By the close of the eighth century England had reached the zenith of her first period of literary glory. Not only were her people thoroughly instructed according to their degree and rank, but the island abounded in saints and scholars, many of whom, like those of Ireland, went forth, from time to time, to repay to benighted Europe a portion of the debt contracted two centuries earlier. It were an interesting study, if space permitted, to trace the divergent paths pursued by Irish and English scholars on the continent, in what may be called their initial campaigns against ignorance. We find the Irish invading France, Switzerland, Italy, and even Spain, while the Anglo-Saxons, with a like affinity for race and habits, preferred the northern part of Europe, the cradle of their ancestors. St. Columbanus, whose rule, next to that of St. Benedict, was the most generally adopted in the continental monasteries, founded the schools of Luxeuil in Burgundy and of Bobbio in Italy; St. Gall, one of his companions, laid the foundation of the famous schools of that name in Switzerland; St. Cathal of Lismore became the patron saint of Tarentum, and Donatus and Frigidan were bishops of Fiesole in Tuscany and Lucca. St. Winifred, or, as he was afterward called, Boniface, the first great English missionary to the continent, achieved great successes in the north about 723, and, being desirous of training up a native priesthood to perpetuate his works, invited several of his countrymen to Germany to take charge of the seminaries of the different bishoprics he had founded. Among those who accepted the invitation were his two nephews, one of whom, Willibald, established a college at Ordorp. The seminary of Utrecht owes its origin to one of his earliest pupils, Luidger, a direct descendant of Dagobert II., who also built several seminaries and monastic schools in Saxony. Another of St. Boniface's students, Strum, laid the foundation of the celebrated abbey and school of Fulda in 744; and, to complete the work of regeneration, thirty nuns were brought over from England, who established religious houses innumerable, and introduced among the rude Germans the learning and refinement which marked the nunneries of their native land. St. Boniface, having been appointed papal legate and vicar with jurisdiction over the bishops of Gaul and Germany, applied several years of his life to the reformation of abuses and the establishment of strict rules of life among the clergy of both countries. To this end we are told that in every place where he planted a monastery he added a school, not only for the benefit of young monks, "but in order that the rude population by whom they were surrounded might be trained in holy discipline, and that their uncivilized manners might be softened by the influence of humane learning." His grand work having been accomplished, he resigned his delegated powers, resumed his missionary life, and, with nothing but his "books and shroud,"