printing-presses used in Europe were placed in monasteries. The seclusion of monasticism encouraged to a considerable extent the love of the arts. In beauty of design and completeness of finish the efforts of the Gothic architect have never been surpassed. Bookmaking was carried to an advanced state of perfection. From unwieldy volumes with wooden leaves, bound in leaden covers, manuscripts developed into the exquisite specimens of calligraphic and decorative elegance so prized by modern collectors. Some were written in gold and silver letters on purple vellum. The illuminations--whence was derived the first inspiration of modern painting--were often the work of years. The bindings were of carved ivory or of the precious metals, not infrequently enriched with jewels. Those volumes destined for the service of the altar sometimes enclosed a reliquary and became doubly precious, as well by reason of the sacred memento they contained as on account of their costly materials and the labor expended upon them. The art of the sculptor owes much to the diligence and skill displayed by the mediæval wood-carver, whose handiwork is visible in the stalls and altar-screens of Gothic cathedrals. The embroidered vestments wrought by nuns during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are marvels of ornamentation, patience, and dexterity. Constant practice in the choir led to a considerable advance in the knowledge of poetry and music. Nor were philosophical pursuits, despite their confessed antagonism to the Church, altogether neglected. The name and acquirements of Pope Sylvester II. were to his contemporaries as well as to posterity long suggestive of a compact with the Devil and the practice of magic. Modern science, in its indiscriminate censure of monasticism, should not forget that the great natural philosophers of the Middle Ages, Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, belonged to the orders of mendicant friars, for the one was a Franciscan and the other a Dominican.