A curious episode in the history of early bookmaking occurred in the sixth century, Cornelius Agrippa has related, in his Vanity of Science, that a contrivance had been invented, by which the several parts of speech in any language could be combined by a system of circles worked in an ingenious manner. The component parts—nouns, verbs, etc.—come together so as to form complete sentences—a very convenient contrivance for writers who are deficient in what we consider essentials—intellect, learning, and invention. Sir Walter Scott, in his Life of Swift, says that the dean was indebted for his entertaining and witty satire on pretending philosophers, as displayed in his Flying Island of Laputa, to the above historical fact. The machine of the Professor of Lagado, in Gulliver's Travels, for imparting knowledge and composing books on all subjects without assistance from genius or knowledge, was designed to ridicule the art invented by Raymond Tully, the individual referred to by Cornelius Agrippa. Various improvements on this mechanical mode of composition were tried, but of course with utter failure.
During long periods of barbarism, entire libraries of rolls and books were destroyed by ruthless and ignorant soldiery, as in Caesar's time, when the library of 700,000 volumes which had been amassed by Ptolemy was burnt by Caesar's troops. The great library collected at Constantinople by Constantine and his successors was burnt in the eighth century.
The number of books written and collected by King Alfred was extensive, when we take into account the extent of ignorance that prevailed in England during the ninth century—an amount which may be estimated from the fact that there was much difficulty in providing a tutor competent to instruct the royal youth when twelve years old. Yet he, like his celebrated contemporary, Charlemagne, became eminent for encouraging literature, and for his high repute in erudition and book-writing, when Anglo-Saxon literature was despicably low. The extreme paucity of books in England in the eleventh century may be inferred from a mandate of Archbishop Lanfranc to librarians of English monasteries, ordering them to deliver one book at the commencement of Lent to the monks in turn, and that any monk who neglected to read it should perform penance. Anciently every great church and monastery had its little library; and, as education was almost entirely limited to ecclesiastics during the middle ages, few books and transcribers were required.
The survey of the lands of England him Doomsday Book, in two volumes, was commenced by command of William the Conqueror, in the year 1080, and completed in six years. The book obtained its name either from a room in the Royal Treasury called Domus Dei, in Winchester, or from Saxon words signifying doom or judgment, no appeal from its record being permitted. The first volume is a folio, the second a quarto, and both are written in abbreviated Latin; the writing being on vellum, strongly bound, studded, and inclosed in a leather cover. A copy of Magna Charta, the great charter of British liberty, granted and confirmed by preceding monarchs, but re-enacted after a struggle between the Barons and that wicked man, King John, in the thirteenth century, is preserved in Lincoln Cathedral. There were twenty-five original sealed copies of it written on vellum; one copy was sent to each English diocese, and to a few special places besides. About twenty-five barons were present when this important document was drawn up, none of room signed it; it was only attested by the Great Seal of England. His majesty could not write; and it may be assumed that his twenty-five nobles were equally illiterate. If any of them were penmen, it was very courtier-like on their part to decline doing what their king was incompetent to do.
Whether Italian or Irish manuscripts were the earliest in which ornamental letters were employed, is an undecided question. The finest specimen of the illuminated is the Book of Kells, of the fifth or sixth century. This beautiful antique is preserved in the library of the King's College, and is thought to surpass in minuteness of finish and splendor of decoration the famous Durham Book, or Gospels of Lindisfarne, which, though probably executed in the north of England, is classed among Anglo-Hibernian books, because Irish literature was more advanced than English in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. If this beautiful art of illuminating originated in the East, it reached its perfection in the west of Europe. In the British Museum there is a copy of the Gospels executed at Aix-la-Chapelle in the eighth century, known as the Golden Gospels, the entire text being in gold, on white vellum.
We are now to touch upon the variety and forms of books or booklings —if we may invent a name—after the art of printing was discovered, about the middle of the fifteenth century—a subject too familiar to occupy any space here for details as to invention or progress.
Chaucer expressed in rhyme the inconvenience of being obliged to correct every copy of his works after the scrivener's hands; he did not anticipate the invention of types in a century afterwards, and the employment of readers or correctors of the press.
Almanacs shall have the precedents, not so much from their high rank in literary importance, but from their antiquity and pioneer character in the march of uninspired literature. The Arabians, who studied astronomy and astrology, noted the signs of the seasons, and regulated their field occupations by the direction of their almanac makers, who were their wise men; they would neither sow nor reap, nor trim their beards and nails, without consulting their almanacs; they introduced their rules of practice into Europe. A German named Müller constructed an almanac in its present form, suited to general writers. An English writer who called himself Poor Robin, published long ago an almanac remarkable for coarseness and eccentricity. The following are specimens of his style (they recently appeared in a public journal); we present but a few: