Of a work which long has been placed on that shelf which Voltaire has discriminated asla Bibliothèque du Monde, it is never mistimed for the author to offer the many, who are familiar with its pages, a settled conception of its design.
The "Curiosities of Literature," commenced fifty years since, have been composed at various periods, and necessarily partake of those successive characters which mark the eras of the intellectual habits of the writer.
In my youth, the taste for modern literary history was only of recent date. The first elegant scholar who opened a richer vein in the mine ofModern LiteraturewasJoseph Warton;—he had a fragmentary mind, and he was a rambler in discursive criticism. Dr.Johnsonwas a famished man for anecdotical literature, and sorely complained of the penury of our literary history.
Thomas Wartonmust have found, in the taste of his brother and the energy of Johnson, his happiest prototypes; but he had too frequently to wrestle with barren antiquarianism, and was lost to us at the gates of that paradise which had hardly opened on him. These were the true founders of that more elegant literature in which France had preceded us. These works created a more pleasing species of erudition:—the age of taste and genius had come; but the age of philosophical thinking was yet but in its dawn.
Among my earliest literary friends, two distinguished themselves by their anecdotical literature:James Petit Andrews, by his "Anecdotes, Ancient and Modern," andWilliam Seward, by his "Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons." These volumes were favourably received, and to such a degree, that a wit of that day, and who is still a wit as well as a poet, considered that we were far gone in our "Anecdotage."
I was a guest at the banquet, but it seemed to me to consist wholly of confectionery. I conceived the idea of a collection of a different complexion. I was then seeking for instruction in modern literature; and our language afforded no collection of theres litterariæ. In the diversified volumes of the FrenchAna, I found, among the best, materials to work on. I improved my subjects with as much of our own literature as my limited studies afforded. The volume, without a name, was left to its own unprotected condition. I had not miscalculated the wants of others by my own.
This first volume had reminded the learned of much which it is grateful to remember, and those who were restricted by their classical studies, or lounged only in perishable novelties, were in modern literature but dry wells, for which I had opened clear waters from a fresh spring. The work had effected its design in stimulating the literary curiosity of those, who, with a taste for its tranquil pursuits, are impeded in their acquirement. Imitations were numerous. My reading became more various, and the second volume of "Curiosities of Literature" appeared, with a slight effort at more original investigation. The two brother volumes remained favourites during an interval of twenty years.
It was as late as 1817 that I sent forth the third volume; without a word of preface. I had no longer anxieties toconceal or promises to perform. The subjects chosen were novel, and investigated with more original composition. The motto prefixed to this third volume from the Marquis of Halifax is lost in the republications, but expresses the peculiar delight of all literary researches for those who love them: "The struggling for knowledge hath a pleasure in it like that of wrestling with a fine woman."
The notice which the third volume obtained, returned me to the dream of my youth. I considered that essay writing, from Addison to the successors of Johnson, which had formed one of the most original features of our national literature, would now fail in its attraction, even if some of those elegant writers themselves had appeared in a form which their own excellence had rendered familiar and deprived of all novelty. I was struck by an observation which Johnson has thrown out. That sage, himself an essayist and who had lived among our essayists, fancied that "mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically;" and so athirst was that first of our great moral biographers for the details of human life and the incidental characteristics of individuals, that he was desirous of obtaining anecdotes without preparation or connexion. "If a man," said this lover of literary anecdotes, "is to wait till he weaves anecdotes, we may be long in getting them, and get but few in comparison to what we might get." Another observation, of Lord Bolingbroke, had long dwelt in my mind, that "when examples are pointed out to us, there is a kind of appeal with which we are flattered made to our senses as well as our understandings." An induction from a variety of particulars seemed to me to combine that delight, which Johnson derived from anecdotes, with that philosophy which Bolingbroke founded on examples; and on this principle the last three volumes of the "Curiosities ofLiterature" were constructed, freed from the formality of dissertation, and the vagueness of the lighter essay.
These "Curiosities of Literature" have passed through a remarkable ordeal of time; they have survived a generation of rivals; they are found wherever books are bought, and they have been repeatedly reprinted at foreign presses, as well as translated. These volumes have imbued our youth with their first tastes for modern literature, have diffused a delight in critical and philosophical speculation among circles of readers who were not accustomed to literary topics; and finally, they have been honoured by eminent contemporaries, who have long consulted them and set their stamp on the metal.
A voluminous miscellany, composed at various periods, cannot be exempt from slight inadvertencies. Such a circuit of multifarious knowledge could not be traced were we to measure and count each step by some critical pedometer; life would be too short to effect any reasonable progress. Every work must be judged by its design, and is to be valued by its result.
Bradenham House,
March, 1839.
LIBRARIES.THE BIBLIOMANIA.LITERARY JOURNALS.RECOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS.SKETCHES OF CRITICISM.THE PERSECUTED LEARNED.POVERTY OF THE LEARNED.IMPRISONMENT OF THE LEARNED.AMUSEMENTS OF THE LEARNED.PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS.DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS.SOME NOTICES OF LOST WORKS.QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS.FAME CONTEMNED.THE SIX FOLLIES OF SCIENCE.IMITATORS.CICERO'S PUNS.PREFACES.EARLY PRINTING.ERRATA.PATRONS.POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, MADE BY ACCIDENT.INEQUALITIES OF GENIUS.GEOGRAPHICAL STYLE.LEGENDS.THE PORT-ROYAL SOCIETY.THE PROGRESS OF OLD AGE IN NEW STUDIES.SPANISH POETRY.SAINT EVREMOND.MEN OF GENIUS DEFICIENT IN CONVERSATION.VIDA.THE SCUDERIES.DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT.PRIOR'S HANS CARVEL.THE STUDENT IN THE METROPOLIS.THE TALMUD.RABBINICAL STORIES.ON THE CUSTOM OF SALUTING AFTER SNEEZING.BONAVENTURE DE PERIERS.GROTIUS.NOBLEMEN TURNED CRITICS.LITERARY IMPOSTURES.CARDINAL RICHELIEU.ARISTOTLE AND PLATO.ABELARD AND ELOISA.PHYSIOGNOMY.CHARACTERS DESCRIBED BY MUSICAL NOTES.MILTON.ORIGIN OF NEWSPAPERS.TRIALS AND PROOFS OF GUILT IN SUPERSTITIOUS AGES.THE INQUISITION.SINGULARITIES OBSERVED BY VARIOUS NATIONS IN THEIR REPASTS.MONARCHS.OF THE TITLES OF ILLUSTRIOUS, HIGHNESS, AND EXCELLENCE.TITLES OF SOVEREIGNS.ROYAL DIVINITIES.DETHRONED MONARCHSFEUDAL CUSTOMS.GAMING.THE ARABIC CHRONICLE.METEMPSYCHOSIS.SPANISH ETIQUETTE.THE GOTHS AND HUNS.VICARS OF BRAY.DOUGLAS.CRITICAL HISTORY OF POVERTY.SOLOMON AND SHEBA.HELL.THE ABSENT MAN.PASQUIN AND MARFORIO.FEMALE BEAUTY AND ORNAMENTS.MODERN PLATONISM.ANECDOTES OF FASHION.A SENATE OF JESUITS.THE LOVER'S HEART.THE HISTORY OF GLOVES.RELICS OF SAINTS.PERPETUAL LAMPS OF THE ANCIENTS.NATURAL PRODUCTIONS RESEMBLING ARTIFICIAL COMPOSITIONS.THE POETICAL GARLAND OF JULIA.TRAGIC ACTORS.JOCULAR PREACHERS.MASTERLY IMITATORS.EDWARD THE FOURTH.ELIZABETH.THE CHINESE LANGUAGE.MEDICAL MUSIC.MINUTE WRITING.NUMERICAL FIGURES.ENGLISH ASTROLOGERS.ALCHYMY.TITLES OF BOOKS.LITERARY FOLLIES.LITERARY CONTROVERSY.LITERARY BLUNDERS.A LITERARY WIFE.DEDICATIONS.PHILOSOPHICAL DESCRIPTIVE POEMS.PAMPHLETS.LITTLE BOOKS.A CATHOLIC'S REFUTATION.THE GOOD ADVICE OF AN OLD LITERARY SINNER.MYSTERIES, MORALITIES, FARCES, AND SOTTIES.LOVE AND FOLLY, AN ANCIENT MORALITY.RELIGIOUS NOUVELLETTES."CRITICAL SAGACITY," AND "HAPPY CONJECTURE;" OR, BENTLEY'S MILTON.A JANSENIST DICTIONARY.MANUSCRIPTS AND BOOKS.THE TURKISH SPY.SPENSER, JONSON, AND SHAKSPEARE.BEN JONSON, FELTHAM, AND RANDOLPH.ARIOSTO AND TASSO.BAYLE.CERVANTES.MAGLIABECHI.ABRIDGERS.PROFESSORS OF PLAGIARISM AND OBSCURITY.LITERARY DUTCH.THE PRODUCTIONS OF THE MIND NOT SEIZABLE BY CREDITORS.CRITICS.ANECDOTES OF CENSURED AUTHORS.VIRGINITY.A GLANCE INTO THE FRENCH ACADEMY.POETICAL AND GRAMMATICAL DEATHS.SCARRON.PETER CORNEILLE.POETS.ROMANCES.THE ASTREA.POETS LAUREAT.ANGELO POLITIAN.ORIGINAL LETTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.ANNE BULLEN.JAMES THE FIRST.GENERAL MONK AND HIS WIFE.PHILIP AND MARY.
The passion for forming vast collections of books has necessarily existed in all periods of human curiosity; but long it required regal munificence to found a national library. It is only since the art of multiplying the productions of the mind has been discovered, that men of letters themselves have been enabled to rival this imperial and patriotic honour. The taste for books, so rare before the fifteenth century, has gradually become general only within these four hundred years: in that small space of time the public mind of Europe has been created.
OfLibraries, the following anecdotes seem most interesting, as they mark either the affection, or the veneration, which civilised men have ever felt for these perennial repositories of their minds. The first national library founded in Egypt seemed to have been placed under the protection of the divinities, for their statues magnificently adorned this temple, dedicated at once to religion and to literature. It was still further embellished by a well-known inscription, for ever grateful to the votary of literature; on the front was engraven,—"The nourishment of the soul;" or, according to Diodorus, "The medicine of the mind."
The Egyptian Ptolemies founded the vast library of Alexandria, which was afterwards the emulative labour of rival monarchs; the founder infused a soul into the vast body he was creating, by his choice of the librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, whose skilful industry amassed from all nations their choicest productions. Without such a librarian, a national library would be little more than a literary chaos; his well exercised memory and critical judgment are its best catalogue. One of the Ptolemies refused supplying the famished Athenians with wheat, until they presented him with the original manuscripts of Æschylus, Sophocles, andEuripides; and in returning copies of these autographs, he allowed them to retain the fifteen talents which he had pledged with them as a princely security.
When tyrants, or usurpers, have possessed sense as well as courage, they have proved the most ardent patrons of literature; they know it is their interest to turn aside the public mind from political speculations, and to afford their subjects the inexhaustible occupations of curiosity, and the consoling pleasures of the imagination. Thus Pisistratus is said to have been among the earliest of the Greeks, who projected an immense collection of the works of the learned, and is supposed to have been the collector of the scattered works, which passed under the name of Homer.
The Romans, after six centuries of gradual dominion, must have possessed the vast and diversified collections of the writings of the nations they conquered: among the most valued spoils of their victories, we know that manuscripts were considered as more precious than vases of gold. Paulus Emilius, after the defeat of Perseus, king of Macedon, brought to Rome a great number which he had amassed in Greece, and which he now distributed among his sons, or presented to the Roman people. Sylla followed his example. Alter the siege of Athens, he discovered an entire library in the temple of Apollo, which having carried to Rome, he appears to have been the founder of the first Roman public library. After the taking of Carthage, the Roman senate rewarded the family of Regulus with the books found in that city. A library was a national gift, and the most honourable they could bestow. From the intercourse of the Romans with the Greeks, the passion for forming libraries rapidly increased, and individuals began to pride themselves on their private collections.
Of many illustrious Romans, their magnificent taste in theirlibrarieshas been recorded. Asinius Pollio, Crassus, Cæsar, and Cicero, have, among others, been celebrated for their literary splendor. Lucullus, whose incredible opulence exhausted itself on more than imperial luxuries, more honourably distinguished himself by his vast collections of books, and the happy use he made of them by the liberal access he allowed the learned. "It was a library," says Plutarch, "whose walks, galleries, and cabinets, were open to all visitors; and the ingenious Greeks, when at leisure, resorted to this abode of the Muses to hold literary conversations, inwhich Lucullus himself loved to join." This library enlarged by others, Julius Cæsar once proposed to open for the public, having chosen the erudite Varro for its librarian; but the daggers of Brutus and his party prevented the meditated projects of Cæsar. In this museum, Cicero frequently pursued his studies, during the time his friend Faustus had the charge of it; which he describes to Atticus in his 4th Book, Epist. 9. Amidst his public occupations and his private studies, either of them sufficient to have immortalised one man, we are astonished at the minute attention Cicero paid to the formation of his libraries and his cabinets of antiquities.
The emperors were ambitious, at length, to givetheir namesto thelibrariesthey founded; they did not consider the purple as their chief ornament. Augustus was himself an author; and to one of those sumptuous buildings, calledThermæ, ornamented with porticos, galleries, and statues, with shady walks, and refreshing baths, testified his love of literature by adding a magnificent library. One of these libraries he fondly called by the name of his sister Octavia; and the other, the temple of Apollo, became the haunt of the poets, as Horace, Juvenal, and Persius have commemorated. The successors of Augustus imitated his example, and even Tiberius had an imperial library, chiefly consisting of works concerning the empire and the acts of its sovereigns. These Trajan augmented by the Ulpian library, denominated from his family name. In a word, we have accounts of the rich ornaments the ancients bestowed on their libraries; of their floors paved with marble, their walls covered with glass and ivory, and their shelves and desks of ebony and cedar.
The firstpublic libraryin Italy was founded by a person of no considerable fortune: his credit, his frugality, and fortitude, were indeed equal to a treasury. Nicholas Niccoli, the son of a merchant, after the death of his father relinquished the beaten roads of gain, and devoted his soul to study, and his fortune to assist students. At his death, he left his library to the public, but his debts exceeding his effects, the princely generosity of Cosmo de' Medici realised the intention of its former possessor, and afterwards enriched it by the addition of an apartment, in which he placed the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaic, and Indian MSS. The intrepid spirit of Nicholas V. laid the foundations of the Vatican; the affection of Cardinal Bessarion for his country first gaveVenice the rudiments of a public library; and to Sir T. Bodley we owe the invaluable one of Oxford. Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Birch, Mr. Cracherode, Mr. Douce, and others of this race of lovers of books, have all contributed to form these literary treasures, which our nation owe to the enthusiasm of individuals, who have consecrated their fortunes and their days to this great public object; or, which in the result produces the same public good, the collections of such men have been frequently purchased on their deaths, by government, and thus have been preserved entire in our national collections.[5]
Literature, like virtue, is often its own reward, and the enthusiasm some experience in the permanent enjoyments of a vast library has far outweighed the neglect or the calumny of the world, which some of its votaries have received. From the time that Cicero poured forth his feelings in his oration for the poet Archias, innumerable are the testimonies of men of letters of the pleasurable delirium of their researches. Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Chancellor of England so early as 1341, perhaps raised the first private library in our country. He purchased thirty or forty volumes of the Abbot of St. Albans for fifty pounds' weight of silver. He was so enamoured of his large collection, that he expressly composed a treatise on his love of books, under the title ofPhilobiblion; and which has been recently translated.[6]
He who passes much of his time amid such vast resources, and does not aspire to make some small addition to his library, were it only by a critical catalogue, must indeed benot more animated than a leaden Mercury. He must be as indolent as that animal called the Sloth, who perishes on the tree he climbs, after he has eaten all its leaves.
Rantzau, the founder of the great library at Copenhagen, whose days were dissolved in the pleasures of reading, discovers his taste and ardour in the following elegant effusion:—
Salvete aureoli mei libelli,Meæ deliciæ, mei lepores!Quam vos sæpe oculis juvat videre,Et tritos manibus tenere nostris!Tot vos eximii, tot eruditi,Prisci lumina sæculi et recentis,Confecere viri, suasque vobisAusi credere lucubrationes:Et sperare decus perenne scriptis;Neque hæc irrita spes fefellit illos.IMITATED.Golden volumes! richest treasures!Objects of delicious pleasures!You my eyes rejoicing please,You my hands in rapture seize!Brilliant wits, and musing sages,Lights who beamed through many ages,Left to your conscious leaves their story,And dared to trust you with their glory;And now their hope of fame achieved,Dear volumes! you have not deceived!
Salvete aureoli mei libelli,Meæ deliciæ, mei lepores!Quam vos sæpe oculis juvat videre,Et tritos manibus tenere nostris!Tot vos eximii, tot eruditi,Prisci lumina sæculi et recentis,Confecere viri, suasque vobisAusi credere lucubrationes:Et sperare decus perenne scriptis;Neque hæc irrita spes fefellit illos.
IMITATED.
Golden volumes! richest treasures!Objects of delicious pleasures!You my eyes rejoicing please,You my hands in rapture seize!Brilliant wits, and musing sages,Lights who beamed through many ages,Left to your conscious leaves their story,And dared to trust you with their glory;And now their hope of fame achieved,Dear volumes! you have not deceived!
This passion for the enjoyment ofbookshas occasioned their lovers embellishing their outsides with costly ornaments;[7]afancy which ostentation may have abused; but when these volumes belong to the real man of letters, the most fanciful bindings are often the emblems of his taste and feelings. The great Thuanus procured the finest copies for his library, and his volumes are still eagerly purchased, bearing his autograph on the last page. A celebrated amateur was Grollier; the Muses themselves could not more ingeniously have ornamented their favourite works. I have seen several in the libraries of curious collectors. They are gilded and stamped with peculiar neatness; the compartments on the binding are drawn, and painted, with subjects analogous to the works themselves; and they are further adorned by that amiable inscription,Jo. Grollierii et amicorum!—purporting that these literary treasures were collected for himself and for his friends.
The family of the Fuggers had long felt an hereditary passion for the accumulation of literary treasures: and their portraits, with others in their picture gallery, form a curious quarto volume of 127 portraits, rare even in Germany, entitled "Fuggerorum Pinacotheca."[8]Wolfius, who daily haunted their celebrated library, pours out his gratitude in some Greek verses, and describes this bibliothèque as a literary heaven, furnished with as many books as there were stars in the firmament; or as a literary garden, in which he passed entire days in gathering fruit and flowers, delighting and instructing himself by perpetual occupation.
In 1364, the royal library of France did not exceed twenty volumes. Shortly after, Charles V. increased it to 900, which, by the fate of war, as much at least as by that of money, the Duke of Bedford afterwards purchased and transported toLondon, where libraries were smaller than on the continent, about 1440. It is a circumstance worthy observation, that the French sovereign, Charles V. surnamed the Wise, ordered that thirty portable lights, with a silver lamp suspended from the centre, should be illuminated at night, that students might not find their pursuits interrupted at any hour. Many among us, at this moment, whose professional avocations admit not of morning studies, find that the resources of a public library are not accessible to them, from the omission of the regulation of the zealous Charles V. of France. An objection to night-studies in public libraries is the danger of fire, and in our own British Museum not a light is permitted to be carried about on any pretence whatever. The history of the "Bibliothèque du Roi" is a curious incident in literature; and the progress of the human mind and public opinion might be traced by its gradual accessions, noting the changeable qualities of its literary stores chiefly from theology, law, and medicine, to philosophy and elegant literature. It was first under Louis XIV. that the productions of the art of engraving were there collected and arranged; the great minister Colbert purchased the extensive collections of the Abbé de Marolles, who may be ranked among the fathers of our print-collectors. Two hundred and sixty-four ample portfolios laid the foundations, and the very catalogues of his collections, printed by Marolles himself, are rare and high-priced. Our own national print gallery is growing from its infant establishment.
Mr. Hallam has observed, that in 1440, England had made comparatively but little progress in learning—and Germany was probably still less advanced. However, in Germany, Trithemius, the celebrated abbot of Spanheim, who died in 1516, had amassed about two thousand manuscripts; a literary treasure which excited such general attention, that princes and eminent men travelled to visit Trithemius and his library. About this time, six or eight hundred volumes formed a royal collection, and their cost could only be furnished by a prince. This was indeed a great advancement in libraries, for at the beginning of the fourteenth century the library of Louis IX. contained only four classical authors; and that of Oxford, in 1300, consisted of "a few tracts kept in chests."
The pleasures of study are classed by Burton among those exercises or recreations of the mind which passwithin doors. Looking about this "world of books," he exclaims, "I couldeven live and die with such meditations, and take more delight and true content of mind in them than in all thy wealth and sport! There is a sweetness, which, as Circe's cup, bewitcheth a student: he cannot leave off, as well may witness those many laborious hours, days, and nights, spent in their voluminous treatises. So sweet is the delight of study. The last day isprioris discipulus. Heinsius was mewed up in the library of Leyden all the year long, and that which, to my thinking, should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. 'I no sooner,' saith he, 'come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance and Melancholy. In the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit, and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones and rich men, that know not this happiness.'" Such is the incense of a votary who scatters it on the altar less for the ceremony than from the devotion.[9]
There is, however, an intemperance in study, incompatible often with our social or more active duties. The illustrious Grotius exposed himself to the reproaches of some of his contemporaries for having too warmly pursued his studies, to the detriment of his public station. It was the boast of Cicero that his philosophical studies had never interfered with the services he owed the republic, and that he had only dedicated to them the hours which others give to their walks, their repasts, and their pleasures. Looking on his voluminous labours, we are surprised at this observation;—how honourable is it to him, that his various philosophical works bear the titles of the different villas he possessed, which indicates that they were composed in these respective retirements! Cicero must have been an early riser; and practised that magic art in the employment of time, which multiplies our days.
The preceding article is honourable to literature, yet even a passion for collecting books is not always a passion for literature.
TheBibliomania, or the collecting an enormous heap of books without intelligent curiosity, has, since libraries have existed, infected weak minds, who imagine that they themselves acquire knowledge when they keep it on their shelves. Their motley libraries have been called themadhouses of the Human mind; and again,the tomb of books, when the possessor will not communicate them, and coffins them up in the cases of his library. It was facetiously observed, these collections are not without aLock on the Human Understanding.[10]
TheBibliomanianever raged more violently than in our own times. It is fortunate that literature is in no ways injured by the follies of collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily protect the good.[11]
Some collectors place all their fame on theviewof a splendid library, where volumes, arrayed in all the pomp of lettering, silk linings, triple gold bands, and tinted leather, are locked up in wire cases, and secured from the vulgar hands of themere reader, dazzling our eyes like eastern beauties peering through their jalousies!
La Bruyerehas touched on this mania with humour:—"Of such a collector, as soon as I enter his house, I am ready to faint on the staircase, from a strong smell of Morocco leather. In vain he shows me fine editions, gold leaves, Etruscan bindings, and naming them one after another, as if he were showing a gallery of pictures! a gallery, by-the-bye, which he seldom traverses whenalone, for he rarely reads; but me he offers to conduct through it! I thank him for his politeness, and as little as himself care to visit the tan-house, which he calls his library."
Lucianhas composed a biting invective against an ignorant possessor of a vast library, like him, who in the present day, after turning over the pages of an old book, chiefly admires thedate.Luciancompares him to a pilot, who was never taught the science of navigation; to a rider who cannot keep his seat on a spirited horse; to a man who, not having the use of his feet, would conceal the defect by wearing embroidered shoes; but, alas! he cannot stand in them! He ludicrously compares him to Thersites wearing the armour of Achilles, tottering at every step; leering with his little eyes under his enormous helmet, and his hunchback raising the cuirass above his shoulders. Why do you buy so many books? You have no hair, and you purchase a comb; you are blind, and you will have a grand mirror; you are deaf, and you will have fine musical instruments! Your costly bindings are only a source of vexation, and you are continually discharging your librarians for not preserving them from the silent invasion of the worms, and the nibbling triumphs of the rats!
Suchcollectorswill contemptuously smile at thecollectionof the amiable Melancthon. He possessed in his library only four authors,—Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, and Ptolemy the geographer.
Ancillon was a great collector of curious books, and dexterously defended himself when accused of theBibliomania. He gave a good reason for buying the most elegant editions; which he did not consider merely as a literary luxury.[12]Theless the eyes are fatigued in reading a work, the more liberty the mind feels to judge of it: and as we perceive more clearly the excellences and defects of a printed book than when in MS.; so we see them more plainly in good paper and clear type, than when the impression and paper are both bad. He always purchasedfirst editions, and never waited for second ones; though it is the opinion of some that a first edition is only to be considered as an imperfect essay, which the author proposes to finish after he has tried the sentiments of the literary world. Bayle approves of Ancillon's plan. Those who wait for a book till it is reprinted, show plainly that they prefer the saving of a pistole to the acquisition of knowledge. With one of these persons, who waited for a second edition, which never appeared, a literary man argued, that it was better to have two editions of a book rather than to deprive himself of the advantage which the reading of the first might procure him. It has frequently happened, besides, that in second editions, the author omits, as well as adds, or makes alterations from prudential reasons; the displeasing truths which hecorrects, as he might call them, are so many losses incurred by Truth itself. There is an advantage in comparing the first and subsequent editions; among other things, we feel great satisfaction in tracing the variations of a work after its revision. There are also other secrets, well known to the intelligent curious, who are versed in affairs relating to books. Many first editions are not to be purchased for the treble value of later ones. The collector we have noticed frequently said, as is related of Virgil, "I collect gold from Ennius's dung." I find, in some neglected authors, particular things, not elsewhere to be found. He read many of these, but not with equal attention—"Sicut canis ad Nilum, bibens et fugiens;" like a dog at the Nile, drinking and running.
Fortunate are those who only consider a book for the utility and pleasure they may derive from its possession. Students, who know much, and still thirst to know more, may require this vast sea of books; yet in that sea they may suffer many shipwrecks.
Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of theborrowers, not to say a word of thepurloiners!
When writers were not numerous, and readers rare, the unsuccessful author fell insensibly into oblivion; he dissolved away in his own weakness. If he committed the private folly of printing what no one would purchase, he was not arraigned at the public tribunal—and the awful terrors of his day of judgment consisted only in the retributions of his publisher's final accounts. At length, a taste for literature spread through the body of the people; vanity induced the inexperienced and the ignorant to aspire to literary honours. To oppose these forcible entries into the haunts of the Muses, periodical criticism brandished its formidable weapon; and the fall of many, taught some of our greatest geniuses to rise. Multifarious writings produced multifarious strictures; and public criticism reached to such perfection, that taste was generally diffused, enlightening those whose occupations had otherwise never permitted them to judge of literary compositions.
The invention ofReviews, in the form which they have at length gradually assumed, could not have existed but in the most polished ages of literature: for without a constant supply of authors, and a refined spirit of criticism, they could not excite a perpetual interest among the lovers of literature. These publications were long the chronicles of taste and science, presenting the existing state of the public mind, while they formed a ready resource for those idle hours, which men of letters would not pass idly.
Their multiplicity has undoubtedly produced much evil; puerile critics and venal drudges manufacture reviews; hence that shameful discordance of opinion, which is the scorn and scandal of criticism. Passions hostile to the peaceful truths of literature have likewise made tremendous inroads in the republic, and every literary virtue has been lost! In "Calamities of Authors" I have given the history of a literary conspiracy, conducted by a solitary critic,Gilbert Stuart, against the historianHenry.
These works may disgust by vapid panegyric, or gross invective; weary by uniform dulness, or tantalise by superficial knowledge. Sometimes merely written to catch the public attention, a malignity is indulged against authors, to season the caustic leaves. A reviewer has admired those works in private, which he has condemned in his official capacity. But good sense, good temper, and good taste, will ever form an estimable journalist, who will inspire confidence, and give stability to his decisions.
To the lovers of literature these volumes, when they have outlived their year, are not unimportant. They constitute a great portion of literary history, and are indeed the annals of the republic.
To our own reviews, we must add the old foreign journals, which are perhaps even more valuable to the man of letters. Of these the variety is considerable; and many of their writers are now known. They delight our curiosity by opening new views, and light up in observing minds many projects of works, wanted in our own literature.Gibbonfeasted on them; and while he turned them over with constant pleasure, derived accurate notions of works, which no student could himself have verified; of many works a notion is sufficient.
The origin of literary journals was the happy project ofDenis de Sallo, a counsellor in the parliament of Paris. In 1665 appeared hisJournal des Sçavans. He published his essay in the name of the Sieur de Hedouville, his footman! Was this a mere stroke of humour, or designed to insinuate that the freedom of criticism could only be allowed to his lacquey? The work, however, met with so favourable a reception, thatSallohad the satisfaction of seeing it, the following year, imitated throughout Europe, and his Journal, at the same time, translated into various languages. But as most authors lay themselves open to an acute critic, the animadversions ofSallowere given with such asperity of criticism, and such malignity of wit, that this new journal excited loud murmurs, and the most heart-moving complaints. The learned had their plagiarisms detected, and the wit had his claims disputed. Sarasin called the gazettes of this new Aristarchus, Hebdomadary Flams!Billevesées hebdomadaires!and Menage having published a law book, which Sallo had treated with severe raillery, he entered into a long argument to prove, according to Justinian, that a lawyer is not allowed to defame another lawyer, &c.:Senatori maledicere non licet, remaledicere jus fasque est. Others loudly declaimed against this new species of imperial tyranny, and this attempt to regulate the public opinion by that of an individual. Sallo, after having published only his third volume, felt the irritated wasps of literature thronging so thick about him, that he very gladly abdicated the throne of criticism. The journal is said to have suffered a short interruption by a remonstrance from the nuncio of the pope, for the energy with which Sallo had defended the liberties of the Gallican church.
Intimidated by the fate ofSallo, his successor, the AbbéGallois, flourished in a milder reign. He contented himself with giving the titles of books, accompanied with extracts; and he was more useful than interesting. The public, who had been so much amused by the raillery and severity of the founder of this dynasty of new critics, now murmured at the want of that salt and acidity by which they had relished the fugitive collation. They were not satisfied with having the most beautiful, or the most curious parts of a new work brought together; they wished for the unreasonable entertainment of railing and raillery. At length another objection was conjured up against the review; mathematicians complained that they were neglected to make room for experiments in natural philosophy; the historian sickened over works of natural history; the antiquaries would have nothing but discoveries of MSS. or fragments of antiquity. Medical works were called for by one party, and reprobated by another. In a word, each reader wished only to have accounts of books, which were interesting to his profession or his taste. But a review is a work presented to the public at large, and written for more than one country. In spite of all these difficulties, this work was carried to a vast extent. Anindexto theJournal des Sçavanshas been arranged on a critical plan, occupying ten volumes in quarto, which may be considered as a most useful instrument to obtain the science and literature of the entire century.
The next celebrated reviewer isBayle, who undertook, in 1684, hisNouvelles de la République des Lettres. He possessed the art, acquired by habit, of reading a book by his fingers, as it has been happily expressed; and of comprising, in concise extracts, a just notion of a book, without the addition of irrelevant matter. Lively, neat, and full of that attic salt which gives a relish to the driest disquisitions, forthe first time the ladies and all thebeau-mondetook an interest in the labours of the critic. He wreathed the rod of criticism with roses. Yet evenBayle, who declared himself to be a reporter, and not a judge,Bayle, the discreet sceptic, could not long satisfy his readers. His panegyric was thought somewhat prodigal; his fluency of style somewhat too familiar; and others affected not to relish his gaiety. In his latter volumes, to still the clamour, he assumed the cold sobriety of an historian: and has bequeathed no mean legacy to the literary world, in thirty-six small volumes of criticism, closed in 1687. These were continued by Bernard, with inferior skill; and by Basnage more successfully, in hisHistoire des Ouvrages des Sçavans.
The contemporary and the antagonist ofBaylewasLe Clerc. His firm industry has produced threeBibliothèques—Universelle et Historique,Choisie, andAncienne et Moderne; forming in all eighty-two volumes, which, complete, bear a high price. Inferior toBaylein the more pleasing talents, he is perhaps superior in erudition, and shows great skill in analysis: but his hand drops no flowers!Gibbonresorted to Le Clerc's volumes at his leisure, "as an inexhaustible source of amusement and instruction." Apostolo Zeno'sGiornale del Litterati d'Italia, from 1710 to 1733, is valuable.
BeausobreandL'Enfant, two learned Protestants, wrote aBibliothèque Germanique, from 1720 to 1740, in 50 volumes. Our own literature is interested by the "Bibliothèque Britannique," written by some literary Frenchmen, noticed by La Croze, in his "Voyage Littéraire," who designates the writers in this most tantalising manner: "Les auteurs sont gens de mérite, et qui entendent tous parfaitement l'Anglois; Messrs. S.B., le M.D., et le savant Mr. D." Posterity has been partially let into the secret: De Missy was one of the contributors, and Warburton communicated his project of an edition of Velleius Patereulus. This useful account of English books begins in 1733, and closes in 1747, Hague, 23 vols.: to this we must add theJournal Britannique, in 18 vols., by Dr.Maty, a foreign physician residing in London; this Journal exhibits a view of the state of English literature from 1750 to 1755.Gibbonbestows a high character on the journalist, who sometimes "aspires to the character of a poet and a philosopher; one of the last disciples of the school of Fontenelle."
Maty'sson produced here a review known to the curious, his style and decisions often discover haste and heat, with some striking observations: alluding to his father, in his motto, Maty applies Virgil's description of the young Ascanius, "Sequiturpatremnon passibus æquis." He says he only holds amonthly conversationwith the public. His obstinate resolution of carrying on this review without an associate, has shown its folly and its danger; for a fatal illness produced a cessation, at once, of his periodical labours and his life.
Other reviews, are theMémoires de Trevoux, written by the Jesuits. Their caustic censure and vivacity of style made them redoubtable in their day; they did not even spare their brothers. TheJournal Littéraire, printed at the Hague, was chiefly composed by Prosper Marchand, Sallengre, and Van Effen, who were then young writers. This list may be augmented by other journals, which sometimes merit preservation in the history of modern literature.
Our early English journals notice only a few publications, with little acumen. Of these, the "Memoirs of Literature," and the "Present State of the Republic of Letters," are the best. The Monthly Review, the venerable (now the deceased) mother of our journals, commenced in 1749.
It is impossible to form a literary journal in a manner such as might be wished; it must be the work of many, of different tempers and talents. An individual, however versatile and extensive his genius, would soon be exhausted. Such a regular labour occasioned Bayle a dangerous illness, and Maty fell a victim to his Review. A prospect always extending as we proceed, the frequent novelty of the matter, the pride of considering one's self as the arbiter of literature, animate a journalist at the commencement of his career; but the literary Hercules becomes fatigued; and to supply his craving pages he gives copious extracts, till the journal becomes tedious, or fails in variety. The Abbé Gallois was frequently diverted from continuing his journal, and Fontenelle remarks, that this occupation was too restrictive for a mind so extensive as his; the Abbé could not resist the charms of revelling in a new work, and gratifying any sudden curiosity which seized him; this interrupted perpetually the regularity which the public expects from a journalist.
The character of a perfect journalist would be only an ideal portrait; there are, however, some acquirements which areindispensable. He must be tolerably acquainted with the subjects he treats on; nocommonacquirement! He must possess theliterary history of his own times; a science which, Fontenelle observes, is almost distinct from any other. It is the result of an active curiosity, which takes a lively interest in the tastes and pursuits of the age, while it saves the journalist from some ridiculous blunders. We often see the mind of a reviewer half a century remote from the work reviewed. A fine feeling of the various manners of writers, with a style adapted to fix the attention of the indolent, and to win the untractable, should be his study; but candour is the brightest gem of criticism! He ought not to throw everything into the crucible, nor should he suffer the whole to pass as if he trembled to touch it. Lampoons and satires in time will lose their effect, as well as panegyrics. He must learn to resist the seductions of his own pen: the pretension of composing a treatise on thesubject, rather than on thebookhe criticises—proud of insinuating that he gives, in a dozen pages, what the author himself has not been able to perform in his volumes. Should he gain confidence by a popular delusion, and by unworthy conduct, he may chance to be mortified by the pardon or by the chastisement of insulted genius. The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author.