _Missal_, both supposed of nearly the same date,
the beginning of the twelfth century.

The Abbe Saas, who published, in 1746, a catalogue of the manuscripts
belonging to the library of the cathedral of Rouen, calls this
Benedictionary, which then belonged to the metropolitan church, a
_Penitential_; and gives it as his opinion, that it is a production of
the eighth century, with which aera he says that the character of the
writing wholly accords. Montfaucon, who never saw it, follows the Abbe;
but the opinion of these learned men has recentl