In the case of the prose works which we have mentioned the more or less technical nature of the subject did not afford scope for the cultivation of a classical style. What was essential was a lucid exposition of the thought-content expressed in clear, correct, intelligible language and this they undoubtedly possessed.[353] With poetry, however, the case was different. Here naturally enough we find clear traces of the influence of the classical poets, and even in the prose of Irish scholars this same influence is often noticeable. Virgil in particular would appear to have been a special favourite. In this connection it is significant to find Old Irish seventh century glosses on the scholia of Iunius Philargyrius on the Bucolics.[354] Adamnan (624–704 A.D.) knew Virgil well. In his _Vita Sancti Columbae_, as Reeves has pointed out, there is clear evidence that he was familiar with the Georgics.[355] Roger has found traces of both the Georgics and the Aeneid as well as allusions to the authors Plautus and Suetonius.[356] Indeed it has been rigorously established that the extracts from Philargyrius already referred to are the work of no other than Adamnan himself.[357] Muirchu who wrote the _Memoirs of St. Patrick_, in obedience to the command of Bishop Aed of Sletty (d. 698 A.D.) was inspired by Virgil and perhaps by Apollonius of Rhodes.[358] Columbanus (540–615 A.D.) was in many ways the most striking figure of his time. We have referred to the success of his missionary work.[359] As a classical scholar he was no less remarkable. He did not arrive on the Continent until he was fifty[360] years old and as his life there was filled with missionary work his scholarship must be considered as representative of the Bangor school where he spent so many years of his life as a student and a teacher. Columbanus arrived in Gaul about twenty years before the death of Gregory of Tours. But, as a distinguished French author remarks, it is sufficient to glance at the writings of Columbanus to recognise immediately their marvellous superiority over those of Gregory, or of the Gallo-Romans of his time.[361] He wrote an ode in Adonic verse which abounds in apt classical allusions.[362] In his poetry he imitated or cited Horace and Virgil and he has at least one quotation from the satires of Juvenal. Gundlach who submitted both the prose writings and the poetical Epistolae of Columbanus to a careful investigation, discovered in them quotations from, or reminiscences of, Persius, Virgil, Horace, Sallust, Ovid, Juvenal, as well as of the Christian poets Juvencus, Prudentius and Ausonius.[363] The familiarity with the writings of the classical authors so noticeable in the case of Columbanus is by no means an isolated phenomenon. A period spent in a continental library in exploring the collection of mediæval MSS. seldom fails to be rewarded by the discovery of additional writings of Irish scholars.[364] Thus in recent years Traube found in a MS. in Florence