Listen how sweetly one of the first of modern men apostrophises his books:—
“My days among the dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
“With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew’d,
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
“My thoughts are with the dead; with them
I live in long past years;
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.
“My hopes are with the dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.”[126]
Yet how little are we of the present day, who have books poured into our laps, able to estimate their real value! Nor is it possible that they can ever again be estimated as they once were. The universal diffusion of them, the incalculable multiplication of them, seems to render it impossible that the world can ever be deprived of them. No. We must call up some of the spirits of the “pious and painful” amanuenses of those days when the fourth estate of the realm, the public press—WAS NOT—to tell us the real value of the literary treasures we now esteem so lightly. He will tell us that in his day the donation of a single book to a religious house was thought to give the donor a claim to eternal salvation; and that an offering so valued, so cherished, would be laid on the high altar amid pomp and pageantry. He might perhaps personally remember the prior and convent of Rochester pronouncing an irrevocable sentence of damnation on him who should purloin or conceal their treasured Latin translation of Aristotle’s physics. He would tell us that the holiest and wisest of men would forego ease and luxury and spend laborious years in transcribing books for the good of others; he will tell us that amongst many others, Osmond, Bishop of Salisbury, did this, and perchance he will name that Guido de Jars, in his fortieth year, began to copy the Bible on vellum, with rich and elegant decorations, and that the suns of half a century had risen and set, ere, with unintermitting labour and unwearied zeal, he finished it in his ninetieth. He will also tell us, that when a book was to be sold, it was customary to assemble all persons of consequence and character in the neighbourhood, and to make a formal record that they were present on this occasion. Thus, amongst the royal MSS. is a book thus described:—
“This book of the Sentences belongs to Master Robert, archdeacon of Lincoln, which he bought of Geoffrey the chaplain, brother of Henry vicar of Northelkingston, in the presence of Master Robert de Lee, Master John of Lirling, Richard of Luda, clerk, Richard the Almoner, the said Henry the vicar and his clerk, and others: and the said archdeacon gave the said book to God and saint Oswald, and to Peter abbot of Barton, and the convent of Barden.”
These are a few, a very few of such instances as a spirit of the fourteenth century might allude to—to testify the value of books. Indeed, even so late as the reign of Henry the VI., when the invention of paper greatly facilitated the multiplication of MSS. the impediments to study, from the scarcity of books, must have been very great, for in the statutes of St. Mary’s College, Oxford, is this order—“Let no scholar occupy a book in the library above one hour, or two hours at the most; lest others shall be hindered from the use of the same.”
The scarcity of parchment seems indeed at times to have been a greater hindrance to the promulgation of literature than even the laborious and tedious transcription of the books. About 1120, one Master Hugh, being appointed by the convent of St. Edmondsbury to write a copy of the Bible, for their library, could procure no parchment in England. The following particulars of the scarcity of books before the era of printing, gathered chiefly by Warton, are interesting.
In 855, Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres in France, sent two of his monks to Pope Benedict the third, to beg a copy of Cicero de Oratore, and Quintilian’s Institutes, and some other books: for, says the abbot, although we have part of these books, yet there is no whole or complete copy of them in all France.