We must now return to St. Bennet Biscop, who, after completing his studies at Canterbury, was planning a fourth expedition to Rome, chiefly for the purpose of collecting books. His bibliographical tour was crowned with complete success. He travelled along purchasing, and also begging books in all directions, which when procured were deposited in the keeping of trusty friends, from whom he gathered them up again on his homeward journey. He returned to England laden with his treasures, and obtained a grant of land from Egfrid, king of Northumbria, for the erection of his long-contemplated monastery. It was dedicated to St. Peter, and situated at the mouth of the Wear--a spot, says William of Malmsbury, “which once glittered with a multitude of towns built by the Romans,” and which in our own days also is a busy scene of trade. Though the Roman towns had disappeared in Biscop’s time, his monastery was far from standing in the midst of a solitude. In fact, he sought, not shunned, the haunts of men, for his main object was their instruction. He had no intention of being merely “the man wise for himself;” his books and his learning had been acquired to profit other souls besides his own. So he did not choose a lonesome wilderness, or a marsh, or a desert island, but a spot conveniently situated within reach of what, even in the seventh century, was a tolerably busy port. “The broad and ample river running into the sea,” says the old historian already quoted, “received vessels borne by gentle gales on the calm bosom of its haven;” and the parish of Monk-Wearmouth in the now smoky town of Sunderland marks the ground occupied by St. Bennet’s first foundation.