74 



781 it was finished by Godschalcus, who, it appears, was deacon of 

 Liege. It was given by Charlemagne to the abbey of St. Serwin, in 

 Toulouse, and was long preserved there in a case of massive silver. But 

 in the year 1793, during the heat of the French revolution, it was stolen 

 for the sake of the silver, and the manuscript itself was thrown among a 

 heap of parchments intended to be sold or destroyed. It then remained 

 for some years in the public library at Toulouse, and, having been 

 presented by the citizens of that town to Napoleon on occasion of the 

 birth of his son, it has at last found a resting-place in the Imperial 

 Library of Paris. 



It may natumlly be concluded that the princes and wealthy pei-sons, 

 who caused such valuable manuscripts to be written, would spare no 

 expense in providing for them a suitable covering. Accordingly we find 

 they were often bound in the most costly silk or velvet, with golden 

 clasps and other ornaments. Jewels were added not unfrequently. A 

 numerous list of books thus decorated may be found in the Inventoire 

 ou Catalogue de Uancienne Bibliotheque du Louvre, made out A.D. 1375 

 by Gilles Mallet, keeper of the said library — printed and published at 

 Paris in the year 1836, by Messrs. De Bure. Such magnificent 

 decorations no doubt offered a strong temptation to plunder, in periods 

 of anarchy or misrule, yet several specimens remain to this day in the 

 libraries of London, Paris, and Vienna. 



Before the discovery of printing, the prices of manuscripts were of 

 course enormously high. It sometimes happened that an estate in land was 

 bartered for a single volume. Even since the invention of the art, and 

 down to the present day, large sums continue to be paid for such as may 

 possess great beauty, high antiquity, or special merit in the eyes of 

 critics or commentators. For example, the " Bedford Missal," described 

 in this memoir, cost Sir John Tobin £1000. For the prices of others, 

 at different periods, the curious reader may refer to the agreeable pages 

 of Home, Beloe, or Dibdin. 



IV. The Persons by whom they were usually "Written, and the 

 Places where. 



We come now to speak of the places where manuscripts were in 

 antient time produced, and the parties by whom they were written. 



It would be foreign to our present purpose to discuss the merits or 

 demerits of monastic institutions. But we cannot withhold from them 

 the praise to which they are entitled, of having preserved, during a 

 succession of barbarous ages, the glorious remains of antient learning 

 and refinement, the arts of peace, and the sublime records of the 

 Christian dispensation. Whilst rapine and bloodshed prevailed around, 



