Here are God's conduits, grave divines; and here
Is nature's secretary, the philosopher:
And wily statesman, which teach how to tie
The sinews of a city's mystic body;
Here gathering chroniclers: and by them stand
Giddy fantastic poets of each land.
Here I possess these gathered treasures of time, the harvest of so many generations, laid up in my garners: and when I go to the window, there is the lake, and the circle of the mountains, and the illimitable sky.... Never can any man's life have been passed more in accord with his own inclinations, nor more answerably to his own desires. Excepting that peace which, through God's infinite mercy, is derived from a higher source, it is to literature, humanly speaking, that I am beholden, not only for the means of subsistence, but for every blessing which I enjoy; ... health of mind and activity of mind, contentment, cheerfulness, continual employments, and therewith continual pleasure. Suavissima vita indies sentire se fieri meliorem; and this, as Bacon has said, and Clarendon repeated, is the benefit that a studious man enjoys in retirement. To the studies which I have faithfully pursued, I am indebted for friends with whom, hereafter, it will be deemed an honour to have lived in friendship; and as for the enemies which they have procured to me in sufficient numbers, ... happily I am not of the thin-skinned race, ... they might as well fire small shot at a rhinoceros, as direct their attacks upon me. In omnibus requiem quaesivi, said Thomas à Kempis, sed non inveni nisi in angulis et libellis. I too have found repose where he did, in books and retirement, but it was there alone I sought it: to these my nature, under the direction of a merciful Providence, led me betimes, and the world can offer nothing which should tempt me from them.—R. Southey. Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. Colloquy xiv: 'The Library.'
CHARLES LAMB'S LIBRARY
His library, though not abounding in Greek or Latin (which are the only things to help some persons to an idea of literature), is anything but superficial. The depths of philosophy and poetry are there, the innermost passages of the human heart. It has some Latin too. It has also a handsome contempt for appearance. It looks like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls; now a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor; a Spinoza; an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are 'neat as imported'. The very perusal of the backs is a 'discipline of humanity'. There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewell: there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the 'high fantastical' Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to trouble herself with the constitutions of her maids.—J. H. Leigh Hunt. My Books.
STANZAS COMPOSED IN THE REV. J. MITFORD'S LIBRARY
O! I methinks could dwell content
A spell-bound captive here;
And find, in such imprisonment,
Each fleeting moment dear;—
Dear, not to outward sense alone,
But thought's most elevated tone.
The song of birds, the hum of bees,
Their sweetest music make;
The March winds, through the lofty trees,
Their wilder strains awake;
Or from the broad magnolia leaves
A gentler gale its spirit heaves.
Nor less the eye enraptured roves
O'er turf of freshest green,
O'er bursting flowers, and budding groves,
And sky of changeful mien,
Where sunny glimpses, bright and blue,
The fleecy clouds are peeping through.
Thus soothed, in every passing mood,
How sweet each gifted page,
Rich with the mind's ambrosial food,
The Muse's brighter age!
How sweet, communion here to hold
With them, the mighty bards of old.