In her own light arrayed,
See mercy's grand apocalypse displayed!
The sacred book no longer suffers wrong,
Bound in the fetters of an unknown tongue;
But speaks with plainness, art could never mend,
What simplest minds can soonest comprehend.
Macaulay described the Bible as 'a book which, if everything else in our
language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of
its beauty and power'.
P. 297. _Arnold._--Wordsworth's opinion was that the prophetic and
lyrical parts of the Bible formed 'the great storehouse of enthusiastic
and meditative imagination'.
P. 297. _Faber._--Professor Huxley wrote in the _Contemporary Review_,
in his famous article on 'The School Boards':--'Consider the great
historical fact that, for three centuries, this book has been woven into
the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it has
become the national epic of Britain, and is familiar to noble and
simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante and Tasso
were once to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest and purest
English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form; and,
finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to
be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations,
and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the
oldest nations in the world.'
P. 299. _Eliot._--Maggie Tulliver, during the home troubles caused by
her father's bankruptcy, receives a present of books, among which is the
_Imitation of Christ_.
P. 304. _Gaskell._--The essay by Mrs. Gaskell, first published in
_Household Words_ in 1854, was suggested by an article by Victor Cousin
on Madame de Sablé in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Madame was a habitual
guest at the Hôtel Rambouillet and friend of the Duchess de Longueville;
her crowning accomplishment was the ability _tenir un salon_.
P. 311. _Alcuin._--Born at York in 735, Alcuin was the adviser of
Charlemagne, whose court, under the Englishman's direction became a
centre of culture. After fifteen years of court life at Aix-la-Chapelle
Alcuin retired to Tours, where he died in 804. His English name is given
as Ealwhine.
The catalogue refers to the library of Egbert, Archbishop of York. The
translator is D. McNicoll.
P. 311. _King._--This is an extract from a poem of 1,500 lines preserved
in vol. iii of Nichols's _Poems_, where it is said to be probably by Dr.
W. King. It first appeared in 1712. See p. 252.
P. 313. _Pope._--For the fate of the bonfire the reader is referred to
the _Dunciad_ itself. Pope explains that 'this library is divided into
three parts; the first consists of those authors from whom he (the
hero, i.e. Colley Cibber) stole, and whose works he mangled; the second,
of such as fitted the shelves, or were gilded for show, or adorned with
pictures; the third class our author calls solid learning, old Bodies of
Divinity, old Commentaries, old English Printers, or old English
Translations; all very voluminous, and fit to erect altars to Dulness'.
Tibbald, or Theobald, wrote _Shakespear Restored_; Ogilby, poet and
printer, is mentioned by Addison on p. 210; the Duchess of Newcastle was
responsible for eight folios of poetical and philosophical works;
Settle, the hero's brother Laureate 'for the city instead of the court';
Banks, his rival in tragedy; Broome, 'a serving man of Ben Jonson'; De
Lyra or Harpsfield, whose five volumes of commentaries in folio were
printed in 1472; Philemon Holland, 'the translator general of his age';
Cibber's Birthday Ode as Laureate.
William Caxton (1422-91), of course, printed, at Bruges, the first book
printed in English--the _Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye_--in 1474.
His printing press in Westminster was set up two years later. Wynkyn de
Worde, his servant and successor, started business on his own account in
1491.
P. 314. _Sterne._--'Sterne has generally concealed the sources of his
curious trains of investigation, and uncommon opinions, but in one
instance he ventured to break through his restraint by mentioning
Bouchet's _Evening Conferences_, among the treasures of Mr. Shandy's
library.... I have great reason to believe that it was in the Skelton
library some years ago, where I suspect Sterne found most of the authors
of this class. I entertain little doubt, that from the perusal of this
work, Sterne conceived the first precise idea of his _Tristram_, as far
as anything can be called precise, in a desultory book, apparently
written with great rapidity.'
This quotation is from Ferriar's _Illustrations of Sterne_, which was
published in 1798. He seemed, Sir Walter Scott wrote, 'born to trace and
detect the various mazes through which Sterne carried on his
depredations upon ancient and dusty authors.' Ferriar wrote the
following lines addressed to Sterne:--
Sterne, for whose sake I plod through miry ways,
Of antique wit and quibbling mazes drear,
Let not thy shade malignant censure fear,
Though aught of borrowed mirth my search betrays.
Long slept that mirth in dust of ancient days,
(Erewhile to Guise or wanton Valois dear;)
Till waked by thee in Skelton's joyous pile,
She flung on Tristram her capricious rays;
But the quick tear that checks our wondering smile,
In sudden pause or unexpected story,
Owns thy true mastery--and Le Fever's woes,
Maria's wanderings, and the Prisoner's throes,
Fix thee conspicuous on the throne of glory.
P. 315. _Scott._--The modern poet is Crabbe, and the context will be
found on p. 340; Thalaba is the name of Southey's hero.
P. 319. _Montaigne._--In another essay Montaigne tells us that his
library for a country library could pass for a very fair one.
P. 320. _Southey._--This extract is from Southey's _Sir Thomas More_; a
book of colloquies between Southey himself, under the name of
Montesinos, and the apparition of Sir T. More: who tells him that 'it is
your lot, as it was mine, to live during one of the grand climacterics
of the world', and that, 'I come to you, rather than to any other
person, because you have been led to meditate upon the corresponding
changes whereby your age and mine are distinguished, and because ...
there are certain points of sympathy and resemblance which bring us into
contact.' The colloquies are upon such subjects as the feudal and
manufacturing systems, the Reformation, prospects of Europe, infidelity,
trade.
Chartier was the French poet whose 'eternal glory' it was 'to have
announced the mission of Jeanne d'Arc'.
'Here are God's conduits,' &c., is from the first of Donne's _Satires_.
P. 324. _Barton._--The Rev. John Mitford (1781-1859) formed a large
library at Benham, where he also devoted himself to gardening.
P. 325. _Bale._--'I was called to London to wait upon the Duke of
Norfolk, who having at my sole request bestowed the Arundelian Library
on the Royal Society, sent to me to take charge of the books and remove
them.... I procured for our Society, besides printed books, near 100
MSS., some in Greek, of great concernment. The printed books being of
the oldest impressions are not the less valuable; I esteem them almost
equal to MSS. Amongst them are most of the Fathers printed at Basle,
before the Jesuits abused them with their expurgatory Indexes; there is
a noble MS. of Vitruvius. Many of these books had been presented by
Popes, Cardinals, and great persons, to the Earls of Arundel and Dukes
of Norfolk; and the late magnificent Earl of Arundel bought a noble
library in Germany, which is in this collection. I should not, for the
honour I bear the family, have persuaded the Duke to part with these,
had I not seen how negligent he was of them, suffering the priests and
everybody to carry away and dispose of what they pleased, so that
abundance of rare things are irrecoverably gone.'--J. EVELYN (_Diary_,
August 29, 1678.)
P. 326. _Whittier._--Sung at the opening of the library at Haverhill,
Mass.
P. 334. _Helps._--Pope's _Essay on Man_:
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
The other allusions are to Johnson, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
P. 337. _Crabbe._--It is explained by Crabbe that while composing 'The
Library' he 'was honoured with the notice and assisted by the advice of
the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: part of it was written in his
presence, and the whole submitted to his judgement; receiving, in its
progress, the benefit of his correction'. The poem was published in
1781.
P. 354. _Saxe._--Aristophanes' _The Clouds_, ridiculing Socrates.
P. 355. _Drummond._--Of Sir Thomas Bodley old Anthony Wood says: 'Though
no writer, worth the remembrance, yet hath he been the greatest promoter
of learning that hath yet appeared in our nation.'
It may be recalled that R. de Bury had a fine idea, although it did not
fructify, to wit:--'We have for a long time held a rooted purpose in the
inmost recesses of our mind, looking forward to a favourable time and
divine aid, to found, in perpetual alms, and enrich with the necessary
gifts, a certain Hall in the revered University of Oxford, the first
nurse of all the liberal Arts; and further to enrich the same, when
occupied by numerous scholars, with deposits of our books, so that the
books themselves and every one of them may be made common as to use and
study, not only to the scholars of the said Hall, but through them to
all the students of the aforesaid University for ever.'
P. 357. _Cowper._--'This ode,' Cowper states, 'is rendered without
rhime, that it might more adequately represent the original, which, as
Milton himself informs us, is of no certain measure. It may possibly for
this reason disappoint the reader, though it cost the writer more labour
than the translation of any other piece in the whole collection.'