duty, and received offerings of the produce of the land.
We hear of periodical _quests_ or collections made for
the sustenance of these institutions, wherein the learned
Lectors and Doctors, no doubt, pleaded their claims to
popular favour, with irresistible eloquence. Individuals,
anxious to promote the spread of religion and of science,
endowed particular institutions out of their personal
means; Princes, Bishops, and pious ladies, contributed
to enlarge the bounds and increase the income of their
favourite foundations, until a generous emulation seems
to have seized on all the great families as well as on
the different Provinces, as to which could boast the most
largely attended schools, and the greatest number of
distinguished scholars. The love of the _alma mater_
--that college patriotism which is so sure a sign of the
noble-minded scholar--never received more striking
illustration than among the graduates of those schools.
Columbkill, in his new home among the Hebrides, invokes
blessings on blessings, on "the angels" with whom it was
once his happiness to walk in Arran, and Columbanus,
beyond the Alps, remembers with pride the school of
Bangor--the very name of which inspires him with poetic
rapture.

The buildings, in which so many scholars were housed and
taught, must have been extensive. Some of the schools we
have mentioned were, when most flourishing, frequented
by one, two, three, and even, at some periods, as many
as seven thousand scholars. Such a population was alone
sufficient to form a large village; and if we add the