As an example of his fidelity as a librarian, Mr. Panizzi used to relate with much glee how, whenever he was at Holkham, Mr. Collyer dogged him like a detective. One day, not wishing to detain the reverend gentleman while he himself spent the forenoon in the manuscript library, (where not only the ancient manuscripts, but the most valuable of the printed books, are kept under lock and key,) he considerately begged Mr. Collyer to leave him to his researches. The dominie replied ‘that he knew his duty, and did not mean to neglect it.’ He did not lose sight of Mr. Panizzi.
The notion that he—the great custodian of the nation’s literary treasures—would snip out and pocket the title-page of the folio edition of Shakespeare, or of the Coverdale Bible, tickled Mr. Panizzi’s fancy vastly.
In spite, however, of our rector’s fiery temperament, or perhaps in consequence of it, he was remarkably susceptible to the charms of beauty. We were constantly invited to dinner and garden parties in the neighbourhood; nor was the good rector slow to return the compliment. It must be confessed that the pupil shared to the full the impressibility of the tutor; and, as it happened, unknown to both, the two were in one case rivals.
As the young lady afterwards occupied a very distinguished position in Oxford society, it can only be said that she was celebrated for her many attractions. She was then sixteen, and the younger of her suitors but two years older. As far as age was concerned, nothing could be more compatible. Nor in the matter of mutual inclination was there any disparity whatever. What, then, was the pupil’s dismay when, after a dinner party at the rectory, and the company had left, the tutor, in a frantic state of excitement, seized the pupil by both hands, and exclaimed: ‘She has accepted me!’
‘Accepted you?’ I asked. ‘Who has accepted you?’
‘Who? Why, Miss —, of course! Who else do you suppose would accept me?’
‘No one,’ said I, with doleful sincerity. ‘But did you propose to her? Did she understand what you said to her? Did she deliberately and seriously say “Yes?”’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ and his disordered jabot and touzled hair echoed the fatal word.
‘O Smintheus of the silver bow!’ I groaned. ‘It is the woman’s part to create delusions, and—destroy them! To think of it! after all that has passed between us these—these three weeks, next Monday! “Once and for ever.” Did ever woman use such words before? And I—believed them!’ ‘Did you speak to the mother?’ I asked in a fit of desperation.
‘There was no time for that. Mrs. — was in the carriage, and I didn’t pop [the odious word!] till I was helping her on with her cloak. The cloak, you see, made it less awkward. My offer was a sort of obiter dictum—a by-the-way, as it were.’