Amongst the mass of these things we found some greatly meriting to be restored, which when skilfully cleansed and freed from the disfiguring rust of age, deserved to be renovated into comeliness of aspect.

And applying in full measure the necessary means, as a type of the resurrection to come, we resuscitated them and restored them again to new life and health.
Moreover, we had always in our different manors no small multitude of copyists and scribes, of binders, correctors, illuminators, and generally of all who could usefully labour in the service of books.
Finally, all of both sexes and of every rank or position who had any kind of association with books, could most easily open by their knocking the door of our heart, and find a fit resting-place in our affection and favour.

In so much did we receive those who brought books, that the multitude of those who had preceded them did not lessen the welcome of the after-comers, nor were the favours we had awarded yesterday prejudicial to those of to-day.

Wherefore, ever using all the persons we have named as a kind of magnets to attract books, we had the desired accession of the vessels of science and a multitudinous flight of the finest volumes.
And this is what we undertook to narrate in the present chapter..