The Book-Lovers' Anthology

by Unknown

THE BIBLIOMANIA

What wild desires, what restless torments seize
The hapless man, who feels the book-disease,
If niggard Fortune cramp his generous mind,
And Prudence quench the spark by heaven assigned!
With wistful glance his aching eyes behold
The Princeps-copy, clad in blue and gold,
Where the tall Book-case, with partition thin,
Displays, yet guards, the tempting charms within:
So great Facardin viewed, as sages tell,
Fair Crystalline immured in lucid cell.
Not thus the few, by happier fortune graced,
And blessed, like you, with talents, wealth, and taste,
Who gather nobly, with judicious hand,
The Muse's treasures from each lettered strand.
For you the Monk illumed his pictured page,
For you the press defies the spoils of age;
Faustus for you infernal tortures bore,
For you Erasmus starved on Adria's shore.
The Folio-Aldus loads your happy shelves,
And dapper Elzevirs, like fairy elves,
Show their light forms amidst the well-gilt Twelves,
In slender type the Giolitos shine,
And bold Bodoni stamps his Roman line.
For you the Louvre opes its regal doors,
And either Didot lends his brilliant stores:
With faultless types, and costly sculptures bright,
Ibarra's Quixote charms your ravished sight:
Laborde in splendid tablets shall explain
Thy beauties, glorious though unhappy Spain!
O hallowed name, the theme of future years,
Embalmed in Patriot-blood, and England's tears,
Be thine fresh honours from the tuneful tongue,
By Isis' stream which mourning Zion sung!
But devious oft from every classic Muse,
The keen Collector meaner paths will choose:
And first the margin's breadth his soul employs,
Pure, snowy, broad, the type of nobler joys.
In vain might Homer roll the tide of song,
Or Horace smile, or Tully charm the throng;
If crossed by Pallas' ire, the trenchant blade
Or too oblique, or near, the edge invade,
The Bibliomane exclaims, with haggard eye,
'No margin!' turns in haste, and scorns to buy.
He turns where Pybus rears his Atlas-head,
Or Madoc's mass conceals its veins of lead.
The glossy lines in polished order stand,
While the vast margin spreads on either hand,
Like Russian wastes, that edge the frozen deep,
Chill with pale glare, and lull to mortal sleep.
Or English books, neglected and forgot,
Excite his wish in many a dusty lot:
Whatever trash Midwinter gave to-day,
Or Harper's rhyming sons, in paper gray,
At every auction, bent on fresh supplies,
He cons his Catalogue with anxious eyes:
Where'er the slim italics mark the page,
Curious and rare his ardent mind engage.
Unlike the swans, in Tuscan song displayed,
He hovers eager o'er oblivion's shade.
To snatch obscurest names from endless night,
And give Cokain or Fletcher back to light.
In red morocco dressed he loves to boast
The bloody murder, or the yelling ghost;
Or dismal ballads, sung to crowds of old,
Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold.
Yet to the unhonoured dead be Satire just;
Some flowers 'smell sweet and blossom in their dust'.
'Tis thus even Shirley boasts a golden line,
And Lovelace strikes, by fits, a note divine.
The unequal gleams like midnight-lightnings play,
And deepened gloom succeeds, in place of day.

But human bliss still meets some envious storm;
He droops to view his Paynter's mangled form:
Presumptuous grief, while pensive Taste repines
O'er the frail relics of her Attic shrines!
O for that power, for which magicians vie,
To look through earth, and secret hoards descry!
I'd spurn such gems as Marinel beheld,
And all the wealth Aladdin's cavern held,
Might I divine in what mysterious gloom
The rolls of sacred bards have found their tomb:
Beneath what mouldering tower, or waste champaign,
Is hid Menander, sweetest of the train:
Where rests Antimachus' forgotten lyre,
Where gentle Sappho's still seductive fire;
Or he, whom chief the laughing Muses own,
Yet skilled with softest accents to bemoan
Sweet Philomel in strains so like her own.
The menial train has proved the scourge of wit,
Even Omar burnt less Science than the spit.
Earthquakes and wars remit their deadly rage,
But every feast demands some fated page.
Ye Towers of Julius, ye alone remain
Of all the piles that saw our nation's stain,
When Harry's sway oppressed the groaning realm,
And Lust and Rapine seized the wavering helm.
Then ruffian-hands defaced the sacred fanes,
Their saintly statues and their storied panes;
Then from the chest, with ancient art embossed,
The penman's pious scrolls were rudely tossed;
Then richest manuscripts, profusely spread,
The brawny churls' devouring oven fed:
And thence collectors date the heavenly ire
That wrapt Augusta's domes in sheets of fire.

Taste, though misled, may yet some purpose gain,
But Fashion guides a book-compelling train.
Once, far apart from Learning's moping crew,
The travelled beau displayed his red-heeled shoe,
Till Orford rose, and told of rhyming peers,
Repeating noble words to polished ears;
Taught the gay crowd to prize a fluttering name,
In trifling toiled, nor 'blushed to find it fame'.
The lettered fop now takes a larger scope,
With classic furniture, designed by Hope,
(Hope whom upholsterers eye with mute despair,
The doughty pedant of an elbow-chair;)
Now warmed by Orford, and by Granger schooled
In Paper-books, superbly gilt and tooled,
He pastes, from injured volumes snipped away,
His English Heads, in chronicled array.
Torn from their destined page (unworthy meed
Of knightly counsel, and heroic deed)
Not Faithorne's stroke, nor Field's own types can save
The gallant Veres, and one-eyed Ogle brave.
Indignant readers seek the image fled,
And curse the busy fool, who wants a head.

Proudly he shows, with many a smile elate
The scrambling subjects of the private plate;
While Time their actions and their names bereaves,
They grin for ever in the guarded leaves.
Like poets, born, in vain collectors strive
To cross their Fate, and learn the art to thrive.
Like Cacus, bent to tame their struggling will,
The Tyrant-passion drags them backward still:
Even I, debarred of ease, and studious hours,
Confess, 'mid anxious toil, its lurking powers.
How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold
The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!
The eye skims restless, like the roving bee,
O'er flowers of wit, or song, or repartee,
While sweet as springs, new-bubbling from the stone,
Glides through the breast some pleasing theme unknown.
Now dipped in Rossi's terse and classic style,
His harmless tales awake a transient smile.
Now Bouchet's motley stores my thoughts arrest,
With wondrous reading, and with learnèd jest.
Bouchet whose tomes a grateful line demand,
The valued gift of Stanley's liberal hand.
Now sadly pleased, through faded Rome I stray,
And mix regrets with gentle Du Bellay;
Or turn, with keen delight, the curious page,
Where hardly Pasquin braves the Pontiff's rage.

But D——n's strains should tell the sad reverse,
When Business calls, inveterate foe to verse!
Tell how 'the Demon claps his iron hands',
'Waves his lank locks, and scours along the lands.'
Through wintry blasts, or summer's fire I go,
To scenes of danger, and to sights of woe.
Even when to Margate every Cockney roves,
And brainsick-poets long for sheltering groves,
Whose lofty shades exclude the noontide glow,
While Zephyrs breathe, and waters trill below,
The rigid Fate averts, by tasks like these,
From heavenly musings, and from lettered ease.
Such wholesome checks the better genius sends,
From dire rehearsals to protect our friends:
Else when the social rites our joys renew,
The stuffed portfolio would alarm your view,
Whence volleying rhymes your patience would o'ercome,
And, spite of kindness, drive you early home.
So when the traveller's hasty footsteps glide
Near smoking lava on Vesuvio's side,
Hoarse-muttering thunders from the depths proceed,
And spouting fires incite his eager speed.
Appalled he flies, while rattling showers invade,
Invoking every saint for instant aid:
Breathless, amazed, he seeks the distant shore,
And vows to tempt the dangerous gulf no more.

J. Ferriar. The Bibliomania.