TO BE CHAINED WITH GOOD AUTHORS
King James, 1605, when he came to see our University of Oxford, and amongst other edifices now went to view that famous library, renewed by Sir Thomas Bodley in imitation of Alexander at his departure, brake out into that noble speech, 'If I were not a king, I would be a University man: and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library, and to be chained together with so many good authors, et mortuis magistris.' So sweet is the delight of study, the more learning they have (as he that hath a dropsy, the more he drinks the thirstier he is) the more they covet to learn, and the last day is prioris discipulus; harsh at first learning is, radices amarae, but fructus dulces, according to that of Isocrates, pleasant at last; the longer they live, the more they are enamoured with the Muses. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden, in Holland, was mewed up in it all the year long; and that which to thy thinking should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. 'I no sooner (saith he) come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance, and Melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones, and rich men that know not this happiness.'
I am not ignorant in the meantime (notwithstanding this which I have said) how barbarously and basely, for the most part, our ruder gentry esteem of libraries and books, how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit, as Aesop's cock did the jewel he found in the dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want of education.—R. Burton. The Anatomy of Melancholy.
AN ODE ADDRESSED TO MR. JOHN ROUSE
LIBRARIAN, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
On a lost volume of my poems, which he desired me to replace, that he might add them to my other works deposited in the library.
Strophe.
My two-fold book! single in show,
But double in contents,
Neat, but not curiously adorned,
Which, in his early youth,
A poet gave, no lofty one in truth,
Although an earnest wooer of the Muse—
Say while in cool Ausonian shades
Or British wilds he roamed,
Striking by turns his native lyre,
By turns the Daunian lute,
And stepped almost in air,—
Antistrophe.
Say, little book, what furtive hand
Thee from thy fellow-books conveyed,
What time, at the repeated suit
Of my most learnèd friend,
I sent thee forth, an honoured traveller,
From our great city to the source of Thames,
Caerulian sire!
Where rise the fountains, and the raptures ring,
Of the Aonian choir,
Durable as yonder spheres,
And through the endless lapse of years
Secure to be admired?
Strophe II.
Now what God, or Demigod
For Britain's ancient Genius moved,
(If our afflicted land
Have expiated at length the guilty sloth
Of her degenerate sons)
Shall terminate our impious feuds,
And discipline, with hallowed voice, recall?
Recall the Muses too,
Driven from their ancient seats
In Albion, and well nigh from Albion's shore,
And with keen Phoebean shafts,
Piercing the unseemly birds,
Whose talons menace us,
Shall drive the Harpy race from Helicon afar?
Antistrophe.
But thou, my book, though thou hast strayed,
Whether by treachery lost
Or indolent neglect, thy bearer's fault,
From all thy kindred books,
To some dark cell or cave forlorn,
Where thou endurest, perhaps
The chafing of some hard untutored hand,
Be comforted—
For lo! again the splendid hope appears
That thou mayest yet escape,
The gulfs of Lethe, and on oary wings
Mount to the everlasting courts of Jove!
Strophe III.
Since Rouse desires thee, and complains
That, though by promise his,
Thou yet appear'st not in thy place
Among the literary noble stores,
Given to his care,
But, absent, leavest his numbers incomplete:
He, therefore, guardian vigilant
Of that unperishing wealth,
Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge,
Where he intends a richer treasure far
Than Iön kept (Iön, Erectheus' son
Illustrious, of the fair Creüsa born)
In the resplendent temple of his God,
Tripods of gold, and Delphic gifts divine.
Antistrophe.
Haste, then, to the pleasant groves,
The Muses' favourite haunt;
Resume thy station in Apollo's dome,
Dearer to him
Than Delos, or the forked Parnassian hill!
Exulting go,
Since now a splendid lot is also thine,
And thou art sought by my propitious friend;
For there thou shalt be read
With authors of exalted note,
The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome.
Epode.
Ye, then, my works, no longer vain,
And worthless deemed by me!
Whate'er this sterile genius has produced
Expect, at last, the rage of envy spent,
An unmolested happy home,
Gift of kind Hermes, and my watchful friend,
Where never flippant tongue profane
Shall entrance find,
And whence the coarse unlettered multitude
Shall babble far remote.
Perhaps some future distant age,
Less tinged with prejudice, and better taught,
Shall furnish minds of power
To judge more equally.
Then, malice silenced in the tomb,
Cooler heads and sounder hearts,
Thanks to Rouse, if aught of praise
I merit, shall with candour weigh the claim.
W. Cowper. Translated from Milton.