THE MONASTERIES AS MUSEUMS OF ART. Kings and emperors often bequeathed their rarest treasures of gold and jewels to monasteries. The kings of France often left their crowns to the abbey of St. Denis. Monte Cassino had great store of presents from kings of chalices and patens, crowns and crosses, phials and vases, and precious ornaments of purest gold, and silks with gold and gems. When the Danes arrived at the abbey of Peterborough in 1070, they took away the golden crown in the church embellished with gems from the head of the crucifix, and the golden stool set with gems, and rare articles of gold and precious stones. In the monastery of Ripon were four gospels written on a purple ground in letters of gold, inclosed in a golden casket. The furniture for St. Ina's famous chapel in Glastonbury was of silver and gold of great value, the covers of the gospels were of gold, and the priests' vestments interwoven with gold and cunningly ornamented with precious stones. In the treasury of the abbey of the Isle Barbe, the horn of Roland was preserved; in the abbey of St. Denis the chessboard and men used by Charlemagne. In the abbey of Rheinau was a wooden cross nine inches high, cut out of a single piece, and showing in more than a hundred figures the chief passages of our Saviour's life. In the abbey of St. Stephen, at Troyes, the Psalter of Count Henry, the founder, written in letters of gold, was still fresh after eight hundred years. In the treasury of Citeaux was the chair in which St. Bernard sat as a novice; and there were ancient breviaries of the monks, written in small letters, as pocket companions in their travels. At Treves the gospels, written in letters of gold covered with jewels, were the present of Princess Ada, sister of Charlemagne. LEARNING AND EMBROIDERY OF THE NUNS.