was made on the subject to Sylvestre de Sacy; whose report gave some hope, that the precious relic might still be preserved.  Search was made by Kopitar in Italy and at Paris, but all in vain.  At last it was again found at Rheims by the Russian scholar Stroyef;[20] who, however, seems not to have been acquainted with the Glagolitic writing, and therefore laid little stress on it.  The volume was stripped of its costly ornaments, and had therefore been the more easily recovered during the reign of Napoleon; who endeavoured, as much as was in his power, to restore the spoils of the revolution, while he himself filled Paris with the spoils of all other nations.

The librarian at Rheims, in order best to meet the numerous inquiries of Slavic scholars, caused a fac simile of it to be taken; audit was finally committed to the learned Kopitar’s care.  It was now discovered, that this long deplored document contained two unconnected portions of the Gospels; one in Cyrillic letters, the other, considerably longer, in Glagolitic; and both executed with remarkable calligraphic skill.  The Glagolitic portion was marked with the date 1395.  It was written at Prague, and presented by the emperor Charles IV. to the Abbot of Emaus; with the injunction, that these Evangelia should be chanted at mass; and the remark was added, that the accompanying Cyrillic portion was written by St. Procopius with his own hand.  Procopius was one of the patron saints of Bohemia, who died in 1053.  How this valuable manuscript was finally removed to France, is still unexplained.  At Rheims nothing further was known, than that it had been presented by the Cardinal of Lorraine in A.D. 1554.  A rumour ascribed to the Cyrillic portion a Greek origin; the Glagolitic part was generally considered as a relic from St. Jerome’s own library.  This supposed immediate connection with two saints, may well account for the reverence with which the book was treated in France.[21] A splendid edition of this work, under the patronage of the emperor of Russia, was prepared by Kopitar, and appeared in 1843 at Paris.[22]

Although the use of the Slavic language was in a certain measure authorized by the pope, yet the clergy of Dalmatia preferred unanimously the Latin for their theological and ecclesiastical writings.  The Glagolitic literature was therefore almost exclusively limited to copies of the productions of their Cyrillic brethren.  The Glagolitic letters had, however, the precedence of the Cyrillic alphabet, in respect to printing.  The first printed Glagolitic missal, is of the year 1483; whilst the earliest work printed in the Cyrillic letters is not older than A.D. 1491.  In the sixteenth century books were printed at Zengh (Segna), at Fiume, at Venice, and at Tubingen, with Glagolitie letters.  In the year 1621, the emperor Ferdinand II. presented the Propaganda with a font of Glagolitic types, which he obtained from Venice.  Several improved breviaries and missals have since been printed at Rome.  In our day, this city possesses the only Glagolitic printing office in existence.  On the Dalmatian islands, books are still copied in manuscript, just as before the invention of printing.