He stopped a couple of days at Rheims, and was astonished at the good store of books the library owned. He "blamed the slothful carelessness of modern times, which not only failed to imitate the literary activity of the Fathers in making and writing books, but neither read nor reverently treated the sacred manuscripts the care of the Fathers had provided." His own conduct in this respect, both at Witham and Lincoln, was far otherwise. He took pains about the library at each place. His gifts to Lincoln were--(1) Two great volumes of sermons by the Catholic doctors for the whole year. (2) A little book of the Father's Life with a red covering. (3) A Psalter with a large gloss.{27} (4) A Homeliary in stag's leather, beginning "_Erunt signa_." And (5) A Martyrology with the text of the four Gospels. At Rheims, too, he also saw and worshipped the vessel of holy oil, which was used for anointing the kings of France. Then he made his way to the northern coast to St. Omer's Camp. He would not put to sea at once lest he should fail of his Mass on Our Lady's birthday. He had been unwell for some days with quartan fever, and tried bleeding, but it did him no good. He could not eat, but was obliged to go and lie down upon his small bed. He broke into violent sweats, and for three days hardly tasted food. On the 7th of September he would travel ten miles to Clercmaretz Abbey to keep the feast. He slept in the infirmary, where two monks waited on him, but could get him to eat nothing. He said there his last Mass but one, and still fasting went back to St. Omers. He felt a good deal better after this, and went on to Wissant, where he made the usual invocations to Our Lady and St. Ann, and had a safe, swift passage, and immediately upon landing said his last Mass, probably at St. Margaret's Church, in Dover. He never missed a chance of saying Mass if he could, though it was not said daily in his time. But he would not allow his chaplain to celebrate if he had been lately bled, reproved him for the practice, and when he did it again very sharply rebuked him.