A description such as this emphasises the importance of the work initiated by Alcuin, work the value of which the ruler of Europe was fortunately able to appreciate and ready to support. In his relation to scholarly interests in Europe and to the preservation of the literature of the past, Alcuin may fairly be considered as the successor of Cassiodorus. He was able in the eighth century to render a service hardly less distinctive than that credited to Cassiodorus three hundred years earlier. There is the further parallel that, like Cassiodorus, he possessed a very keen and intelligent interest in the form given to literary expression, and in all the details of the work given to the copyists. The instructions given in Alcuin’s treatise on orthography for the work of the scribes, follow very closely in principle, and differ, in fact, but slightly in detail from, the instructions given by Cassiodorus in his own treatise on the same subject. A couplet which stands at the head of the first page reads as follows: “Let him who would publish the sayings of the ancients read me, for he who follows me not will speak without regard to law.”[152] Alcuin’s care in regard to the consistency of punctuation and orthography and his intelligent selection of a clearer and neater form of script than had heretofore been employed, have impressed a special character on the series of manuscripts dating from the early portion of the ninth century and written in what is termed the Caroline minuscule. In a letter written to Charles from Tours in 799, Alcuin mentions that he has copied out on some blank parchment which the King had sent him a short treatise on correct diction, with illustrations from Bede. He goes on to speak of the special value to literature of the distinctions and subdistinctions of punctuation, the knowledge of which has, he complains, almost disappeared: “But even as the glory of all learning and the ornaments of wholesome erudition begin to be seen again by reason of your noble exertions, so also it seems most fitting that the use of punctuation should also be resumed by scribes.... Let your authority so instruct the youths at the palace that they may be able to utter with perfect elegance whatsoever the clear eloquence of your thought may dictate, so that whatsoever may go to the parchment bearing the royal name it may display the excellence of the royal learning.”[153] A very delicate hint, remarks West, for Charles to mind his commas and his colons.