thought of the time accurately and with spirit, ran no great risk of being passed over and forgotten; too little was produced for much that was good to be lost. It was copied once and again; became very slowly but very surely known to a few, then to many; and all the time waxed more and more influential in its teaching. The growth was slow, but then the lifetime was long. Now the chance of a good book going astray is much greater What watcher of the great procession of modern books does not fear that something supremely fine and great has passed unobserved in the huge, motley crowd?
[1] Camb. Lit., i. 262.
[2] Jusserand, Piers, 13.
End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books During the Middle Ages