PART V.

=The Drawing Room.=

HISTORY OF THE BIBLIOMANIA, OR ACCOUNT

OF BOOK COLLECTORS, CONCLUDED.

Some in Learning's garb

With formal hand, and sable-cinctur'd gown,

And rags of mouldy volumes.

AKENSIDE; _Pleasures of Imagination_, b. iii., v. 96.

[Illustration]

=The Drawing Room.=

HISTORY OF THE BIBLIOMANIA, OR ACCOUNT OF

BOOK-COLLECTORS, CONTINUED.

Volatile as the reader may comceive [Transcriber's Note: conceive] the

character of Lisardo to be, there were traits in it of marked goodness

and merit. His enthusiasm so frequently made him violate the rules of

severe politeness; and the quickness with which he flew from one

subject to another, might have offended a narrator of the gravity,

without the urbanity, of Lysander; had not the frankness with which he

confessed his faults, and the warmth with which he always advocated

the cause of literature, rendered him amiable in the eyes of those who

thoroughly knew him. The friends, whose company he was now enjoying,

were fully competent to appreciate his worth. They perceived that

Lisardo's mind had been rather brilliantly cultivated; and that, as

his heart had always beaten at the call of virtue, so, in a due

course of years, his judgment would become matured, and his opinions

more decidedly fixed. He had been left, very early in life, without a

father, and bred up in the expectation of a large fortune; while the

excessive fondness of his mother had endeavoured to supply the want of

paternal direction, and had encouraged her child to sigh for every

thing short of impossibility for his gratification.

In consequence, Lisardo was placed at College upon the most

respectable footing. He wore the velvet cap, and enjoyed the rustling

of the tassels upon his silk gown, as he paraded the High street of

Oxford. But although he could translate Tacitus and Theocritus with

creditable facility, he thought it more advantageous to gratify the

cravings of his body than of his mind. He rode high-mettled horses; he

shot with a gun which would have delighted an Indian prince; he drank

freely out of cut-glasses, which were manufactured according to his

own particular taste; and wines of all colours and qualities sparkled

upon his table; he would occasionally stroll into the Bodleian Library

and Picture Gallery, in order to know whether any acquisitions had

been recently made to them; and attended the Concerts when any

performer came down from London. Yet, in the midst of all his gaiety,

Lisardo passed more sombrous than joyous hours: for when he looked

into a book, he would sometimes meet with an electrical sentence from

Cicero, Seneca, or Johnson, from which he properly inferred that life

was uncertain, and that time was given us to prepare for eternity.

He grew dissatisfied and melancholy. He scrambled through his terms;

took his degree; celebrated his anniversary of twenty-one, by

drenching his native village in ale which had been brewed at his

birth; added two wings to his father's house; launched out into coin

and picture collecting; bought fine books with fine bindings; then

sold all his coins and pictures; and, at the age of twenty-five, began

to read, and think, and act for himself.

At this crisis, he became acquainted with the circle which has already

been introduced to the reader's attention; and to which circle the

same reader may think it high time now to return.

Upon breaking up for THE DRAWING ROOM, it was amusing to behold the

vivacity of Lisardo; who, leaping about Lysander, and expressing his

high gratification at the discourse he had already heard, and his

pleasure at what he hoped yet to hear, reminded us of what Boswell has

said of Garrick, who used to flutter about Dr. Johnson, and try to

soften his severity by a thousand winning gestures.

The doors were opened; and we walked into Lorenzo's Drawing Room. The

reader is not to figure to himself a hundred fantastical and fugitive

pieces of furniture, purchased at Mr. Oakley's, and set off with

curtains, carpet, and looking-glasses--at a price which would have

maintained a country town of seven hundred poor with bread and soup

during the hardest winter--the reader will not suppose that a man of

Lorenzo's taste, who called books his best wealth, would devote two

thousand pounds to such idle trappings; which in the course of three

years, at farthest, would lose their comfort by losing their fashion.

But he will suppose that elegance and propriety were equally consulted

by our host.

Accordingly, a satin-wood book-case of 14 feet in width and 11 in

height, ornamented at the top with a few chaste Etruscan vases--a

light blue carpet, upon which were depicted bunches of grey roses,

shadowed in brown--fawn-coloured curtains, relieved with yellow silk

and black velvet borders--alabaster lamps shedding their soft light

upon small marble busts--and sofas and chairs corresponding with the

curtains--(and upon which a visitor might sit without torturing the

nerves of the owner of them) these, along with some genuine pictures

of Wouvermans, Berghem, and Rysdael, and a few other (subordinate)

ornaments, formed the furniture of Lorenzo's Drawing Room. As it was

_en suite_ with the library, which was fitted up in a grave style or

character, the contrast was sufficiently pleasing.

Lisardo ran immediately to the book-case. He first eyed, with a greedy

velocity, the backs of the folios and quartos; then the octavos; and,

mounting an ingeniously-contrived mahogany rostrum, which moved with

the utmost facility, he did not fail to pay due attention to the

duodecimos; some of which were carefully preserved in Russia or

morocco backs, with water-tabby silk linings, and other appropriate

embellishments. In the midst of his book-reverie, he heard, on a

sudden, the thrilling notes of a harp--which proceeded from the

further end of the library!--it being Lorenzo's custom, upon these

occasions, to request an old Welch servant to bring his instrument

into the library, and renew, if he could, the strains of "other

times." Meanwhile the curtains were "let fall;" the sofa wheeled

round;

--and the cups

That cheer, but not inebriate,

with "the bubbling and loud hissing urn," "welcomed the evening in."

Lorenzo brought from his library a volume of Piranesi, and another of

engravings from the heads of Vandyke. Lisardo, in looking at them,

beat time with his head and foot; and Philemon and Lysander

acknowledged that Dr. Johnson himself could never have so much enjoyed

the beverage which was now before them.

If it should here be asked, by the critical reader, why our society is

not described as being more congenial, by the presence of those "whom

man was born to please," the answer is at once simple and

true--Lorenzo was a bachelor; and his sisters, knowing how long and

desperate would be our discussion upon the black letter and white

letter, had retreated, in the morning, to spend the day with Lisardo's

mother--whither ---- ---- had been invited to join them.

The harper had now ceased. The tea-things were moved away; when we

narrowed our circle, and, two of us upon the sofa, and three upon

chairs, entreated Lysander to resume his narrative; who, after

"clearing his pipes (like Sir Roger de Coverley) with a loud hem or

two," thus proceeded.

"I think we left off," said Lysander, "with seating HENRY THE EIGHTH

upon the throne of England. It will be as well, therefore, to say

something of this monarch's pretensions to scholarship and love of

books. Although I will not rake together every species of abuse which

has been vented against him by one Anthony Gilbie,[291] yet Henry must

be severely censured, in the estimation of the most candid inquirer,

for that gross indifference which he evinced to the real interests of

literature, in calmly suffering the libraries of convents and

monasteries to be pillaged by the crafty and rapacious. He was

bibliomaniac enough to have a few copies of his own work, in defence

of the Roman Catholic exposition of the Sacrament, struck off UPON

VELLUM:[292] but when he quarrelled with the Roman pontiff about his

divorce from Queen Catharine, in order to marry Anne Boleyn,[293] he

sounded the tocsin for the eventful destruction of all monastic

libraries: and although he had sent Leland, under an express

commission, to make a due examination of them, as well as a

statistical survey of the realm, yet, being frustrated in the

forementioned darling object, he cared for nothing about books,

whether _upon vellum_ or _large paper_. But had we not better speak of

the book ravages, during the reformation, in their proper place?"

[Footnote 291: "In the time (saith he) of King HENRIE THE

EIGHT, when by Tindall, Frith, Bilney, and other his

faithful seruantes, God called England to dresse his

vineyarde, many promise ful faire, whome I coulde name, but

what fruite followed? Nothing but bitter grapes, yea, bryers

and brambles, the wormewood of auarice, the gall of

crueltie, the poison of filthie fornication, flowing from

head to fote, the contempt of God, and open defence of the

cake idole, by open proclamation to be read in the churches

in steede of God's Scriptures. Thus was there no

reformation, but a deformation, in the time of the tyrant

and lecherouse monster. The bore I graunt was busie,

wrooting and digging in the earth, and all his pigges that

followed him, but they sought onely for the pleasant

fruites, that they winded with their long snoutes; and for

their own bellies sake, they wrooted up many weeds; but they

turned the grounde so, mingling goode and badde togeather,

sweet and sower, medecine and poyson, they made, I saye,

suche confusion of religion and lawes, that no good thinge

could growe, but by great miracle, under suche gardeners.

And no maruaile, if it be rightlye considered. For this bore

raged against God, against the Divell, against Christe, and

against Antichrist, as the fome that he cast oute against

Luther, the racing out of the name of the pope, and yet

allowing his lawes, and his murder of many Christian

souldiars, and of many Papists, doe declare and evidentlie

testifie unto us; especially the burning of Barnes, Jerome,

and Garrette, their faithfull preachers of the truthe, and

hanging the same daye for the maintenaunce of the pope,

Poel, Abel, and Fetherstone, dothe clearlie painte his

beastlines, that he cared for no religion. This monsterous

bore for all this must needes be called the head of the

church in paine of treason, displacing Christ, our onely

head, who ought alone to haue this title." _Admonition to

England and Scotland, &c._, Geneva, 1558, p. 69. Quoted by

Stapleton in his _Counter Blaste to Horne's Vayne Blaste_,

Lovan., 1567, 4to., fol. 23. Gilbie was a Protestant; upon

which Stapleton who was a rigid Roman Catholic, shrewdly

remarks in the margin: "See how religiously the Protestantes

speak of their princes!"]

[Footnote 292: Mr. Edwards informs me that he has had a copy

of the "_Assertio Septem Sacramentorum aduersus Martin

Lutherum_," &c. (printed by Pynson in 4to., both with and

without date--1521), UPON VELLUM. The presentation copy to

Henry, and perhaps another to Wolsey, might have been of

this nature. I should have preferred a similar copy of the

small book, printed a few years afterwards, in 12mo., of

Henry's Letters in answer to Luther's reply to the foregoing

work. This is not the place to talk further of these curious

pieces. I have seen some of Pynson's books printed upon

vellum; which are not remarkable for their beauty.]

[Footnote 293: Those readers who are not in possession of

Hearne's rare edition of _Robert de Avesbury_, 1720, 8vo.,

and who cannot, in consequence, read the passionate letters

of Henry VIII. to his beloved Boleyn, which form a leading

feature in the Appendix to the same, will find a few

extracts from them in the _British Bibliographer_; vol. ii.,

p. 78. Some of the monarch's signatures, of which Hearne has

given fac-similes, are as follow:

[Illustration]

When one thinks of the then imagined happiness of the fair

object of these epistles--and reads the splendid account of

her coronation dinner, by Stow--contrasting it with the

melancholy circumstances which attended her death--one is at

loss to think, or to speak, with sufficient force, of the

fickleness of all sublunary grandeur! The reader may,

perhaps, wish for this, "coronation dinner?" It is, in part,

strictly as follows: "While the queen was in her chamber,

every lord and other that ought to do service at the

coronation, did prepare them, according to their duty: as

the Duke of Suffolk, High-Steward of England, which was

richly apparelled--his doublet and jacket set with orient

pearl, his gown crimson velvet embroidered, his courser

trapped with a close trapper, head and all, to the ground,

of crimson velvet, set full of letters of gold, of

goldsmith's work; having a long white rod in his hand. On

his left-hand rode the Lord William, deputy for his brother,

as Earl Marshall, with ye marshal's rod, whose gown was

crimson velvet, and his horse's trapper purple velvet cut on

white satin, embroidered with white lions. The Earl of

Oxford was High Chamberlain; the Earl of Essex, carver; the

Earl of Sussex, sewer; the Earl of Arundel, chief butler; on

whom 12 citizens of London did give their attendance at the

cupboard; the Earl of Derby, cup-bearer; the Viscount Lisle,

panter; the Lord Burgeiny, chief larder; the Lord Broy,

almoner for him and his copartners; and the Mayor of Oxford

kept the buttery-bar: and Thomas Wyatt was chosen ewerer for

Sir Henry Wyatt, his father." "When all things were ready

and ordered, THE QUEEN, under her canopy, came into the

hall, and washed; and sat down in the middest of the table,

under her cloth of estate. On the right side of her chair

stood the Countess of Oxford, widow: and on her left hand

stood the Countess of Worcester, all the dinner season;

which, divers times in the dinner time, did hold a fine

cloth before the Queen's face, when she list to spit, or do

otherwise at her pleasure. And at the table's end sate the

Archbishop of Canterbury, on the right hand of the Queen;

and in the midst, between the Archbishop and the Countess of

Oxford, stood the Earl of Oxford, with a white staff, all

dinner time; and at the Queen's feet, under the table, sate

two gentlewomen all dinner time. When all these things were

thus ordered, came in the Duke of Suffolk and the Lord

William Howard on horseback, and the Serjeants of arms

before them, and after them the sewer; and then the knights

of the Bath, bringing in the _first course_, which was eight

and twenty dishes, besides subtleties, and ships made of

wax, marvellous gorgeous to behold: all which time of

service, the trumpets standing in the window, at the nether

end of the hall, played," &c. _Chronicles_; p. 566: edit.

1615, fol.]

LORENZ. As you please. Perhaps you will go on with the mention of some

distinguished patrons 'till you arrive at that period?

LYSAND. Yes; we may now as well notice the efforts of that

extraordinary _bibliomaniacal triumvirate_, Colet, More, and Erasmus.

PHIL. Pray treat copiously of them. They are my great favourites. But

can you properly place Erasmus in the list?

LYSAND. You forget that he made a long abode here, and was Greek

professor at Cambridge. To begin, then, with the former. COLET, as you

well know, was Dean of St. Paul's; and founder of the public school

which goes by the latter name. He had an ardent and general love of

literature;[294] but his attention to the improvement of youth, in

superintending appropriate publications, for their use, was

unremitting. Few men did so much and so well, at this period: for

while he was framing the statutes by which his little community was to

be governed, he did not fail to keep the presses of Wynkyn De Worde

and Pynson pretty constantly at work, by publishing the grammatical

treatises of Grocyn, Linacre, Stanbridge, Lilye, Holte, Whittington,

and others--for the benefit, as well of the public, as of his own

particular circle. I take it, his library must have been both choice

and copious; for books now began to be multiplied in an immense ratio,

and scholars and men of rank thought _a Study_, or _Library_, of some

importance to their mansions. What would we not give for an

authenticated representation of Dean Colet in his library,[295]

surrounded with books? You, Lisardo, would be in ecstacies with such a

thing!

[Footnote 294: How anxiously does COLET seem to have watched

the progress, and pushed the sale, of his friend Erasmus's

first edition of the Greek Testament! "Quod scribis de Novo

Testamento intelligo. Et libri novæ editionis tuæ _hic avide

emuntur et passim leguntur_!" The entire epistle (which may

be seen in Dr. Knight's dry Life of Colet, p. 315) is

devoted to an account of Erasmus's publications. "I am

really astonished, my dear Erasmus (does he exclaim), at the

fruitfulness of your talents; that, without any fixed

residence, and with a precarious and limited income, you

contrive to publish so many and such excellent works."

Adverting to the distracted state of Germany at this period,

and to the wish of his friend to live secluded and

unmolested, he observes--"As to the tranquil retirement

which you sigh for, be assured that you have my sincere

wishes for its rendering you as happy and composed as you

can wish it. Your age and erudition entitle you to such a

retreat. I fondly hope, indeed, that you will choose this

country for it, and come and live amongst us, whose

disposition you know, and whose friendship you have proved."

There is hardly a more curious picture of the custom of the

times relating to the education of boys, than the Dean's own

Statutes for the regulation of St. Paul's School, which he

had founded. These shew, too, the _popular books_ then read

by the learned. "The children shall come unto the school in

the morning at seven of the clock, both winter and summer,

and tarry there until eleven; and return again at one of the

clock, and depart at five, &c. In the school, no time in the

year, they shall use tallow candle, in no wise, but _only

wax candle_, at the costs of their friends. Also I will they

bring no meat nor drink, nor bottle, nor use in the school

no breakfasts, nor drinkings, in the time of learning, in no

wise, &c. I will they use no cockfighting, nor riding about

of victory, nor disputing at Saint Bartholomew, which is but

foolish babbling and loss of time." The master is then

restricted, under the penalty of 40 shillings, from granting

the boys a holiday, or "remedy" (play-day), as it is here

called, "except the king, an archbishop, or a bishop,

present in his own person in the school, desire it." The

studies for the lads were "Erasmus's _Copia_ et _Institutum

Christiani Hominii_ (composed at the Dean's request),

_Lactantius_, _Prudentius_, _Juvencus_, _Proba_ and

_Sedulius_, and _Baptista Mantuanus_, and such other as

shall be thought convenient and most to purpose unto the

true Latin speech; all barbary, all corruption, all Latin

adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this

world, and with the same hath distained and poisoned the old

Latin speech, and the _veray_ Roman tongue, which in the

time of Tully, and Sallust, and Virgil, and Terence, was

used--I say, that filthiness, and all such abusion, which

the later blind world brought in, which more rather may be

called BLOTERATURE than LITERATURE, I utterly banish and

exclude out of THIS SCHOOL." Knight's _Life of Colet_, 362,

4. The sagacious reader will naturally enough conclude that

boys, thus educated, would, afterwards, of necessity, fall

victims to the ravages of the BIBLIOMANIA!]

[Footnote 295: I wish it were in my power to come forward

with any stronger degree of probability than the exhibition

of the subjoined cut, of what might have been the interior

of _Dean Colet's Study_. This print is taken from an old

work, printed in the early part of the sixteenth century,

and republished in a book of Alciatus's emblems, translated

from the Latin into Italian, A.D. 1549, 8vo. There is an air

of truth about it; but the frame work is entirely modern,

and perhaps not in the purest taste. It may turn out that

this interior view of a private library is somewhat too

perfect and finished for the times of Colet, in this

country; especially if we may judge from the rules to be

observed in completing a public one, just about the period

of Colet's death: "Md. couenawntyd and agreid wyth Comell

Clerke, for the making off the dextis in the library, (of

Christ Church College, Oxford) to the summe off xvi, after

the maner and forme as they be in Magdalyn college, except

the popie heedes off the seites, this to be workmanly

wrought and clenly, and he to have all manner off stooff

foond hym, and to have for the makyng off one dexte xs.

the sum off the hole viii. li. Item: borowd att Magdaleyn

college one c. off v. d nayle, a c. off vi. d nayle, dim. c.

x. d. nayle."--_Antiquities of Glastonbury_; edit. Hearne,

p. 307.

[Illustration]]

LIS. Pray don't make such tantalizing appeals to me! Proceed, proceed.

LYSAND. Of this amiable and illustrious character I will only further

observe that he possessed solid, good sense--unaffected and unshaken

piety--a love towards the whole human race--and that he dignified his

attachment to learning by the conscientious discharge of his duty

towards God and man. He sleeps in peace beneath a monument, which has

been consecrated by the tears of all who were related to him, and by

the prayers of those who have been benefitted by his philanthropy.

Of SIR THOMAS MORE,[296] where is the schoolboy that is ignorant? He

was unquestionably, next to Erasmus, the most brilliant scholar of his

age: while the precious biographical memoirs of him, which have

luckily descended to us, place his character, in a domestic point of

view, beyond that of all his contemporaries. Dr. Wordsworth[297] has

well spoken of "the heavenly mindedness" of More: but how are

bibliomaniacs justly to appreciate the classical lore, and

incessantly-active book-pursuits,[298] of this scholar and martyr! How

he soared "above his compeers!" How richly, singularly, and

curiously, was his mind furnished! Wit, playfulness, elevation, and

force--all these are distinguishable in his writings, if we except his

polemical compositions; which latter, to speak in the gentlest terms,

are wholly unworthy of his name. When More's head was severed from his

body, virtue and piety exclaimed, in the language of Erasmus,--"He is

dead: More, whose breast was purer than snow, whose genius was

excellent above all his nation."[299]

[Illustration: Behold him going to execution--his beloved daughter

(Mrs. Roper) rushing through the guards, to take her last embrace.]

[Footnote 296: In the first volume of my edition of SIR

THOMAS MORE'S _Utopia_, the reader will find an elaborate

and faithful account of the biographical publications

relating to this distinguished character, together with a

copious _Catalogue Raisonnè_ of the engraved portraits of

him, and an analysis of his English works. It would be

tedious to both the reader and author, here to repeat what

has been before written of Sir Thomas More--whose memory

lives in every cultivated bosom. Of this edition of the

Utopia there appeared a flimsy and tart censure in the

_Edinburgh Review_, by a critic, who, it was manifest, had

never examined the volumes, and who, when he observes upon

the fidelity of Bishop Burnet's translation of the original

Latin of More, was resolved, from pure love of Whiggism, to

defend an author at the expense of truth.]

[Footnote 297: I have read this newly published biographical

memoir of Sir Thomas More: which contains nothing very new,

or deserving of particular notice in this place.]

[Footnote 298: A bibliomanical anecdote here deserves to be

recorded; as it shews how More's love of books had infected

even those who came to seize upon him to carry him to the

Tower, and to endeavour to inveigle him into treasonable

expressions:--"While Sir Richard Southwell and Mr. Palmer

were bussie in _trussinge upp his bookes_, Mr. Riche,

pretending," &c.--"Whereupon Mr. Palmer, on his desposition,

said, that he was soe bussie about the _trussinge upp Sir

Tho. Moore's bookes_ in a sacke, that he tooke no heed to

there talke. Sir Richard Southwell likewise upon his

disposition said, that because he was appoynted only to

looke to the conveyance _of his bookes_, he gave noe ear

unto them."--_Gulielmi Roperi Vita D.T. Mori_; edit Herne,

p. 47, 51.]

[Footnote 299: Epistle Dedicatory to Ecclesiastes: quoted in

that elegant and interesting quarto volume of the "_Lives of

British Statesmen_," by the late Mr. Macdiarmid; p. 117.]

How can I speak, with adequate justice, of the author of these

words!--Yes, ERASMUS!--in spite of thy timidity, and sometimes, almost

servile compliances with the capricious whims of the great; in spite

of thy delicate foibles, thou shalt always live in my memory; and dear

to me shall be the possession of thy intellectual labours! No pen has

yet done justice to thy life.[300] How I love to trace thee, in all

thy bookish pursuits, from correcting the press of thy beloved Froben,

to thy social meetings with Colet and More! You remember well,

Lisardo,--we saw, in yonder room, a _large paper_ copy of the fine

Leyden edition of this great man's works! You opened it; and were

struck with the variety--the solidity, as well as gaiety, of his

productions.

[Footnote 300: It were much to be wished that Mr. Roscoe,

who has so successfully turned his attention to the history

of _Italian Literature_, of the period of Erasmus, would

devote himself to the investigation of the philological

history of the German schools, and more especially to the

literary life of the great man of whom Lysander is above

speaking. The biographical memoirs of Erasmus by Le Clerc,

anglicised and enlarged by the learned Jortin, and Dr.

Knight's life of the same, can never become popular. They

want method, style and interest. Le Clerc, however, has made

ample amends for the defectiveness of his biographical

composition, by the noble edition of Erasmus's works which

he put forth at Leyden, in the year 1703-6, in eleven

volumes folio: of which volumes the reader will find an

excellent analysis or review in the _Act. Erudit._, A.D.

1704, &c. Le Clerc, _Bibl. Choisie_, vol. i., 380; Du Pin's

_Bibl. Eccles._, vol. xiv., and _Biblioth. Fabric_, pt. i.,

359; from which latter we learn that, in the public library,

at Deventer, there is a copy of Erasmus's works, in which

those passages, where the author speaks freely of the laxity

of the monkish character, have been defaced, "chartâ

fenestrata." A somewhat more compressed analysis of the

contents of these volumes appeared in the _Sylloge

Opusculorum Hist.-Crit., Literariorum, J.A. Fabricii, Hamb._

1738, 4to., p. 363, 378--preceded, however, by a pleasing,

yet brief account of the leading features of Erasmus's

literary life. Tn one of his letters to Colet, Erasmus

describes himself as "a very poor fellow in point of

fortune, and wholly exempt from ambition." A little before

his death he sold his library to one John a Lasco, a

Polonese, for only 200 florins. (Of this amiable foreigner,

see Stypye's [Transcriber's Note: Strype's] _Life of

Crammer_ [Transcriber's Note: Cranmer]; b. ii., ch. xxii.)

Nor did he--notwithstanding his services to booksellers--and

although every press was teeming with his lucubrations--and

especially that of Colinæeus--(which alone put forth 24,000

copies of his _Colloquies_) ever become much the wealthier

for his talents as an author. His bibliomaniacal spirit was

such, that he paid most liberally those who collated or

described works of which he was in want. In another of his

letters, he declares that "he shall not recieve

[Transcriber's Note: receive] an _obolus_ that year; as he

had spent more than what he had gained in rewarding those

who had made book-researches for him;" and he complains,

after being five months at Cambridge, that he had,

fruitlessly, spent upwards of fifty crowns. "Noblemen," says

he, "love and praise literature, and my lucubrations; but

they praise and do not reward." To his friend Eobanus Hessus

(vol. vi., 25), he makes a bitter complaint "de Comite

quodam." For the particulars, see the last mentioned

authority, p. 363, 4. In the year 1519, Godenus, to whom

Erasmus had bequeathed a silver bowl, put forth a facetious

catalogue of his works, in hexameter and pentameter verses;

which was printed at Louvain by Martin, without date, in

4to.; and was soon succeeded by two more ample and

methodical ones by the same person in 1537, 4to.; printed by

Froben and Episcopius. See Marchand's _Dict. Bibliogr. et

Histor._, vol. i., p. 98, 99. The bibliomaniac may not

object to be informed that Froben, shortly after the death

of his revered Erasmus, put forth this first edition of the

entire works of the latter, in nine folio volumes; and that

accurate and magnificent as is Le Clerc's edition of the

same (may I venture to hint at the rarity of LARGE PAPER

copies of it?), "it takes no notice of the _Index

Expurgatorius_ of the early edition of Froben, which has

shown a noble art of curtailing this, as well as other

authors." See _Knight's Life of Erasmus_, p. 353. The

mention of Froben and Erasmus, thus going down to

immortality together, induces me to inform the curious

reader that my friend Mr. Edwards is possessed of a chaste

and elegant painting, by Fuseli, of this distinguished

author and printer--the portraits being executed after the

most authentic representations. Erasmus is in the act of

calmly correcting the press, while Froben is urging with

vehemence some emendations which he conceives to be of

consequence, but to which his master seems to pay no

attention! And now having presented the reader (p. 221,

ante) with the _supposed_ study of Colet, nothing remains

but to urge him to enter in imagination, with myself, into

the _real_ study of Erasmus; of which we are presented with

the exterior in the following view--taken from Dr. Knight's

_Life of Erasmus_; p. 124.

[Illustration]

I shall conclude this ERASMIANA (if the reader will premit

[Transcriber's Note: permit] me so to entitle it) with a

wood-cut exhibition of a different kind: it being perhaps

the earliest portrait of Erasmus published in this country.

It is taken from a work entitled, "_The Maner and Forme of

Confesion_," printed by Byddell [Transcriber's Note:

Byddel], in 8vo., without date; and is placed immediately

under an address from Erasmus, to Moline, Bishop of Condome;

dated 1524; in which the former complains bitterly of "the

pain and grief of the reins of his back." The print is taken

from a tracing of the original, made by me, from a neat copy

of Byddel's edition, in the collection of Roger Wilbraham,

Esq. I am free to confess that it falls a hundred degrees

short of Albert Durer's fine print of him, executed A.D.

1526.

[Illustration: 1524]]

LIS. Let me go and bring it here! While you talk thus, I long to feast

my eyes upon these grand books.

LYSAND. You need not. Nor must I give to Erasmus a greater share of

attention than is due to him. We have a large and varied field--or

rather domain--yet to pass over. Wishing, therefore, Lorenzo speedily

to purchase a small bronze figure of him, from the celebrated large

one at Rotterdam, and to place the same upon a copy of his first

edition of the _Greek Testament_ printed _upon vellum_,[301] by way of

a pedestal--I pass on to the notice of other bibliomaniacs of this

period.

[Footnote 301: In the library of York cathedral there is a

copy of the first edition of Erasmus's Greek and Latin

Testament, 1516, fol., struck off UPON VELLUM. This, I

believe, was never before generally known.]

Subdued be every harsher feeling towards WOLSEY, when we contemplate

even the imperfect remains of his literary institutions which yet

survive! That this chancellor and cardinal had grand views, and a

magnificent taste, is unquestionable: and I suppose few libraries

contained more beautiful or more numerous copies of precious volumes

than his own. For, when in favour with his royal master, Henry VIII.,

Wolsey had, in all probability, such an ascendency over him as to coax

from him almost every choice book which he had inherited from his

father, Henry VII.; and thus I should apprehend, although no

particular mention is made of his library in the inventories of his

goods[302] which have been published, there can be no question about

such a character as that of Wolsey having numerous copies of the

choicest books, bound in velvet of all colours, embossed with gold or

silver, and studded even with precious stones! I conceive that his

own _Prayer Book_ must have been gorgeous in the extreme! Unhappy

man--a pregnant and ever-striking example of the fickleness of human

affairs, and of the instability of human grandeur! When we think of

thy baubles and trappings--of thy goblets of gold, and companies of

retainers--and turn our thoughts to Shakspeare's shepherd, as

described in the soliloquy of one of our monarchs, we are fully

disposed to admit the force of such truths as have been familiar to us

from boyhood, and which tell us that those shoulders feel the most

burdened upon which the greatest load of responsibility rests. Peace

to the once proud, and latterly repentant, spirit of Wolsey!

[Footnote 302: In the last _Variorum edition of Shakspeare_,

1803, vol. xv., p. 144, we are referred by Mr. Douce to "the

particulars of this inventory at large, in Stowe's

_Chronicle_, p. 546, edit. 1631:" my copy of Stowe is of the

date of 1615; but, not a syllable is said of it in the place

here referred to, or at any other page; although the account

of Wolsey is ample and interesting. Mr. Douce (_ibid._) says

that, among the _Harl. MSS._ (no. 599) there is one

entitled "An Inventorie of Cardinal Wolsey's rich householde

stuffe; temp. Hen. VIII.; the original book, as it seems,

kept by his own officers." In Mr. Gutch's _Collectanea

Curiosa_, vol. ii., 283-349, will be found a copious account

of Wolsey's plate:--too splendid, almost, for belief. To a

life and character so well known as are those of Wolsey, and

upon which Dr. Fiddes has published a huge folio of many

hundred pages, the reader will not here expect any

additional matter which may convey much novelty or interest.

The following, however, may be worth submitting to his

consideration. The Cardinal had poetical, as well as

political, enemies. Skelton and Roy, who did not fail to

gall him with their sharp lampoons, have shewn us, by their

compositions which have survived, that they were no

despicable assailants. In the former's "_Why come ye not to

Court?_" we have this caustic passage:

He is set so high

In his hierarchy

Of frantic _frenesy_

And foolish fantasy,

That in chamber of stars

All matters there he mars,

Clapping his rod on the _borde_

No man dare speake a word;

For he hath all the saying

Without any _renaying_:

He rolleth in his records

He saith: "How say ye my lords?

Is not my reason good?"

Good!--even good--Robin-hood?

Borne upon every side

_With pomp and with pride, &c._

To drink and for to eat

Sweet _ypocras_, and sweet meat,

To keep his flesh chaste

In Lent, for his repast

He eateth capons stew'd

Pheasant and partidge mewed.

WARTON'S _Hist. Engl. Poetry_, vol. ii., 345.

Steevens has also quoted freely from this poem of Skelton;

see the editions of _Shakspeare_, 1793, and 1803, in the

play of "King Henry VIII." Skelton's satire against Wolsey

is noticed by our chronicler Hall: "In this season, the

cardinal, by his power legantine, dissolved the convocation

at Paul's, called by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and

called him and all the clergy to his convocation to

Westminster, which was never seen before in England; whereof

Master Skelton, a merry poet, wrote:

Gentle Paul lay down thy _sweard_

For Peter of Westminster hath shaven thy beard."

_Chronicle_, p. 637, edit. 1809.

In Mr. G. Ellis's _Specimens of the Early English Poets_,

vol. ii., pp. 7, 8, there is a curious extract from the same

poet's "_Image of Ypocrycye_"--relating to Sir Thomas

More--which is printed for the first time from "an

apparently accurate transcript" of the original, in the

possession of Mr. Heber. From the last mentioned work (vol.

ii., p. 11, &c.), there is rather a copious account of a yet

more formidable poetical attack against Wolsey, in the

"_Rede me and be not wroth_," of William Roy: a very rare

and precious little black-letter volume, which, although it

has been twice printed, is scarcely ever to be met with, and

was unknown to Warton. It will, however, make its appearance

in one of the supplemental volumes of Mr. Park's valuable

reprint of the _Harleian Miscellany_. While the cardinal was

thus attacked, in the biting strains of poetry, he was

doomed to experience a full share of reprobation in the

writings of the most popular theologians. William Tyndale

stepped forth to shew his zeal against papacy in his

"_Practise of Popishe Prelates_," and from this work, as it

is incorporated in those of Tyndale, Barnes, and Frith,

printed by Day in 1572, fol., the reader is presented with

the following amusing specimen of the author's vein of

humour and indignation: "And as I heard it spoken of divers,

he made, by craft of necromancy, graven imagery to bear upon

him; wherewith he bewitched the king's mind--and made the

king to doat upon him, more than he ever did on any lady or

gentlewoman: so that now the king's grace followed him, as

he before followed the king. And then what he said, that was

wisdom; what he praised, that was honourable only." Practise

of Popishe Prelates, p. 368. At p. 369, he calls him "Porter

of Heaven." "There he made a journey of gentlemen, arrayed

altogether in silks, so much as their very shoes and lining

of their boots; more like their mothers than men of war:

yea, I am sure that many of their mothers would have been

ashamed of so nice and wanton array. Howbeit, they went not

to make war, but peace, for ever and a day longer. But to

speak of the pompous apparel of my lord himself, and of his

chaplains, it passeth the xij Apostles. I dare swear that if

Peter and Paul had seen them suddenly, and at a blush, they

would have been harder in belief that they, or any such,

should be their successors than Thomas Didimus was to

believe that Christ was risen again from death." _Idem_, p.

370,--"for the worship of his hat and glory of his precious

shoes--when he was pained with the cholic of an evil

conscience, having no other shift, because his soul could

find no other issue,--he took himself a medicine, _ut

emitteret spiritum per posteriora_." Exposition upon the

first Ep. of St. John, p. 404. Thomas Lupset, who was a

scholar of Dean Colet, and a sort of _elève_ of the

cardinal, (being appointed tutor to a bastard son of the

latter) could not suppress his sarcastical feelings in

respect of Wolsey's pomp and severity of discipline. From

Lupset's works, printed by Berthelet in 1546, 12mo., I

gather, in his address to his "hearty beloved Edmond"--that

"though he had there with him plenty of books, yet the place

suffered him not to spend in them any study: for you shall

understand (says he) that I lie waiting on my LORD CARDINAL,

whose hours I must observe to be always at hand, lest I

should be called when I am not by: the which should be taken

for a fault of great negligence. Wherefore, that I am now

well satiated with the beholding of these gay hangings, that

garnish here every wall, I will turn me and talk with you."

(_Exhortacion to yonge men_, fol. 39, rev.) Dr. Wordsworth,

in the first volume of his _Ecclesiastical Biography_, has

printed, for the first time, the genuine text of Cavendish's

interesting life of his reverend master, Wolsey. It is well

worth perusal. But the reader, I fear, is beginning to be

outrageous (having kept his patience, during this

long-winded note, to the present moment) for some

_bibliomaniacal_ evidence of Wolsey's attachment to gorgeous

books. He is presented, therefore, with the following case

in point. My friend Mr. Ellis, of the British Museum,

informs me that, in the splendid library of that

establishment, there are two copies of Galen's "_Methodus

Medendi_," edited by Linacre, and printed at Paris, in

folio, 1519. One copy, which belonged to Henry the Eighth,

has an illuminated title, with the royal arms at the bottom

of the title-page. The other, which is also illuminated, has

the cardinal's cap in the same place, above an empty shield.

Before the dedication to the king, in the latter copy,

Linacre has inserted an elegant Latin epistle to WOLSEY, in

manuscript. The king's copy is rather the more beautiful of

the two: but the _unique_ appendage of the Latin epistle

shews that the editor considered the cardinal a more

distinguished bibliomaniac than the monarch.]

We have now reached the REFORMATION; upon which, as Burnet, Collier,

and Strype, have written huge folio volumes, it shall be my object to

speak sparingly: and chiefly as it concerns the history of the

Bibliomania. A word or two, however, about its origin, spirit, and

tendency.

It seems to have been at first very equivocal, with Henry the Eighth,

whether he would take any decisive measures in the affair, or not. He

hesitated, resolved, and hesitated again.[303] The creature of caprice

and tyranny, he had neither fixed principles, nor settled data, upon

which to act. If he had listened to the temperate advice of CROMWELL

or CRANMER,[304] he would have attained his darling object by less

decisive, but certainly by more justifiable, means. Those able and

respectable counsellors saw clearly that violent measures would

produce violent results; and that a question of law, of no mean

magnitude, was involved in the very outset of the transaction--for

there seemed, on the one side, no right to possess; and, on the other,

no right to render possession.[305]

[Footnote 303: "The king seemed to think that his subjects

owed an entire resignation of their reasons and consciences

to him; and, as he was highly offended with those who still

adhered to the papal authority, so he could not bear the

haste that some were making to a further reformation, before

or beyond his allowance. So, in the end of the year 1538, he

set out a proclamation, in which he prohibits the importing

of all foreign books, or the printing of any at home without

license; and the printing of any parts of the scripture,

'till they were examined by the king and his council," &c.

"He requires that none may argue against the presence of

Christ in the Sacrament, under the pain of death, and of the

loss of their goods; and orders all to be punished who did

disuse any rites or ceremonies not then abolished; yet he

orders them only to be observed without superstition, only

as remembrances, and not to repose in them a trust of

salvation."--Burnet's _Hist. of the Reformation_. But long

before this obscure and arbitrary act was passed, Henry's

mind had been a little shaken against papacy from a singular

work, published by one Fish, called "_The Supplication of

Beggers_." Upon this book being read through in the presence

of Henry, the latter observed, shrewdly enough, "If a man

should pull down an old stone wall, and begin at the lower

part, the upper part thereof might chance to fall upon his

head." "And then he took the book, and put it into his desk,

and commanded them, upon their allegiance, that they should

not tell to any man that he had seen this book." Fox's _Book

of Martyrs_; vol. ii., p. 280: edit. 1641. Sir Thomas More

answered this work (which depicted, in frightful colours,

the rapacity of the Roman Catholic clergy), in 1529; see my

edition of the latter's _Utopia_; vol. i., xciii.]

[Footnote 304: "These were some of the resolute steps King

Henry made towards the obtaining again this long struggled

for, and almost lost, right and prerogative of kings, in

their own dominions, of being supreme, against the

encroachments of the bishops of Rome. Secretary CROMWEL had

the great stroke in all this. All these counsels and methods

were struck out of his head." Strype's _Ecclesiastical

Memorials_; vol. i., p. 205. When great murmurs ensued, on

the suppression of the monasteries, because of the cessation

of hospitality exercised in them, "CROMWELL advised the king

to sell their lands, at very easie rates, to the gentry in

the several counties, obliging them, since they had them

upon such terms, to keep up the wonted hospitality. This

drew in the gentry apace," &c. Burnet's _Hist. of the

Reformation_; vol. i., p. 223. "ARCHBISHOP CRANMER is said

to have counselled and pressed the king to dissolve the

monasteries; but for other ends (than those of personal

enmity against 'the monks or friars'--or of enriching

himself 'with the spoils' of the same); viz. that, out of

the revenues of these monasteries, the king might found more

bishoprics; and that dioceses, being reduced into less

compass, the diocesans might the better discharge their

office, according to the scripture and primitive

rules.----And the archbishop hoped that, from these ruins,

there would be new foundations in every cathedral erected,

to be nurseries of learning for the use of the whole

diocese." Strype's _Life of Archbishop Cranmer_, p. 35.]

[Footnote 305: "A very rational doubt yet remained, how

religious persons could alienate and transfer to the king a

property, of which they themselves were only tenants for

life: and an act of parliament was framed in order to remove

all future scruples on this head, and 'settle rapine and

sacrilege,' as Lord Herbert terms them, 'on the king and his

heirs for ever.'----It does not appear to have been debated,

in either house, whether they had a power to dispossess some

hundred thousand persons of their dwellings and fortunes,

whom, a few years before, they had declared to be good

subjects: if such as live well come under that

denomination."--"Now," says Sir Edward Coke, "observe the

conclusion of this tragedy. In that very parliament, when

the great and opulent priory of St. John of Jerusalem was

given to the king, and which was the last monastery seized

on, he demanded a fresh subsidy of the clergy and laity: he

did the same again within two years; and again three years

after; and since the dissolution exacted great loans, and

against law obtained them."--_Life of Reginald Pole_; vol.

i., p. 247-9: edit. 1767, 8vo. Coke's 4th _Institute_, fol.

44.]

LATIMER, more hasty and enthusiastic than his episcopal brethren, set

all the engines of his active mind to work, as if to carry the point

by a _coup de main_; and although his resolution was, perhaps, upon

more than one occasion, shaken by the sufferings of the innocent,

yet, by his example, and particularly by his sermons,[306] he tried

to exasperate every Protestant bosom against the occupiers of

monasteries and convents.

[Footnote 306: "It was once moved by LATYMER, the good

bishop of Worcester, that two or three of these foundations

might be spared in each diocese, for the sake of

hospitality. Which gave the foresaid bishop occasion to move

the Lord Crumwell once in the behalf of the _Priory of

Malvern_." Strype's _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, vol. i.,

259. Latimer's letter is here printed; and an interesting

one it is. Speaking of the prior, he tells Cromwell that

"The man is old, a good housekeeper, feedeth many; and that,

daily. For the country is poor, and full of penury." But the

hospitality and infirmities of this poor prior were less

likely to operate graciously upon the rapacious mind of

Henry than "the 500 marks to the king, and 200 marks more to

the said Lord Crumwell," which he tendered at the same time.

See Strype, _ibid._ For the credit of Latimer, I hope this

worthy prior was not at the head of the priory when the

former preached before the king, and thus observed: "To let

pass the _solempne_ and nocturnal bacchanals, the prescript

miracles, that are done upon certain days in the West part

of England, who hath not heard? I think ye have heard of

Saint _Blesis's_ heart, which is _at Malvern_, and of Saint

Algar's bones, how long they deluded the people!" See

Latimer's _Sermons_: edit. 1562, 4to.: fol. 12, rect. In

these Sermons, as is justly said above, there are many

cutting philippics--especially against "in-preaching

prelates;" some of whom Latimer doth not scruple to call

"minters--dancers--crouchers--pamperers of their paunches,

like a monk that maketh his jubilee--mounchers in their

mangers, and moilers in their gay manors and mansions:" see

fol. 17, rect. Nevertheless, there are few productions which

give us so lively and interesting a picture of the manners

of the age as the SERMONS OF LATIMER; which were spoilt in

an "_editio castrata_" that appeared in the year 1788, 8vo.

But Latimer was not the only popular preacher who directed

his anathemas against the Roman Catholic clergy. The well

known JOHN FOX entered into the cause of the reformation

with a zeal and success of which those who have slightly

perused his compositions can have but a very inadequate

idea. The following curious (and I may add very interesting)

specimen of Fox's pulpit eloquence is taken from "_A Sermon

of Christ crucified, preached at Paule's Crosse, the Friday

before Easter, commonly called Good Fridaie_:"--"Let me tell

you a story, which I remember was done about the beginning

of Queen Mary's reign, anno 1554. There was a certain

message sent, not from heaven, but from Rome: not from God,

but from the pope: not by any apostle, but by a certain

cardinal, who was called Cardinal Poole, Legatus a latere,

Legatus natus, a legate from the pope's own white side, sent

hither into England. This cardinal legate, first coming to

Dover, was honourably received and brought to Greenwich:

where he again, being more honourably received by lords of

high estate, and of the Privy Council (of whom some are yet

alive) was conducted thence to the privy stairs of the

queen's court at Westminster, no less person than King

Philip himself waiting upon him, and receiving him; and so

was brought to the queen's great chamber, she then being, or

else pretending, not to be well at ease. Stephen Gardiner,

the bishop of Winchester, and Lord Chancellor of England,

receiving this noble legate in the king and the queen's

behalf, to commend and set forth the authority of this

legate, the greatness of his message, and the supreme

majesty of the sender, before the public audience of the

whole parliament at that time assembled, there openly

protested, with great solemnity of words, what a mighty

message, and of what great importance was then brought into

the realm, even the greatest message (said he) that ever

came into England, and therefore desired them to give

attentive and inclinable ears to such a famous legation,

sent from so high authority." "Well, and what message was

this? forsooth, that the realm of England should be

reconciled again unto their father the pope; that is to say,

that the queen, with all her nobility and sage council, with

so many learned prelates, discreet lawyers, worthy commons,

and the whole body of the realm of England, should captive

themselves, and become underlings to an Italian stranger,

and friarly priest, sitting in Rome, which never knew

England, never was here, never did, or shall do, England

good. And this forsooth (said Gardiner) was the greatest

ambassage, the weightiest legacy that ever came to England:

forgetting belike either this message of God, sent here by

his apostles unto vs, or else because he saw it made not so

much for his purpose as did the other, he made the less

account thereof." "Well, then, and will we see what a

weighty message this was that Gardiner so exquisitely

commended? first, the sender is gone, the messenger is gone,

the queen is gone, and the message gone, and yet England

standeth not a rush the better. Of which message I thus say,

answering again to Gardiner, _per inversionem Rhetoricam_,

that, as he sayeth, it was the greatest--so I say again, it

was the lightest--legacy; the most ridiculous trifle, and

most miserablest message, of all other that ever came, or

ever shall come, to England, none excepted, for us to be

reconciled to an outlandish priest, and to submit our necks

under a foreign yoke. What have we to do more with him than

with the great Calypha of Damascus? If reconciliation ought

to follow, where offences have risen, the pope hath offended

us more than his coffers are able to make us amends. We

never offended him. But let the pope, with his

reconciliation and legates, go, as they are already gone

(God be thanked): and I beseech God so they may be gone,

that they never come here again. England never fared better

than when the pope did most curse it. And yet I hear

whispering of certain privy reconcilers, sent of late by the

pope, which secretly creep in corners. But this I leave to

them that have to do with all. Let us again return to our

matter."--_Imprinted by Jhon Daie_, &c., 1575, 8vo., sign.

A. vij.-B. i.]

With Henry, himself, the question of spiritual supremacy was soon

changed, or merged (as the lawyers call it) into the exclusive

consideration of adding to his wealth. The Visitors who had been

deputed to inspect the abbies, and to draw up reports of the same

(some of whom, by the bye, conducted themselves with sufficient

baseness[307]), did not fail to inflame his feelings by the tempting

pictures which they drew of the riches appertaining to these

establishments.[308] Another topic was also strongly urged upon

Henry's susceptible mind: the alleged abandoned lives of the owners of

them. These were painted with a no less overcharged pencil:[309] so

that nothing now seemed wanting but to set fire to the train of

combustion which had been thus systematically laid.

[Footnote 307: Among the visitors appointed to carry into

execution the examination of the monasteries, was a Dr.

London; who "was afterwards not only a persecutor of

Protestants, but a suborner of false witnesses against them,

and was now zealous even to officiousness in suppressing the

monasteries. He also studied to frighten the abbess of

Godstow into a resignation. She was particularly in

Cromwell's favour:" &c. Burnet: _Hist. of the Reformation_,

vol. iii., p. 132. Among Burnet's "Collection of Records,"

is the letter of this said abbess, in which she tells

Cromwell that "Doctor London was suddenly _cummyd_ unto her,

with a great rout with him; and there did threaten her and

her sisters, saying that he had the king's commission to

suppress the house, spite of her teeth. And when he saw that

she was content that he should do all things according to

his commission, and shewed him plain that she would never

surrender to his band, being her ancient enemy--then he

began to entreat her and to inveigle her sisters, one by

one, otherwise than ever she heard tell that any of the

king's subjects had been handel'd;" vol. iii., p. 130.

"Collection." It is not very improbable that this treatment

of Godstow nunnery formed a specimen of many similar

visitations. As to London himself, he ended his days in the

Fleet, after he had been adjudged to ride with his face to

the horse's tail, at Windsor and Oakingham. Fox in his _Book

of Martyrs_, has given us a print of this transaction;

sufficiently amusing. Dod, in his _Church History_, vol. i.,

p. 220, has of course not spared Dr. London. But see, in

particular, Fuller's shrewd remarks upon the character of

these visitors, or "emissaries;" _Church History_, b. vi.,

pp. 313, 314.]

[Footnote 308: "The yearly revenue of all the abbies

suppressed is computed at £135,522_l._ 18_s._ 10_d._ Besides

this, the money raised out of the stock of cattle and corn,

out of the timber, lead, and bells; out of the furniture,

plate, and church ornaments, amounted to a vast sum, as may

be collected from what was brought off from the monastery of

St. Edmonsbury. Hence, as appears from records, 5000 marks

of gold and silver, besides several jewels of great value,

were seized by the visitors." Collier's _Ecclesiastical

History_, vol. ii., 165. See also Burnet's similar work,

vol. i., p. 223. Collier specifies the valuation of certain

monasteries, which were sufficiently wealthy; but he has not

noticed that of St. Swithin's in Winchester--of which Strype

has given so minute and interesting an inventory. A lover of

old coins and relics may feed his imagination with a

gorgeous picture of what might have been the "massive silver

and golden crosses and shrines garnished with stones"--but a

tender-hearted bibliomaniac will shed tears of agony on

thinking of the fate of "A BOOK OF THE FOUR EVANGELISTS,

WRITTEN AL WITH GOLD; AND THE UTTER SIDE OF PLATE OF GOLD!"

_Life of Cranmer_, _Appendix_, pp. 24-28.]

[Footnote 309: The amiable and candid Strype has polluted

the pages of his valuable _Ecclesiastical Memorials_ with an

account of such horrid practices, supposed to have been

carried on in monasteries, as must startle the most

credulous Anti-Papist; and which almost leads us to conclude

that _a legion of fiends_ must have been let loose upon

these "Friar Rushes!" The author tells us that he takes his

account from authentic documents--but these documents turn

out to be the letters of the visitors; and of the character

of one of these the reader has just had a sufficient proof.

Those who have the work here referred to, vol. i., p. 256-7,

may think, with the author of it, that "this specimen is

enough and too much." What is a little to be marvelled at,

Strype suffers his prejudices against the conduct of the

monks to be heightened by a letter from one of the name of

Beerly, at Pershore; who, in order that he might escape the

general wreck, turned tail upon his brethren, and vilified

them as liberally as their professed enemies had done. Now,

to say the least, this was not obtaining what Chief Baron

Gilbert, in his famous Law of Evidence, has laid it down as

necessary to be obtained--"the best possible evidence that

the nature of the case will admit of." It is worth remarking

that Fuller has incorporated a particular account of the

names of the abbots and of the carnal enormities of which

they are supposed to have been guilty; but he adds that he

took it from the 3d edition of Speed's _Hist. of Great

Britain_, and (what is worth special notice) that it was not

to be found in the prior ones: "being a posthume addition

after the author's death, attested in the margine with the

authority of Henry Steven his _Apologie for Herodotus_, who

took the same out of an English book, containing the

_Vileness discovered at the Visitation of Monasteries_."

_Church History_, b. vi., pp. 316, 317.]

A pause perhaps of one moment might have ensued. A consideration of

what had been done, in these monasteries, for the preservation of the

literature of past ages, and for the cultivation of elegant and

peaceful pursuits, might, like "the still small voice" of conscience,

have suspended, for a second, the final sentence of confiscation. The

hospitality for which the owners of these places had been, and were

then, eminently distinguished; but more especially the yet higher

consideration of their property having been left with them only as a

sacred pledge to be handed down, unimpaired, to their successors--these

things,[310] one would think, might have infused some little mercy

and moderation into Henry's decrees!

[Footnote 310: There are two points, concerning the

subversion of monasteries, upon which all sensible Roman

Catholics make a rest, and upon which they naturally indulge

a too well-founded grief. The dispersion of books or

interruption of study; and the breaking up of ancient

hospitality. Let us hear Collier upon the subject: "The

advantages accruing to the public from these religious

houses were considerable, upon several accounts. To mention

some of them: The temporal nobility and gentry had a

creditable way of providing for their younger children.

Those who were disposed to withdraw from the world, or not

likely to make their fortunes in it, had a handsome retreat

to the cloister. Here they were furnished with conveniences

for life and study, with opportunities for thought and

recollection; and, over and above, passed their time in a

condition not unbecoming their quality."--"The abbies were

very serviceable places for the education of young people:

every convent had one person or more assigned for this

business. Thus the children of the neighbourhood were taught

grammar and music without any charge to their parents. And,

in the nunneries, those of the other sex learned to work and

read English, with some advances into Latin," &c.--"Farther,

it is to the abbies we are obliged for most of our

historians, both of church and state: these places of

retirement had both most learning and leisure for such

undertakings: neither did they want information for such

employment," _Ecclesiastical History_, vol. ii., 165. A host

of Protestant authors, with Lord Herbert at the head of

them, might be brought forward to corroborate these sensible

remarks of Collier. The hospitality of the monastic life has

been on all sides admitted; and, according to Lord Coke, one

of the articles of impeachment against Cardinal Wolsey was

that he had caused "this hospitality and relief to grow into

decay and disuse;" which was "a great cause that there were

so many vagabonds, beggars, and thieves;"--_Fourth

Institute_; p. 91, edit. 1669. So that the author of an

ancient, and now rarely perused work had just reason, in

describing the friars of his time as "living in common upon

the goods of a monastery, either gotten by common labour, or

else upon lands and possessions where with the monastery was

endowed." _Pype or Tonne of the Lyfe of Perfection_; fol.

clxxii., rev. 1532, 4to. And yet, should the active

bibliomaniac be disposed to peruse this work, after

purchasing Mr. Triphook's elegant copy of the same, he might

probably not think very highly of the author's good sense,

when he found him gravely telling us that "the appetite of

clean, sweet, and fair, or fine cloaths, and oft-washing and

curious _pykyng_ of the body, is an enemy of chastity," fol.

ccxxix. rect. The DEVASTATION OF BOOKS was, I fear,

sufficiently frightful to warrant the following writers in

their respective conclusions. "A judicious author (says

Ashmole) speaking of the dissolution of our monasteries,

saith thus: Many manuscripts, guilty of no other

superstition then (having) _red letters_ in the front, were

condemned to the fire: and here a principal key of antiquity

was lost, to the great prejudice of posterity. Indeed (such

was learning's misfortune, at that great devastation of our

English libraries, that) where a _red letter_ or a

mathematical diagram appeared, they were sufficient to

entitle the book to be popish or diabolical." _Theatrum

Chemicum_; prolegom. A. 2. rev. "The avarice of the late

intruders was so mean, and their ignorance so

undistinguishing, that, when the books happened to have

COSTLY COVERS, they tore them off, and threw away the works,

or turned them to the vilest purposes." _Life of Reginald

Pole_; vol. i., p. 253-4, edit. 1767, 8vo. The author of

this last quotation then slightly notices what Bale has said

upon these book-devastations; and which I here subjoin at

full length; from my first edition of this work:--"Never

(says Bale) had we been offended for the loss of our

LIBRARIES, being so many in number, and in so desolate

places for the more part, if the chief monuments and most

notable works of our excellent writers had been preserved.

If there had been, in every shire of England, but one

SOLEMPNE LIBRARY, to the preservation of those noble works,

and preferment of good learning in our posterity, it had

been yet somewhat. But to destroy all, without

consideration, is, and will be, unto England, for ever, a

most horrible infamy among the grave seniors of other

nations. A great number of them, which purchased those

superstitious mansions, reserved of those library-books some

to serve the _jakes_, some to scour their candlesticks, and

some to rub their boots: some they sold to the grocers and

soap sellers; some they sent over sea to the book-binders,

not in small number, but at times whole ships full, to the

wondering of the foreign nations. Yea, the Universities of

the realm are not all clear of this detestable fact. But

cursed is that belly which seeketh to be fed with such

ungodly gains, and shameth his natural country. I know a

merchant man, which shall at this time be nameless, that

_bought the contents of two noble libraries for forty

shillings price_; a shame it is to be spoken! This stuff

hath he occupied in the stead of grey paper, by the space of

more than ten years, and yet he hath store enough for as

many years to come!" Preface to _Leland's Laboryouse

Journey_, &c., 1549, 8vo. Reprint of 1772; sign. C.]

PHIL. But what can be said in defence of the dissolute lives of the

monks?

LYSAND. Dissoluteness shall never be defended by me, let it be shewn

by whom it may; and therefore I will not take the part, on this head,

of the tenants of old monasteries. But, Philemon, consider with what

grace could this charge come from HIM who had "shed innocent blood,"

to gratify his horrid lusts?

LIS. Yet, tell me, did not the dissolution of these libraries in some

respects equally answer the ends of literature, by causing the books

to come into other hands?

LYSAND. No doubt, a few studious men reaped the benefit of this

dispersion, by getting possession of many curious volumes with which,

otherwise, they might never have been acquainted. If my memory be not

treacherous, the celebrated grammarian ROBERT WAKEFIELD[311] was

singularly lucky in this way. It is time, however, to check my

rambling ideas. A few more words only, and we cease to sermonize upon

the Reformation.

[Footnote 311: "This ROBERT WAKEFIELD was the prime linguist

of his time, having obtained beyond the seas the Greek,

Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac tongues. In one thing he is to

be commended, and that is this, that he carefully preserved

divers books of Greek and Hebrew at the dissolution of

religious houses, and especially some of those in the

library of Ramsey abbey, composed by Laurence Holbecke, monk

of that place, in the reign of Henry IV. He died at London

8th October, 1537, leaving behind him the name of _Polypus_,

as Leland is pleased to style him, noting that he was of a

witty and crafty behaviour." Wood's _Hist. of Colleges and

Halls_, p. 429, Gutch's edit.]

PHIL. There is no occasion to be extremely laconic. The evening has

hardly yet given way to night. The horizon, I dare say, yet faintly

glows with the setting-sun-beams. But proceed as you will.

LYSAND. The commotions which ensued from the arbitrary measures of

Henry were great;[312] but such as were naturally to be expected. At

length Henry died, and a young and amiable prince reigned for a few

months. Mary next ascended the throne; and the storm took an opposite

direction. Then an attempt was made to restore chalices, crucifixes,

and missals. But the short period of her sovereignty making way for

the long and illustrious one of her sister Elizabeth, the Cecils and

Walsinghams[313] united their great talents with the equally vigorous

ones of the Queen and her favourite archbishop Parker, in establishing

that form of religion which, by partaking in a reasonable degree of

the solemnity of the Romish church, and by being tempered with great

simplicity and piety in its prayers, won its way to the hearts of the

generality of the people. Our _Great English Bibles_[314] were now

restored to their conspicuous situations; and the Bibliomania, in

consequence, began to spread more widely and effectively.

[Footnote 312: Fuller has devoted one sentence only, and

that not written with his usual force, to the havoc and

consternation which ensued on the devastation of the

monasteries. _Ch. Hist._, b. vi., p. 314. Burnet is a little

more moving: _Hist. of the Reformation_; vol. i., p. 223.

But, from the foregoing premises, the reader may probably be

disposed to admit the conclusion of a virulent Roman

Catholic writer, even in its fullest extent: namely, that

there were "subverted monasteries, overthrown abbies, broken

churches, torn castles, rent towers, overturned walls of

towns and fortresses, with the confused heaps of all ruined

monuments." _Treatise of Treasons_, 1572, 8vo., fol. 148,

rev.]

[Footnote 313: There are few bibliographers at all versed in

English literature and history, who have not heard, by some

side wind or other, of the last mentioned work; concerning

which Herbert is somewhat interesting in his notes:

_Typographical Antiquities_, vol. iii., p. 1630. The reader

is here presented with a copious extract from this curious

and scarce book--not for the sake of adding to these

ponderous notes relating to the REFORMATION--(a subject,

upon which, from a professional feeling, I thought it my

duty to say something!)--but for the sake of showing how

dexterously the most important events and palpable truths

may be described and perverted by an artful and headstrong

disputant. The work was written expressly to defame

ELIZABETH, CECIL, and BACON, and to introduce the Romish

religion upon the ruins of the Protestant. The author thus

gravely talks

"_Of Queen Mary and her Predecessors._

"She (Mary) found also the whole face of the commonwealth

settled and acquieted in the ancient religion; in which, and

by which, all kings and queens of that realm (from as long

almost before the conquest as that conquest was before that

time) had lived, reigned, and maintained their states; and

the terrible correction of those few that swerved from it

notorious, as no man could be ignorant of it. As King John,

without error in religion, for contempt only of the See

Apostolic, plagued with the loss of his state, till he

reconciled himself, and acknowledged to hold his crown of

the Pope. King Henry VIII., likewise, with finding no end of

heading and hanging, till (with the note of tyranny for

wasting his nobility) he had headed him also that procured

him to it. Fol. 85, 86.

"_Libellous Character of Cecil._

"In which stem and trunk (being rotten at heart, hollow

within, and without sound substance) hath our spiteful

pullet (CECIL) laid her ungracious eggs, mo than a few: and

there hath hatched sundry of them, and brought forth

chickens of her own feather, I warrant you. A hen I call

him, as well for his cackling, ready and smooth tongue,

wherein he giveth place to none, as for his deep and subtle

art in hiding his serpentine eggs from common men's sight:

chiefly for his hennish heart and courage, which twice

already hath been well proved to be as base and deject at

the sight of any storm of adverse fortune, as ever was hen's

heart at the sight of a fox. And, had he not been by his

confederate, as with a dunghill cock, trodden as it were and

gotten with egg, I doubt whether ever his hennish heart,

joined to his shrewd wit, would have served him, so soon to

put the Q.'s green and tender state in so manifest peril and

adventure. Fol. 88, rect.

"_Libellous Characters of Cecil and N. Bacon._

"Let the houses and possessions of these two Catalines be

considered, let their furniture, and building, let their

daily purchases, and ready hability to purchase still, let

their offices and functions wherein they sit, let their

titles, and styles claimed and used, let their places in

council, let their authority over the nobility, let their

linking in alliance with the same, let their access to the

prince, let their power and credit with her: let this their

present state, I say, in all points (being open and unknown

to no men) be compared with their base parentage and

progeny, (the one raised out of the robes, and the other

from a _Sheeprive's_ son) and let that give sentence as well

of the great difference of the tastes, that the several

fruits gathered of this tree by your Q., and by them do

yield, as whether any man at this day approach near unto

them in any condition wherein advancement consisteth. Yea,

mark you the jollity and pride that in this prosperity they

shew; the port and countenance that every way they carry; in

comparison of them that be noble by birth. Behold at whose

doors your nobility attendeth. Consider in whose chambers

your council must sit, and to whom for resolutions they must

resort; and let these things determine both what was the

purpose indeed, and hidden intention of that change of

religion, and who hath gathered the benefits of that

mutation: that is to say, whether for your Q., for your

realms, or for their own sakes, the same at first was taken

in hand, and since pursued as you have seen. For according

to the principal effects of every action must the intent of

the act be deemed and presumed. For the objected excuses

(that they did it for conscience, or for fear of the French)

be too frivolous and vain to abuse any wise man. For they

that under King Henry were as catholic, as the six articles

required: that under King Edward were such Protestants as

the Protector would have them; that under Q. Mary were

Catholics again, even to creeping to the Cross: and that

under Q. Elizabeth were first Lutheran, setting up Parker,

Cheiny, Gest, Bill, &c., then Calvinists, advancing

Grindall, Juell, Horne, &c.: then Puritans, maintaining

Sampson, Deering, Humfrey, &c.; and now (if not Anabaptists

and Arians) plain Machiavellians, yea, that they persuade in

public speeches that man hath free liberty to dissemble his

religion, and for authority do allege their own examples and

practice of feigning one religion for another in Q. Mary's

time (which containeth a manifest evacuation of Christ's own

coming and doctrine, of the Apostles, preaching and

practice, of the blood of the martyrs, of the constancy of

all confessors; yea, and of the glorious vain deaths of all

the stinking martyrs of their innumerable sects of

hereticks, one and other having always taught the confession

of mouth to be as necessary to salvation as the belief of

heart): shall these men now be admitted to plead conscience

in religion; and can any man now be couzined so much, as to

think that these men by conscience were then moved to make

that mutation?" Fol. 96, 97. "At home, likewise, apparent it

is how they provided, every way to make themselves strong

there also. For being by their own marriages allied already

to the house of Suffolk of the blood royal, and by

consequence thereof to the house of Hertford also, and their

children thereby incorporated to both: mark you how now by

marriage of their children with wily wit and wealth

together, they wind in your other noblest houses unto them

that are left, I mean in credit and countenance. Consider

likewise how, at their own commendation and preferment, they

have erected, as it were, almost a new half of your nobility

(of whom also they have reason to think themselves assured)

and the rest then (that were out of hope to be won to their

faction) behold how, by sundry fine devices, they are either

cut off, worn out, fled, banished or defaced at home," &c.,

fol. 105, rect. The good LORD BURGHLEY, says Strype, was so

moved at this slander that he uttered these words: "God

amend his spirit, and confound his malice." And by way of

protestation of the integrity and faithfulness of both their

services, "God send this estate no worse meaning servants,

in all respects, than we two have been." _Annals of the

Reformation_, vol. ii., 178. Camden's _Hist. of Q.

Elizabeth_, p. 192,--as quoted by Herbert.]

[Footnote 314: "All curates must continually call upon their

parochians to provide a book of the _Holy Bible in English_,

of THE LARGEST FORM, within 40 days next after the

publication hereof, that may be chained in some open place

in the church," &c. Injunctions by Lee, Archbishop of York:

Burnet's _Hist. of the Reformation_, vol. iii., p. 136,

Collections. This custom of fixing a great bible in the

centre of a place of worship yet obtains in some of the

chapels attached to the colleges at Oxford. That of Queen's,

in particular, has a noble brazen eagle, with outstretched

wings, upon which the foundation members read the lessons of

the day in turn.]

LOREN. Had you not better confine yourself to personal anecdote,

rather than enter into the boundless field of historical survey?

LYSAND. I thank you for the hint. Having sermonized upon the general

features of the Reformation, we will resume the kind of discourse with

which we at first set out.

PHIL. But you make no mention of the number of curious and fugitive

pamphlets of the day, which were written in order to depreciate and

exterminate the Roman Catholic religion? Some of these had at least

the merit of tartness and humour.

LYSAND. Consult Fox's _Martyrology_,[315] if you wish to have some

general knowledge of these publications; although I apprehend you will

not find in that work any mention of the poetical pieces of Skelton

and Roy; nor yet of Ramsay.

[Footnote 315: The curious reader who wishes to become

master of all the valuable, though sometimes loose,

information contained in this renowned work--upon which Dr.

Wordsworth has pronounced rather a warm eulogium

(_Ecclesiastical Biography_, vol. i., p. xix.)--should

secure the _first_ edition, as well as the latter one of

1641, or 1684; inasmuch as this first impression, of the

date of 1563, is said by Hearne to be "omnium optima:" see

his Adami de Domerham, _Hist. de reb. gest. Glaston._, vol.

i., p. xxii. I also learn, from an original letter of

Anstis, in the possession of Mr. John Nichols, that "the

late editions are not quite so full in some particulars, and

that many things are left out about the Protector Seymour."]

LOREN. Skelton and Roy are in my library;[316] but who is RAMSAY?

[Footnote 316: Vide p. 226, ante.]

LYSAND. He wrote a comical poetical satire against the Romish priests,

under the title of "_A Plaister for a galled Horse_,"[317] which

Raynald printed in a little thin quarto volume of six or seven pages.

[Footnote 317: In Herbert's _Typographical Antiquities_,

vol. i., p. 581, will be found rather a slight notice of

this raw and vulgar satire. It has, however, stamina of its

kind; as the reader may hence judge:

Mark the gesture, who that lyst;

First a shorne shauelynge, clad in a clowt,

Bearinge the name of an honest priest,

And yet in no place a starker lowte.

A whore monger, a dronkard, ye makyn him be snowte--

At the alehouses he studieth, till hys witte he doth lacke.

Such are your minysters, to bringe thys matter about:

But guppe ye god-makers, beware your galled backe.

Then wraped in a knaues skynne, as ioly as my horse,

Before the aulter, in great contemplacion

Confessinge the synnes of his lubbrysh corse

To god and all saynctes, he counteth hys abhomination

Then home to the aulter, with great saintification

With crosses, and blesses, with his boy lytle Jacke:

Thus forth goeth syr Jhon with all his preparation.

But guppe ye god-makers, beware your galled backe.

Then gloria in excelsis for ioye dothe he synge

More for his fat liuinge, than for devocion:

And many there be that remember another thinge

Which syng not wyth mery hart for lacke of promocion

Thus some be mery, some be sory according to their porcion

Then forth cometh collects, bounde up in a packe,

For this sainct and that sainct, for sickenes, and extorcion

But guppe ye god-makers, beware your galled backe.

Stanzas, 17, 18, 19.

At the sale of Mr. Brand's books, in 1807, a copy of this

rare tract, of six or seven pages, was sold for 3_l._ 17_s._

6_d._ Vide _Bibl. Brand_, part i., no. 1300. This was

surely more than both plaister and horse were worth! A

poetical satire of a similar kind, entitled "_John Bon and

Mast Person_," was printed by Daye and Seres; who struck off

but a few copies, but who were brought into considerable

trouble for the same. The virulence with which the author

and printer of this lampoon were persecuted in Mary's reign

is sufficiently attested by the care which was taken to

suppress every copy that could be secured. The only perfect

known copy of this rare tract was purchased at the sale of

Mr. R. Forster's books, for the Marquis of Bute; and Mr.

Stace, the bookseller, had privilege to make a fac-simile

reprint of it; of which there were six copies struck off

UPON VELLUM. It being now rather common with

book-collectors, there is no necessity to make a quotation

from it here. Indeed there is very little in it deserving of

republication.]

LOREN. I will make a memorandum to try to secure this "comical" piece,

as you call it; but has it never been reprinted in our "_Corpora

Poetarum Anglicorum_?"

LYSAND. Never to the best of my recollection. Mr. Alexander Chalmers

probably shewed his judgment in the omission of it, in his lately

published collection of our poets. A work, which I can safely

recommend to you as being, upon the whole, one of the most faithful

and useful, as well as elegant, compilations of its kind, that any

country has to boast of. But I think I saw it in your library,

Lorenzo?--

LOREN. It was certainly there, and bound in stout Russia, when we

quitted it for this place.

LIS. Dispatch your "gall'd horse," and now--having placed a justly

merited wreath round the brow of your poetical editor, proceed--as

Lorenzo has well said--with personal anecdotes. What has become of

Wyatt and Surrey--and when shall we reach Leland and Bale?

LYSAND. I crave your mercy, Master Lisardo! One at a time. Gently ride

your bibliomaniacal hobby-horse!

WYATT and SURREY had, beyond all question, the most exquisitely

polished minds of their day. They were far above the generality of

their compeers. But although Hall chooses to notice _the whistle_[318]

of the latter, it does not follow that I should notice his _library_,

if I am not able to discover any thing particularly interesting

relating to the same. And so, wishing every lover of his country's

literature to purchase a copy of the poems of both these heroes,[319]

I march onward to introduce a new friend to you, who preceded Leland

in his career, and for an account of whom we are chiefly indebted to

the excellent and best editor of the works of Spencer and Milton.

Did'st ever hear, Lisardo, of one WILLIAM THYNNE?

[Footnote 318: About the year 1519, Hall mentions the Earl

of Surrey "on a great coursir richely trapped, and a greate

whistle of gold set with stones and perle, hanging at a

great and massy chayne baudrick-wise." Chronicles: p. 65, a.

See Warton's _Life of Sir Thomas Pope_: p. 166, note o., ed.

1780. This is a very amusing page about the custom of

wearing whistles, among noblemen, at the commencement of the

16th century. If Franklin had been then alive, he would have

had abundant reason for exclaiming that these men "paid too

much for their _whistles_!"]

[Footnote 319: Till the long promised, elaborate, and

beautiful edition of the works of SIR THOMAS WYATT and LORD

SURREY, by the Rev. Dr. Nott,[E] shall make its appearance,

the bibliomaniac must satisfy his book-appetite, about the

editions of the same which have already appeared, by

perusing the elegant volumes of Mr. George Ellis, and Mr.

Park; _Specimens of the Early English Poets_; vol. ii., pp.

43-67: _Royal and Noble Authors_, vol. i., pp. 255-276. As

to early black letter editions, let him look at _Bibl.

Pearson_, no. 2544; where, however, he will find only the

7th edition of 1587: the first being of the date of 1557.

The eighth and last edition was published by Tonson, in

1717, 8vo. It will be unpardonable not to add that the Rev.

Mr. Conybeare is in possession of a perfect copy of Lord

Surrey's Translation of a part of the Æneid, which is the

third only known copy in existence. Turn to the animating

pages of Warton, _Hist. Engl. Poetry_; vol. iii., pp. 2-21,

about this translation and its author.]

[Footnote E: Conducting this celebrated book through the

press occupied Dr. Nott several years; it was printed by the

father of the printer of this work, in two large 4to.

volumes--and was just finished when, in the year 1819, the

Bolt Court printing-office, and all it contained, was

destroyed by fire. Only _two_ copies of the works of Wyatt

and Surrey escaped, having been sent to Dr. Nott by the

printer, as _clean sheets_.]

LIS. Pray make me acquainted with him.

LYSAND. You will love him exceedingly when you thoroughly know him;

because he was the first man in this country who took pains to do

justice to Chaucer, by collecting and collating the mutilated editions

of his works. Moreover, he rummaged a great number of libraries, under

the express order of Henry VIII.; and seems in every respect (if we

may credit the apparently frank testimony of his son[320]), to have

been a thoroughbred bibliomaniac. Secure Mr. Todd's _Illustrations of

Gower and Chaucer_, and set your heart at ease upon the subject.

[Footnote 320: "--but (my father, WILLIAM THYNNE) further

had commissione to serche all the libraries of England for

Chaucer's works, so that oute of all the abbies of this

realme (which reserved any monuments thereof), he was fully

furnished with multitude of bookes," &c. On Thynne's

discovering Chaucer's Pilgrim's Tale, when Henry VIII. had

read it--"he called (continues the son) my father unto hym,

sayinge, 'William Thynne, I doubt this will not be allowed,

for I suspecte the byshoppes will call thee in question for

yt.' To whome my father beinge in great fauore with his

prince, sayed, 'yf your Grace be not offended, I hope to be

protected by you.' Whereupon the kinge bydd hym goo his waye

and feare not," &c. "But to leave this, I must saye that, in

those many written bookes of Chaucer, which came to my

father's hands, there were many false copyes, which Chaucer

shewethe in writinge of Adam Scriuener, of which written

copies there came to me, after my father's death, some fyve

and twentye," &c. _Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer_; pp.

11, 13, 15. Let us not hesitate one moment about the

appellation of _Helluo Librorum_,--justly due to MASTER

WILLIAM THYNNE!]

But it is time to introduce your favourite LELAND: a bibliomaniac of

unparalleled powers and unperishable fame. To entwine the wreath of

praise round the brow of this great man seems to have been considered

by Bale among the most exquisite gratifications of his existence. It

is with no small delight, therefore, Lorenzo, that I view, at this

distance, the marble bust of Leland in yonder niche of your library,

with a laureate crown upon its pedestal. And with almost equal

satisfaction did I observe, yesterday, during the absence of Philemon

and Lisardo at the book-sale, the handsome manner in which

Harrison,[321] in his _Description of England_, prefixed to

Holinshed's Chronicles, has spoken of this illustrious antiquary. No

delays, no difficulties, no perils, ever daunted his personal

courage, or depressed his mental energies. Enamoured of study, to the

last rational moment of his existence, Leland seems to have been born

for the "Laborious Journey" which he undertook in search of truth, as

she was to be discovered among mouldering records, and worm-eaten

volumes. Uniting the active talents of a statist with the painful

research of an antiquary, he thought nothing too insignificant for

observation. The confined streamlet or the capacious river--the

obscure village or the populous town--were, with parchment rolls and

oaken-covered books, alike objects of curiosity in his philosophic

eye! Peace to his once vexed spirit!--and never-fading honours attend

the academical society in which his youthful mind was disciplined to

such laudable pursuits!

[Footnote 321: "One helpe, and none of the smallest, that I

obtained herein, was by such commentaries as LELAND had

sometime collected of the state of Britaine; books vtterlie

mangled, defaced with wet and weather, and finallie

vnperfect through want of sundrie volumes." _Epistle

Dedicatorie_; vol. i., p. vi., edit. 1807. The history of

this great man, and of his literary labours, is most

interesting. He was a pupil of William Lilly, the first

head-master of St. Paul's school; and, by the kindness and

liberality of a Mr. Myles, he afterwards received the

advantage of a college education, and was supplied with

money in order to travel abroad, and make such collections

as he should deem necessary for the great work which even

then seemed to dawn upon his young and ardent mind. Leland

endeavoured to requite the kindness of his benefactor by an

elegant copy of Latin verses, in which he warmly expatiates

on the generosity of his patron, and acknowledges that his

acquaintance with the _Almæ Matres_ (for he was of both

Universities) was entirely the result of such beneficence.

While he resided on the continent, he was admitted into the

society of the most eminent Greek and Latin scholars, and

could probably number among his correspondents the

illustrious names of Budæus, Erasmus, the Stephenses, Faber

and Turnebus. Here, too, he cultivated his natural taste for

poetry; and, from inspecting the FINE BOOKS which the

Italian and French presses had produced, as well as fired by

the love of Grecian learning, which had fled, on the sacking

of Constantinople, to take shelter in the academic bowers of

the Medici--he seems to have matured his plans for carrying

into effect the great work which had now taken full

possession of his mind. He returned to England, resolved to

institute an inquiry into the state of the LIBRARIES,

ANTIQUITIES, RECORDS, and WRITINGS then in existence. Having

entered into holy orders, and obtained preferment at the

express interposition of the king (Henry VIII.), he was

appointed his antiquary and library-keeper; and a royal

commission was issued, in which Leland was directed to

search after "ENGLAND'S ANTIQUITIES, and peruse the

libraries of all cathedrals, abbies, priories, colleges,

&c., as also all the places wherein records, writings, and

secrets of antiquity were reposited." "Before Leland's

time," says Hearne--in a strain which makes one

shudder--"all the literary monuments of antiquity were

totally disregarded; and students of Germany, apprized of

this culpable indifference, were suffered to enter our

libraries unmolested, and to cut out of the books, deposited

there, whatever passages they thought proper--which they

afterwards published as relics of the ancient literature of

their own country." _Pref. to the Itinerary._ Leland was

occupied, without intermission, in his laborious

undertaking, for the space of six years; and, on its

completion, he hastened to the metropolis to lay at the feet

of his sovereign the result of his researches. As John Kay

had presented his translation of the _Siege of Rhodes_ to

Edward IV., as "A GIFT of his labour," so Leland presented

his Itinerary to Henry VIII., under the title of _A New

Year's Gift_; and it was first published as such by Bale in

1549, 8vo. "Being inflamed," says the author, "with a love

to see thoroughly all those parts of your opulent and ample

realm, in so much that all my other occupations intermitted,

I have so travelled in your dominions both by the sea coasts

and the middle parts, sparing neither labour nor costs, by

the space of six years past, that there is neither cape nor

bay, haven, creek, or pier, river, or confluence of rivers,

breaches, wastes, lakes, moors, fenny waters, mountains,

valleys, heaths, forests, chases, woods, cities, burghes,

castles, principal manor places, monasteries, and colleges,

but I have seen them; and noted, in so doing, a whole world

of things very memorable." Leland moreover tells his

majesty--that "By his laborious journey and costly

enterprise, he had conserved many good authors, the which

otherwise had been like to have perished; of the which part

remained in the royal palaces, part also in his own

custody," &c. As Leland was engaged six years in this

literary tour, so he was occupied for a no less period of

time in digesting and arranging the prodigious number of

MSS. which he had collected. But he sunk beneath the

immensity of the task. The want of amanuenses, and of other

attentions and comforts, seems to have deeply affected him.

In this melancholy state, he wrote to Archbishop Cranmer a

Latin epistle, in verse, of which the following is the

commencement--very forcibly describing his situation and

anguish of mind:

Est congesta mihi domi supellex

Ingens, aurea, nobilis, venusta,

Qua totus studeo Britanniarum

Vero reddere gloriam nitori;

Sed fortuna meis noverca coeptis

Jam felicibus invidet maligna.

Quare, ne pereant brevi vel hora

Multarum mihi noctium labores

Omnes----

CRANMERE, eximium decus priorum!

Implorare tuam benignitatem

Cogor.

The result was that Leland lost his senses; and, after

lingering two years in a state of total derangement, he died

on the 18th of April, 1552. "Prôh tristes rerum humanarum

vices! prôh viri optimi deplorandam infelicissimamque

sortem!" exclaims Dr. Smith, in his preface to Camden's

Life, 1691, 4to. The precious and voluminous MSS. of Leland

were doomed to suffer a fate scarcely less pitiable that

[Transcriber's Note: than] that of their owner. After being

pilfered by some, and garbled by others, they served to

replenish the pages of Stow, Lambard, Camden, Burton,

Dugdale, and many other antiquaries and historians.

"Leland's Remains," says Bagford, "have been ever since a

standard to all that have any way treated of the Antiquities

of England. Reginald Wolfe intended to have made use of

them, although this was not done 'till after his death by

Harrison, Holinshed, and others concerned in that work.

Harrison transcribed his Itinerary, giving a Description of

England by the rivers, but he did not understand it. They

have likewise been made use of by several in part, but how

much more complete had this been, had it been finished by

himself?" _Collectanea_: Hearne's edit., 1774; vol. i., p.

LXXVII. Polydore Virgil, who had stolen from these Remains

pretty freely, had the insolence to abuse Leland's

memory--calling him "a vain-glorious man;" but what shall we

say to this flippant egotist? who according to Caius's

testimony (_De Antiq. Cantab. Acad._, lib. 1.) "to prevent a

discovery of the many errors of his own History of England,

collected and burnt a greater number of ancient histories

and manuscripts than would have loaded a waggon." There are

some (among whom I could number a most respectable friend

and well qualified judge) who have doubted of the propriety

of thus severely censuring Polydore Virgil; and who are even

sceptical about his malpractices. But Sir Henry Savile, who

was sufficiently contemporaneous to collect the best

evidence upon the subject, thus boldly observes: "Nam

Polydorus, ut homo Italus, et in rebus nostris hospes, et

(quod caput est) neque in republica versatus, nec magni

alioqui vel judicii vel ingenii, pauca ex multis delibans,

et falsa plerumque pro veris amplexus, historiam nobis

reliquit cum cætera mendosam tum exiliter sanè et jejunè

conscriptam." _Script. post. Bedam._, edit. 1596; pref. "As

for Polydore Virgil, he hath written either nothing or very

little concerning them; and that so little, so false and

misbeseeming the ingenuitie of an historian, that he seemeth

to have aimed at no other end than, by bitter invectives

against Henry VIII., and Cardinal Wolsey, to demerit the

favour of Queen Mary," &c., Godwyn's translation of the

_Annales of England_; edit. 1630, author's Preface. "It is

also remarkable that Polydore Virgil's and Bishop Joscelin's

edition of Gildas's epistle differ so materially that the

author of it hardly seems to be one and the same person."

This is Gale's opinion: _Rer. Anglican. Script. Vet._; vol.

i., pref., p. 4. Upon the whole--to return to Leland--it

must be acknowledged that he is a melancholy, as well as

illustrious, example of the influence of the BIBLIOMANIA!

But do not let us take leave of him without a due

contemplation of his expressive features, as they are given

in the frontispiece of the first volume of the Lives of

Leland, Hearne, and Wood. 1772, 8vo.

[Illustration: IN REFECTORIO COLL. OMN. ANIM. OXON.]]

BALE follows closely after Leland. This once celebrated, and yet

respectable, writer had probably more zeal than discretion; but his

exertions in the cause of our own church can never be mentioned

without admiration. I would not, assuredly, quote Bale as a decisive

authority in doubtful or difficult cases;[322] but, as he lived in

the times of which he in a great measure wrote, and as his society was

courted by the wealthy and powerful, I am not sure whether he merits

to be treated with the roughness with which some authors mention his

labours. He had, certainly, a tolerable degree of strength in his

English style; but he painted with a pencil which reminded us more

frequently of the horrific pictures of Spagnoletti than of the tender

compositions of Albano. That he idolized his master, Leland, so

enthusiastically, will always cover, in my estimation, a multitude of

his errors: and that he should leave a scholar's inventory (as Fuller

saps [Transcriber's Note: says]), "more books than money behind him,"

will at least cause him to be numbered among the most renowned

bibliomaniacs.

[Footnote 322: Like all men, who desert a religion which

they once enthusiastically profess, Bale, after being

zealous for the papal superstitions, holding up his hands to

rotten posts, and calling them his "fathers in heaven,"

(according to his own confession) became a zealous

Protestant, and abused the church of Rome with a virulence

almost unknown in the writings of his predecessors. But in

spite of his coarseness, positiveness, and severity, he

merits the great praise of having done much in behalf of the

cause of literature. His attachment to Leland is,

unquestionably, highly to his honour; but his biographies,

especially of the Romish prelates, are as monstrously

extravagant as his plays are incorrigibly dull. He had a

certain rough honesty and prompt benevolence of character,

which may be thought to compensate for his grosser failings.

His reputation as a _bibliomaniac_ is fully recorded in the

anecdote mentioned at p. 234, ante. His "magnum opus," the

_Scriptores Britanniæ_, has already been noticed with

sufficient minuteness; vide p. 31, ante. It has not escaped

severe animadversion. Francis Thynne tells us that Bale has

"mistaken infynyte thinges in that booke de Scriptoribus

Anglie, being for the most part the collections of Lelande."

_Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer_; p. 23. Picard, in his

wretched edition of _Gulielmus Neubrigensis_ (edit. 1610, p.

672), has brought a severe accusation against the author of

having "burnt or torn all the copies of the works which he

described, after he had taken the titles of them;" but see

this charge successfully rebutted in Dr. Pegge's

_Anonymiana_; p. 311. That Bale's library, especially in the

department of manuscripts, was both rich and curious, is

indisputable, from the following passage in _Strype's Life

of Archbishop Parker_. "The archbishop laid out for BALE'S

rare collection of MSS. immediately upon his death, fearing

that they might be gotten by somebody else. Therefore he

took care to bespeak them before others, and was promised to

have them for his money, as he told Cecil. And perhaps

divers of those books that do now make proud the University

Library, and that of Benet and some other colleges, in

Cambridge, were Bale's," p. 539. It would seem, from the

same authority, that our bibliomaniac "set himself to search

the libraries in Oxford, Cambridge, London (wherein there

was but one, and that a slender one), Norwich, and several

others in Norfolk and Suffolk: whence he had collected

enough for another volume De Scriptoribus Britannicis."

_Ibid._ The following very beautiful wood-cut of Bale's

portrait is taken from the original, of the same size, in

the _Acta Romanorum Pontificum_; Basil, 1527, 8vo. A similar

one, on a larger scale, will be found in the "_Scriptores_,"

&c., published at Basil, 1557, or 1559--folio. Mr. Price,

the principal librarian of the Bodleian Library, shewed me a

rare head of Bale, of a very different cast of features--in

a small black-letter book, of which I have forgotten the

name.

[Illustration]]

Before I enter upon the reign of Elizabeth, let me pay a passing, but

sincere, tribute of respect to the memory of CRANMER; whose _Great

Bible_[323] is at once a monument of his attachment to the Protestant

religion, and to splendid books. His end was sufficiently lamentable;

but while the flames were consuming his parched body, and while his

right hand, extended in the midst of them, was reproached by him for

its former act of wavering and "offence," he had the comfort of

soothing his troubled spirit by reflecting upon what his past life had

exhibited in the cause of learning, morality, and religion.[324] Let

his memory be respected among virtuous bibliomaniacs!

[Footnote 323: I have perused what Strype (_Life of

Cranmer_, pp. 59, 63, 444), Lewis (_History of English

Bibles_, pp. 122-137), Johnson (_Idem opus_, pp. 33-42), and

Herbert (_Typog. Antiquities_, vol. i., p. 513,) have

written concerning the biblical labours of Archbishop

Cranmer; but the accurate conclusion to be drawn about the

publication which goes under the name of CRANMER'S, or THE

GREAT BIBLE, [Transcriber's Note: 'is' missing in original]

not quite so clear as bibliographers may imagine. However,

this is not the place to canvass so intricate a subject. It

is sufficient that a magnificent impression of the Bible in

the English language, with a superb frontispiece (which has

been most feebly and inadequately copied for Lewis's work),

under the archiepiscopal patronage of CRANMER, did make its

appearance in 1539: and it has been my good fortune to turn

over the leaves of the identical copy of it, printed UPON

VELLUM, concerning which Thomas Baker expatiates so

eloquently to his bibliomaniacal friend, Hearne. _Rob. of

Gloucester's Chronicle_; vol. i., p. xix. This copy is in

the library of St. John's College, Cambridge; and is now

placed upon a table, to the right hand, upon entering of the

same: although formerly, according to Bagford's account, it

was "among some old books in a private place nigh the

library." _Idem_; p. xxii. There is a similar copy in the

British Museum.]

[Footnote 324: "And thus"--says Strype--(in a strain of

pathos and eloquence not usually to be found in his

writings) "we have brought this excellent prelate unto his

end, after two years and a half hard imprisonment. His body

was not carried to the grave in state, nor buried, as many

of his predecessors were, in his own cathedral church, nor

inclosed in a monument of marble or touchstone. Nor had he

any inscription to set forth his praises to posterity. No

shrine to be visited by devout pilgrims, as his

predecessors, S. Dunstan and S. Thomas had. Shall we

therefore say, as the poet doth:

Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo,

Pompeius nullo. Quis putet esse Deos?

No; we are better Christians, I trust, than so: who are

taught, that the rewards of God's elect are not temporal but

eternal. And Cranmer's martyrdom is his monument, and his

name will outlast an epitaph or a shrine." _Life of

Cranmer_; p. 391. It would seem, from the same authority,

that RIDLEY, LATIMER, and CRANMER, were permitted to dine

together in prison, some little time before they suffered;

although they were "placed in separate lodgings that they

might not confer together." Strype saw "a book of their

diet, every dinner and supper, and the charge thereof,"--as

it was brought in by the bailiffs attending them.

_Dinner Expenses of Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer._

Bread and Ale ii_d._

Item, Oisters i_d._

Item, Butter ii_d._

Item, Eggs ii_d._

Item, Lyng viii_d._

Item, A piece of fresh Salmon x_d._

Wine iii_d._

Cheese and pears ii_d._

_Charges for burning Ridley and Latimer._

_s._ _d._

For three loads of wood fagots 12 0

Item, One load of furs fagots 3 4

For the carriage of the same 2 0

Item, A Post 1 4

Item, Two chains 3 4

Item, Two staples 0 6

Item, Four Labourers 2 8

_Charges for burning Cranmer._

_s._ _d._

For an 100 of wood fagots, 06 0

For an 100 and half of furs fagots 03 4

For the carriage of them 0 8

To two labourers 1 4

I will draw the curtain upon this dismal picture, by a short

extract from one of Cranmer's letters, in which this great

and good man thus ingeniously urges the necessity of the

Scriptures being translated into the English language; a

point, by the bye, upon which neither he, nor Cromwell, nor

Latimer, I believe, were at first decided; "God's will and

commandment is, (says Cranmer) that when the people be

gathered together, the minister should use such language as

the people may understand, and take profit thereby; or else

hold their peace. For as an harp or lute, if it give no

certain sound that men may know what is stricken, who can

dance after it--for all the sound is vain; so is it vain and

profiteth nothing, sayeth Almighty God, by the mouth of St.

Paul, if the priest speak to the people in a language which

they know not." _Certain most godly, fruitful, and

comfortable letters of Saintes and holy Martyrs, &c._, 1564;

4to., fol. 8.]

All hail to the sovereign who, bred up in severe habits of reading and

meditation, loved books and scholars to the very bottom of her heart!

I consider ELIZABETH as a royal bibliomaniac of transcendent fame!--I

see her, in imagination, wearing her favourite little _Volume of

Prayers_,[325] the composition of Queen Catherine Parr, and Lady

Tirwit, "bound in solid gold, and hanging by a gold chain at her

side," at her morning and evening devotions--afterwards, as she became

firmly seated upon her throne, taking an interest in the

embellishments of the _Prayer Book_,[326] which goes under her own

name; and then indulging her strong bibliomaniacal appetites in

fostering the institution "for the erecting of _a Library and an

Academy for the study of Antiquities and History_."[327]

Notwithstanding her earnestness to root out all relics of the Roman

Catholic religion (to which, as the best excuse, we must, perhaps,

attribute the sad cruelty of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots), I

cannot in my heart forbear to think but that she secured, for her own

book-boudoir, one or two of the curious articles which the

commissioners often-times found in the libraries that they inspected:

and, amongst other volumes, how she could forbear pouncing upon "_A

great Pricksong Book of parchment_"--discovered in the library of All

Soul's College[328]--is absolutely beyond my wit to divine!

[Illustration]

[Footnote 325: Of this curious little devotional volume the

reader has already had some account (p. 119, ante); but if

he wishes to enlarge his knowledge of the same, let him

refer to vol. lx. pt. ii. and vol. lxi. pt. i. of the

_Gentleman's Magazine_. By the kindness of Mr. John Nichols,

I am enabled to present the bibliomaniacal virtuoso with a

fac-simile of the copper-plate inserted in the latter volume

(p. 321) of the authority last mentioned. It represents the

GOLDEN COVER, or binding, of this precious manuscript. Of

the Queen's attachment to works of this kind, the following

is a pretty strong proof: "In the Bodl. library, among the

MSS. in mus. num. 235, are the _Epistles of St. Paul, &c._,

printed in an old black letter in 12o. which was _Queen

Elizabeth's own book_, and her own hand writing appears at

the beginning, viz.: "August. I walke many times into the

pleasant fieldes of the Holy Scriptures, where I plucke up

the goodliesome herbes of sentences by pruning: eate them by

reading: chawe them by musing: and laie them up at length in

the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together: that so

having tasted their sweetenes I may the lesse perceave the

bitterness of this miserable life." The covering is done in

needle work by the Queen [then princess] herself, and

thereon are these sentences, viz. on one side, on the

borders; CELVM PATRIA: SCOPVS VITÆ XPVS. CHRISTVS VIA.

CHRISTO VIVE. In the middle a heart, and round about it,

ELEVA COR SVRSVM IBI VBI E.C. [est Christus]. On the other

side, about the borders, BEATVS QVI DIVITIAS SCRIPTVRÆ

LEGENS VERBA VERTIT IN OPERA. In the middle a star, and

round it, VICIT OMNIA PERTINAX VIRTVS with E.C., _i.e._ as I

take it, ELISABETHA CAPTIVA, or [provided it refer to

Virtus] ELISABETHÆ CAPTIVÆ, she being, then, when she worked

this covering, a prisoner, if I mistake not, at Woodstock."

_Tit. Liv. For. Jul. vit. Henrici_ v., p. 228-229.

[Illustration]]

[Footnote 326: In the PRAYER-BOOK which goes by the name of

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S, there is a portrait of her Majesty

kneeling upon a superb cushion, with elevated hands, in

prayer. This book was first printed in 1575; and is

decorated with wood-cut borders of considerable spirit and

beauty; representing, among other things, some of the

subjects of Holbein's dance of death. The last impression is

of the date of 1608. Vide _Bibl. Pearson_; no. 635. The

presentation copy of it was probably printed UPON

VELLUM.[F]]

[Footnote 327: The famous John Dee entreated QUEEN MARY to

erect an institution similar [Transcriber's Note: 'to'

missing in original] the one above alluded to. If she

adopted the measure, Dee says that "her highnesse would have

a most NOTABLE LIBRARY, learning wonderfully be advanced,

the passing excellent works of our forefathers from rot and

worms preserved, and also hereafter continually the whole

realm may (through her grace's goodness) use and enjoy the

incomparable treasure so preserved: where now, no one

student, no, nor any one college, hath half a dozen of those

excellent jewels, but the whole stock and store thereof

drawing nigh to utter destruction, and extinguishing, while

here and there by private men's negligence (and sometimes

malice) many a famous and excellent author's book is rent,

burnt, or suffered to rot and decay. By your said

suppliant's device your Grace's said library might, in very

few years, most plentifully be furnisht, and that without

any one penny charge unto your Majesty, or doing injury to

any creature." In another supplicatory article, dated xv.

Jan. 1556, Dee advises copies of the monuments to be taken,

and the original, after the copy is taken, to be restored to

the owner. That there should be "allowance of all necessary

charges, as well toward the riding and journeying for the

recovery of the said worthy monuments, as also for the

copying out of the same, and framing of necessary stalls,

desks, and presses."--He concludes with proposing to make

copies of all the principal works in MS. "in the NOTABLEST

libraries beyond the sea"--"and as concerning all other

excellent authors printed, that they likewise shall be

gotten in wonderful abundance, their carriage only to be

chargeable." He supposes that three months' trial would shew

the excellence of his plan; which he advises to be instantly

put into practice "for fear of the spreading of it abroad

might cause many to hide and convey away their good and

ancient writers--which, nevertheless, were ungodly done, and

a certain token that such are not sincere lovers of good

learning." [In other words, not sound bibliomaniacs.] See

the Appendix to Hearne's edition of _Joh. Confrat. Monach.

de Reb. Glaston._ Dee's "supplication" met with no attention

from the bigotted sovereign to whom it was addressed. A

project for a similar establishment in Queen Elizabeth's

reign, when a Society of Antiquaries was first established

in this kingdom, may be seen in Hearne's _Collection of

Curious Discourses of Antiquaries_; vol. ii., p. 324,--when

this library was "to be entitled THE LIBRARY OF QUEEN

ELIZABETH, and the same to be well furnished with divers

ancient books, and rare monuments of antiquity," &c., edit.

1775.]

[Footnote 328: In Mr. Gutch's _Collectanea Curiosa_, vol.

ii., p. 275, we have a "Letter from Queen Elizabeth's high

commissioners, concerning the superstitious books belonging

to All Soul's College:" the "schedule" or list returned was

as follows:

Three mass books, old and new, and 2 portmisses

Item, 8 grailes, 7 antiphoners of parchment and bound

---- 10 Processionals old and new

---- 2 Symnalls

---- an old manual of paper

---- an Invitatorie book

---- 2 psalters--and one covered with a skin

---- _A great pricksong book of parchment_

---- One other pricksong book of vellum covered with a hart's

skyn

---- 5 other of paper bound in parchment

---- The Founder's mass-book in parchment bound in board

---- In Mr. Mill his hand an antiphoner and a legend

---- A portmisse in his hand two volumes, a manual, a

mass-book, and a processional.]

[Footnote F: The two following pages are appropriated to

copies of the frontispiece (of the edit. of 1608), and a

page of the work, from a copy in the possession of the

printer of this edition of the _Bibliomania_.

[Illustration: =Elizabeth Regina.=

2 PARALIPOM 6.

=Domine Deus Israel, non est similis tui Deus in coelo & in

terra, qui pacta custodis & misericordiam cum seruis tuis,

qui ambulant coram te in toto corde suo.=]

[Illustration: A prayer for charitie, or loue towards our

neighbours.

=Lord, inlighten and instruct our mindes, that we may esteeme

euerie thing as it is worth, & yet not make the lesse

reckoning of thee, sith nothing can be made better then

thou. And secondly let us make account of man, then whome,

there is nothing more excellent among the things of this

world. Make vs to loue him next thee, either as likest our

selues, or as thy childe, and therefore our brother, or as

one ordayned to bee a member of one selfe same countrie with

vs.=

=And cause vs also euen heere, to resemble the heauenly

kingdome through mutual loue, where all hatred is quite

banished, and all is full of loue, and consequently full of

joy and gladnes.= Amen.

=Giue a sweete smell as incense, &c.=

=Eccles. 39.=

=Matthew xxvi. 26-29.=]]

LOREN. You are full of book anecdote of Elizabeth: but do you forget

her schoolmaster, ROGER ASCHAM?

LYSAND. The master ought certainly to have been mentioned before his

pupil. Old Roger is one of my most favourite authors; and I wish

English scholars in general not only to read his works frequently,

but to imitate the terseness and perspicuity of his style. There is a

great deal of information in his treatises, respecting the manners and

customs of his times; and as Dr. Johnson has well remarked, "his

philological learning would have gained him honour in any

country."[329] That he was an ardent bibliomaniac, his letters when

upon the continent, are a sufficient demonstration.

[Footnote 329: ROGER ASCHAM is now, I should hope, pretty

firmly established among us as one of the very best

classical writers in our language. Nearly three centuries

are surely sufficient to consecrate his literary celebrity.

He is an author of a peculiar and truly original cast. There

is hardly a dull page or a dull passage in his lucubrations.

He may be thought, however, to have dealt rather harshly

with our old romance writers; nor do I imagine that the

original edition of his _Schoolmaster_ (1571), would be

placed by a _Morte d'Arthur_ collector alongside of his thin

black-letter quarto romances. Ascham's invectives against

the Italian school, and his hard-hearted strictures upon the

innocent ebullitions of Petrarch and Boccaccio, have been

noticed, with due judgment and spirit, by Mr. Burnet, in his

pleasing analysis of our philosopher's works. See _Specimens

of English Prose Writers_; vol. ii., p. 84. Our tutor's

notions of academical education, and his courteous treatment

of his royal and noble scholars, will be discoursed of anon;

meantime, while we cursorily, but strongly, applaud Dr.

Johnson's almost unqualified commendation of this able

writer; and while the reader may be slightly informed of the

elegance and interest of his epistles; let the bibliomaniac

hasten to secure Bennet's edition of Ascham's works (which

incorparates [Transcriber's Note: incorporates] the notes of

Upton upon the Schoolmaster, with the Life of, and remarks

upon Ascham, by Dr. Johnson), published in a handsome quarto

volume [1761]. This edition, though rather common and cheap,

should be carefully reprinted in an octavo volume; to

harmonize with the greater number of our best writers

published in the same form. But it is time to mention

something of the author connected with the subject of this

work. What relates to the BIBLIOMANIA, I here select from

similar specimens in his English letters, written when he

was abroad: "Oct. 4. at afternoon I went about the town [of

Bruxelles]. I went to the frier Carmelites house, and heard

their even song: after, I desired to see the LIBRARY. A

frier was sent to me, and led me into it. There was not one

good book but _Lyra_. The friar was learned, spoke Latin

readily, entered into Greek, having a very good wit, and a

greater desire to learning. He was gentle and honest," &c.

pp. 370-1. "Oct. 20. to Spira: a good city. Here I first saw

_Sturmius de Periodis_. I also found here _Ajax_, _Electra_,

and _Antigone_ of _Sophocles_, excellently, by my good

judgment, translated into verse, and fair printed this

summer by Gryphius. Your stationers do ill, that at least do

not provide you the register of all books, especially of old

authors," &c., p. 372. Again: "Hieronimus Wolfius, that

translated Demosthenes and Isocrates, is in this town. I am

well acquainted with him, and have brought him twice to my

lord's to dinner. He looks very simple. He telleth me that

one Borrheus, that hath written well upon Aristot. priorum,

&c., even now is printing goodly commentaries upon

Aristotle's Rhetoric. But Sturmius will obscure them all."

p. 381. These extracts are taken from Bennet's edition. Who

shall hence doubt of the propriety of classing Ascham among

the most renowned bibliomaniacs of the age?]

From the tutor of Elizabeth let us go to her prime minister,

CECIL.[330] We have already seen how successfully this great man

interposed in matters of religion; it remains to notice his zealous

activity in the cause of learning. And of this latter who can possibly

entertain a doubt? Who that has seen how frequently his name is

affixed to Dedications, can disbelieve that Cecil was a LOVER OF

BOOKS? Indeed I question whether it is inserted more frequently in a

diplomatic document or printed volume. To possess all the presentation

copies of this illustrious minister would be to possess an ample and

beautiful library of the literature of the sixteenth century.

[Footnote 330: The reader, it is presumed, will not form his

opinion of the bibliomaniacal taste of this great man, from

the distorted and shameful delineation of his character,

which, as a matter of curiosity only, is inserted at p. 237,

ante. He will, on the contrary, look upon Cecil as a lover

of books, not for the sake of the numerous panegyrical

dedications to himself, which he must have so satisfactorily

perused, but for the sake of the good to be derived from

useful and ingenious works. With one hand, this great man

may be said to have wielded the courageous spirit, and

political virtue, of his country--and with the other, to

have directed the operations of science and literature.

Without reading the interesting and well-written life of

Cecil, in Mr. Macdiarmid's _Lives of British Statesmen_ (a

work which cannot be too often recommended, or too highly

praised), there is evidence sufficient of this statesman's

bibliomaniacal passion and taste, in the FINE OLD LIBRARY

which is yet preserved at Burleigh in its legitimate

form--and which, to the collector of such precious volumes,

must have presented a treat as exquisite as are the fresh

blown roses of June to him who regales himself in the

flowery fragrance of his garden--the production of his own

manual labour! Indeed Strypes tells us that Cecil's "library

was a very choice one:" his care being "in the preservation,

rather than in the private possession of (literary)

antiquities." Among other curiosities in it, there was a

grand, and a sort of presentation, copy of Archbishop

Parker's Latin work of the _Antiquity of the British

Church_; "bound costly, and laid in colours the arms of the

Church of Canterbury, empaled with the Archbishop's own

paternal coat." Read Strype's tempting description; _Life of

Parker_; pp. 415, 537. Well might Grafton thus address Cecil

at the close of his epistolary dedication of his

_Chronicles_: "and now having ended this work, and seeking

to whom I might, for testification of my special good-will,

present it, or for patronage and defence dedicate it, and

principally, for all judgment and correction to submit

it--among many, I have chosen your MASTERSHIP, moved thereto

by experience of your courteous judgment towards those that

travail to any honest purpose, rather helping and comforting

their weakness, than condemning their simple, but yet well

meaning, endeavours. By which, your accustomed good

acceptation of others, I am the rather boldened to beseech

your Mastership to receive this my work and me, in such

manner as you do those in whom (howsoever there be want of

power) there wanteth no point of goodwill and serviceable

affection." Edit. 1809, 4to. If a chronicler could talk

thus, a poet (who, notwithstanding the title of his poem,

does not, I fear, rank among Pope's bards, that "sail aloft

among _the Swans of Thames_,") may be permitted thus to

introduce Cecil's name and mansion:

Now see these Swannes the new and worthie seate

Of famous CICILL, treasorer of the land,

Whose wisedome, counsell skill of Princes state

The world admires, then Swannes may do the same:

The house itselfe doth shewe the owner's wit,

And may for bewtie, state, and every thing,

Compared be with most within the land,

Vallan's _Tale of Two Swannes_, 1590, 4to., reprinted in

_Leland's Itinerary_; vol. v. p. xiii, edit. 1770.]

But the book-loving propensities of Elizabeth's minister were greatly

eclipsed by those of her favourite archbishop, PARKER:

clarum et venerabile nomen

Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi.

For my part, Lorenzo, I know of no character, either of this or of any

subsequent period, which is more entitled to the esteem and veneration

of Englishmen. Pious, diffident, frank, charitable, learned, and

munificent, Parker was the great episcopal star of his age, which

shone with undiminished lustre to the last moment of its appearance.

In that warm and irritable period, when the Protestant religion was

assailed in proportion to its excellence, and when writers mistook

abuse for argument, it is delightful to think upon the mild and

temperate course which this discreet metropolitan pursued! Even with

such arrant bibliomaniacs as yourselves, Parker's reputation must

stand as high as that attached to any name, when I inform you that of

his celebrated work upon the "_Antiquity of the British Church_"[331]

are only twenty copies supposed to have been printed. He had a

private press, which was worked with types cast at his own expense;

and a more determined book-fancier, and treasurer of ancient lore, did

not at that time exist in Great Britain.

[Footnote 331: This is not the place to enter minutely into

a bibliographical account of the above celebrated work; such

account being with more propriety reserved for the history

of our _Typographical Antiquities_. Yet a word or two may be

here said upon it, in order that the bibliomaniac may not be

wholly disappointed; and especially as Ames and Herbert have

been squeamishly reserved in their comunications

[Transcriber's Note: communications] respecting the same.

The above volume is, without doubt, one of the scarcest

books in existence. It has been intimated by Dr. Drake, in

the preface of his magnificent reprint of it, 1729, fol.,

that only 20 copies were struck off: but, according to Stype

[Transcriber's Note: Strype], Parker tells Cecil, in an

emblazoned copy presented to him by the latter, that he had

not given the book to _four_ men in the whole realm: and

peradventure, added he, "it shall never come to sight

abroad, though some men, smelling of the printing of it,

were very desirous cravers of the same." _Life of Parker_,

p. 415. This certainly does not prove any thing respecting

the number of copies printed; but it is probable that Dr.

Drake's supposition is not far short of the truth. One thing

is remarkable: of all the copies known, no two are found to

accord with each other. The archbishop seems to have altered

and corrected the sheets as they each came from the press.

The omission of the Archbishop's own life in this volume, as

it contained the biography of 69 archbishops, exclusively of

himself, was endeavoured to be supplied by the publication

of a sharp satirical tract, entitled, "_The life off the 70

Archbishop of Canterbury, presenttye sittinge Englished, and

to be added to the 69 lately sett forth in Latin_," &c.,

12mo., 1574. After this title page there is another.

"_Histriola, a little storye of the acts and life of Mathew,

now Archbishoppe of Canterb._" This latter comprehends 17

leaves, and was written either by the archbishop himself, or

by his Chaplain Joscelyne; but whether it be at all like a

distinct printed folio tract, of twelve leaves and a half,

which was kept carefully undispersed in the archbishop's own

possession, 'till his death--being also a biography of

Parker--I am not able to ascertain. The following extracts

from it (as it is a scarce little volume) may be acceptable,

_Archbishop Parker's early Studies and popular Preaching._

"But now, he being very well and perfectly instructed in the

liberal sciences, he applied all his mind to the study of

divinity, and to the reading of the volumes of the

ecclesiastical fathers; and that so earnestly that, in short

space of time, he bestowed his labour not unprofitably in

this behalf; for, after the space of four or five years, he,

issuing from his secret and solitary study into open

practice in the commonwealth, preached every where unto the

people with great commendation; and that in the most famous

cities and places of this realm, by the authority of King

Henry VIII., by whose letters patent this was granted unto

him, together with the license of the Archbishop of

Canterbury. In execution of this function of preaching, he

gained this commodity; that the fame of him came unto the

ears of King Henry," &c. Sign. A. iij. recto.

_His attention to Literature and Printing, &c._