Dionysius scoffeth at those grammarians who ploddingly labour to know the miseries of Ulysses, and are ignorant of their own.... Except our mind be the better, unless our judgement be the sounder, I had rather my scholar had employed his time in playing at tennis; I am sure his body would be the nimbler. See but one of these our university men or bookish scholars return from school, after he hath there spent ten or twelve years under a pedant's charge: who is so inapt for any matter? who so unfit for any company? who so to seek if he come into the world? all the advantage you discover in him is that his Latin and Greek have made him more sottish, more stupid, and more presumptuous, than before he went from home.... My vulgar Perigordian speech doth very pleasantly term such self-conceited wizards, letter-ferrets, as if they would say letter-stricken men, to whom (as the common saying is) letters have given a blow with a mallet.—Montaigne.
DAINTIES THAT ARE BRED OF A BOOK
Sir, he hath not fed of the dainties that are bred of a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts.—W. Shakespeare. Love's Labour's Lost.
AN ANTIQUARY
He loves no library, but where there are more spiders' volumes than authors', and looks with great admiration on the antique work of cobwebs. Printed books he contemns, as a novelty of this latter age; but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis between every syllable. He would give all the books in his study (which are rarities all) for one of the old Roman binding, or six lines of Tully in his own hand.—J. Earle. Microcosmographie.
AN IGNORANT BOOK-COLLECTOR
With what, O Codrus! is thy fancy smit?
The flower of learning, and the bloom of wit.
Thy gaudy shelves with crimson bindings glow,
And Epictetus is a perfect beau.
How fit for thee bound up in crimson too,
Gilt, and, like them, devoted to the view!
Thy books are furniture. Methinks 'tis hard
That Science should be purchased by the yard,
And T——n, turned upholsterer, send home
The gilded leather to fit up thy room.
If not to some peculiar end assigned,
Study's the specious trifling of the mind;
Or is at best a secondary aim,
A chase for sport alone, not game:
If so, sure they who the mere volume prize,
But love the thicket where the quarry lies.
On buying books Lorenzo long was bent;
But found at length that it reduced his rent.
His farms were flown; when lo! a sale comes on,
A choice collection! What is to be done?
He sells his last; for he the whole will buy;
Sells even his house, nay wants whereon to lie:
So high the generous ardour of the man
For Romans, Greeks, and Orientals ran.
When terms were drawn, and brought him by the clerk,
Lorenzo signed the bargain—with his mark.
Unlearned men of books assume the care,
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.
Not in his authors' liveries alone
Is Codrus' erudite ambition shown.
Editions various, at high prices bought,
Inform the world what Codrus would be thought;
And, to his cost, another must succeed,
To pay a sage, who says that he can read,
Who titles knows, and Indexes has seen;
But leaves to —— what lies between,
Of pompous books who shuns the proud expense,
And humbly is contented with the sense.
E. Young. The Love of Fame.
THE BIBLIOMANIA
What wild desires, what restless torments seize
The hapless man, who feels the book-disease,
If niggard Fortune cramp his generous mind,
And Prudence quench the spark by heaven assigned!
With wistful glance his aching eyes behold
The Princeps-copy, clad in blue and gold,
Where the tall Book-case, with partition thin,
Displays, yet guards, the tempting charms within:
So great Facardin viewed, as sages tell,
Fair Crystalline immured in lucid cell.
Not thus the few, by happier fortune graced,
And blessed, like you, with talents, wealth, and taste,
Who gather nobly, with judicious hand,
The Muse's treasures from each lettered strand.
For you the Monk illumed his pictured page,
For you the press defies the spoils of age;
Faustus for you infernal tortures bore,
For you Erasmus starved on Adria's shore.
The Folio-Aldus loads your happy shelves,
And dapper Elzevirs, like fairy elves,
Show their light forms amidst the well-gilt Twelves,
In slender type the Giolitos shine,
And bold Bodoni stamps his Roman line.
For you the Louvre opes its regal doors,
And either Didot lends his brilliant stores:
With faultless types, and costly sculptures bright,
Ibarra's Quixote charms your ravished sight:
Laborde in splendid tablets shall explain
Thy beauties, glorious though unhappy Spain!
O hallowed name, the theme of future years,
Embalmed in Patriot-blood, and England's tears,
Be thine fresh honours from the tuneful tongue,
By Isis' stream which mourning Zion sung!
But devious oft from every classic Muse,
The keen Collector meaner paths will choose:
And first the margin's breadth his soul employs,
Pure, snowy, broad, the type of nobler joys.
In vain might Homer roll the tide of song,
Or Horace smile, or Tully charm the throng;
If crossed by Pallas' ire, the trenchant blade
Or too oblique, or near, the edge invade,
The Bibliomane exclaims, with haggard eye,
'No margin!' turns in haste, and scorns to buy.
He turns where Pybus rears his Atlas-head,
Or Madoc's mass conceals its veins of lead.
The glossy lines in polished order stand,
While the vast margin spreads on either hand,
Like Russian wastes, that edge the frozen deep,
Chill with pale glare, and lull to mortal sleep.
Or English books, neglected and forgot,
Excite his wish in many a dusty lot:
Whatever trash Midwinter gave to-day,
Or Harper's rhyming sons, in paper gray,
At every auction, bent on fresh supplies,
He cons his Catalogue with anxious eyes:
Where'er the slim italics mark the page,
Curious and rare his ardent mind engage.
Unlike the swans, in Tuscan song displayed,
He hovers eager o'er oblivion's shade.
To snatch obscurest names from endless night,
And give Cokain or Fletcher back to light.
In red morocco dressed he loves to boast
The bloody murder, or the yelling ghost;
Or dismal ballads, sung to crowds of old,
Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold.
Yet to the unhonoured dead be Satire just;
Some flowers 'smell sweet and blossom in their dust'.
'Tis thus even Shirley boasts a golden line,
And Lovelace strikes, by fits, a note divine.
The unequal gleams like midnight-lightnings play,
And deepened gloom succeeds, in place of day.