We have at the British Museum a magnificent Bible, one of the largest manuscripts in existence, called Alcuin’s Bible. It contains 449 sheets of very fine parchment, 20 by 14½ inches. It was purchased for the Museum in 1836 for £750, the price asked at first being £12,000, reduced to £6,500 as “an immense sacrifice”. The story of its acquisition, and the question of its date and its connexion with Alcuin, were stated and discussed by Sir F. Madden in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1836, pages 358 to 363, 468 to 477, 580 to 587. That able archaeologist believed it to be of Alcuin’s own time, and, indeed, to be the very copy which Alcuin presented to Charlemagne in 801, on the completion of the recension which Karl had entrusted to him. The evidence in favour of this view is found on the last page of the MS., in some elegiac verses composed by Alcuin. The verses begin with an appeal from the book itself to its readers that it may be called a Pandect, and not a Bibliotheca,[233] and after eight more verses, in which it is called a Codex, they end as follows:— Mercedes habeat, Christo donante, per aevum Is Carolus qui iam scribere iussit eum. Haec dator aeternus cunctorum, Christe, bonorum Munera de donis accipe sancta tuis, Quae Pater Albinus, devoto pectore supplex, Nominis ad laudes obtulit ecce tui; Quem tua perpetuis conservet dextra diebus, Ut felix tecum vivat in arce poli. Pro me quisque legas versus orare memento, Alchuine dicor ego. Tu sine fine vale. “May Charles, who bade this book be written, receive eternal rewards. May the giver of all good accept this offering of His own gifts, which Father Albinus has made, whom may Thy hand preserve to live with Thee. Thou who readest these verses, remember to pray for me; my name is Alchuine; mayest thou for ever fare well.” That these verses were written in the great Pandect of Alcuin’s recension, which Alcuin presented to Charlemagne, we may take to be certain. But we may also take it as certain that they would be written also in copies made from that special Pandect; and it has been decided by the most competent modern critics that the Bible in the Museum was not written till a generation had passed away after Alcuin’s death.