It is remarkable that the two sovereigns included in the era of Shakspeare, should have felt an equally unbounded inclination to study and to books. So attached was James to bibliothecal delights, that when he visited the Bodleian Library in 1605, he is said by Burton to have exclaimed on his departure, "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 this library, and to be chained together with so many good authors."[434:C] Burton himself was one of the most inveterate bibliomaniacs of his day; Hearne tells us that he was a collector of "ancient popular little pieces," which, together with a multitude of books of the best kind, he gave to the Bodleian Library.[434:D] In the preface to his curious folio, he speaks of his eyes aking with reading, and his fingers with turning the leaves[434:E]; and in the body of his work, under the article of study, he expatiates, in the highest strain of enthusiasm, on the luxury of possessing numerous books: "we have thousands of authors of all sorts," he observes; "many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates:
and he is a very block that is affected with none of them.—I could even live and dye with—and take more delight, true content of mind in them, than thou hast in all thy wealth and sport, how rich soever thou art.——Nicholas Gerbelius, that good old man, was so much ravished with a few Greek authors restored to light, with hope and desire of enjoying the rest, that he exclaims forthwith, Arabibus atque Indis omnibus erimus ditiores, We shall be richer than all the Arabick or Indian Princes; of such esteem they were with him, in comparable worth and value."—He then adopts the emphatic language of Heinsius: "I no sooner come into the Library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, their mother 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 mean time," he adds, "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.—For my part I pity these men,—how much, on the other side, are all we bound that are scholars, to those munificent Ptolomies, bountiful Mæcenates, heroical patrons, divine spirits,—qui nobis hæc otia fecerunt, Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus—that have provided for us so many well furnished libraries as well in our publick Academies in most cities, as in our private Colledges? How shall I remember Sir Thomas Bodley, amongst the rest, Otho Nicholson, and the right reverend John Williams Lord Bishop of Lincolne, (with many other pious acts) who besides that at St. John's College in Cambridge, that in Westminster, is now likewise in Fieri with a Library at Lincolne (a noble president for all corporate towns and cities to imitate) O quam te memorem (vir illustrissime) quibus elogiis?"[435:A]
The passion for letters and for books, which was thus diffused among the higher classes, necessarily occasioned much attention to be paid to the preservation and decoration of libraries, the volumes of which, however, were not arranged on the shelves in the manner that we are now accustomed to see them. The leaves, and not the back, were placed in front, in order to exhibit the silk strings or golden clasps which united the sides of the cover. Thus Bishop Earl, describing the character of a young gentleman of the University, says,—"His study has commonly handsome shelves, his books neat silk strings, which he shews to his father's man, and is loth to unty or take down for fear of misplacing."[436:A]
To the most costly of these embellishments, the golden clasps, Shakspeare has referred, both in a metaphorical and literal sense. In the Twelfth Night the Duke, addressing the supposed Cesario, exclaims—
————————— "I have unclasp'd
To thee the book even of my secret soul;"[436:B]
and in Romeo and Juliet, Lady Capulet observes,
"That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story."[436:C]
It appears, indeed, that the art of ornamenting the exterior of books was carried, at this period, to a lavish extent, jewels, as well as gold, being employed to enhance their splendour. Let us listen to the directions of the judicious Peacham, on this head, a contemporary authority, who has thought it not unnecessary to subjoin the best mode of keeping books, and the best scite for a library. "Have a care," says he, "of keeping your bookes handsome, and well bound, not casting away over much in their gilding or stringing for ostentation sake, like the prayer-bookes of girles and gallants, which