[329] Roger Ascham is now, I should hope, pretty firmly established among us as one of the very best classical writers in our language. Nearly three centuries are surely sufficient to consecrate his literary celebrity. He is an author of a peculiar and truly original cast. There is hardly a dull page or a dull passage in his lucubrations. He may be thought, however, to have dealt rather harshly with our old romance writers; nor do I imagine that the original edition of his Schoolmaster (1571), would be placed by a Morte d'Arthur collector alongside of his thin black-letter quarto romances. Ascham's invectives against the Italian school, and his hard-hearted strictures upon the innocent ebullitions of Petrarch and Boccaccio, have been noticed, with due judgment and spirit, by Mr. Burnet, in his pleasing analysis of our philosopher's works. See Specimens of English Prose Writers; vol. ii., p. 84. Our tutor's notions of academical education, and his courteous treatment of his royal and noble scholars, will be discoursed of anon; meantime, while we cursorily, but strongly, applaud Dr. Johnson's almost unqualified commendation of this able writer; and while the reader may be slightly informed of the elegance and interest of his epistles; let the bibliomaniac hasten to secure Bennet's edition of Ascham's works (which incorparates the notes of Upton upon the Schoolmaster, with the Life of, and remarks upon Ascham, by Dr. Johnson), published in a handsome quarto volume [1761]. This edition, though rather common and cheap, should be carefully reprinted in an octavo volume; to harmonize with the greater number of our best writers published in the same form. But it is time to mention something of the author connected with the subject of this work. What relates to the Bibliomania, I here select from similar specimens in his English letters, written when he was abroad: "Oct. 4. at afternoon I went about the town [of Bruxelles]. I went to the frier Carmelites house, and heard their even song: after, I desired to see the library. A frier was sent to me, and led me into it. There was not one good book but Lyra. The friar was learned, spoke Latin readily, entered into Greek, having a very good wit, and a greater desire to learning. He was gentle and honest," &c. pp. 370-1. "Oct. 20. to Spira: a good city. Here I first saw Sturmius de Periodis. I also found here Ajax, Electra, and Antigone of Sophocles, excellently, by my good judgment, translated into verse, and fair printed this summer by Gryphius. Your stationers do ill, that at least do not provide you the register of all books, especially of old authors," &c., p. 372. Again: "Hieronimus Wolfius, that translated Demosthenes and Isocrates, is in this town. I am well acquainted with him, and have brought him twice to my lord's to dinner. He looks very simple. He telleth me that one Borrheus, that hath written well upon Aristot. priorum, &c., even now is printing goodly commentaries upon Aristotle's Rhetoric. But Sturmius will obscure them all." p. 381. These extracts are taken from Bennet's edition. Who shall hence doubt of the propriety of classing Ascham among the most renowned bibliomaniacs of the age?
From the tutor of Elizabeth let us go to her prime minister, Cecil.[330] We have already seen how successfully this great man interposed in matters of religion; it remains to notice his zealous activity in the cause of learning. And of this latter who can possibly entertain a doubt? Who that has seen how frequently his name is affixed to Dedications, can disbelieve that Cecil was a lover of books? Indeed I question whether it is inserted more frequently in a diplomatic document or printed volume. To possess all the presentation copies of this illustrious minister would be to possess an ample and beautiful library of the literature of the sixteenth century.
[330] The reader, it is presumed, will not form his opinion of the bibliomaniacal taste of this great man, from the distorted and shameful delineation of his character, which, as a matter of curiosity only, is inserted at [p. 237], ante. He will, on the contrary, look upon Cecil as a lover of books, not for the sake of the numerous panegyrical dedications to himself, which he must have so satisfactorily perused, but for the sake of the good to be derived from useful and ingenious works. With one hand, this great man may be said to have wielded the courageous spirit, and political virtue, of his country—and with the other, to have directed the operations of science and literature. Without reading the interesting and well-written life of Cecil, in Mr. Macdiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen (a work which cannot be too often recommended, or too highly praised), there is evidence sufficient of this statesman's bibliomaniacal passion and taste, in the fine old library which is yet preserved at Burleigh in its legitimate form—and which, to the collector of such precious volumes, must have presented a treat as exquisite as are the fresh blown roses of June to him who regales himself in the flowery fragrance of his garden—the production of his own manual labour! Indeed Strypes tells us that Cecil's "library was a very choice one:" his care being "in the preservation, rather than in the private possession of (literary) antiquities." Among other curiosities in it, there was a grand, and a sort of presentation, copy of Archbishop Parker's Latin work of the Antiquity of the British Church; "bound costly, and laid in colours the arms of the Church of Canterbury, empaled with the Archbishop's own paternal coat." Read Strype's tempting description; Life of Parker; pp. 415, 537. Well might Grafton thus address Cecil at the close of his epistolary dedication of his Chronicles: "and now having ended this work, and seeking to whom I might, for testification of my special good-will, present it, or for patronage and defence dedicate it, and principally, for all judgment and correction to submit it—among many, I have chosen your Mastership, moved thereto by experience of your courteous judgment towards those that travail to any honest purpose, rather helping and comforting their weakness, than condemning their simple, but yet well meaning, endeavours. By which, your accustomed good acceptation of others, I am the rather boldened to beseech your Mastership to receive this my work and me, in such manner as you do those in whom (howsoever there be want of power) there wanteth no point of goodwill and serviceable affection." Edit. 1809, 4to. If a chronicler could talk thus, a poet (who, notwithstanding the title of his poem, does not, I fear, rank among Pope's bards, that "sail aloft among the Swans of Thames,") may be permitted thus to introduce Cecil's name and mansion:
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Now see these Swannes the new and worthie seate Of famous Cicill, treasorer of the land, Whose wisedome, counsell skill of Princes state The world admires, then Swannes may do the same: The house itselfe doth shewe the owner's wit, And may for bewtie, state, and every thing, Compared be with most within the land, Vallan's Tale of Two Swannes, 1590, 4to., reprinted in Leland's Itinerary; vol. v. p. xiii, edit. 1770. |
But the book-loving propensities of Elizabeth's minister were greatly eclipsed by those of her favourite archbishop, Parker:
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clarum et venerabile nomen Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi. |
For my part, Lorenzo, I know of no character, either of this or of any subsequent period, which is more entitled to the esteem and veneration of Englishmen. Pious, diffident, frank, charitable, learned, and munificent, Parker was the great episcopal star of his age, which shone with undiminished lustre to the last moment of its appearance. In that warm and irritable period, when the Protestant religion was assailed in proportion to its excellence, and when writers mistook abuse for argument, it is delightful to think upon the mild and temperate course which this discreet metropolitan pursued! Even with such arrant bibliomaniacs as yourselves, Parker's reputation must stand as high as that attached to any name, when I inform you that of his celebrated work upon the "Antiquity of the British Church"[331] are only twenty copies supposed to have been printed. He had a private press, which was worked with types cast at his own expense; and a more determined book-fancier, and treasurer of ancient lore, did not at that time exist in Great Britain.
[331] This is not the place to enter minutely into a bibliographical account of the above celebrated work; such account being with more propriety reserved for the history of our Typographical Antiquities. Yet a word or two may be here said upon it, in order that the bibliomaniac may not be wholly disappointed; and especially as Ames and Herbert have been squeamishly reserved in their comunications respecting the same. The above volume is, without doubt, one of the scarcest books in existence. It has been intimated by Dr. Drake, in the preface of his magnificent reprint of it, 1729, fol., that only 20 copies were struck off: but, according to Stype, Parker tells Cecil, in an emblazoned copy presented to him by the latter, that he had not given the book to four men in the whole realm: and peradventure, added he, "it shall never come to sight abroad, though some men, smelling of the printing of it, were very desirous cravers of the same." Life of Parker, p. 415. This certainly does not prove any thing respecting the number of copies printed; but it is probable that Dr. Drake's supposition is not far short of the truth. One thing is remarkable: of all the copies known, no two are found to accord with each other. The archbishop seems to have altered and corrected the sheets as they each came from the press. The omission of the Archbishop's own life in this volume, as it contained the biography of 69 archbishops, exclusively of himself, was endeavoured to be supplied by the publication of a sharp satirical tract, entitled, "The life off the 70 Archbishop of Canterbury, presenttye sittinge Englished, and to be added to the 69 lately sett forth in Latin," &c., 12mo., 1574. After this title page there is another. "Histriola, a little storye of the acts and life of Mathew, now Archbishoppe of Canterb." This latter comprehends 17 leaves, and was written either by the archbishop himself, or by his Chaplain Joscelyne; but whether it be at all like a distinct printed folio tract, of twelve leaves and a half, which was kept carefully undispersed in the archbishop's own possession, 'till his death—being also a biography of Parker—I am not able to ascertain. The following extracts from it (as it is a scarce little volume) may be acceptable,
Archbishop Parker's early Studies and popular Preaching.
"But now, he being very well and perfectly instructed in the liberal sciences, he applied all his mind to the study of divinity, and to the reading of the volumes of the ecclesiastical fathers; and that so earnestly that, in short space of time, he bestowed his labour not unprofitably in this behalf; for, after the space of four or five years, he, issuing from his secret and solitary study into open practice in the commonwealth, preached every where unto the people with great commendation; and that in the most famous cities and places of this realm, by the authority of King Henry VIII., by whose letters patent this was granted unto him, together with the license of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In execution of this function of preaching, he gained this commodity; that the fame of him came unto the ears of King Henry," &c. Sign. A. iij. recto.