The preceding article is honourable to literature, yet even a passion
for collecting books is not always a passion for literature.
The BIBLIOMANIA, or the collecting an enormous heap of books without
intelligent curiosity, has, since libraries have existed, infected weak
minds, who imagine that they themselves acquire knowledge when they keep
it on their shelves. Their motley libraries have been called the
_madhouses of the Human mind_; and again, _the tomb of books_, when the
possessor will not communicate them, and coffins them up in the cases of
his library. It was facetiously observed, these collections are not
without a _Lock on the Human Understanding_.[10]
The BIBLIOMANIA never raged more violently than in our own times. It is
fortunate that literature is in no ways injured by the follies of
collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily
protect the good.[11]
Some collectors place all their fame on the _view_ of a splendid
library, where volumes, arrayed in all the pomp of lettering, silk
linings, triple gold bands, and tinted leather, are locked up in wire
cases, and secured from the vulgar hands of the _mere reader_, dazzling
our eyes like eastern beauties peering through their jalousies!
LA BRUYERE has touched on this mania with humour:--"Of such a collector,
as soon as I enter his house, I am ready to faint on the staircase, from
a strong smell of Morocco leather. In vain he shows me fine editions,
gold leaves, Etruscan bindings, and naming them one after another, as if
he were showing a gallery of pictures! a gallery, by-the-bye, which he
seldom traverses when _alone_, for he rarely reads; but me he offers to
conduct through it! I thank him for his politeness, and as little as
himself care to visit the tan-house, which he calls his library."
LUCIAN has composed a biting invective against an ignorant possessor of
a vast library, like him, who in the present day, after turning over the
pages of an old book, chiefly admires the _date_. LUCIAN compares him to
a pilot, who was never taught the science of navigation; to a rider who
cannot keep his seat on a spirited horse; to a man who, not having the
use of his feet, would conceal the defect by wearing embroidered shoes;
but, alas! he cannot stand in them! He ludicrously compares him to
Thersites wearing the armour of Achilles, tottering at every step;
leering with his little eyes under his enormous helmet, and his
hunchback raising the cuirass above his shoulders. Why do you buy so
many books? You have no hair, and you purchase a comb; you are blind,
and you will have a grand mirror; you are deaf, and you will have fine
musical instruments! Your costly bindings are only a source of vexation,
and you are continually discharging your librarians for not preserving
them from the silent invasion of the worms, and the nibbling triumphs of
the rats!
Such _collectors_ will contemptuously smile at the _collection_ of the
amiable Melancthon. He possessed in his library only four
authors,--Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, and Ptolemy the geographer.
Ancillon was a great collector of curious books, and dexterously
defended himself when accused of the _Bibliomania_. He gave a good
reason for buying the most elegant editions; which he did not consider
merely as a literary luxury.[12] The less the eyes are fatigued in
reading a work, the more liberty the mind feels to judge of it: and as
we perceive more clearly the excellences and defects of a printed book
than when in MS.; so we see them more plainly in good paper and clear
type, than when the impression and paper are both bad. He always
purchased _first editions_, and never waited for second ones; though it
is the opinion of some that a first edition is only to be considered as
an imperfect essay, which the author proposes to finish after he has
tried the sentiments of the literary world. Bayle approves of Ancillon's
plan. Those who wait for a book till it is reprinted, show plainly that
they prefer the saving of a pistole to the acquisition of knowledge.
With one of these persons, who waited for a second edition, which never
appeared, a literary man argued, that it was better to have two editions
of a book rather than to deprive himself of the advantage which the
reading of the first might procure him. It has frequently happened,
besides, that in second editions, the author omits, as well as adds, or
makes alterations from prudential reasons; the displeasing truths which
he _corrects_, as he might call them, are so many losses incurred by
Truth itself. There is an advantage in comparing the first and
subsequent editions; among other things, we feel great satisfaction in
tracing the variations of a work after its revision. There are also
other secrets, well known to the intelligent curious, who are versed in
affairs relating to books. Many first editions are not to be purchased
for the treble value of later ones. The collector we have noticed
frequently said, as is related of Virgil, "I collect gold from Ennius's
dung." I find, in some neglected authors, particular things, not
elsewhere to be found. He read many of these, but not with equal
attention--"_Sicut canis ad Nilum, bibens et fugiens_;" like a dog at
the Nile, drinking and running.
Fortunate are those who only consider a book for the utility and
pleasure they may derive from its possession. Students, who know much,
and still thirst to know more, may require this vast sea of books; yet
in that sea they may suffer many shipwrecks.
Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the
damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the
_borrowers_, not to say a word of the _purloiners_!