Phil. Begin, my dear Lysander. A mind disposed to listen attentively is sometimes half converted. O, how I shall rejoice to see this bibliographical incendiary going about to buy up copies of the very works which he has destroyed! Listen, I entreat you, Lisardo.
Lis. I am all attention; for I see the clouds gathering in the south, and a gloomy, if not a showery, mid-day, promises to darken this beauteous morning. 'Twill not be possible to attend the antiques at Malvolio's sale.
Lysand. Whether the sun shine, or the showers fall, I will make an attempt—not to convert, but to state simple truths: provided you "lend me your ears."
Phil. And our hearts too. Begin: for the birds drop their notes, and the outlines of the distant landscape are already dimmed by the drizzling rain.
Lysand. You call upon me as formally as the shepherds call upon one another to sing in Virgil's eclogues. But I will do my best.
It is gratifying to the English nation—whatever may have been the strictures of foreigners[99] upon the paucity of their bibliographico-literary works in the 16th century—that the earliest printed volume upon the love and advantages of book-collecting was the Philobiblion[100] of Richard De Bury; who was bishop of Durham at the close of the 14th century, and tutor to Edward III. I will at present say nothing about the merits and demerits of this short treatise; only I may be permitted to observe, with satisfaction, that the head of the same see, at the present day, has given many proofs of his attachment to those studies, and of his reward of such merit as attracted the notice of his illustrious predecessor. It is with pain that I am compelled to avow the paucity of publications, in our own country, of a nature similar to the Philobiblion of De Bury, even for two centuries after it was composed; but while Leland was making his library-tour, under the auspices of that capricious tyrant Henry VIII., many works were planned abroad, which greatly facilitated the researches of the learned.
[99] "Anglica gens longe fuit negligentior in consignandis ingeniorum monumentis; nihil enim ab illis prodiit, quod mereatur nominari, cum tamen sint extentque pene innumera ingeniossimæ gentis in omnibus doctrinis scripta, prodeantque quotidie, tam Latina, quam vernacula lingua, plura," Morhof: Polyhist. Literar. vol. i. 205, edit. 1747.
Reimmannus carries his strictures, upon the jealousy of foreigners at the success of the Germans in bibliography, with a high hand: "Ringantur Itali, nasum incurvent Galli, supercilium adducant Hispani, scita cavilla serant Britanni, frendeant, spument, bacchentur ii omnes, qui præstantiam Musarum Germanicarum limis oculis aspiciunt," &c.—"hoc tamen certum, firmum, ratum, et inconcussum est, Germanos primos fuisse in Rep. Literaria, qui Indices Librorum Generales, Speciales et Specialissimos conficere, &c. annisi sunt."—A little further, however, he speaks respectfully of our James, Hyde, and Bernhard. See his ably-written Bibl. Acroamatica, pp. 1, 6.
[100] "Sive de Amore Librorum." The first edition, hitherto so acknowledged, of this entertaining work, was printed at Spires, by John and Conrad Hist, in 1483, 4to., a book of great rarity—according to Clement, vol. v. 435; Bauer (Suppl. Bibl. Libr. Rarior, pt. i. 276); Maichelius, p. 127; and Morhof, vol. i. 187. Mons. De La Serna Santander has assigned the date of 1473 to this edition: see his Dict. Bibliog. Chois. vol. ii. 257,—but, above all, consult Clement—to whom Panzer, vol. iii. p. 22, very properly refers his readers. And yet some of Clement's authorities do not exactly bear him out in the identification of this impression. Mattaire, vol. i. 449, does not appear to have ever seen a copy of it: but, what is rather extraordinary, Count Macarty has a copy of a Cologne edition in 4to., of the date of 1473. No other edition of it is known to have been printed till the year 1500; when two impressions of this date were published at Paris, in 4to.: the one by Philip for Petit, of which both Clement and Fabricius (Bibl. Med. et Inf. Ætat. vol. i. 842, &c.) were ignorant; but of which, a copy, according to Panzer, vol. ii. 336, should seem to be in the public library at Gottingen; the other, by Badius Ascensius, is somewhat more commonly known. A century elapsed before this work was deemed deserving of republication; when the country that had given birth to, and the university that had directed the studies of, its illustrious author, put forth an inelegant reprint of it in 4to. 1599—from which some excerpts will be found in the ensuing pages—but in the meantime the reader may consult the title-page account of Herbert, vol. iii. p. 1408. Of none of these latter editions were the sharp eyes of Clement ever blessed with a sight of a copy! See his Bibl. Curcuse, &c. vol. v. 438.
The 17th century made some atonement for the negligence of the past, in regard to Richard De Bury. At Frankfort his Philobiblion was reprinted, with "a Century of Philological Letters," collected by Goldastus, in 1610, 8vo—and this same work appeared again, at Leipsic, in 1674, 8vo. At length the famous Schmidt put forth an edition, with some new pieces, "typis et sumtibus Georgii Wolffgangii Hammii, Acad. Typog. 1703," 4to. Of this latter edition, neither Maichelius nor the last editor of Morhof take notice. It may be worth while adding that the subscription in red ink, which Fabricius (ibid.) notices as being subjoined to a vellum MS. of this work, in his own possession—and which states that it was finished at Auckland, in the year 1343, in the 58th of its author, and at the close of the 11th year of his episcopacy—may be found, in substance, in Hearne's edition of Leland's Collectanea, vol. ii. 385, edit. 1774.