And talking of his book rapidly, and with much boyish enthusiasm, John opened the doors of the refectory.  The long, oaken tables, the great fireplace, and the stained glass seemed to delight him, and he alluded to the art classes of monastic life.  The class-rooms were peeped into, the playground was viewed through the lattice windows, and they went to John’s room, up a staircase curiously carpeted with lead.

John’s rooms! a wide, bright space of green painted wood and straw matting.  The walls were panelled from floor to ceiling.  In the centre of the floor there was an oak table—­a table made of sharp slabs of oak laid upon a frame that was evidently of ancient design, probably early German, a great, gold screen sheltered a high canonical chair with elaborate carvings, and on a reading-stand close by lay the manuscript of a Latin poem.

“And what is this?” said Mr Hare.

“Oh! that is a poem by Milo, his ‘De Sobricate.’  I heard that the manuscript was still preserved in the convent of Saint Amand, near Tournai, and I sent and had a copy made for me.  That was the simplest way.  You have no idea how difficult it is to buy the works of any Latin authors except those of the Augustan age.  Milo was a monk, and he lived in the eighth century.  He was a man of very considerable attainments, if he were not a very great poet.  He was a contemporary of Floras, who, by the way, was a real poet.  Some of his verses are delightful, full of delicate cadence and colour.  The Ms. under your hand is a poem by him—­

    “’Montes et colles, silvaeque et flumina, fontes,
    Praeruptaeque rupes, pariter vallesque profondae
    Francorum lugete genus:  quod munere christi,
    Imperio celsum jacet ecce in pulvere mersum.’

“That was written in the eighth century when the language was becoming terribly corrupt; when it was hideous with popular idiom barbarously and recklessly employed.  But even in that time of autumnal decay and pallid bloom, a real poet such as Walahfrid Strabat could weave a garland of grace and beauty; one, indeed, that lived through the chance of centuries in the minds of men.  It found numberless imitators and favour even with the Humanists, and it was reprinted eight times in the seventeenth century.  This poem is of especial interest to me on account of the illustration it affords of a theory of my own concerning the unconsciousness of the true artist.  For breaking away from the literary habitudes of his time, which were to do the gospels or the life of a favourite saint into hexameters, he wrote a poem, ‘Hortulus,’ descriptive of the garden of the monastery.  The garden was all the world to the monks; it furnished them at once with the pleasures and the necessaries of their lives.  Walahfrid felt this; he described his feelings, and he produced a chef d’oeuvre.”  Going over to the bookcase, John took down a volume.  He read:—­