Transcriber’s Note: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores:
_italics_.
[Illustration: LITERATURE OF LIBRARIES
IN THE
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
EDITED BY
JOHN COTTON DANA AND HENRY W. KENT
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG
AND COMPANY
1907]
A BRIEF OUTLINE OF
THE HISTORY OF
LIBRARIES
_An Edition of two hundred and fifty copies in this form and one of
twenty-five copies on Large Paper were printed at The Merrymount
Press, Boston, in May, 1907_
A BRIEF OUTLINE OF
THE HISTORY OF
LIBRARIES
BY
JUSTUS LIPSIUS
TRANSLATED FROM THE
SECOND EDITION
(ANTWERP, THE PLANTIN PRESS
JOHN MORETUS, 1607)
THE LAST FROM
THE HAND OF THE AUTHOR
BY
JOHN COTTON DANA
[Illustration: (fleuron)]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
MDCCCCVII
COPYRIGHT, A. C. McCLURG & CO., 1907
PUBLISHED, JUNE 1, 1907
D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON
NOTE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Few of the biographers of Justus Lipsius have devoted their attention
to that part of his writings which, in an English translation by
John Cotton Dana, is here offered to lovers of libraries. They have
found matters of greater importance to the world at large in the
chief things of his life,--his theological, historical and literary
writings. Mr. Peter Bayle, in his famous _General Dictionary_, which
first appeared in 1697, and afterwards Englished, in 1710, says
in this connection, as an introduction to his own contribution to
Lipsius’s biography:
“I might relate a great many curious particulars concerning him; but
as others[1] have already collected them, and have not even omitted
what relates to his education and his early learning, I am obliged to
confine myself to such particulars as they have not mentioned.” These
particulars related to one of Lipsius’s greatest faults, for which
he was chiefly censured,--his inconsistency with regard to religious
beliefs,--and they take on an additional interest when treated by
Bayle, who was himself given to tasting of religion at all its
different founts. With gossipy pen, he briefly summarizes the facts
in Lipsius’s stormy theological career, which to a sixteenth-century
mind, and even to one of the eighteenth century, must have seemed as
important as it was chequered.
The theologian of a century or so ago undoubtedly found that Lipsius
had contributed something to religious thought, but to us, in this
century of freedom in such matters, Justus Lipsius is chiefly a
subject for antiquarian curiosity, just as he was to Bayle. It would
be idle to speculate on the present-day value of his _Diva Virgo
Hallensis_, or his _Diva Sichemiensis_, written for the Jesuits,
when late in his life he had accepted the professorship of Latin
in the Colegium Buslidanium at Louvain and had become, to quote
from Bayle, “a bigot, like a silly woman.” The polite literature
which Lipsius taught at Louvain, in a manner “very glorious to
him,” is quite unread to-day; it is unnecessary now when so much
polite literature has been, and is constantly being, added to the
world’s carefully shelved stock. Whatever defects of matter or style
our writer may have had, like all the humanists he served a great
purpose in retailing to further generations--and especially to
librarians--the opinions of the classic writers on the history of
libraries. It is not for us, who have received so great a favour at
his hands, to criticise his scholarship, as some have done,--as does
one writer who says, speaking of one of his mental tendencies, “The
other, derived from his Jesuit training, showed itself in his merely
rhetorical or verbal view of classical literature, of which the one
interest lay in its style.” Neither need we concern ourselves with
his tendency to change his religious point of view,--now Jesuit, now
Lutheran, now Calvinist, now Romanist. To Lipsius bibliophiles owe
their thanks because he published the first history of libraries,
in the modern sense of the word,--a history which is as fresh and
useful to-day as it was when it was written. Only a man of great
scholarship could have written such a story, requiring the searching
of the original authorities in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and only the
scholarship of the sixteenth century--careful, conscientious and
leisurely--could have brought together all the facts that Lipsius
did. All of the histories since his time have borrowed freely from
our author, or, like Edwards, have used his references for further
elaboration of their texts.
If, however, but few of his biographers have devoted themselves
to a matter which must have been of no small interest in Lipsius’s
life (judging from his enthusiastic manner of treating it), one, at
least, has done full justice to it,--a Frenchman, Étienne Gabriel
Peignot, who, born in Arc-en-Barrios in 1767, devoted his whole life
to the cause of bibliography. The account of this scholar written
by Simonnet, in his _Essai sur la vie et les ouvrages de Gabriel
Peignot_, 1863, deserves to be on the shelves of every librarian,
certainly of every bibliographer.
Early in his career Peignot planned a great bibliographical work, of
which his _Manuel Bibliographique_, published in 1804, was a first
part, and his _Dictionnaire Raisonné de Bibliologie_ a second. The
Manual is chiefly devoted to Lipsius, having for its opening chapter
a life of our author, followed by a translation of the _Syntagma_.
Peignot tells us that the plagiarism of Lipsius by authors who have
not thought it worth their while to mention their indebtedness to
him was one of the reasons why he was led to give the _Syntagma_ the
chief place in his own book,--he wished to secure to this learned man
his just due.
In his “Notice préliminaire sur Juste Lipse et ses ouvrages” Peignot
gives a selected list of Lipsius’s works dated from 1599, wherein
it is seen that the book in which we are interested, _J. Lipsi de
Bibliothecis Syntagma, Antverpiae_, came, like all of the others, “ex
officina Plantiniana, apud J. Moretum.”[2] This, to the librarian, is
a fact worthy of special note, because it gives the evidence of the
friendship that existed between the printer, John Moretus, son-in-law
of the great Plantin, founder of the house, “first printer to the
king, and the king of printers,” and Lipsius, covering a long period
of years.
In the house of Christopher Plantin at Antwerp, now known as the
Plantin-Moretus Museum, in the room called, since the sixteenth
century, the “Room of Justus Lipsius,” the bust of the friend of the
house looks down from its place of honour over the entrance door.
And so, just as Lipsius’s name is closely linked with one of the
great epochs of printing, it has also a part in the history of the
development of the library idea. Whatever the facts concerning his
theology, polite literature or other writings, whatever the final
vote on the value of his style, the little tract, here reprinted,
in the hands of friends of libraries will justify the faith that
Lipsius had in his claim to fame, when, in hanging a votive silver
pen before an altar of the Virgin, he wrote:
“O Blessed Virgin, this pen, the interpreter of my mind, which soared
up as high as the sky; which searched the most hidden recesses of
land and sea; which always applied itself to learning, prudence and
wisdom; which dared to write a treatise on constancy; which explained
civil and military matters, and such as relate to the taking of
cities; which described, O Rome, thy greatness; which variously
illustrated and cleared up the writings of the ancients,--that pen
is now, O Blessed Virgin, consecrated to thee by Lipsius, for by
thy assistance have they all been completed. Let thy kind influence
constantly attend me for the future; and in return for that vanishing
fame which my pen gained, vouchsafe to grant, O Divine Lady, a
continual joy and life to your devoted servant, Lipsius.”
H. W. K.
_New York, February, 1907_
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Teissier, Additions aux Éloges de M. de Thou, ii. 381, 432;
Bullart, Académie des Sciences, ii. 190; Balliet, Enfans Célèbres,
184._
[2] _Ed._ 1. _De Bibliothecis Syntagma_, Antwerp, 1602; _Ed._ 2.
Helmstadt, 1620; _Ed._ 3. Antwerp, 1629. _In his Opera Omnia_,
1610-30, 1637, 1675.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
This translation has been made from the second edition, “the last
from the author’s hand,” Antwerp, Plantin Press, John Moretus, 1602.
The French version by Gabriel Peignot, in his _Manuel
Bibliographique_, Paris, 1800, was found very helpful in translating
Lipsius’s rather crabbed Latin; I was greatly aided also by a first
draught of an English translation kindly made for me by Miss I. McD.
Howell, of the Newark, New Jersey, Free Public Library. Mr. W. W.
Bishop, reference librarian in the library of Princeton University,
gave most valuable assistance, both on difficult points in the Latin
and on many historical allusions. I am, of course, responsible for
all errors.
J. C. D.
_Newark, January, 1907_
TO THE READER
TO THE READER
_You have before you my brief outline of the history of libraries,
that is, of books. Where shall we who are constantly making use of
books look for a worthier subject for our pen? Yet I never should
have dreamed of writing this outline had I not been inspired thereto
by the zeal in such matters of the noble Prince to whom I have just
dedicated it._
_That such as he should labour to encourage and inspire men to
good deeds and high endeavour--this I think a thing most helpful
to us all. And how few do give themselves generously to this task!
All thoughts seem now to turn to low and sordid things. Scorning
the ancient and holy truths, how eagerly to-day do men search out
doctrines whose only charm is that they seem new!_
_To these one might well repeat the ancient line: “Though broad and
well known is the highway, you choose a narrow and obscure path.”_
_For ourselves, we hold fast to the old and the established; and we
study, we point out the way, and we set forth examples--often, so I
hope and trust, to some useful purpose._
_And may you, O Gentle Reader, look with favour upon our work._
A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES
CHAPTER I
Bibliotheca _and_ Libraria--_what do these words signify? The
Kings of old had Libraries, especially those of Egypt._
The word _bibliotheca_ is used to signify any one of three things:
a place in which books are kept, a bookcase, or books themselves.
The Greek word, _bibliotheca_, came into use among the Romans. They
also used the word _libraria_; but it is more exact to understand
by that word a shop where books are kept for sale. Collections of
books, _bibliothecae_, date from the earliest days, and, if I am not
mistaken, were established as soon as letters were invented. The art
of writing must have arisen almost as soon as man began to learn and
to think; and this art would not have been profitable if books had
not been preserved and arranged for present and future use.
At first these collections were private undertakings, each person
gathering for himself and his family; in the course of time kings
and dynasties took up the custom and collected books, not only for
use, but also to gratify their ambition and to add to their renown.
Indeed, it was scarcely within the power of a private person to
collect many books, since the process of copying them was a slow
and expensive one; though our lately discovered most useful art of
printing has now simplified it.
Osymandyas of Egypt was of all kings the first, as far as history
shows, to have a library of any note. Along with other famous deeds
he established, says Diodorus, a library of sacred literature, and
placed over the entrance the inscription: “Here is Medicine for the
Mind.” Though he was one of the earliest of the Egyptian kings, I do
not doubt that his example was thereafter faithfully followed, even
if the library he is said to have founded never in fact existed; for
in Egypt there have always been libraries, especially in temples,
under the care of priests. Many facts may be cited as evidence for
the truth of this statement, among others this one about Homer:
a certain Naucrates accused Homer of plagiarism, and said that
when the latter went to Egypt he found there the books of a woman,
Phantasia, who had written the Iliad and the Odyssey and placed them
in the temple of Vulcan at Memphis; and that there Homer saw them,
appropriated them, and published them as his own. As far as Homer is
concerned I think this story false; but it establishes the fact in
question, that it was the custom in Egypt to have libraries.