'The history of books,' it has often been said, 'is as curious and
instructive as that of men: it is therein that we have to seek
for the moral life of a people.' This remark has very much the
character of a truism, and more especially at the present period.
The ever-circling course of time brings phenomena in literature as
well as astronomy: from the no-book era the world passed into the
too-many-book era; from that of reading nothing but what pleased a
few, to that in which everybody read what they pleased; from that
of being punished for reading, to that in which the punishment
was for not reading. Nodier says, 'Printed books have existed but
little more than four hundred years, and yet, in certain countries,
they have already accumulated to such a degree as to peril the
old equilibrium of the globe. Civilisation has reached the most
unexpected of its periods--the Age of Paper.'
We have had the Golden Age, and the Age of Brass, and of Iron; but
the Age of Paper!--was such a wonder ever dreamt of by philosophy?
What does it bode? Is it synonymous with _flimsy_ age? Do the
centuries degenerate? According to M. Victor Hugo they do not. In
his reception-speech made to the Académie in 1840, he declared,
'Nothing has degenerated; France is always the torch of nations.
The epoch is great--great by its science, its eloquence, its
industry, great by its poetry and its art. At the present hour,
there is but one enlightened and living literature in the whole
universe--and it is the literature of France.' It is not easy to
account for differences of opinion, but only three short years
earlier--namely, in 1837--Monsieur Guizot affirmed, in addressing
another learned academy, 'The true and disinterested worship of
science has worn itself out among us; we seek for noise or for
profit, for a prompt satisfaction of self-love, or for a material
advantage.'
Contrast this with the period when pen, ink, and fingers did the
work now done by type and power-presses--the no-book era. Not the
least noteworthy among patient transcribers were the Benedictines.
'Their rule assigned an eminent rank among monastic virtues to the
guardianship and multiplication of valuable manuscripts. It taught
the copyist of a holy book to think of himself as at once a pupil
and a teacher--as a missionary while seated at his desk--using each
finger as a tongue--inflicting on the Spirit of Evil a deadly wound
at each successive line--and as baffling, with the pen, the dread
enemy who smiles at the impotent hostility of every other weapon
grasped by the hand of mortal man. In each Benedictine monastery a
chamber was set apart for the discharge of this sacred office. In
this _Scriptorium_ some of the monks plied their pens assiduously,
and in profound silence, to produce faultless transcripts of the
best originals. To others was committed the care of revising
the text of such works as were then held in the highest esteem.
Charlemagne himself assigned to the Benedictine Alcuin the high
office of preparing, from the various sources within his reach, a
perfect Codex of the Holy Scriptures. For what remains to us of
Pliny, Sallust, and Macrobius, and for the orations against Verres,
we are indebted to their literary zeal.'
We read of Claude Estiennot, who was procurator of the Benedictines
at Rome during the papacy of Innocent XI., that 'within eleven
years he had collected and transcribed forty-five bulky folios, at
the various libraries of his society in the several dioceses of
France, adding to them, says Dom le Cerf, "réflexions très sensées
et judicieuses"--"very sensible and judicious reflections."'
Forty-five volumes in eleven years! Perhaps this was a commendable
result in the eighth century, but the old-fashioned hand-press
in the village of Dumdrudge would beat it now-a-days, barring
probably the 'judicious reflections.' We have before us a
statement of the books and pamphlets printed in France in fifteen
years--1830-1845--including reprints, but omitting periodicals,
the number was 5862 annually, or a total of 87,930. Estimating
each work as two volumes and a-half, they amount to 220,000; and
reckoning 1200 copies of each work (a moderate calculation), the
grand total is 264,000,000 of volumes.
Nodier might well say the earth's equilibrium is imperilled:
and if we add to the above the typographical labours of other
countries! In the matter of Bibles alone, the British Societies
have distributed 20,000,000 copies since 1827. A house in
Paris published the Scriptures in three quarto volumes, price
seventy-five francs, in twelve years--1824-1836: by dint of
canvassing, and offering the work from house to house, they sold
65,000 copies, value 4,875,000 francs. Nor are we without monuments
of individual effort: Daniel Kieffer, a celebrated Protestant and
learned Orientalist of Strasburg, translated the Old Testament
into Turkish; and in one year, 1832, distributed at his sole
charge 160,000 of the volumes. The best Bohemian dictionary yet
published is the work of a M. Jungmann, who prepared and brought
it out at his own cost, and sold a vineyard to defray the expense.
According to Mr Kohl, Bibles are smuggled into Bohemia, Scripture
is contraband, and yet, contradictory as it may seem, Bibles may
be sold in that country, although they may not be printed there
or imported. The copies which do find an entrance are sent mostly
from Berlin and England. A few years since, two wagon-loads fell
into the hands of customhouse officers, who have ever since kept
the prize safely under lock and key. In the public library at Linz,
the above-named traveller saw an old edition of Luther's works
thickly coated with dust, and was informed by the attendant that
the volumes had not once been disturbed for thirty years.
Even in the days when oligarchs prescribed the popular reading,
Pasquin dared to say what he thought of their proceedings. Father
Germain, who accompanied Mabillon to Rome in 1685, relates
an incident:--'He found Rome agitated with the affair of the
Quietists. His account of the dispute is rather facetious than
theological. Just then a Spaniard had been sent to the galleys,
and a priest to the gallows; the first for talking, the second
for writing scandals; while the great Quietist Molinos was in the
custody of the Inquisition. Marforio, says Germain, is asked by
Pasquin, why are you leaving Rome? and answers, "He who speaks
is sent to the galleys; he who writes is hanged; he who remains
quiet goes to the Holy Office." Marforio had good cause for his
heresy; for the scandal which (as Germain pleasantly has it) "broke
the priest's neck" was merely his having said that the "mare had
knocked the snail out of its shell," in allusion to the fact of the
Pope's having been forced out of his darling seclusion and repose,
to be present at a certain festival, at which a mare or palfrey was
also an indispensable attendant. The rogues continue to repeat the
jest notwithstanding, observes the reverend looker-on.'
'Many men, many minds;' so runs the adage. About the year 1839, a
work, 'Le mariage au point de vue chrétien' was published by Madame
Gasparin. The French Academy awarded a prize to the authoress for
her book, but at the very same time it was inscribed by the church
in the Index Expurgatorius as a prohibited treatise: such being
one among the innumerable instances of difference of opinion.
The disappointment of writers, too, would fill a long catalogue:
there are extravagant expectations in literature as well as in
mines and railways. In 1836, one M. Châtel published the 'Code de
l'humanité,' which was to regenerate society. He announced himself
as Primate of the Gauls, drew around him a few disciples, who
remained faithful during fifteen years, when the delusion came
suddenly to an end--the primate had become a postmaster.
Some books, like human beings, come into the world with fortune
for their nurse, others encounter difficulties at the very outset,
and barely escape strangulation. According to Pliny, several
thousand men were placed at the service of Aristotle during the
time that his great work was in preparation, to furnish him with
information and observations on all sorts of natural objects--men
whose business it was to take care of cattle, fishing-grounds, and
apiaries. The monarch under whose auspices it was composed gave
him 800 talents (L.79,000) towards the expenses. Was ever a book
brought out under more favourable circumstances?
When Amari wrote his history of Sicily, he submitted it to
the censorship at Palermo, and obtained leave to publish. The
permission from some cause was, however, revoked before the work
appeared, and the author received orders to send the whole of the
copies to the police. Unwilling to make such a sacrifice, he packed
the books in a case, and shipped them on board a French vessel, and
at the same time sent a similar case to the authorities filled with
vegetables and rubbish. He then, with a false passport, sailed for
Marseilles, and eventually published his book at Paris with the
imprint 'Palermo' on the title-page. It has since gone through a
second edition.
Some writers have said the inventing of a title, or composing
of a preface, cost them more trouble or thought than any other
part of their work; it might not be unfair to suppose that the
subject-matter was very indifferent, or the preface very good.
True it is, however, that many books do exhibit strange freaks of
invention on the part of their authors, as a few specimens will
exemplify. In 'The Arte of Vulgar Arithmeticke,' published in 1600
by Thomas Hylles, we find 'the partition of a shilling into his
aliquot parts' thus exhibited:--
'A farthing first findes fortie-eight,
An halfepeny hopes for twentie-foure,
Three farthings seekes out 16 streight,
A peny puls a dozen lower:
Dicke dandiprat drewe 8 out deade,
Two-pence tooke 6 and went his way,
Tom trip and goe with 4 is fled,
But goodman grote on 3 doth stay;
A testerne only 2 doth take,
Moe parts a shilling cannot make.'
Schoolboys of the present day often chant a quatrain without a
suspicion that young scholars vented their discontent in the same
doggerel in the days when the invincible Armada was approaching our
shores. Professor De Morgan mentions a manuscript, date 1570, in
which these lines occur:--
'Multiplication is mie vexation,
And Division is quite as bad,
The Golden Rule is mie stumbling-stule,
And Practice drives me mad.'
In 1688, a teacher of arithmetic, W. Leybourn, doubtless thought
he had made a hit by his title-page, which is thus fancifully
arranged:--
A
Platform { } Purchasers.
Guide { for } Builders.
Mate { } Measurers.
Another, of the same date, thought he had discovered an original
method for obtaining the square and cube roots, and says--
'Now Logarithms lowre your sail,
And Algebra give place,
For here is found, that ne'er doth fail,
A nearer way to your disgrace.'
There was a struggle to live even a hundred years ago; we do not
find that being a century nearer to the Golden Age than we are
made much essential difference in men's characters:--The author
of 'Arithmetick in Epitome,' published in 1740, entertains a
professional jealousy of interlopers, for he observes, 'When a
man has tried all Shifts, and still failed, if he can but scratch
out anything like a fair _Character_, though never so stiff and
unnatural, and has got but _Arithmetick_ enough in his Head to
compute the Minutes in a Year, or the Inches in a Mile, he makes
his last Recourse to a Garret, and, with the Painter's Help, sets
up for a Teacher of _Writing_ and _Arithmetick_; where, by the Bait
of low Prices, he perhaps gathers a Number of Scholars.'
Another, named Chappell, indulges in a little political
illustration in his book, published in 1798--was he a disappointed
place-hunter? He tells us in his versified tables--
'So 5 times 8 were 40 Scots,
Who came from Aberdeen,
And 5 times 9 were 45,
Which gave them all the spleen.'
The latter being an allusion to Wilkes' notorious No. 45 of the
North Briton.
Some curious facts with respect to old systems of arithmetic were
published at a meeting of the Schlesische Gesellschaft in Breslau
in 1846. On that occasion Herr Löschke gave an account to the
learned assembly of an old arithmetical work, 'Rechnen auf der
Linie,' by the 'old Reckon-master,' Adam Rise. Adam was born about
1492; of his education nothing is known; he lived at Annaberg, and
had three sons, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His first 'Reckon-book,'
in which he explained his peculiar method, appeared in 1518. It
was somewhat on the principle of the calculating frame of the
Chinese; a series of lines were drawn across a sheet of paper, on
which, by the position of counters, numbers could be reckoned up
to hundreds of thousands. The first line of the series was for
units, the second for tens, the third for hundreds, the fourth for
thousands, the fifth for ten thousands, and so on. It is remarkable
that the highest counting-limit at that time was a thousand. The
word 'million' was as yet unknown to the great body of calculators.
Every number was counted, specified, and limited by thousands.
The numeration of large numbers was thus expressed: the sum was
divided into threes from right to left; a dot was placed over the
first, and a second dot over the third of the following three, and
so continued along the whole, until at last a dot stood over every
fourth figure from the right. For example,
. . . . . . . .
6432798642102791527462,
which were read, six thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand
thousand times thousand, 432 thousand thousand thousand thousand
thousand times thousand, 798 thousand thousand thousand thousand
times thousand, 642 thousand thousand thousand times thousand, 102
thousand thousand times thousand, 791 thousand times thousand, 527
thousand and 462. With this curiosity of arithmetic we close our
Jottings for the present.