This quotation is from Ferriar's Illustrations of Sterne, which was published in 1798. He seemed, Sir Walter Scott wrote, 'born to trace and detect the various mazes through which Sterne carried on his depredations upon ancient and dusty authors.' Ferriar wrote the following lines addressed to Sterne:—
Sterne, for whose sake I plod through miry ways,
Of antique wit and quibbling mazes drear,
Let not thy shade malignant censure fear,
Though aught of borrowed mirth my search betrays.
Long slept that mirth in dust of ancient days,
(Erewhile to Guise or wanton Valois dear;)
Till waked by thee in Skelton's joyous pile,
She flung on Tristram her capricious rays;
But the quick tear that checks our wondering smile,
In sudden pause or unexpected story,
Owns thy true mastery—and Le Fever's woes,
Maria's wanderings, and the Prisoner's throes,
Fix thee conspicuous on the throne of glory.
P. 315. Scott.—The modern poet is Crabbe, and the context will be found on p. [340]; Thalaba is the name of Southey's hero.
P. 319. Montaigne.—In another essay Montaigne tells us that his library for a country library could pass for a very fair one.
P. 320. Southey.—This extract is from Southey's Sir Thomas More; a book of colloquies between Southey himself, under the name of Montesinos, and the apparition of Sir T. More: who tells him that 'it is your lot, as it was mine, to live during one of the grand climacterics of the world', and that, 'I come to you, rather than to any other person, because you have been led to meditate upon the corresponding changes whereby your age and mine are distinguished, and because ... there are certain points of sympathy and resemblance which bring us into contact.' The colloquies are upon such subjects as the feudal and manufacturing systems, the Reformation, prospects of Europe, infidelity, trade.
Chartier was the French poet whose 'eternal glory' it was 'to have announced the mission of Jeanne d'Arc'.
'Here are God's conduits,' &c., is from the first of Donne's Satires.
P. 324. Barton.—The Rev. John Mitford (1781-1859) formed a large library at Benham, where he also devoted himself to gardening.
P. 325. Bale.—'I was called to London to wait upon the Duke of Norfolk, who having at my sole request bestowed the Arundelian Library on the Royal Society, sent to me to take charge of the books and remove them.... I procured for our Society, besides printed books, near 100 MSS., some in Greek, of great concernment. The printed books being of the oldest impressions are not the less valuable; I esteem them almost equal to MSS. Amongst them are most of the Fathers printed at Basle, before the Jesuits abused them with their expurgatory Indexes; there is a noble MS. of Vitruvius. Many of these books had been presented by Popes, Cardinals, and great persons, to the Earls of Arundel and Dukes of Norfolk; and the late magnificent Earl of Arundel bought a noble library in Germany, which is in this collection. I should not, for the honour I bear the family, have persuaded the Duke to part with these, had I not seen how negligent he was of them, suffering the priests and everybody to carry away and dispose of what they pleased, so that abundance of rare things are irrecoverably gone.'—J. Evelyn (Diary, August 29, 1678.)
P. 326. Whittier.—Sung at the opening of the library at Haverhill, Mass.