Passing from Ireland, the Celtic style of book ornamentation was naturally practised in the monastic settlements of Scotland, and especially in St Columba's foundation in the island of Iona. Thence it spread to other houses in Britain. In the year 635, at the request of Oswald, king of Northumbria, Aidan, a monk of Iona, was sent to preach Christianity in that kingdom, and became the founder of the abbey and see of Lindisfarne in Holy Isle off the Northumbrian coast. Here was established by the brethren who accompanied the missionary the famous school of Lindisfarne, from which issued a wonderful series of finely written and finely ornamented MSS. in the Celtic style, some of which still survive. The most perfect is the _Lindisfarne Gospels_ or _St Cuthbert's Gospels_ or the _Durham Book_, as it is more commonly called from the fact of its having rested for some time at Durham after early wanderings. This MS., written in honour of St Cuthbert and completed early in the 8th century, is in the Cottonian collection in the British Museum--a beautiful example of writing, and of the Celtic style of ornament, and in perfect condition. The contact with foreign influences, unknown in Ireland, is manifested in this volume by the use of gold, but in very sparing quantity, in some of the details. An interesting point in the artistic treatment of the MS. is the style in which the figures of the four evangelists are portrayed. Here the conventional Irish method, noticed above, is abandoned; the figures are mechanical copies from Byzantine models. The artist was unskilled in such drawing and has indicated the folds of the draperies, not by shading, but by streaks of paint of contrasting colours. Explanations of such instances of the unexpected adoption of a foreign style are rarely forthcoming; but in this case there is one. The sections of the text have been identified as following the Neapolitan use. The Greek Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, arrived in Britain in the year 688 and was accompanied by Adrian, abbot of a monastery in the island of Nisita near Naples; and they both visited Lindisfarne. There can therefore be little doubt that the Neapolitan MS. from which the text of the _Durham Book_ was derived, was one which Abbot Adrian had brought with him; and it may also be assumed that his MS. also contained paintings of the evangelists in the Byzantine style, which served as models to the Northumbrian artist. Carolingian.