But doubtless many a bookworm nameless in the page of history, dwelled within those walls apart from worldly solicitude and strife; relieving what would otherwise have been an insupportable monotony, with sweet converse, with books, or the avocations of a scribe.
Well, years rolled on, and this fair sanctuary remained in all its beauty, encouraging the trembling christian, and fostering with a mother's care the literature and learning of the time. Thus it stood till that period, so dark and unpropitious for monkish ascendency, when Protestant fury ran wild, and destruction thundered upon the heads of those poor old monks! A sad and cruel revenge for enlightened minds to wreck on mistaken piety and superstitious zeal. How widely was the fine library scattered then. Even a few years after its dissolution, when Leland spent some days exploring the book treasures reposing there, it had been broken up, and many of them lost; yet still it must have been a noble library, for he tells us that it was "scarcely equalled in all Britain;" and adds, in the spirit of a true bibliomaniac, that he no sooner passed the threshold than the very sight of so many sacred remains of antiquity struck him with awe and astonishment. The reader will naturally wish that he had given us a list of what he found there; but he merely enumerates a selection of thirty-nine, among which we find a Grammatica Eriticis, formerly belonging to Saint Dunstan; a life of Saint Wilfrid; a Saxon version of Orosius, and the writings of William of Malmsbury.[319] The antiquary will now search in vain for any vestige of the abbey library; even the spot on which it stood is unknown to the curious.
No christian, let his creed be what it may, who has learnt from his master the principles of charity and love, will refuse a tear to the memory of Richard Whiting, the last of Glastonbury's abbots. Poor old man! Surely those white locks and tottering limbs ought to have melted a Christian heart; but what charity or love dwelt within the soul of that rapacious monarch? Too old to relinquish his long cherished superstitions; too firm to renounce his religious principles, Whiting offered a firm opposition to the reformation. The fury of the tyrant Henry was aroused, and that grey headed monk was condemned to a barbarous death. As a protestant I blush to write it, yet so it was; after a hasty trial, if trial it can be called, he was dragged on a hurdle to a common gallows erected on Torr Hill, and there, in the face of a brutal mob, with two of his companion monks, was he hung! Protestant zeal stopped not here, for when life had fled they cut his body down, and dividing it into quarters, sent one to each of the four principal towns; and as a last indignity to that mutilated clay, stuck his head on the gate of the old abbey, over which he had presided with judicious care in the last days of his troubled life. It was Whiting's wish to bid adieu in person to his monastery, in which in more prosperous times he had spent many a quiet hour; it is said that even this, the dying prayer of that poor old man, they refused to grant.[320]
On viewing the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, so mournful to look upon, yet so splendid in its decay, we cannot help exclaiming with Michael Dayton,—
"On whom for this sad waste, should justice lay the crime."
Whilst in the west we cannot pass unnoticed the monastery of Malmsbury, one of the largest in England, and which possessed at one time an extensive and valuable library; but it was sadly ransacked at the Reformation, and its vellum treasures sold to the bakers to heat their stoves, or applied to the vilest use; not even a catalogue was preserved to tell the curious of a more enlightened age, what books the old monks read there; but perhaps, and the blood runs cold as the thought arises in the mind, a perfect Livy was among them, for a rare amator librorum belonging to this monastery, quotes one of the lost Decades.[321] I allude to William of Malmsbury, one of the most enthusiastic bibliomaniacs of his age. From his youth he dwelt within the abbey walls, and received his education there. His constant study and indefatigable industry in collecting and perusing books, was only equalled by his prudence and by his talents; he soon rose in the estimation of his fellow monks, who appointed him their librarian, and ultimately offered him the abbacy, which he refused with Christian humility, fearing too, lest its contingent duties would debar him from a full enjoyment of his favorite avocation; but of his book passion let William of Malmsbury speak for himself: "A long period has elapsed since, as well through the care of my parents as my own industry, I became familiar with books. This pleasure possessed me from my childhood; this source of delight has grown with my years; indeed, I was so instructed by my father, that had I turned aside to other pursuits, I should have considered it as jeopardy to my soul, and discredit to my character. Wherefore, mindful of the adage, 'covet what is necessary,' I constrained my early age to desire eagerly that which it was disgraceful not to possess. I gave indeed my attention to various branches of literature, but in different degrees. Logic, for instance, which gives arms to eloquence, I contented myself with barely learning: medicine, which ministers to the health of the body, I studied with somewhat more attention. But now, having scrupulously examined the various branches of ethics, I bow down to its majesty, because it spontaneously inverts itself to those who study it, and directs their minds to moral practice, history more especially; which by a certain agreeable recapitulation of past events, excites its readers by example, to frame their lives to the pursuit of good or to aversion from evil. When, therefore, at my own expense I had procured some historians of foreign nations, I proceeded during my domestic leisure, to inquire if anything concerning our own country could be found worthy of handing down to posterity. Hence it arose, that not content with the writings of ancient times, I began myself to compose, not indeed to display my learning, which is comparatively nothing, but to bring to light events lying concealed in the confused mass of antiquity. In consequence, rejecting vague opinions, I have studiously sought for chronicles far and near, though I confess I have scarcely profited anything by this industry; for perusing them all I still remained poor in information, though I ceased not my researches as long as I could find anything to read."[322]
Having read this passage, I think my readers will admit that William of Malmsbury well deserves a place among the bibliomaniacs of the middle ages. As an historian his merit is too generally known and acknowledged to require an elucidation here. He combines in most cases a strict attention to fact, with the rare attributes of philosophic reflection, and sometimes the bloom of eloquence. But simplicity of narrative constitute the greatest and sometimes the only charm in the composition of the monkish chroniclers. William of Malmsbury aimed at a more ambitious style, and attempted to adorn, as he admits himself, his English history with Roman art; this he does sometimes with tolerable elegance, but too often at the cost of necessary detail. Yet still we must place him at the head of the middle age historians, for he was diligent and critical, though perhaps not always impartial; and in matters connected with Romish doctrine, his testimony is not always to be relied upon without additional authority; his account of those who held opinions somewhat adverse to the orthodoxy of Rome is often equivocal; we may even suspect him of interpolating their writings, at least of Alfric, whose homilies had excited the fears of the Norman ecclesiastics. His works were compiled from many sources now unknown; and from the works of Bede, the Saxon chronicles, and Florilegus, he occasionally transcribes with little alteration.
But is it not distressing to find that this talented author, so superior in other respects to the crude compilers of monkish history, cannot rise above the superstition of the age? Is it not deplorable that a mind so gifted could rely with fanatical zeal upon the verity of all those foul lies of Rome called "Holy" miracles; or that he could conceive how God would vouchsafe to make his saints ridiculous in the eyes of man, by such gross absurdities as tradition records, but which Rome deemed worthy of canonization; but it was then, as now, so difficult to conquer the prejudices of early teaching. With all our philosophy and our science, great men cannot do it now; even so in the days of old; they were brought up in the midst of superstition; sucked it as it were from their mother's breast, and fondly cradled in its belief; and as soon as the infant mind could think, parental piety dedicated it to God; not, however, as a light to shine before men, but as a candle under a bushel; for to serve God and to serve monachism were synonymous expressions in those days.
The west of England was honored by many a monkish bibliophile in the middle ages. The annals of Gloucester abbey record the names of several. Prior Peter, who became abbot in the year 1104, is said to have enclosed the monastery with a stone wall, and greatly enriched it with many books "copia librorum."[323] A few years after (a. d. 1113), Godeman the Prior was made abbot, and the Saxon Chronicle records that during his time the tower was set on fire by lightning and the whole monastery was burnt; so that all the valuable things therein were destroyed except a "few books and three priest's mass-hackles."[324] Abbot Gamage gave many books to the library in the year 1306;[325] and Richard de Stowe, during the same century, gave the monks a small collection in nine or ten volumes; a list of them is preserved in an old manuscript.[326]
But earlier than this in the eleventh century, a bishop of Exeter stands remarkable as an amator librorum. Leofric, the last bishop of Crediton, and "sometime lord chancellor of England,"[327] received permission from Edward the Confessor to translate the seat of his diocese to the city of Exeter in the year 1050. "He was brought up and studied in Lotharingos," says William of Malmsbury,[328] and he manifested his learning and fondness for study by collecting books. Of the nature of his collections we are enabled to judge by the volumes he gave to the church of Exeter. The glimpse thus obtained lead us to consider him a curious book-collector; and it is so interesting to look upon a catalogue of a bishop's private library in that early time, and to behold his tastes and his pursuits reflected and mirrored forth therein, that I am sure the reader will be gratified by its perusal.[329] After enumerating some broad lands and a glittering array of sumptuous ornaments, he is recorded to have given to the church "Two complete mass books; 1 Collectarium; 2 Books of Epistles (Pistel Bec[330]); 2 complete Sang Bec; 1 Book of night sang; 1 Book unus liber, a Breviary or Tropery; 2 Psalters; 3 Psalters according to the Roman copies; 2 Antiphoners; A precious book of blessings; 3 others; 1 Book of Christ in English; 2 Summer Reading bec; 1 Winter ditto; Rules and Canons; 1 Martyrology; 1 Canons in Latin; 1 Confessional in English; 1 Book of Homilies and Hymns for Winter and Summer; 1 Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy, in English (King Alfred's translation); 1 Great Book of Poetry in English; 1 Capitular; 1 Book of very ancient nocturnal sangs; 1 Pistel bec; 2 Ancient ræding bec; 1 for the use of the priest; also the following books in Latin, viz., 1 Pastoral of Gregory; 1 Dialogues of Gregory; 1 Book of the Four Prophets; 1 Boethius Consolation of Philosophy; 1 Book of the offices of Amalar; 1 Isagoge of Porphyry; 1 Passional; 1 book of Prosper; 1 book of Prudentius the Martyr; 1 Prudentius; 1 Prudentius (de Mrib.); 1 other book; 1 Ezechael the Prophet; 1 Isaiah the Prophet; 1 Song of Songs; 1 Isidore Etymology; 1 Isidore on the New and Old Testament; 1 Lives of the Apostles; 1 Works of Bede; 1 Bede on the Apocalypse; 1 Bede's Exposition on the Seven Canonical Epistles; 1 book of Isidore on the Miracles of Christ; 1 book of Orosius; 1 book of Machabees; 1 book of Persius; 1 Sedulus; 1 Avator; 1 book of Statius with a gloss."
