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It is sometimes found that manuscripts richly illummated record the 

 names of the artists who adorned, as well as the scribes who wrote them. 

 Such a record was, however, in many cases, wholly unnecessary. The 

 brilliancy of the productions bespoke the unrivalled powers of Cimabue, 

 Giotto, and other great artists, whose works have come down to our times, 

 not only in the illuminations of manuscripts, but in large paintings, 

 both in oil and distemper, of masterly design and execution. These 

 men, in a word, were the revivers of art at this period. 



In considering the degree of obligation we are under to the scribes 

 attached to conventual establishments, we are led to compare the extent 

 of the largest libraries in the middle ages with that of the Ubraries of 

 classical times. In the former, the number of volumes rarely amounted 

 to one thousand ; while the latter were in some cases able to boast an 

 accumulation of several hundred thousands. The Alexandrine was said 

 to contain at one time seven hundred thousand. \Mien, therefore, we 

 hold in view the number of monasteries, and the multitude of inmates 

 in each, who were possessed of leisure, it is impossible to acquit them of 

 the charge of indolence which has been so generally imputed to them. 

 On this very account, however, the greater praise is due to the few 

 individuals who kept alive the torch of knowledge amidst civil broils and 

 superstitious enthralment. Prominent among these stands our country- 

 man, Alcuin, the preceptor and friend of Charlemagne. In writing to 

 his royal pupil from the monastery of St. Martin, at Tours, where he 

 passed the latter part of his life, this great scholar feelingly complains 

 of the scarcity of books now experienced by him, comparing it with the 

 ample stores to which, as a young man, he had access in the hbrary 

 collected by Egbert, Archbishop of York, and proposes that the emperor 

 should send proper persons into Britain to take copies of the most 

 important manuscripts. 



During the five centuries of ignorance and misrule which succeeded 

 the death of Charlemagne, the memorials of taste and learning might 

 have altogether perished, but for the circumstance that the Greek 

 language continued to be spoken and written with tolerable purity at 

 Constantinople, where a few men of letters carefully guai'ded and 

 transcribed the manuscripts which they possessed. But the barbarism 

 of Western Europe was become so gross, that when, in 1204, Constanti' 

 nople was sacked by the army of the Crusaders, the manners and 

 customs of its inhabitants were ridiculed and insulted by the conquerors 

 in all ways, and amongst others by exhibiting in the streets, pens, ink- 

 stands and paper, as the contemptible instruments of a race of students 

 and of scribes. Many Greek MSS. remain, which were written during 

 this period by command of the Byzantine monarchs, while the potentates 



