slight improvement may be traced; John of Salisbury and William of Malmesbury being distinguished writers in this age. In the Thirteenth however, darkness prevailed again; and few, if any, were capable of appreciating the master-mind of Roger Bacon, who shone like a beacon in the realms of literature and science, but who was looked upon by his mole-eyed contemporaries as a magician whose lore was derived from unholy sources. The Church grew more and more corrupt. Ignorance and fanaticism every where abounded; and true Religion was scarcely to be discerned amid the prevailing superstitions of the age. It was in the moral world as in the physical: the darkest hour is that which precedes the dawn. Darkness at this period covered the earth and gross darkness the people. The mind of man had become, as it were, without form and void; and in that state, humanly speaking, it was long likely to remain. But such was not the will of GOD. As in the creation of the world, GOD said, Let there be Light, and Light was; so now the command went forth--“Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” And the light of truth burst forth; not indeed at first with noontide splendour; but there came from the East a dawn, and a day-spring thence arose, which announced the coming of that light which will only cease to shine when time shall be no more. The Fourteenth century was to that which followed it like the morning star that ushers in the dawn. The love of learning revived; and polite letters were restored in the person of Petrarch. Universities were established in Rome and Fermo, in Perugia, Treviso and Pisa, in Pavia and Florence, in Sienna, Lucca and Ferrara. In England, Richard Aungerville, Bishop of Durham and Chancellor of Edward III, but better known to fame as Richard of Bury, gave his library to the University of Oxford, with special injunctions that his valuable manuscripts should be lent out to scholars.[30] These, and like agencies elsewhere at work, paved the way for the era then about to commence.