The most important of the works of Alcuin that can be called original were his educational writings, comprising treatises _On Grammar_, _On Orthography_, _On Rhetoric and the Virtues_, _On Dialectics_, _A Disputation with Pepin_, and a study of astronomy entitled _De Cursu et Saltu Lunæ ac Bissexto_. West mentions three other treatises which have been ascribed to him: _On the Seven Arts_, _A Disputation for Boys_, and the _Propositions of Alcuin_.[157] Alcuin was more fortunate than his great predecessor Cassiodorus in respect to the preservation of his writings. Manuscripts of all of these remained in existence until the time came when the complete set of works could be issued in printed form, and the work of the old instructor could be appreciated by a generation living a thousand years after his life had closed. He died at Tours in 804, in his seventieth year. Mabillon speaks of Alcuin as “the most learned man of his age.” Laurie is disposed to lay stress upon the monastic limitations of his intellect, and thinks that his principal ability was that of an administrator; West emphasises the “pure unselfishness of his character,” and adds, with discriminating appreciation: “We must also credit him with a certain largeness of view, in spite of his circumscribed horizon. He had some notion of the continuity of the intellectual life of man, of the perils that beset the transmission of learning from age to age, and of the disgrace which attached to those who would allow those noble arts to perish which the wisest of men among the ancients had discovered.... Perceiving that the precious treasure of knowledge was then hidden in a few books, he made it his care to transmit to future ages copies undisfigured by slips of the pen or mistakes of the understanding. Thus in every way that lay within his power, he endeavoured to put the fortunes of learning for the times that should succeed him in a position of advantage, safeguarded by an abundance of truthfully transcribed books, interpreted by teachers of his own training, sheltered within the Church and defended by the civil power.”[158] Professor West’s appreciative summary does full justice to the work and the ideals of Charlemagne’s great schoolmaster. I should only add that in the special service he was in a position to render in the preservation, transmission, and publication of the world’s literature, Alcuin must be accorded a very high place in the series of literary workers which, beginning with Cassiodorus, includes such names as Columba, Biscop, Aurispa, Gutenberg, Aldus, Estienne, and Froben.