As I am not now addressing learned readers, I need not go into details about the particular books which interested me. My main object had been to find, if possible, at Mount Athos some analogy, some parallel, to the splendid school of ornamentation which has left us the _Book of Kells_, the _Lindisfarne Gospels_, _St. Chad’s Gospel_ at Lichfield, and other such masterpieces of Irish illumination. I have always thought it likely that some early Byzantine missionary found his way to Ireland, and gave the first impulse to a local school of art. That there is a family likeness between early Irish and Byzantine work seems to me undeniable. I can hardly say whether I was disappointed or not to find that, as far as Athos went, the Irish school was perfectly independent, and there was no early book which even remotely suggested the marvellous designs of the _Book of Kells_. The emblems of the Evangelists seemed unknown there before the eleventh century. There was ample use of gilding, and a good knowledge of colors. In one or two we found a dozen kinds of birds adequately portrayed in colors—the peacock, pheasant, red-legged partridge, stork, etc., being at once recognizable. But all the capitals were upon the same design, all the bands of ornament were little more than blue diaper on gold ground. There were a good many books in slanting uncials, probably seventh to ninth century; an occasional page or fragment of earlier date, but nothing that we could see of value for solving the difficulties of a Scripture text. Careful and beautiful handwritings on splendid vellum of the succeeding centuries were there in countless abundance. They are valuable as specimens of handwriting and as nothing else. In many of the libraries the monk in charge was quite intelligent about the dates of the MSS., and was able to read the often perplexing colophon in which the century and _indiction_ were recorded. But the number of dated MSS. was, alas! very small.