St. Patrick, St. Columba, and St. Columban, as they are given you by
Montalembert in his 'Moines d'Occident.' You will find in his pages
all the essential facts that are known, encircled with a nimbus of
enthusiastic sympathy which I hope you will like better to see them
through, than distorted by blackening fog of contemptuous rationalism.
But although I ask you thus to make yourselves aware of the greatness
of my omission, I must also certify you that it does not break the
unity of our own immediate subject. The influence of Celtic passion
and art both on Northumbria and the Continent, beneficent in all
respects while it lasted, expired without any permanent share in the
work or emotion of the Saxon and Frank. The book of Kells, and the
bell of St. Patrick, represent sufficiently the peculiar character
of Celtic design; and long since, in the first lecture of the 'Two
Paths,' I explained both the modes of skill, and points of weakness,
which rendered such design unprogressive. Perfect in its peculiar
manner, and exulting in the faultless practice of a narrow skill, it
remained century after century incapable alike of inner growth, or
foreign instruction; inimitable, yet incorrigible; marvellous, yet
despicable, to its death. Despicable, I mean, only in the limitation
of its capacity, not in its quality or nature. If you make a
Christian of a lamb or a squirrel--what can you expect of the lamb
but jumping--what of the squirrel, but pretty spirals, traced with
his tail? He won't steal your nuts any more, and he'll say his prayers
like this--[2]; but you cannot make a Beatrice's griffin, and emblem
of all the Catholic Church, out of him.

[Footnote 2: Making a sign.]

You will have observed, also, that the plan of these lectures does
not include any reference to the Roman Period in England; of which