If that severe doom of Synesius be true,--“It is a greater offence to
steal dead men’s labor, than their clothes,”--what shall become of most
writers? BURTON’S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY.
I HAVE often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and how
it comes to pass that so many heads, on which Nature seems to have
inflicted the curse of barrenness, should teem with voluminous
productions. As a man travels on, however, in the journey of life, his
objects of wonder daily diminish, and he is continually finding out some
very simple cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced,
in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder upon a
scene which unfolded to me some of the mysteries of the book-making
craft, and at once put an end to my astonishment.
I was one summer’s day loitering through the great saloons of the
British Museum, with that listlessness with which one is apt to saunter
about a museum in warm weather; sometimes lolling over the glass cases
of minerals, sometimes studying the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy,
and some times trying, with nearly equal success, to comprehend the
allegorical paintings on the lofty ceilings. Whilst I was gazing about
in this idle way, my attention was attracted to a distant door, at the
end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, but every now and then it
would open, and some strange-favored being, generally clothed in black,
would steal forth, and glide through the rooms, without noticing any
of the surrounding objects. There was an air of mystery about this that
piqued my languid curiosity, and I determined to attempt the passage of
that strait, and to explore the unknown regions beyond. The door yielded
to my hand, with all that facility with which the portals of enchanted
castles yield to the adventurous knight-errant. I found myself in a
spacious chamber, surrounded with great cases of venerable books. Above
the cases, and just under the cornice, were arranged a great number of
black-looking portraits of ancient authors. About the room were placed
long tables, with stands for reading and writing, at which sat many
pale, studious personages, poring intently over dusty volumes, rummaging
among mouldy manuscripts, and taking copious notes of their contents.
A hushed stillness reigned through this mysterious apartment, excepting
that you might hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper, and
occasionally the deep sigh of one of these sages, as he shifted his
position to turn over the page of an old folio; doubtless arising from
that hollowness and flatulency incident to learned research.
Now and then one of these personages would write something on a small
slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a familiar would appear, take
the paper in profound silence, glide out of the room, and return shortly
loaded with ponderous tomes, upon which the other would fall, tooth
and nail, with famished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I had
happened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged in the study of occult
sciences. The scene reminded me of an old Arabian tale, of a philosopher
shut up in an enchanted library, in the bosom of a mountain, which
opened only once a year; where he made the spirits of the place bring
him books of all kinds of dark knowledge, so that at the end of the
year, when the magic portal once more swung open on its hinges, he
issued forth so versed in forbidden lore, as to be able to soar above
the heads of the multitude, and to control the powers of Nature.
My curiosity being now fully aroused, I whispered to one of
the familiars, as he was about to leave the room, and begged an
interpretation of the strange scene before me. A few words were
sufficient for the purpose. I found that these mysterious personages,
whom I had mistaken for magi, were principally authors, and were in the
very act of manufacturing books. I was, in fact, in the reading-room of
the great British Library, an immense collection of volumes of all ages
and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are
seldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature to
which modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or
“pure English, undefiled,” wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of
thought.
Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in a corner, and
watched the process of this book manufactory. I noticed one lean,
bilious-looking wight, who sought none but the most worm-eaten volumes,
printed in black letter. He was evidently constructing some work of
profound erudition, that would be purchased by every man who wished to
be thought learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his library, or
laid open upon his table--but never read. I observed him, now and then,
draw a large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket, and gnaw; whether
it was his dinner, or whether he was endeavoring to keep off that
exhaustion of the stomach, produced by much pondering over dry works, I
leave to harder students than myself to determine.
There was one dapper little gentleman in bright-colored clothes, with a
chirping gossiping expression of countenance, who had all the appearance
of an author on good terms with his bookseller. After considering him
attentively, I recognized in him a diligent getter-up of miscellaneous
works, which bustled off well with the trade. I was curious to see how
he manufactured his wares. He made more stir and show of business than
any of the others; dipping into various books, fluttering over the
leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel out of
another, “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there
a little.” The contents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous as
those of the witches’ cauldron in Macbeth. It was here a finger and
there a thumb, toe of frog and blind worm’s sting, with his own gossip
poured in like “baboon’s blood,” to make the medley “slab and good.”
After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be implanted in
authors for wise purposes? may it not be the way in which Providence
has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved
from age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works in
which they were first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, though
whimsically provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime,
in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are
little better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of the
orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, Nature’s carriers to disperse
and perpetuate her blessings. In like manner, the beauties and fine
thoughts of ancient and obsolete authors are caught up by these flights
of predatory writers, and cast forth, again to flourish and bear fruit
in a remote and distant tract of time. Many of their works, also,
undergo a kind of metempsychosis, and spring up under new forms. What
was formerly a ponderous history, revives in the shape of a romance--an
old legend changes into a modern play--and a sober philosophical
treatise furnishes the body for a whole series of bouncing and sparkling
essays. Thus it is in the clearing of our American woodlands; where we
burn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up in
their place; and we never see the prostrate trunk of a tree mouldering
into soil, but it gives birth to a whole tribe of fungi.
Let us not then, lament over the decay and oblivion into which ancient
writers descend; they do but submit to the great law of Nature, which
declares that all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their
duration, but which decrees, also, that their element shall never
perish. Generation after generation, both in animal and vegetable life,
passes away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and
the species continue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors,
and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they sleep
with their fathers, that is to say, with the authors who preceded
them--and from whom they had stolen.
Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies I had leaned my head
against a pile of reverend folios. Whether it was owing to the soporific
emanations for these works; or to the profound quiet of the room; or
to the lassitude arising from much wandering; or to an unlucky habit
of napping at improper times and places, with which I am grievously
afflicted, so it was, that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my
imagination continued busy, and indeed the same scene continued before
my mind’s eye, only a little changed in some of the details. I dreamt
that the chamber was still decorated with the portraits of ancient
authors, but that the number was increased. The long tables had
disappeared, and, in place of the sage magi, I beheld a ragged,
threadbare throng, such as may be seen plying about the great repository
of cast-off clothes, Monmouth Street. Whenever they seized upon a book,
by one of those incongruities common to dreams, methought it turned into
a garment of foreign or antique fashion, with which they proceeded to
equip themselves. I noticed, however, that no one pretended to clothe
himself from any particular suit, but took a sleeve from one, a cape
from another, a skirt from a third, thus decking himself out piecemeal,
while some of his original rags would peep out from among his borrowed
finery.
There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed ogling
several mouldy polemical writers through an eyeglass. He soon contrived
to slip on the voluminous mantle of one of the old fathers, and having
purloined the gray beard of another, endeavored to look exceedingly
wise; but the smirking commonplace of his countenance set at naught
all the trappings of wisdom. One sickly-looking gentleman was busied
embroidering a very flimsy garment with gold thread drawn out of several
old court-dresses of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Another had trimmed
himself magnificently from an illuminated manuscript, had stuck a
nosegay in his bosom, culled from “The Paradise of Dainty Devices,” and
having put Sir Philip Sidney’s hat on one side of his head, strutted off
with an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A third, who was but of puny
dimensions, had bolstered himself out bravely with the spoils from
several obscure tracts of philosophy, so that he had a very imposing
front, but he was lamentably tattered in rear, and I perceived that
he had patched his small-clothes with scraps of parchment from a Latin
author.
There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, who only helped
themselves to a gem or so, which sparkled among their own ornaments,
without eclipsing them. Some, too, seemed to contemplate the costumes
of the old writers, merely to imbibe their principles of taste, and to
catch their air and spirit; but I grieve to say, that too many were apt
to array themselves, from top to toe, in the patchwork manner I have
mentioned. I shall not omit to speak of one genius, in drab breeches
and gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, who had a violent propensity to the
pastoral, but whose rural wanderings had been confined to the classic
haunts of Primrose Hill, and the solitudes of the Regent’s Park. He had
decked himself in wreaths and ribbons from all the old pastoral poets,
and, hanging his head on one side, went about with a fantastical,
lackadaisical air, “babbling about green field.” But the personage that
most struck my attention was a pragmatical old gentleman in clerical
robes, with a remarkably large and square but bald head. He entered the
room wheezing and puffing, elbowed his way through the throng with a
look of sturdy self-confidence, and, having laid hands upon a thick
Greek quarto, clapped it upon his head, and swept majestically away in a
formidable frizzled wig.
In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly resounded from
every side, of “Thieves! thieves!” I looked, and lo! the portraits about
the walls became animated! The old authors thrust out, first a head,
then a shoulder, from the canvas, looked down curiously for an instant
upon the motley throng, and then descended, with fury in their eyes,
to claim their rifled property. The scene of scampering and hubbub that
ensued baffles all description. The unhappy culprits endeavored in vain
to escape with their plunder. On one side might be seen half a dozen
old monks, stripping a modern professor; on another, there was sad
devastation carried into the ranks of modern dramatic writers. Beaumont
and Fletcher, side by side, raged round the field like Castor and
Pollux, and sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more wonders than when a volunteer
with the army in Flanders. As to the dapper little compiler of farragos
mentioned some time since, he had arrayed himself in as many patches and
colors as harlequin, and there was as fierce a contention of claimants
about him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. I was grieved to
see many men, to whom I had been accustomed to look up with awe and
reverence, fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their nakedness.
Just then my eye was caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in the
Greek grizzled wig, who was scrambling away in sore affright with half
a score of authors in full cry after him. They were close upon his
haunches; in a twinkling off went his wig; at every turn some strip of
raiment was peeled away, until in a few moments, from his domineering
pomp, he shrunk into a little, pursy, “chopp’d bald shot,” and made his
exit with only a few tags and rags fluttering at his back.
There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe of this learned
Theban that I burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, which broke the
whole illusion. The tumult and the scuffle were at an end. The chamber
resumed its usual appearance. The old authors shrunk back into their
picture-frames, and hung in shadowy solemnity along the walls. In short,
I found myself wide awake in my corner, with the whole assemblage of
hookworms gazing at me with astonishment. Nothing of the dream had been
real but my burst of laughter, a sound never before heard in that grave
sanctuary, and so abhorrent to the ears of wisdom, as to electrify the
fraternity.
The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded whether I had a card of
admission. At first I did not comprehend him, but I soon found that the
library was a kind of literary “preserve,” subject to game-laws, and
that no one must presume to hunt there without special license and
permission. In a word, I stood convicted of being an arrant poacher, and
was glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole pack
of authors let loose upon me.