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diff --git a/18938-8.txt b/18938-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7c91f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/18938-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6103 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Book-Collectors, by +Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Great Book-Collectors + +Author: Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton + +Release Date: July 29, 2006 [EBook #18938] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT BOOK-COLLECTORS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: The Great Book-Collectors Charles & Mary Elton] + +[Illustration: FABRI DE PEIRESC.] + + + + +The Great Book-Collectors + +By Charles Isaac Elton + +Author of 'Origins of English History' +'The Career of Columbus,' etc. + +& Mary Augusta Elton + +[Illustration] + +London + +Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd. + +MDCCCXCIII + + + + +Contents + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I. +CLASSICAL 1 + +CHAPTER II. +IRELAND--NORTHUMBRIA 13 + +CHAPTER III. +ENGLAND 27 + +CHAPTER IV. +ITALY--THE AGE OF PETRARCH 41 + +CHAPTER V. +OXFORD--DUKE HUMPHREY'S BOOKS--THE LIBRARY OF THE VALOIS 53 + +CHAPTER VI. +ITALY--THE RENAISSANCE 63 + +CHAPTER VII. +ITALIAN CITIES--OLYMPIA MORATA--URBINO--THE BOOKS OF CORVINUS 76 + +CHAPTER VIII. +GERMANY--FLANDERS--BURGUNDY--ENGLAND 87 + +CHAPTER IX. +FRANCE: EARLY BOOKMEN--ROYAL COLLECTORS 99 + +CHAPTER X. +THE OLD ROYAL LIBRARY--FAIRFAX--COTTON--HARLEY--THE + UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 111 + +CHAPTER XI. +BODLEY--DIGBY--LAUD--SELDEN--ASHMOLE 124 + +CHAPTER XII. +GROLIER AND HIS SUCCESSORS 139 + +CHAPTER XIII. +LATER COLLECTORS: FRANCE--ITALY--SPAIN 158 + +CHAPTER XIV. +DE THOU--PINELLI--PEIRESC 169 + +CHAPTER XV. +FRENCH COLLECTORS--NAUDÉ TO RENOUARD 183 + +CHAPTER XVI. +LATER ENGLISH COLLECTORS 202 + +INDEX 221 + + + + +List of Illustrations + + +PORTRAIT OF PEIRESC _Frontispiece_ + (From an engraving by Claude Mellan.) + +INITIAL LETTER FROM THE 'GOSPELS OF ST. CUTHBERT' 18 + +SEAL OF RICHARD DE BURY 38 + +PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE OF BEDFORD PRAYING BEFORE ST. GEORGE 59 + (From the Book of Hours commonly known as the 'Bedford Missal.') + +PORTRAIT OF MAGLIABECCHI 74 + (From an engraving in the British Museum.) + +BINDING EXECUTED FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH 112 + (English jeweller's-work on a cover of red velvet. From a + copy of 'Meditationum Christianarum Libellus,' Lyons, + 1570, in the British Museum.) + +PORTRAIT OF SIR ROBERT COTTON 117 + (From an engraving by R. White after C. Jonson.) + +PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS BODLEY 126 + (From an engraving in the British Museum.) + +BINDING EXECUTED FOR GROLIER 141 + (From a copy of Silius Italicus, Venice, 1523, in the British + Museum.) + +PORTRAIT OF DE THOU 168 + (From an engraving by Morin, after L. Ferdinand.) + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +CLASSICAL. + + +In undertaking to write these few chapters on the lives of the +book-collectors, we feel that we must move between lines that seem +somewhat narrow, having regard to the possible range of the subject. We +shall therefore avoid as much as possible the description of particular +books, and shall endeavour to deal with the book-collector or +book-hunter, as distinguished from the owner of good books, from +librarians and specialists, from the merchant or broker of books and the +book-glutton who wants all that he sees. + +Guillaume Postel and his friends found time to discuss the merits of the +authors before the Flood. Our own age neglects the libraries of Shem, and +casts doubts on the antiquity of the Book of Enoch. But even in writing +the briefest account of the great book-collectors, we are compelled to go +back to somewhat remote times, and to say at least a few words about the +ancient book-stories from the far East, from Greece and Rome, from Egypt +and Pontus and Asia. We have seen the brick-libraries of Nineveh and the +copies for the King at Babylon, and we have heard of the rolls of +Ecbatana. All the world knows how Nehemiah 'founded a library,' and how +the brave Maccabæus gathered again what had been lost by reason of the +wars. Every desert in the East seems to have held a library, where the +pillars of some temple lie in the sand, and where dead men 'hang their +mute thoughts on the mute walls around.' The Egyptian traveller sees the +site of the book-room of Rameses that was called the 'Hospital for the +Soul.' There was a library at the breast of the Sphinx, and another where +Cairo stands, and one at Alexandria that was burned in Julius Cæsar's +siege, besides the later assemblage in the House of Serapis which Omar +was said to have sacrificed as a tribute of respect for the Koran. + +Asia Minor was celebrated for her libraries. There were 'many curious +books' in Ephesus, and rich stores of books at Antioch on the Orontes, +and where the gray-capped students 'chattered like water-fowl' by the +river at Tarsus. In Pergamus they made the fine parchment like ivory, +beloved, as an enemy has said, by 'yellow bibliomaniacs whose skins take +the colour of their food'; and there the wealthy race of Attalus built up +the royal collection which Antony captured in war and sent as a gift to +Cleopatra. + +It pleased the Greeks to invent traditions about the books of Polycrates +at Samos, or those of Pisistratus that were counted among the spoils of +Xerxes: and the Athenians thought that the very same volumes found their +way home again after the victories of Alexander the Great. Aristotle +owned the first private library of which anything is actually recorded; +and it is still a matter of interest to follow the fortunes of his books. +He left them as a legacy to a pupil, who bequeathed them to his librarian +Neleus: and his family long preserved the collection in their home near +the ruins of Troy. One portion was bought by the Ptolemies for their +great Alexandrian library, and these books, we suppose, must have +perished in the war with Rome. The rest remained at home till there was +some fear of their being confiscated and carried to Pergamus. They were +removed in haste and stowed away in a cave, where they nearly perished in +the damp. When the parchments were disinterred they became the property +of Apellicon, to whom the saying was first applied that he was 'rather a +bibliophile than a lover of learning.' While the collection was at Athens +he did much damage to the scrolls by his attempt to restore their +worm-eaten paragraphs. Sulla took the city soon afterwards, and carried +the books to Rome, and here more damage was done by the careless editing +of Tyrannion, who made a trade of copying 'Aristotle's books' for the +libraries that were rising on all sides at Rome. + +The Romans learned to be book-collectors in gathering the spoils of war. +When Carthage fell, the books, as some say, were given to native +chieftains, the predecessors of King Jugurtha in culture and of King Juba +in natural science: others say that they were awarded as a kind of +compensation to the family of the murdered Regulus. Their preservation is +attested by the fact that the Carthaginian texts were cited centuries +afterwards by the writers who described the most ancient voyages in the +Atlantic. When the unhappy Perseus was deprived of the kingdom of +Macedonia, the royal library was chosen by Æmilius Paullus as the +general's share of the plunder. Asinius Pollio furnished a great +reading-room with the literary treasures of Dalmatia. A public library +was established by Julius Cæsar on the Aventine, and two were set up by +Augustus within the precinct of the palace of the Cæsars; and Octavia +built another near the Tiber in memory of the young Marcellus. The gloomy +Domitian restored the library at the Capitol, which had been struck and +fired by lightning. Trajan ransacked the wealth of the world for his +collection in the 'Ulpiana,' which, in accordance with a later fashion, +became one of the principal attractions of the Thermæ of Diocletian. + +The splendours of the private library began in the days of Lucullus. +Enriched with the treasure of King Mithridates and all the books of +Pontus, he housed his collection in such stately galleries, thronged with +a multitude of philosophers and poets, that it seemed as if there were a +new home for the Muses, and a fresh sanctuary for Hellas. Seneca, a +philosopher and a millionaire himself, inveighed against such useless +pomp. He used to rejoice at the blow that fell on the arrogant +magnificence of Alexandria. 'Our idle book-hunters,' he said, 'know about +nothing but titles and bindings: their chests of cedar and ivory, and the +book-cases that fill the bath-room, are nothing but fashionable +furniture, and have nothing to do with learning.' Lucian was quite as +severe on the book-hunters of the age of the Antonines. The bibliophile +goes book in hand, like the statue of Bellerophon with the letter, but he +only cares for the choice vellum and bosses of gold. 'I cannot conceive,' +said Lucian, 'what you expect to get out of your books; yet you are +always poring over them, and binding and tying them, and rubbing them +with saffron and oil of cedar, as if they could make you eloquent, when +by nature you are as dumb as a fish.' He compares the industrious dunce +to an ass at a music-book, or to a monkey that remains a monkey still for +all the gold on its jacket. 'If books,' he adds, 'have made you what you +are, I am sure that you ought of all things to avoid them.' + +After the building of Constantinople a home for literature was found in +the eastern cities; and, as the boundaries of the empire were broken down +by the Saracen advance, learning gradually retired to the colleges and +basilicas of the capital, and to the Greek monasteries of stony Athos, +and Patmos, and the 'green Erebinthus.' Among the Romans of the East we +cannot discern many learned men, but we know that there was a multitude +ready to assist in the preservation of learning. The figures of three or +four true book-lovers stand out amid the crowd of _dilettanti_. St. +Pamphilus was a student at the legal University of Beyrout before he was +received into the Church: he devoted himself afterwards to the school of +sacred learning which he established at Cæsarea in Palestine. Here he +gathered together about 30,000 volumes, almost all consisting of the +works of the Fathers. His personal labour was given to the works of +Origen, in whose mystical doctrine he had become a proficient at +Alexandria. The martyrdom of Pamphilus prevented the completion of his +own elaborate commentaries. He left the library to the Church of Cæsarea, +under the superintendence of his friend Eusebius. St. Jerome paid a visit +to the collection while he was still enrolled on the list of +bibliophiles. He had bought the best books to be found at Trêves and +Aquileia; he had seen the wealth of Rome, and was on his way to the +oriental splendour of Constantinople: it is from him that we first hear +of the gold and silver inks and the Tyrian purple of the vellum. He +declared that he had never seen anything to compare with the library of +Pamphilus; and when he was given twenty-five volumes of Origen in the +martyr's delicate writing, he vowed that he felt richer than if he had +found the wealth of Croesus. + +The Emperor Julian was a pupil of Eusebius, and became reader for a time +in the Church at Cæsarea. He was passionately fond of books, and +possessed libraries at Antioch and Constantinople, as well as in his +beloved 'Lutetia' on the island in the Seine. A sentence from one of his +letters was carved over the door of his library at Antioch: 'Some love +horses, or hawks and hounds, but I from my boyhood have pined with a +desire for books.' + +It is said that another of his libraries was burned by his successor +Jovian in a parody of Alexander's Feast. It is true, at any rate, that +the book-butcher set fire to the books at Antioch as part of his revenge +against the Apostate. One is tempted to dwell on the story of these +massacres. In many a war, as an ancient bibliophile complained, have +books been dispersed abroad, 'dismembered, stabbed, and mutilated': 'they +were buried in the earth or drowned in the sea, and slain by all kinds of +slaughter.' 'How much of their blood the warlike Scipio shed: how many on +the banishment of Boethius were scattered like sheep without a shepherd!' +Perhaps the subject should be isolated in a separate volume, where the +rude Omar, and Jovian, and the despoilers of the monasteries, might be +pilloried. Seneca would be indicted for his insult to Cleopatra's books: +Sir Thomas Browne might be in danger for his saying, that 'he could with +patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could he with a few +others recover the perished leaves of Solomon.' He might escape by virtue +of his saving clause, and some excuse would naturally be found for +Seneca; but the rest might be treated like those Genoese criminals who +were commemorated on marble tablets as 'the worst of mankind.' + +For several generations after the establishment of the Eastern Empire, +Constantinople was the literary capital of the world and the main +repository of the arts and sciences. Mr. Middleton has lately shown us in +his work upon Illuminated Manuscripts that Persia and Egypt, as well as +the Western Countries, 'contributed elements both of design and technical +skill which combined to create the new school of Byzantine art.' +Constantinople, he tells us, became for several centuries the main centre +for the production of manuscripts. Outside the domain of art we find +little among the Romans of the East that can in any sense be called +original. They were excellent at an epitome or a lexicon, and were very +successful as librarians. The treasures of antiquity, as Gibbon has said, +were imparted in such extracts and abridgments 'as might amuse the +curiosity without oppressing the indolence of the public.' The Patriarch +Photius stands out as a literary hero among the commentators and critics +of the ninth century. That famous book-collector, in analysing the +contents of his library for an absent brother, became the preserver of +many of the most valuable classics. As Commander of the Guard he led the +life of a peaceful student: as Patriarch of Byzantium his turbulence rent +the fabric of Christendom, and he was 'alternately excommunicated and +absolved by the synods of the East and West.' We owe the publication of +the work called _The Myriad of Books_ to the circumstance that he was +appointed to an embassy at Bagdad. His brother wrote to remind him of +their pleasant evenings in the library when they explored the writings of +the ancients and made an analysis of their contents. Photius was about to +embark on a dangerous journey, and he was implored to leave a record of +what had been done since his brother had last taken part in the readings. +The answer of Photius was the book already mentioned: he reviews nearly +three hundred volumes of the historians and orators, the philosophers and +theologians, the travellers and the writers of romance, and with an even +facility 'abridges their narrative or doctrine and appreciates their +style and character.' + +The great Imperial library which stood by St. Sophia had been destroyed +in the reign of Leo the Iconoclast in the preceding age, and in an +earlier conflagration more than half a million books are said to have +been lost from the basilica. The losses by fire were continual, but were +constantly repaired. Leo the Philosopher, who was educated under the care +of Photius, and his son and successor Constantine, were renowned as the +restorers of learning, and the great writers of antiquity were collected +again by their zeal in the square hall near the Public Treasury. + +The boundaries of the realm of learning extended far beyond the limits of +the Empire, and the Arabian science was equally famous among the Moors +of Spain and in the further parts of Asia. We are told of a doctor +refusing the invitation of the Sultan of Bokhara, 'because the carriage +of his books would have required four hundred camels.' We know that the +Ommiad dynasty formed the gigantic library at Cordova, and that there +were at least seventy others in the colleges that were scattered through +the kingdom of Granada. The prospect was very dark in other parts of +Western Europe throughout the whole period of barbarian settlement. We +shall not endeavour to trace the slight influences that preserved some +knowledge of religious books at the Court of the Merovingian kings, or +among the Visigoths and Ostrogoths and Burgundians. We prefer to pause at +a moment preceding the final onslaught. The letters of Sidonius afford us +a few glimpses of the literary condition of Southern Gaul soon after the +invasion of Attila. The Bishop of Clermont gives us a delightful picture +of his house: a verandah leads from the _atrium_ to the garden by the +lake: we pass through a winter-parlour, a morning-room, and a +north-parlour protected from the heat. Every detail seems to be complete; +and yet we hear nothing of a library. The explanation seems to be that +the Bishop was a close imitator of Pliny. The villa in Auvergne is a copy +of the winter-refuge at Laurentum, where Pliny only kept 'a few cases +contrived in the wall for the books that cannot be read too often.' But +when the Bishop writes about his friends' houses we find many allusions +to their libraries. Consentius sits in a large book-room when he is +composing his verses or 'culling the flowers of his music.' When he +visited the Prefect of Gaul, Sidonius declared that he was whirled along +in a stream of delights. There were all kinds of out-door amusements and +a library filled with books. 'You would fancy yourself among a +Professor's book-cases, or in a book-shop, or amid the benches of a +lecture-room.' The Bishop considered that this library of the Villa +Prusiana was as good as anything that could be found in Rome or +Alexandria. The books were arranged according to subjects. The room had a +'ladies' side'; and here were arranged the devotional works. The +illuminated volumes, as far as can now be judged, were rather gaudy than +brilliant, as was natural in an age of decadence; but St. Germanus was a +friend of the Bishop, and as we suppose of the Prefect, and his copy of +the Gospels was in gold and silver letters on purple vellum, as may still +be seen. By the gentlemen's seats were ranged the usual classical +volumes, all the works of Varro, which now exist only in fragments, and +the poets sacred and profane; behind certain cross-benches was the +literary food of a lighter kind, more suited to the weaker vessels +without regard to sex. Here every one found what would suit his own +liking and capacity, and here on the day after their arrival the company +worked hard after breakfast 'for four hours by the water clock.' Suddenly +the door was thrown open, and in his uniform the head cook appeared and +solemnly warned them all that their meal was served, and that it was as +necessary to nourish the body as to stuff the mind with learning. + +When the barbarians were established through Gaul and Italy the libraries +in the old country-houses must have been completely destroyed. Some faint +light of learning remained while Boethius 'trimmed the lamp with his +skilful hand'; some knowledge of the classics survived during the lives +of Cassiodorus and Isidore of Seville. Some of the original splendour may +have lingered at Rome, and perhaps in Ravenna. When Boethius was awaiting +his doom in the tower at Pavia, his mind reverted to the lettered ease of +his life before he had offended the fierce Theodoric. His philosophy +found comfort in thinking that all the valuable part of his books was +firmly imprinted on his soul; but he never ceased regretting the walls +inlaid with ivory and the shining painted windows in his old library at +Rome. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +IRELAND--NORTHUMBRIA. + + +The knowledge of books might almost have disappeared in the seventh +century, when the cloud of ignorance was darkest, but for a new and +remarkable development of learning in the Irish monasteries. + +This development is of special interest to ourselves from the fact that +the church of Northumbria was long dependent on the Irish settlement at +Iona. The Anglians taught by Paulinus very soon relapsed into paganism, +and the second conversion of the North was due to the missionaries of the +school of St. Columba. The power of Rome was established at the Council +of Whitby; but in the days when Aidan preached at Lindisfarne the +Northumbrians were still in obedience to an Irish rule, and were +instructed and edified by the acts and lives of St. Patrick, of St. +Brigit, and the mighty Columba. + +We shall quote some of the incidents recorded about the Irish books, a +few legends of Patrick and dim traditions from the days of Columba, +before noticing the rise of the English school. + +The first mention of the Irish books seems to be contained in a passage +of Æthicus. The cosmography ascribed to that name has been traced to +very early times. It was long believed to have been written by St. +Jerome; but in its present form, at least, the work contains entries of a +much later date. The passage in which Ireland is mentioned may be even as +late as the age of Columbanus, when Irish monks set up their churches at +Würzburg and on the shores of the Lake of Constance, or illuminated their +manuscripts at Bobbio under the protection of Theodolind and her +successors in Lombardy. A wandering philosopher is represented as +visiting the northern regions: he remained for a while in the Isle of +Saints and turned over the painted volumes; but he despised the native +churchmen and called them 'Doctors of Ignorance.' 'Here am I in Ireland, +at the world's end, with much toil and little ease; with such unskilled +labourers in the field the place is too doleful, and is absolutely of no +good to me.' + +Palladius came with twelve men to preach to the Gael, and we are told +that he 'left his books' at Cellfine. The legendary St. Patrick is made +to pass into Ulster, and he finds a King who burns himself and his home +'that he may not believe in Patrick.' The Saint proceeds to Tara with +eight men and a little page carrying the book-wallet; 'it was like eight +deer with one fawn following, and a white bird on its shoulder.' + +The King and his chief Druid proposed a trial by ordeal. The King said, +'Put your books into the water.' 'I am ready for that,' said Patrick. But +the Druid said, 'A god of water this man adores, and I will not take +part in the ordeal.' The King said, 'Put your books into the fire.' 'I am +ready for that,' said Patrick. 'A god of fire once in two years this man +adores, and I will not do that,' said the Druid. + +In the church by the oak-tree at Kildare St. Brigit had a marvellous +book, or so her nuns supposed. The Kildare Gospels may have been +illuminated as early as Columba's time. Gerard de Barri saw the book in +the year 1185, and said that it was so brilliant in colouring, so +delicate and finely drawn, and with such enlacements of intertwining +lines that it seemed to be a work beyond the powers of mortal man, and to +be worthy of an angel's skill; and, indeed, there was a strong belief +that miraculous help had been given to the artist in his dreams. + +The 'Book of Durrow' called _The Gospels of St. Columba_, almost rivals +the famous 'Book of Kells' with which Mr. Madan will doubtless deal in +his forthcoming volume on Manuscripts. A native poet declared that when +the Saint died in 597 he had illuminated 'three hundred bright noble +books'; and he added that 'however long under water any book of the +Saint's writing should be, not one single letter would be drowned.' Our +authorities tell us that the Book of Durrow might possibly be one of the +three hundred, 'as it bears some signs of being earlier in date than the +Book of Kells.' + +St. Columba, men said, was passionately devoted to books. Yet he gave his +Gospels to the Church at Swords, and presented the congregation at Derry +with the volume that he had fetched from Tours, 'where it had lain on St. +Martin's breast a hundred years in the ground.' In one of the biographies +there is a story about 'Langarad of the White Legs,' who dwelt in the +region of Ossory. To him Columba came as a guest, and found that the sage +was hiding all his books away. Then Columba left his curse upon them; +'May that,' quoth he, 'about which thou art so niggardly be never of any +profit after thee'; and this was fulfilled, 'for the books remain to this +day, and no man reads them.' When Langarad died 'all the book-satchels in +Ireland that night fell down'; some say, 'all the satchels and wallets in +the saint's house fell then: and Columba and all who were in his house +marvelled at the noisy shaking of the books.' So then speaks Columba: +'Langarad in Ossory,' quoth he, 'is just now dead.' 'Long may it be ere +that happens,' said Baithen. 'May the burden of that disbelief fall on +him and not on thee,' said Columba. + +Another tradition relates to St. Finnen's book that caused a famous +battle; and that was because of a false judgment which King Diarmid gave +against Columba, when he copied St. Finnen's Psalter without leave. St. +Finnen claimed the copy as being the produce of his original, and on the +appeal to the court at Tara his claim was confirmed. King Diarmid decided +that to every mother-book belongs the child-book, as to the cow belongs +her calf; 'and so,' said the King, 'the book that you wrote, Columba, +belongs to Finnen by right.' 'That is an unjust judgment,' said Columba, +'and I will avenge it upon you.' + +Not long afterwards the Saint was insulted by the seizure and execution +of an offender who had taken sanctuary and was clasped in his arms. +Columba went over the wild mountains and raised the tribes of Tyrconnell +and Tyrone, and defeated King Diarmid in battle. When the Saint went to +Iona he left the copy of Finnen's Psalter to the head of the chief tribe +in Tyrconnell. It was called the _Book of the Battle_, and if they +carried it three times round the enemy, in the sun's course, they were +sure to return victorious. The book was the property of the O'Donnells +till the dispersion of their clan. The gilt and jewelled case in which it +rests was made in the eleventh century: a frame round the inner shrine +was added by Daniel O'Donnell, who fought in the Battle of the Boyne. A +large fragment of the book remained in a Belgian monastery in trust for +the true representative of the clan; and soon after Waterloo it was given +up to Sir Neal O'Donnell, to whose family it still belongs. It is now +shown at the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. 'The fragment of the +original _Book of the Battle_', says O'Curry, 'is of small quarto form, +consisting of fifty-eight leaves of fine vellum, written in a small, +uniform, but rather hurried hand, with some slight attempts at +illumination.' + +We have now to describe the great increase of books in Northumbria. In +the year 635 Aidan set up his quarters with a few Irish monks on the +Isle of Lindisfarne, and his Abbey soon became one of the main +repositories of learning. + +The book called _The Gospels of St. Cuthbert_ was written in 688, and was +regarded for nearly two centuries as the chief ornament of Lindisfarne. +The monastery was burned by the Danes, and the servants of St. Cuthbert, +who had concealed the 'Gospels' in his grave, wandered forth, with the +Saint's body in an ark and the book in its chest, in search of a new +place of refuge. They attempted a voyage to Ireland, but their ship was +driven back by a storm. The book-chest had been washed overboard, but in +passing up the Solway Firth they saw the book shining in its golden cover +upon the sand. For more than a century afterwards the book shared the +fortunes of a wandering company of monks: in the year 995 it was laid on +St. Cuthbert's coffin in the new church at Durham; early in the twelfth +century it returned to Lindisfarne. Here it remained until the +dissolution of the monasteries, when its golden covers were torn off, and +the book came bare and unadorned into the hands of Sir Robert Cotton, and +passed with the rest of his treasures into the library of the British +Museum. + +[Illustration: INITIAL LETTER FROM THE GOSPELS OF ST. CUTHBERT.] + +Theodore of Tarsus had been consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in the +year 669. He brought with him a large quantity of books for use in his +new Greek school. These books were left by his will to the cathedral +library, where they remained for ages without disturbance. William +Lambarde, the Kentish antiquary, has left an account of their appearance. +He was speaking of Archbishop Parker, 'whose care for the conservation of +ancient monuments can never be sufficiently commended.' 'The reverend +Father,' he added, 'showed me the _Psalter of David_, and sundry homilies +in Greek, and Hebrew also, and some other Greek authors, beautifully +written on thick paper with the name of this Theodore prefixed,' to whose +library the Archbishop thought that they had belonged, 'being thereto led +by a show of great antiquity.' + +The monks of Canterbury claimed to possess the books on pink vellum, with +rubricated capitals, which Pope Gregory had sent to Augustine. One of +these afterwards belonged to Parker, who gave it to Corpus Christi at +Cambridge: the experts now believe that it was written in the eighth +century 'in spite of the ancient appearance of the figure-painting.' +Another is the _Psalter of St. Augustine_, now preserved among the +Cottonian MSS. This is also considered to be a writing of the eighth +century. + +In the Bodleian library there is a third example, written in quarto with +large uncial letters in double columns, in much the same style as the +book given by Parker to Corpus Christi. The Bodleian specimen is +especially interesting as containing on the fly-leaf a list in +Anglo-Saxon of the contents of the library of Solomon the Priest, with +notes as to other small collections. + +We have reached the period in which Northumbria became for a time the +centre of Western culture. The supremacy of Rome, set up at the Council +of Whitby, was fostered and sustained by the introduction of the Italian +arts. Vast quantities of books were imported. Stately Abbeys were rising +along the coast, and students were flocking to seek the fruits of the new +learning in well-filled libraries and bustling schools. We may judge how +bright the prospect seemed by the tone of Alcuin's letters to Charles the +Great. He tells the Emperor of certain 'exquisite books' which he had +studied under Egbert at York. The schools of the North are compared to 'a +garden enclosed' and to the beds of spices: he asks that some of the +young men may be sent over to procure books, so that in Tours as well as +at York they may gather the flowers of the garden and share in the +'outgoings of Paradise.' A few years afterwards came the news of the +harrying of Northumbria by the Vikings. The libraries were burned, and +Northumbria was overwhelmed in darkness and slavery; and Alcuin wrote +again, 'He who can hear of this calamity and not cry to God on behalf of +his country, must have a heart not of flesh but of stone.' + +Benedict Biscop was our first English book-collector. The son of a rich +Thane might have looked to a political career; he preferred to devote +himself to learning, and would have spent his life in a Roman monastery +if the Pope had not ordered him to return to England in company with +Theodore of Tarsus. His first expedition was made with his friend St. +Wilfrid. They crossed in a ship provided by the King of Kent. Travelling +together as far as Lyons, Wilfrid remained there for a time, and Benedict +pushed on to Mont Cenis, and so to Rome, after a long and perilous +journey. On a second visit he received the tonsure, and went back to work +at Lindisfarne; but about two years afterwards he obtained a passage to +Italy in a trading-vessel, and it was on this occasion that he received +the Pope's commands. Four years elapsed before he was in Rome again: +throughout the year 671 he was amassing books by purchase and by the +gifts of his friends; and returning by Vienne he found another large +store awaiting him which he had ordered on his outward journey. Benedict +was able to set up a good library in his new Abbey at Wearmouth; but his +zeal appears to have been insatiable. We find him for the fifth time at +the mart of learning, and bringing home, as Bede has told us, 'a +multitude of books of all kinds.' He divided his new wealth between the +Church at Wearmouth and the Abbey at Jarrow, across the river. Ceolfrid +of Jarrow himself made a journey to Rome with the object of augmenting +Benedict's 'most noble and copious store'; but he gave to the King of +Northumbria, in exchange for a large landed estate, the magnificent +'Cosmography' which his predecessor had brought to Wearmouth. + +St. Wilfrid presented to his church at Ripon a _Book of the Gospels_ on +purple vellum, and a Bible with covers of pure gold inlaid with precious +stones. John the Precentor, who introduced the Roman liturgy into this +country, bequeathed a number of valuable books to Wearmouth. Bede had no +great library of his own; it was his task 'to disseminate the treasures +of Benedict.' But he must have possessed a large number of manuscripts +while he was writing the Ecclesiastical History, since he has informed us +that Bishop Daniel of Winchester and other learned churchmen in the South +were accustomed to supply him constantly with records and chronicles. + +St. Boniface may be counted among the collectors, though he could carry +but a modest supply of books through the German forests and the marshes +of Friesland. As a missionary he found it useful to display a +finely-painted volume. Writing to the Abbess Eadburga for a Missal, he +asked that the parchment might be gay with colours,--'even as a +glittering lamp and an illumination for the hearts of the Gentiles.' 'I +entreat you,' he writes again, 'to send me _St. Peters Epistle_ in +letters of gold.' He begged all his friends to send him books as a +refreshment in the wilderness. Bishop Daniel is asked for the +_Prophecies_ 'written very large.' Bishop Lulla is to send a cosmography +and a volume of poems. He applies to one Archbishop for the works of +Bede, 'who is the lamp of the Church,' and to the other for the Pope's +_Answers to Augustine_, which cannot be found in the Roman bookshops. +Boniface was Primate of Germany; but he resigned his high office to work +among the rude tribes of Friesland. We learn that he carried some of his +choicest books with him on his last ill-fated expedition, when the meadow +and the river-banks were strewn with the glittering service-books after +the murder of the Saint and his companions. + +Egbert of York set up a large library in the Minster. Alcuin took charge +of it after his friend's death, and composed a versified catalogue, of +such merit as the nature of the task allowed. 'Here you may trace the +footsteps of the Fathers; here you meet the clear-souled Aristotle and +Tully of the mighty tongue; here Basil and Fulgentius shine, and +Cassiodorus and John of the Golden Mouth.' As Alcuin was returning from +book-buying at Rome he met Charles the Great at Parma. The Emperor +persuaded the traveller to enter his service, and they succeeded by their +joint efforts in producing a wonderful revival of literature. The Emperor +had a fine private collection of MSS. adorned in the Anglo-Frankish +style; and he established a public library, containing the works of the +Fathers, 'so that the poorest student might find a place at the banquet +of learning.' Alcuin presented to the Emperor's own collection a revised +copy of the Vulgate illuminated under his personal supervision. + +Towards the end of Alcuin's career he retired to the Abbey of St. Martin +at Tours, and there founded his 'Museum,' which was in fact a large +establishment for the editing and transcription of books. Here he wrote +those delightful letters from which we have already made an extract. To +his friend Arno at Salzburg he writes about a little treatise on +orthography, which he would have liked to have recited in person. 'Oh +that I could turn the sentences into speech, and embrace my brother with +a warmth that cannot be sent in a book; but since I cannot come myself I +send my rough letters, that they may speak for me instead of the words of +my mouth.' To the Emperor he sent a description of his life at Tours: 'In +the house of St. Martin I deal out the honey of the Scriptures, and some +I excite with the ancient wine of wisdom, and others I fill full with the +fruits of grammatical learning.' + +Very few book-lovers could be found in England while the country was +being ravaged by the Danes. The Northern Abbeys were burned, and their +libraries destroyed. The books at York perished, though the Minster was +saved; the same fate befell the valuable collections at Croyland and +Peterborough. The royal library at Stockholm contains the interesting +'Golden Gospels,' decorated in the same style as the _Book of +Lindisfarne_, and perhaps written at the same place. An inscription of +the ninth century shows that it was bought from a crew of pirates by Duke +Alfred, a nobleman of Wessex, and was presented by him and his wife +Werburga to the Church at Canterbury. + +It seems possible that literature was kept alive in our country by King +Alfred's affection for the old English songs. We know that he used to +recite them himself and would make his children get them by heart. He was +not much of a scholar himself, but he had all the learning of Mercia to +help him. Archbishop Plegmund and his chaplains were the King's +secretaries, 'and night and day, whenever he had time, he commanded these +men to read to him.' From France came Provost Grimbald, a scholar and a +sweet singer, and Brother John of Corbei, a paragon in all kinds of +science. Asser came to the Court from his home in Wales: 'I remained +there,' he says, 'for about eight months, and all that time I used to +read to him whatever books were at hand; for it was his regular habit by +day and night, amidst all his other occupations, either to read to +himself or to listen while others read to him.' St. Dunstan was an ardent +admirer of the old battle-chaunts and funeral-lays. He was, it need +hardly be said, the friend of all kinds of learning. The Saint was an +expert scribe and a painter of miniatures; and specimens of his exquisite +handiwork may still be seen at Canterbury and in the Bodleian at Oxford. +He was the real founder of the Glastonbury library, where before his time +only a few books had been presented by missionaries from Ireland. His +great work was the establishment of the Benedictines in the place of the +regular clergy: and the reform at any rate insured the rise of a number +of new monasteries, each with its busy 'scriptorium,' out of which the +library would grow. We must say a word in remembrance of Archbishop +Ælfric, the author of a great part of our English Chronicle. He was +trained at Winchester, where the illuminators, it is said, were 'for a +while the foremost in the world.' He enacted that every priest should +have at least a psalter and hymn-book and half a dozen of the most +important service-books, before he could hope for ordination. His own +library, containing many works of great value, was bequeathed to the +Abbey of St. Alban's. We end the story of the Anglo-Saxon books with a +mention of Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter, who gave a magnificent +donation out of his own library to the Cathedral Church. The catalogue is +still extant, and some of the volumes are preserved at Oxford. There were +many devotional works of the ordinary kind; there were 'reading-books for +winter and summer,' and song-books, and especially 'night-songs'; but the +greatest treasure of all was the 'great book of English poetry,' known as +the Exeter Book, in which Cynewulf sang of the ruin of the 'purple arch,' +and set forth the Exile's Lament and the Traveller's Song. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ENGLAND. + + +A more austere kind of learning came in with the Norman Conquest. +Lanfranc and Anselm introduced at Canterbury a devotion to science, to +the doctrines of theology and jurisprudence, and to the new discoveries +which Norman travellers were bringing back from the schools at Salerno. +Lanfranc imported a large quantity of books from the Continent. He would +labour day and night at correcting the work of his scribes; and Anselm, +when he succeeded to the See, used often to deprive himself of rest to +finish the transcription of a manuscript. Lanfranc, we are told, was +especially generous in lending his books: among a set which he sent to +St. Alban's we find the names of twenty-eight famous treatises, besides a +large number of missals and other service-books, and two 'Books of the +Gospels,' bound in silver and gold, and ornamented with valuable jewels. + +A historian of our own time has said that England in the twelfth century +was the paradise of scholars. Dr. Stubbs imagined a foreign student +making a tour through the country and endeavouring to ascertain its +proper place in the literary world. He would have seen a huge multitude +of books, and 'such a supply of readers and writers' as could not have +been found elsewhere, except perhaps in the University of Paris. +Canterbury was a great literary centre. At Winchester there was a whole +school of historians; at Lincoln he might listen to Walter Map or learn +at the feet of St. Hugh. 'Nothing is more curious than the literary +activity going on in the monasteries; manuscripts are copied; luxurious +editions are recopied and illuminated; there is no lack of generosity in +lending or of boldness in borrowing; there is brisk competition and open +rivalry.' + +The Benedictines were ever the pioneers of learning: the regular clergy +were still the friends of their books, and 'delighted in their communion +with them,' as the Philobiblon phrased it. We gather from the same source +the lamentation of the books in the evil times that followed. The books +complain that they are cast from their shelves into dark corners, ragged +and shivering, and bereft of the cushions which propped up their sides. +'Our vesture is torn off by violent hands, so that our souls cleave to +the ground, and our glory is laid in the dust.' The old-fashioned clergy +had been accustomed to treat religious books with reverence, and would +copy them out most carefully in the intervals of the canonical hours. The +monks used to give even their time of rest to the decoration of the +volumes which added a splendour to their monasteries. But now, it is +complained, the Regulars even reject their own rule that books are to be +asked for every day. They carry bows and arrows, or sword and buckler, +and play at dice and draughts, and give no alms except to their dogs. +'Our places are taken by hawks and hounds, or by that strange creature, +woman, from whom we taught our pupils to flee as from an asp or basilisk. +This creature, ever jealous and implacable, spies us out in a corner +hiding behind some ancient cabinet, and she wrinkles her forehead and +laughs us to scorn, and points to us as the only rubbish in the house; +and she complains that we are totally useless, and recommends our being +bartered away at once for fine caps and cambrics or silks, for +double-dyed purple stuffs, for woollen and linen and fur.' 'Nay,' they +add, 'we are sold like slaves or left as unredeemed pledges in taverns: +we are given to cruel butchers to be slaughtered like sheep or cattle. +Every tailor, or base mechanic may keep us shut up in his prison.' Worst +of all was the abominable ingratitude that sold the illuminated vellums +to ignorant painters, or to goldsmiths who only wanted these 'sacred +vessels' as receptacles for their sheets of gold-leaf. 'Flocks and +fleeces, crops and herds, gardens and orchards, the wine and the +wine-cup, are the only books and studies of the monks.' They are +reprehended for their banquets and fine clothes and monasteries towering +on high like a castle in its bulwarks: 'For such things as these,' the +supplication continues, 'we, their books, are cast out of their hearts +and regarded as useless lumber, except some few worthless tracts, from +which they still pick out a mixture of rant and nonsense, more to tickle +the ears of their audience than to assuage any hunger of the soul.' + +A great religious revival began with the coming of the Mendicant Friars, +who, according to the celebrated Grostête, 'illumined our whole country +with the light of their preaching and learning.' The Franciscans and +Dominicans reached England in 1224, and were established at Oxford within +two years afterwards, where the Grey Friars of St. Francis soon obtained +as great a predominance as the Dominicans or Black Friars had gained in +the University of Paris. St. Francis himself had set his face against +literature. Professor Brewer pointed out in the _Monumenta Franciscana_ +that his followers were expected to be poor in heart and understanding: +'total absolute poverty secured this, but it was incompatible with the +possession of books or the necessary materials for study.' Even Roger +Bacon, when he joined the Friars, was forbidden to retain his books and +instruments, and was not allowed to touch ink or parchment without a +special licence from the Pope. We may quote one or two of the anecdotes +about the Saint. A brother was arguing with him on the text 'Take nothing +with you on the way,' and asked if it meant 'absolutely nothing'; +'Nothing,' said the Saint, 'except the frock allowed by our rule, and, if +indispensable, a pair of shoes.' 'What am I to do?' said the brother: 'I +have books of my own,' naming a value of many pounds of silver. 'I will +not, I ought not, I cannot allow it,' was the reply. A novice applied to +St. Francis for leave to possess a psalter: but the Saint said, 'When +you have got a psalter, then you'll want a breviary, and when you have +got a breviary you will sit in a chair as great as a lord, and will say +to some brother, Friar! go and fetch me my breviary!' And he laid ashes +on his head, and repeated, 'I am your breviary! I am your breviary!' till +the novice was dumbfounded and amazed; and then again the Saint said that +he also had once been tempted to possess books, and he almost yielded to +the request, but decided in the end that such yielding would be sinful. +He hoped that the day would come when men would throw their books out of +the window as rubbish. + +A curious change took place when the Mendicants got control of the +schools. It was absolutely necessary that they should be the devourers of +books if they were to become the monopolists of learning. In the century +following their arrival, Fitz-Ralph, the Archbishop of Armagh, complained +that his chaplains could not buy any books at Oxford, because they were +all snapped up by the men of the cord and cowl: 'Every brother who keeps +a school has a huge collection, and in each Convent of Freres is a great +and noble library.' The Grey Friars certainly had two houses full of +books in School Street, and their brothers in London had a good library, +which was in later times increased and richly endowed by Sir Richard +Whittington, the book-loving Lord Mayor of London. + +There were some complaints that the Friars cared too much for the +contents and too little for the condition of their volumes. The +Carmelites, who arrived in England after the two greater Orders, had the +reputation of being careful librarians, 'anxiously protecting their books +against dust and worms,' and ranging the manuscripts in their large room +at Oxford at first in chests and afterwards in book-cases. The +Franciscans were too ready to give and sell, to lend and spend, the +volumes that they were so keen to acquire. A Dominican was always drawn +with a book in his hand; but he would care nothing for it, if it +contained no secrets of science. Richard de Bury had much to say about +the Friars in that treatise on the love of books, 'which he fondly named +Philobiblon,' being a commendation of Wisdom and of the books wherein she +dwells. The Friars, he said, had preserved the ancient stores of +learning, and were always ready to procure the last sermon from Rome or +the newest pamphlet from Oxford. When he visited their houses in the +country-towns, and turned out their chests and book-shelves, he found +such wealth as might have lain in kings' treasuries; 'in those cupboards +and baskets are not merely the crumbs that fall from the table, but the +shew-bread which is angel's food, and corn from Egypt and the choicest +gilts of Sheba.' He gives the highest praise to the Preachers or Friars +of the Dominican Order, as being most open and ungrudging, 'and +overflowing with a with a kind of divine liberality.' But both Preachers +and Minorites, or Grey Friars, had been his pupils, his friends and +guests in his family, and they had always applied themselves with +unwearied zeal to the task of editing, indexing, and cataloguing the +volumes in the library. 'These men,' he cries, 'are the successors of +Bezaleel and the embroiderers of the ephod and breast-plate: these are +the husbandmen that sow, and the oxen that tread out the corn: they are +the blowers of the trumpets: they are the shining Pleiades and the stars +in their courses.' + +Brother Agnellus of Pisa was the first Franciscan missionary at Oxford, +and the first Minister of the Order in this county. He set up a school +for poor students, at which Bishop Grostête was the first reader or +master; but we are told that he afterwards felt great regret when he +found his Friars bestowing their time upon frivolous learning. 'One day, +when he wished to see what proficiency they were making, he entered the +school while a disputation was going on, and they were wrangling and +debating about the existence of the Deity. "Woe is me! Woe is me!" he +burst forth: "the simple brethren are entering heaven, and the learned +ones are debating if there be one"; and he sent at once a sum of £10 +sterling to the Court to buy a copy of the Decretals, that the Friars +might study them and give over their frivolities.' The great difficulty +was to prevent the brethren from studying the doctrine of Aristotle, as +it was to be found in vile Latin translations, instead of attending to +Grostête, who was said to know 'a hundred thousand times more than +Aristotle' on all his subjects. Grostête himself spent very large sums +in importing Greek books. In this he was helped by John Basingstoke, who +had himself studied at Athens, and who taught the Greek language to +several of the monks at St. Alban's. Grostête upheld the eastern +doctrines against the teaching of the Papal Court, and indeed was +nicknamed 'the hammerer of the Romans.' He based many of his statements +upon books which he valued as his choicest possessions; but some of them, +such as the _Testament of the Patriarchs_ and the _Decretals of +Dionysius_ are now admitted to be forgeries. On Grostête's death in 1253 +he bequeathed his library, rich in marginal commentaries and annotations, +to the Friars for whom he had worked before he became Bishop and +Chancellor. Some generations afterwards their successors sold many of the +books to Dr. Gascoigne, who used to work on them at the Minorites' +Library: and some of those which he bought found their way to the +libraries of Balliol, Oriel, and Lincoln; the main body of Grostête's +books was gradually dispersed by gifts and sales, and dwindled down to +little or nothing; so that, when Leland paid his official visit after the +suppression of the monasteries, he found very few books of any kind, but +plenty of dust and cobwebs, 'and moths and beetles swarming over the +empty shelves.' + +It has been said that Richard de Bury had not much depth of learning; and +it has been a favourite theory for many years that his book might have +been written for him by his secretary, the Dominican Robert Holkot. The +matter is not very important, since it is certain, in spite of ancient +and modern detractors, that Richard de Bury or 'Aungerville' was a most +ardent bibliophile and a very devoted attendant in the 'Library of +Wisdom.' He was the son of Sir Richard Aungerville, a knight of Suffolk; +but in accordance with a fashion of the day he was usually called after +his birthplace. He was born at Bury St. Edmunds in the year 1287: he was +educated at Oxford, and afterwards took a prominent part in the civil +troubles, taking the side of Queen Isabel and Edward of Windsor against +the unfortunate Edward II. He was appointed tutor to the Prince, and soon +afterwards became the receiver of his revenues in Wales. When the Queen +fled to her own country, Richard followed with a large sum of money, +collected by virtue of his office; and he had a narrow escape for his +life, being chased by a troop of English lancers as far as Paris itself, +where he lay concealed for a week in the belfry of the Minorites' Church. +When his pupil came to the throne many lucrative offices were showered on +his faithful friend. Richard became Cofferer and Treasurer of the +Wardrobe, and for five years was Clerk of the Privy Seal; and during that +period he was twice sent as ambassador to the Pope at Avignon, where he +had the honour of becoming the friend of Petrarch. + +The poet has himself described his meeting with the Englishman travelling +in such splendid fashion to lay before his Holiness his master's claims +upon France. 'It was at the time,' says Petrarch, 'when the seeds of war +were growing that produced such a blood-stained harvest, in which the +sickles are not laid aside nor as yet are the garners closed.' He found +in his visitor 'a man of ardent mind and by no means unacquainted with +literature.' He discovered indeed that Richard was on some points full of +curious learning, and it occurred to him that one born and bred in +Britain might know the situation of the long-lost island of Thule. 'But +whether he was ashamed of his ignorance,' says Petrarch, 'or whether, as +I will not suspect, he grudged information upon the subject, and whether +he spoke his real mind or not, he only answered that he would tell me, +but not till he had returned home to his books, of which no man had a +more abundant supply.' The poet complains that the answer never came, in +spite of many letters of reminder; 'and so my friendship with a Briton +never taught me anything more about the Isle of Thule.' + +Richard was consecrated Bishop of Durham in 1333, after an amicable +struggle between the Pope and the King as to the hand that should bestow +the preferment. A few months afterwards he became High Treasurer, and in +the same year was appointed Lord Chancellor. Within the next three years +he was sent on several embassies to France to urge the English claims, +and he afterwards went on the same business to Flanders and Brabant. He +writes with a kind of rapture of his first expeditions to Paris; in +later years he complained that the study of antiquities was superseding +science, in which the doctors of the Sorbonne had excelled. 'I was sent +first to the Papal Chair, and afterwards to the Court of France, and +thence to other countries, on tedious embassies and in perilous times, +bearing with me all the time that love of books which many waters could +not extinguish.' 'Oh Lord of Lords in Zion!' he ejaculates, 'what a flood +of pleasure rejoiced my heart when I reached Paris, the earthly Paradise. +How I longed to remain there, and to my ardent soul how few and short +seemed the days! There are the libraries in their chambers of spice, the +lawns wherein every growth of learning blooms. There the meads of Academe +shake to the footfall of the philosophers as they pace along: there are +the peaks of Parnassus, and there is the Stoic Porch. Here you will find +Aristotle, the overseer of learning, to whom belongs in his own right all +the excellent knowledge that remains in this transitory world. Here +Ptolemy weaves his cycles and epicycles, and here Gensachar tracks the +planets' courses with his figures and charts. Here it was in very truth +that with open treasure-chest and purse untied I scattered my money with +a light heart, and ransomed the priceless volumes with my dust and +dross.' + +He shows, as he himself confessed, an ecstatical love for his books. +'These are the masters that teach without rods and stripes, without angry +words, without demanding a fee in money or in kind: if you draw near, +they sleep not: if you ask, they answer in full: if you are mistaken, +they neither rail nor laugh at your ignorance.' 'You only, my books!' he +cries, 'are free and unfettered: you only can give to all who ask and +enfranchise all that serve you.' In his glowing periods they become +transfigured into the wells of living water, the fatness of the olive, +the sweetness of the vines of Engaddi; they seem to him like golden urns +in which the manna was stored, like the fruitful tree of life and the +four-fold river of Eden. + +[Illustration: SEAL OF RICHARD DE BURY.] + +Richard de Bury had more books than all the other bishops in England. He +set up several permanent libraries in his manor-houses and at his palace +in Auckland; the floor of his hall was always so strewed with manuscripts +that it was hard to approach his presence, and his bedroom so full of +books that one could not go in or out, or even stand still without +treading on them. He has told us many particulars about his methods of +collection. He had lived with scholars from his youth upwards; but it was +not until he became the King's friend, and almost a member of his family, +that he was able 'to hunt in the delightful coverts' of the clerical and +monastic libraries. As Chancellor he had great facilities for 'dragging +the books from their hiding-places'; 'a flying rumour had spread on all +sides that we longed for books, and especially for old ones, and that it +was easier to gain our favour by a manuscript than by gifts of coin.' As +he had the power of promoting and deposing whom he pleased, the 'crazy +quartos and tottering folios' came creeping in as gifts instead of the +ordinary fees and New Year's presents. The book-cases of the monasteries +were opened, and their caskets unclasped, and the volumes that had lain +for ages in the sepulchres were roused by the light of day. 'I might have +had,' he said, 'abundance of wealth in those days; but it was books, and +not bags of gold, that I wanted; I preferred folios to florins, and loved +a little thin pamphlet more than an overfed palfrey.' We know that he +bought many books on his embassies to France and Flanders, besides his +constant purchases at home. He tells us that the Friars were his best +agents; they would compass sea and land to meet his desire. 'With such +eager huntsmen, what leveret could lie hid? With such fishermen, what +single little fish could escape the net, the hook, and the trawl?' He +found another source of supply in the country schools, where the masters +were always ready to sell their books; and in these little gardens and +paddocks, as chances occurred, he culled a few flowers or gathered a few +neglected herbs. His money secured the services of the librarians and +bookstall-men on the Continent, who were afraid of no journey by land, +and were deterred by no fury of the sea. 'Moreover,' he added, 'we always +had about us a multitude of experts and copyists, with binders, and +correctors, and illuminators, and all who were in any way qualified for +the service of books.' He ends his chapter on book-collecting with a +reference to an eastern tale, comparing himself to the mountain of +loadstone that attracted the ships of knowledge by a secret force, while +the books in their cargoes, like the iron bars in the story, were +streaming towards the magnetic cliff 'in a multifarious flight.' + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ITALY--THE AGE OF PETRARCH. + + +The enlightenment of an age of ignorance cannot be attributed to any +single person; yet it has been said with some justice, that as the +mediæval darkness lifted, one figure was seen standing in advance, and +that Petrarch was rightly hailed as 'the harbinger of day.' His fame +rests not so much on his poems as upon his incessant labours in the task +of educating his countrymen. Petrarch was devoted to books from his +boyhood. His youth was passed near Avignon, 'on the banks of the windy +Rhone.' After receiving the ordinary instruction in grammar and rhetoric, +he passed four years at Montpellier, and proceeded to study law at +Bologna. 'I kept my terms in Civil Law,' he said, 'and made some +progress; but I gave up the subject on becoming my own master, not +because I disliked the Law, which no doubt is full of the Roman learning, +but because it is so often perverted by evil-minded men.' He seems to +have worked for a time under his friend Cino of Pistoia, and to have +attended the lectures of the jurist Andrea, whose daughter Novella is +said to have sometimes taken the class 'with a little curtain in front of +her beautiful face.' While studying at Bologna, Petrarch made his first +collection of books instead of devoting himself to the Law. His old +father once paid him a visit and began burning the parchments on a +funeral pile: the boy's supplications and promises saved the poor +remainder. He tried hard to follow his father's practical advice, but +always in vain; 'Nature called him in another direction, and it is idle +to struggle against her.' + +On Petrarch's return to Avignon he obtained the friendship of Cardinal +Colonna: and here the whole course of his life was fixed when he first +saw Laura 'in a green dress embroidered with violets.' Her face was +stamped upon his mind, and haunted him through all efforts at repose: and +perhaps it is to her influence that he owed his rank among the lyrical +poets and the crown bestowed at Rome. His whole life was thenceforth +devoted to the service of the book. He declared that he had the +writing-disease, and was the victim of a general epidemic. 'All the world +is taking up the writer's part, which ought to be confined to a few: the +number of the sick increases and the disease becomes daily more +virulent.' A victim of the mania himself, he laughs at his own +misfortune: yet it might have been better, he thought, to have been a +labourer or a weaver at the loom. 'There are several kinds of +melancholia: and some madmen will write books, just as others toss +pebbles in their hands.' As for literary fame, it is but a harvest of +thin air, 'and it is only fit for sailors to watch a breeze and to +whistle for a wind.' + +Petrarch collected books in many parts of Europe. In 1329, when he was +twenty-five years of age, he made a tour through Switzerland to the +cities of Flanders. The Flemish schools had lost something of their +ancient fame since the development of the University of Paris. Several +fine collections of books were still preserved in the monasteries. The +Abbey of Laubes was especially rich in biblical commentaries and other +works of criticism, which were all destroyed afterwards in a fire, except +a Vulgate of the eighth century that happened to be required for use at +the Council of Trent. Petrarch described his visit to Liège in a letter +to a friend; 'When we arrived I heard that there was a good supply of +books, so I kept all my party there until I had one oration of Cicero +transcribed by a colleague, and another in my own writing, which I +afterwards published in Italy; but in that fair city of the barbarians it +was very difficult to get any ink, and what I did procure was as yellow +as saffron.' + +A few years afterwards he went from Avignon to Paris, and was astonished +at the net-work of filthy lanes in the students' quarter. It was a +paradise of books, all kept at fair prices by the University's decree; +but the traveller declared that, except in 'the world's sink' at Avignon, +he had never seen so dirty a place. At Rome he was dismayed to find that +all the books were the prey of the foreigner. The English and French +merchants were carrying away what had been spared by the Goths and +Vandals. 'Are you not ashamed,' he cried to his Roman friends, 'are you +not ashamed that your avarice should allow these strangers every day to +acquire some remnant of your ancient majesty?' + +He used to pore over his manuscripts on the most incongruous occasions, +like Pliny reading his critical notes at the boar-hunt. 'Whether I am +being shaved or having my hair cut,' he wrote, 'and whether I am riding +or dining, I either read or get some one to read to me.' Some of his +favourite volumes are described in terms of delightful affection. He +tells us how Homer and Plato sat side by side on the shelf,--the prince +of poets by the prince of philosophers. He only knew the rudiments of +Greek, and was forced to read the Iliad in the Latin version. 'But I +glory,' he said, 'in the sight of my illustrious guests, and have at +least the pleasure of seeing the Greeks in their national costume.' +'Homer,' he adds, 'is dumb, or I am deaf; I am delighted with his looks; +and as often as I embrace the silent volume I cry, "Oh illustrious bard, +how gladly would I listen to thy song, if only I had not lost my hearing, +through the death of one friend and the lamented absence of another!"' + +In his treatise on Fortune, Petrarch has left us a study on +book-collecting in the form of a dialogue between his natural genius and +his critical reason. He argues, as it were, in his own person against the +imaginary opponent. A paraphrase will show the nature and the result of +the contest. + +'_Petrarch._ I have indeed a great quantity of books. + +_Critic._ That gives me an excellent instance. Some men amass books for +self-instruction and others from vanity. Some decorate their rooms with +the furniture that was intended to be an ornament of the soul, as if it +were like the bronzes and statues of which we were speaking. Some are +working for their own vile ends behind their rows of books, and these are +the worst of all, because they esteem literature merely as merchandise, +and not at its real value; and this new fashionable infliction becomes +another engine for the arts of avarice. + +_Pet._ I have a very considerable quantity of books. + +_Crit._ Well! it is a charming, embarrassing kind of luggage, affording +an agreeable diversion for the mind. + +_Pet._ I have a great abundance of books. + +_Crit._ Yes, and a great abundance of hard work and a great lack of +repose. You have to keep your mind marching in all directions, and to +overload your memory. Books have led some to learning, and others to +madness, when they swallow more than they can digest. In the mind, as in +the body, indigestion does more harm than hunger; food and books alike +must be used according to the constitution, and what is little enough for +one is too much for another. + +_Pet._ But I have an immense quantity of books. + +_Crit._ Immense is that which has no measure, and without measure there +is nothing convenient or decent in the affairs of men. + +_Pet._ I have an incalculable number of books. + +_Crit._ Have you more than Ptolemy, King of Egypt, accumulated in the +library at Alexandria, which were all burned at one time? Perhaps there +was an excuse for him in his royal wealth and his desire to benefit +posterity. But what are we to say of the private citizens who have +surpassed the luxury of kings? Have we not read of Serenus Sammonicus, +the master of many languages, who bequeathed 62,000 volumes to the +younger Gordian? Truly that was a fine inheritance, enough to sustain +many souls or to oppress one to death, as all will agree. If Serenus had +done nothing else in his life, and had not read a word in all those +volumes, would he not have had enough to do in learning their titles and +sizes and numbers and their authors' names? Here you have a science that +turns a philosopher into a librarian. This is not feeding the soul with +wisdom: it is the crushing it under a weight of riches or torturing it in +the waters of Tantalus. + +_Pet._ I have innumerable books. + +_Crit._ Yes, and innumerable errors of ignorant authors and of the +copyists who corrupt all that they touch. + +_Pet._ I have a good provision of books. + +_Crit._ What does that matter, if your intellect cannot take them in? Do +you remember the Roman Sabinus who plumed himself on the learning of his +slaves? Some people think that they must know what is in their own books, +and say, when a new subject is started: 'I have a book about that in my +library!' They think that this is quite sufficient, just as if the book +were in their heads, and then they raise their eyebrows, and there is an +end of the subject. + +_Pet._ I am overflowing with books. + +_Crit._ Why don't you overflow with talent and eloquence? Ah! but these +things are not for sale, like books, and if they were I don't suppose +there would be many buyers, for books do make a covering for the walls, +but those other wares are only clothing for the soul, and are invisible +and therefore neglected. + +_Pet._ I have books which help me in my studies. + +_Crit._ Take care that they do not prove a hindrance. Many a general has +been beaten by having too many troops. If books came in like recruits one +would not turn them away, but would stow them in proper quarters, and use +the best of them, taking care not to bring up a force too soon which +would be more useful on another occasion. + +_Pet._ I have a great variety of books. + +_Crit._ A variety of paths will often deceive the traveller. + +_Pet._ I have collected a number of fine books. + +_Crit._ To gain glory by means of books you must not only possess them +but know them; their lodging must be in your brain and not on the +book-shelf. + +_Pet._ I keep a few beautiful books. + +_Crit._ Yes, you keep in irons a few prisoners, who, if they could escape +and talk, would have you indicted for wrongful imprisonment. But now +they lie groaning in their cells, and of this they ever complain, that an +idle and a greedy man is overflowing with the wealth that might have +sustained a multitude of starving scholars.' + +Petrarch was in truth a careless custodian of his prisoners. He was too +ready to lend a book to a friend, and his generosity on one occasion +caused a serious loss to literature. The only known copy of a treatise by +Cicero was awaiting transcription in his library; but he allowed it to be +carried off by an old scholar in need of assistance: it was pledged in +some unknown quarter, and nothing was ever heard again of the precious +deposit. + +He returned to Avignon in 1337, and made himself a quiet home at +Vaucluse. His letters are full of allusions to his little farm, to the +poplars in the horse-shoe valley, and the river brimming out from the +'monarch of springs.' In these new lawns of Helicon he made a new home +for his books, and tried to forget in their company the tumults that had +driven him from Italy. In 1340 he received offers of a laureate's crown +from Rome, the capital of the world, and from Paris, 'the birth-place of +learning.' 'I start to-day,' he wrote to Colonna, 'to receive my reward +over the graves of those who were the pride of ancient Rome, and in the +very theatre of their exploits.' The Capitol resounded to such cheers +that its walls and 'antique dome' seemed to share in the public joy: the +senator placed a chaplet on his brow, and old Stephen Colonna added a +few words of praise amid the applause of the Roman people. + +At Parma, soon afterwards, Petrarch formed another library which he +called his 'second Parnassus.' At Padua he busied himself in the +education of an adopted son, the young John of Ravenna, who lived to be a +celebrated professor, and was nicknamed 'the Trojan Horse,' because he +turned out so many excellent Grecians. In a cottage near Milan the poet +received a visit from Boccaccio, who was at that time inclined to +renounce the world. He offered to give his whole library to Petrarch: he +did afterwards send to his host a _Dante_ of his own copying, which is +now preserved in the Vatican. The approach of a pestilence led Petrarch +to remove his home to Venice: and here he was again visited by Boccaccio, +this time in company with Leontio Pilato, a Calabrian Greek trading in +books between Italy and Constantinople. + +Leontio was the translator of Homer, and expounded his poems from the +Chair of Rhetoric at Florence. He was a man of forbidding appearance, and +'more obdurate,' said Petrarch, 'than the rocks that he will encounter in +his voyage': 'fearing that I might catch his bad temper, I let him go, +and gave him a Terence to amuse him on the way, though I do not know what +this melancholy Greek could have in common with that lively African.' +Leontio was killed by lightning on his return voyage; and there was much +anxiety until it could be ascertained that his literary stock-in-trade +had been rescued from the hands of the sailors. It was not till the end +of the century that Chrysoloras renewed the knowledge of the classics: +but we may regard the austere Leontio as the chief precursor of the crowd +of later immigrants, each with a gem, or bronze, or 'a brown Greek +manuscript' for sale, and all eager to play their parts in the +restoration of learning. + +Towards the end of his life Petrarch became tired of carrying his books +about. When he broke up the libraries at Parma and Vaucluse he had formed +the habit of travelling with bales of manuscripts in a long cavalcade; +but he determined afterwards to offer the collection to Venice, on +condition that it should be properly housed, and should never be sold or +divided. The offer was accepted by the Republic, and the Palazzo Molina +was assigned as a home for the poet and his books. Petrarch, however, had +other plans for himself. He wished to be near Padua, where he held a +canonry; and he accordingly built himself a cottage at Arquà, among the +Euganean Hills, about ten miles from the city. A few olive-trees and a +little vine-yard sufficed for the wants of his modest household; and +there, as he wrote to his brother, broken in body but easy in his mind, +he passed his time in reading, and prepared for his end. His only regret +was that there was no monastery near in which he might see his beloved +Gerard fulfilling his religious duties. He seems to have given up his +love for fine books with other worldly vanities. He offers excuses for +the plain appearance of a volume of 'St. Augustine' which he was sending +as a present. 'One must not,' said he, 'expect perfect manuscripts from +scholars who are engaged on better things. A general does not sharpen the +soldiers' swords. Apelles did not cut out his own boards, or Polycletus +his sheets of ivory; some humble person always prepares the material on +which a higher mind is to be engaged. So is it with books: some polish +the parchment, and others copy or correct the text; others again do the +illumination, to use the common phrase; but a loftier spirit will disdain +these menial occupations.' The scholar's books are often of a rough and +neglected appearance, for abundance of anything makes the owner 'careless +and secure'; it is the invalid who is particular about every breath of +air, but the strong man loves the rough breeze. 'As to this book of the +_Confessions_, its first aspect will teach you all about it. Quite new, +quite unadorned, untouched by the corrector's fangs, it comes out of my +young servant's hands. You will notice some defects in spelling, but no +gross mistakes. In a word, you will perhaps find things in it which will +exercise but not disturb your understanding. Read it then, and ponder +upon it. This book, which would enflame a heart of ice, must set your +ardent soul on fire.' + +On a summer night of the year 1374, Petrarch died peacefully at Arquà, +alone in his library. His few remaining books were sold, and some of them +may still be seen in Rome and Paris. Those which he had given to Venice +suffered a strange reverse of fortune. How long the gift remained in the +Palazzo Molina we cannot tell. We conjecture that it was discarded in the +next century, before Bessarion presented his Greek books to the senate, +and became the actual founder of the library of St. Mark. The antiquary +Tomasini found Petrarch's books cast aside in a dark room behind the +Horses of Lysippus. Some had crumbled into powder, and others had been +glued into shapeless masses by the damp. The survivors were placed in the +Libraria Vecchia, and are now in the Ducal Palace; but it was long before +they were permitted to enter the building that sheltered the gift of +Bessarion. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +OXFORD--DUKE HUMPHREY'S BOOKS--THE LIBRARY OF THE VALOIS. + + +The University Library at Oxford was a development of Richard de Bury's +foundation. The monks of Durham had founded a hall, now represented by +Trinity College, in which Richard had always taken a fatherly interest. +He provided the ordinary texts and commentaries for the students, and was +extremely anxious that they should be instructed in Greek and in the +languages of the East. A knowledge of Arabic, he thought, was as +necessary for the study of astronomy as a familiarity with Hebrew was +requisite for the understanding of the Scriptures. The Friars had bought +a good supply of Hebrew books when the Jews were expelled from England; +Richard not only increased the available store, but supplied the means of +using it. 'We have provided,' he said, 'a grammar in Greek and Hebrew for +the scholars, with all the proper aids to instruct them in reading and +writing those languages.' He formed the ambitious design of providing +assistance to the whole University out of the books presented to the +hall. The rules which he drew up were not unlike those already in use at +the Sorbonne. Five students were chosen as wardens, of whom any three +might be a quorum for lending the manuscripts. Any book, of which they +possessed a duplicate, might be lent out on proper security: but copying +was not allowed, and no volume was on any account to be carried beyond +the suburbs. A yearly account was to be taken of the books in store, and +of the current securities; and if any profit should come to the wardens' +hands it was to be applied to the maintenance of the library. + +When the Bishop died some of his books went back to Durham; but the monks +were generous towards the hall, and on several occasions sent fresh +supplies to Oxford. It may also be observed that some of his best MSS. +were returned to the Abbey of St. Alban's. He had bought about thirty +volumes from a former abbot for fifty pounds weight of silver; but the +monks had continually protested against a transaction which they believed +to be illegal, and on Richard's death some of the books were given back, +and others were purchased by Abbot Wentmore from his executors. + +De Bury's generous care for learning was imitated in several quarters. A +few years after his death the Lady Elizabeth de Burgh made a bequest of a +small but very costly library to her College of Clare Hall at Cambridge. +Guy Earl of Warwick about the same time gave a collection of illuminated +romances to the monks of Bordesley. John de Newton in the next generation +divided his collection of classics, histories, and service-books, between +St. Peter's College at Cambridge and the Minster at York, where he had +acted for some years as treasurer. The lending-library at Durham Hall +was the only provision for the public, with the exception of a few +volumes kept in the 'chest with four keys' at St. Mary's. Thomas Cobham, +Bishop of Worcester, had long been anxious to show his filial love for +the University: as early as the year 1320 he had begun to prepare a room +for a library 'over the old congregation-house in the north churchyard of +St. Mary's'; and, though the work was left incomplete, he gave all his +books by will to be placed at the disposal of the whole body of scholars. +Owing to disputes that arose between the University and the College to +which Cobham had belonged, the gift did not take effect until 1367. The +University Library was established in the upper room, which was used as a +Convocation House in later times; it is said not to have been completely +furnished until the year 1409, more than eighty years after the date of +the Bishop's benefaction. According to the first statute for the +regulation of Cobham's Library, the best of the books were to be sold so +as to raise a sum of £40, which according to the current rate of interest +would produce a yearly income of £3 for the librarian; the other books, +together with those from the University Chest, were to be chained to the +desks for the general use of the students. It was soon found necessary to +exclude the 'noisy rabble': and permission to work in the library was +restricted to graduates of eight years' standing. Richard de Bury had +warned the world in his chapter upon the handling of books, how hardly +could a raw youth be made to take care of a manuscript; the student, +according to the great bibliophile, would treat a book as roughly as if +it were a pair of shoes, would stick in straws to keep his place, or +stuff it with violets and rose-leaves, and would very likely eat fruit or +cheese over one page and set a cup of ale on the other. An impudent boy +would scribble across the text, the copyist would try his pen on a blank +space, a scullion would turn the pages with unwashed hands, or a thief +might cut out the fly-leaves and margins to use in writing his letters; +'and all these various negligences,' he adds, 'are wonderfully injurious +to books.' + +A generous benefactor gave a copy of De Lyra's 'Commentaries,' which was +set upon a desk in St. Mary's Chancel for reference. A large gift of +books came from Richard Courteney, the Chancellor of the University; and +as a mark of gratitude he was allowed free access to the library during +the rest of his life. Among the other benefactors whose good deeds are +still commemorated we find King Henry IV., who helped to complete the +library, his successor Henry V., who contributed to its endowment as +Prince of Wales, and his brothers John Duke of Bedford and Humphrey Duke +of Gloucester; and the roll of a later date includes the names of Edmund +Earl of March, Philip Repington Bishop of Lincoln, and the munificent +Archbishop Arundel. + +The good Duke Humphrey has been called 'the first founder of the +University Library.' We know from the records of that time that his +gifts were acknowledged to be 'an almost unspeakable blessing.' He sent +in all about three hundred volumes during his life, which were placed in +the chests of Cobham's Library as they arrived, to be transferred to the +new Divinity Schools as soon as room could be made for the whole +collection. He had intended to bequeath as many more by way of an +additional endowment, but died intestate: and there was a considerable +delay before the University could procure the fulfilment of his +charitable design. When the books at last arrived 'the general joy knew +no bounds'; and the title of 'Duke Humphrey's Library' was gratefully +given to the whole assemblage of books which from several different +quarters had come into the University's possession. + +The catalogue shows that the Duke's store had consisted mainly of the +writings of the Fathers and Arabian works on science: there were a few +classics, including a Quintilian, and Aristotle and Plato in Latin: the +works of Capgrave and Higden were the only English chronicles; but the +Duke was a devotee of the Italian learning, and his gifts to Oxford +included more than one copy of the _Divina Commedia_, three separate +copies of _Boccaccio_, and no less than seven of _Petrarch_. + +The fate of the libraries founded by De Bury and Duke Humphrey of +Gloucester was to perish at the hands of the mob. Bishop Bale has told +the sad story of the destruction of the monastic libraries. The books +were used for tailors' measures, for scouring candlesticks and cleaning +boots; 'some they sold to the grocers and soap-sellers'; some they sent +across the seas to the book-binders, 'whole ships-full, to the wondering +of foreign nations': he knew a merchant who bought 'two noble libraries' +for 40_s._, and got thereby a store of grey paper for his parcels which +lasted him for twenty years. The same thing happened at Oxford. The +quadrangle of one College was entirely covered 'with a thick bed of torn +books and manuscripts.' The rioters in the Protector Somerset's time +broke into the 'Aungerville Library,' as De Bury's collection was called, +and burnt all the books. Some of De Bury's books had been removed into +Duke Humphrey's Library, and met the same fate at the Schools, with +almost every other volume that the University possessed. So complete was +the destruction that in 1555 an order was made to sell the desks and +book-shelves, as if it were finally admitted that Oxford would never have +a library again. + +Some few of the Duke's books escaped the general destruction. Of the +half-dozen specimens in the British Museum three are known by the ancient +catalogues to have been comprised in his gifts to the University. Two +more remain at Oxford in the libraries of Oriel and Corpus Christi. We +learn from Mr. Macray that only three out of the whole number of his MSS. +are now to be found in the Bodleian. One of them contains the Duke's +signature: another is of high interest as being a translation out of +_Aristotle_ by Leonardo Aretino, with an original dedication to the +Duke. The third is a magnificent volume of _Valerius Maximus_ prepared, +as we know from the monastic annals, under the personal supervision of +Abbot Whethamstede, the 'passionate bibliomaniac' of St. Alban's. It +contains inscriptions, says Mr. Macray, recording its gift for the use of +the scholars, with anathemas upon all who should injure it. 'If any one +steals this book,' says the Abbot, 'may he come to the gallows or the +rope of Judas.' + +[Illustration: THE DUKE OF BEDFORD PRAYING BEFORE ST. GEORGE. (_From the +"Bedford Missal."_)] + +Many of the Duke of Gloucester's books had come to him from the library +of the French Kings at the Louvre, which had been purchased and dispersed +by John, Duke of Bedford. The Duke himself was in the habit of ordering +magnificently illuminated books of devotion, which he gave as presents to +his friends. The famous 'Bedford Missal' (really a Book of Hours) was +offered by the Duchess in his name to Henry VI.; and Mr. Quaritch +possesses another Book of Hours, which the Duke presented to Talbot, Earl +of Shrewsbury, as a wedding gift. The House of Valois was always friendly +to literature. King John, who fought at Creçy, began a small collection: +he had the story of the Crusades, a tract on the game of chess, and a +book containing a French version of _Livy_, which seems to have belonged +afterwards to Duke Humphrey, and to have found its way later into the +Abbey of St. Geneviève. His son Charles le Sage was the owner of about +900 volumes, which he kept in his castle at the Louvre. The first +librarian was Gilles Malet, who prepared a catalogue in 1373, which is +still in existence. Another was compiled a few years afterwards by +Antoine des Essars, and a third was made for Bedford when he purchased +about 850 volumes out of the collection in the year 1423. These lists +were so carefully executed that we can form a very clear idea of the +library itself and the books in their gay bindings on the shelves. We are +told that the King was so devoted to his '_Belle Assemblée_,' as +Christina of Pisa calls it, that not only authors and booksellers, but +the princes and nobles at the court, all vied in making offerings of +finely illuminated manuscripts. + +They were arranged in the three rooms of the Library Tower. The wainscots +were of Irish yew, and the ceilings of cypress. The windows were filled +with painted glass, and the rooms were lit at night with thirty +chandeliers and a great silver lamp. On entering the lowest room the +visitor saw a row of book-cases low enough to be used as desks or tables. +A few musical instruments lay about; one of the old lists tells us of a +lute, and guitars inlaid with ivory and enamel, and 'an old rebec' much +out of repair. There were 269 volumes in the book-cases. We will only +mention a few of the most remarkable. There was Queen Blanche's Bible in +red morocco, and another in white boards, Thomas Waley's rhymes from Ovid +with splendid miniatures, and Richard de Furnival's _Bestiaire d'Amour_. +One life of St. Louis stood in a '_chemise blanche_,' and another in +cloth of gold. St. Gregory and Sir John Mandeville were clothed in indigo +velvet. John of Salisbury had a silk coat and long girdle, and most of +the Arabians were in tawny silk ornamented with white roses and wreaths +of foliage. Some bindings are noticed as being in fine condition, and +others as being shabby or faded. The clasps are minutely described. They +would catch a visitor's eye as the books lay flat on the shelves: and we +suppose that the librarian intended to show the best way of knowing the +books apart rather than to dwell on their external attractions. The +Oxford fashion was to catalogue according to the last word on the first +leaf, or the first word over the page; but it was also a common custom to +distinguish important volumes by such names as _The Red Book of the +Exchequer_, or _The Black Book of Carnarvon_. + +We need not proceed to describe the other rooms. On the first floor there +were 260 books, consisting for the most part of romances with miniature +illuminations. One of these was the _Destruction de Thèbes_, which at one +time belonged to the Duc de la Vallière, and is now in the National +Library at Paris. The upper floor contained nearly six hundred volumes +mostly concerned with astronomy and natural science. + +It appears from the memoranda in the lists that there had been a habit of +lending books to public institutions and to members of the royal family +from the time when the library was first established; and it is +estimated that about two hundred of the books must have been saved in +this way to form the beginning of a new library in the Louvre, which, +after the expulsion of the English, began to attain some importance in +the reign of Louis XI. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +ITALY--THE RENAISSANCE. + + +The study of the classics had languished for a time after the deaths of +Petrarch and Boccaccio. It revived again upon the coming of Chrysoloras, +who is said to have lighted in Italy 'a new and perpetual flame.' Poggio +Bracciolini was one of his first pupils; and he became so distinguished +in literature that the earlier part of the fifteenth century is known as +the age of Poggio. Leonardo Aretino describes the enthusiasm with which +the Italians made acquaintance with the ancient learning. 'I gave myself +up to Chrysoloras,' he writes, 'and my passion for knowledge was so +strong that the daily tasks became the material of my nightly dreams.' He +told Cosmo de' Médici, when translating Plato's Dialogues, that they +alone seemed to be infused with real life, while all other books passed +by like fleeting and shadowy things. + +We are chiefly concerned with Poggio as the discoverer of long-lost +treasures. He saved Quintilian and many other classics from complete +extinction. 'Some of them,' said his friend Barbaro, 'were already dead +to the world, and some after a long exile you have restored to their +rights as citizens.' As a famous stock of pears had been named after an +Appius or Claudius, so it was said that these new fruits of literature +ought certainly to be named after Poggio. + +The sole remaining copy of an ancient work upon aqueducts was discovered +by him in the old library at Monte Cassino, which had survived the +assaults of Lombards and Saracens, but in that later age seemed likely to +perish by neglect. We have the record of an earlier visit by Boccaccio, +in which the carelessness of its guardians was revealed. The visitor, we +are told, asked very deferentially if he might see the library. 'It is +open, and you can go up,' said a monk, pointing to the ladder that led to +an open loft. The traveller describes the filthy and doorless chamber, +the grass growing on the window-sills, and the books and benches white +with dust. He took down book after book, and they all seemed to be +ancient and valuable; but from some of them whole sheets had been taken +out, and in others the margins of the vellum had been cut off. All in +tears at this miserable sight, Boccaccio went down the ladder, and asked +a monk in the cloister how those precious volumes had come to such a +pass; and the monk told him that the brothers who wanted a few pence +would take out a quire of leaves to make a little psalter for sale, and +used to cut off the margins to make 'briefs,' which they sold to the +women. + +Poggio himself has described his discovery at the Abbey of St. Gall. 'By +good fortune,' he says, 'we were at Constance without anything to do, and +it occurred to us to go to the monastery about twenty miles off to see +the place where the Quintilian was shut up.' The Abbey had been founded +by the Irish missionaries who destroyed the idols of Suabia, when +according to the ancient legend the mountain-demon vainly called on the +spirit of the lake to join in resisting the foe. Its library had been +celebrated in the ninth century, when the Hungarian terror fell upon +Europe, and the barbarian armies in one and the same day 'laid in ashes +the monastery of St. Gall and the city of Bremen on the shores of the +Northern ocean'; but the books had been fortunately removed to the Abbey +of Reichenau on an island in the Rhine. 'We went to the place,' said +Poggio, 'to amuse ourselves and to look at the books. Among them we found +the Quintilian safe and sound, but all coated with dust. The books were +by no means housed as they deserved, but were all in a dark and noisome +place at the foot of a tower, into which one would not cast a criminal +condemned to death.' He describes the finding of several other rare MSS., +and says: 'I have copied them all out in great haste, and have sent them +to Florence.' + +In 1418 he visited England in the train of Cardinal Beaufort. He said +that he was unable to procure any transcripts, though he visited some of +the principal libraries, and must have seen that the collection at the +Grey Friars at least was 'well stocked with books.' He was more +successful on the Continent, where he brought the _History_ of Ammianus +out of a German prison into the free air of the republic of letters. He +gave the original to Cardinal Colonna, and wrote to Aretino about +transcripts: 'Niccolo has copied it on paper for Cosmo de' Médici: you +must write to Carlo Aretino for another copy, or he might lend you the +original, because if the scribe should be an ignoramus you might get a +fable instead of a history.' + +Among the pupils of Chrysoloras, Guarini of Verona was esteemed the +keenest philologist, and John Aurispa as having the most extended +knowledge of the classics. Aurispa, says Hallam, came rather late from +Sicily, but his labours were not less profitable than those of his +predecessors; in the year 1423 he brought back from Greece considerably +more than two hundred MSS. of authors hardly known in Italy; and the list +includes books of Plato, of Pindar, and of Strabo, of which all knowledge +had been lost in the West. Aurispa lectured for many years at Bologna and +Florence, and ended his days at the literary Court of Ferrara. Philelpho +was one of the most famous of the scholars who returned 'laden with +manuscripts' from Greece. To recover a lost poem or oration was to go far +on the road to fortune, and a very moderate acquaintance with the text +was expected from the hero of the fortunate adventure. When he lectured +on his new discoveries at Florence, where he had established himself in +spite of the Médici, Philelpho according to his own account was treated +with such deference on all sides that he was overwhelmed with +bashfulness; 'All the citizens are turning towards me, and all the ladies +and the nobles exalt my name to the skies.' He was the bitter enemy of +Poggio, and of all who supported the reigning family of Florence. Poggio +had the art of making enemies, though he was a courtier by profession and +had been secretary to eight Popes. He raged against Philelpho in a flood +of scurrilous pamphlets; Valla, the great Latin scholar, was violently +attacked for a mere word of criticism, and Niccolo Perotti, the +grammarian, paid severely for supporting his friend. Poggio was always in +extremes. His eulogies in praise of Lorenzo de' Médici, and Niccolo +Niccoli of Florence are perfect in grace and dignity; his invectives were +as scurrilous as anything recorded in the annals of literature. + +Two generous benefactors preceded 'the father of his country' in +providing libraries for Florence. Niccolo Niccoli by common consent was +the great Mæcenas of his age; his passion for books was boundless, and he +had gathered the best collection that had been seen in Italy for many +generations. The public was free to inspect his treasures, and any +citizen might either read or transcribe as he pleased; 'In one word,' +wrote Poggio, 'I say that he was the wisest and the most benevolent of +mankind.' By his will he appointed sixteen trustees, among whom was Cosmo +de' Médici, to take charge of his books for the State. Some legal +difficulty arose after his death, but Cosmo undertook to pay all +liabilities if the management of the library were left to his sole +discretion; and the gift of the 'Florentine Socrates' was eventually +added to the books which Cosmo had purchased in Italy or had acquired in +his Levantine commerce. + +Another citizen of Florence had rivalled the generosity of Niccoli. The +Chancellor Coluccio Salutati was revered by his countrymen for the +majestic flow of his prose and verse. It is true that Tiraboschi +considered him to be 'as much like Virgil or Cicero as a monkey resembles +a man.' Salutati showed his gratitude to Florence by endowing the city +with his splendid library. But in this case also there were difficulties, +and again the way was made smooth by the prompt munificence of the +Médici. Cosmo himself bought up Greek books in the Levant, and was +fortunate in securing some of the best specimens of Byzantine art. His +brother Lorenzo, his son Pietro, and Lorenzo the Magnificent in the next +generation, all laboured in their turn to adorn the Medicean collection. +Politian the poet, and Mirandula, the Phoenix of his age, were the +messengers whom the great Lorenzo sent out to gather the spoil; and he +only prayed, he said, that they might find such a store of good books +that he would be obliged to pawn his furniture to pay for them. + +On the flight of the reigning family the 'Médici books' were bought by +the Dominicans at St. Mark's; and they rested for some years in +Savonarola's home, stored in the gallery which holds the great +choir-books illuminated by Frà Angelico and his companions. In the year +1508 the monks were in pecuniary distress, and were forced to sell the +books to Leo X., then Cardinal de' Médici. He took them to Rome to ensure +their safety, but was always careful to keep them apart from the official +assemblage in the Vatican; it is certain that he would have restored them +to Florence, if he had lived a short time longer. The patriotic design +was carried out by Clement VII., another member of that book-loving +family, and their hereditary treasures at last found a permanent home in +the gallery designed by Michelangelo. + +The 'Médici books' were catalogued by a humble bell-ringer, who lived to +be a chief figure in the literary world. Thomas of Sarzana performed the +task so well that his system became a model for librarians. While +travelling in attendance on a Legate, the future Pope could never refrain +from expensive purchases; to own books, we are told, was his ambition, +'his pride, his pleasure, passion, and avarice'; and he was only saved +from ruin by the constant help of his friends. When he succeeded to the +tiara as Pope Nicholas V., his influence was felt through Christendom as +a new literary force. He encouraged research at home, and gathered the +records of antiquity from the ruined cities of the East, and 'the darkest +monasteries of Germany and Britain.' His labours resulted in the +restoration of the Vatican Library with an endowment of five thousand +volumes; and he found time to complete the galleries for their reception, +though he could never hope to finish the rest of the palace. A great part +of his work was destroyed in 1527 by the rabble that 'followed the +Bourbon' to the sack of Rome; but his institution survived the temporary +disaster, and its losses were repaired by the energy of Sixtus V. + +Pope Nicholas had no sympathy with the niggardly spirit that would have +kept the 'barbarians' in darkness. He opened his Greek treasure-house to +the inspection of the whole western world. Looking back to the crowd +round his chair at the Lateran or in his house near S^ta. Maria +Maggiore, we recognise a number of familiar figures. Perotti is +translating Polybius, and Aurispa explaining the Golden Verses; Guarini +enlarges the world's boundaries by publishing the geography of Strabo. An +old tract upon the Pope's munificence shows how the Eastern Fathers were +restored to a place of honour. Basil and Cyril were translated, and the +Pope obtained the _Commentary upon St. Matthew_, of which Erasmus made +excellent use in his Paraphrase: it was the book of which Aquinas wrote +that he would rather have a copy than be master of the city of Paris. The +Pope desired very strongly to read Homer in Latin verse, and had procured +a translation of the first book of the Iliad. Hearing that Philelpho had +arrived in Rome, he hoped that the work might be finished by a +master-hand, and to get a version of the whole Iliad and Odyssey he gave +a large retaining fee, a palazzo, and a farm in the Campagna, and made a +deposit of ten thousand pieces of gold to be paid on the completion of +the contract. + +Joseph Scaliger, the supreme judge in his day of all that related to +books, said that of all these men of the Italian renaissance he only +envied three. One of course was Pico of Mirandula, a man of marvellous +powers, who rose as a mere youth to the highest place as a philosopher +and linguist. The next was Politian, equally renowned for hard +scholarship and for the sweetness and charm of his voluminous poems. The +third was the Greek refugee, Theodore of Gaza, so warmly praised by +Erasmus for his versatile talent; no man, it was said, was so skilled in +the double task of turning Greek books into Latin, and rendering Latin +into Greek. + +We should feel inclined to bracket another name with those of the famous +trio. George of Trebisond was a faithful expounder of the classics, the +discoverer of many a lost treasure, and the author of a whole library of +criticism. His life and labours were denounced in the once celebrated +_Book of the Georges_. He was more than a lover of Aristotle, said his +enemies: he was the enemy of the divine Plato, an apostate among the +Greeks, who had even dared to oppose their patron Bessarion. The Cardinal +Bessarion was complimented as 'the most Latin of the Greeks'; he might +have ruled as Pope in Rome, some said, if it had not been for Perotti +refusing to disturb him in the library. But George of Trebisond was +vilified after Poggio's fashion, and called 'brute' and 'heretic,' and +'more Turkish than the filthiest Turk,' with a hailstorm of still harder +epithets. Yet he was certainly a very accurate scholar; and he showed a +proper manly spirit when he boxed Poggio's ears in the Theatre of Pompey +for reminding him of the cleverness expected from 'a starving Greek.' His +life, one is glad to think, had a very peaceful end. The old man had a +house at Rome in the Piazza Minerva: his tombstone, much defaced, is +before the curtain as one enters the Church of S^ta. Maria. His son +Andrea used to help him in his work, and launched a pamphlet now and +again at Theodore of Gaza. The brilliant scholar fell into a second +childhood, and might be seen muttering to himself as he rambled with +cloak and long staff through the streets of Rome. The grand-daughter who +took charge of him married Madalena, a fashionable poet; and Pope Leo X. +delighted in hearing their anecdotes about old times, when George and +Theodore fought their paper-wars, and wielded their pens in the battle of +the books. + +Before leaving the subject of the libraries in the two great capitals, we +ought to bestow a word or two upon those splendidly endowed institutions +by which a few Florentine book-collectors have kept up the literary fame +of their city, without pretending to emulate the splendour of the Médici, +or the wealth of the Vatican, or the curious antiquities of St. Mark. We +desire especially to say something in remembrance of the 'Riccardiana' +which, from its foundation in the sixteenth century, has been famous for +the value of its historical manuscripts. Among these are the journals of +Frà Oderigo, an early traveller in the East, a treatise in Galileo's own +writing, and a defence of Savonarola's policy in the handwriting of Pico +of Mirandula. We may see a copy of Marshal Strozzi's will, discussing his +plans of suicide, a history of the city composed and written out by +Machiavelli, and a large and interesting series of Poggio's literary +correspondence. The most celebrated of the librarians was Giovanni Lami, +who in the last century kept up with such spirit a somewhat dangerous +controversy with the Jesuits; but his monument at Santa Croce may have +been owed less to his triumphs in argument than to his passionate +devotion to books. His life was spent among them, and he died with a +manuscript in his arms; and his memory is still preserved in Florence by +the Greek collection with which he endowed the University. + +The Abbé Marucelli left his name to another Florentine library. He was a +philanthropist as well as a bibliophile; and he gave the huge assemblage +of books which he had gathered at Rome to the use of the students in the +home of his boyhood. He wrote much, but was almost too modest to publish +or preserve his works. Perhaps the most interesting portion of his gift +consisted of a series of about a hundred large folios in which, like the +Patriarch Photius, he had written in the form of notes the results of the +reading of a life-time. + +[Illustration: ANTONIO MAGLIABECCHI.] + +The Magliabecchian Library maintains the remembrance of a portent in +literature. Antonio Magliabecchi, the jeweller's shop-boy, became +renowned throughout the world for his abnormal knowledge of books. He +never at any time left Florence; but he read every catalogue that was +issued, and was in correspondence with all the collectors and librarians +of Europe. He was blessed with a prodigious memory, and knew all the +contents of a book by 'hunting it with his finger,' or once turning over +the pages. He was believed, moreover, to know the habitat of all the rare +books in the world; and according to the well-known anecdote he replied +to the Grand Duke, who asked for a particular volume: 'The only copy of +this work is at Constantinople, in the Sultan's library, the seventh +volume in the second book-case, on the right as you go in.' He has been +despised as 'a man who lived on titles and indexes, and whose very pillow +was a folio.' Dibdin declared that Magliabecchi's existence was confined +to 'the parade and pacing of a library'; but, as a matter of fact, the +old bibliomaniac lived in a kind of cave made of piles and masses of +books, with hardly any room for his cooking or for the wooden cradle +lined with pamphlets which he slung between his shelves for a bed. He +died in 1714, in his eighty-second year, dirty, ragged, and as happy as a +king; and certainly not less than eight thick volumes of sonnets and +epigrams appeared at once in his praise. He left about 30,000 volumes of +his own collecting, which he gave to the city upon condition that they +should be always free to the public. The library that bears his name +contains more than ten times that number. It includes about 60,000 +printed books and 2000 MSS. that once belonged to the Grand Dukes, and +were kept in their Palatine Galleries. There have been many later +additions; but the whole mass is now dedicated to the worthiest of its +former possessors, and remains as a perpetual monument of the most +learned and most eccentric of bookmen. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +ITALIAN CITIES--OLYMPIA MORATA--URBINO--THE BOOKS OF CORVINUS. + + +The memory of many great book-collectors has been preserved in the +libraries established from ancient times in several of the Italian +cities. There are two at Padua, of which the University Library may claim +to have had the longer existence: but the 'Capitolina' can claim Petrarch +as one of its founders, and may boast of the books on antiquities +gathered by Pignoria, the learned commentator upon the remains of Rome +and the historian of his native city of Padua. It may be worth noticing +that there were several smaller collections in the churches, due to the +industry of bookmen whose names have been forgotten. We hear of the books +of St. Anthony and of Santa Giustina: and as to the library in the Church +of St. John the tradition long prevailed that Sixtus of Sienna, a noted +hunter after rare books, saw on its shelves a copy of the _Epistle to the +Laodiceans_, and read it, and made copious extracts. + +Mantua received many of the spoils of Rome from Ludovico Gonzaga, which +were lost in the later wars: the most famous acquisition was Bembo's +tablet of hieroglyphics, which was interpreted by the patient skill of +Lorenzo Pignoria. At Turin the King's Library contains some of the papers +and drawings of Ligorio, who helped in the building of St. Peter's: but +most of his books were taken to Ferrara, where he held an official +appointment as antiquary. The University Library contains the collections +of the Dukes of Savoy, including a quantity of Oriental MSS., and some of +the precious volumes illuminated by the monks of Bobbio. The Père Jacob +in his treatise upon famous libraries had some personal anecdote to +record about the bookmen of each place that he visited. At Naples he saw +the collection of the works of Pontanus, presented to the Dominicans by +his daughter Eugenia; at Bologna he found a long roll of the Pentateuch, +'written by Esdras'; and at Ferrara he described the tomb of Coelius, who +was buried among his books, at his own desire, like a miser in the midst +of his riches. + +Ferrara derived a special fame from the munificence of the House of Este +and the memory of Olympia Morata. A long line of illustrious princes had +built up 'an Athens in the midst of Boeotia.' Ariosto sang the praises of +the literary Court, and Tasso's misfortunes were due to his eagerness in +accepting its pleasures. The library of Lilio Giraldi was a meeting-place +for the scholars of Italy, and it continued to be the pride of Ferrara +when it passed to Cinthio Giraldi the poet. Renée of France, after the +death of her husband, Duke Hercules, made Ferrara a city of refuge for +Calvin and Marot and the fugitive Reformers from Germany. Olympia +Morata, the daughter of a Protestant citizen, was chosen as the companion +and instructress of the Princess Anna. They passed a quiet life among +their books until a time of persecution arrived, when Olympia found a +hope of safety in marrying Andrew Grundler of Schweinfurt. Her love for +books appears in the letters written towards the close of her life. In +1554 she tells Curio of the storming of Schweinfurt, where she lost her +library: 'when I entered Heidelberg barefoot, with my hair down, and in a +ragged borrowed gown, I looked like the Queen of the Beggars.' 'I hope,' +she said, 'that with the other books you will send me the Commentary on +Jeremiah.' Her friend answers that Homer and Sophocles are on their way: +'and you shall have Jeremiah too, that you may lament with him the +misfortunes of your husband's country.' Olympia replied from her +death-bed, returning her warmest thanks for the books. 'Farewell, +excellent Curio, and do not distress yourself when your hear of my death. +I send you such of my poems as I have been able to write out since the +storming of Schweinfurt; all my other writings have perished; I hope that +you will be my Aristarchus and will polish the poems; and now again, +Farewell.' + +The Ducal Library of Ferrara was transferred to Modena when the Duchy was +added to the States of the Church. The collection at Modena is still +famous for its illuminated MSS., and for the care bestowed by Muratori +and Tiraboschi in their selection of printed books. The Court of Naples +also might boast of some illustrious bibliophiles. Queen Joanna possessed +one of those small _Livres d'Heures_ of 'microscopic refinement' which +Mr. Middleton has classed among the 'greatest marvels of human skill.' +René of Anjou, her unfortunate successor, found a solace for exile in his +books, and showed in a Burgundian prison that he could paint a vellum as +cleverly as a monkish scribe. Alfonso, the next King of Naples, was a +collector in the strictest sense of the term. He would go off to Florence +for bargains, and would even undertake a commission for a book-loving +subject. Antonio Becatelli corresponded on these matters with his royal +master. 'I have the message from Florence that you know of a fine Livy at +the price of 125 crowns: I pray your Majesty to buy it for me and to send +it here, and I will get the money together in the meantime. But I should +like your Majesty's opinion on the point, whether Poggio or myself has +chosen the better part. He has sold Livy, the king of books, written out +by his own hand, to buy an estate near Florence; but I, to get my Livy, +have put up all my property for sale by auction.' The books collected by +Alfonso were at the end of the century carried off by Charles VIII., and +were divided between the Royal Library at Fontainebleau and the separate +collection of Anne of Brittany. + +A romantic interest has always attached to the library at Urbino. The +best scholars in Europe used to assemble at the palace, where Duke +Federigo made such a gathering of books 'as had not been seen for a +thousand years,' in the hall where Emilia and the pale Duke Guidubaldo +led the pleasant debates described in the 'Cortegiano.' Federigo, the +most successful general in the Italian wars, had built a palace of +delight in his rude Urbino, in which he hoped to set a copy of every book +in the world. His book-room was adorned with ideal portraits by Piero +della Francesca and Melozzo: it was very large and lofty, 'with windows +set high against the Northern sky.' The catalogue of the books is still +preserved in the Vatican. It shows the names of all the classics, the +Fathers, and the mediæval schoolmen, many works upon Art, and almost all +the Greek and Hebrew works that were known to exist. Among the more +modern writers we find those whose works we have discussed, Petrarch and +his friends, Guarini and Perotti, and Valla with his enemy Poggio; among +the others we notice Alexander ab Alexandro, a most learned antiquarian +from Naples, of whom Erasmus once said: 'He seems to have known +everybody, but nobody knows who he is.' The chief treasure of the place +was a Bible, illuminated in 1478 by a Florentine artist, which the Duke +caused to be bound 'in gold brocade most richly adorned with silver.' +'Shortly before he went to the siege of Ferrara,' says his librarian, 'I +compared his catalogue with those that he had procured from other +places, such as the lists from the Vatican, Florence, Venice, and Pavia, +down to the University of Oxford in England, and I found that all except +his own were deficient or contained duplicate volumes.' His son, Duke +Guidubaldo, was a celebrated Greek scholar; and the eulogies of Bembo and +Castiglione on his Duchess, Elizabeth Gonzaga, attest the literary +distinction of her Court. Francesco, the third Duke, lost his dominions +to Leo X.; but he showed his good taste in stipulating that the books +were to be reserved as his personal effects. Some of the early-printed +books are still in the palace at Urbino; others are at Castel Durante, or +in the College of the Sapienza at Rome; and the splendid MSS. form one of +the principal attractions of the Vatican. + +Among private collectors the name of Cardinal Domenico Capranica should +be commemorated. Though continually engaged in war and diplomacy, he +found time to surround himself with books. On his death in 1458 he gave +his palace and library towards the endowment of a new College at Rome, +and his plans were carried out with some alterations by his brother +Angelo Capranica. Two Greeks of the imperial House of Lascaris took +important places in the history of the Italian renaissance. Constantine +had found a refuge at Milan after the conquest of his country, and here +he became tutor to the Lady Hippolyta Sforza, and published a grammar +which was the first book printed in Greek. He afterwards lectured at +Messina, where he formed a large collection of MSS., which he bequeathed +to the citizens. In a later age it was taken to Spain by Philip II. and +placed on the shelves of the Escorial. John Lascaris belonged to a +younger generation. He was protected by Leo X., and may be regarded as +the true founder of the Greek College at Rome. In matters of literature +he was the ambassador of Lorenzo de' Médici, and was twice sent to the +Turkish Court in search of books. After the expulsion of the Médici, John +Lascaris went to reside in Paris, where he gave lectures on poetry, and +employed himself in securing Greek lecturers for a new College; and he +was also engaged to help Budæus, who had been his pupil, in arranging the +books at Fontainebleau. + +Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, had the largest library in Europe. It +was credited with containing the impossible number of 50,000 volumes; its +destruction during the Turkish wars is allowed to have been one of the +chief misfortunes of literature. Matthias began his long reign of +forty-two years in 1458, and during all that time he was adding to his +collections at Buda. Some have derided Corvinus as a mere gormandiser +with an appetite for all kinds of books. Some have blamed him for risking +such inestimable treasures upon a dangerous frontier. It is admitted that +he worked hard to dispel the thick darkness that surrounded the Hungarian +people. He kept thirty scribes continually employed at Buda, besides four +permitted to work at Florence by the courtesy of Lorenzo de' Médici. The +whole library may be regarded as in some sense a Florentine colony. +Fontius, the king's chief agent in the Levant, had been a well-known +author in Florence: his Commentary upon Persius, once presented to +Corvinus himself, is now in the library at Wolfenbüttel. Attavante, the +pupil of Frà Angelico, was employed to illuminate the MSS. A good +specimen of his work is the Breviary of St. Jerome at Paris, which came +out of the palace at Buda and was acquired by the nation from the Duc de +la Vallière. A traveller named Brassicanus visited Hungary in the reign +of King Louis. He was enraptured with the grand palace by the river, the +tall library buildings and their stately porticoes. He passes the +galleries under review, and tells us of the huge gold and silver globes, +the instruments of science on the walls, and an innumerable crowd of +well-favoured and well-clad books. He felt, he assures us, as if he were +in 'Jupiter's bosom,' looking down upon that 'heavenly scene.' He wished +that he had brought away some picture or minute record; but we have his +account of the books which he handled, the Greek orations that are now +lost for ever, the history of Salvian saved by the King's good nature in +presenting the book to his admiring visitor. The palace and library were +destroyed when Buda was taken by the Turks. The Pasha in command refused +an enormous sum subscribed for the rescue of the books. The janissaries +tore off the metal coverings from the rarer MSS., and tossed the others +aside; the only known copy of Heliodorus, from which all our editions of +the tale of Chariclea are derived, was found in an open gutter. Some +books were burned and others hacked and maimed, or trodden under foot; +many were carried away into the neighbouring villages. About four hundred +were piled up in a deserted tower, and were protected against all +intrusion by the seal of the Grand Vizier. There were adventures still in +store for the captives. Through the scattered villages Dr. Sambucus went +up and down, recovering the strayed Corvinian books for the Emperor +Rodolph, a strange Quixotic figure always riding alone, with swinging +saddle-bags, and a great mastiff running on either side. Many a +disappointed wayfarer was turned away from the lonely tower. At last +Busbec the great traveller, because he was an ambassador from the +Emperor, was allowed to enter a kind of charnel-house, and to see what +had been the lovely gaily-painted vellums lying squalidly piled in heaps. +To see them was a high favour; the visitor was not permitted to touch the +remains; and it was not until 1686 that about forty of the maltreated +volumes were rescued by force of arms and set in a a place of safety +among the Emperor's books at Vienna. + +It has always been a favourite exercise to track the Corvinian MSS. into +their scattered hiding-places. Some are in the Vatican, others at +Ferrara, and some in their birth-place at Florence. It is said that some +of them have never left their home in Hungary. Venice possesses a +'History of the House of Corvinus,' and Jena has a work by Guarini with +the King's insignia 'most delicately painted on the title.' The portraits +of the King and Queen are on one of the examples secured by Augustus of +Brunswick for his library at Wolfenbüttel. Mary of Austria, the widow of +King Louis, presented two of the Corvinian books to the _Librairie de +Bourgogne_ at Brussels; one was the Missal, full of Attavante's work, on +which the Sovereigns of Brabant were sworn; the other was the 'Golden +Gospels,' long the pride of the Escorial, but now restored to Belgium. + +Other scattered volumes from the library of Corvinus have been traced to +various cities in France and Germany. There has been much controversy on +the question whether any of them are to be found in England. Some think +that examples might be traced among the Arundel MSS. in the British +Museum. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, it is known, went on a book-hunting +expedition to Heidelberg, where he bought some of the remnants of the +Palatine collection. Passing on to Nuremberg he obtained about a hundred +MSS. that had belonged to Pirckheimer, the first great German +bibliophile; and these, according to some authorities, came out of the +treasure-house at Buda. The Duke of Norfolk was persuaded by John Evelyn +to place them in the Gresham Library, under the care of the Royal +Society, and they afterwards became the property of the nation. Oldys +the antiquary distinctly stated that these 'were the remnants of the King +of Hungary'; 'they afterwards fell into the hands of Bilibald +Pirckheimer.' The Senator of Nuremberg made the books his own in a very +emphatic way: 'there is to be seen his head graved by Albert Dürer, one +of the first examples of sticking or pasting of heads, arms, or cyphers +into volumes.' Pirckheimer died in 1530, three years after the sack of +Buda, and had the opportunity of getting some of the books. We cannot +tell to what extent he succeeded, or whether William Oldys was right on +the facts before him; but we know from Pirckheimer's own letters that he +was the actual owner of at least some MSS. that 'came to him out of the +spoils of Hungary.' + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +GERMANY--FLANDERS--BURGUNDY--ENGLAND. + + +Almost immediately after the invention of printing in Germany there arose +a vast public demand for all useful kinds of knowledge. The study of +Greek was essential to those who would compete with the Italians in any +of the higher departments of science, and great schools were established +for the purpose by Dringeberg in a town of Alsace, and by Rudolf Lange at +Münster. The Alsatian Academy had the credit of educating Rhenanus and +Bilibald Pirckheimer. Lange filled his shelves with a quantity of +excellent classics that he had purchased during a tour in Italy. Hermann +Busch, the great critic, was taught in this school, and he used to say in +after life that he often dreamed of Lange's house, and saw an altar of +the Muses surrounded by the shadowy figures of ancient poets and orators. +Busch was sent afterwards to Deventer, where he was the class-mate of +Erasmus. Here one day, while the boys were at their themes, came Rudolf +Agricola, the sturdy doctor from Friesland, who wanted to see a Germany +'more Latin than Latium,' and had vowed to abate the 'Italian insolence.' +The visitor told Erasmus that he was sure to be a great man, and patted +the young Hermann on the head, saying that he had the look of a poet; +and he is, indeed, still faintly remembered for the lines in which he +celebrated the triumph of Reuchlin. + +Reuchlin had learned Greek at Paris and Poitiers; at Florence he studied +the secrets of the Cabala with Mirandula; and he perfected his Hebrew at +Rome, where he acted as an envoy from the Elector Palatine. Reuchlin for +many years led a peaceful life at Tübingen, an oasis of freedom, in which +he could print or read what he pleased. But in 1509 he was forced into a +quarrel, which involved the whole question of the liberty of the press, +and incidentally associated the cause of the Reformation with the +maintenance of classical learning. + +In the year 1509 one Pfefferkorn, a monk who had been a convert from +Judaism, obtained an imperial decree that all Hebrew books, except the +Scriptures, should be destroyed. Reuchlin sprang forth to defend his +beloved Cabala, and maintained that only those volumes ought to be burned +which were proved to have a taint of magic or blasphemy. He was cited to +answer for his heresy before the Grand Inquisitor at Cologne; and the +world, at first indifferent, soon saw that the cause of the New Learning +was at stake. In the summer of 1514 there was a notable gathering of +Reformers at Frankfort Fair. We have nothing in our own days that quite +resembles these mediæval marts; the annual concourse of merchants might +perhaps be compared to one of our industrial exhibitions, or to some +conjunction of all the trade of Leipsic and Nijni Novgorod. The Italians +affected to believe that the Fair by the Main was chiefly taken up with +the sale of mechanical contrivances; the Germans knew that their 'Attic +mart' held streets of book-shops and publishers' offices. Henri Estienne +saw Professors here from Oxford and Cambridge, from Louvain, and from +Padua: there was a crowd of poets, historians, and men of science; and he +declared that another Alexandrian Library might be bought in those +seething stalls, if one laid out money like a king, or like a maniac, as +others might say. In this German Athens a meeting was arranged between +Reuchlin and Erasmus; they were joined at Frankfort by Hermann Busch, who +brought with him the manuscript of his 'Triumph'; and perhaps it was not +difficult to predict that the cause of the old books would be safe in the +hands of Pope Leo X. They found themselves in company with that ferocious +satirist, Ulric von Hutten, memorable for his threat to the citizens of +Mainz, when they proposed to destroy his library, and he answered, 'If +you burn my books, I will burn your town.' The Grand Inquisitor was +utterly overwhelmed by his volume of Pasquinades, a work so witty that it +was constantly attributed to Erasmus, and so carefully destroyed that +Heinsius gave a hundred gold pieces for the copy which Count Hohendorf +afterwards placed among the imperial rarities at Vienna. The satirist's +volume of _Letters from Obscure Men_ completed the rout of the +Inquisition; and we are told by the way that it saved the life of +Erasmus by throwing him into a violent fit of laughter. + +We do not suppose that many Germans of that day loved books for their +delicate appearance, or the damask and satin of their 'pleasant +coverture.' Reuchlin may be counted among the bibliophiles, since he +refused a large sum from the Emperor in lieu of a Hebrew Bible. +Melanchthon's books were rough volumes in stamped pigskin, made valuable +by his marginal notes. The library of Erasmus may be shown to have been +somewhat insignificant by these words in his will: 'Some time ago I sold +my library to John à Lasco of Poland, and according to the contract +between us it is to be delivered to him on his paying two hundred florins +to my heir; if he refuses to accede to this condition, or die before me, +my heir is to dispose of the books as he shall think proper.' The +principal bibliophiles in Germany were the wealthy Fuggers of Augsburg, +of whom Charles V. used to say when he saw any display of magnificence, +'I have a burgess at Augsburg who can do better than that.' These +merchants were commonly believed to have discovered the philosopher's +stone: they were in fact enriched by their trade with the East, and had +found another fortune in the quicksilver of Almaden, by which the gold +was extracted from the ores of Peru. Raimond Fugger amassed a noble +library before the end of the fifteenth century. Ulric his successor was +the friend of Henri Estienne, who proudly announced himself as printer to +the Fuggers on many a title-page. Ulric spent so much money on books +that his family at one time obtained a decree to restrain his +extravagance. His library was said to contain as many books as there were +stars in heaven. The original stock received a vast accession under his +brother's will, and he purchased another huge collection formed by Dr. +Achilles Gasparus. On his death he left the whole accumulated mass to the +Elector Palatine, and the books thenceforth shared the fortunes of the +Heidelberg Library. When Tilly took the city in 1622 the best part of the +collection was offered to the Vatican, and Leo Allatius the librarian was +sent to make the selection, and to superintend their transport to Rome. +The Emperor Napoleon thought fit to remove some of the MSS. to Paris; +but, on their being seized by the Allies in 1815, it was thought that +prescription should not be pleaded by Rome: 'especially,' says Hallam, +'when she was recovering what she had lost by the same right of +spoliation'; and the whole collection of which the Elector had been +deprived was restored to the library at Heidelberg. + +Flanders had been the home of book-learning in very early times. The +Counts of Hainault and the Dukes of Brabant were patrons of literature +when most of the princes of Europe were absorbed in the occupations of +the chase. The Flemish monasteries preserved the literary tradition. At +Alne, near Liège, the monks had a Bible which Archdeacon Philip, the +friend of St. Bernard, had transcribed before the year 1140. We hear of +another at Louvain, about a century later in date, with initials in blue +and gold throughout, which had taken three years in copying. Deventer was +known as 'the home of Minerva' before the days of St. Thomas à Kempis. +The Forest of Soigny provided a retreat for learning in its houses of +Val-Rouge and Val-Vert and the Sept-Fontaines. The Brothers of the Common +Life had long been engaged in the production of books before they gave +themselves to the labours of the printing-press at Brussels. Thomas à +Kempis himself has described their way of living at Deventer. 'Much was I +delighted,' he said, 'with the devout conversation, the irreproachable +demeanour and humility of the brethren: I had never seen such piety and +charity: they took no concern about what passed outside, but remained at +home, employed in prayer and study, or in copying useful books.' This +work at good books, he repeated, is the opening of the fountains of life: +'Blessed are the hands of the copyists: for which of the world's writings +would be remembered, if there had been no pious hand to transcribe them?' +He himself during his stay at Deventer copied out a Bible, a Missal, and +four of St. Bernard's works, and when he went to Zwolle he composed and +wrote out a chronicle of the brotherhood. + +The Abbey of St. Bavon at Ghent was endowed with a great number of books +by Rafael de Mercatellis, the reputed son of Philippe le Bon, Duke of +Burgundy. As Abbot he devoted his life to increasing the splendour of +his monastery. The illuminated MSS. survived the perils of war and the +excesses of the Revolution, and are still to be seen in the University +with the Abbot's signature on their glittering title-pages. + +A more important collection belonged to Louis de Bruges, Seigneur de La +Gruthuyse. As titular Earl of Winchester he was in some degree connected +with this country. When Edward IV. fled from England, and was chased by +German pirates, this nobleman was Governor of Holland. He rescued the +fugitives, and paid their expenses; and when Edward recovered his throne +he rewarded his friend with a title and a charge on the Customs. The +dignity carried no active privileges, and in 1499 it was surrendered to +the King at Calais. The books of La Gruthuyse have been described as 'the +bibliographical marvel of the age.' They were celebrated for their choice +vellum, their delicate penmanship, and their exquisite illustrations. +Louis de Bruges was the friend and patron of Colard Mansion, who printed +in partnership with Caxton. Three copies are known of his work called the +'Penitence of Adam.' One belonged to the Royal Library of France: another +was borrowed from a monastery by the Duc d'Isenghien, an enthusiastic but +somewhat unscrupulous collector, and this copy was sold at the Gaignat +sale in 1769; the third was the property of M. Lambinet of Brussels, and +is remarkable for the miniature in which Mansion is represented as +offering the book to his patron in the garden of La Gruthuyse. After the +death of Louis his books passed to his son Jean de Bruges; but most of +them were soon afterwards acquired by Louis XII., who added them to the +library at Blois, the insignia of La Gruthuyse being replaced by the arms +of France. Others were bequeathed to Louis XIV. by the bibliophile +Hippolyte de Béthune, who refused a magnificent offer from Queen +Christina of Sweden in order that his books might remain in France. A +fine copy of the _Forteresse du Foy_ belonged to Claude d'Urfé, whose +library of 4000 books, 'all in green velvet,' was kept in his castle at +La Bastie; when all the others were dispersed the Gruthuyse volume +remained as an heirloom, and descended to Honoré d'Urfé, the dreariest of +all writers of romance. In 1776 it belonged to the Duc de la Vallière, +and was purchased for the French Government at one of his numerous sales. +Some of the Flemish books remained in their original home. A volume of +Wallon songs was discovered at Ghent in the last generation; and two +other Gruthuyse books in the same language, from the great collection of +M. Van Hulthem, are now deposited in the Burgundian Library at Brussels. + +The Dukes of Burgundy were of the book-loving race of the Valois. The +brothers, Charles le Sage, Jean Duc de Berry, and Philippe le Hardi of +Burgundy, were all founders of celebrated libraries. Philippe increased +his store of books by his marriage with the heiress of Flanders; he kept +a large staff of scribes at work, and made incessant purchases from the +Lombard booksellers in Paris. Duke John, his successor, is remembered for +his acquisition of a wonderful _Valerius Maximus_ from the librarian of +the Sorbonne. But the collections of which the remnants are now preserved +in Belgium were almost entirely the work of Duke Philippe le Bon. He kept +his books in many different places. He had a library at Dijon, and +another in Paris, a few volumes in the treasury at Ghent, a thousand +volumes at Bruges, and nearly as many at Antwerp. It has been calculated +that he possessed more than 3200 MSS. in all; and, if that figure is +correct, the House of Bourgogne-Valois was in this respect almost the +richest of the reigning families of Europe. + +Under Charles the Bold the libraries appear to have been left alone, +except as regards a few characteristic additions. The Duchess Margaret +was the patroness of her countryman Caxton, whose _Recuyell_, probably +published at Bruges in 1474 during his partnership with Colard Mansion, +was the first printed English book. The taste of the Duchess may answer +for the appearance in the library of the _Moral Discourses_, and the +elegant _Debates upon Happiness_. The _Cyropædia_ and the romance of +_Quintus Curtius_ must be attributed to the warlike Duke. At Berne they +have a relic of the fight where his men were shot down 'like ducks in the +reeds.' It is a manuscript, with a note added to the following effect: +'These military ordinances of the excellent and invincible Duke Charles +of Burgundy were taken at Morat on the 14th of June 1476, being found in +the pavilion of that excellent and potent prince.' When Charles was +killed at Nancy in the following year his favourite _Cyropædia_ was found +by the Swiss in his baggage. This volume was bought in 1833 by the Queen +of the Belgians at a book-sale in Paris, and has now been restored to its +original home at Brussels. + +After the death of Charles the Bold his library at Dijon was given by the +French King to George de la Tremouille, the governor of the province. It +passed to the family of Guy de Rocheford, and in the course of time many +of the best works have found their way into the national collection. Mary +of Burgundy retained the other libraries at Brussels. After her marriage +with Maximilian her family treasures were for the most part dispersed in +France, Germany, and Sweden, the needy prince being unable to resist the +temptation of pilfering and pawning the books; but the generosity of +Margaret of Austria, a great collector herself of fine copies and first +editions, in some measure repaired the loss; and Mary of Austria, who +became Regent in 1530, continued the work of restoration. + +The magnificence of the Burgundian Court and the commercial prosperity of +the Low Countries led to a continuous demand for fine books among the +other productions of luxury. We learn also by the Venetian Archives that +throughout the fifteenth century books were being imported into England +by the galleys that brought the produce of the East to our merchants in +London and Southampton. There were as yet but slight signs of literary +activity; but it has been well said that 'the seed was germinating in the +ground'; and many foreign works were brought home from time to time by +those who had studied or travelled in Italy. It was the fashion of the +day to learn under Guarini at Ferrara; the list of his scholars includes +the names of Robert Fleming, and Bishop William Gray, and the book-loving +John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, whose virtue and learning became the +object of William Caxton's celebrated eulogy. We may commemorate here the +earlier labours of Lord Cobham, who caused Wicliffe's works to be copied +at a great expense and to be conveyed for safety to Bohemia, and of Sir +Walter Sherington, who early in the same century built a library at +Glastonbury, and furnished it with 'fair books upon vellum.' Towards the +end of the century learning began to flourish under the patronage of Lord +Saye, and the accomplished Anthony Lord Rivers: and its future in this +country was secure, when the English scholars began to flock towards +Florence to hear the lectures of Chalcondylas and his successor Politian. +Grocyn, our first Greek Professor, had drawn his learning from that +source, and Linacre had sat there in a class with the children of Lorenzo +de' Médici. Cardinal Pole and the Ciceronian De Longueil shared as +students in those tasks and sports at Padua which were so vividly +described by the English churchman in his record of their life-long +friendship. Thomas Lilly, the master at St. Paul's, not only worked at +Florence but went to perfect his Greek in the Isle of Rhodes. Sir Thomas +More was the pupil of Grocyn, whom he seems to have excelled in +scholarship. His affection for books is known by his son-in-law's careful +biography. An anecdote cited by Dibdin preserves a record of the fate of +his library. When the Chancellor was arrested, the officers were expected +to listen to his talk with certain spies, on the chance that the prisoner +might be led into a treasonable conversation; but, as Mr. Palmer said in +his deposition, 'he was so busy trussing up Sir Thomas More's books in a +sack that he took no heed to their talk'; and Sir Richard Southwell on +the same occasion deposed, that 'being appointed only to look to the +conveyance of the books, he gave no ear unto them.' Erasmus praised More +as 'the most gentle soul ever framed by Nature.' He was astonished at his +learning, and indeed at the high standard that had already been attained +in England. 'It is incredible,' he said, 'what a thick crop of old books +spreads out on every side: there is so much erudition, not of any +ordinary kind, but recondite and accurate and antique, both in Greek and +Latin, that you need not go to Italy except for the pleasure of +travelling.' Hallam remarked that Erasmus was always ready with a +compliment; but he admitted that before the year 1520 there were probably +more scholars in England than in France, 'though all together they might +not weigh as heavy as Budæus.' + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +FRANCE: EARLY BOOKMEN--ROYAL COLLECTORS. + + +We shall take Budæus as our first example of the French bookmen in the +period that followed the invention of printing. Of Guillaume Budé, to +give him his original name, it was said that he knew Greek as minutely as +the orators of the age of Demosthenes. If there was any real foundation +for the compliment it must have consisted in the fact that the Frenchman +had more acquaintance with the language than his instructor George of +Sparta. Budæus is said to have paid a very large sum for a course of +lectures on Homer, and to have been not a pennyworth the wiser at the +end. Erasmus, who also learned of the Spartan, confessed that his tutor +only 'stammered in Greek,' and that he seemed to have neither the desire +nor the capacity for teaching. It is interesting to see how these +students made the best of their bad materials. 'I have given my whole +soul to Greek,' wrote Erasmus, 'and as soon as I get any money I shall +buy books first, and then some clothes.' Budæus was known as 'the prodigy +of France,' and even Scaliger allowed that his country would never see +such a scholar again; and it is rather surprising that Erasmus should +have compared his style unfavourably with that of Badius, the printer +from Brabant. + +Budæus was the first to apply the historical method to the explanation of +the Civil Law: with the assistance of Jean Grolier he brought out a very +learned treatise on ancient weights and measures; and in publishing his +commentaries on the Greek language he was said to have raised himself to +'a pinnacle of philological glory.' One of the stories about his devotion +to books may have been told of others, but is certainly characteristic of +the man. A servant rushes in to say that the house is on fire; but the +scholar answers, 'Tell my wife: you know that I never interfere with the +household.' He was married twice over, he used to say, to the Muse of +philology as well as to a mortal wife; but he confessed that he would +never have got far with the first, if the second had not commanded in the +library, always ready to look out passages and to hand down the necessary +books. + +When Charles VIII. seized the royal library at Naples, a few of the best +MSS. escaped his scrutiny, and these were sold by the dispossessed King +to the Cardinal D'Amboise. A new school of illuminators at Rouen provided +the Cardinal with a number of other splendid volumes. He lived till the +year 1510, and was able to collect a second library of printed books. He +divided the whole into two portions at his death, the French books +passing to a relation and afterwards to the family of La Rochefoucauld, +and the rest forming the foundation of a fine library long possessed by +the Archbishops of Rouen. + +The Archbishop Juvenal des Ursins died in the middle of the fifteenth +century. He is celebrated as a lover of good books, though only a single +example of his choice survived into the present generation. It was a +magnificent missal on vellum, filled with the choicest miniatures, and +known as the best specimen of its class in the possession of Prince +Soltikoff. It is only a few years ago that it entered the collection of +M. Firmin-Didot, who paid 36,000 francs for it at the Prince's sale: in +the year 1861 he gave it up to the City of Paris; but like so many of the +great books of France it perished in the fires of the Commune. + +Jacques de Pars, the physician to Charles VII., bequeathed his scientific +MSS. to the College of Medicine at Paris: and the value of his gift was +manifested when the powerful Louis XI. was forbidden to take out a +medical treatise for transcription unless he would pledge his silver +plate and find collateral security for its safe return. Étienne Chevalier +was one of the few servants of King Charles who were tolerated by King +Louis. He became Chief Treasurer to Louis XI., and built a great mansion +in the Rue de la Verrerie in Paris. The walls and ceilings were decorated +with allegorical designs in honour of his friend Agnès Sorel, whose +courage had led to the expulsion of the English invaders. The library was +filled with choice MSS., illuminated for the most part by Jehan Foucquet, +the famous miniaturist from Tours. Nicholas Chevalier, his descendant in +the sixteenth century, was also illustrious as a bibliophile, and amidst +his own printed folios and pedigrees rolled in blue velvet could still +show the marvellous _Livre d'Heures_, of which all that now remains is a +set of paintings hacked out from the text. M. Le Roux de Lincy has +compiled a long and interesting list of the French bibliophiles who +preceded the age of Grolier. We can only mention a few out of the number. +Of the poets we have Charles, Duke of Orléans, the owner of eighty +magnificent volumes preserved in the Castle of Blois, and Pierre Ronsard; +and we may add the Abbé Philippe Desportes, renowned not less for a +rivalry with Ronsard than for his sumptuous mode of living and the +fortune expended on his library. To the statesmen may be added Florimond +Robertet, the first of a long line of bibliophiles. Among the learned +ladies of the sixteenth century we may choose Louise Labé, surnamed 'La +Belle Cordière,' who made a collection of a new kind, composed entirely +of works in French, Spanish, and Italian, and Charlotte Guillard, a +printer as well as a book-collector, who published at her own expense a +volume of the Commentaries of St. Jerome. + +The most important of the private collectors in this period was Arthur +Gouffier, Seigneur de Boissy, another of the faithful followers of +Charles VII. who were so fortunate as to gain the confidence of his +jealous successor. + +He was a lover of fine bindings in the style rendered famous by Grolier. +One of his books belonged to the late Baron Jérôme Pichon, the head of +the French _Société des Bibliophiles_, and it is admitted that nothing +even in Grolier's library could excel it in delicacy of execution. His +son, Claude Gouffier, created Duc de Rouannais, was a collector of an +essentially modern type. He bought autographs and historical portraits, +as well as rare MSS. and good specimens of printing, and was careful to +have his books well clothed in the fashionable painted binding. Claude +Gouffier was tutor to the young Duc d'Angoulême, who came to the throne +as Francis I.; and to him may be due his royal pupil's affection for the +books bedecked with the salamander in flames and the silver +_fleurs-de-lys_. + +Francis I. cared little for printed books in comparison with manuscript +rarities; he added very few to the collection at Fontainebleau beyond +what he received as presents from his mother, Queen Louise, and his +sister Marguerite d'Angoulême. The royal library owed many of its finest +manuscripts to the delicate taste of the princess who was compared to the +'blossom of poetry' and praised as the 'Marguerite des Marguerites.' Its +wealth was much increased by the confiscation of the property of the +Constable de Bourbon; and it should be remembered that among the +additions from this source were most of the magnificently illuminated +manuscripts that had belonged to Jean Duc de Berri. + +The King was much attracted by the hope of making literary discoveries +in the East; he obtained much information on the subject from John +Lascaris, and despatched Pierre Gilles to make purchases in the Levantine +monasteries. A similar commission was entrusted to Guillaume Postel, one +of the greatest linguists that ever lived, but so crazy that he believed +himself to be Adam born to live again, and so unfortunate that he could +seldom keep out of a prison. + +The reign of Henri Deux is of great importance in the annals of +bibliography. An ordinance was made in 1558, through the influence, as it +is supposed, of Diane de Poitiers, by which every publisher was compelled +to present copies of his books, printed on vellum and suitably bound, to +the libraries at Blois and Fontainebleau, and such others as the King +should appoint. About eight hundred volumes in the national collection +represent the immediate results of this copy-tax; they are all marked +with the ambiguous cypher, which might either represent the initials of +the King and Queen or might indicate the names of Henri and Diane. Queen +Catherine de Médici was an enthusiastic collector. When she arrived in +France as a girl she brought with her from Urbino a number of MSS. that +had belonged to the Eastern Emperors, and had been purchased by Cosmo de' +Médici. She afterwards seized the whole library of Marshal Strozzi on the +ground that they must be regarded as 'Médici books,' having been +inherited at one time by a nephew of Leo X. On her death in 1589 she was +found to have been possessed of about eight hundred Greek manuscripts, +all of the highest rarity and value. There was some danger that they +would be seized by her creditors; but the King was advised that such an +assemblage could not be got together again in any country or at any cost. +The library was made an heir-loom of the Crown: and at De Thou's +suggestion the books were stripped of their rich coverings and disguised +in an official costume. + +Diane de Poitiers, a true _chasseresse des bouquins_, was herself the +daughter of a bibliophile. The Comte de St. Vallier loved books in +Italian bindings, and there is a _Roman de Perceforest_ in the collection +of the Duc d'Aumale, that bears the Saint Vallier arms and marks of +ownership, though it was confidently believed to have been bound for +Grolier when it belonged to King Louis-Philippe. Henri Deux and the +Duchesse Diane kept a treasure of books between them in the magnificent +castle of Anet: and after they were dead the books remained unknown and +unnoticed in their hall until the death of the Princesse de Condé in the +year 1723. The sale which then took place was a revelation of beauty. The +books were in good condition, and were all clad in sumptuous bindings. +There was a remarkable diversity in their contents, the Fathers and the +poets standing side by side with treatises upon medicine and the +management of a household, as if they had been acquired in great part by +virtue of the tax upon the publishers. Most of them, we are told, were +bought by the 'intrepid book-hunter' M. Guyon de Sardières, whose whole +library in its turn was engulphed in the miscellaneous collections of the +Duc de la Vallière. An article in the _Bibliophile Français_ contains a +curious argument in favour of Diane de Poitiers, as being one of a band +of devoted Frenchwomen who saved their country from foreign ideas. We are +reminded of the patriotism of Agnès Sorel, and of the excellent influence +of Gabrielle d'Estrées. The Duchesse d'Estampes, we are told, preserved +Francis I. from the influence of the Italian renaissance, and prevented +the subjugation of France 'by a Benvenuto or Da Vinci'; and in the same +way, when Catherine de Médici was preparing to introduce other strange +fashions, Diane came forward in her 'magical beauty' and saved the +originality of her nation. + +The three sons of Catherine were all fond of books in their way. Francis +_ii._ died before he had time to make any collection; if he had lived, +Mary of Scotland, who shared his throne for a few weeks, might have led +him into the higher paths of literature. Some of their favourite volumes +have been preserved; the young King's books bear the dolphin or the arms +of France; the Queen bound everything in black morocco emblasoned with +the lion of Scotland. Charles IX. had a turn for literature, as beseemed +the pupil of Bishop Amyot; he studied archæology in some detail, and +purchased Grolier's cabinet of coins. He brought the library of +Fontainebleau to Paris, where his father had made the beginning of a new +collection out of the confiscated property of the Président Ranconnet, +and gave the management of the whole to the venerable Amyot. His brother, +the effeminate Henri Trois, cared much for bindings and little for books: +it is said that he was somewhat of a book-binder himself, as his brother +Charles had worked at the armourer's smithy, and as some of his +successors were to take up the technicalities of the barber, the cook, +and the locksmith. Being an extravagant idler himself, he passed laws +against extravagance in his subjects; but though furs and heavy chains +might be forbidden, he allowed gilt edges and arabesques on books, and +only drew the line at massive gold stamps. His own taste combined the +gloomy and the grotesque, his clothes and his bindings alike being +covered with skulls and cross-bones, and spangles to represent tears, +with other conventional emblems of sorrow. + +Louise of Lorraine, after the King's death, retired to the castle of +Chenonceau: and the widowed queen employed her time, in that 'palace of +fairy-land,' at forming a small cabinet of books. The catalogue describes +about eighty volumes, mostly bound by Nicolas Eve; and the gay morocco +covers in red, blue, and green, were decorated with brilliant arabesques, +or sprinkled with golden lilies. Hardly any perfect specimens remain, +even in the National Library. They were all bequeathed by the Queen to +her niece the Duchesse de Vendôme; but in the hands of a later possessor +they were put up for sale and dispersed, and have now for the most part +disappeared. + +Henri Quatre is said to have fled to his books for consolation when +abandoned by Gabrielle d'Estrées. Though no bibliophile himself, he was +anxious that everything should be done that could promote the interests +of literature. He intended to establish a magnificent library in the +Collège de Cambray, but died before the plans were completed. The books +at Blois, however, were brought to Paris and thrown open to deserving +students; the library already transported from Fontainebleau and the MSS. +of Catherine de Médici were removed to the Collège de Clermont, and +placed under the guardianship of De Thou. + +Marguerite de Valois agreed with the King, if in nothing else, at least +in a desire for the extension of knowledge. She was a most learned lady +as well as a collector of exquisite books. No branch of science, sacred +or profane, came amiss to the 'Reine Margot.' She may be regarded as the +Queen of the 'Femmes Bibliophiles' who occupied so important a position +in the history of the Court of France. In the domain of good taste she +excels all competitors; as regards intellect we can hardly estimate the +distance between Marguerite and the elegant collectors whom we +distinguish according to the names of their book-binders. Anne of Austria +is remembered for the lace-like patterns of Le Gascon; and Queen Marie +Leczinska is famous for the splendour of her volumes bound by Padeloup. +Even the libraries of the daughters of Louis Quinze, three diligent and +well-instructed princesses, are only known apart by the colours of the +moroccos employed by Derôme. The dull contents of the Pompadour's shelves +would hardly be noticeable without her 'three castles,' or the 'ducal +mantle,' by Biziaux; and no one but Louis Quinze himself would have +praised the intelligent choice of Du Barry, or cast a look upon her +collection of odd volumes and 'remainders,' if they had not been +decorated like the rest of her furniture. In all the lists of these +'ladies of old-time' by M. Guigard, by M. Quentin-Bauchart, or by M. +Uzanne, it is difficult to find one who preferred the inside to the +outside of the book. M. Uzanne, indeed, has contended that no female +bibliophile ever felt the passion that inspired a Grolier or a De Thou: +that Marie Antoinette herself may have caged thousands of books at the +Trianon like birds in an aviary, without any real regard to their nature +or the right way of using them; that these devotees of the book-chase +were like an invalid master of hounds, keeping the pack in a gilded +kennel without any exercise or any chance of practical work. We think +that something perhaps might be said on the other side. The Duchesse de +Berry in our own time possessed a serious collection, made under her own +direction, in which might be found the _Livre d'Heures_ of Henri Deux, +the prayer-book of Joanna of Naples, the best books of Marguerite de +Valois and Marie Leczinska. The Princess Pauline Buonaparte was the +owner of a well-selected library. But our best example is Madame +Elisabeth, the ill-fated daughter of France, who was dragged from her +books at Montreuil in the tumults of 1789. Only a short time before she +had been absorbed in her simple collection. In the spring of 1786 she +gave up her mornings to its arrangement. 'My library,' she wrote, 'is +nearly finished: the desks are being put up, and you cannot imagine the +fine effect of the books.' On September the 15th she writes to her friend +again: 'Montreuil and its mistress get on as well as two sweethearts. I +am writing in the small room at the end; the books are settled in their +shelves, and my library is really a little gem.' On the 5th of October +she was standing on the terrace by the library-window, when she saw a +crowd coming along the Sèvres road, and heard the noise of pipes and +drums; and on the same day she was forced to leave Montreuil, and never +saw her books again. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE OLD ROYAL LIBRARY--FAIRFAX--COTTON--HARLEY--THE UNIVERSITY OF +CAMBRIDGE. + + +Henry VII. was the founder of a royal collection which in time became a +constituent portion of the library at the British Museum. Careful as he +was of his money, the King endeavoured to buy every book published in +French, and he acquired the whole of Vérard's series of classics, printed +on vellum with initials in gold and gorgeous illuminations, in some of +which the printer is shown presenting his books to the royal collector. +Henry VIII. established the separate library which was long maintained at +St. James's; he intended it mainly for the education of princes of the +blood royal, and supplied it with a quantity of early-printed books and a +miscellaneous gathering of wreckage from the monasteries. During several +succeeding reigns there were 'studies' and galleries of books at +Whitehall and Windsor Castle, at Greenwich and Oatlands, or wherever the +Court might be held. It is said that in the time of Henry VIII. the best +English collection belonged to Bishop Fisher. 'He had the notablest +library,' said Fuller, 'two long galleries full, the books sorted in +stalls, and a register of the name of each book at the end of its +stall.' This great storehouse of knowledge the Bishop had intended to +transfer to St. John's College at Cambridge; but on his disgrace it was +seized by Thomas Cromwell and dispersed among his greedy retainers. + +Under the Protector Somerset the Protestant feeling ran high. Martin +Bucer's manuscripts were bought for the young King; and the Reformer's +printed books were divided between Archbishop Cranmer and the Duchess of +Somerset. About the same time an order was issued in the name of Edward +VI. for purging the King's library at Westminster of missals, legends, +and other 'superstitious volumes'; and their 'garniture,' according to +the fashion of the time, was bestowed as a perquisite upon a grasping +courtier. + +[Illustration: BINDING EXECUTED FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH.] + +Queen Elizabeth was naturally fond of fine books. She had a small +collection before she reached the throne, and became in due course the +recipient of a number of splendid presentation volumes. There is a copy +of a French poem in her praise in the public library at Oxford: its pages +are full of exquisite portraits and designs, and on the sides there are +'brilliant bosses composed of humming-birds' feathers.' As a child she +had bound her books in needle-work, or in 'blue corded silk, with gold +and silver thread,' in the style afterwards adopted by the sisters at +Little Gidding in the time of Charles I. Her Testament, most carefully +covered by her own handiwork, contains a note quoted by Mr. Macray in his +'Annals of the Bodleian Library'; it refers to her walks in the field +of Scripture, where she plucked up the 'goodlie greene herbes,' which she +afterwards ate by her reading, 'and chawed by musing.' Her gallery at +Whitehall made a gallant show of MSS. and classics in red velvet, with +gilt clasps and jewelled sides, and all the French and Italian books +standing by in morocco and gold. Archbishop Parker tried to induce her to +establish a national library; but the Queen seems to have cared little +about the plan. She allowed the Archbishop on his own behalf to seek out +the books remaining from the suppressed monasteries: at another time he +obtained leave to recover as many as he could find of Cranmer's books. He +tracked some of them to the house of one Dr. Nevinson, who was forced to +disgorge his treasures. Parker kept a staff of scribes and painters in +miniature, and had his own press and fount of type. He published many +scarce tracts to save them from oblivion. Others he ordered to be copied +in manuscript, and these and all his ancient books he caused to be +'trimly covered'; so that we may say with Dibdin, 'a more determined +book-fancier existed not in Great Britain.' He gave some of his books to +'his nurse Corpus Christi' at Cambridge, and some to the public library; +and his gift to the College was compared to 'the sun of our English +antiquity,' eclipsed only by the shadow of Cotton's palace of learning. + +One would like to fancy a symposium of the great men talking over their +books, in the room where Ben Jonson was king, and where + + 'Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill + Commanded mirth and passion, was but Will.' + +Jonson's books, as was said of himself, were like the great Spanish +galleons, bulky folios with '_Sum Ben Jonson_' boldly inscribed. We know +little about Shakespeare's books, except that they probably went to the +New Place and passed among the chattels to Susanna Hall and her husband. +His Florio's version of Montaigne is in the British Museum, if the +authenticity of his signature can be trusted. His neat Aldine Ovid is at +the Bodleian, inscribed with his initials, and a note: 'this little booke +of Ovid was given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will +Shakspere's.' + +We would call to our meeting Gabriel Harvey with his new Italian books +and pamphlets; and Spenser, if possible, should be there; Dr. Dee would +tell the piteous story of his four thousand volumes, printed and +unprinted, Greek, in French, and High-Dutch MSS., etc., and of forty +years spent in gathering the books that were all on their way to the +pawnshop. He might have told the fortunes of all the books with the help +of his magical mirrors and crystals. Francis Bacon's store was to +increase and multiply, to adorn the library at Cambridge and fill the +shelves at Gray's Inn; Lord Leicester's books, with their livery of the +'bear and ragged staff,' were to freeze for ages in the galleries at +Lambeth. We should have Ascham inveighing against the ancients and their +idle and blind way of living: 'in our father's time,' he says, 'nothing +was read but books of feigned chivalry'; but Captain Cox would come forth +to meet him, attired as in the tournament at Kenilworth, or in the +picture which Dibdin has extracted from Laneham. 'Captain Cox came +marching on, clean trussed and gartered above the knee, all fresh in a +velvet cap: an odd man, I promise you: by profession a mason, and that +right skilful and very cunning in fence.... As for King Arthur and Huon +of Bourdeaux, ... the Fryar and the Boy, Elynor Rumming, and the +Nut-brown Maid, with many more than I can rehearse, I believe he has them +all at his fingers' ends.' + +James I., as became a 'Solomon,' was the master of many books; but not +being a 'fancier' he gave them shabby coverings and scribbled idle notes +on their margins. He is forgiven for being a pedant, since Buchanan said +it was the best that could be made of him; it is difficult to be patient +about his hint to the Dutch that it would be well to burn the old scholar +Vorstius instead of making him a professor at Leyden. He seems to have +done more harm than good to the libraries in his own possession. We know +how he broke into a 'noble speech' when he visited Bodley at Oxford, with +the librarian trembling lest the King should see a book by Buchanan, who +had often whipped his royal pupil in days gone by: 'If I were not a King +I would be an University-man, and if it was so that I must be a prisoner +I would desire no other durance than to be chained in that library with +so many noble authors.' + +The King gave Sir Thomas Bodley a warrant under the Privy Seal to take +what books he pleased from any of the royal palaces and libraries; +'howbeit,' said Bodley, 'for that the place at Whitehall is over the +Queen's chamber, I must needs attend her departure from thence, whereof +at present there is no certainty known: how I shall proceed for other +places I have not yet resolved.' + +Prince Henry had a more refined taste. The dilettanti of the Prince's set +took no part in the drunken antics of the Court, where Goring was master +of the games, but Sir John Millicent 'made the best _extempore_ fool.' +The Prince bought almost the whole of the monastic library originally +formed by Henry Lord Arundel: about forty volumes had already been given +by Lord Lumley to Oxford. + +There was some danger that the books at Whitehall would be destroyed in +the fury of the Civil War; but almost all of them were saved by the +personal exertions of Hugh Peters, when Selden had told him that there +was not the like of these rare monuments in Christendom, outside the +Vatican. Whitelocke was appointed their keeper, and to his deputy, John +Dury, we owe the first English treatise on library management. Thomas, +Lord Fairfax, did a similar good service at Oxford. When the city was +surrended in 1646 the first thing that the General did was to place a +guard of soldiers at the Bodleian. There was more hurt done by the +Cavaliers, said Aubrey, in the way of embezzlement and cutting the chains +off the books, than was ever done afterwards. Fairfax, he adds, was +himself a lover of learning, and had he not taken this special care the +library would have been destroyed; 'for there were ignorant senators +enough who would have been content to have it so.' As a rule, we must +admit that the Puritans were friendly to literature, with a very natural +exception as to merely ecclesiastical records. Oliver Cromwell gave some +of the Barocci MSS. to the University of Oxford; and the preservation of +Usher's library at Trinity College, Dublin, was due to the public spirit +of the Cromwellian soldiers, officers and men having subscribed alike for +its purchase 'out of emulation to a former noble action of Queen +Elizabeth's army in Ireland.' + +[Illustration: SIR ROBERT COTTON.] + +Sir Robert Cotton began about 1588 to gather materials for a history of +England. With the help of Camden and Sir Henry Spelman he obtained nearly +a thousand volumes of records and documents; and these he arranged under +a system, by which they are still cited, in fourteen wainscot presses +marked with the names of the twelve Cæsars, Cleopatra, and Faustina. He +was so rich in State Papers that, as Fuller said, 'the fountains were +fain to fetch water from the stream,' and the secretaries and clerks of +the Council were glad in many cases to borrow back valuable originals. +Sir Robert was at one time accused of selling secrets to the Spanish +ambassador, and various excuses were found for closing the library, +until at last it was declared to be unfit for public use on account of +its political contents. He often told his friends that this tyranny had +broken his heart, and shortly before his death in 1631 he informed the +Lords of the Council that their conduct was the cause of his mortal +malady. The library was restored to his son Sir Thomas: and in Sir John +Cotton's time the public made a considerable use of its contents; but it +seems to have been still a matter of favour, for Burnet complains that he +was refused admittance unless he could procure a recommendation from the +Archbishop and the Secretary of State. Anthony Wood gives a pleasant +account of his visit: 'Posting off forthwith he found Sir John Cotton in +his house, joining almost to Westminster Hall: he was then practising on +his lute, and when he had done he came out and received Wood kindly, and +invited him to dinner, and directed him to Mr. Pearson who kept the key. +Here was another trouble; for the said Mr. Pearson being a lodger in the +shop of a bookseller living in Little Britain, Wood was forced to walk +thither, and much ado there was to find him.' The library was afterwards +moved to Essex Street, and then to Ashburnham House in Little Dean's +Yard, where the great fire took place in 1731, which some attributed to +'Dr. Bentley's villainy.' Dean Stanley has told us how the Headmaster of +Westminster, coming to the rescue, saw a figure issue from the burning +house, 'in his dressing-gown, with a flowing wig on his head, and a huge +volume under his arm.' This was Dr. Bentley the librarian, doing his best +to save the Alexandrian MS. of the New Testament. Mr. Speaker Onslow and +some of the other trustees worked hard in the crowd at pumping, breaking +open the presses, and throwing the volumes out at a window. The +destruction was lamentable; but wonders have been done in extending the +shrivelled documents and rendering their ashes legible. The public use of +the collection had been already regulated by Parliament when a +comprehensive Act was passed in 1753, and the nation acquired under one +title the Cottonian Library, Sir Hans Sloane's Museum, the Earl of +Oxford's pamphlets and manuscripts, and all that remained of the ancient +royal collections. + +Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, made a great purchase in 1705, and spent +the next twenty years in building on that foundation. His son, Earl +Edward, threw himself with zeal into the undertaking, and left at his +death about 50,000 books, besides a huge body of manuscripts and an +incredible number of pamphlets. We shall quote from the sketch by Oldys, +who shared with Dr. Johnson the task of compiling the catalogue. 'The +Earl had the rarest books of all countries, languages, and sciences': +thousands of fragments, some a thousand years old: vellum books, of which +some had been scraped and used again as 'palimpsests': 'a great +collection of Bibles, and editions of all the first printed books, +classics, and others of our own country, ecclesiastical as well as civil, +by Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, Berthelet, Rastall, Grafton, and the +greatest number of pamphlets and English heads of any other person: +abundance of ledgers, chartularies, etc., and original letters of eminent +persons as many as would fill two hundred volumes; all the collections of +his librarian Humphrey Wanley, of Stow, Sir Symonds D'Ewes, Prynne, +Bishop Stillingfleet, John Bagford, Le Neve, and the flower of a hundred +other libraries.' + +A few of these collections ought to be separately mentioned. Stow had +died in great poverty, and indeed had been for many years a licensed +beggar or bedesman; but in his youth he had been enabled by Parker's +protection to make a good collection out of the spoils of the Abbeys; +during the Elizabethan persecution he was nearly convicted of treason for +being in possession of remnants of Popery, and found it very hard to +convince the stern inquisitor that he was only a harmless antiquary. Sir +Symonds D'Ewes had endeavoured by his will, which he modelled upon that +of De Thou, to preserve undispersed through the ages to come the +'precious library' bequeathed in a touching phrase 'to Adrian D'Ewes, my +young son, yet lying in the cradle.' Notwithstanding all his bonds and +penalties the event which he dreaded came to pass. Harley had advised +Queen Anne to buy a collection that included so many precious documents +and records: the Queen, wishing perhaps to rebuff her minister, said that +it was indeed no merit in her to prefer arts to arms, 'but while the +blood and honour of the nation was at stake in her wars she could not, +till she had secured her living subjects an honourable peace, bestow +their money upon dead letters'; and so, we are told, 'the Earl stretched +his own purse, and gave £6000 for the library.' Peter Le Neve spent his +life in gathering important papers about coat-armour and pedigrees. He +had intended them for the use of his fellow Kings-at-Arms; but it was +said that he had some pique against the Heralds' College, and so 'cut +them off with a volume.' The rest went to the auction-room: 'The Earl of +Oxford,' said Oldys, 'will have a sweep at it'; and we know that the cast +was successful. As for John Bagford, the scourge of the book-world, we +have little to say in his defence. In his audacious design of compiling a +history of printing he mangled and mutilated about 25,000 volumes, +tearing out the title pages and colophons and shaving the margins even of +such priceless jewels of bibliography as the Bible of Gutenberg and those +of 'Polyglott' Cardinal Ximènes. He cannot avoid conviction as a literary +monster; yet his contemporaries regarded him as a miracle of erudition, +and Mr. Pollard has lately put in a kindly plea in mitigation. We are +reminded that Bagford made no money by his crimes, that he took +walking-tours through Holland and Germany in search of bargains, and that +he made 'a priceless collection of ballads.' It might be said also for a +further plea that what one age regards as sport another condemns as +butchery. The Ferrar family at Little Gidding were the inventors of +'pasting-printing,' as they called their barbarous mode of embellishment; +and Charles I. himself, in Laud's presence, called their largest +scrap-book 'the Emperor of all books,' and 'the incomparablest book this +will be, as ever eye beheld.' The huge volume made up for Prince Charles +out of pictures and scraps of text was joyfully pronounced to be 'the +gallantest greatest book in the world.' The practice of 'grangerising,' +or stuffing out an author with prints and pages from other works, was +even praised by Dibdin as 'useful and entertaining,' though in our own +time it is rightly condemned as a malpractice. + +Next to Harley's library in importance was that of John Moore, Bishop of +Ely, of which Burnet said that it was a treasure beyond what one would +think the life and labour of a man could compass. Oldys has described it +in his notes upon London libraries, which it is fair to remember were +based on Bagford's labours, as regards the earlier entries. 'The Bishop,' +he says, 'had a prodigious collection of books, written as well as +printed on vellum, some very ancient, others finely illuminated. He had a +Capgrave's Chronicle, books of the first printing at Maintz and other +places abroad, as also at Oxford, St. Alban's, Westminster, etc.' There +was some talk of uniting it with Harley's collection; but in 1715 it was +bought by George I. for 6000 guineas, and was presented to the Public +Library at Cambridge. + +The University had possessed a library from very early times. It owed +much to the liberality of several successive Bishops of Durham. Theodore +Beza and Lord Bacon were afterwards among its most distinguished +benefactors. Bishop Hacket made a donation of nearly fifteen hundred +volumes: and in 1647 a large collection of Eastern MSS., brought home +from Italy by George Thomason, was added by an ordinance of the +Commonwealth. But, until the royal gift of the Bishop of Ely's books, the +University received no such extraordinary favour of fortune as came to +the sister institution through the splendid beneficence of Bodley. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +BODLEY--DIGBY--LAUD--SELDEN--ASHMOLE. + + +The University of Oxford still offers public thanks for Bodley's +generosity upon his calendar-day. The ancient library of Duke Humphrey +and his pious predecessors had, as we have seen, been plundered and +devastated. But Sir Thomas Bodley, when retiring from office in 1597, +conceived the idea of restoring it to prosperity again; 'and in a few +years so richly endowed it with books, revenues, and buildings, that it +became one of the most famous in the world.' Bodley has left us his own +account of the matter:--'I concluded at the last to set up my staff at +the library-door in Oxon. I found myself furnished with such four kinds +of aids as, unless I had them all, I had no hope of success. For without +some kind of knowledge, without some purse-ability to go through with the +charge, without good store of friends to further the design, and without +special good leisure to follow such a work, it could not but have proved +a vain attempt.' When Méric Casaubon visited Oxford a few years +afterwards he found the hall filled with books. 'Do not imagine,' he +wrote, 'that there are as many MSS. here as in the royal library at +Paris. There are a good many in England, though nothing to what our King +possesses; but the number of printed books is wonderful, and increasing +every year. During my visit to Oxford I passed whole days in this place. +The books cannot be taken away, but it is open to scholars for seven or +eight hours a day, and one may always see a number of them revelling at +their banquet, which gave me no small pleasure.' Bodley was not one of +those who like libraries to be open to all comers. 'A grant of such +scope,' said his statute, 'would but minister an occasion of pestering +all the room with their gazing; and the babbling and trampling up and +down may disturb out of measure the endeavours of those that are +studious. Admission, from the first, was granted only to graduates, and +every one on his entrance had to take the oath against 'razing, defacing, +cutting, noting, slurring, and mangling the books.' + +Sir Thomas was ably seconded by 'good Mr. James,' his first librarian, +and by the bookseller John Bill, who collected for him at Frankfort and +Lyons and other likely places on the Continent. The most minute rules +were laid down for the protection of the books against embezzlement. The +volumes were chained to the desks, and readers were entreated to fasten +the clasps and strings, to untangle the chains, and to leave the books as +they found them. Bodley was always enquiring about the store of chains +and wires. 'I pray you write to John Smith,' he said to James, 'that I +may be furnished against Easter with a thousand chains'; he hopes to +bring enough for that number, 'if God send my books safe out of Italy.' +About the time of the King's visit he writes that he has sent a case of +wires and clips by the carrier, 'which I make no doubt but you may in +good time get fastened to your books.' His carefulness is shown by his +directions for cleaning the room: 'I do desire that, after the library is +well swept and the books cleansed from dust, you would cause the floor to +be well washed and dried, and after rubbed with a little rosemary, for a +stronger scent I should not like.' He often writes about his Continental +purchases. John Bill, he says, had been at Venice, Florence, and Rome, +and half a score other Italian cities, 'and hath bought us many books as +he knew I had not, amounting to the sum of at least £400.' With regard to +certain duplicates he says: 'the fault is mine and John Bill's, who +dealing with multitudes must perforce make many scapes.' 'Jo. Bill hath +gotten everywhere what the place would afford, for his commission was +large, his leisure very good, and his payment sure at home.' The agent +bought largely at Seville; 'but the people's usage towards all of our +nation is so cruel and malicious that he was utterly discouraged.' + +[Illustration: SIR THOMAS BODLEY.] + +Sir Thomas Bodley would accept a very small contribution or the gift of a +single volume of any respectable sort. But he would have no 'riff-raff,' +as he told Dr. James, and would certainly have scorned the almanacs and +play-books acquired after his death under a bequest from the melancholy +Burton, and the ships' logs and 'pickings of chandlers' and grocers' +papers' which were received long afterwards as part of Dr. Rawlinson's +great donation. He was always grateful for a well-meant present. He +writes to his librarian: 'Mr. Schoolmaster of Winton's gift of +Melanchthon and Huss I do greatly esteem, and will thank him, if you +will, by letter.' Some of the earliest gifts were of a splendid kind. +Lord Essex sent three hundred folios, including a fine Budæus from the +library of Jerome Osorio, captured at Faro in Portugal when the fleet was +returning from Cadiz. Bodley himself gave a magnificent _Romance of +Alexander_ that had belonged in 1466 to Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers. +The librarian contributed about a hundred volumes, including early MSS. +procured from Balliol and Merton by his persuasion. Merton College, for +its own part, sent nearly two-score volumes of 'singular good books in +folio.' Sir Henry Savile gave the 'Gospels' in Russian and the Greek +'Commentaries on St. Augustine,' and William Camden out of his poverty +brought a few manuscripts and ancient books. Lawrence Bodley, the +founder's brother, came with thirty-seven 'very fair and new-bought works +in folio, and Lord Lumley with forty volumes reserved out of the library +sold to the Prince. Lord Montacute contributed the works of the Fathers, +'in sixty-six costly great volumes, all bought of set purpose and fairly +bound with his arms,' Mr. Gent a number of medical treatises, Sir John +Fortescue five good Greek MSS. and forty other books. We only mention a +few of the choicer specimens or note the reappearance of old friends +described in earlier chapters. In 1602 there arrived from Exeter Bishop +Leofric's vellum service-book, with several others that had lodged in its +company since the days of Edward the Confessor. Next year came one of the +exquisite 'Gospels' which Pope Gregory, as men said, had given to the +missionary Augustine; the other had been included in Parker's gift to +Corpus Christi. Sir Henry Wotton contributed a valuable Koran, to which +in later years he added Tycho Brahés 'Astronomy' with the author's MS. +notes. Thomas Allen gave a relic of St. Dunstan, containing the Saint's +portrait drawn by himself, and one of Grostête's books that had been +given by the Friars to Dr. Gascoigne. Mr. Allen gave in all twelve rare +MSS. besides printed books, 'with a purpose to do more'; and Bodley +commends him as a most careful provoker and solicitor of benefactions. He +was the mathematician, or rather the cabalistical astrologer, who taught +Sir Kenelm Digby, introducing that romantic giant to the art of ruling +the stars, and how to melt and puff 'until the green dragon becomes the +golden goose,' and all the other _arcana_ of alchemy. + +Digby was a good friend to the Bodleian. When quite a youth he cut down +fifty great oaks to purchase a building-site near Exeter College. The +laying of the foundation-stone in 1634 was amusingly described by Wood. +The Heads of Houses were all assembled, and the University musicians 'had +sounded a lesson on their wind-music,' standing on the leads at the west +end of the library; but while the Vice-Chancellor was placing a piece of +gold on the first stone, the earth fell in, and the scaffold broke, 'so +that all those who were thereon, the Proctors, Principals of Halls, etc., +fell down all together one upon another, among whom the under-butler of +Exeter College had his shoulder broken or put out of joint, and a +scholar's arm bruised.' It was at this time that Digby made a generous +gift of books, all tall copies in good bindings with his initials on the +panels at the back. Among them were early works on science by Grostête +and Roger Bacon, besides histories and chronicles. Many of these books +had belonged to Thomas Allen, who gave them to Digby as a token of +regard. Sir Kenelm wrote about them to Sir Robert Cotton, who was to +thank Allen for his kindness: 'in my hands they will not be with less +honourable memory of him than in any man's else.' He felt sure that Allen +would have wished them to be freely used: 'all good things are the better +the more they are communicated'; but the University was to be the +absolute mistress, 'to dispose of them as she pleaseth.' Mr. Macray +quotes another passage about two trunks of Arabic MSS. Digby had given +them to Laud for St. John's College or the Bodleian, as he might prefer, +but nothing had been heard about their arrival. He promised more books +from his own library, which had been taken over to France after the Civil +War broke out. The books, however, remained abroad, and were confiscated +on Digby's death as being the chattels of an alien resident; but either +by favour or purchase they soon became the property of the Earl of +Bristol, and were afterwards sold by auction in London. Two volumes were +purchased for the Bodleian in 1825 which must be regarded with the +deepest interest. The 'Bacon' and 'Proclus' had belonged to the Oxford +Friars, to Gascoigne, to the astrologer secluded in Gloucester Hall. +Digby had written a note in each that it was the book of the University +Library, as witnessed by his initials; but it had taken them many +generations to make the last stage of their journey from his book-shelf +to their acknowledged home at Oxford. + +It was chiefly through the generosity of Laud that the Bodleian obtained +its wealth of Oriental learning. But it was not only in the East that the +Archbishop devoted himself to book-collecting. Like Dr. Dee, he saw the +value of Ireland as a hunting-ground, and employed his emissaries to +procure painted service-books, the records of native princes, and the +archives of the Anglo-Norman nobility. Among his most precious +acquisitions was an Irish MS. containing the _Psalter of Cashel_, +Cormac's still unpublished _Glossary_, and some of the poems ascribed to +St. Patrick and St. Columba. On the Continent the armies of Gustavus +Adolphus were ravaging the cities of Germany; and Laud's agents were +always at hand to rescue the fair books and vellums from the Swedish +pikemen. In this way he obtained the printed Missal of 1481 and a number +of Latin MSS. from the College of Würzburg, and other valuable books from +monasteries near Mainz and Eberbach in the Duchy of Baden. It appears by +Mr. Macray's Annals that his gifts to the University between 1635 and +1640 amounted to about thirteen hundred volumes, in more than twenty +languages. To our minds the most attractive will always be the very copy +of the 'Acts' perused by the Venerable Bede, and the 'Anglo-Saxon +Chronicle' compiled in the Abbey of Peterborough. The men of Laud's age +would perhaps have attached greater importance to the Eastern MSS. +acquired by the Archbishop through Robert Huntingdon, the consul at +Aleppo, or the Greek library of Francesco Barocci, which he persuaded +William Earl of Pembroke to present to the University. In describing the +Persian MSS. of his last gift, Laud specially mentioned one as containing +a history of the world from the Creation to the end of the Saracen +Empire, and as being of a very great value. He shows the greatest anxiety +for the safety of the volumes: 'I would to God the place for them were +ready, that they might be set up safe, and chained as the other books +are.' He gave many books to St. John's College; and he retained a large +collection in his Palace at Lambeth, which was bestowed on Hugh Peters +after his death; it is satisfactory, however, to remember that 'the study +of books' was recovered at the Restoration, and that Mr. Ashmole was +appointed to examine the accounts of the fanatic. + +Laud was not the first to seek for the treasures of the East. Before his +gifts began Sir Thomas Roe, who sat for Oxford with Selden, had presented +to the Bodleian a number of MSS. acquired during his embassy to +Constantinople. Joseph Scaliger, the restorer of Arabic learning in the +West, had been especially interested in Samaritan literature, and had +corresponded about a copy of the Pentateuch with one Rabbi Eleazar, 'who +dwelt in Sichem'; and, though the papers fell into the hands of robbers, +they were afterwards delivered to Peiresc. The traveller Minutius had +returned with Coptic service-books, and Peiresc, captivated with a new +branch of learning, established an agency for Eastern books at Smyrna. +The Capucin Gilles de Loche averred that he had seen 8000 volumes in a +monastery of the Nitrian Desert,'many of which seemed to be of the age of +St. Anthony': he had pushed into Abyssinia and had heard the 'uncouth +chaunts and clashing cymbals,' as Mr. Curzon heard them in a later age; +and he had even cast his eyes on the _Book of Enoch_ with pallid figures +and a shining black text; and Peiresc was so inflamed with a desire to +buy it at any price that in the end he acquired it. The books seen by the +Capucin in the Convent of the Syrians, stored 'in the vault beyond the +oil-cellar,'have become our national property; and if there are not many +of the age of St. Anthony we have at least the volume, completed by the +help of a monk's note of the eleventh century, and originally written in +the year 411 'at Ur of the Chaldees by the hand of a man named Jacob.' + +Much less attention seems to have been paid to the collection of Hebrew +books than to those in Coptic and Arabic. Selden, it is true, gave to +the University Library 'such of his Talmudical and Rabbinical books as +were not already to be found there,' and purchases were made at the +Crevenna sale in Amsterdam and at a sale during the present century of +the MSS. of Matheo Canonici at Venice. The chief source from which the +Bodleian was supplied was the collection formed before 1735 by David +Oppenheimer, the Chief Rabbi at Prague. In the British Museum are the +Hebrew books presented by Solomon da Costa in 1759. The donor's letter +contained a few interesting details. There were three Biblical MSS. and a +hundred and eighty printed books, all in very old editions: 'They were +bound by order of King Charles II., and marked with his cypher, and were +purchased by me in the days of my youth, and the particulars are they not +written in the book that is found therewith?' They had been collected +under the Commonwealth, and had afterwards been sent to the binder by +King Charles; but as the bill was never paid they lay in the shop until +the reign of George I., when they were sold to pay expenses, and so came +into the possession of the excellent Solomon da Costa. + +The best antiquarian collections were those given to Oxford by Dr. +Rawlinson in the last century, by Richard Gough in 1809, and by Mr. Douce +in 1834. Mr. Macray has enumerated nearly thirty libraries which Richard +Rawlinson had laid under contribution, and his list includes such +headings as the Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys, the Thurloe State +Papers, the remains of Thomas Hearne, and documents belonging to Gale and +Michael Maittaire, Sir Joseph Jekyll, and Walter Clavell of the Temple. +He cites a letter written by Rawlinson in 1741, as showing the curious +accidents by which some of these documents were preserved: 'My agent last +week met with some papers of Archbishop Wake at a chandler's shop: this +is unpardonable in his executors, as all his MSS. were left to Christ +Church; but _quære_ whether these did not fall into some servant's hands, +who was ordered to burn them, and Mr. Martin Folkes ought to have seen +that done.' + +Mr. Gough's collection related chiefly to English topography, Anglo-Saxon +and Northern literature, and printed service-books; it is stated to +contain more than 3700 volumes, all given by a generous bequest to form +'an Antiquary's Closet.' Mr. Douce's large library contained a number of +Missals and _Livres d'Heures_. Some of these are described as 'priceless +gems rivalled only by the Bedford Missal,' especially one prayer-book +illuminated for Leonora, Duchess of Urbino, another that belonged to +Marie de Médici, and 'a Psalter on purple vellum, probably of the ninth +century, which came from the old Royal Library of France.' Among the most +important of the earlier benefactions was the gift of the Dodsworth +Papers by Thomas Lord Fairfax. The archives of the Northern monasteries +had been kept for a time in eight chests in St. Mary's Tower at York. +Roger Dodsworth, Sir William Dugdale's colleague in the preparation of +the Monasticon, made copies of many of these documents; and when the +tower was blown up in the siege of 1644 he was one of the zealous +antiquarians who saved the mouldering fragments on the breach. His whole +store of archæological records became the property of Fairfax at his +death. They are of great historical importance, but at one time they were +strangely neglected. Wood says that all the papers were nearly spoiled in +a damp season, when he obtained leave to dry them on the leads near the +schools; but though it cost him a month's labour he undertook it with +pleasure 'out of respect to the memory of Mr. Dodsworth.' + +The Ashmolean books were some years ago transferred to the Bodleian, but +for several generations there was a strange assortment of antiquarian +libraries gathered together in the Museum which Ashmole developed out of +Madam Tradescant's 'closet of curiosities.' Here were the books of the +shiftless John Aubrey, described by Wood as 'sometimes little better than +crazed': and here, according to Wood's dying wish, lay his own books, +'and papers and notes about two bushels full,' side by side with +Dugdale's manuscripts. Dibdin quotes several extracts from Elias +Ashmole's diary, to show the old book-hunter's prowess in the chase. He +buys on one day Mr. Milbourn's books, and on the next all that Mr. +Hawkins left; he sees Mrs. Backhouse of London about the purchase of her +late husband's library. In 1667 he writes: 'I bought Mr. John Booker's +study of books, and gave £140.' Being somewhat of an alchemist, he was +glad to become the owner of Lilly's volumes on magic, and most of Dr. +Dee's collection came into his hands through the kindness of his friend +Mr. Wale. When Ashmole brought out his book upon the Order of the Garter +he became the associate of the nobility; and we will leave him feasting +at his house in South Lambeth, clad in a velvet gown, and wearing his +great chain 'of philagreen links in great knobs,' with ninety loops of +gold. + +In noticing the lawyers who have been eminent for their devotion to books +we might go back to very early times. We ought at least to mention +Sergeant William Fletewode, Recorder of London in the reign of Elizabeth, +who bought a library out of Missenden Abbey, consisting mainly of the +romances of chivalry; it was sold with its later additions in 1774 under +the title of _Bibliotheca Monastico-Fletewodiana_. The Lord Chancellor +Ellesmere in the same reign formed a collection of old English poetry, +which became the foundation of a celebrated library belonging to the +Dukes of Bridgewater and afterwards to the Marquis of Stafford. Sir +Julius Cæsar, who was Master of the Rolls under James I., was 'often +reflected upon' for his want of legal knowledge; but he collected a +quantity of good MSS. which passed into the library of Mr. Carteret-Webb, +after a narrow escape of being sold for £10 to a cheesemonger. They are +now in the British Museum together with a box of exquisite miniature +classics, with which he used to solace himself on a journey. Arthur, Earl +of Anglesea, was another distinguished lawyer, who was famous for having +acquired the finest specimens of books in 'all faculties, arts, and +languages.' + +The great bulk of Selden's books were given by his executors to the +Bodleian; but several chests of monastic manuscripts were sent to the +Inner Temple, and perished in a fire. He passed his whole life as a +scholar; and yet, it is said, he deplored the loss of his time, and +wished that he had neglected what the world calls learning, and had +rather 'executed the office of a justice of the peace.' Sir Matthew Hale +should be remembered for his gift of MSS. to Lincoln's Inn. He made it a +condition that they should never be printed; and the language of his will +shows a certain dread of dealing lightly with the secrets of tenure and +prerogative. 'My desire is that they be kept safe and all together in +remembrance of me. They were fit to be bound in leather, and chained and +kept in archives: they are a treasure not fit for every man's view, nor +is every man capable of making use of them.' + +We shall close our account of the century with a few words about Dr. +Bernard, a stiff, hard, and straightforward reader, whose library of +medicine and general literature was sold by auction in 1698. 'Being a +person who collected his books not for ostentation or ornament he seemed +no more solicitous about their dress than his own'; and therefore, says +the compiler of his catalogue, 'you'll find that a gilt back or a large +margin was very seldom any inducement to him to buy. It was sufficient to +him that he had the book.' 'The garniture of a book,' he would +observe,'was apt to recommend it to a great part of our modern +collectors'; he himself was not a mere nomenclator, and versed only in +title-pages, 'but had made that just and laudable use of his books which +would become all those that set up for collectors.' He was the possessor +of thirteen fine Caxtons, which fetched altogether less than two guineas +at his sale; the biddings seem to have been by the penny; and Mr. Clarke +in his _Repertorium Bibliographicum_ observed that the penny at that time +seems to have been more than the equivalent of our pound sterling in the +purchase of black-letter rarities. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +GROLIER AND HIS SUCCESSORS. + + +Jean Grolier, the prince of book-collectors, was born at Lyons in 1479. +His family had come originally from Verona, but had long been naturalised +in France. Several of his relations held civic offices; Étienne Grolier, +his father, was in charge of the taxes in the district of Lyons, and was +appointed treasurer of the Milanese territories at that time in the +occupation of the French. Jean Grolier succeeded his father in both these +employments. He was treasurer of Milan in 1510, when Pope Julius formed +the league against the French, which was crushed at the Battle of +Ravenna; and for nearly twenty years afterwards Grolier took a principal +part in administering the affairs of the province. Young, rich, and +powerful, a lover of the arts and a bountiful patron of learning, he +became an object of almost superstitious respect to the authors and +booksellers of Italy. He was eager to do all in his power towards +improving the machinery and diffusing the products of science. He loved +his books not only for what they taught but also as specimens of +typography and artistic decoration. To own one or two examples from his +library is to take high rank in the army of bookmen. The amateur of +bindings need learn little more when he comprehends the stages of +Grolier's literary passion, its fervent and florid beginnings, the +majesty of its progress, and its austere simplicities in old age. + +Grolier was the personal friend of Gryphius, the printer of Lyons, and of +all the members of the House of Aldus at Venice. Erasmus, who was revered +by Grolier as his god-father in matters of learning, once paid a +compliment to the treasurer, which was not far from the truth. 'You owe +nothing to books,' he wrote, 'but they owe a good deal to you, because it +is by your help that they will go down to posterity.' The nature of +Grolier's relations with the Venetian publishers appears in his letters +to Francis of Asola about the printing of a work by Budæus. He writes +from Milan in the year 1519: 'I am thinking every day about sending you +the "Budæus" for publication in your most elegant style. You must add to +your former favours by being very diligent in bringing out my friend's +book, of which I now send you the manuscript revised and corrected by the +author. You must take the greatest care, dear Francis, to present it to +the public in an accurate shape, and this indeed I must beg and implore. +I want beauty and refinement besides; but this we shall get from your +choice paper, unworn type, and breadth of margin. In a word, I want to +have it in the same style as your "Politian." If all this extra luxury +should put you to loss, I will make it good. I am most anxious that +the manuscript should be followed exactly, without any change or +addition; and so, my dear Francis, fare you well.' The book appeared with +a dedication to Grolier himself, in which Francis of Asola recounts the +many favours received by the elder Aldus in his lifetime, by himself, and +by his father Andreas. The presentation copy was magnificently printed on +vellum, with initials in gold and colours. Grolier inscribed it with his +name and device, so that it became easy to verify its subsequent history. +It appeared among the books of the Prince de Soubise, and belonged +afterwards to the Count Macarthy, and in 1815 was bought by Mr. Payne and +transferred to the Althorp Library. + +[Illustration: BINDING EXECUTED FOR GROLIER.] + +Grolier's books were generally stamped with the words '_et Amicorum_' +immediately after his name, to indicate as we suppose that they were the +common property of himself and his friends, although it has been +suggested that he was referring to his possession of duplicates. Another +of his marks was the use of some pious phrase, such as a wish that his +portion might be in 'the land of the living,' which was either printed on +the cover or written on a fly-leaf, if the volume were the gift of a +friend. In the use of these distinctions he seems to have been preceded +by Thomas Maioli, a book-collector of a family residing at Asti, of whom +very little is known apart from his ownership of books in magnificent +bindings. Grolier may have borrowed the phrase about his friends from a +celebrated Flemish collector called Marcus Laurinus, or Mark Lauwrin of +Watervliet, who was in constant correspondence with the Treasurer about +their cabinets of medals and coins. Rabelais had a few valuable books, +which he stamped with a similar design in Greek, and the Latin form +occurs in many other libraries. We are inclined to refer the origin of +the practice to a letter written by Philelpho in 1427, in which he tells +his correspondent of the Greek proverb that all things are common among +friends. + +Grolier's love of learning is shown by his own letters, and by the +statements contained in the books that were so constantly dedicated to +his name. To Beatus Rhenanus he wrote, with reference to an approaching +visit: 'Oh, what a festal day, to be marked (as they say) with a pure +white stone, when I am able to pay my humble duty to my own Rhenanus; and +you see how great are my demands when you are entered as mine in my +accounts.' As controller of the Milanese district he became the object of +much adulation, for which his flatterers had to atone when the French +occupation came to an end. The dedication of a certain dialogue affords +an instance in point. Stefano Negri sent his book to Grolier in a +splendid shape. The presentation copy on vellum may be seen at the +British Museum among the treasures of the Grenville Library. The writer +represents himself in the preface as going about in search of a patron. +He sees Mercury descending from the clouds with a message from Minerva. +'There is one man whom the Goddess holds dear, struggling like Ulysses +through the flood of this stormy life: he is known as Grolier to the +world.' Nay, what need have you, says the author, to sing the praises of +that famous man? 'You must confess, even if you like it not, that he is +most noble in his country and family, most wealthy in fortune, and most +fair and beautiful in his bodily gifts.' + +As patron of all the arts the treasurer became the friend of Francino +Gafori, the leader of the new school of music that was flourishing at +Milan. Gafori seems to have been often in Grolier's company. He dedicated +to the treasurer his work on the harmony of musical instruments, as well +as the _Apologia_ in which he afterwards convicted the Bologna school of +its errors. 'My work,' he says in his later book, 'is sound enough if +soundly understood'; and he tells his rival that, though he may writhe +with rage, the harmony of Gafori and the fame of Jean Grolier will live +for ever. The introduction to his work upon harmony contains a few +interesting details about Grolier's way of living at Milan. Gafori +addresses his book in a dialogue, and vows that it shall never come home +again if Grolier refuses to be the patron. A poetical friend adds a piece +in which the Muses appear without their proper emblems, and even Apollo +is bereft of his lyre. Gafori, they say, has taken away their harmonies +and will not give them back. They are advised to make their way to the +concert at Grolier's house, where the friend of the Muses sits among the +learned doctors. An illustration shows Gafori sitting at his organ and +the musicians with their wind-instruments at the end of the lofty hall. +Gafori himself, in another preface, declares that his musical offspring +can hardly be kept at home; they used to be too shy to go out, though all +the musicians were awaiting them; now that they have Grolier's patronage +they are all as bold as brass, and ready to rush through any danger to +salute their generous friend. The history of the copy presented to +Grolier is not without interest. After the great musician's death the +treasurer gave it to Albisse, one of the King's secretaries: Albisse in +1546 gave it to Rasse de Neux, a surgeon at Paris, who was devoted to +curious books; in 1674 it entered the library of St. Germain-des-Prés, +and was nearly destroyed more than a century afterwards in a great fire. +During the Revolution it was added to the collection at the Convent des +Célestins, and was afterwards deposited in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, +where we suppose that it still remains. + +Grolier was fond of giving books to his friends. A commentary on the +Psalms with his name and device, now in the National Library at Paris, +bears an inscription showing that he had given it to a monk named Jacques +Guyard. He presented a fine copy of Marcus Aurelius to his friend Eurialo +Silvestri; and there are volumes bearing his name in conjunction with +those of Maioli and Laurinus which indicate similar gifts. He is known to +have presented several volumes to the President de Thou as a mark of +gratitude for assistance during his later troubles. It is somewhat +singular that Jacques-Auguste de Thou never succeeded in getting +possession of these books, though they had always been kept in his +father's library; and they were not, indeed, replaced in the 'Bibliotheca +Thuana' until it had become the property of the Cardinal de Rohan. It is +interesting to learn that a volume of Cicero was given by Grolier to the +artistic printer, Geoffroy Tory of Bourges, who designed the lettering of +his mottoes: they were of an antique or 'Roman' shape, and were in two +sizes, and proportioned, as we are told, 'in the same ratio to each other +as the body and face of a man.' Geoffroy Tory mentioned them in a letter +of the year 1523. 'It was on the morrow of the Epiphany,' says the +light-hearted artist, 'that after my slumbers were over, and in +consciousness of a joyous repast, I lay day-dreaming in bed, and twisting +the wheels of my memory round: I thought of a thousand little fancies +both grave and gay, and then there came before my mind those antique +letters that I used to make for my lord, Master Jean Grolier, the King's +councillor, and a friend of the _Belles Lettres_ and of all men of +learning, by whom he is loved and esteemed on both sides of the Alps.' + +Another testimony comes from Dr. Sambucus, who knew Grolier well when he +was living in Paris, and used to be fond of inspecting his cabinet of +coins. In the last year of Grolier's life he received a book on the +subject with a dedication to himself by the worthy Doctor. Grolier was +reminded in the preface of their long talks on antiquarian subjects, and +of the kindness which Sambucus had received from the treasurer and the +treasurer's father at Milan. 'During the last three years,' says +Sambucus, 'I have been enriching my library, and I have added some very +scarce coins to the cabinet that you used to admire.' He adds a few +complaints about dealers and the tricks of the trade, which we need not +repeat. 'And now farewell!' he ends, 'noble ornament of a noble race, by +whose mouth nothing has ever been uttered that came not from the heart!' + +Some account of Grolier's career is to be found in De Thou's great +history. He praised the 'incredible love of learning' that had earned for +a mere youth the intimate friendship of Budæus. He showed with what +administrative ability the Milanese territories were governed, and with +what dignity Grolier filled the high office of Treasurer at home. + +Grolier, he says, built a magnificent mansion in the Rue de Bussy, which +was known as the Hôtel de Lyon; in one of its halls he arranged the +multitude of books 'so carefully, and with such a fine effect, that the +library might have been compared to that which Pollio established in +Rome'; and so great was the supply that, notwithstanding his many gifts +to friends and various misfortunes which befell his collection, every +important library in France was able after his death to show some of his +grand bindings as its principal ornament. Grolier's old age was +disturbed by imputations against his official conduct, and it seemed at +one time as if his fortune were in considerable danger. 'He was so +confident in his innocence,' said the historian,'that he would not seek +help from his friends; but he might have fallen at last, if he had not +been protected by my father the President, who always used his influence +to help the weak against the strong and the scholar against the ignorance +of the vulgar.' The old Treasurer kept his serene course of life until he +reached his eighty-sixth year: he died at his Hôtel de Lyon, surrounded +by his books, and was buried near the high altar in the Church of St. +Germain-des-Prés. + +Upon Grolier's death his property was divided among his daughters' +families. Some of the books were certainly sold; but the greater part of +the library became the property of Méric de Vic, the old Treasurer's +son-in-law. Méric was keeper of the seals to Louis XIII. His son +Dominique became Archbishop of Auch. They were both fond of books, and +took great care of Grolier's three thousand exquisite volumes, of which +they were successively the owners. They lived in a large house in the Rue +St. Martin, which had been built by Budæus, and here the books were kept +until the great dispersion in the year 1676. 'They looked,' said +Bonaventure d'Argonne, 'as if the Muses had taken the outsides into their +charge, as well as the contents, they were adorned with such art and +_esprit_, and looked so gay, with a delicate gilding quite unknown to +the book-binders of our time.' The same visitor described the sale of +1676. All Paris was to be seen at the Hôtel de Vic. 'Such a glorious +collection ought all to have been kept together; but, as it was, +everybody got some share of the spoil.' He bought some of the best +specimens himself; and as he was only a poor monk of the Chartreuse the +prices can hardly have run high. M. Le Roux de Lincy has traced the fate +of the volumes dispersed at the sale. We hear, he says, of examples +belonging to De Mesmes and Bigot, to Colbert and Lamoignon, Captain du +Fay, the Count d'Hoym, and the Prince de Soubise. Some of the finest were +purchased by Baron Hohendorf and were transferred about the year 1720 to +the Imperial Library at Vienna. Yet they never rose to any high price +until the Soubise sale towards the end of the last century, when the +weight of the English competition for books began to be felt upon the +Continent. + +M. de Lincy has traced the adventures of more than three hundred volumes, +once in Grolier's ownership, but now for the most part in public +libraries. The earlier possessors are classified according to the dates +of their purchases. Of those who obtained specimens soon after the old +Treasurer's death we may notice especially Paul Pétau the antiquarian, De +Thou the historian, and Pithou the statesman and jurist. Perhaps we +should add Jean Ballesdens, a collector of fine books and MSS., whose +library at his death in 1677 contained nine of Grolier's books, and +Pierre Séguier, to whom Ballesdens acted as secretary; and as Séguier was +the personal friend of Grolier, he may have been the original recipient +of some of the volumes in question. + +Pierre Séguier founded a library which became one of the sights of Paris. +His grandson, Charles Séguier, the faithful follower of Richelieu, was +celebrated for his devotion to books. He used to laugh at his own +bibliomania. 'If you want to corrupt me' he would say, 'you can always do +it by giving me a book.' His house in the Rue Bouloi served as +headquarters for the French Academy before it gained a footing in the +Louvre; and on Queen Christina's visit in 1646 one of her first literary +excitements was to visit Chancellor Séguier's _salon_. The decorations +were considered worthy of being engraved and published by Dorigny. The +gallery stood between two large gardens. The ceilings were encrusted with +mosaics on a gold ground with allegorical designs by Vouet. The upper +story contained about 12,000 books, and as many more were ranged in the +adjoining rooms, one large hall being devoted to diplomatic papers, Greek +books from Mount Athos, and Oriental MSS. According to a description +published in 1684 a large collection of porcelain was arranged on the +walls above the book-cases and in cases set cross-wise on the floor: 'the +china covered the whole cornice, with the prettiest effect in the world.' +We are reminded of the lady's book-room which Addison described as +something between a grotto and a library. Her books were arranged in a +beautiful order; the quartos were fenced off by a pile of bottles that +rose in a delightful pyramid; the octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of +all shapes and sizes; 'and at the end of the folios were great jars of +china placed one above the other in a very noble piece of architecture.' + +Among the purchasers at the later sale we may notice the witty Esprit +Fléchier, who bought several of the lighter Latin poets, being a +fashionable versifier himself and a dilettante in matters of binding and +typography. In his account of the High Commission in Auvergne, appointed +to examine into charges of feudal tyranny, the Abbé tells us how his +reputation as a bibliophile was spread by a certain Père Raphael at all +the watering-places, and how two learned ladies came to inspect his books +and carried off his favourite Ovid. His library was removed to London and +sold in the year 1725; and the occasion was of some importance as marking +the beginning of the English demand for specimens from Grolier's library. + +Archbishop Le Tellier bought fifteen good examples, which he bequeathed +in 1709, with all his other books, to the Abbey of St. Geneviève. His +whole collection included about 50,000 volumes, mostly dealing with +history and the writings of the Fathers. 'I have loved books from my +boyhood,' he said, 'and the taste has grown with age.' He bought most of +his collection during his travels in Italy, in England, and in Holland; +but perhaps the best part of his store came from his tutor Antoine +Faure, who left a thousand volumes to the Archbishop, to be selected at +the legatee's discretion. + +The most valuable portion of Grolier's library was bought by his friend +Henri de Mesmes. This included the long series of presentation copies, +printed on vellum, and magnificently bound. De Mesmes was a collector +with a love of curiosities of all kinds. He seems to have been equally +fond of his early specimens of printing, his Flemish and Italian +illuminations, and the Arabic and Armenian treatises procured by his +agents in the East. His library became a valuable museum which was +praised by all the writers of that age, except indeed by François Pithou, +who called De Mesmes a literary grave-digger, and mourned over the burial +of so many good books in those cold and gloomy sepulchres. + +There seems to have been little occasion for this outburst, since the +library was open to all who could make a good use of it during the life +of Henri de Mesmes and under his son and grandson. Henri de Mesmes the +younger, its owner in the third generation, was renowned for his zeal in +collecting; he is said to have even procured MSS. from the Court of the +Great Mogul, dispatched by a French goldsmith at Delhi, who packed them +in red cotton and stuffed them into the hollow of a bamboo for safer +carriage. One of the finest things in his whole library was the Psalter +which Louis IX. had given to Guillaume de Mesmes: it had come by some +means into the library at Whitehall; but on the execution of Charles I. +the French Ambassador had been able to secure it, and had restored it to +the family of the original donee. + +The Norman family of Bigot rivalled the race of De Mesmes in their ardour +for book-collecting. Jean Bigot in 1649 had a magnificent library of 6000 +volumes, partly inherited from his ancestors, and partly collected out of +the monastic libraries at Fécamp and Mont St. Michel and other places in +that neighbourhood. His son Louis-Emeric took the library as his share of +the inheritance: its improvement became the occupation of his life; he +made many expeditions after books in foreign countries, but when he was +at home his library was the general _rendez-vous_ of all who were +interested in literature. The books were left to Robert Bigot upon trusts +that were intended to prevent their dispersion. A sale, however, took +place in 1706, at which the monastic archives and most of the MSS. were +purchased by the government. + +By some arrangement, of which the history is unknown, the head of the +family of De Mesmes was persuaded to allow his books to be included in +the Bigot sale. There seems to have been an attempt to disguise the +transaction by tearing off the bindings and defacing the coats of arms. +The strangest thing about the sale was the fact that no notice was taken +of its containing the finest portion of Grolier's library. The splendid +_Aldines_, on vellum, fell into the hands of an ignorant notary with a +new room to furnish: and he thought fit to strip off all the bindings, +that had been a marvel of Italian art, and to replace them with the gaudy +coverings that were more suited to his _bourgeois_ desires. + +M. de Lincy remarks that Grolier's books were strangely neglected through +a great part of the eighteenth century. At the very end of the period, +Count Macarthy had the good taste to include a few of them in his +collection of books upon vellum. Mr. Cracherode began, in 1793, to buy +all the specimens that came into the market: and the library which he +bequeathed to the British Museum contains no less than eighteen fine +examples. Eight more were comprised in the magnificent bequest of Mr. +Thomas Grenville's library in 1846. There has been a demand for these +books in England for more than a century and a half. But when we look at +the catalogues of Gaignat or La Vallière they seem to have been +altogether disregarded. When Gaignat died in 1768 his collection was +regarded as perfect; it was said that 'no one in the commonwealth of +letters had ever brought together such a rich and admirable assembly.' +Yet he only had one 'Grolier book,' a magnificent copy of Paolo Giovio's +book on Roman Fishes, which passed to the Duc de la Vallière, and went +for a few _livres_ at his sale. There were only two other specimens in +the Duke's library; and they seem to have been treated with equal +indifference. M. de Lincy was of opinion that the memory of Grolier was +almost entirely forgotten, except in his native city of Lyons. The +appearance of his books might be admired by an antiquary here and there; +but the classics had gone out of fashion for a time, and the world gave +its attention to old poetry, to mediæval romance, and even to 'books of +_facetiæ_.' + +Grolier's reputation had mainly depended on his generous patronage of +literature. Even the House of Aldus had rejoiced to be the clients of a +new Mæcenas. The authors of that time were still too weak to go alone. In +the absence of a demand for books it was essential to gain the favour of +a great man who might open a way to fame and would at least provide a +pension. We have all smiled at the adulations of an ancient preface and +the arrogance which too often baulked the poor writer's hopes. D'Israeli +reminds us that one of the Popes repaid the translation of a Greek +treatise with a few pence that might just have paid for the binding, and +of Cardinal Este receiving Ariosto's work with the question--'Where on +earth all that rubbish had been collected?' This was but a temporary +phase, and literature became free from the burden as soon as the public +had learned to read. The Houses of Plantin and the Elzevirs required no +help in selling out their cheap editions. A good dedication was still a +feather in the patron's cap. Queen Christina considered that she was +justly entitled to the patronage of her subjects' works: and Marshal +Rantzau, when writers were scarce in Denmark, brought out an anonymous +work for the purpose of introducing a preface in which his fame as a +book-collector was glorified. But the patron's function was gradually +restricted; and at last it was nearly confined to cases where a +dedication repaid assistance given in producing an unsaleable book. + +The later renown of Grolier must rest on the fact that he invented a new +taste. It would have been nothing to buy a few thousand Aldine books, +even if the collection included all the first editions, the papers of all +sizes, the copies with uncut edges, and specimens of the true misprints. +The family of Aldus had a large library of this kind, which was dispersed +at Rome by its inheritor in the third generation; but it never attracted +much attention, and was generally believed to have been merged in a +collection at Pisa. Grolier introduced a fashion depending for its +success on a multiplicity of details. He bought books out of large +editions just issuing from the press; but he chose out the specimen with +the best printing, and the finest paper, if vellum were not forthcoming. +The condition was perfect. Like the Count Macarthy he would have no dust +or worm-holes: he was as microscopic in his views as the most accurate +Parisian bibliophile. The binding was in the best Italian style: a +general sobriety was relieved by the brilliancy of certain effects, by +the purity of the design, perhaps above all by the perfection of the +materials. The book was an object of interest, for its contents, or for +historical or personal reasons; but it had also become an _objet d'art_, +like a gem or a figure in porcelain. Grolier preserved his dignity as a +bibliophile, and his true followers have not degenerated into collectors +of _bric-à-brac_. It is sufficient to name such men as M. Renouard, the +owner of many of Grolier's treasures, or M. Firmin-Didot 'the friend of +all good books,' or the collections of Mr. Beckford and Baron Seillière +which have been in our own time dispersed. No doubt there is a tendency, +especially among French amateurs, to regard books as mere curiosities; +and M. Uzanne has drawn an amusing picture of the book-hunter as a +chrysalis in his library, destined to find his wings in a flight after +mosaic bindings, autographs, original water-colours, or plates in early +states. + +It is possible, however, to prevent the 'book-buying disease' from +developing into a general collector's mania. With the world full of +books, we must adopt some special variety for our admiration. One person +will choose his library companions for their stateliness and splendid +raiment, another for their flavour of antiquity, or the fine company that +they kept in old times. Montaigne loved his friends on the shelf, because +they always received him kindly and 'blunted the point of his grief.' He +turned the volumes over in his round tower within any method or design; +'at one while,' he says, 'I meditate, at another time I make notes, or +dictate, as I walk up and down, such whimsies as meet you here.' He cared +little about the look of their outsides, but thought a great deal about +their readiness to divert him; 'it is the best _viaticum_ I have yet +found out for this human pilgrimage, and I pity any man of understanding +who is not provided with it.' We have omitted the best reason of all. One +who has lived among his books will love them because they are his own. +Marie Bashkirtseff expressed the matter well enough in a page of her +journal:--'I have a real passion for my books, I arrange them, I count +them, I gaze upon them: my heart rejoices in nothing but this heap of old +books, and I like to stand off a little and look at them as if they were +a picture.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +LATER COLLECTORS: FRANCE--ITALY--SPAIN. + + +We have still to notice one or two of Grolier's contemporaries, who may +be classed as great book-collectors of an old-fashioned type. They knew +the whole history of 'the Book,' and were themselves the owners of +exquisite treasures, which are now hoarded up as the choicest remains of +antiquity. But their function was not so much to collect books as rare +and curious objects as to undertake the duty of saving the records of +past history from destruction. They did the work in their day which has +now devolved upon the guardians of public and national libraries. No +private person could now take their place; but the interests of +literature could hardly have been protected in a former age without the +personal labour and enthusiasm of Orsini and Pétau. + +Fulvio Orsini was born in 1529. He began life as a beggar, though for +many years before his death he was the leader of Italian learning. A poor +girl had been abandoned with her child and was forced to beg her bread in +the streets of Rome. The boy obtained a place in the Lateran when he was +only seven years old: the Canon Delfini recognised his precocious talents +and undertook to find him a classical education. The student obtained +some small preferment, and succeeded to his patron's appointment. His +marvellous acquaintance with ancient books secured him a place as +librarian to the Cardinal Farnese, and he received many offers of more +lucrative employment: but he found that if he accepted he would have to +live away from Rome; and he refused everything that could cause +inconvenience to his mother, whose comfort was his constant care. On his +death, in the year 1600, he bequeathed his vast collections to the +Vatican, and the gift can only be compared to such important events as +the arrival of the spoils of Urbino, or the great purchase of MSS. from +the Queen of Sweden. + +Orsini has been ridiculed for having more books than he could read, and +for an excessive devotion to the antique. 'Here is a library like an +arsenal,' said the satirist, 'stored with all the requisites for any +campaign. The owner buys all the books that come in his way: it is true +that he will not read them; but he will have them magnificently bound, +and ranged on the shelves with a mighty show, and there he will salute +them several times a day, and will bring his friends and servants to make +their acquaintance.' Orsini is rebuked for his admiration of a dusty +manuscript. 'When one of these old parchments falls into his hands, he +makes you examine the decayed leaves on which the eye can hardly trace +any marks of an ancient pen. 'What is this treasure that we have here?' +he cries, 'and oh! what joy, here we have the delight of mankind, and +the world's desire, and pleasures not to be matched in Paradise!' +'There,' says our satirist, 'you have the very portrait of Fulvio Orsini. +Why, he once took a manuscript _Terence_, full of holes and mistakes, in +writing to Cardinal Toletus, and told him that it was worth all the gold +in the world'; and, to convince his Spanish Eminence, he said that the +book was a thousand years' old. '_Est-il possible?_' replies the +Cardinal, 'you don't say so. I can only say, my friend, I would rather +have a book hot from the press than all the old parchments that the Sibyl +had for sale.' + +Jacques Bongars, the faithful councillor and ambassador of Henri Quatre, +was the owner of a remarkable library, consisting to a great extent of +State papers and historical documents, which Bongars had special +facilities for collecting during his official visits to Germany. He had +studied law at Bourges under the learned Cujacius, of whom it is recorded +that when his name was mentioned in the German lecture-rooms, every one +present took off his hat. Bongars has described his excitement at +purchasing the great lawyer's library. 'My chief care has been to seek +out the books belonging to Cujas. I expect that you will have a fine +laugh when you think of all that crowd that goes to Court as if it were a +fair, to do their business together, and to try to get money out of the +King, while a regular courtier like myself rushes off to this lonely spot +to spend his fortune on books and papers, all in disorder and half eaten +by the book-worms. You will be able to judge if I am an avaricious man. +No trouble or expense is anything to me where books are concerned. Would +to God that I were free, and had time to read them. I should not feel any +envy then of M. de Rosny's wealth or the Persian's mountain of gold.' +While residing at Strasburg he bought the manuscripts belonging to the +Cathedral from some of the soldiers by whom the city was more than once +pillaged during the wars of religion. + +About the year 1603 Bongars arranged with Paul Pétau for the joint +purchase of a large collection of manuscripts, which had belonged to the +Abbey of St. Bénoit-sur-Loire, and had been saved by the bailiff Pierre +Daniel when the Abbey was plundered. The share of Bongars in this +collection was transferred to Strasburg, and passed eventually with the +rest of his books to the public library of the city of Berne. + +Paul Pétau was a man of universal accomplishments. He was the rival of +Scaliger in the science of chronology; his doctrinal works are praised as +'a monument of useful labour'; 'he solaced his leisure hours with Greek +and Hebrew, as well as Latin verse,' and, according to Hallam's judgment, +obtained in the last subject the general approbation of the critics. He +formed a valuable museum of Greek, Roman, and Gaulish antiquities, with a +cabinet of Frankish coins, to which Peiresc was a generous contributor. +His library contained several books that had belonged to Grolier; but it +was chiefly remarkable for its MSS., of which several were published by +Sirmond and Du Chesne among other materials for the history of France. +Many of them had been acquired from the collection of Greek and Hebrew +books formed by Jean de Saint André, or out of the mass of chronicles, +romances, and old French poems belonging to Claude Fauchet, and a large +portion came, as we have seen, out of an ancient Benedictine Abbey. Paul +Pétau's books of all kinds were left to his son Alexander. The printed +books, comprising a number of finely illustrated works on archæology, +were sold at the Hague in 1722; the sale included the old library +inherited by Francis Mansard, and the MSS. relating to Roman antiquities +that had been the property of Lipsius. A thousand splendid volumes on +parchment, the pride of the elder Pétau, described by all who saw them in +terms of glowing admiration, were sold in his son's lifetime to Queen +Christina of Sweden. She had always intended to buy some great +collection, and had thought among others of buying up those of Henri de +Mesmes, of De Béthune, and the Cardinal Mazarin. She was delighted with +her new acquisition, and carried it off to Rome, where she made a +triumphal entry with her books amidst the popular rejoicings. + +Something may be learned about the Italian collectors in the age that +followed Grolier's death, from the story of the strange wanderings of the +manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci. Very little was known upon this subject +until M. Arsène Houssaye found an account of what had happened among the +papers of the Barnabite Mazenta, who died in the year 1635. 'It was +about fifty years ago,' says the memorandum, written shortly before the +old monk's death, 'that thirteen volumes of Leonardo's papers, all +written backwards in his own way, fell into my hands. I was then studying +law at Pisa, and one of my companions in the class-room was Aldus +Manutius, renowned as a book-collector. We received a visit from one of +his relations called Lelio Gavardi; he had been tutor in the household of +Francesco Melzi, who was the pupil and also the heir of Leonardo.' Melzi +treasured up every line and scrap of the great man's works at his +country-house in Vaprio; but his sons did not care for art, and left the +papers lying about in a lumber-room, so that Gavardi was able to help +himself as he pleased. He brought thirteen volumes, well-known in the +history of literature, as far as Florence at first, and then to Aldus at +Pisa. 'I cried shame on him,' said Mazenta, 'and as I was going to Milan +I undertook to return them to the Melzi family. There I saw Doctor +Horatio Melzi, who was quite astonished at my taking so much trouble, and +gave me the books for myself, saying that he had plenty more of the same +sort in his garrets at home.' When Mazenta became a monk the thirteen +volumes passed to his brothers, who talked so much about the matter that +there was a rush of amateurs to Vaprio, and the Doctor was overwhelmed +with offers for the great man's books and drawings. 'One of these +rascals,' said Mazenta, 'was the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who used to make +the bronzes for the Escorial, and he pretended that he would obtain an +appointment for Melzi at Milan, if he would get back the thirteen volumes +for King Philip's new library in Spain. Leoni got possession of most of +the books and kept them in his own cabinet. One of the volumes was +presented by Mazenta's brother to the Ambrosian Library and may still be +seen there, in company with the huge _Codice Atlantico_, which Leoni made +up out of hundreds of separate fragments. At Leoni's death his collection +was bought by Galeazzo Arcanati, the illustrious owner of an artistic and +literary museum. He resisted the proposals of purchase that poured in +from foreign Courts; our James I. is said to have offered three thousand +gold doubloons for the great volume of designs; and on Arcanati's death +the whole collection was transferred by his widow to the Ambrosiana. Some +changes had been made in the distribution of the papers since Mazenta so +easily acquired his thirteen books. The French took the same number away +in 1796; but none of them ever returned, except the famous _Codice +Atlantico_. + +In Spain there were but few persons interested in books before the +foundation of the Escorial towards the end of the sixteenth century. We +learn from Mariana that soon after the year 1580 a vast gallery in the +palace was filled with books, mostly Greek MSS., which had been assembled +from all parts of Europe; 'its stores,' he said, 'are more precious than +gold: but it would be well if learned men had greater facilities for +reading them; for what profit is there from learning if she is treated +like a captive and traitor?' Arias Montanus, the first Orientalist of his +age, was appointed librarian by the founder; he was the owner of an +immense quantity of MSS. in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, many of which were +used in his edition of the Antwerp Polyglott Bible, and these he +bequeathed to the Escorial, while his printed books were left to the +University of Seville. + +The first book was printed in Valencia as early as the year 1474; but the +prospects of literature remained dark until the termination of the +Moorish wars. On the capture of Granada it was thought necessary to +obliterate the memory of the Koran, and scores of thousands of volumes, +or a million as some say, were destroyed by Cardinal Ximènes in a +celebrated _auto-da-fé_. About three hundred Arabic works on medicine +were preserved for the new library which the Cardinal was founding in his +University of Alcalà. The Cardinal spent vast sums in gathering materials +for his Mozarabic Missal and the great Complutensian Polyglott. It is +said that to avoid future criticism he gave his Hebrew originals to be +used in the making of fireworks, just as Polydore Vergil was accused in +our country of burning the monastic chronicles out of which he composed +his history, and as many Italian writers were believed to have destroyed +their classical authorities. When Petrarch lost his Cicero, it was +thought that Alcionio might have stolen it for his treatise upon exile; +but we should probably be right in rejecting all these stories together +as mere calumnies and 'forgeries of jealousy.' + +Antonio Lebrixa, who worked under the Cardinal till his death in 1522, +had done much to revive a knowledge of books, and may be regarded as the +principal agent in the introduction of the new Italian learning. His +pupil Ferdinand Nuñez, or Nonnius as he is often called, carried on the +good work at Salamanca, and left his great library to the University. +Diego Hurtado de Mendoza was one of the most distinguished students who +ever followed the lectures there. As a poet he has been called the +Spanish Sallust: as the author of the adventures of Lazarillo de Tormes +he takes a high place among the lighter authors of romance; and as a +patron of learning he will always be remembered for having enriched the +Escorial with his transcripts from Mount Athos, and six chests of +valuable MSS. which he received in return for ransoming from his +captivity at Venice the son of Soliman the Magnificent. Great credit must +also be given to Don Ferdinand Columbus for his good work at Seville. The +son of the great Admiral and Donna Beatrix Enriquez was one of the most +celebrated bibliophiles in Europe. He began making his collections very +soon after his father's death. Between 1510 and 1537 he had visited Italy +several times, and had travelled besides in England and France, in the +Low Countries and in Germany, buying books wherever he went. His great +object was to procure illuminated MSS. and early editions of romances and +miracle-plays; but he was also fond of the classics, and his library at +Seville is still possessed of many copies of Latin poets and orators +which are full of his marginal notes. At Louvain he became acquainted +with Nicholas Clénard, who was lecturing there on Greek and Hebrew, and +was just commencing the Arabic studies by which his name became famous. +Don Ferdinand had a commission to bring back professors for the +University of Salamanca, where learning was beginning to revive; and +Clénard was easily induced to visit a country which might contain the +relics of Moorish culture. Ferrari, as we know, was very successful in +the next generation in finding rare books in Spain for Borromeo's +Ambrosian library. At Bruges, Don Ferdinand met Jean Vasée, a man just +suited for an appointment as librarian, and he too was persuaded to +accompany the traveller on his return. Don Ferdinand established a large +library in his house at Seville. Clénard helped to arrange the books, and +Vasée became librarian. The volumes amounted at least to fifteen thousand +in number, though the exact amount remains unknown owing to discrepancies +in the earliest catalogues. + +Don Ferdinand hoped that the library would be kept up by the family of +Columbus. With that object he left it to his great-nephew Don Luis, with +an annuity to provide for the expenses; if the legacy were refused, it +was to pass to the Chapter of the Cathedral at Seville, with alternative +provisions in favour of the Monastery of San Pablo. As events turned out, +the succession was not taken up on behalf of his young kinsman, and after +some litigation the Fernandina, or 'La Colombina' as it was afterwards +called, was adjudged to the Chapter of Seville and placed in a room by +the Moorish Aisle at the Giralda. Owing chiefly to the generosity of +Queen Isabella and the Duc de Montpensier the library of 'La Colombina' +has been restored to prosperity, although according to Mr. Ford it was +long abandoned to 'the canons and book-worms.' It appears that in the +middle of the last century three-quarters of the MSS. had been destroyed +by rough usage or by the water dripping in from the gutters; the books +were in charge of the men who swept the Church, and they allowed the +school-children to play with the illustrated volumes and to tear out the +miniatures and woodcuts. Mr. Harrisse has described with much detail the +grandeur and the decline of this celebrated institution, and he gives +reasons for supposing that it may have suffered even in recent years from +the negligence of its guardians. It is satisfactory, however, to find +that its most precious contents have passed safely through every period +of danger; the library still contains some of the books of Christopher +Columbus, and especially the _Imago Mundi_ with his marginal notes about +the Portuguese discoveries, 'in all which things,' he writes 'I had my +share.' + +[Illustration: J. A. DE THOU.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +DE THOU--PINELLI--PEIRESC. + + +It was long a saying among the French that a man had never seen Paris who +had not looked upon the books of Thuanus. The historian Jacques-Auguste +de Thou held a leading place in literature, without pretending in any way +to rival the greatness of Joseph Scaliger or the erudition of Isaac +Casaubon. He was the master of a great store of personal and secret +history collected in state papers and records; but he was also famous for +the extent of his general scholarship, and for the patronage which he +manifested towards all who laboured about books. He was himself a most +fastidious collector. He never heard of the appearance of a valuable work +without ordering three or four copies on the fine paper manufactured for +his private use; and of any such book already issued he would order +several sets of sheets to be taken to pieces in order to procure one +perfect example. His library was not large. It consisted of about 8000 +printed books and 1000 manuscripts, chiefly upon historical subjects; but +they were all well selected, well bound, and in perfect condition. There +is a letter upon this subject by Henri Estienne the printer, in which the +high reputation of De Thou's library is contrasted with Lucian's just +invective against the illiterate book-hunter: 'The satirist would have +honoured a man like you, so learned and so generous in your library: you +choose your books with taste, and proportion the cost of binding to the +price of the volume; and Lucian, I am sure, would have praised your +carefulness in these respects.' + +In all matters connected with literature De Thou was helped by his friend +'Pithoeus,' of whom it was said that no one knew any particular author as +well as Pierre Pithou knew all the classics. By talent and hard work +combined Pithou had 'distilled the quintessence of wisdom' out of the +garnered stores of antiquity. Upon his death De Thou was inclined to give +up his books and the work that had made life pleasant. He wrote in that +strain to his associate Isaac Casaubon. 'On the loss of my incomparable +friend, the partner of my cares and my counsellor in letters and +politics, the web that I was weaving fell from my hand, and I should not +have resumed my history were it not a tribute to the memory of one who +has done so much for me.' + +De Thou's end was hastened by the death of his wife. Those who know the +look of his books, stamped with a series of his family quarterings, will +remember that he was first married to Marie Barbançon, and afterwards to +Gasparde de la Chastre. 'I had always hoped and prayed,' he wrote at the +commencement of his will, 'that my dearest Gaspara Chastræa would have +outlived me.' + +Admonished by her loss to set his affairs in order he began to take +special pains in providing for the future of his books. He anticipated +the public spirit of Cardinal Richelieu, to whom the merit is often +assigned of having been the first to bequeath the use of his library to +scholars. The Cardinal was not particular about the methods by which he +amassed his literary wealth: he is said to have increased his store by +all the arts of cajolery, and even by bare intimidation; and he may have +wished to make some amends by directing that 'persons of erudition' +should have access to his books after his death. De Thou had an equal +love of books, and showed perhaps a kinder feeling about the use of the +treasures which his own care had accumulated. 'It is important,' he +wrote, 'for my own family and for the cause of learning that the library +should be kept together which I have been for more than forty years +collecting, and I hereby forbid any division, sale, or dispersion +thereof; I bequeath it to such of my sons as shall apply themselves to +literature, and they shall hold it in common, but so that it shall be +free to all scholars at home or abroad. I leave its custody to Pierre du +Puy until my sons are grown up, and he shall have authority to lend out +the MSS. under proper security for their safe return.' + +Pierre and Jacques du Puy, the 'two Puteani' as they were often called, +were the sons of a distinguished bibliophile, Charles du Puy, who died in +1594, and were themselves the leaders in a curious department of +book-learning. Their father was the founder of a library enriched by his +care with the best specimens of early printing and a few rare MSS. In the +latter class he possessed an ancient bilingual copy of St. Paul's +Epistles, a Livy in uncial characters, and the precious fragments of the +Vatican Virgil, which he gave to Fulvio Orsini in his lifetime. 'On his +death,' says M. Guigard, 'the bibliographical succession passed to Pierre +and Jacques, his younger sons, the first a Councillor of State, the other +Prior of St. Sauveur-les-Bray, and both employed as guardians of the +books in the Royal Library. No two men were ever more ardently devoted to +the interests of learning. They worked in concert at increasing and +improving their father's library; but their chief object was to +accumulate and preserve the obscurer materials of history. The +_Collection Du Puy_, which has now became national property, comprised +more than 800 volumes of fugitive pieces, memoirs, instructions, +pedigrees, letters, and all the other miscellaneous documents that were +classed by D'Israeli 'under the vague title of State Papers.' It has been +said that the object of their 'Titanic labour' was to ease the way for +the historian De Thou; but it is more likely that the brothers obeyed an +instinct for the acquisition of secret history; 'life would have been too +short to have decided on the intrinsic value of the manuscripts flowing +down in a stream to the collectors.' The surviving brother bequeathed +these State Papers to the Abbé de Thou (the fourth possessor of the +'Bibliotheca Thuana') who sold them to Charron de Ménars; they were +eventually purchased by Louis XVI., and were deposited in the Royal +Library, where the printed books and certain other MSS. had been already +received under a legacy from Jacques du Puy. + +When the historian died the brothers jointly undertook the trust that had +fallen to Pierre. 'Among all the French scholars,' said Gassendi,'these +two Puteani do most excel; and now, abiding with the sons of Thuanus, +they sustain by all the means in their power the library and the students +that have been committed to their care. François-Auguste de Thou, the +historian's eldest son, became Grand-Master of the King's books; he added +considerably to the 'Bibliotheca Thuana,' and his house became the +meeting-place of the Parisian _savants_. A brilliant career was cruelly +cut short by the malignity of Richelieu. + +The young Cinq-Mars was in a plot with the Queen and Gaston of Orléans to +overthrow the Cardinal's power. His friend De Thou was aware of the +design, but had taken no part in the conspiracy. The Cardinal arrested +them both, and dragged them along the Rhone in a boat attached to his own +barge; and De Thou was executed as a scapegoat, while most of the leaders +saved their lives. The Cardinal died soon afterwards, without having +confiscated the library; and it passed to Jacques-Auguste, the +historian's younger son, who by a tardy act of grace had been restored +to the civil rights enjoyed by his brother before his unjust conviction. +He was by all accounts as great a book-collector as his father; and he +had the good fortune to marry an heiress, Marie Picardet, who brought +with her a large quantity of books from her father's house in Britanny. +In the year 1677 the 'Bibliotheca Thuana' with all its additions passed +to the Abbé Jacques-Auguste de Thou, who was soon afterwards compelled to +part with it to the Président Charron de Ménars. St. Simon praised its +new owner as a most worthy and honourable nonentity; but he had the sense +to step into the breach and to save the 'Thuana' from destruction. When +he sold the library to the Cardinal de Rohan, in 1706, he reserved the +_Collection Du Puy_ for his daughters. It is believed that the Cardinal, +through the cleverness of his secretary Oliva, obtained the historian's +choice examples for less than the price of the binding. We must follow +the career of the collection to its melancholy end. The Cardinal left it +to his nephew the Prince de Soubise. The world knows him as the inventor +of a sauce and as the general in one lost battle; but he had a higher +fame among the booksellers for his prowess in the auction-room. He seems +to have been the victim of a frenzy for books. He impressed them by +crowds, and marshalled them in regiments and myriads. They all fell in +1789 before the hammer of the auctioneer. Dibdin has described the +catalogue. It was unostentatious and printed on indifferent material. He +hoped, with his curious insistance on the point, that there were 'some +few copies on large paper.' It is a mark of the changes in +book-collecting that Dibdin praised the index as excellent, 'enabling us +to discover any work of which we may be in want'; but it is now regarded +as remarkable for its poverty, and especially for the extraordinary +carelessness that left eight noble specimens from Grolier's library +without the slightest mark of distinction. + +Gian-Vincenzio Pinelli was a celebrated man of letters whose library at +Padua formed 'a perpetual Academy' for all the scholars of his day. Born +at Naples in 1538, he spent the greater part of his long life at Padua, +where he was sent to study the law; but the only sign of his professional +labours appears to have been that he rigidly excluded all works on +jurisprudence from his magnificent library. His books, says Hallam, were +collected by the labours of many years: 'the catalogues of the Frankfort +fairs and those of the principal booksellers in Italy were diligently +perused, nor did any work of value appear from the press on either side +of the Alps which he did not instantly add to his shelves.' Remembering +the traditions of the age of Poggio, when the rarest classics might be +found perishing in a garret or a cellar, Pinelli was always in the habit +of visiting the dealers in old parchment and the brokers who carried off +deeds and papers from sales, just as Dr. Rawlinson collected and gave to +the Bodleian a mass of unsorted documents, including, as we have seen, +even the logs of recent voyages, and the pickings of "grocers' +waste-paper." In each case the industry of the collector was constantly +rewarded by the discovery of valuable literary materials, which would +have been lost under ordinary circumstances. The library of Pinelli was +augmented by that of his friend Paul Aicardo, the two _literati_ having +entered into an undertaking that the survivor should possess the whole +fruit of their labours. On Pinelli's death, in 1601, his family +determined to transfer his books to Naples. The Venetian government +interfered on the ground that, though Pinelli had been allowed to copy +the archives and registers of the State, it had never been intended that +the information should be communicated to a foreign power. Their +magistrate seized a hundred bales of books, of which fourteen were packed +with MSS. On examination it appeared that there were about three hundred +volumes of political commentaries, dealing with the affairs of all the +Italian States; and it was arranged, by way of compromise, that these +should remain at Padua in a repository under the charge of an official +guardian. The rest of the library was despatched in three shiploads from +Genoa. One vessel was captured by pirates, and the cargo was thrown +overboard, only a few volumes being afterwards cast ashore. The other +ships arrived safely at Naples; but it appears that the new proprietors +had little taste for literature. The whole remaining stock was found some +years afterwards in a mouldy garret, packed in ninety bales; and it was +purchased at last for 3000 crowns by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo, who +used it as the basis for the Ambrosian Library which he was at that time +establishing in Milan. Another library was afterwards founded at Venice +by members of the Pinelli family engaged in the Levantine trade. On the +death of its last possessor, Maffeo Pinelli, in 1787, the collection was +sold to a firm of English booksellers. It seems by Dibdin's account to +have been in a poor condition, though Dr. Harwood declared that, 'there +being no dust in Venice,' it had reposed for some centuries in excellent +preservation. This immense body of books was re-sold in London two years +afterwards at prices which barely covered the expenses incurred, though a +large amount was obtained for a copy of the Polyglott Bible of Ximènes in +six folio volumes printed upon vellum. + +The praises of the great Pinelli were spread abroad by Scaliger, De Thou, +and Casaubon; but his memory, perhaps, has been best preserved by the +ardent friendship of Peiresc. He was visited at Padua by the young +philosopher in whose mind he found a reflection of his own; and it was +generally agreed that the lamp of learning had passed into safe hands +when it was yielded by Pinelli to the student from Provence. Nicolas +Fabry de Peiresc belonged to an ancient family established near Aix. His +father had been selected by Louis XII. to share the education of the +Princess Renée. A man of learning himself, he spared no expense in the +boy's instruction, who became celebrated even in his childhood for the +strength of his precocious intellect. The most eminent professors in +Italy combined to exalt 'the ripe excellence of his unripe years'; and +when Pinelli died it was said that Peiresc had taken the helm of +knowledge and was guiding the ship as he pleased. He explored at leisure +the riches of Florence and Rome, and afterwards watched the rise of the +'Ambrosiana' at Milan. A letter from Joseph Scaliger, who ruled literary +Europe like a King, from his chair at Leyden, sent Peiresc off to Verona, +where he hunted up evidence in support of the wild story that the +Scaligers were the representatives of the Ducal line of La Scala. + +Julius Cæsar Scaliger, the father of the great philologist, had amused +the world by claiming to be the son of Benedetto and Berenice della +Scala, to have been a page of the Emperor Maximilian, and to have fought +in the Battle of Ravenna; and he pretended that he had become a +Cordelier, so as to rise to the Papal throne and expel the Venetians from +his dominions. Peiresc was by no means a believer in this extraordinary +romance; but he did his best to collect the coins, epitaphs, and +pedigrees, which might please his learned correspondent. Crossing the +Alps, we are told, 'he viewed the Lake of Geneva and made a tour through +a multitude of books'; and returned to Aix with a library and cabinet of +gems, 'thinking to himself that he would never see such plenty again.' +When he visited Paris in 1605, his first object, he said, was to see the +illustrious De Thou, to thank him for his kind letters, and to enquire +for messages from Scaliger. 'I cannot express,' he repeats, 'how joyfully +he entertained me.' De Thou took down his books for the visitor, and +showed him the records under lock and key that contained the secrets of +his history, 'opening his very heart, and brimful of a wonderful +sincerity.' Next day Casaubon came in from the _Bibliothèque du Roi_, and +showed much pleasure at being introduced to the traveller. His letters of +a later date show his high esteem for Peiresc. 'I am eagerly waiting to +hear what Scaliger will say about the antiques, but I foresee that you +will have room to glean after his harvest.' On another occasion he wrote: +'I do not know if you heard that the Duke of Urbino has sent me the +Polybius, but I am indeed most beholden to you for the kindness.' + +Ten years afterwards Peiresc came to Paris again, wishing to explore the +Oriental treasures in the library of De Mesmes, and to visit the huge +collections in the houses of St. Victor and St. Germain. Here he gained +the friendship of Pierre Séguier and the elegant Nicolas Rigault, and of +Jérome Bignon, the first of a long dynasty of librarians. In England he +saw the Bodleian, and talked with Savile, and admired Sir Robert Cotton +as 'an honestly curious sort of man.' In Holland his chief business was +to visit Scaliger, and we are told that he was careful not to ask about +the treatise on squaring the circle, or to hint any doubt as to the truth +of the Verona romance. Here at Leyden he read in the great library, soon +to be endowed with Scaliger's books, and saw the room of which Heinsius +so nobly said: 'In the very bosom of Eternity among all these illustrious +souls I take my seat'; and at Louvain he could only lament the death of +Justus Lipsius, whom he regarded as 'the light and the loadstar of +wisdom.' + +Gassendi has left us an account of the library collected by Peiresc. +Besides his acquisitions in the East, of which we have spoken elsewhere, +the books came in crowds from his agents in France and Germany, and his +scribes in the Vatican and Escorial. 'When any library was to be sold by +public outcry, he took care to buy the best books, especially if they +were of some neat edition that he did not already possess.' He bound them +in red morocco with his cypher or initials in gold. One binder always +lived in the house, and sometimes several were employed at once, 'when +the books came rolling in on every side.' He would even bind up bits of +old volumes and worm-eaten leaves; good books, he said, were so badly +used by the vulgar, that he would try to have them prized at least for +their beauty, and so perhaps they might escape the hands of the +tobacconist and the grocer. A treatise published by Jerome Alexander +contained a wonderful description of the establishment. 'Your house and +library,' says the dedication, 'are a firmament wherein the stars of +learning shine: the desks are lit with star-light and the books are in +constellations: and you sit like the sun in the midst, embracing and +giving light to them all.' Peiresc was anxious to circulate the book, +which contained a rare treatise by Hesychius; but he took care to compose +another dedication, which was printed and inserted without comment. + +Notwithstanding his profuse purchases he did not leave a large collection +at his death. His friends complained that he lent 'a world of books' that +were never returned, and that he was especially lavish of any works that +could be replaced by purchase. 'About ten years after his death,' says +his friend Lemontey, 'his relations brought his books to Paris, where I +saw them in 1647; they formed a great company of volumes, most curiously +bound. They ought to have been sold _en bloc_, but as the Genius of the +library had fled, the Fates ordained that they should be torn asunder.' +Most of the books were purchased for the Collège de Navarre. A great +number of the MSS. were destroyed, though there are still a few volumes +in the public library at Carpentras. These were purchased from Louis +Thomassin, a member of Peiresc's family, by Don Malachi d'Inguimbert, +librarian to Pope Clement XII., who founded the collection of Carpentras +when he became Bishop of the diocese. There is a tradition that Peiresc's +correspondence, containing many thousands of documents, was destroyed by +his grand-niece, 'a kind of female Omar,' who insisted in using the +papers for lighting fires and making trays for her silk-worms. + +Peiresc employed some of the most learned men of his time to collect for +him in Italy. Jacques Gaffarel, who had been engaged in similar work for +Richelieu, was his principal agent in Rome. At Padua he was so fortunate +as to secure the services of the archæologist Tomasini. But his +correspondence shows that the prince of librarians, Gabriel Naudé, was at +once his agent, his adviser, and his friend; and it is from Naudé that we +take the words of grief which remain as the scholar's memorial. 'Oh cruel +Fate and bitter Death, thrust into the midst of our jollity! Was there +ever a man, I pray you, more skilled in history and philology, more ready +to assist the student, more endowed with wit and wealth and worth, the +equipment of any man who, like Peiresc, is to hold the world of letters +at his beck and call.' + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +FRENCH COLLECTORS--NAUDÉ TO RENOUARD. + + +Gabriel Naudé was a Doctor of Medicine, and held an appointment at one +time as physician in ordinary to Louis XIII. But even as a student he +manifested that passion for books which furnished the real occupation of +his life. Before taking his degree at Padua he was librarian to Henri de +Mesmes, and afterwards to Cardinal Bagni at Rome. On his patron's death +he was placed in charge of the great library which Cardinal Barberini was +establishing in his palace in the Piazza of the Quattro Fontane. Some +part of his time was spent in collecting books for Cardinal Richelieu, +who offered Naudé the charge of his library in 1642; but, the Cardinal +having died in that year, Naudé transferred his services to Mazarin. He +inspired his employer with the desire of emulating the magnificence of +Barberini and the patriotic generosity of Borromeo; and the librarian's +keen scent for books and minute knowledge of their values were +thenceforth utilised in the work of creating the _Bibliothèque Mazarine_. + +Richelieu had done things on a grand scale. He had confiscated to his own +use the whole town-library at La Rochelle; and Naudé was anxious that +Mazarin's great undertaking should begin with an acquisition _en bloc_. A +provincial governor named Simeon Dubois had made a collection in the +Limousin. His books had passed into the hands of Jean Descordes, a Canon +of Limoges, who died in 1642 possessed of about 6000 volumes. Naudé +prepared the catalogue, and persuaded the Cardinal to purchase the whole +property by private contract. A few months afterwards the King gave him +the State Papers collected by Antoine de Loménie. A great number of +printed books were added under Naudé's superintendence, and in a short +time the new library was opened to the public. Its regulations were +framed in a very liberal spirit, as may be learned from the first of +Naudé's rules: 'The library is to be open to all the world without the +exception of any living soul; readers will be supplied with chairs and +writing-materials, and the attendants will fetch all books required in +any language or department of learning, and will change them as often as +is necessary.' + +In reviewing the condition of the other great libraries, Naudé pointed +out that there was nothing like an unrestrained admission except at the +Bodleian, the Ambrosian, and the Angelica Library at Rome. The public had +no rights at the Vatican, or the Laurentian, or the Library of St. Mark +at Venice. It was just the same at Bologna, or Naples, or in the Duchy of +Urbino. The same thing, he said, might be seen in other countries. +Ximènes built a fine library at Alcalà, and there was a collection of +the books of Nuñez at Salamanca; there were the Rantzaus at Copenhagen +and the Fuggers at Augsburg; they had done everything for the use of +scholars except making the libraries free. The French themselves had the +King's Library, a vast accumulation at St. Victor's, and a rich bequest +from De Thou; but the use of all this wealth of books was hampered by the +most complicated restrictions. We can see that he was rejoicing in his +own good work while he praised the stately Ambrosiana. 'Is it not +astonishing,' he asks, 'that any one can go in when he likes, and stay as +long as he cares to look about or to read or make extracts? All that he +has to do is to sit at a desk and ask for any book that he wishes to +study.' + +For some years after the new library was established Naudé travelled in +quest of books over the greater part of Europe. He said that he would +have ransacked Spain if Mazarin had not preferred an invasion by the +regular army. He was the 'familiar spirit' of the auction-room, and it +became a by-word that a visit from the great book-hunter was as bad as a +storm in the book-shops. He boasted in his epigrams of exploits in +Flanders, in Switzerland, and among the Venetian book-stalls. At Rome he +bought books by the fathom; he skimmed the German shelves, and passed +over into England to relieve the islanders of their riches. At Lyons he +met Marshal Villeroi, who gave him a great portion of the books which +Cardinal de Tournon had bequeathed to the Jesuits. We trace the result +of his travels in his description of the libraries of Europe. Certain +subjects, as he said, are in vogue at particular places, and we ought +always to notice the book-fashions to show our respect for the feelings +of mankind. 'For positive science we go to Rome or Florence or Naples, +and for jurisprudence to Paris or Milan; France supplies us with history; +and if we wanted scholastic lore we might go to Spain, or the colleges of +Oxford and Cambridge.' + +In 1647 the Mazarine Library contained about 45,000 volumes, and Naudé in +his joy proclaimed it as the eighth wonder of the world. The Parisians +appeared to be delighted with the superb Loménie MSS. and the crowd of +bright volumes in the Cardinal's ordinary livery. But in 1651 the +Parliament got the upper hand of the 'Red Tyrant' in one of the unmeaning +struggles of the Wars of the Fronde; the property of Mazarin was +confiscated for a time, and the library was put up for sale. The list of +Commissioners included the respectable names of Alexandre Pétau and +Pierre Pithou; yet we are assured that the auction resembled a massacre, +and that hardly any obstacle was placed in the way of the most impudent +thefts. Naudé in vain petitioned against a decree which had fallen like a +thunder-bolt on the 'wonderful work of his life.' 'Why will you not save +this daughter of mine, this library that is the fairest and best-endowed +in the world? Can you permit the public to be deprived of such a precious +and useful treasure? Can you endure that this fair flower, which spreads +its perfume through the world, should wither as you hold it in your +hands?' + +Naudé spent his own small fortune in ransoming the books on medicine. He +had worked hard to persuade Queen Christina to purchase the whole +collection; but when it came to the point she only bought a few MSS. +which were afterwards returned. The 'Pallas of the North,' was interested +in Naudé's misfortunes. She invited him to take charge of the Royal +Library at Stockholm, and here he rested for a while. He made +acquaintance in Sweden with several celebrated men of letters; Descartes +was a guest at the Court, and used to be ready to begin his metaphysical +discourses at day-break. Naudé on one occasion delighted the young Queen +by stepping a Greek dance with Professor Meibomius, who was just at that +time bringing out his work upon the music of the ancients. The climate, +or the excitement of that vivacious Court, began to disagree with Naudé's +health; he resigned his appointment and returned to France, but died at +Abbeville on his way to Paris, a few months before his patron's return to +power. When the public library was established again the Cardinal +purchased Naudé's private collection of 8000 books; and care was taken to +preserve them apart, as a mark of distinction, in a gallery named after +the famous librarian. + +The hereditary collections of Colbert and La Moignon were as much +indebted to their librarians as the Mazarine to the labours of Naudé. +The Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert was as celebrated for his books as for +his finance: but the magnificence of the library was mainly due to its +guardian Calcavi and his successor the venerable Baluze. Colbert's +manuscripts are believed to have been the most valuable ever amassed by a +person of private fortune. Among their eight thousand volumes were the +choicest treasures from St. Martin's Abbey at Metz, including the _Book +of Hours_ used by Charles the Great, and a Bible said to have been +illuminated for Charles the Bald. There were about 50,000 printed books, +almost all well-bound; and it was thought that the choicest Levantine +moroccos had been secured for the Minister by an article in a treaty with +the Sultan. Colbert died in 1683, and the library remained in his family +for half a century afterwards. In 1728 the Marquis de Seignelaye sold the +books, and began to sell a portion of the manuscripts; the world was +alarmed at the idea of a general dispersion; the remaining manuscripts, +however, were offered to Louis XV.; and there was great rejoicing when he +wrote '_Bon, 300,000 livres_' on the letter received from the Marquis. + +The other famous library was amassed by 'an extraordinary family of +book-collectors.' It was begun by Guillaume de la Moignon, who was +President of the Parliament of Paris in 1658. His son Chrétien de la +Moignon was as zealous a book-buyer as his father, and he secured the +renown of their library by engaging the services of Adrien Baillet. +Dibdin quoted passages from Baillet's biography that show the tenderness +with which the family treated his 'crazy body and nervous mind': 'Madame +La Moignon and her son always took a pleasure in anticipating his wishes, +soothing his irritabilities, promoting his views, and speaking loudly and +constantly of the virtues of his head and heart.' Baillet in his turn +gave to his employers the credit of his best literary work. 'It was done +for you,' he wrote, 'and in your house, and by one who is ever yours to +command.' The library was much enlarged by its owner in the third +generation; and by its union with the collection of M. Berryer, who died +in 1762, it became 'one of the most splendid in Europe.' It was dispersed +during the troubles of the Revolution, and a great portion was brought to +London in 1791; but the works on jurisprudence were reserved, and were +sold in Paris a few years afterwards. + +David Ancillon is perhaps best known as the defender of Luther and +Calvin. But according to Bayle he was an indefatigable book-collector, +and notable for having set the fashion of buying books in the first +edition. Most people thought, said D'Israeli, that the first edition was +only an imperfect essay, 'which the author proposes to finish after +trying the sentiments of the literary world.' Bayle was on the side of +Ancillon. There are cases, as he remarked, in which the second edition +has never appeared; and at any rate the man who waits for the reprint +shows 'that he loves a pistole better than knowledge.' Ancillon, +however, always indulged himself with 'the most elegant edition,' +whatever the first might have been; he considered that 'the less the eyes +are fatigued in reading or work the more liberty the mind feels in +judging of it.' It is easier to detect the merits in print than in +manuscript: 'and so we see them more plainly in good paper and clear type +than when the impression and paper are bad?' Some have thought it better +to have many editions of a good book: 'among other things,' says our +critic, 'we feel great satisfaction in tracing the variations.' Ancillon +was naturally accused of an indiscriminate mania for collecting; and he +confessed that he was to some extent infected with the 'book-disease.' It +was said that he never left his books day or night, except when he went +to preach to his humble congregation. He was convinced that some golden +thought might be found in the dullest work. Ancillon remained in France +as long as his religion was tolerated. He found a home across the Rhine +after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; but from that time he had to +be content with German editions, all his fine tall volumes having been +destroyed by the 'Catholic' rioters at Metz. + +If Evelyn can be believed, the art of book-collecting had come to a very +poor pass in France about the seventeenth century. It had been discovered +that certain classes of books were the necessary furniture of every +gentleman's library. If a man of quality built a mansion he would expect +to find a book-room and a quantity of shelves; it was a simple matter +further on to order so many yards of folios or octavos, all in red +morocco, with the coat of arms stamped in gold. Such collections, said La +Bruyère, are like a picture-gallery with a strong smell of leather: the +owner is most polite in showing off 'the gold leaves, Etruscan bindings, +and fine editions'; 'we thank him for his kindness, but care as little as +himself to visit the tan-yard which he calls his library.' We must not +forget the financier Bretonvilliers, who about the year 1657 determined +to become a bibliophile, and so far succeeded that some of his local +books on Lorraine were purchased for the National Library. He first built +a Hôtel, not far from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, with a large gallery +in which with infinite pains he built up a magnificent book-case; the +contents were of less importance; but he succeeded after a time in +filling it with books stamped with his new device of an eagle holding the +olive-branch. + +One or two of the more serious collectors may be noticed before we pass +to the great age of Rothelin and La Vallière. Henri du Bouchet had +gathered about eight thousand books, all very well chosen, according to +the testimony of the Père Jacob; on his death in 1654 he bequeathed them +to the Abbey of St. Victor on public trusts so that those who came after +him might find a solace in what had been 'his dearest delight.' He +requested that they might be free to students for three days in the week +and for seven hours in the day; and his wishes were duly regarded until +the great library of St. Victor was dispersed in 1791. The monks set up a +tablet and bust in memory of the generous donor; and perceiving that the +volumes were not emblazoned in the usual way they adopted the singular +plan of inserting pieces of leather bearing his arms into holes cut in +the ancient bindings. + +The Abbé Boisot was another of the scholars who lived entirely for books. +While quite a young man he acquired a considerable library in his travels +through Spain and Italy; and in 1664, during an official visit to +Besançon, he was so fortunate as to acquire the MSS. of the Cardinal de +Granvelle, who had been the confidential minister of the Emperor Charles +V. Boisot wrote a delightful account of the adventures through which this +collection had passed. 'At first,' he says, 'the servants used what they +pleased, and then the neighbours' children helped themselves; when some +packing-cases were wanted, the butler, to show his economy, sold the +records contained in them to a grocer.' At last they were all tired of +these 'useless old papers,' and determined to throw them away. Jules +Chifflet, according to Guigard, was the means of saving the remainder. He +examined a number of the documents and recognised their importance, +though they were mostly in cipher; but he died before they could be +sorted out. Boisot bought what he could from the heirs, and found a good +many more MSS. in the neighbourhood. They passed with the rest of +Boisot's books to the Abbey of St. Vincent at Besançon; and during the +Revolution the whole collection became the property of the citizens and +was transferred to the public library. + +The hereditary treasures of the Bouhier family were dispersed in the same +way through several provincial libraries. The collection had begun in the +reign of Louis XII., and something had been done in each generation +afterwards by way of adding fine books and manuscripts. Étienne Bouhier +had collected in all parts of Italy. Jean Bouhier in 1642 bought the +accumulations of Pontus de Thyard, the learned Bishop of Châlons. His +father's own library had been dispersed among his children; but Jean +Bouhier succeeded in getting it together again, and added a large number +of MSS. which he had gathered for the illustration of the history of +Burgundy. The library became still more famous in the time of his +grandson the President Jean Bouhier, who has been admired as the type of +the true bibliophile. The bibliomaniac heaps up books from avarice or +some animal instinct; he is a collector, it is said, 'without intelligent +curiosity.' Bouhier used to read his books and make notes upon them; and +it is said that he carried the practice to such excess as to deface with +marginal scribblings the finest work of Henri Estienne and Antoine +Vérard. A visitor to his library described the sober magnificence of the +rosewood shelves with silken hangings in which the rare editions and +long rows of manuscripts were ranged. In the next generation there was a +startling change. The library had been left to Bouhier's son-in-law, +Chartraire de Bourbonne: the grave offspring of Aldus and Gryphius found +themselves in company with poets of the _talon rouge_ and muses of the +_Opéra bouffe_. When the gay De Bourbonne died, the ill-assorted crowd +passed to his son-in-law in his turn, and was transferred in 1784 to the +Abbey of Clairvaux. + +We cannot name or classify the bibliophiles of the eighteenth century. It +would be endless to describe them with the briefest of personal notes; +how M. Barré loved out-of-the-way books and fugitive pieces, or Lambert +de Thorigny a good history, or how Gabriel de Sartines, the policeman of +the Parc aux Cerfs, had a marvellous collection about Paris. When Count +Macarthy sold his books at Toulouse his catalogue contained a list of +about ninety others, issued in the same century, from which his riches +were derived. We can point to a few of the mightiest Nimrods. We see the +serene Gaignat pass, and the bustling La Vallière; the Duc d'Estrées is +recognised as a busy book-hunter, and there are the physicians Hyacinthe +Baron and Falconnet whose keenness no prey could escape. We can +distinguish the forms of the elegant '_bibliomanes_' to whom their books +were as pictures or as jewels to be enclosed in a shrine; there is Count +d'Hoym with a house full of treasures, and Boisset and Girardot de +Préfond with their cabinets of marvels. If the crowds in the +old-fashioned libraries are like the multitude at Babel, these tall +volumes in crushed morocco and 'triple gold bands' remind us of what our +antiquaries have said of books glimmering in their wire cases 'like +eastern beauties peering through their jalousies.' We ought to say +something of M. de Chamillard, best known in his public capacity as a +good match for the King at billiards and as the minister who proposed the +revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In private life Michael de Chamillard +was a virtuoso with well-filled galleries and portfolios; and he had +assembled a large company of books of fashionable appearance. But our +real interest is not so much with the Minister of Billiards, as M. Uzanne +described him, but rather with his wife and three daughters, who were all +true female bibliophiles. The eldest daughter, the Marquise de Dreux, was +wife of the Grand Master of the Ceremonies; but though his collection was +gay and polite the Marquise insisted on a separate establishment for the +books that she had discovered and bought and bound. The Duchesse de la +Feuillade and the Duchesse de Lorges insisted, like their elder sister, +on having libraries for their separate use. The minister's wife was +celebrated for the splendour of her books, and marvellous prices have +been paid for specimens of her earlier style. But 'little Madame de +Chamillard' attached herself in all things to the Maintenon, and followed +the uncrowned queen in abandoning the paths of vanity; she gave up the +world, so far as gilt arabesques and crushed morocco were concerned, and +dressed all her later acquisitions _à la Janséniste_, in plain leather +with perhaps the thinnest line of blind-tooling for an ornament. + +Charles du Fay was a captain in the Guards, compelled by his misfortunes +to confine himself to the battles of the book-sale. He lost a leg at the +bombardment of Brussels in 1695; and though he was promoted to a company +in the Guards, it became at last apparent that he could not serve on +horseback. Du Fay, we are told, was fortunately fond of literature; and +he devoted himself with eagerness to the task of collecting a magnificent +library. History and Latin poetry had always been his favourite subjects, +and it appears that he was already collecting fine examples in this +department during his campaigns in Germany and Flanders. + +M. de Lincy commemorates the good taste that impelled Du Fay to buy +several of Grolier's books, and records the industry with which he sought +to remedy his defects of education. Professor Brochard, he says, was a +learned man, with a good library of his own, who went to inspect the +books gathered by Du Fay from all parts of Europe. The visitor expressed +surprise that out of nearly four thousand volumes there should hardly be +any in Greek. 'I have hardly retained a word of the language,' said Du +Fay. 'Cato in his old age,' replied the Professor, 'did not hesitate for +a moment to learn it; and a person quite ignorant of Greek can never know +Latin well.' Du Fay was an easy good-natured man, and at once followed +his friend's advice, beginning from that day to buy Greek books and to +work at the language so as to be able to read them. His object, however, +in forming a library was not so much to gather useful information as to +set up a museum of literary rarities. The idea is in accordance with our +modern taste, and perhaps with the common sense of mankind; but some of +the old-fashioned collectors were angry with the poor epicure of +learning. The Président Bouhier writes to Marais in 1725 on seeing a +catalogue of the library: 'This savours more of bibliomania than +scholarship.' Marais at once replied: 'Your judgment on Du Fay's +catalogue is most excellent: it is not a library, but a shop full of +curious book-specimens, made to sell and not to keep for one's self.' + +Many of Du Fay's books were bought by Count d'Hoym, who lived for many +years at Paris as ambassador from Augustus of Poland and Saxony. The +Count has been accused of showing bad manners at Court, and of bad faith +in giving the trade secrets of Dresden to the factory at Sèvres; in +bibliography at any rate, he was supreme among the amateurs, and his +White Eagle of Poland appears upon no volume that is not among the best +of its kind. He sat at one time at the feet of the Abbé de Rothelin; but +he soon became his master's equal in matters of taste, and was accepted +until his exile at Nancy as the arbiter of elegance among the Parisians. +M. Guigard quotes from the dedication of a 'treasury' of French poetry a +passage that indicates his high position: 'To the poets in this +assemblage, whoever they be, it is a glory, Monseigneur, to enter your +Excellency's library, so full, so magnificent, so well chosen, that it is +justly accounted the prodigy of learning.' + +Charles d'Orléans, Abbé de Rothelin, had died in 1744, when most of his +books became the property of the nation. In some respects he was the most +distinguished of the book-collectors. His learning and wealth enabled him +to make a collection of theology that has never been surpassed; and he +had the good fortune to acquire the vast series of State Papers and the +priceless mediæval MSS. collected by Nicolas Foucault. His special taste +was for immaculate editions in splendid bindings; but nothing escaped his +notice that was in any way remarkable or interesting. + +Paul Girardot de Préfond was a timber-merchant who fell into an apathetic +state on retiring from active business. His physician, Hyacinthe Baron, +was an eminent book-collector, and he advised the patient to take up the +task of forming a library. So successful was the prescription that the +merchant became renowned during the next half century for his superb +bindings, his specimens from Grolier's stores, and the Delphin and +Variorum classics which he procured from the library of Gascq de la +Lande. On two occasions the sale of his surplus treasures made an +excitement for the literary world. Some of his rarest books were sold in +1757, and twelve years afterwards his Delphin series and the greater part +of his general collection were purchased by Count Macarthy. + +Mérard de St. Just was another collector, whose exquisite taste is still +gratefully remembered, though his small library has long been dispersed, +and was indeed almost destroyed by a series of accidents before the +outbreak of the great Revolution. 'My library,' he said, 'is very small, +but it is too large for me to fill it with good books.' He would not have +the first editions of the classics, because they were generally printed +on bad paper which it was disagreeable to touch, with the exception of +works produced by the Aldine Press. Nor would he buy mere curiosities, +says Guigard, but left them to persons who cared for empty display, 'like +one who proudly exhibits his patents of nobility without being able to +point to any distinguished action of his ancestors.' He was the owner of +many choice books that had belonged to Gaignat and Charron de Ménars, or +had been bound for Madame de Pompadour, or to the undiscriminating Du +Barry. In 1782, we are told, he despatched the best part of his library +to America, but had the grief of learning soon afterwards that they had +been captured at sea by the English. His philosophical temper was shown +in his reply to the bad news: 'I have but one wish upon the subject; I +hope that the person who gets this part of the booty will be able to +comprehend the value of the treasure that has come to his hands.' + +The elder Mirabeau was a collector of another type. The 'friend of +mankind' intended to gather together the best and largest library in the +world. He cared nothing for the scarcity or the external adornments of a +volume; but he had a huge appetite for knowledge, and he longed to have +the means of referring to all that could illustrate the progress of the +race. He did not live to attain any marked success in his gigantic +design; but his library had at least the distinction of containing all +the books of the Comte de Buffon, enriched with marginal notes in the +naturalist's handwriting. + +A modest collection was formed a few years afterwards by Pierre-Louis +Guinguené, who wrote a valuable work on the literary history of Italy. He +is remembered as having published amid the terrors of 1791 an amusing +essay on the authority of Rabelais 'in the matter of this present +Revolution.' He led a peaceful life through all that troubled time, and +succeeded in forming a very useful library containing about 3000 volumes; +it was purchased for the British Museum on his death, and became the +foundation of the great series of works on the French Revolution which +has been brought together there. + +The long life of M. Antoine Renouard bridges over the space between the +days of Mirabeau and the time when the _élégants_ of the Third Empire had +invented a new bibliomania. Renouard had ordered bindings from the elder +Derôme; in 1785 he bought a book at La Vallière's sale. In his +_Epictetus_ there is the following note: 'Bought in May 1785, the first +book printed on vellum that entered my library; rather luxurious for a +young fellow of seventeen, but then all my little savings were devoted to +acquiring books; parties of pleasure, and elegancies of toilette, +everything was sacrificed to my beloved books; and at that time a brisk +and brilliant business permitted expenses which were followed by hard +years of privation; it was in my first youth that I found it easiest to +spend money on my books.' Renouard began life as a manufacturer. His +father made gauze stuffs, and kept a shop in the Rue Apolline. In 1787 +the Abbé le Blond, the librarian of the Collège Mazarin, heard that +Molini had sold a fine Aldine Horace to a shopkeeper. 'The next day,' +says Renouard, 'Le Blond came into my library. "Oh! I shall not have the +book," he exclaimed, and when I looked round, he said, "I beg your +pardon, I hoped to tempt you with a few _louis_ for your bargain, but I +have given up the idea at once, and I only ask the double favour of +seeing the book and of being allowed to make your acquaintance."' +Renouard was the historian of the House of Aldus, and naturally became +the possessor of some of Grolier's finest books. During his career as a +bookseller he parted with most of them; and at the sale of his library in +1854 the 'Lucretius,' the 'Virgil,' and the 'Erasmus,' were all that +remained in his collection. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +LATER ENGLISH COLLECTORS. + + +In describing the English collections of the eighteenth century we have +the advantage of using the memoranda of William Oldys for the earlier +part of the period. D'Israeli deplored the carelessness which led the +'literary antiquary' to entrust his discoveries and reminiscences to the +fly-leaves of notebooks, to 'parchment budgets,' and paper-bags of +extracts. He expressed especial disappointment at the loss of the +manuscript on London Libraries, with its anecdotes of book-collectors and +remarks on booksellers and the first publishers of catalogues. The book +has come to light since his time, having been discovered among the +important collections bequeathed by Dr. William Hunter to the University +of Glasgow; it was published by Mr. W. J. Thoms about the year 1862 in +_Notes and Queries_, and was afterwards printed by him in a volume +containing a diary and other 'choice notes' by Oldys and an interesting +memoir of his life. 'In his own departments of learning,' says Mr. Thoms, +'Oldys exhausted all the ordinary sources of information,' and adds that +'his copious and characteristic accounts of men and books have endeared +his memory to every lover of English literature.' + +Oldys had some special advantages as a collector of old English poetry. +He knew, as no one else at that time knew, the value of the plays and +pamphlets that encumbered the stalls; he had no competitor to fear 'clad +in the invulnerable mail of the purse.' Oldys was born in 1696; he became +involved, while quite a young man, in the disaster of the South Sea +Bubble; and in 1724 he was obliged to leave London for a residence of +some years in Yorkshire. Among the books that he abandoned was the first +of his annotated copies of _Langbaine_, which he found afterwards in the +hands of a miserly fellow, begrudging him even a sight of the notes. +'When I returned,' he writes, 'I understood that my books had been +dispersed; and afterwards, becoming acquainted with Mr. Thomas Coxeter, I +found that he had bought my _Langbaine_ of a bookseller who was a great +collector of plays and poetical books.' His autobiography shows that he +soon restored his literary losses. His patron, Lord Oxford, for whom he +afterwards worked as librarian, was anxious to buy everything that was +rare. 'The Earl,' says Oldys, 'invited me to show him my collections of +manuscripts, historical and political, which had been the Earl of +Clarendon's, my collections of Royal Letters and other papers of State, +together with a very large collection of English heads in sculpture.' Mr. +Thoms quotes a note from the _Langbaine_ to show that Oldys had bought +two hundred volumes 'at the auction of the Earl of Stamford's library at +St. Paul's Coffee-house, where formerly most of the celebrated libraries +were sold.' It was while Oldys was living in Yorkshire, under the +patronage of Lord Malton, that he saw the end of the library of State +Papers collected by Richard Gascoyne the antiquary. The noble owner of +the MSS. had been advised to destroy the papers by a lawyer, Mr. Samuel +Buck of Rotherham, 'who could not read one of those records any more than +his lordship'; but he feared that they might contain legal secrets or +disclose flaws in a title or, as Oldys said, 'that something or other +might be found out one time or other by somebody or other.' Richard +Gascoyne, he adds, possessed a vast and most valuable collection of +deeds, evidences, and ancient records, which after his death, about the +time of the Restoration, came to the family of the first Earl of +Strafford. They were kept in the stone tower at Wentworth Woodhouse until +1728, when Lord Malton 'burnt them all wilfully in one morning.' 'I saw +the lamentable fire,' says Oldys, 'feed upon six or seven great chests +full of the said deeds, some of them as old as the Conquest, and even the +ignorant servants repining.... I did prevail to the preservation of some +few old rolls and public grants and charters, a few extracts of escheats, +and original letters of some eminent persons and pedigrees of others, but +not the hundredth part of much better things that were destroyed.' + +One or two extracts from the 'diary and choice notes' will show the +minute attention given by Oldys to everything concerned with books. +Under the date of June 29th, 1737, we read: 'Saw Mr. Ames' old MSS. on +vellum, entitled _Le Romant de la Rose_, which cost forty crowns at Paris +when first written, as appears by the inscription at the end: it had been +Bishop Burnet's book, his arms being pasted in it, and Mr. Rawlinson's, +being mentioned in one of his catalogues; in the same catalogue also is +mentioned Sir William Monson's collection, which Mr. West bought and lent +me before the fatal fire happened at his chambers in the Temple.' Mr. +Thorns adds that Sir William Monson, an Admiral of note in the reign of +James I., formed considerable collections, principally about naval +affairs. Under the date of August 8th, we read of a visit to Strype the +historian. 'Invited by Dr. Harris to his brother's at Homerton, where old +Mr. Strype is still alive, and has the remainder of his once rich +collection of MSS., tracts, etc.' Dr. Knight's letter of a few months' +earlier date was printed by Nichols in his _Literary Anecdotes_. 'I made +a visit to old Father Strype when in town last: he is turned ninety, yet +very brisk, and with only a decay of sight and memory.... He told me that +he had great materials towards the life of the old Lord Burleigh and Mr. +Foxe the martyrologist, which he wished he could have finished, but most +of his papers are in "characters"; his grandson is learning to decipher +them.' Under the dates of September 1st and 7th Oldys records that 'the +Yelverton library is in the possession of the Earl of Sussex, wherein +are many volumes of Sir Francis Walsingham's papers'; and a few days +later, 'Dr. Pepusch offered me any intelligence or assistance from his +ancient collections of music, for a history of that art and its +professors in England; and as to dramatic affairs, he notes that the +Queen's set of Plays had at first been thought too dear; but after Mrs. +Oldfield the actress died, and they were reported to be his collection, +then the Queen would have them at any rate.' When Oldys died his curious +library was purchased by Thomas Davies, and was put up to auction in +1762. The list of printed books comprises many literary treasures which +in our days can hardly be procured, but at that time went for a song. +'The manuscripts were not so many as might be expected from so +indefatigable a writer'; it seems that Oldys had always been too generous +with his gifts and loans. + +Among his notices of the London libraries we find an interesting account +of the collection at Lambeth, then housed in the galleries above the +cloisters. 'The oldest of the books were Dudley's, the Earl of Leicester, +which from time to time have been augmented by several Archbishops of +that See. It had a great loss in being deprived of Archbishop Sheldon's +admirable collection of missals, breviaries, primers, etc., relating to +the service of the Church, as also Archbishop Sancroft's.' The books and +MSS. belonging to Sancroft had in part been deposited at Lambeth; but on +his deprivation they were removed to Emmanuel College at Cambridge. +Oldys added that there was another apartment for MSS., 'not only those +belonging to the See, but those of the Lord Carew, who had been Deputy of +Ireland, many of them relating to the state and history of that kingdom.' + +Archbishop Tenison had furnished another noble library near St. Martin's +Lane 'with the best modern books in most faculties'; 'there any student +might repair and make what researches he pleased'; and there too were +deposited Sir James Ware's important Irish MSS. and many other portions +of the Clarendon Collection, until offence was taken at their having been +catalogued among the papers of the Archbishop. + +In Dulwich College there was another library to which Mr. Cartwright the +actor gave a collection of plays and many excellent pictures; and 'here +comes in,' says Oldys, 'the Queen's purchase of plays, and those by Mr. +Weever the dancing-master, Sir Charles Cotterell, Mr. Coxeter, Lady +Pomfret, and Lady Mary Wortley Montague'; and here we might mention the +sad case of Mr. Warburton the herald, whose forte was to find out +valuable English plays. Shortly before his death in 1759 he discovered +that the cook had used up about fifty of the MSS. for covering pies, and +that among them were 'twelve unpublished pieces by Massinger.' Something +may be said too as to the older collections formed in London for the use +of schools. At Westminster, it has been well said, Dean Williams +'enlarged the boundaries of learning.' According to Hackett, he converted +a waste room into a noble library, modelling it 'into a decent shape,' +and furnishing it with a vast number of learned volumes. The best of them +came from the library of Mr. Baker of Highgate, who throughout a very +long life had been gathering 'the best authors of all sciences in their +best editions.' Dean Colet had endowed St. Paul's School with +philological works in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; but these were destroyed +in the great fire, together with the whole library of the High Master. +This was Mr. Samuel Cromleholme, who had the best set of neatly-bound +classics in London; 'he was a great lover of his books, and their loss +hastened the end of his life.' The shelves at Merchant Taylors and in the +Mercers' Chapel were almost as well filled as those at St. Paul's; and +Christ's Hospital at that time had a good plain library in the +mathematical school, with globes and instruments, 'and ships with all +their rigging for the instruction of lads designed for the sea.' + +In the College of Physicians was a fine collection 'in their own and the +other faculties.' Selden bequeathed to it his 'physical books,' and it +was enriched by a gift of the whole library of Lord Dorchester, 'the +pride and glory of the College.' We can only mention a few of the +libraries described by Oldys. The Jews, he says, had a collection at +Bevis Marks relating to the Talmud and Mischna and their ceremonial +worship: the French Protestants had another at the Savoy, and the Swedes +another at their Church in Trinity Lane. The Baptists owned a great +library in the Barbican. The Quakers had been for some years furnishing a +library with all the works written by the Friends. John Whiting published +the catalogue in 1708; 'and in my opinion,' says our critic, ''tis more +accurately and perfectly drawn up than the Bodleian Library at Oxford is +by Dr. Hyde, for the Quaker does not confound one man with another as the +scholar does.' Francis Bugg, he adds, 'the scribbler against them,' had a +better collection of their writings than any of the brethren; 'but I +think I have read in some of his rhapsodies that he either gave or sold +it to the library at Oxford.' + +Charles Earl of Sunderland was the greatest collector of his time. He +bought the whole library of Hadrian Beverland, 'which was very choice of +its kind,' and a great number of Pétau's books as mentioned before; 'no +bookseller,' it was said, 'hath so many editions of the same book as he, +for he hath all, especially of the classics.' Shortly before his death in +1772 he commissioned Mr. Vaillant to buy largely at the sale of Mr. +Freebairn's library. In Clarke's _Repertorium_ we are told how a fine +Virgil was secured: 'and it was noted that when Mr. Vaillant had bought +the printed Virgil at £46 he huzza'd out aloud, and threw up his hat for +joy that he had bought it so cheap.' The great collection was afterwards +taken to Blenheim, and has been dispersed in our time; 'the King of +Denmark proffered the heirs £30,000 for it, and "Queen Zara" would have +inclined them to part with it.' When the Earl of Sunderland died, +Humphrey Wanley saw a good chance for the Harleian. 'I believe some +benefit may accrue to this library, even if his relations will part with +none of the works; I mean by his raising the price of books no higher +now; so that in probability this commodity may fall in the market, and +any gentleman be permitted to buy an uncommon old book for less than +forty or fifty pounds.' If we listen to the Rev. Thomas Baker, the +ejected Fellow who gave 4000 books to St. John's at Cambridge, we shall +hear a complaint against Wanley. Lord Oxford's librarian when he saw a +fine book, even in a public institution, used to say, 'It will be better +in my lord's library.' Baker might have said, 'a plague on both your +houses!' What he wrote was as follows:--'I begin to complain of the men +of quality who lay out so much for books, and give such prices that there +is nothing to be had for poor scholars, whereof I have felt the effects; +when I bid a fair price for an old book, I am answered, "The quality will +give twice as much," and so I have done.' + +The Earls of Pembroke were for several generations the patrons of +learning. 'Thomas, the eighth Earl, was contemporary with those +illustrious characters, Sunderland, Harley, and Mead, during the Augustan +age of Britain'; he added a large number of classics and early printed +books to the library at Wilton, and his successor Earl Henry still +further improved it by adding the best works on architecture, on +biographies, and books of numismatics; 'the Earl of Pembroke is stored +with antiquities relating to medals and lives.' + +Lord Somers had the rare pieces in law and English history which have +been published in a well-known series of tracts. Lord Carbury loved +mystical divinity; the Earl of Kent was all for pedigrees and +visitations; the Earl of Kinnoul made large collections in mathematics +and civil law; and Lord Coleraine followed Bishop Kennett in forming 'a +library of lives.' + +Richard Smith was remembered as having started in the pursuit of Caxtons +in the days of Charles II.; the taste was despised when Oldys wrote, but +it eventually grew into a mania. 'For a person of an inferior rank we +never had a collector more successful. No day passed over his head in +which he did not visit Moorfields and Little Britain or St. Paul's +Churchyard, and for many years together he suffered nothing to escape him +that was rare and remarkable.' + +Mr. John Bridges of Lincoln's Inn was another 'notorious book-collector.' +When his books were sold in 1726 the prices ran so high that the world +suspected a conspiracy on the part of the executors. Humphrey Wanley was +disappointed in his commissions, and called it a roguish sale; of the +vendors he remarked 'their very looks, according to what I am told, dart +out harping-irons.' Tom Hearne went to Mr. Bridges' chambers to see the +sale, and descanted upon the fine condition of the lots: 'I was told of a +gentleman of All Souls that gave a commission of eight shillings for an +Homer, but it went for six guineas; people are in love with good binding +rather than good reading.' Some of the entries in the catalogue are of +great interest. The first edition of Homer, printed at Florence in 1488 +on large paper, went for about a quarter of the price of an Aldine Livy. +Lord Oxford secured a 'Lucian' in uncial characters, and a splendid +Missal illuminated for Henry VII. There was a large-paper 'Politian' in +two volumes, very carelessly described as 'finely bound by Grolier and +his friends'; but the best of all was the MS. Horace, with an exquisite +portrait of the poet, 'from the library of Matthias Corvinus, King of +Hungary.' + +Dr. Mead was a collector of the same kind. All that was beautiful came +naturally to this great man, of whom it was said that he lived 'in the +full sunshine of human existence.' He was the owner of a very fine +library, which he had 'picked up at Rome.' He had a great number of +early-printed classics, which fetched high prices at his sale in 1754; +his French books, according to Dibdin, and all his works upon the fine +arts 'were of the first rarity and value,' and were sumptuously bound. +His chief literary distinction rests on his edition of De Thou's +'History' in seven folio volumes. He had received a large legacy from a +brother, and spent it in the publication of a work 'from which nothing +of exterior pomp and beauty should be wanting'; the ink and paper were +procured from Holland; and Carte the historian was sent to France 'to +rummage for MSS. of Thuanus.' + +Oldys has a few notes upon curious collections which he thought might be +diverting to a 'satirical genius.' A certain Templar, he says, had a good +library of astrology, witchcraft, and magic. Mr Britton, the small-coal +man, had an excellent set of chemical books,'and a great parcel of music +books, many of them pricked with his own hand.' The famous Dryden, and +Mr. Congreve after him, had collected old ballads and penny story-books. +The melancholy Burton, and Dr. Richard Rawlinson, and the learned Thomas +Hearne, had all been as bad in their way. Mr. Secretary Pepys gave a +great library to Magdalen College at Cambridge: but among the folios +peeped out little black-letter ballads and 'penny merriments, penny +witticisms, penny compliments, and penny godlinesses.' 'Mr. Robert +Samber,' says Oldys, 'must need turn virtuoso too, and have his +collection: which was of all the printed tobacco-papers he could anywhere +light on.' + +For 'curiosity or dotage' none could beat Mr. Thomas Rawlinson, whose +vast collections were dispersed in seventeen or eighteen auctions before +the final sale in 1733. Mr. Heber in the present century is a modern +example of the same kind. 'A book is a book,' he said: and he bought all +that came in his way, by cart-loads and ship-loads, and in whole +libraries, on which in some cases he never cast his eyes. The most +zealous lovers of books have smiled at his duplicates, quadruplicates, +and multiplied specimens of a single edition. + +Thomas Rawlinson, for all his continual sales, blocked himself out of +house and home by his purchases: his set of chambers at Gray's Inn was so +completely filled with books that his bed had to be moved into the +passage. Some thought that he was the 'Tom Folio' of Addison's +caricature, in which it was assumed that the study of bibliography was +only fit for a 'learned idiot.' Hearne defended his friend from the +charge of pedantry, and declared that the mistake could only be made by a +'shallow buffoon.' + +Rawlinson had a miserly craving after good books. If he had twenty copies +of a work he would always open his purse for 'a different edition, a +fairer copy, a larger paper.' His covetousness increased as the mass of +his library was multiplied: and as he lived, said Oldys, so he died, +among dust and cobwebs, 'in his bundles, piles, and bulwarks of paper.' + +Upon Dr. Mead's death his place in the book-world was taken by Dr. +Anthony Askew, who travelled far and wide in search of rare editions and +large-paper copies. In describing the sale of his books in 1775 Dibdin +almost lost himself in ecstasies over the magnificent folios, and the +shining duodecimos 'printed on vellum and embossed with knobs of gold.' +It has been said that with this sale commenced the new era in +bibliography, during which such fabulous prices were given for fine +editions of the classics; but the date should perhaps be carried back to +Dr. Mead's time. Some credit for the new development should also be +ascribed to Joseph Smith, who collected early-printed books and classics +at Venice, while acting as English consul. His first library was +purchased by George III. in 1762, and now forms the best part of the +'King's Library' at the British Museum. His later acquisitions were sold +in 1773 by public auction in London. Among other classical libraries of +an old-fashioned kind we should notice the Osterley Park collection, only +recently dispersed, which was formed by Bryan Fairfax; it was purchased +_en bloc_ in 1756 by Mr. Francis Child, and passed from him to the family +of the Earl of Jersey. + +Topham Beauclerc housed his thirty thousand volumes, as Walpole declared, +in a building that reached halfway from London to Highgate; his +collection was in two parts, of which the first was mainly classical, and +the other was very rich in English antiquities and history. In 1783 was +sold almost the last of the encyclopædic collections which used to fill +the position now occupied by great public libraries. Mr. Crofts possessed +a treasury of Greek and Roman learning; he was especially rich in +philology, in Italian literature, in travels, in Scandinavian affairs; +'under the shortest heads, some one or more rare articles occur, but in +the copious classes literary curiosity is gratified, is highly feasted.' + +Dr. Johnson's books were dispersed in a four-days' sale in 1785. A copy +of the interesting catalogue has lately been reprinted by The Club. The +most valuable specimen, as a mere curiosity, would be the folio with +which he beat the bookseller, but we suppose that very little on the +whole was obtained for the 662 lots of learned volumes that had sprawled +over his dusty floor. The Doctor had but little sympathy with the +fashions that were beginning to prevail. He laughs in the _Rambler_ at +'Cantilenus' with his first edition of _The Children in the Wood_, and +the antiquary who despaired of obtaining one missing Gazette till it was +sent to him 'wrapped round a parcel of tobacco.' 'Hirsutus,' we are +told,'very carefully amassed all the English books that were printed in +the black character'; the fortunate virtuoso had 'long since completed +his Caxton, and wanted but two volumes of a perfect Pynson.' In our own +day we can hardly realise the idea of such riches; but the 'Rambler' +scouted the notion of slighting or valuing a book because it was printed +in the Roman or Gothic type. John Ratcliffe of Bermondsey was one of +these 'black-letter dogs.' He had some advantages of birth and position; +for, being a chandler and grocer, he could buy these old volumes by +weight in the course of his trade. He died in 1776, the master of a whole +'galaxy of Caxtons'; his library is said to have held the essence of +poetry, romance and history; it was more precious in flavour to the new +_dilettanti_ than the copious English stores of James West, the judicious +President of the Royal Society; it was far more refined than the 'omnium +gatherum' scattered in 1788 on Major Pearson's death, or Dr. Farmer's +ragged regiments of old plays and frowsy ballads, and square-faced +broadsides 'bought for thrice their weight in gold.' + +M. Paris de Meyzieux was the owner of a splendid library. Dibdin has +described his third sale, held in London during 1791, when the +bibliomaniacs, it was said, used to cool themselves down with ice before +they could face such excitement. Of himself he confessed that when he had +seen the illuminations of Nicolas Jany, the snow-white 'Petrarch,' the +'Virgil' on vellum, life had no more to offer: 'after having seen only +these three books I hope to descend to my obscure grave in perfect peace +and happiness.' The _Livre d'Heures_ printed for Francis I., which had +belonged to the Duc de la Vallière, was bought by Sir Mark Sykes, and +became one of his principal treasures at Sledmere. + +Mr. Robert Heathcote had a most elegant library, in which might be seen +the tallest Elzevirs and several Aldine classics 'in the chaste costume +of Grolier.' It is said that the books passed lightly into his hands 'in +a convivial moment,' much to their former owner's regret. About the year +1807 they passed into the miscellaneous crowd of Mr. Dent's books; and +twenty years afterwards the whole collection was dispersed at a low +price, when the book-mania was giving way for a time to an affection for +cheap and useful literature. + +The fever was still high in 1810 when Mr. Heath's plain classics were +snatched up at very extravagant terms. Colonel Stanley's library was +typical of the taste of the day. His selection comprised rare Spanish and +Italian poetry, novels and romances, 'De Bry's voyages complete, fine +classics, and a singular set of _facetiæ_.' It was sold in 1813, a few +weeks after the dispersal of Mr. John Hunter's very similar collection. +This was immediately followed by an auction of Mr. Gosset's books, which +lasted for twenty-three days: they seem to have chiefly consisted of +divinity and curious works on philology. Mr. John Towneley's library was +sold a few months afterwards. Mr. Towneley was the owner of a fine +'Pontifical' of Innocent IV., and a missal by Giulio Clovio from the +Farnese palace; his celebrated MS., known as the 'Towneley Iliad,' was +bought by Dr. Charles Burney, and passed with the rest of his books to +the British Museum. In 1816 Mr. Michael Wodhull died, after +half-a-century spent in the steady collection of good books in the +auctions of London and Paris: the recent sale of his library has made all +the world familiar with his well-selected volumes, bound in russia by his +faithful Roger Payne, and annotated on their fly-leaves with valuable +memoranda of book-lore. We shall not repeat the story of Mr. Beckford's +triumphant career, of the glories of Fonthill or the later splendours of +the Hamilton Palace collection. We should note his purchase of Gibbon's +books 'in order to have something to read on passing through Lausanne.' +'I shut myself up,' said Mr. Beckford, 'for six weeks from early in the +morning till night, only now and then taking a ride; the people thought +me mad; I read myself nearly blind.' Beckford never saw the books again +'after once turning hermit there.' He gave them to his physician, Dr. +Scholl, and they were sold by auction in 1833; most of them were +scattered about the world, but some are said to be still preserved at +Lausanne in the public library. + +This period was marked by the rivalry between bibliophiles of high rank +and great wealth, whose Homeric contests have been worthily described by +Dibdin in his history of the Bibliomania. A note in one of the Althorp +Caxtons records a more amicable arrangement. The book belonged to Mr. +George Mason, at whose sale it was bought by the Duke of Roxburghe: 'The +Duke and I had agreed not to oppose one another at the sale, but after +the book was bought, to toss up who should win it, when I lost it; I +bought it at the Roxburghe sale on the 17th of June, 1812, for £215 5s.' +The Duke was chiefly interested in old English literature, Italian +poetry, and romances of the Round Table; but we are told that shortly +before his death he was 'in full pursuit of a collection of our dramatic +authors.' It was at his sale that the Valdarfer Boccaccio was purchased +by Lord Blandford, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, for £2260, a sum which +at that time had never been reached as the price of a single volume. It +passed into the great collection at White Knights, which then contained, +in addition to some of the rarest English books, the 'Bedford Missal,' +another missal given by Queen Louise to Marguerite d'Angoulême, and a +volume of prayers from the hand of the caligrapher Nicolas Jany. On the +17th of June, 1819, the White Knights library was sold on behalf of the +owner's creditors; and the 'Boccaccio' found a safe home at Althorp, +where George, Earl Spencer, had by fortunate purchases, by zeal in the +pursuit of books, and by the aid of an accomplished librarian, formed +that matchless collection which Renouard justly described as 'the finest +private library in Europe.' + + + + +INDEX. + + + Ælfric, Archbishop, 26. + Agricola, Rudolf, 87. + Aicardo, Paul, 176. + Aidan, 13, 17. + Albisse, 144. + Alexander ab Alexandro, 80. + Alfred, King, 25. + Allatius, Leo, 91. + Alphonso, Naples, 79. + Amboise, Cardinal de, 100. + Ancillon, David, 189. + Anne, Queen, 120, 121. + Anne of Austria, 108. + Anne of Brittany, 79. + Anselm, 27. + Apellicon, 3. + Arcanati, Galeazzo, 164. + Aretino, Carlo, 66. + Aretino, Leonardo, 59, 63, 65. + Argonne, Bonaventure d', 147, 148. + Aristotle, 3, 23, 33, 37, 57. + Arius, Montanus, 165. + Arundel, Archbishop, 56. + Arundel, Henry, Lord, 116. + Arundel, Thomas, Earl of, 85. + Ascham, Roger, 114. + Ashmole, Elias, 135, 136. + Askew, Anthony, Dr., 214. + Asser, 25. + Attavante, 83, 85. + Attalus, 2. + Aubrey, John, 135. + Augustus, 4. + Augustus of Brunswick, 85. + Aumale, Duc d', 105. + Aungerville (_see_ Bury, Richard de). + Aurispa, John, 66, 70. + Aquinas, Thomas, 70. + + Bacon, Francis, 114. + Bacon, Roger, 30, 129. + Bagford, John, 120-122. + Bagni, 183. + Baillet, Adrian, 188, 189. + Baker (of Highgate), 207. + Baker, Rev. Thomas, 210. + Bale, Bishop, 57. + Ballesdens, Jean, 148, 149. + Baluze, Étienne, 188. + Barberini, Cardinal, 183. + Barocci, Francesco, 117, 131. + Baron, Hyacinthe, 194, 198. + Barré, M., 194. + Bashkirtseff, Marie, 157. + Basingstoke, John, 34. + Beauclerc, Topham, 215. + Becatelli, Antonio, 79. + Beckford, Wm., 156, 218, 219. + Bede, 21, 22, 131. + Bedford, John, Duke of, 56, 59, 60, 220. + Bentley, Dr., 118, 119. + Bernard, Dr., 137, 138. + Berri, Jean Duc de, 94, 103. + Berry, Duchesse de, 109. + Berryer, M., 189. + Bessarion, Cardinal, 52, 71. + Béthune, Hippolyte de, 94, 162. + Beza, Theodore, 123. + Bignon, Jérome, 179. + Bigot, Jean, 148, 152. + Bigot, Robert, 152. + Bigot, Louis, 152. + Bill, John, 125, 126. + Biscop, Benedict, 20, 21. + Blanche, Queen, 60. + Blandford, Lord, 219. + Boccaccio, 49, 63, 64. + Bodley, Lawrence, 127. + Bodley, Sir Thomas, 115, 116, 123-128. + Boethius, 7, 12. + Boisot, Abbé, 192, 194. + Bongars, Jacques, 160, 161. + Boniface, St., 22, 23. + Booker, John, 136. + Borromeo, Frederic, 177, 183. + Bouchet, Henri, 191, 192. + Bouhier, Étienne de, 192. + Bouhier, Jean de, 193. + Bouhier, President, 193, 197. + Bourbon, Charles de, 103. + Brassicanus, 84. + Bretonvilliers, 191. + Bridges, John, 211, 212. + Bridget, St., 13, 15. + Bristol, Earl of, 130. + Britton, Thomas, 213. + Brochard, Professor, 196. + Browne, Sir Thomas, 7. + Bruges, Jean de, 94. + Bruges, Louis de, 93-94. + Bruges, _See_ La Gruthuyse. + Bucer, Martin, 112. + Buchanan, George, 115. + Budæus, 82, 98-100, 140, 146, 147. + Buffon, 200. + Buonaparte, Pauline, 109. + Burgh, Elizabeth de, 54. + Burnet, Bishop, 205. + Burney, Dr. Charles, 218. + Burton, Robert, 126, 213. + Bury, Richard de, 28-29, 32-40, 53-58. + Busbec, Angere, 84. + Busch, Hermann, 87-89. + + Cæsar, Julius, 2, 4. + Cæsar, Sir Julius, 136, 137. + Calcavi, 188. + Camden, William, 117, 127. + Canonici, Matheo, 133. + Capranica, Angelo, 81. + Capranica, Domenico, 81. + Carbury, Lord, 211. + Carew, Lord, 207. + Cartwright (the actor), 207. + Casaubon, Méric, 124. + Casaubon, Isaac, 169, 170, 177, 179. + Charron de Ménars, 173, 174, 199. + Chartraire de Bourbonne, 194. + Chevalier, Étienne, 101. + Chevalier, Nicolas, 102. + Chifflet, Jules, 192. + Child, Francis, 215. + Christina of Pisa, 60. + Christina (Queen of Sweden), 94, 149, 154, 159, 162, 187. + Chrysoloras, 50, 63, 66. + Cino da Pistoia, 41. + Cassiodorus, 12, 23. + Caxton, William, 93, 95, 97. + Ceolfrid of Jarrow, 21. + Chamillard, Madame de, 195. + Charles I., 112, 122, 152. + Charles II., 122, 133. + Charles V. (of France), 59, 60, 94. + Charles V. (Emperor), 192. + Charles VII. (of France), 101, 102. + Charles VIII. (of France), 79, 100. + Charles IX. (of France), 106, 107. + Charles the Bold, 95, 96. + Charles the Great, 20, 23. + Charles of Orléans, 102. + Clarendon, Earl of, 203, 207. + Clavell, Walter, 134. + Clement, VII., Pope, 69. + Clement, XII., Pope, 181. + Clénard, Nicolas, 167. + Cleopatra, 2. + Cobham, Bishop, 55. + Cobham, Lord, 97. + Coelius, 77. + Colbert, 148, 187, 188. + Coleraine, Lord, 211. + Colet, Dean, 208. + Columba, St., 13, 15-17, 130. + Columbus, Christopher, 168. + Columbus, Ferdinand, 166-168. + Condé, Princesse de, 105. + Congreve, 213. + Consentius, 10, 11. + Costa, Solomon da, 133. + Cotton, Sir John, 118. + Cotton, Sir Robert, 18, 113, 117, 118, 129, 178. + Cotton, Sir Thomas, 118. + Courteney, Richard, 56. + Cox, Captain, 115. + Coxeter, Thomas, 203, 207. + Cracherode, Clayton, 153. + Cranmer, Archbishop, 112, 113. + Crofts, Thomas, 215. + Cromleholme, Samuel, 208. + Cujacius, 160. + Cuthbert, St., 18. + + Daniel, Bishop, 22. + Dee, Dr., 114, 130, 136. + Dent, John, 217. + Descordes, Jean, 184. + Des Essars, Antoine, 60. + Desportes, Philippe, 102. + D'Ewes, Sir Symonds, 120. + Diane de Poitiers, 104, 106. + Digby, Sir Kenelm, 128-30. + Dodsworth, Roger, 134-35. + Domitian, 4. + Dorchester, Lord, 208. + Douce, Francis, 133-34. + Dryden, 213. + Du Barry, 109, 199. + Dubois, Simeon, 184. + Dudley, Robert (Leicester), 114, 206. + Du Fay, Charles, 148, 196, 197. + Dugdale, Sir William, 135. + Dunstan, St., 25, 128. + Du Puy, Charles, 171, 172. + Du Puy, Jacques, 171, 173. + Du Puy, Pierre, 171, 173. + Dury, John, 116. + + Eadburga, Abbess, 22. + Edward VI., 112. + Egbert of York, 23. + Elisabeth, Madame, 109. + Elizabeth, Queen, 112, 113. + Ellesmere, Lord, 136. + Erasmus, 71, 80, 87, 89, 90, 98, 99, 140. + Essex, Lord, 127. + Estienne, Henri, 89, 90, 169, 193. + Estrées, Duc d', 194. + Estrées, Gabrielle d', 106. + Eusebius, 6. + Evelyn, John, 85, 190. + + Fairfax, Bryan, 215. + Fairfax, Lord, 116, 117, 134, 135. + Falconnet, Dr., 194. + Farmer, Dr., 217. + Farnese, Cardinal, 159. + Fauchet, Claude, 162. + Faure, Antoine, 151. + Ferrar, Nicholas, 121, 122. + Finnen, St., 16. + Firmin-Didot, 101, 156. + Fisher, Bishop, 111, 112. + Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, 31. + Fléchier, Esprit, 150. + Fleming, Robert, 97. + Fletewode, W., 136. + Folkes, Martin, 134. + Fontius, 83. + Foucault, Nicolas, 198. + Francis, St., 30, 31. + Francis, I., 163, 217. + Francis, II., 106, 107. + Freebairn, 209. + Fugger, Raimond, 90. + Fugger, Ulric, 90, 91, 185. + + Gaffarel, Jacques, 182. + Gafori, Franc, 143, 144. + Gaignat, 93, 153, 194. + Gale, Thomas, 134. + Gascoigne, Dr., 34, 128, 130. + Gascoyne, Richard, 204. + Gascq de la Lande, 198. + Gasparus, Achilles, 91. + George of Trebisond, 71, 72. + Germanus, St., 11. + Gibbon, 218, 219. + Gilles, Pierre, 104. + Giraldi, Cinthio, 77. + Giraldi, Lilio, 77. + Girardot de Préfond, Paul, 194, 198. + Gloucester, Humphrey Duke of, 56-59, 124. + Gosset, 218. + Gouffier, Arthur, 102, 103. + Gouffier, Charles, 103. + Gough, Richard, 133, 134. + Granvelle, Cardinal de, 192. + Gray, William, 97. + Grenville, Thomas, 153. + Grolier, Étienne, 136, 146. + Grolier, Jean, 56, 100, 103, 106, 139, 162, 175, 196, 198, 201, 217. + Grostête, 30, 33, 34, 128, 129. + Guillard, Charlotte, 102. + Guinguené, Pierre-Louis, 200. + Guy Earl of Warwick, 54. + Guy de Rocheford, 96. + Guyon de Sardières, 106. + + Hackett, Bishop, 123, 208. + Hale, Sir Matthew, 137. + Harley, Edward, 119, 203, 210, 212. + Harley, Robert, 119-122. + Harley, Gabriel, 114. + Hearne, Thomas, 134, 211-214. + Heath, Benjamin, 218. + Heathcote, Robert, 217. + Heber, Richard, 213. + Heinsius, Daniel, 89, 180. + Henri II., 104, 105, 109. + Henri III., 107. + Henri IV., 107. + Henry IV. (England), 56. + Henry V. (England), 56. + Henry VII. (England), 111, 112. + Henry VIII. (England), 111. + Henry, Prince, 116. + Hohendorf, Baron, 148. + Holkot, Robert, 35. + Hoym, Count d', 148, 194, 197. + Hunter, John, 218. + Hunter, William, 202. + Huntingdon, Robert, 131. + Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego, 166. + Hutten, Ulric von, 89. + + Inguimbert, Don Malachi d', 181. + + James I., 115-116, 126, 136. + James, Dr. Thomas, 125-127. + Jekyll, Sir Joseph, 134. + Jerome, St., 6, 14, 102. + Jersey, Earl of, 215. + Joanna II. (Naples), 79, 109. + John, Duke of Burgundy, 95. + John, King (France), 59. + John, Precentor, 22. + John of Ravenna, 49 + Johnson, Samuel, 119, 215, 216. + Jonson, Ben, 114. + Jovian, 7. + Julian, Emperor, 6, 7. + Julius II., Pope, 139. + Juvenal des Ursins, 101. + + Kennett, Bishop, 211. + Kinnoul, Earl of, 211. + + Labé, Louise, 102. + Lambert de Thorigny, 194. + La Gruthuyse, Louis de, 93, 94. + Lami, Giovanni, 73. + Lamoignon, Chrétien de, 188, 189. + Lamoignon, G. de, 148, 187, 188. + Lanfranc, 27. + Langarad, 16. + Lange, Rudolf, 87. + Lascaris, Constantine, 81. + Lascaris, John, 81, 82, 104. + Laud, Archbishop, 129, 131. + Lauwrin, Mark, 142, 144. + La Vallière, Duc de, 61, 83, 94, 106, 153, 191, 194, 217. + Le Blond, Abbé, 201. + Lebrixa, Antonio, 166. + Leland, John, 34. + Le Neve, Peter, 120, 121. + Leo X., Pope, 69, 72, 81, 82, 89, 104. + Leo, the Philosopher, 9. + Leofric, Bishop, 26, 128. + Leoni, Pompeo, 164. + Leontio Pilato, 49, 50. + Le Tellier, Archbishop, 150, 151. + Ligorio, Piero, 77. + Lilly, William, 136. + Lipsius, Justus, 162, 180. + Loche, Gilles de, 132. + Loménie, Antoine de, 184. + Louis (of Hungary), 83, 85. + Louis IX., 151. + Louis XI., 62, 101. + Louis XII., 94, 177, 193. + Louis XIII., 183, 184. + Louis XIV., 94. + Louis XV., 109, 188. + Louis XVI., 173. + Louis-Philippe, 105. + Louise de Loraine, 107. + Louise de Savoie, 103, 220. + Lucian, 5, 170. + Lucullus, 4. + Lulla, Bishop, 22. + Lumley, Lord, 116, 127. + + Macarthy, Count, 141, 153, 155, 194, 199. + Magliabecchi, Antonio, 74, 75. + Maintenon, Madame de, 195. + Maioli, Thomas, 141, 144. + Malton, Lord, 204. + Mansion, Colard, 93, 95. + Mansard, Francis, 162. + Margaret of Austria, 96. + Margaret of Burgundy, 95. + Marguerite d'Angoulême, 103, 220. + Marguerite de Valois, 108, 109. + Marie Antoinette, 109. + Marie Leczinska, Queen, 108, 109. + Mary of Austria, 85, 96. + Mary of Burgundy, 96. + Mary, Queen of Scots, 106, 107. + Marucelli, 73. + Mason, George, 219. + Matthias Corvinus, 82-86, 212. + Mazarin, Cardinal, 162, 183-187. + Mazenta, 163, 164. + Mead, Dr., 210, 212, 214. + Médici, Catherine de, 104-106, 108. + Médici, Cosmo de', 63, 66, 68, 104. + Médici, Lorenzo de', 67, 68, 82, 83, 97. + Médici, Marie de, 134. + Médici, Pietro de', 68. + Melanchthon, Philip, 90. + Melzi, Francesco, 163. + Mérard de St. Just, 199. + Mercatellis, Rafael de, 92, 93. + Mesmes, Guillaume, 151. + Mesmes, Henri, 184, 151. + Mesmes, Henri, junior, 151, 162, 179, 183. + Mesmes, Jean Antoine, 152. + Mesmes, Louis-Emeric, 152. + Mirabeau, Honoré de, 200. + Mirandula, Pico della, 68, 71, 73, 88. + Monson, Sir William, 205. + Montacute, Lord, 127. + Montaigne, 156. + Moore, John (Bishop), 122, 123. + Morata, Olympia, 77, 78. + More, Sir Thomas, 98. + + Naudé, Gabriel, 182, 187. + Negri, Stefano, 142, 143. + Neleus, 3. + Nevinson, Dr., 113. + Newton, John de, 54. + Niccoli, Niccolo, 66, 68. + Nicholas V. (Pope), 69, 70. + Norfolk, Duke of, 85. + Nuñez, Ferdinand, 166, 185. + + O'Donnell, David, 17. + O'Donnell, Sir Neal, 17. + Oldys, William, 86, 119, 121, 122, 202, 214. + Oppenheimer, David, 133. + Orsini, Fulvio, 158, 160, 172. + Osorio, Jerome, 127. + + Palladius, 14. + Pamphilus, 6. + Paris de Meyzieux, 217. + Parker, Archbishop, 19, 113, 120, 128. + Pars, Jacques de, 101. + Patrick, St., 13-15, 130. + Paullus, Æmilius, 4. + Pearson, Major, 217. + Peiresc, Nicolas, 132, 161, 177-182. + Pembroke, Henry, Earl of, 211. + Pembroke, Thomas, Earl of, 210. + Pembroke, William, Earl of, 131. + Pepusch, John, 206. + Pepys, Samuel, 133, 213. + Pétau, Alexander, 162, 186. + Pétau, Paul, 148, 158, 161, 162, 209. + Peters, Hugh, 116, 131. + Petrarch, 35, 36, 41-63, 76, 80, 166. + Philelpho, 66, 67, 70, 142. + Philip II. (of Spain), 82, 164. + Philippe le Bon (Burgundy), 92, 95. + Philippe le Hardi (Burgundy), 94, 95. + Photius, 8, 9, 74. + Pichon, Jérôme, 103. + Pignoria Antonio, 76. + Pinelli, Gian-Vincenzio, 175-178. + Pinelli, Maffeo, 177. + Pirckheimer, 85-87. + Pithou, François, 151. + Pithou, Pierre, 148, 170, 186. + Poggio, 63-67, 72, 73, 79, 80, 175. + Politian, 68, 71, 97. + Pollio Asinius, 4, 146. + Polydore Vergil, 165. + Pompadour, Madame de, 109, 199. + Postel, Guillaume, 1, 104. + Prynne, 120. + Ptolemy (Philadelphia), 3, 46. + + Rabelais, 142, 200. + Rameses, 2. + Ranconnet, 106, 107. + Rantzau, Marshal, 154, 155, 185. + Rasse de Neux, 144. + Ratcliffe, John, 216. + Rawlinson, Richard, 127, 133, 134, 175, 213. + Rawlinson, Thomas, 205, 213, 214. + René of Anjou, 79. + Renée, Princesse, 77, 177. + Renouard, Antoine, 156, 200, 201, 220. + Repington, Philip, 56. + Reuchlin, Johann, 88-90. + Rhenanus, Beatus, 87, 142. + Richelieu, Cardinal, 149, 171, 182. + Rigault, Nicolas, 179. + Rivers, Anthony, Lord, 97. + Rivers, Richard, Lord, 127. + Robertet, Florimond, 102. + Rodolph II., Emperor, 84. + Roe, Sir Thomas, 131. + Rohan, Cardinal de, 145, 174. + Ronsard, Pierre, 102. + Rothelin (Charles d'Orléans), 191, 197, 198. + Roxburghe, Duke of, 219. + + Saint André, Jean de, 162. + Saint Vallier, Comte de, 105. + Salutati, 68. + Sambucus, Dr., 84, 145, 146. + Sammonicus Serenus, 46. + Sancroft, Archbishop, 206. + Sartines, Gabriel de, 194. + Savile, Sir Henry, 127, 179. + Savonarola, 68, 73. + Saye, Lord, 97. + Scaliger, Joseph, 71, 99, 132, 161, 169, 177, 178. + Séguier, Charles, 149. + Séguier, Pierre, 149, 179. + Seillière, Baron, 156. + Seignelaye, Marquis de, 188. + Selden, 116, 131-133, 137, 208. + Seneca, 5, 7. + Shakespeare, 114. + Sheldon, Archbishop, 206. + Sherington, Walter, 97. + Shrewsbury, 59. + Sidonius Apollinaris, 11. + Silvestri, Eurialo, 144. + Sixtus V., 70. + Sixtus of Sienna, 76. + Smith, Joseph, 215. + Smith, Richard, 211. + Soltikoff, Prince, 101. + Soubise, Prince de, 141, 148, 174. + Spelman, Sir Henry, 117. + Spencer, George, Earl, 220. + Spenser, 114. + Stafford, Marquis of, 136. + Stanley, Colonel, 218. + Stillingfleet, Bishop, 120. + Stowe, 120. + Strozzi, Marshal, 73, 104. + Strype, 205. + Sulla, 3. + Sunderland, Earl of, 209, 210. + Sussex, Earl of, 205. + Sykes, Sir Mark, 217. + + Tenison, Archbishop, 207. + Theodore of Gaza, 71, 72. + Theodore of Tarsus, 18, 21. + Thomason, George, 123. + Thou, Abbé de, 173. + Thou, François de, 173. + Thou, Jacques-Auguste de, 105, 108, 109, 120, 145, 146, 148, + 169-174, 177-179, 185, 212-213. + Thou, Jacques-Auguste de (junior), 173, 174. + Thyard, Pontus de, 193. + Tiptoft, John, 97. + Toletus, Cardinal, 160. + Tomasini, Giacomo, 52, 183. + Tory, Geoffroy, 145. + Tournon, Cardinal de, 186. + Towneley, John, 218. + Trajan, 4. + Tyrannion, 3. + + Urbino, Elizabeth d', 81. + Urbino, Federigo d', 80. + Urbino, Francesco d', 81. + Urbino, Guidubaldo d', 80, 81. + Urbino, Leonora d', 134. + Urfé, Claude d', 94. + Urfé, Honors d', 94. + Usher, 117. + + Van Hulthem, 94. + Vasée, Jean, 167. + Vendôme, Duchesse de, 107. + Vérard, Antoine, 111, 193. + Vic, Dominique, 147. + Vic, Méric de, 147. + Vinci, Leonardo da, 106, 162-164. + Vorstius, 115. + + Wake, Archbishop, 134. + Walsingham, Sir Francis, 206. + Wanley, Humphrey, 120, 210, 211. + Ware, Sir James, 207. + Webb, Philip Carteret, 136. + West, James, 216. + Wentmore, Abbot, 54. + Whethamstede, Abbot, 59. + Whittington, Sir Richard, 31. + Wilfrid, St., 21, 22. + Williams, Dean, 208. + Wodhull, Michael, 218. + Wood, Anthony, 118, 128, 135. + + Ximènes, Cardinal, 121, 165, 184. + + +Printed by T. and A. 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