Here, e'en the sturdy democrat may find,Nor scorn their rank, the nobles of the mind;While kings may learn, nor blush at being shownHow Learning's patents abrogate their own.A goodly company and fair to see;Royal plebeians; earls of low degree;Beggars whose wealth enriches every clime;Princes who scarce can boast a mental dime;Crowd here together like the quaint arrayOf jostling neighbours on a market day.Homer and Milton,—can we call them blind?—Of godlike sight, the vision of the mind;Shakespeare, who calmly looked creation through,'Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new';Plato the sage, so thoughtful and serene,He seems a prophet by his heavenly mien;Shrewd Socrates, whose philosophic powerXantippe proved in many a trying hour;And Aristophanes, whose humour runIn vain endeavour to be-'cloud' the sun;Majestic Aeschylus, whose glowing pageHolds half the grandeur of the Athenian stage;Pindar, whose odes, replete with heavenly fire,Proclaim the master of the Grecian lyre;Anacreon, famed for many a luscious line,Devote to Venus and the god of wine.I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubtIf one be better with them or without—Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,Knows the high art of what and how to read.At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink,But 'tis a nobler privilege to think;And oft, from books apart, the thirsting mindMay make the nectar which it cannot find.'Tis well to borrow from the good and great;'Tis wise to learn; 'tis godlike to create!J. G. Saxe.
Here, e'en the sturdy democrat may find,Nor scorn their rank, the nobles of the mind;While kings may learn, nor blush at being shownHow Learning's patents abrogate their own.A goodly company and fair to see;Royal plebeians; earls of low degree;Beggars whose wealth enriches every clime;Princes who scarce can boast a mental dime;Crowd here together like the quaint arrayOf jostling neighbours on a market day.Homer and Milton,—can we call them blind?—Of godlike sight, the vision of the mind;Shakespeare, who calmly looked creation through,'Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new';Plato the sage, so thoughtful and serene,He seems a prophet by his heavenly mien;Shrewd Socrates, whose philosophic powerXantippe proved in many a trying hour;And Aristophanes, whose humour runIn vain endeavour to be-'cloud' the sun;Majestic Aeschylus, whose glowing pageHolds half the grandeur of the Athenian stage;Pindar, whose odes, replete with heavenly fire,Proclaim the master of the Grecian lyre;Anacreon, famed for many a luscious line,Devote to Venus and the god of wine.I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubtIf one be better with them or without—Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,Knows the high art of what and how to read.At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink,But 'tis a nobler privilege to think;And oft, from books apart, the thirsting mindMay make the nectar which it cannot find.'Tis well to borrow from the good and great;'Tis wise to learn; 'tis godlike to create!
J. G. Saxe.
What oweth Oxford, nay this Isle, to the most worthy Bodley, whose Library, perhaps, containeth more excellent books than the ancients by all their curious search could find?... To such a worthy work all the lovers of learning should conspire and contribute; and of small beginnings who is ignorant what great effects may follow? If, perhaps, we will consider the beginnings of the greatest libraries of Europe (as Democritus said of the world, that it was made up of atoms), we shall find them but small; for howgreat soever in their present perfection they are now, these Carthages were once Magalia. Libraries are as forests, in which not only tall cedars and oaks are to be found, but bushes too and dwarfish shrubs; and as in apothecaries' shops all sorts of drugs are permitted to be, so may all sorts of books be in a library. And as they out of vipers and scorpions, and poisoning vegetables, extract often wholesome medicaments, for the life of mankind; so out of whatsoever book, good instructions and examples may be acquired.—William Drummond.Of Libraries.
One Homer was enough to blazon forthIn a full lofty style Ulysses' praise,Caesar had Lucan to enrol his worthUnto the memory of endless days.Of thy deeds, Bodley, from thine own pure springA thousand Homers and sweet Lucans sing.One volume was a monument to boundThe large extent of their deserving pains,In learning's commonwealth was never foundSo large a decade to express thy strains,Which who desires to character aright,Must read more books than they had lines to write.Yet give this little river leave to run,Into the boundless ocean of thy fame;Had they first ended I had not begun,Sith each is a Protogenes to frameSo curiously the picture of thy worthThat when all's done, art wants to set it forth.Peter Prideaux(Exeter College, 1613).
One Homer was enough to blazon forthIn a full lofty style Ulysses' praise,Caesar had Lucan to enrol his worthUnto the memory of endless days.Of thy deeds, Bodley, from thine own pure springA thousand Homers and sweet Lucans sing.One volume was a monument to boundThe large extent of their deserving pains,In learning's commonwealth was never foundSo large a decade to express thy strains,Which who desires to character aright,Must read more books than they had lines to write.Yet give this little river leave to run,Into the boundless ocean of thy fame;Had they first ended I had not begun,Sith each is a Protogenes to frameSo curiously the picture of thy worthThat when all's done, art wants to set it forth.
Peter Prideaux(Exeter College, 1613).
King James, 1605, when he came to see our University of Oxford, and amongst other edifices now went to view that famous library, renewed by Sir Thomas Bodley in imitation of Alexander at his departure, brake out into that noble speech, 'If I were not a king, I would be a University man: and if it were so that I must be a prisoner,if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library, and to be chained together with so many good authors,et mortuis magistris.' So sweet is the delight of study, the more learning they have (as he that hath a dropsy, the more he drinks the thirstier he is) the more they covet to learn, and the last day isprioris discipulus; harsh at first learning is,radices amarae, butfructus dulces, according to that of Isocrates, pleasant at last; the longer they live, the more they are enamoured with the Muses. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden, in Holland, was mewed up in it all the year long; and that which to thy 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 herself, and 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.'
I am not ignorant in the meantime (notwithstanding this which I have said) how barbarously and basely, for the most part, our ruder gentry esteem of libraries and books, how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit, as Aesop's cock did the jewel he found in the dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want of education.—R. Burton.The Anatomy of Melancholy.
On a lost volume of my poems, which he desired me to replace, that he might add them to my other works deposited in the library.
Strophe.My two-fold book! single in show,But double in contents,Neat, but not curiously adorned,Which, in his early youth,A poet gave, no lofty one in truth,Although an earnest wooer of the Muse—Say while in cool Ausonian shadesOr British wilds he roamed,Striking by turns his native lyre,By turns the Daunian lute,And stepped almost in air,—Antistrophe.Say, little book, what furtive handThee from thy fellow-books conveyed,What time, at the repeated suitOf my most learnèd friend,I sent thee forth, an honoured traveller,From our great city to the source of Thames,Caerulian sire!Where rise the fountains, and the raptures ring,Of the Aonian choir,Durable as yonder spheres,And through the endless lapse of yearsSecure to be admired?Strophe II.Now what God, or DemigodFor Britain's ancient Genius moved,(If our afflicted landHave expiated at length the guilty slothOf her degenerate sons)Shall terminate our impious feuds,And discipline, with hallowed voice, recall?Recall the Muses too,Driven from their ancient seatsIn Albion, and well nigh from Albion's shore,And with keen Phoebean shafts,Piercing the unseemly birds,Whose talons menace us,Shall drive the Harpy race from Helicon afar?Antistrophe.But thou, my book, though thou hast strayed,Whether by treachery lostOr indolent neglect, thy bearer's fault,From all thy kindred books,To some dark cell or cave forlorn,Where thou endurest, perhapsThe chafing of some hard untutored hand,Be comforted—For lo! again the splendid hope appearsThat thou mayest yet escape,The gulfs of Lethe, and on oary wingsMount to the everlasting courts of Jove!Strophe III.Since Rouse desires thee, and complainsThat, though by promise his,Thou yet appear'st not in thy placeAmong the literary noble stores,Given to his care,But, absent, leavest his numbers incomplete:He, therefore, guardian vigilantOf that unperishing wealth,Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge,Where he intends a richer treasure farThan Iön kept (Iön, Erectheus' sonIllustrious, of the fair Creüsa born)In the resplendent temple of his God,Tripods of gold, and Delphic gifts divine.Antistrophe.Haste, then, to the pleasant groves,The Muses' favourite haunt;Resume thy station in Apollo's dome,Dearer to himThan Delos, or the forked Parnassian hill!Exulting go,Since now a splendid lot is also thine,And thou art sought by my propitious friend;For there thou shalt be readWith authors of exalted note,The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome.Epode.Ye, then, my works, no longer vain,And worthless deemed by me!Whate'er this sterile genius has producedExpect, at last, the rage of envy spent,An unmolested happy home,Gift of kind Hermes, and my watchful friend,Where never flippant tongue profaneShall entrance find,And whence the coarse unlettered multitudeShall babble far remote.Perhaps some future distant age,Less tinged with prejudice, and better taught,Shall furnish minds of powerTo judge more equally.Then, malice silenced in the tomb,Cooler heads and sounder hearts,Thanks to Rouse, if aught of praiseI merit, shall with candour weigh the claim.W. Cowper.Translated from Milton.
Strophe.
My two-fold book! single in show,But double in contents,Neat, but not curiously adorned,Which, in his early youth,A poet gave, no lofty one in truth,Although an earnest wooer of the Muse—Say while in cool Ausonian shadesOr British wilds he roamed,Striking by turns his native lyre,By turns the Daunian lute,And stepped almost in air,—
Antistrophe.
Say, little book, what furtive handThee from thy fellow-books conveyed,What time, at the repeated suitOf my most learnèd friend,I sent thee forth, an honoured traveller,From our great city to the source of Thames,Caerulian sire!Where rise the fountains, and the raptures ring,Of the Aonian choir,Durable as yonder spheres,And through the endless lapse of yearsSecure to be admired?
Strophe II.
Now what God, or DemigodFor Britain's ancient Genius moved,(If our afflicted landHave expiated at length the guilty slothOf her degenerate sons)Shall terminate our impious feuds,And discipline, with hallowed voice, recall?Recall the Muses too,Driven from their ancient seatsIn Albion, and well nigh from Albion's shore,And with keen Phoebean shafts,Piercing the unseemly birds,Whose talons menace us,Shall drive the Harpy race from Helicon afar?
Antistrophe.
But thou, my book, though thou hast strayed,Whether by treachery lostOr indolent neglect, thy bearer's fault,From all thy kindred books,To some dark cell or cave forlorn,Where thou endurest, perhapsThe chafing of some hard untutored hand,Be comforted—For lo! again the splendid hope appearsThat thou mayest yet escape,The gulfs of Lethe, and on oary wingsMount to the everlasting courts of Jove!
Strophe III.
Since Rouse desires thee, and complainsThat, though by promise his,Thou yet appear'st not in thy placeAmong the literary noble stores,Given to his care,But, absent, leavest his numbers incomplete:He, therefore, guardian vigilantOf that unperishing wealth,Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge,Where he intends a richer treasure farThan Iön kept (Iön, Erectheus' sonIllustrious, of the fair Creüsa born)In the resplendent temple of his God,Tripods of gold, and Delphic gifts divine.
Antistrophe.
Haste, then, to the pleasant groves,The Muses' favourite haunt;Resume thy station in Apollo's dome,Dearer to himThan Delos, or the forked Parnassian hill!Exulting go,Since now a splendid lot is also thine,And thou art sought by my propitious friend;For there thou shalt be readWith authors of exalted note,The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome.
Epode.
Ye, then, my works, no longer vain,And worthless deemed by me!Whate'er this sterile genius has producedExpect, at last, the rage of envy spent,An unmolested happy home,Gift of kind Hermes, and my watchful friend,Where never flippant tongue profaneShall entrance find,And whence the coarse unlettered multitudeShall babble far remote.Perhaps some future distant age,Less tinged with prejudice, and better taught,Shall furnish minds of powerTo judge more equally.Then, malice silenced in the tomb,Cooler heads and sounder hearts,Thanks to Rouse, if aught of praiseI merit, shall with candour weigh the claim.
W. Cowper.Translated from Milton.
Hail! Learning's Pantheon! Hail, the sacred Ark,Where all the world of science does embark!Which ever shall withstand, and hast so long withstood,Insatiate time's devouring flood!Hail, Tree of Knowledge! thy leaves fruit! which wellDost in the midst of Paradise arise,Oxford, the Muses' Paradise!From which may never Sword the blest expel.Hail, Bank of all past ages, where they lieTo enrich with interest posterity!Hail, Wit's illustrious Galaxy,Where thousand lights into one brightness spread,Hail, living University of the Dead!Unconfused Babel of all Tongues, which e'erThe mighty linguist, Fame, or Time, the mighty traveller,That could speak or this could hear!Majestic Monument and Pyramid,Where still the shapes of parted souls abideEmbalmed in verse! exalted souls, which now,Enjoy those Arts they wooed so well below!Which now all wonders printed plainly seeThat have been, are, or are to be,In the mysterious Library,The Beatific Bodley of the Dead!Will ye into your sacred throng admitThe meanest British wit?Ye General Council of the Priests of Fame,Will ye not murmur and disdainThat I a place amongst ye claimThe humblest Deacon of her train?Will ye allow me the honourable chain?The chain of ornament, which hereYour noble prisoners proudly wear?A chain which will more pleasant seem to meThan all my own Pindaric liberty.Will ye to bind me with these mighty names submitLike an Apocrypha with Holy Writ?Whatever happy Book is chainèd here,No other place or people needs to fear;His chain's a passport to go everywhere.As when a seat in HeavenIs to an unmalicious sinner given,Who casting round his wondering EyeDoes none but Patriarchs and Apostles there espy,Martyrs who did their lives bestowAnd Saints who Martyrs lived below,With trembling and amazement he beginsTo recollect his frailties past and sins,He doubts almost his station there,His soul says to itself, 'How came I here?'It fares no otherwise with meWhen I myself with conscious wonder seeAmidst this purified elected company;With hardship they and painDid to their happiness attain.No labours I or merits can pretend;I think, Predestination only was my friend.Ah! if my author had been tied like me,To such a place and such a company,Instead of several countries, several men,And business, which the Muses hate!He might have then improved that small estateWhich Nature sparingly did to him give,He might perhaps have thriven then,And settled upon me, his child, somewhat to live;It had happier been for him, as well as me.For when all, alas, is done,We Books, I mean you Books, will prove to beThe best and noblest conversation.For though some errors will get in,Like tinctures of original sin,Yet sure we from our Father's witDraw all the strength and spirits of it,Leaving the grosser parts for conversation,As the best blood of man's employed on generation.A. Cowley.
Hail! Learning's Pantheon! Hail, the sacred Ark,Where all the world of science does embark!Which ever shall withstand, and hast so long withstood,Insatiate time's devouring flood!Hail, Tree of Knowledge! thy leaves fruit! which wellDost in the midst of Paradise arise,Oxford, the Muses' Paradise!From which may never Sword the blest expel.Hail, Bank of all past ages, where they lieTo enrich with interest posterity!Hail, Wit's illustrious Galaxy,Where thousand lights into one brightness spread,Hail, living University of the Dead!
Unconfused Babel of all Tongues, which e'erThe mighty linguist, Fame, or Time, the mighty traveller,That could speak or this could hear!Majestic Monument and Pyramid,Where still the shapes of parted souls abideEmbalmed in verse! exalted souls, which now,Enjoy those Arts they wooed so well below!Which now all wonders printed plainly seeThat have been, are, or are to be,In the mysterious Library,The Beatific Bodley of the Dead!
Will ye into your sacred throng admitThe meanest British wit?Ye General Council of the Priests of Fame,Will ye not murmur and disdainThat I a place amongst ye claimThe humblest Deacon of her train?Will ye allow me the honourable chain?The chain of ornament, which hereYour noble prisoners proudly wear?A chain which will more pleasant seem to meThan all my own Pindaric liberty.Will ye to bind me with these mighty names submitLike an Apocrypha with Holy Writ?Whatever happy Book is chainèd here,No other place or people needs to fear;His chain's a passport to go everywhere.
As when a seat in HeavenIs to an unmalicious sinner given,Who casting round his wondering EyeDoes none but Patriarchs and Apostles there espy,Martyrs who did their lives bestowAnd Saints who Martyrs lived below,With trembling and amazement he beginsTo recollect his frailties past and sins,He doubts almost his station there,His soul says to itself, 'How came I here?'It fares no otherwise with meWhen I myself with conscious wonder seeAmidst this purified elected company;With hardship they and painDid to their happiness attain.No labours I or merits can pretend;I think, Predestination only was my friend.
Ah! if my author had been tied like me,To such a place and such a company,Instead of several countries, several men,And business, which the Muses hate!He might have then improved that small estateWhich Nature sparingly did to him give,He might perhaps have thriven then,And settled upon me, his child, somewhat to live;It had happier been for him, as well as me.For when all, alas, is done,We Books, I mean you Books, will prove to beThe best and noblest conversation.For though some errors will get in,Like tinctures of original sin,Yet sure we from our Father's witDraw all the strength and spirits of it,Leaving the grosser parts for conversation,As the best blood of man's employed on generation.
A. Cowley.
Boast not, proud Golgotha, that thou canst showThe ruins of mankind and let us knowHow frail a thing is flesh! though we see thereBut empty skulls, the Rabbins still live here.They are not dead, but full of blood again,I mean the sense, and every line a vein.Triumph not o'er their dust; whoever looksIn here, shall find their brains all in their books.Nor is't old Palestine alone survives,Athens lives here, more than in Plutarch's Lives.The stones which sometimes danced unto the strainOf Orpheus, here do lodge his muse again.And you the Roman spirits, Learning hasMade your lives longer than your empire was.Caesar had perished from the world of men,Had not his sword been rescued by his pen.Rare Seneca! how lasting is thy breath!Though Nero did, thou could'st not bleed to death.How dull the expert tyrant was, to lookFor that in thee, which livèd in thy book!Afflictions turn our blood to ink, and weCommence, when writing, our eternity.Lucilius here I can behold, and seeHis counsels and his life proceed from thee.But what care I to whom thy Letters be?I change the name, and thou dost write to me;And in this age, as sad almost as thine,Thy stately Consolations are mine.Poor earth! what though thy viler dust enrollsThe frail enclosures of these mighty souls?Their graves are all upon record; not oneBut is as bright and open as the sun,And though some part of them obscurely fellAnd perished in an unknown, private cell,Yet in their books they found a glorious wayTo live unto the Resurrection-day!Most noble Bodley! we are bound to theeFor no small part of our eternity.Thy treasure was not spent on horse and hound,Nor that new mode, which doth old States confound.Thy legacies another way did go,Nor were they left to those would spend them so.Thy safe, discreet expense on us did flow;Walsam is in the midst of Oxford now.Thou hast made us all thine heirs; whatever weHereafter write, 'tis thy posterity.This is thy monument! here thou shalt standTill the times fail in their last grain of sand.And wheresoe'er thy silent relics keep,This tomb will never let thine honour sleep.Still we shall think upon thee; all our fameMeets here to speak one letter of thy name.Thou canst not die! Here thou art more than safe,Where every book is thy large epitaph.H. Vaughan.
Boast not, proud Golgotha, that thou canst showThe ruins of mankind and let us knowHow frail a thing is flesh! though we see thereBut empty skulls, the Rabbins still live here.They are not dead, but full of blood again,I mean the sense, and every line a vein.Triumph not o'er their dust; whoever looksIn here, shall find their brains all in their books.Nor is't old Palestine alone survives,Athens lives here, more than in Plutarch's Lives.The stones which sometimes danced unto the strainOf Orpheus, here do lodge his muse again.And you the Roman spirits, Learning hasMade your lives longer than your empire was.Caesar had perished from the world of men,Had not his sword been rescued by his pen.Rare Seneca! how lasting is thy breath!Though Nero did, thou could'st not bleed to death.How dull the expert tyrant was, to lookFor that in thee, which livèd in thy book!Afflictions turn our blood to ink, and weCommence, when writing, our eternity.Lucilius here I can behold, and seeHis counsels and his life proceed from thee.But what care I to whom thy Letters be?I change the name, and thou dost write to me;And in this age, as sad almost as thine,Thy stately Consolations are mine.Poor earth! what though thy viler dust enrollsThe frail enclosures of these mighty souls?Their graves are all upon record; not oneBut is as bright and open as the sun,And though some part of them obscurely fellAnd perished in an unknown, private cell,Yet in their books they found a glorious wayTo live unto the Resurrection-day!Most noble Bodley! we are bound to theeFor no small part of our eternity.Thy treasure was not spent on horse and hound,Nor that new mode, which doth old States confound.Thy legacies another way did go,Nor were they left to those would spend them so.Thy safe, discreet expense on us did flow;Walsam is in the midst of Oxford now.Thou hast made us all thine heirs; whatever weHereafter write, 'tis thy posterity.This is thy monument! here thou shalt standTill the times fail in their last grain of sand.And wheresoe'er thy silent relics keep,This tomb will never let thine honour sleep.Still we shall think upon thee; all our fameMeets here to speak one letter of thy name.Thou canst not die! Here thou art more than safe,Where every book is thy large epitaph.
H. Vaughan.
Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves—
What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.—C. Lamb.Oxford in the Vacation.
Few places affected me more than the Libraries, and especially the Bodleian Library, reputed to have half a million printed books and manuscripts. I walked solemnly and reverently among the alcoves and through the halls, as if in the pyramid of embalmed souls. It was their life, their heart, their mind, that they treasured in these book-urns. Silent as they are, should all the emotions that went to their creation have utterance, could the world itself contain the various sound? They longed for fame? Here it is—to stand silently for ages, moved only to be dusted and catalogued, valued only as units in the ambitious total, and gazed at, occasionally, by men as ignorant as I am, of their name, their place, their language, and their worth. Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw from them as from wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and the bones. A library is but the soul's burial-ground. It is the land of shadows.
Yet one is impressed with the thought, the labour, and the struggle, represented in this vast catacomb of books. Who could dream, by the placid waters that issue from the level mouths of brooks into the lake, all the plunges, thewhirls, the divisions, and foaming rushes that had brought them down to the tranquil exit? And who can guess through what channels of disturbance, and experiences of sorrow, the heart passed that has emptied into this Dead Sea of books?—Henry Ward Beecher.Star Papers.
A churchyard with a cloister running roundAnd quaint old effigies in act of prayer,And painted banners mouldering strangely thereWhere mitred prelates and grave doctors sleep,Memorials of a consecrated ground!Such is this antique room, a haunted placeWhere dead men's spirits come, and angels keepLong hours of watch with wings in silence furled.Early and late have I kept vigil here;And I have seen the moonlight shadows traceDim glories on the missal's blue and gold,The work of my scholastic sires, that toldOf quiet ages men call dark and drear,For Faith's soft light is darkness to the world.F. W. Faber.
A churchyard with a cloister running roundAnd quaint old effigies in act of prayer,And painted banners mouldering strangely thereWhere mitred prelates and grave doctors sleep,Memorials of a consecrated ground!Such is this antique room, a haunted placeWhere dead men's spirits come, and angels keepLong hours of watch with wings in silence furled.Early and late have I kept vigil here;And I have seen the moonlight shadows traceDim glories on the missal's blue and gold,The work of my scholastic sires, that toldOf quiet ages men call dark and drear,For Faith's soft light is darkness to the world.
F. W. Faber.
Quaint gloomy chamber, oldest relic leftOf monkish quiet, like a ship thy form,Stranded keel upward by some sudden storm;Now that a safe and polished age hath cleftLocks, bars and chains, that saved thy tomes from theft,May Time, a surer robber, spare thine age,And reverence each huge black-lettered page,Of real boards and gilt-stamped leather reft.Long may ambitious students here unsealThe secret mysteries of classic lore;Though urged not by that blind and aimless zealWith which the Scot within these walls of yoreTranscribed the Bible without breaking fast,Toiled through each word and perished at the last.J. B. Norton.
Quaint gloomy chamber, oldest relic leftOf monkish quiet, like a ship thy form,Stranded keel upward by some sudden storm;Now that a safe and polished age hath cleftLocks, bars and chains, that saved thy tomes from theft,May Time, a surer robber, spare thine age,And reverence each huge black-lettered page,Of real boards and gilt-stamped leather reft.Long may ambitious students here unsealThe secret mysteries of classic lore;Though urged not by that blind and aimless zealWith which the Scot within these walls of yoreTranscribed the Bible without breaking fast,Toiled through each word and perished at the last.
J. B. Norton.
About the august and ancientSquare,Cries the wild wind; and through the air,The blue night air, blows keen and chill:Else, all the night sleeps, all is still.Now, the loneSquareis blind with gloom:Now, on that clustering chestnut bloom,A cloudy moonlight plays, and fallsIn glory uponBodley'swalls:Now, wildlier yet, while moonlight pales,Storm the tumultuary gales.O rare divinity of Night!Season of undisturbed delight:Glad interspace of day and day!Without, a world of winds at play:Within, I hear what dead friends say.Blow, winds! and round that perfectDome,Wail as you will, and sweep, and roam:AboveSaint Mary'scarven home,Struggle, and smite to your desireThe sainted watchers on her spire:Or in the distance vex your powerUpon mine ownNew Collegetower:You hurt not these! On me and mine,Clear candlelights in quiet shine:My fire lives yet! nor have I doneWithSmollett, nor withRichardson:With, gentlest of the martyrs!Lamb,Whose lover I, long lover, am:WithGray, whose gracious spirit knewThe sorrows of art's lonely few:WithFielding, great, and strong, and tall;Sterne, exquisite, equivocal;Goldsmith, the dearest of them all:WhileAddison'sdemure delightsTurnOxford, intoAttic, nights.StillTrimandParson AdamskeepMe better company, than sleep:Dark sleep, who loves not me; nor ILove well her nightly death to die,And in her haunted chapels lie.Sleep wins me not: but from his shelfBrings me each wit his very self:Beside my chair the great ghosts throng,Each tells his story, sings his song:And in the ruddy fire I traceThe curves of eachAugustanface.I sit atDoctor Primrose'board:I hearBeau Tibbsdiscuss a lord.Mine,Matthew Bramble'spleasant wrath;Mine, all the humours of theBath.Sir Rogerand theMan in BlackBring me theGolden Agesback.Now whiteClarissameets her fate,With virgin will inviolate:NowLovelacewins me with a smile,Lovelace, adorable and vile.I taste, in slow alternate way,Letters ofLamb, letters ofGray:Nor lives there, beneath Oxford towers,More joy, than in my silent hours.Dream, who love dreams! forget all grief:Find, in sleep's nothingness, relief:Better my dreams! Dear, human books,With kindly voices, winning looks!Enchaunt me with your spells of art,And draw me homeward to your heart:Till weariness and things unkindSeem but a vain and passing wind:Till the grey morning slowly creepUpward, and rouse the birds from sleep:TillOxfordbells the silence break,And find me happier, for your sake.Then, with the dawn of common day,Rest you! But I, upon my way,What the fates bring, will cheerlier do,In days not yours, through thoughts of you!L. Johnson.
About the august and ancientSquare,Cries the wild wind; and through the air,The blue night air, blows keen and chill:Else, all the night sleeps, all is still.Now, the loneSquareis blind with gloom:Now, on that clustering chestnut bloom,A cloudy moonlight plays, and fallsIn glory uponBodley'swalls:Now, wildlier yet, while moonlight pales,Storm the tumultuary gales.O rare divinity of Night!Season of undisturbed delight:Glad interspace of day and day!Without, a world of winds at play:Within, I hear what dead friends say.Blow, winds! and round that perfectDome,Wail as you will, and sweep, and roam:AboveSaint Mary'scarven home,Struggle, and smite to your desireThe sainted watchers on her spire:Or in the distance vex your powerUpon mine ownNew Collegetower:You hurt not these! On me and mine,Clear candlelights in quiet shine:My fire lives yet! nor have I doneWithSmollett, nor withRichardson:With, gentlest of the martyrs!Lamb,Whose lover I, long lover, am:WithGray, whose gracious spirit knewThe sorrows of art's lonely few:WithFielding, great, and strong, and tall;Sterne, exquisite, equivocal;Goldsmith, the dearest of them all:WhileAddison'sdemure delightsTurnOxford, intoAttic, nights.StillTrimandParson AdamskeepMe better company, than sleep:Dark sleep, who loves not me; nor ILove well her nightly death to die,And in her haunted chapels lie.Sleep wins me not: but from his shelfBrings me each wit his very self:Beside my chair the great ghosts throng,Each tells his story, sings his song:And in the ruddy fire I traceThe curves of eachAugustanface.I sit atDoctor Primrose'board:I hearBeau Tibbsdiscuss a lord.Mine,Matthew Bramble'spleasant wrath;Mine, all the humours of theBath.Sir Rogerand theMan in BlackBring me theGolden Agesback.Now whiteClarissameets her fate,With virgin will inviolate:NowLovelacewins me with a smile,Lovelace, adorable and vile.I taste, in slow alternate way,Letters ofLamb, letters ofGray:Nor lives there, beneath Oxford towers,More joy, than in my silent hours.Dream, who love dreams! forget all grief:Find, in sleep's nothingness, relief:Better my dreams! Dear, human books,With kindly voices, winning looks!Enchaunt me with your spells of art,And draw me homeward to your heart:Till weariness and things unkindSeem but a vain and passing wind:Till the grey morning slowly creepUpward, and rouse the birds from sleep:TillOxfordbells the silence break,And find me happier, for your sake.Then, with the dawn of common day,Rest you! But I, upon my way,What the fates bring, will cheerlier do,In days not yours, through thoughts of you!
L. Johnson.
In that great maze of books I sighed, and said,—'It is a grave-yard, and each tome a tomb;Shrouded in hempen rags, behold the dead,Coffined and ranged in crypts of dismal gloom,—Food for the worm and redolent of mould,Traced with brief epitaph in tarnished gold.'—Ah, golden-lettered hope!—Ah, dolorous doom!Yet, mid the common death, when all is cold,And mildewed pride in desolation dwells,A few great Immortalities of oldStand brightly forth;—not tombs but living shrines,Where from high saint or martyr virtue wells,Which on the living yet works miracles,Spreading a relic wealth, richer than golden mines.J. M.
In that great maze of books I sighed, and said,—'It is a grave-yard, and each tome a tomb;Shrouded in hempen rags, behold the dead,Coffined and ranged in crypts of dismal gloom,—Food for the worm and redolent of mould,Traced with brief epitaph in tarnished gold.'—Ah, golden-lettered hope!—Ah, dolorous doom!Yet, mid the common death, when all is cold,And mildewed pride in desolation dwells,A few great Immortalities of oldStand brightly forth;—not tombs but living shrines,Where from high saint or martyr virtue wells,Which on the living yet works miracles,Spreading a relic wealth, richer than golden mines.
J. M.
Books looked on as to their readers or authors do at the very first mention challenge pre-eminence above the world's admired fine things. Books are the glass of council to dress ourselves by. They are life's best business: vocation to these hath more emolument coming in than all the other busy terms of life. They are fee-less councillors, no delaying patrons, of easy access, and kind expedition, never sending away empty any client or petitioner. They are for company the best friends; in doubts, counsellors; in damp, comforters; Time's perspective; the home traveller's ship, or horse, the busy man's best recreation; the opiate of idle weariness; the mind's best ordinary; Nature's garden and seed-plot of Immortality. Time spent, needlessly, from them is consumed, but with them twice gained. Time captivated and snatched from thee by incursions of business, thefts of visitants, or by thy own carelessness lost, is by these redeemed in life; they are the soul's viaticum; and against death its cordial. In a true verdict, no such treasure as a library.—B. Whitelocke.