Phil. Yet forgive me if I avow that this same country, whose editorial labours you are thus commending, is shamefully deficient in the cultivation of Ancient English History! I speak my sentiments roundly upon this subject: because you know, Lysander, how vigilantly I have cultivated it, and how long and keenly I have expressed my regret at the almost total apathy which prevails respecting it. There is no country upon earth which has a more plentiful or faithful stock of historians than our own; and if it were only to discover how superficially some of our recent and popular historians have written upon it, it were surely worth the labour of investigation to examine the yet existing records of past ages.
Loren. To effect this completely, you should have a National Press.
Lis. And why not? Have we here no patriotic spirit similar to that which influenced the Francises, Richlieus, Colberts, and Louises of France?
Alman. You are getting into bibliographical politics! Proceed, good Lysander, with your other probable means of cure.
Lysand. In the fourth place, the erection of Public Institutions[466] is of great service in diffusing a love of books for their intrinsic utility, and is of very general advantage to scholars and authors who cannot purchase every book which they find it necessary to consult.
[466] The Royal, London, Surrey, and Russel Institutions, have been the means of concentrating, in divers parts of the metropolis, large libraries of useful books; which, it is to be hoped, will eventually bring into disgrace and contempt what are called Circulating Libraries—vehicles, too often, of insufferable nonsense, and irremediable mischief!
Phil. You are right. These Institutions are of recent growth, but of general utility. They are a sort of intellectual Hospitals—according to your mode of treating the Bibliomania. Yet I dare venture to affirm that the News-Paper Room is always better attended than the Library!
Lysand. Let us have no sarcasms. I will now give you the fifth and last probable means of cure of the Bibliomania; and that is the Study of Bibliography.[467]
[467] "Unne bonne Bibliographie," says Marchand, "soit générale soit particuliére, soit profane soit écclésiastique, soit nationale, provinciale, ou locale, soit simplement personelle, en un mot de quelque autre genre que ce puisse être, n'est pas un ouvrage aussi facile que beaucoup de gens se le pourroient imaginer; mais, elles ne doivent néanmoins nullement prévenir contre celle-ci. Telle qu'elle est, elle ne laisse pas d'être bonne, utile, et digne d'être recherchée par les amateurs de l'Histoire Litteraire." Diction. Historique, vol. i. p. 109.
Peignot, in his Dictionnaire de Bibliologie, vol. i. 50, has given a very pompous account of what ought to be the talents and duties of a bibliographer. It would be difficult indeed to find such qualifications, as he describes, united in one person! De Bure, in the eighth volume of his Bibliographie Instructive, has prefixed a "Discourse upon the Science of Bibliography, and the Duties of a Bibliographer," which is worth consulting: but I know of nothing which better describes, in few words, such a character, than the following: "In eo sit multijuga materiarum librorumque notitia, ut saltem potiores eligat et inquirat: fida et sedula apud exteras gentes procuratio, ut eos arcessat; summa patientia ut rarè venalis expectet; peculium semper præsens et paratum, ne, si quando occurrunt, emendi, occasio intercidat: prudens denique auri argentique contemptus, ut pecuniis sponte careat quæ in bibliothecam formandam et nutriendam sunt insumendæ. Si forte vir literatus eo felicitatis pervenit ut talem thesaurum coacervaverit, nec solus illo invidiose fruatur, sed usam cum eruditis qui virgilias suas utilitati publicæ devoverunt, liberaliter communicet;" &c.—Bibliotheca Hulsiana, vol. i. Præfat. p. 3, 4. Morhof abounds with sagacious reflections upon this important subject: but are there fifty men in Great Britain who love to read the Polyhistor Literarius? The observations of Ameilhon and Camus, in the Memoires de l'Institut, are also well worth consultation; as are those of Le Long, and his editor, prefixed to the last edition of the Bibliotheca Sacra.