Notwithstanding all this havoc and wreck, we have still preserved a large number of old Irish books. The ornamented and illuminated copies of the Scriptures are described in the chapter on Art. We have also many volumes of Miscellaneous Literature in which are written compositions of all kinds, both prose and poetry, copied from older books, and written in, one after another, till the volume was filled. Of all these old books of mixed compositions, the largest that remains to us is the Book of Leinster, which is kept in Trinity College, Dublin. It is an immense volume, all in the Irish language, written more than 750 years ago; and many of the pages are now almost black with age and very hard to make out. It contains a great number of pieces, some in prose and some in verse, and nearly all of them about Ireland:--histories, accounts of battles and sieges, lives and adventures of great men, with many tales and stories of things that happened in this country in far distant ages. The Book of the Dun Cow is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. It is fifty years older than the Book of Leinster, but not so large; and it contains also a great number of tales, adventures, and histories, all relating to Ireland, and all in the Irish language. Two other great Irish books kept in Dublin are the Yellow Book of Lecan [Leckan] and the Book of Ballymote. These contain much the same kind of matter as the Book of Leinster--with pieces mostly different however--but they are not nearly so old. The Speckled Book, which is also in Dublin, is nearly as large as the Book of Leinster, but not so old. It is mostly on religious matters, and contains a great number of Lives of saints, hymns, sermons, portions of the Scriptures, and other such pieces. All these books are written with the greatest care, and in most beautiful penmanship. The five old books described above have been lately printed, in such a way that the print resembles exactly the writing of the old books themselves. The printed volumes are now to be found in libraries in several parts of Ireland, as well as in England and on the Continent; so that those desirous of studying them need not come to Dublin, as people had to do formerly. Another grand old book preserved in Dublin is the Book of Lecan. Besides these there are vast numbers of Irish manuscript books in Dublin and elsewhere, both vellum and paper, having no special names, all containing important and interesting pieces. There are also numerous books of law, of medicine, of science, genealogies, Lives of saints, sermons, and so forth, which on account of limited space cannot be described here.