countries of Europe. Of the two first we have an interesting story given in the history of the times of Charlemagne. 'Two Scots of Ireland came to the shores of France with some British merchants. They were men who both in secular and sacred writings were incomparably learned. They used to expose nothing for sale, but to cry to the crowd who flocked round for the purpose of buying, If any of you wishes for wisdom, let him come to us and obtain it, for that is what we have on sale.'[1] Of the last, Virgil, who became Bishop of Salsburg, it is said that he anticipated the discoveries of later astronomers, and hardly escaped being condemned as a heretic for maintaining the existence of antipodes.
It is to this century that most of the illuminated manuscripts which still exist are to be attributed. In no age of the Church was the scribe held in such high esteem. 'Sixty-one remarkable scribes are named in the Annals of the Four Masters as having flourished in Ireland before the year 900, forty of whom lived between A.D. 700 and 800.'[2] If no other evidence were left to us than the books themselves, we should have reasons enough to conclude that the eighth century was an age of learning and art. Our only regret is that the remains of that period are so few. The Norseman of the next century cared little for books, and delighted in 'drowning' the volumes which came into his sacrilegious hands. Most of the precious manuscripts therefore have been destroyed, yet enough is left to make us pause in astonishment, for no other country has ever had scribes like these.
Connected with these manuscripts a very inter-
- ↑ Migne, Patrol. Curs., tom. xcviii. p. 1371.
- ↑ Miss Stokes, Early Christian Art in Ireland, p. 10.
