“Every essential principle, almost every adjunct, and almost every vice of the Monkery of the tenth or twelfth century, may be detected in that of the fourth…. But …in the later period the religious houses contained almost all the piety and learning that anywhere existed; while in the former there was certainly as much piety without as within ‥ and much more of learning.

……In the later periods, and when nothing … existed without doors except feudal ignorance and ferocity (we speak of the monasteries of Europe), many of the religious houses were real seclusions … ….. The spiritual Monk, ‥ glad to hide himself from the railleries or spite of the lay fraternity, …. passed his hours in the pleasant, edifying, and beneficial toils of transcription. Not seldom, as is proved by abundant evidence, the life-giving words of Prophets and Apostles were the subjects of these labours.”……

“Record we, too, with just and faithful pen,

That many hooded Cenobites there are,

Who in their private cells have yet a care

Of public quiet; unambitious men,

Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken;

Whose fervent exhortations from afar.

Move princes to their duty, peace or war;

And ofttimes in the most forbidding den

Of solitude, with love of science strong,

How patiently the yoke of thought they bear!”