By Irish missionaries the art of book writing was taught to Britain, chiefly through the school of Lindisfarne, where was produced the famous Lindisfarne Gospels, or Book of St Cuthbert. This magnificent work, which is one of the choicest treasures of the British Museum, was as highly esteemed by its contemporaries as by ourselves, though perhaps not for quite the same reasons. Tradition has it that when Lindisfarne was threatened by the Northmen and the monks had to fly, they took with them the body of St Cuthbert, in obedience to his dying behest, and this book. They attempted to seek refuge in Ireland, but their boat had scarcely reached the open sea when it met a storm so violent that through the pitching of the little vessel the book fell overboard. Sorrowfully they put back, but during the night St Cuthbert appeared to one of the monks and ordered him to seek for the book in the sea. On beginning their search, they found that the tide had ebbed much further than it was wont to do, and going out about three miles they came upon the holy book, not a whit the worse for its misadventure. "By this," says the old historian, "were their hearts refreshed with much joy." And the book was afterwards named in the priory rolls as "the Book of St Cuthbert, which fell into the sea." [Illustration: PAGE FROM THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS (_reduced._)] This notable volume is an excellent example of Celtic book art in the beginning of its transition stage, a stage which marks the approach to the two schools which were the result of the combination of Celtic and continental influences in the hands of intelligent and skilful Anglo-Saxon scribes--the Hiberno-Saxon and the English schools. It contains the four Gospels written in Latin, and arranged in double columns, each Gospel being preceded by a full-page formal design of Celtic work and a full-page portrait of the Evangelist. The conjunction of these two distinct styles of ornament forms one of the chief points of interest in the book. The formal designs of interlaced, spiral, and key patterns, so characteristic of Celtic work, show its near kinship to the Irish books, while the portraits prove an almost equally close connection with Roman and Byzantine models. There is reason to believe that the classical element is due to the influence of an Italian or Byzantine book or books brought to Lindisfarne by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his friend Adrian, an Italian abbot, when the archbishop visited the island for the purpose of consecrating Aidan's church. The Lindisfarne Gospels accompanied St Cuthbert's body to Durham in 995, but rather more than a century later was restored to Lindisfarne, and remained there until the monastery which had replaced St Aidan's foundation was dissolved at the Reformation. It is then lost sight of until it reappears in the famous Cotton Library, with which it is now possessed by the nation.