In this primitive state of book-collecting, a singular evidence of their bibliographical passion was sometimes apparent in the monastic libraries. Not deeming a written catalogue, which might not often be opened, sufficiently attractive to remind them of their lettered stores, they inscribed verses on their windows to indicate the books they possessed, and over these inscriptions they placed the portraits of the authors. Thus they could not look through their windows without being reminded of their volumes; and the very portraits of authors, illuminated by the light of heaven, might rouse the curiosity which many a barren title would repel.[9]
To us accustomed to reckon libraries by thousands, these scanty catalogues will appear a sad contraction of human knowledge. The monastic studies could not in any degree have advanced the national character; they could only have kept it stationary; and, excepting some scholastic logomachies, in which the people could have no concern, one monkish writer could hardly ever have differed from another.
The monastic libraries have been declared to have afforded the last asylums of literature in a barbarous era; and the preservation of ancient literature has been ascribed to the monks: but we must not accept a fortuitous occurrence as any evidence of their solicitude or their taste. In the dull scriptorium of the monk, if the ancient authors always obtained so secure a place, they slept in comparative safety, for they were not often disturbed by their first Gothic owners, who hardly ever allude to them. If ancient literature found a refuge in the monastic establishments, the polytheistical guests were not slightly contemned by their hosts, who cherished with a different taste a bastardised race of the Romans. The purer writers were not in request; for the later Latin verse-makers being Christians, the piety of the monks proved to be infinitely superior to their taste. Boethius was their great classic; while Prudentius, Sedulius, and Fortunius, carried the votes against Virgil, Horace, and even Ovid; though Ovid was in some favour for his marvellous Romance. The polytheism of the classical poets was looked on with horror, so literally did they construe the allegorical fables of the Latin muse. Even till a later day, when monkery itself was abolished, the same Gothic taste lingered among us in its aversion to the classical poets of antiquity, as the works of idolaters!