[228] Dr. Henry's Hist. of Great Britain, vol. iv., p. 12, edit. 1800, 8vo. We shall readily forgive Theodore's singularity of opinions in respect to some cases of pharmacy, in which he held it to be "dangerous to perform bleeding on the fourth day of the moon; because both the light of the moon and the tides of the sea were then upon the increase."—We shall readily forgive this, when we think of his laudable spirit of bibliomania.
[229] Dr. Henry says that "This bargain was concluded by Benedict with the king a little before his death, A.D. 690; and the book was delivered, and the estate received by his successor abbot Ceolfred." Hist. of Great Britain, vol. iv., p. 21. There must be some mistake here: as Alfred was not born till the middle of the ninth century. Bed. Hist. Abbat Wermuthien, edit. Smith, pp. 297-8, is quoted by Dr. Henry.
[230] 1612, folio. De Bure (Bibliogr. Instruct. no. 353) might have just informed us that the Paris and Basil editions of Bede's works are incomplete: and, at no. 4444, where he notices the Cambridge edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, (1644, fol.) we may add that a previous English translation of it, by the celebrated Stapleton, had been printed at Antwerp in 1565, 4to., containing some few admirably-well executed wood cuts. Stapleton's translation has become a scarce book; and, as almost every copy of it now to be found is in a smeared and crazy condition, we may judge that it was once popular and much read.
[231] The passage is partly as follows—"the sayde king did also erect a chapell of gold and silver (to wit, garnished) with ornaments and vesselles likewise of golde and siluer, to the building of the which chappell hee gaue 2640 pounds of siluer, and to the altar 264 pounde of golde, a chaleis with the patten, tenne pounde of golde, a censar 8 pound, and twenty mancas of golde, two candlesticks, twelue pound and a halfe of siluer, a kiver for the gospel booke twenty pounds"! &c. This was attached to the monastery of Glastonbury; which Ina built "in a fenni place out of the way, to the end the monkes mought so much the more giue their minds to heauenly things," &c. Chronicle, edit. 1615, p. 76.
We have mentioned Alcuin: whom Ashmole calls one of the school-mistresses to France.[232] How incomparably brilliant and beautifully polished was this great man's mind!—and, withal, what an enthusiastic bibliomaniac! Read, in particular, his celebrated letter to Charlemagne, which Dr. Henry has very ably translated; and see, how zealous he there shews himself to enrich the library of his archiepiscopal patron with good books and industrious students.[233] Well might Egbert be proud of his librarian: the first, I believe upon record, who has composed a catalogue[234] of books in Latin hexameter verse: and full reluctantly, I ween, did this librarian take leave of his Cell stored with the choicest volumes—as we may judge from his pathetic address to it, on quitting England for France! If I recollect rightly, Mr. Turner's elegant translation[235] of it begins thus:
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"O my lov'd cell, sweet dwelling of my soul, Must I for ever say, dear spot, farewell?" |
[232] Theatrum Chemicum, proleg. sign. A. 3. rect.
[233] History of Great Britain, vol. iv., pp. 32, 86. "Literatorum virorum fautor et Mæcenas habebatur ætate sua maximus ac doctissimus," says Bale: Scrip. Brytan. Illustr., p. 109, edit. 1559. "Præ cæteris (says Lomeier) insignem in colligendis illustrium virorum scriptis operam dedit Egbertus Eboracensis archiepiscopus, &c.: qui nobilissimam Eboraci bibliothecam instituit, cujus meminit Alcuinis," &c. De Bibliothecis, p. 151. We are here informed that the archbishop's library, together with the cathedral of York, were accidentally burnt by fire in the reign of Stephen.
[234] This curious catalogue is printed by Dr. Henry, from Gale's Rer. Anglicar. Scriptor. Vet., tom. i., 730. The entire works of Alcuin were printed at Paris, in 1617, folio: and again, at Ratisbon, in 1777, fol., 2 vols. See Fournier's Dict. Portat. de Bibliographie, p. 12. Some scarce separately-printed treatises of the same great man are noticed in the first volume of the appendix to Bauer's Bibl. Libror. Rarior., p. 44.
[235] Anglo-Saxon History, vol. ii., p. 355, edit. 1808, 4to.