treatises in a plain and simple style, but full of wisdom and practical utility. He had a special devotion to the Passion of our Lord, and excelled as a comforter of the tempted and distressed. At length, in his old age, after suffering from dropsy of the legs, he fell asleep in the Lord. He was buried in the East Cloister, by the side of Brother Peter Herbort."[1]
Thomas a Kempis is described by his contemporaries as a man of somewhat less than average height, with a brownish, high-coloured face, lit up by bright piercing eyes, the sight of which was so good that even in extreme old age he did not need spectacles.
During his sub-priorate he acted as novicemaster, and throughout his monastic life he was a laborious and beautiful copyist.[2] He was no scholar in the then (Renaissance) sense of the term, nor was he a great orator; but he is said
- ↑ "Chronicle of Agnetenberg," page 137.
- ↑ His most important work of this nature was a copy of the Vulgate, which it took him fifteen years to write. It is in five stately volumes, which were bound in 1576, and is preserved in the Grand-Ducal Library at Darmstadt. The medallions upon the covers of this book have been copied from those on its binding. What the handwriting of Thomas was like may be seen from specimens given of it in Dr. Kettlewell's "Authorship of the de Imitatione Christi" (Rivingtons, 1877), and from an exquisite facsimile of his autograph copy of the " Imitatio " published by Messrs. Elliot Stock and Co. in 1879.
