Encumbered dearly with old books,
Thou, by the pleasant chimney nooks,
Didst laugh, with merry-meaning looks,
Thy griefs away.--LIONEL JOHNSON.
P. 18. _Burton._--Compare the remark of the 'Hammock School' reviewers
in Mr. G. K. Chesterton's _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_--'Next to
authentic goodness in a book (and that, alas! we never find) we desire a
rich badness.'
P. 19. _Channing._--An address introductory to the Franklin lectures
delivered at Boston, 1838. Channing's influence increased after his
death, which occurred in 1842. In the seventies nearly 50,000 copies of
his _Complete Works_ were circulated in America and Europe.
P. 20. _Hunt._--The novel _Camilla_ is Madame D'Arblay's; the entire
passage relating to the Oxford scholar's books is given on page 216.
Petrarch is quoted on pages 1 and 369.
P. 21. _Landor._--See 'Old-Fashioned Verse' on p. 186.
P. 26. _Burton._--Lord Byron is reported by Moore to have said: 'The
book, in my opinion, most useful to a man who wishes to acquire the
reputation of being well read, with the least trouble, is Burton's
_Anatomy of Melancholy_, the most amusing and instructive medley of
quotations and classical anecdotes I ever perused. But a superficial
reader must take care, or his intricacies will bewilder him. If,
however, he has patience to go through his volumes, he will be more
improved for literary conversation than by the perusal of any twenty
other works with which I am acquainted, at least in the English
language.'
Dr. Johnson, while admitting that the _Anatomy_ is a valuable work,
suggests that it is overloaded with quotation. But he adds, 'It is the
only book that ever took me out of bed two hours sooner than I wished to
rise.'
P. 28. _Southey._--'Southey's appearance is _Epic_; and he is the only
existing entire man of letters. All the others have some pursuit annexed
to their authorship'.--LORD BYRON.
Ye, loved books, no more
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown,
Adding immortal labours of his own.--WORDSWORTH.
(Inscription for a monument in Crosthwaite Church).
P. 32. _Montaigne._--Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne, began to
write his essays in his château at Montaigne in Périgord in 1572, at the
age of thirty-nine. The essays were published in 1580, and five editions
had appeared before his death in 1592.
_The Essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne_ translated by John Florio
were first published in 1603. The translator was born in London about
1553, and he died in 1625. It is this translation from which my excerpts
are given, and it is the only book known to have been in Shakespeare's
library; the volume contains his autograph, and is now in the British
Museum.
Emerson classes Montaigne in his _Representative Men_ as the Sceptic. He
calls to mind that Gibbon reckoned, in the bigoted times of the period,
but two men of liberality in France--Henry IV and Montaigne--and adds,
'Though a Biblical plainness, coupled with a most uncanonical levity,
may shut his pages to many sensitive readers, yet the offence is
superficial.... I know not anywhere the book that seems less written. It
is the language of conversation transferred to a book.'
P. 33. _Denham._--Dominico Mancini wrote the _Libellus de quattuor
Virtutibus_, published in Paris, 1484.
P. 37. _Johnson._--The excerpts from Johnson and from Boswell's _Life_
are taken, where possible, from Dr. Birkbeck Hill's Oxford edition.
P. 41. _Rabelais._--The translation is that of Peter Anthony Motteux
(1660-1718) and of Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611-1660).
It may be remembered that Pantagruel on his travels found in Paris 'the
library of St. Victor, a very stately and magnificent one, especially in
some books which were there', of which the Repertory or Catalogue is
given. A few of the titles are:--_The Pomegranate of Vice_, _The Henbane
of the Bishops_, _The Crucible of Contemplation_, _The Flimflams of the
Law_, _The Pleasures of the Monachal Life_, _Sixty-nine fat Breviaries_,
and _The Chimney-sweeper of Astrology_. Some of the titles are too
'Rabelaesian', or what some booksellers call 'curious', to print. A
certain number of the books appear to have actually existed outside the
author's imagination.
P. 45. _Herrick._--These are, of course, separate poems, scattered fruit
of the _Hesperides_. See also the note on page 390.
'Absyrtus-like': an allusion, of course, to the story of Medea, who took
her brother Absyrtus with her when she fled with Jason. Being nearly
overtaken by her father, Medea murdered Absyrtus, and strewed the road
with pieces of his body so that the pursuit might be stayed.
P. 46. _Daniel._--This sonnet was prefaced to the second edition of
Florio's _Montaigne_ (1613), and is often ascribed to the translator;
but the weight of criticism credits the authorship to Daniel. Mr.
Locker-Lampson was tempted to write a couple of verses for the fly-leaf
of the Rowfant Montaigne, which not only belonged to Shakespeare, but
was also given by Pope to Gay and enjoyed by Johnson:
For me the halycon days have passed,
I'm here and with a dunce at last.
See note on previous page.
P. 47. _Milton._--Milton's prose masterpiece was printed, in a modified
form, by Mirabeau, under the title _Sur la Liberté de la Presse_, imité
de l'Anglais, de Milton.