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.