Thus reflected this simple pagan. Upon this subject he composed an elegy which by the greatest of chances I unearthed in the public library at Tarascon, on the binding of a Bible of the eleventh century, catalogued Michel Chasles Collection F n 7439, 179 bis. The precious leaf which had so far escaped the notice of the learned, contains not fewer than eighty-four lines in a fairly legible Merovingian script probably dating from the seventh century. The text begins with these words—
>Nunc piget; et quaeris, quod non aut ista volontas
Tunc fuit....[[1]]
and finishes in this fashion—
Stringamus maesti carminis obsequio.[[2]]
I shall not fail to publish the complete text so soon as I have finished deciphering it. And I do not doubt that Monsieur Leopold Delisle himself will undertake to present this invaluable document to the Academy of Inscriptions.
[1]. .sp 1
Now regret rankles, and thou cravest that
Thou didst reject....