I have inserted only the fulminatory clause of this inscription, as being that part of it against which Orlando's indignation seems to be directed.
[175] "Petrus Lotichius Johanni Sambuco Pannonio gravissimo morbo laborans Bononiæ, bibliothecam suam legaverit, lib. 3, eleg. 9, verba ejus lectu non injucunda:
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Pro quibus officiis, hæres abeuntis amici, Accipe fortunæ munera parva meæ. Non mihi sunt Baccho colles, oleisque virentes, Prædiave Æmiliis conspicienda jugis. Tu veterum dulces scriptorum sume libellos, Attritos manibus quos juvat esse meis. Invenies etiam viridi quæ lusimus ævo, Dum studiis ætas mollibus apta fuit. Illa velim rapidis sic uras carmina flammis Ut vatem ipse suis ignibus jussit Amor." Lomeier: de Bibliothecis, p. 288. |
"So spake Orlando," said Philemon, with tears in his eyes, who, upon looking at Lisardo and myself, found our faces covered with our handkerchiefs, and unable to utter a word.
The deliberate manner in which this recital was made—the broken periods, and frequent pauses—filled up a great measure of our journey; and we found that St. Paul's dome was increasing upon us in size and distinctness, and that we had not more than three miles to travel, when Lisardo, wishing to give a different turn to the discourse, asked Philemon what was the cause of such extravagant sums being now given at book-sales for certain curious and uncommon—but certainly not highly intrinsically-valuable—publications; and whether our ancestors, in the time of Hen. VIII. and Elizabeth, paid in proportion for the volumes of their Libraries?
Upon Philemon's declaring himself unable to gratify his friend's curiosity, but intimating that some assistance might probably be derived from myself, I took up the discourse by observing that—
"In the infancy of printing in this country (owing to the competition of foreigners) it would seem that our own printers (who were both booksellers and book-binders) had suffered considerably in their trade, by being obliged to carry their goods to a market where the generality of purchasers were pleased with more elegantly executed works at an inferior price. The legislature felt, as every patriotic legislature would feel, for their injured countrymen; and, accordingly, the statute of Richard III. was enacted,[176] whereby English printers and book-binders were protected from the mischiefs, which would otherwise have overtaken them. Thus our old friend Caxton went to work with greater glee, and mustered up all his energies to bring a good stock of British manufacture to the market. What he usually sold his books for, in his life time, I have not been able to ascertain; but, on his decease, one of his Golden Legends was valued, in the churchwardens' books, at six shillings and eight pence.[177] Whether this was a great or small sum I know not; but, from the same authority we find that twenty-two pounds were given, twelve years before, for eleven huge folios, called 'Antiphoners.'[178] In the reign of Henry VIII. it would seem, from a memorandum in the catalogue of the Fletewode library (if I can trust my memory with such minutiæ) that Law-Books were sold for about ten sheets to the groat.[179] Now, in the present day, Law-Books—considering the wretched style in which they are published, with broken types upon milk-and-water-tinted paper—are the dearest of all modern publications. Whether they were anciently sold for so comparatively extravagant a sum may remain to be proved. Certain it is that, before the middle of the sixteenth century, you might have purchased Grafton's abridgment of Polydore Virgil's superficial work about The Invention of Things for fourteen pence;[180] and the same printer's book of Common Prayer for four shillings. Yet if you wanted a superbly bound Prymer, it would have cost you (even five and twenty years before) nearly half a guinea.[181] Nor could you have purchased a decent Ballad much under sixpence; and Hall's Chronicle would have drawn from your purse twelve shillings;[182] so that, considering the then value of specie, there is not much ground of complaint against the present prices of books."
[176] By the 1st of Richard III. (1433, ch. ix. sec. xii.) it appeared that, Whereas, a great number of the king's subjeets within this realm having "given themselves diligently to learn and exercise the craft of printing, and that at this day there being within this realm a great number cunning and expert in the said science or craft of printing, as able to exercise the said craft in all points as any stranger, in any other realm or country, and a great number of the king's subjects living by the craft and mystery of binding of books, and well expert in the same;"—yet "all this notwithstanding, there are divers persons that bring from beyond the sea great plenty of printed books—not only in the Latin tongue, but also in our maternal English tongue—some bound in boards, some in leather, and some in parchment, and them sell by retail, whereby many of the king's subjects, being binders of books, and having no other faculty therewith to get their living, be destitute of work, and like to be undone, except some reformation herein be had,—Be it therefore enacted, &c." By the 4th clause or provision, if any of these printers or sellers of printed books vend them "at too high and unreasonable prices," then the Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, or any of the Chief Justices of the one bench or the other—"by the oaths of twelve honest and discreet persons," were to regulate their prices. This remarkable act was confirmed by the 25th Hen. VIII., ch. 15, which was not repealed till the 12th Geo. II., ch. 36, § 3. A judge would have enough to do to regulate the prices of books, by the oaths of twelve men, in the present times!
[177] The reader will be pleased to refer to p. cx. of the first volume of my recent edition of the Typographical Antiquities of Great Britain.
[178] The following is from 'the churchwardens' accompts of St. Margaret's, Westminster. "A.D. 1475. Item, for 11 great books, called Antiphoners, 22l. 0s. 0d." Manners and Expenses of Ancient Times in England, &c., collected by John Nichols, 1797, 4to., p. 2. Antiphonere is a book of anthems to be sung with responses: and, from the following passage in Chaucer, it would appear to have been a common school-book used in the times of papacy: