'A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,'
and these he kept 'at his beddes hed.'
Dr. Jessopp, in one of his learned papers,[27] has pointed out that in the thirteenth century the number of books in the world was, to say the least, small. A library of five hundred volumes would, in those days, have been considered an important collection, and after making all due allowances for ridiculous exaggerations, which have been made by ill-informed writers on the subject, it may safely be said that nobody in the thirteenth century—at any rate in England—would have erected a large and lofty building as a receptacle for books, simply because nobody could have contemplated the possibility of filling it. Here and there amongst the larger and more important monasteries there were undoubtedly collections of books, the custody of which was entrusted to an accredited officer, but the time had not yet come for making libraries well stored with such priceless treasures as Leland, the antiquary, saw at Glastonbury, just before that magnificent foundation was given as a prey to the spoilers. A library, in any such sense as we now understand the term, was not only no essential part of a monastery in those days, but it may almost be said to have been a rarity.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries we rarely meet with any indications of a literary taste among the laity; the books they purchased were more for ornament than use. But in the fifteenth century we find books mentioned in a manner which would seem to indicate that the laity were enabled to use them with pleasure. In 1395, Alice, Lady West, left to Joan, her son's wife, 'all her books of Latin, English, and French;' and from the memoranda of Sir John Howard, we learn that that worthy knight could read at his leisure 'an Englyshe boke, callyd Dives et Pauper,' for which, and 'a Frenshe boke,' in 1464, he paid thirteen shillings and fourpence. The library of this member of the Howard family was sufficiently extensive to enable him to select therefrom, on the occasion of his going to Scotland, thirteen volumes for his solace and amusement on the voyage.[28] In the Paston Letters will be found a catalogue of the library of one of the members of this fifteenth century family. In the monasteries books were, of course, used and treasured long before they became part of the household goods of rich laymen. The catalogue of the House of the White Canons, at Titchfield, in Hampshire, dated 1400, shows that the books were kept in a small room on shelves, and set against the walls. A closet of this kind was evidently not a working place, but simply a place of storage. By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the larger monasteries had accumulated many hundred volumes, and it began to be customary to provide for the collections separate quarters, rooms constructed for the purpose. The presses in the cloisters were still utilised for books in daily reference.[29] Duke Humphrey was a great book collector and patron of letters, and presented to the University of Oxford many of the illuminated treasures which he had collected. The magnificent collection of Charles V. of France, also a great bibliomaniac, was brought by the Duke of Bedford into England. This library contained 853 volumes of great splendour, and the introduction of these books into England stimulated a spirit of inquiry among the more wealthy laymen. Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, collected a very fine library of early romances, which about 1359, he left to the monks of Bordesley Abbey, in Worcestershire. A list of this library will be found in Todd's Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer.
Mr. J. W. Clark has, with quite wonderful learning, drawn a picture of student-life of the past with such graphic vigour that we can almost reinstate Colet, Casaubon, and Erasmus, and picture them exactly as they worked among their books. In Macaulay's chapter upon The State of England in 1685, are given numerous facts about the difficulty the clergy had in getting books, and the little desire there was among the squires to possess libraries. Few knights of the shire had libraries so good as may now perpetually be found in a servants' hall, or in the back parlour of a small shopkeeper. An esquire passed among his neighbours for a great scholar if Hudibras and Baker's Chronicle, Tarleton's Jests, and the Seven Champions of Christendom, lay in his hall window among the fishing rods and fowling pieces. No circulating library, no book society, then existed, even in the capital; but in the capital those students who could not afford to purchase largely had a resource. The shops of the great booksellers, near St. Paul's Churchyard, were crowded every day and all day long with readers. In the country there was no such accommodation, and every man was under the necessity of buying whatever he wished to read. Macaulay further points out that Cotton seems, from his Angler, to have found room for his whole library in his hall window; and Cotton was a man of letters. In the Life of Dr. John North there is an account of that delightful person's dealings with Mr. Robert Scott, of Little Britain, a very famous bookseller in the seventeenth century.
Dr. John North is really a fascinating personality.[30] His soul was 'never so staked down as in an old bookseller's shop, for, having taken orders, he was restless till he had compassed some of that sort of furniture as he thought necessary for his profession.
'I have borne him company,' says his biographer, 'at shops for hours together, and, minding him of the time, he hath made a dozen proffers before he would quit. By this care and industry he made himself master of a very considerable library, wherein the choicest collection was Greek.'
Pepys wished that his name should go down to posterity as a man fond of books. The arrangements for the settlement of his library after death prove this. The numerous references throughout the Diary show that he had a passion for collecting, and showed good judgment in what he got together. Pepys, like Dr. John North, dealt of Robert Scott, who, when sending his distinguished customer four scarce books, the total cost of which was only 1l. 14s., writes, 'Without flattery I love to find a rare book for you.'[31]
R. Scott, the bookseller, to Mr. Pepys.