Where one has the time and the money to devote to the collection of
missals and illuminated books, the avocation must be a very delightful
one. I never look upon a missal or upon a bit of antique illumination
that I do not invest that object with a certain poetic romance, and I
picture to myself long lines of monkish men bending over their tasks,
and applying themselves with pious enthusiasm thereto. We should not
flatter ourselves that the enjoyment of the delights of bibliomania was
reserved to one time and generation; a greater than any of us lived
many centuries ago, and went his bibliomaniacal way, gathering together
treasures from every quarter, and diffusing every where a veneration
and love for books.
Richard de Bury was the king, if not the father, of bibliomaniacs; his
immortal work reveals to us that long before the invention of printing
men were tormented and enraptured by those very same desires, envies,
jealousies, greeds, enthusiasms, and passions which possess and control
bibliomaniacs at the present time. That vanity was sometimes the
controlling passion with the early collectors is evidenced in a passage
in Barclay's satire, "The Ship of Fools"; there are the stanzas which
apply so neatly to certain people I know that sometimes I actually
suspect that Barclay's prophetic eye must have had these
nineteenth-century charlatans in view.
But yet I have them in great reverence
And honor, saving them from filth and ordure
By often brushing and much diligence.
Full goodly bound in pleasant coverture
Of damask, satin, or else of velvet pure,
I keep them sure, fearing lest they should be lost,
For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast.
But if it fortune that any learned man
Within my house fall to disputation,
I draw the curtains to show my books them,
That they of my cunning should make probation;
I love not to fall into altercation,
And while they come, my books I turn and wind,
For all is in them, and nothing in my mind.
Richard de Bury had exceptional opportunities for gratifying his
bibliomaniac passions. He was chancellor and treasurer of Edward III.,
and his official position gained him access to public and private
libraries and to the society of literary men. Moreover, when it became
known that he was fond of such things, people from every quarter sent
him and brought him old books; it may be that they hoped in this wise
to court his official favor, or perhaps they were prompted by the less
selfish motive of gladdening the bibliomaniac soul.
"The flying fame of our love," says de Bury, "had already spread in all
directions, and it was reported not only that we had a longing desire
for books, and especially for old ones, but that any one could more
easily obtain our favors by quartos than by money. Wherefore, when
supported by the bounty of the aforesaid prince of worthy memory, we
were enabled to oppose or advance, to appoint or to discharge; crazy
quartos and tottering folios, precious however in our sight as in our
affections, flowed in most rapidly from the great and the small,
instead of new year's gifts and remunerations, and instead of presents
and jewels. Then the cabinets of the most noble monasteries were
opened, cases were unlocked, caskets were unclasped, and sleeping
volumes which had slumbered for long ages in their sepulchres were
roused up, and those that lay hid in dark places were overwhelmed with
the rays of a new light. Among these, as time served, we sat down more
voluptuously than the delicate physician could do amidst his stores of
aromatics, and where we found an object of love we found also an
assuagement."
"If," says de Bury, "we would have amassed cups of gold and silver,
excellent horses, or no mean sums of money, we could in those days have
laid up abundance of wealth for ourselves. But we regarded books, not
pounds; and valued codices more than florins, and preferred paltry
pamphlets to pampered palfreys. On tedious embassies and in perilous
times, we carried about with us that fondness for books which many
waters could not extinguish."
And what books they were in those old days! What tall folios! What
stout quartos! How magnificent were the bindings, wrought often in
silver devices, sometimes in gold, and not infrequently in silver and
gold, with splendid jewels and precious stones to add their value to
that of the precious volume which they adorned. The works of Justin,
Seneca, Martial, Terence, and Claudian were highly popular with the
bibliophiles of early times; and the writings of Ovid, Tully, Horace,
Cato, Aristotle, Sallust, Hippocrates, Macrobius, Augustine, Bede,
Gregory, Origen, etc. But for the veneration and love for books which
the monks of the mediaeval ages had, what would have been preserved to
us of the classics of the Greeks and the Romans?
The same auspicious fate that prompted those bibliomaniacal monks to
hide away manuscript treasures in the cellars of their monasteries,
inspired Poggio Bracciolini several centuries later to hunt out and
invade those sacred hiding-places, and these quests were rewarded with
finds whose value cannot be overestimated. All that we have of the
histories of Livy come to us through Poggio's industry as a
manuscript-hunter; this same worthy found and brought away from
different monasteries a perfect copy of Quintilian, a Cicero's oration
for Caecina, a complete Tertullian, a Petronius Arbiter, and fifteen or
twenty other classics almost as valuable as those I have named. From
German monasteries, Poggio's friend, Nicolas of Treves, brought away
twelve comedies of Plautus and a fragment of Aulus Gellius.
Dear as their pagan books were to the monkish collectors, it was upon
their Bibles, their psalters, and their other religious books that
these mediaeval bibliomaniacs expended their choicest art and their
most loving care. St. Cuthbert's "Gospels," preserved in the British
Museum, was written by Egfrith, a monk, circa 720; Aethelwald bound the
book in gold and precious stones, and Bilfrid, a hermit, illuminated it
by prefixing to each gospel a beautiful painting representing one of
the Evangelists, and a tessellated cross, executed in a most elaborate
manner. Bilfrid also illuminated the large capital letters at the
beginning of the gospels. This precious volume was still further
enriched by Aldred of Durham, who interlined it with a Saxon Gloss, or
version of the Latin text of St. Jerome.
"Of the exact pecuniary value of books during the middle ages," says
Merryweather, "we have no means of judging. The few instances that
have accidentally been recorded are totally inadequate to enable us to
form an opinion. The extravagant estimate given by some as to the
value of books in those days is merely conjectural, as it necessarily
must be when we remember that the price was guided by the accuracy of
the transcription, the splendor of the binding (which was often
gorgeous to excess), and by the beauty and richness of the
illuminations. Many of the manuscripts of the middle ages are
magnificent in the extreme; sometimes inscribed in liquid gold on
parchment of the richest purple, and adorned with illuminations of
exquisite workmanship."
With such a veneration and love for books obtaining in the cloister and
at the fireside, what pathos is revealed to us in the supplication
which invited God's blessing upon the beloved tomes: "O Lord, send the
virtue of thy Holy Spirit upon these our books; that cleansing them
from all earthly things, by thy holy blessing, they may mercifully
enlighten our hearts and give us true understanding; and grant that by
thy teachings they may brightly preserve and make full an abundance of
good works according to thy will."
And what inspiration and cheer does every book-lover find in the letter
which that grand old bibliomaniac, Alcuin, addressed to Charlemagne:
"I, your Flaccus, according to your admonitions and good will,
administer to some in the house of St. Martin the sweets of the Holy
Scriptures; others I inebriate with the study of ancient wisdom; and
others I fill with the fruits of grammatical lore. Many I seek to
instruct in the order of the stars which illuminate the glorious vault
of heaven, so that they may be made ornaments to the holy church of God
and the court of your imperial majesty; that the goodness of God and
your kindness may not be altogether unproductive of good. But in
doing this I discover the want of much, especially those exquisite
books of scholastic learning which I possessed in my own country,
through the industry of my good and most devout master, Egbert. I
therefore entreat your Excellence to permit me to send into Britain
some of our youths to procure those books which we so much desire, and
thus transplant into France the flowers of Britain, that they may
fructify and perfume, not only the garden at York, but also the
Paradise of Tours, and that we may say in the words of the song: 'Let
my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruit;' and to the
young: 'Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved;' or
exhort in the words of the prophet Isaiah: 'Every one that thirsteth
to come to the waters, and ye that have no money, come ye, buy and eat:
yea, come buy wine and milk, without money and without price.'"
I was meaning to have somewhat to say about Alcuin, and had intended to
pay my respects to Canute, Alfred, the Abbot of St. Albans, the
Archbishop of Salzburg, the Prior of Dover, and other mediaeval
worthies, when Judge Methuen came in and interrupted the thread of my
meditation. The Judge brings me some verses done recently by a
poet-friend of his, and he asks me to give them a place in these
memoirs as illustrating the vanity of human confidence.
One day I got a missive
Writ in a dainty hand,
Which made my manly bosom
With vanity expand.
'T was from a "young admirer"
Who asked me would I mind
Sending her "favorite poem"
"In autograph, and signed."
She craved the boon so sweetly
That I had been a churl
Had I repulsed the homage
Of this gentle, timid girl;
With bright illuminations
I decked the manuscript,
And in my choicest paints and inks
My brush and pen I dipt.
Indeed it had been tedious
But that a flattered smile
Played on my rugged features
And eased my toil the while.
I was assured my poem
Would fill her with delight--
I fancied she was pretty--
I knew that she was bright!
And for a spell thereafter
That unknown damsel's face
With its worshipful expression
Pursued me every place;
Meseemed to hear her whisper:
"O, thank you, gifted sir,
For the overwhelming honor
You so graciously confer!"
But a catalogue from Benjamin's
Disproves what things meseemed--
Dispels with savage certainty
The flattering dreams I dreamed;
For that poor "favorite poem,"
Done and signed in autograph,
Is listed in "Cheap Items"
At a dollar-and-a-half.