flourishing seminaries of my native soil. Now in the evening of my life, though my blood is less warm within me, I do not cease to do the same in France, praying to God that they may spring up and flourish in both countries.” In consequence of this suggestion, a commission was despatched to England for the purpose of transcribing some of the treasures of the York library. The French scribes made copies of the English service books, and that so exactly, that they took no heed of the geographical distinctions of the two countries, but copied the pontifical of Archbishop Egbert, and its form for the anointing and coronation of kings, exactly word for word. Hence in a Rheims pontifical of the ninth century, still preserved in Cologne cathedral, the emperor of the Franks is addressed as King of the Saxons, Mercians, and Northumbrians--a circumstance which has induced some modern critics to speculate as to the exact time when the North of England was subject to the Frankish sceptre. The copies procured through the industry of these scribes were multiplied at Tours, and thence dispersed throughout the kingdom. Alcuin’s own works were also in great demand, specially his elementary treatises on the different sciences. His other works, which are very numerous, consist chiefly of theological treatises and commentaries on the Scriptures, some metaphysical and philosophical writings, and a collection of poems, among which are the _Eulogium on the Archbishops and the Church of York_, and the _Elegy on the Destruction of Lindisfarne_, the latter of which is perhaps the happiest production of his pen, and evinces the real feeling of a poet. The news of the sad event which it commemorates excited consternation throughout Europe, but by none was it received with bitterer sorrow than by the abbot of Tours. “The man,” he says, “who can think of that calamity without terror, and who does not cry to God in behalf of his country, has a heart not of flesh but of stone.” He at once wrote letters of sympathy to Ethelred, King of Northumbria, and the monks who had escaped from the sword, which would be sufficient to evince how fondly his heart still clung to his native land even without the touching apostrophe which he introduces to his cell at York. What view was taken by Alcuin of the work of education, to which his whole life was devoted may be gathered from his treatise on the seven liberal arts, the introduction to which is cast in the form of dialogue between the master and his disciples. I will give an extract which may suffice to show the noble and elevated sentiments which these early scholars entertained on the subject of learning:--