The theological books consist of portions of the Old Testament, and of the theological writers who were most read among the Anglo-Saxon learned ecclesiastics such as Gregory, whose Pastoralis and Dialogues occur in this list, Isidore, and the commentaries of their own Bede. Porphyrius's Introduction to Dialectics, was one of the favourite school-books of the age, and it may be remarked, that Leofric possessed the celebrated work of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, both in the original Latin text and in an Anglo-Saxon translation, the latter being no doubt the translation ascribed to King Alfred. The Liber Etymologiarum of Isidore was also a grand storehouse of learning to the Anglo-Saxon schoolmen.

The poets in Leofric's library were rather numerous, consisting of two of the Roman classic poets, Persius and Statius, for the Glosæ Statii probably means the text of Statius with a gloss, and of the earlier Latin Christian poets, Prudentius, Sedulius, Prosper, and Arator. The Psychomachia, Hymns, and De Martyribus, of Prudentius, are described as being contained in one volume. These are all characteristic of a library of an Anglo-Saxon scholar, who read the older Latin poets with avidity, and who set great store on the writings of their first Christian successors, especially Prudentius. Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were great lovers of poetry. The "mycel English boc be gehwilcum pingum on leodwisan geworht," or "great English book on all sorts of things composed in verse," is, of course, the now celebrated Codex Exoniensis, or Exeter Book, which is now the only one that remains in the library of Exeter Cathedral, the place where Leofric deposited it, and the one which contains the catalogue of his gifts of which we are speaking. It has sustained some damage from causes which may, perhaps, have destroyed some of its companions; but I believe that one or two of them are known to exist in other modern collections, and it is likely that part of them may have passed into the Bodleian library with a number of books given by the Dean and Chapter to that establishment. It is remarkable that Leofric possessed only one historical book, the well-known history of the world, by Orosius, which was a very favourite book among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and which King Alfred caused also to be translated into Anglo-Saxon.

This brief notice will give some notion of the character of the earliest catalogue of an English library now known to exist; it makes us acquainted with the course of reading of an Anglo-Saxon literary man, and thus helps to throw light on the tastes and sentiments of our forefathers eight centuries ago.

THE trinket makers of the Roman era seem to have indulged in a far wider range of designs for fibule than those of any other period. Beyond the adoption of inanimate forms, beasts, birds, and fishes were carefully copied for brooches, and when the realms of nature were exhausted, the aid of fancy was invoked, and chimeras of all shapes and sizes secured the palla and the chlamys of the Roman citizens, and citizens of Romanized Gaul, Germany, and Britain. Our Journal already contains representations of fibulæ in the shape of a hare (xi, 36), and a bird (xi, 187), and to these we now add a hippocampus of most spirited execution (see pl. 11, fig. 1), whose breast has been decorated with six circles of apple-green enamel, its lunate tail with enamel of similar hue, and its serrated-edged body with alternate bands of green and blue enamel produced by the mosaic process, i.e., plates of the vitreous substance laid in the bronze cavity and then fixed by fusion, as in the verge of the circular fibula given in our Journal (xvi, 270, fig. 2).

A curious example of cloissonée enamel is offered in the circular bronze fibula, fig. 2. No trace of colour can be discerned on the field, which may perhaps have once been gilded, but in the central disc and its six surrounding satellites, there is abundant evidence of the employment of deep red enamel, such as is seen in many brazen ornaments discovered in this country.

The majority of the ancient enameled objects that have been brought to light were produced by the champ-levé process already described in our Journal (xvi, 271), a fur

ther example of which is now presented in the fibula, fig. 3. Like the former specimen it is of bronze and circular in form, but the device is of a remarkable character. The cross which it bears is verged with dull red enamel, its centre and the spaces between its limbs having been filled with green enamel. Seven Greek crosses may be seen to deck the head of Spring in the Roman pavement at Cirencester; a Greek cross forms the centre of the pavement at Harpole, Northamptonshire (see Journal, vi, 126), and crosses are found, as is well known, on early Christian lamps and on the reverses of Byzantine coins; still, so far as I remember, the cross is rarely noticed in Roman fibulæ, and the present specimen must be referred to a very late epoch, so late, indeed, that some have conjectured it to be of Saxon origin. That the latter race did not disdain to profit by the arts and fashions of the former is well exemplified in the noble cruciform brooch represented in fig. 4, wherein we find the adoption of a Roman type, modified according to the taste of the Teutonic craftsman. This interesting object was exhumed in 1819, at Ufford, Suffolk; and it may be remarked that brooches of allied form, but differing materially in detail, are met with in the counties of Norfolk, Cambridge, Northampton, Lincoln, and York, and also in Denmark. The broad oblong plate which forms a portion of the transverse beam of the cross may be compared with examples in this Journal from Northampton (i, 61), York (ii, 311), and Nottingham (iii, 299), and from

the bow down to the duck-bill termination, with one discovered at Driffield (ii, 56) here reproduced; but the decorations are somewhat novel, that on the lower part consisting of Runic knots. This specimen is of bronze, measuring five inches in length, but about an inch has been probably broken off from its base.

Another early Anglo-Saxon brooch is delineated in fig. 5, remarkable for both extremities being similar and the bow being placed exactly in the centre of the trinket. It is graven with eyelet-holes, etc., and appears to be a type of some rarity. Its material is bronze, plated

with silver.