Golden volumes! richest treasures!
Objects of delicious pleasures!
You my eyes rejoicing please,
You my hands in rapture seize!
Brilliant wits, and musing sages,
Lights who beamed through many ages,
Left to your conscious leaves their story,
And dared to trust you with their glory;
And now their hope of fame achieved,
Dear volumes! you have not deceived!
This passion for the enjoyment of _books_ has occasioned their lovers
embellishing their outsides with costly ornaments;[7] a fancy which
ostentation may have abused; but when these volumes belong to the real
man of letters, the most fanciful bindings are often the emblems of his
taste and feelings. The great Thuanus procured the finest copies for his
library, and his volumes are still eagerly purchased, bearing his
autograph on the last page. A celebrated amateur was Grollier; the Muses
themselves could not more ingeniously have ornamented their favourite
works. I have seen several in the libraries of curious collectors. They
are gilded and stamped with peculiar neatness; the compartments on the
binding are drawn, and painted, with subjects analogous to the works
themselves; and they are further adorned by that amiable inscription,
_Jo. Grollierii et amicorum!_--purporting that these literary treasures
were collected for himself and for his friends.
The family of the Fuggers had long felt an hereditary passion for the
accumulation of literary treasures: and their portraits, with others in
their picture gallery, form a curious quarto volume of 127 portraits,
rare even in Germany, entitled "Fuggerorum Pinacotheca."[8] Wolfius, who
daily haunted their celebrated library, pours out his gratitude in some
Greek verses, and describes this bibliothèque as a literary heaven,
furnished with as many books as there were stars in the firmament; or as
a literary garden, in which he passed entire days in gathering fruit and
flowers, delighting and instructing himself by perpetual occupation.
In 1364, the royal library of France did not exceed twenty volumes.
Shortly after, Charles V. increased it to 900, which, by the fate of
war, as much at least as by that of money, the Duke of Bedford
afterwards purchased and transported to London, where libraries were
smaller than on the continent, about 1440. It is a circumstance worthy
observation, that the French sovereign, Charles V. surnamed the Wise,
ordered that thirty portable lights, with a silver lamp suspended from
the centre, should be illuminated at night, that students might not find
their pursuits interrupted at any hour. Many among us, at this moment,
whose professional avocations admit not of morning studies, find that
the resources of a public library are not accessible to them, from the
omission of the regulation of the zealous Charles V. of France. An
objection to night-studies in public libraries is the danger of fire,
and in our own British Museum not a light is permitted to be carried
about on any pretence whatever. The history of the "Bibliothèque du Roi"
is a curious incident in literature; and the progress of the human mind
and public opinion might be traced by its gradual accessions, noting the
changeable qualities of its literary stores chiefly from theology, law,
and medicine, to philosophy and elegant literature. It was first under
Louis XIV. that the productions of the art of engraving were there
collected and arranged; the great minister Colbert purchased the
extensive collections of the Abbé de Marolles, who may be ranked among
the fathers of our print-collectors. Two hundred and sixty-four ample
portfolios laid the foundations, and the very catalogues of his
collections, printed by Marolles himself, are rare and high-priced. Our
own national print gallery is growing from its infant establishment.
Mr. Hallam has observed, that in 1440, England had made comparatively
but little progress in learning--and Germany was probably still less
advanced. However, in Germany, Trithemius, the celebrated abbot of
Spanheim, who died in 1516, had amassed about two thousand manuscripts;
a literary treasure which excited such general attention, that princes
and eminent men travelled to visit Trithemius and his library. About
this time, six or eight hundred volumes formed a royal collection, and
their cost could only be furnished by a prince. This was indeed a great
advancement in libraries, for at the beginning of the fourteenth century
the library of Louis IX. contained only four classical authors; and that
of Oxford, in 1300, consisted of "a few tracts kept in chests."
The pleasures of study are classed by Burton among those exercises or
recreations of the mind which pass _within doors_. Looking about this
"world of books," he exclaims, "I could even live and die with such
meditations, and take more delight and true content of mind in them than
in all thy wealth and sport! There is a sweetness, which, as Circe's
cup, bewitcheth a student: he cannot leave off, as well may witness
those many laborious hours, days, and nights, spent in their voluminous
treatises. So sweet is the delight of study. The last day is _prioris
discipulus_. Heinsius was mewed up in the library of Leyden all the year
long, and that which, to my thinking, should have bred a loathing,
caused in him a greater liking. 'I no sooner,' saith he, 'come into the
library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice,
and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance and
Melancholy. In the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I
take my seat with so lofty a spirit, and sweet content, that I pity all
our great ones and rich men, that know not this happiness.'" Such is the
incense of a votary who scatters it on the altar less for the ceremony
than from the devotion.[9]
There is, however, an intemperance in study, incompatible often with our
social or more active duties. The illustrious Grotius exposed himself to
the reproaches of some of his contemporaries for having too warmly
pursued his studies, to the detriment of his public station. It was the
boast of Cicero that his philosophical studies had never interfered with
the services he owed the republic, and that he had only dedicated to
them the hours which others give to their walks, their repasts, and
their pleasures. Looking on his voluminous labours, we are surprised at
this observation;--how honourable is it to him, that his various
philosophical works bear the titles of the different villas he
possessed, which indicates that they were composed in these respective
retirements! Cicero must have been an early riser; and practised that
magic art in the employment of time, which multiplies our days.