Such then was the state of letters at the opening of the sixth century, an epoch when Europe was covered with the shattered remains of an expiring civilisation, and when whatever literary activity lingered about the old academies of Italy and Gaul must be regarded as the parting rays of a light, fast sinking below the horizon. Yet, as it sank, another luminary was sending forth its rising beams, and the essentially Christian institution of the monastic schools was acquiring shape and solidity. Such an epoch stood in need of a master to harmonise its disordered elements, and such a master it found in St. Gregory. But before speaking of him and of his Anglo-Saxon converts we must glance at the state of letters among that earlier Celtic population which sent students from Britain to the schools of Rome in the days of St. Jerome and St. Damasus. Nor whilst doing so, can we forget that sister-isle which never felt the tread of the Roman legions, and which, sharing with Britain the glorious title of the “Isle of Saints,” merited by its extraordinary devotion to learning to be designated also the “Isle of Scholars.” _CHAPTER II._ SCHOOLS OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND. A.D. 380 TO 590. Although the monastic institute existed in Britain almost from the period of her first conversion to the faith, yet the seminaries which produced her most illustrious scholars were only founded at a comparatively later date. Whatever schools may have existed in connection with the British episcopal monasteries of earlier times, had fallen into decay by the beginning of the fifth century, when fresh foundations of learning began to spring up, the origin of which must be traced to three distinct sources. I say _three_ distinct sources, because the apostolic labours of St. Ninian among the Picts, of St. Palladius in North Britain, and of St. Germanus and St. Lupus in the southern portion of the island, were undertaken among different races, and on different occasions; nevertheless, in reality these three streams flowed forth from one common fountain, which was no other than the Holy and Apostolic See of Rome.