[433] This third symptom has not escaped the discerning eye of the Manchester physician; for thus sings Dr. Ferriar:
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He pastes, from injur'd volumes snipt away, His English Heads in chronicled array, Torn from their destin'd page (unworthy meed Of Knightly counsel, and heroic deed), Not Faithorne's stroke, nor Field's own types can save The gallant Veres, and one-eyed Ogle brave. Indignant readers seek the image fled, And curse the busy fool who wants a head. Proudly he shews, with many a smile elate, The scrambling subjects of the private plate While Time their actions and their names bereaves, They grin for ever in the guarded leaves. The Bibliomania; v. 119-130. |
These are happy thoughts, happily expressed. In illustration of v. 123, the author observes,—"three fine heads, for the sake of which, the beautiful and interesting commentaries of Sir Francis Vere have been mutilated by collectors of English portraits." Dr. Ferriar might have added that, when a Grangerian bibliomaniac commences his illustrating career, he does not fail to make a desperate onset upon Speed, Boissard, and the Heroologia. Even the lovely prints of Houbraken (in Dr. Birch's account of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain) escape not the ravages of his passion for illustration. The plates which adorn these books are considered among the foundation materials of a Grangerian building. But it is time, according to my plan, to introduce other sarcastic strains of poetry.
THIRD MAXIM.
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Who, swearing not a line to miss, Doats on the leaf his fingers kiss, Thanking the words for all his bliss,— Shall rue, at last, his passion frustrate: We love the page that draws its flavour From Draftsman, Etcher, and Engraver And hint the booby (by his favour) His gloomy copy to "Illustrate." Bibliosophia; p. v. |
At this stage of our inquiries, let me submit a new remedy as an acquisition to the Materia Medica, of which many first-rate physicians may not be aware—by proposing a
Recipe for Illustration.
Take any passage from any author—to wit: the following (which I have done, quite at random) from Speed: 'Henry le Spenser, the warlike Bishop of Norwich, being drawn on by Pope Vrban to preach the Crusade, and to be General against Clement (whom sundry Cardinals and great Prelates had also elected Pope) having a fifteenth granted to him, for that purpose, by parliament,' &c. Historie of Great Britaine, p. 721, edit. 1632. Now, let the reader observe, here are only four lines; but which, to be properly illustrated, should be treated thus: 1st, procure all the portraits, at all periods of his life, of Henry le Spencer; 2dly, obtain every view, ancient and modern, like or unlike, of the city of Norwich; and, if fortune favour you, of every Bishop of the same see; 3dly, every portrait of Pope Vrban must be procured; and as many prints and drawings as can give some notion of the Crusade—together with a few etchings (if there be any) of Peter the Hermit and Richard I., who took such active parts in the Crusade; 4thly, you must search high and low, early and late, for every print of Clement; 5thly, procure, or you will be wretched, as many fine prints of Cardinals and Prelates, singly or in groups, as will impress you with a proper idea of the Conclave; and 6thly, see whether you may not obtain, at some of our most distinguished old-print sellers, views of the house of Parliament at the period (A.D. 1383.) here described!!! The result, gentle reader, will be this: you will have work enough cut out to occupy you for one whole month at least, from rise to set of sun—in parading the streets of our metropolis: nor will the expense in coach hire, or shoe leather, be the least which you will have to encounter! The prints themselves may cost something! Lest any fastidious and cynical critic should accuse me, and with apparent justice, of gross exaggeration or ignorance in this recipe, I will inform him, on good authority, that a late distinguished and highly respectable female collector, who had commenced an illustrated bible, procured not fewer than seven hundred prints for the illustration of the 20th, 21st, 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th verses of the 1st chapter of Genesis! The illustrated copy of Mr. Fox's Historical work, mentioned in the first edition of this work, p. 63, is now in the possession of Lord Mountjoy. The similar copy of Walter Scott's edition of Dryden's works, which has upwards of 650 portraits, is yet in the possession of Mr. Miller, the bookseller.
Granger's work seems to have sounded the tocsin for a general rummage after, and plunder of, old prints. Venerable philosophers, and veteran heroes, who had long reposed in unmolested dignity within the magnificent folio volumes which recorded their achievements, were instantly dragged forth from their peaceful abodes, to be inlaid by the side of some clumsy modern engraving, within an Illustrated Granger!
Nor did the madness stop here. Illustration was the order of the day; and Shakspeare[434] and Clarendon became the next objects of its attack. From these it has glanced off, in a variety of directions, to adorn the pages of humbler wights; and the passion, or rather this symptom of the Bibliomania, yet rages with undiminished force. If judiciously treated, it is, of all the symptoms, the least liable to mischief. To possess a series of well-executed portraits of illustrious men, at different periods of their lives, from blooming boyhood to phlegmatic old age, is sufficiently amusing; but to possess every portrait, bad, indifferent, and unlike, betrays such a dangerous and alarming symptom as to render the case almost incurable!