Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/31

 works of art which could be procured for money. This collection, which was, by his orders, preserved with peculiar care, received considerable augmentations from the zeal and munificence of his successors. Bede's thirst for study was here, no doubt, satisfied: so large and valuable a library could scarcely have been within his reach elsewhere, even among the other Benedictines of the day, however well qualified that order may be to encourage a taste for learning, and to provide means for gratifying that taste among its fosterlings. In so large a community, too, as that of Weremouth, there were doubtlessly many scholars of mature age who would all assist in promoting the studies of so talented a youth as he who was now introduced within their walls.

Bede was not, however, left to chance, or the untutored dictates of his own youthful fancy, to find his way as he could through the years spent in the rudiments of learning. In the study of Theology and the Holy Scriptures, he received, as he himself tells us, the instructions of Trumbert, a monk, who had been educated under the holy Ceadda, Bishop of Lichfield. The art of chaunting, as it was practised at Rome, was taught him by John, the Arch-chaunter of St. Peter's at Rome, who had been, by