which it occupies only a page or two. The script is continental, and may well be that of Regensburg, but it shows marked traces of insular influence, English rather than Irish in character. The work immediately preceding the fragment is in an insular hand, of the kind practised at various continental monasteries, such as Fulda; there are certain notes in the usual continental hand. Evidently the manuscript deserves consideration in the history of the struggle between the insular and the continental hands in Germany.[28] The script of the Leyden fragment, on the other hand, so far as I can judge from a photograph, looks very much like the mid-century Fleury variety with which I have associated the Bellovacensis; there can hardly be doubt, at any rate, that De Vries is correct in assigning it to France, where Voss obtained so many of his manuscripts.[29] Except, therefore, for _M_ and the Munich fragment, there is no evidence furnished by the chief manuscripts which connects the tradition of the _Letters_ with Germany. The insular clue afforded by the latter book deserves further attention, but I can not follow it here. The question of the Parisinus aside, _B_ and _F_ of Class I and _V_ of Class II are sure signs that the propagation of the text started from one or more centres--Fleury and Corbie seem the most probable--in France. [Footnote 24: Cod. Med. LXVIII, 1. See Rostagno in the preface to his edition of this manuscript in the Leyden series, and for the Pliny, Chatelain, _Pal. des Class. Lat._, pl. CXLV. Keil (edition, p. vi), followed by Kukula (edition, p. iv), incorrectly assigns the manuscript to the tenth century. The latest treatment is by Paul Lehmann in his “Corveyer Studien,” in _Abhandl. der Bayer. Akad. der Wiss. Philos.-philol. u. hist. Klasse_, XXX, 5 (1919), p. 38. He assigns it to the middle or the last half of the ninth century.] [Footnote 25: Chatelain calls the page of Pliny that he reproduces (pl. CXLIV) tenth century, but attributes the Sallust portion of the manuscript, although this seems of a piece with the style of the Pliny, to the ninth; see pl. LIV. Hauler, who has given the most complete account of the manuscript, thinks it “_saec._ IX/X” (_Wiener Studien_ XVII (1895), p. 124). He shows, as others had done before him, the close association of the book with Bernensis 357, and of that codex with Fleury.]