Contrast this with the period when pen, ink, and fingers did the work now done by type and power-presses--the no-book era. Not the least noteworthy among patient transcribers were the Benedictines. 'Their rule assigned an eminent rank among monastic virtues to the guardianship and multiplication of valuable manuscripts. It taught the copyist of a holy book to think of himself as at once a pupil and a teacher--as a missionary while seated at his desk--using each finger as a tongue--inflicting on the Spirit of Evil a deadly wound at each successive line--and as baffling, with the pen, the dread enemy who smiles at the impotent hostility of every other weapon grasped by the hand of mortal man. In each Benedictine monastery a chamber was set apart for the discharge of this sacred office. In this _Scriptorium_ some of the monks plied their pens assiduously, and in profound silence, to produce faultless transcripts of the best originals. To others was committed the care of revising the text of such works as were then held in the highest esteem. Charlemagne himself assigned to the Benedictine Alcuin the high office of preparing, from the various sources within his reach, a perfect Codex of the Holy Scriptures. For what remains to us of Pliny, Sallust, and Macrobius, and for the orations against Verres, we are indebted to their literary zeal.' We read of Claude Estiennot, who was procurator of the Benedictines at Rome during the papacy of Innocent XI., that 'within eleven years he had collected and transcribed forty-five bulky folios, at the various libraries of his society in the several dioceses of France, adding to them, says Dom le Cerf, "réflexions très sensées et judicieuses"--"very sensible and judicious reflections."' Forty-five volumes in eleven years! Perhaps this was a commendable result in the eighth century, but the old-fashioned hand-press in the village of Dumdrudge would beat it now-a-days, barring probably the 'judicious reflections.' We have before us a statement of the books and pamphlets printed in France in fifteen years--1830-1845--including reprints, but omitting periodicals, the number was 5862 annually, or a total of 87,930. Estimating each work as two volumes and a-half, they amount to 220,000; and reckoning 1200 copies of each work (a moderate calculation), the grand total is 264,000,000 of volumes.