THE BOOK-HUNTER IN LONDON
EARLY BOOK-HUNTING.
THOSE who have studied the earlier phases of English history will readily understand that the terms book-hunting in England and book-hunting in London are by no means synonymous. The passion for books had manifested itself in various and remote parts of this country long before London had developed into a place of importance; when, indeed, it was battling from without and within with conflicts which seemed to predict complete annihilation. But the growth of London is essentially typical of the growth of the nation, and of the formation of the national character. When it was laying the foundation of its future greatness London had no thought of intellectual pursuits, even if Londoners themselves had any conception of an intellectual life. For any trace of such unthought-of, and perhaps, indeed, unheard-of, articles as books, we must go to localities far remote from London—to spots where, happily, the strife and din of savage warfare scarcely made themselves heard. The monasteries were the sole repositories of literature; to the monk alone had the written book any kind of intelligence, any species of pleasure. To him it was as essential as the implements of destruction to the warrior, or the plough to the husbandman. The one had no sympathy, no connection, with the other, only in so far that the events which transpired in the battlefield had to be recorded in the scriptorium. Although London was a place of importance at a very early stage of the Roman occupation, it was not in any sense an intellectual centre for centuries after that period.
