Resolve you, doctors,Baconcan by booksMake stormingBoreasthunder from his cave,And dim fairLunato a dark Eclipse.The great arch-ruler, potentate of hell,Trembles, whenBaconbids him, or his fiends,Bow to the force of his Pentageron.What art can work, the frolic friar knows,And therefore will I turn my Magic books,And strain out Necromancy to the deep.I have contrived and framed a head of brass(I madeBelcephonhammer out the stuff),And that by art shall read Philosophy:And I will strengthenEnglandby my skill,That if tenCaesarslived and reigned inRome,With all the legionsEuropedoth contain,They should not touch a grasse of English ground:The work thatNinusreared atBabylon,The brazen walls framed bySemiramis,Carved out like to the portal of the sun,Shall not be such as rings theEnglishstrandFromDoverto the market place ofRye.R. Greene.The Honourable History ofFriar Bacon and Friar Bungay.
Resolve you, doctors,Baconcan by booksMake stormingBoreasthunder from his cave,And dim fairLunato a dark Eclipse.The great arch-ruler, potentate of hell,Trembles, whenBaconbids him, or his fiends,Bow to the force of his Pentageron.What art can work, the frolic friar knows,And therefore will I turn my Magic books,And strain out Necromancy to the deep.I have contrived and framed a head of brass(I madeBelcephonhammer out the stuff),And that by art shall read Philosophy:And I will strengthenEnglandby my skill,That if tenCaesarslived and reigned inRome,With all the legionsEuropedoth contain,They should not touch a grasse of English ground:The work thatNinusreared atBabylon,The brazen walls framed bySemiramis,Carved out like to the portal of the sun,Shall not be such as rings theEnglishstrandFromDoverto the market place ofRye.
R. Greene.The Honourable History ofFriar Bacon and Friar Bungay.
'Tis a custom with himI' the afternoon to sleep: there thou may'st brain him,Having first seized his books; or with a logBatter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,Or cut his wezand with thy knife. RememberFirst to possess his books; for without themHe's but a sot, as I am, nor hath notOne spirit to command: they all do hate himAs rootedly as I. Burn but his books.W. Shakespeare.The Tempest.
'Tis a custom with himI' the afternoon to sleep: there thou may'st brain him,Having first seized his books; or with a logBatter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,Or cut his wezand with thy knife. RememberFirst to possess his books; for without themHe's but a sot, as I am, nor hath notOne spirit to command: they all do hate himAs rootedly as I. Burn but his books.
W. Shakespeare.The Tempest.
Smith.The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read and cast accompt.
Cade.O monstrous!
Smith.We took him setting of boys' copies.
Cade.Here's a villain!
Smith.Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.
Cade.Nay, then, he is a conjurer.
W. Shakespeare.Second Part of King Henry the Sixth.
W. Shakespeare.Second Part of King Henry the Sixth.
Youread the book, my pretty Vivien!O aye, it is but twenty pages long,But every page having an ample marge,And every marge enclosing in the midstA square of text that looks a little blot,The text no larger than the limbs of fleas;And every square of text an awful charm,Writ in a language that has long gone by.So long, that mountains have arisen sinceWith cities on their flanks—youread the book!And every margin scribbled, crost, and crammedWith comment, densest condensation, hardTo mind and eye; but the long sleepless nightsOf my long life have made it easy to me.And none can read the text, not even I;And none can read the comment but myself;And in the comment did I find the charm.Lord Tennyson.Idylls of the King: Vivien.
Youread the book, my pretty Vivien!O aye, it is but twenty pages long,But every page having an ample marge,And every marge enclosing in the midstA square of text that looks a little blot,The text no larger than the limbs of fleas;And every square of text an awful charm,Writ in a language that has long gone by.So long, that mountains have arisen sinceWith cities on their flanks—youread the book!And every margin scribbled, crost, and crammedWith comment, densest condensation, hardTo mind and eye; but the long sleepless nightsOf my long life have made it easy to me.And none can read the text, not even I;And none can read the comment but myself;And in the comment did I find the charm.
Lord Tennyson.Idylls of the King: Vivien.
Fast bind, fast find: my Bible was well bound;A Thief came fast, and loose my Bible found:Was't bound and loose at once? how can that be?'Twas loose for him, although 'twas bound for me.J. Taylor.
Fast bind, fast find: my Bible was well bound;A Thief came fast, and loose my Bible found:Was't bound and loose at once? how can that be?'Twas loose for him, although 'twas bound for me.
J. Taylor.
Read the Scriptures, which Hyperius holds available of itself; 'the mind is erected thereby from all worldly cares, and hath much quiet and tranquillity.' For, as Austin well hath it, 'tisscientia scientiarum, omni melle dulcior, omni pane suavior, omni vino hilarior: 'tis the best nepenthe, surest cordial, sweetest alterative, presentest diverter: for neither as Chrysostom well adds, 'those boughs and leaves of trees which are plashed for cattle to stand under, in the heat of the day, in summer, so much refresh them with their acceptable shade, as the reading of the Scripture doth recreate and comfort a distressed soul, in sorrow and affliction.' Paul bids us 'pray continually';quod cibus corpori, lectio animae facit, saith Seneca, 'as meat is to the body, such is reading to the soul.' 'To be at leisure without books is another hell, and to be buried alive.' Cardan calls a library the physic of the soul; 'Divine authors fortify the mind, make men bold and constant'; and (as Hyperius adds) 'godly conference will not permit the mind to be tortured with absurd cogitations.'—R. Burton.The Anatomy of Melancholy.
O Book! Life's guide! how shall we part,And thou so long seized of my heart?Take this last kiss; and let me weepTrue thanks to thee before I sleep.Thou wert the first put in my handWhen yet I could not understand,And daily didst my young eyes leadTo letters, till I learnt to read.But as rash youths, when once grown strong,Fly from their nurses to the throng,Where they new consorts choose, and stickTo those till either hurt or sick;So with the first light gained from theeRan I in chase of vanity,Cried dross for gold, and never thoughtMy first cheap book had all I sought.Long reigned this vogue; and thou cast by,With meek, dumb looks didst woo mine eye,And oft left open would'st conveyA sudden and most searching rayInto my soul, with whose quick touchRefining still, I struggled much.By this mild art of love at lengthThou overcam'st my sinful strength,And having brought me home, didst thereShow me that pearl I sought elsewhere,—Gladness, and peace, and hope, and love,The secret favours of the Dove;Her quickening kindness, smiles, and kisses,Exalted pleasures, crowning blisses,Fruition, union, glory, life,Thou didst lead to, and still all strife.Living, thou wert my soul's sure ease,And dying mak'st me go in peace:—Thy next effects no tongue can tell;Farewell, O Book of God! farewell!H. Vaughan.
O Book! Life's guide! how shall we part,And thou so long seized of my heart?Take this last kiss; and let me weepTrue thanks to thee before I sleep.
Thou wert the first put in my handWhen yet I could not understand,And daily didst my young eyes leadTo letters, till I learnt to read.
But as rash youths, when once grown strong,Fly from their nurses to the throng,Where they new consorts choose, and stickTo those till either hurt or sick;So with the first light gained from theeRan I in chase of vanity,Cried dross for gold, and never thoughtMy first cheap book had all I sought.Long reigned this vogue; and thou cast by,With meek, dumb looks didst woo mine eye,And oft left open would'st conveyA sudden and most searching rayInto my soul, with whose quick touchRefining still, I struggled much.By this mild art of love at lengthThou overcam'st my sinful strength,And having brought me home, didst thereShow me that pearl I sought elsewhere,—Gladness, and peace, and hope, and love,The secret favours of the Dove;Her quickening kindness, smiles, and kisses,Exalted pleasures, crowning blisses,Fruition, union, glory, life,Thou didst lead to, and still all strife.Living, thou wert my soul's sure ease,And dying mak'st me go in peace:—Thy next effects no tongue can tell;Farewell, O Book of God! farewell!
H. Vaughan.
'Tis but a folly to rejoice or boastHow small a price thy well-bought Pen'worth cost:Until thy death thou shalt not fully knowWhether thy purchase be good cheap, or no;And at that day, believe 't, it will appearIf not extremely cheap, extremely dear.F. Quarles.Divine Fancies.
'Tis but a folly to rejoice or boastHow small a price thy well-bought Pen'worth cost:Until thy death thou shalt not fully knowWhether thy purchase be good cheap, or no;And at that day, believe 't, it will appearIf not extremely cheap, extremely dear.
F. Quarles.Divine Fancies.
Read the most useful books, and that regularly, and constantly. Steadily spend all the morning in this employ, or, at least, five hours in four-and-twenty.
'But I read only the Bible.' Then you ought to teach others to read only the Bible, and, by parity of reason, to hear only the Bible. But if so, you need preach no more.'Just so,' said George Bell. 'And what is the fruit? Why, now he neither reads the Bible, nor anything else. This is rank enthusiasm.' If you need no book but the Bible, you are got above St. Paul. He wanted others too. 'Bring the books,' says he, 'but especially the parchments,' those wrote on parchment. 'But I have no taste for reading.' Contract a taste for it by use, or return to your trade.—J. Wesley.Minutes of Some Late Conversations.
I want to know one thing,—the way to heaven; how to land safe on the happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach me the way. For this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me the book! At any price, give me the book of God. I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me behomo unius libri. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone; only God is here. In His presence I open, I read His book.... And what I thus learn, that I teach.—J. Wesley.Preface to Sermons.
When St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best become learned, he answered, 'By reading one book.' Thehomo unius libriis indeed proverbially formidable to all conversational figurantes.—R. Southey.The Doctor.
I remember he alleged many a scripture, but those I valued not; the scriptures, thought I, what are they? A dead letter, a little ink and paper, of three or four shillings price. Alas! What is the scripture? Give me a ballad, a news-book, George on horseback, or Bevis of Southampton; give me some book that teaches curious arts, that tells of old fables; but for the holy scriptures I cared not.—J. Bunyan.Sighs from Hell.
I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgement and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as thePilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, incomparably the bestsumma theologiae evangelicaeever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.
This wonderful work is one of the few books which may be read repeatedly at different times, and each time with a new and different pleasure. I read it once as a theologian—and let me assure you that there is great theological acumen in the work—once with devotional feelings—and once as a poet. I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colours....
ThePilgrim's Progressis composed in the lowest style of English, without slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.—S. T. Coleridge.Table Talk.
I would have you every morning read a portion of the Holy Scriptures, till you have read the Bible from the beginning to the end: observe it well, read it reverently and attentively, set your heart upon it, and lay it up in your memory and make it the direction of your life: it will make you a wise and a good man. I have been acquainted somewhat with men and books, and have had long experience in learning, and in the world: there is no book like the Bible for excellent learning, wisdom, and use; and it is want of understanding in them that think or speak otherwise.—Sir M. Hale.A Letter to one of his Sons, after his recovery from the Smallpox.
What household thoughts around thee, as their shrine,Cling reverently!—of anxious looks beguiled,My mother's eyes, upon thy page divine,Each day were bent—her accents gravely mild,Breathed out thy love: whilst I, a dreamy child,Wandered on breeze-like fancies oft away,To some lone tuft of gleaming spring-flowers wild,Some fresh-discovered nook for woodland play,Some secret nest: yet would the solemn WordAt times, with kindlings of young wonder heard,Fall on my wakened spirit, there to beA seed not lost:—for which, in darker years,O Book of Heaven! I pour, with grateful tears,Heart blessings on the holy dead and thee!Felicia D. Hemans.
What household thoughts around thee, as their shrine,Cling reverently!—of anxious looks beguiled,My mother's eyes, upon thy page divine,Each day were bent—her accents gravely mild,Breathed out thy love: whilst I, a dreamy child,Wandered on breeze-like fancies oft away,To some lone tuft of gleaming spring-flowers wild,Some fresh-discovered nook for woodland play,Some secret nest: yet would the solemn WordAt times, with kindlings of young wonder heard,Fall on my wakened spirit, there to beA seed not lost:—for which, in darker years,O Book of Heaven! I pour, with grateful tears,Heart blessings on the holy dead and thee!
Felicia D. Hemans.
No man was a greater lover of books than he [Shelley]. He was rarely to be seen, unless attending to other people's affairs, without a volume of some sort, generally of Plato or one of the Greek tragedians. Nor will those who understand the real spirit of his scepticism, be surprised to hear that one of his companions was the Bible. He valued it for the beauty of some of its contents, for the dignity of others, and the curiosity of all; though the philosophy of Solomon he thought tooEpicurean, and the inconsistencies of other parts afflicted him. His favourite part was the book of Job, which he thought the grandest of tragedies. He projected founding one of his own upon it; and I will undertake to say, that Job would have sat in that tragedy with a patience and profundity of thought worthy of the original. Being asked on one occasion, what book he would save for himself if he could save no other? he answered, 'The oldest book, the Bible.'—J. H. Leigh Hunt.My Books.
Precious temporal things are growing [in these years of peace]; priceless spiritual things. We know the Shakespeare Dramaturgy; the Rare-Ben and Elder-Dramatist affair; which has now reached its culmination. Yes; and precisely when the Wit-combats at the Mermaid are waning somewhat, and our Shakespeare is about packing up for Stratford,—there comes out another very priceless thing; a correct Translation of the Bible; that which we still use. Priceless enough this latter; of importance unspeakable! Reynolds and Chadderton petitioned for it, at the Hampton-Court Conference, long since; and now, in 1611, by labour of Reynolds, Chadderton, Dr. Abbot, and other prodigiously learned and earnest persons, 'forty-seven in number,' it comes out beautifully printed; dedicated to the Dread Sovereign; really in part a benefit of his to us. And so we have it here to read, that Book of Books: 'barbarous enough to rouse, tender enough to assuage, and possessing how many other properties,' says Goethe;—possessing this property, inclusive of all, add we, That it is written under the eye of the Eternal; that it is of a Sincerity like very Death; the truest Utterance that ever came by Alphabetic Letters from the Soul of Man. Through which, as through a window divinely opened, all men could look, and can still look, beyond the visual Air-firmaments and mysterious Time-oceans, into the Light-sea of Infinitude, into the stillness of Eternity; and discern in glimpses, with such emotions and practical suggestions as there may be, their far-distant, longforgotten Home.—T. Carlyle.Historical Sketches.
What can we imagine more proper for the ornaments of wit and learning in the story of Deucalion than in that of Noah? Why will not the actions of Samson afford as plentiful matter as the labours of Hercules? Why is not Jephthah's daughter as good a woman as Iphigenia? and the friendship of David and Jonathan more worthy celebration than that of Theseus and Pirithous? Does not the passage of Moses and the Israelites into the Holy Landyield incomparably more poetic variety than the voyages of Ulysses or Aeneas? Are the obsolete, threadbare tales of Thebes and Troy half so stored with great, heroical, and supernatural actions (since verse will needs find or make such) as the wars of Joshua, of the Judges, of David, and divers others?... All the books of the Bible are either already most admirable and exalted pieces of poesy, or are the best material in the world for it.—A. Cowley.Preface to Davideis.
Let those who will, hang rapturously o'erThe flowing eloquence of Plato's page,Repeat, with flashing eye, the sounds that pourFrom Homer's verse as with a torrent's rage;Let those who list, ask Tully to assuageWild hearts with high-wrought periods, and restoreThe reign of rhetoric; or maxims sageWinnow from Seneca's sententious lore.Not these, but Judah's hallowed bards, to meAre dear: Isaiah's noble energy;The temperate grief of Job; the artless strainOf Ruth and pastoral Amos; the high songsOf David; and the tale of Joseph's wrongs,Simply pathetic, eloquently plain.Sir Aubrey de Vere.
Let those who will, hang rapturously o'erThe flowing eloquence of Plato's page,Repeat, with flashing eye, the sounds that pourFrom Homer's verse as with a torrent's rage;Let those who list, ask Tully to assuageWild hearts with high-wrought periods, and restoreThe reign of rhetoric; or maxims sageWinnow from Seneca's sententious lore.Not these, but Judah's hallowed bards, to meAre dear: Isaiah's noble energy;The temperate grief of Job; the artless strainOf Ruth and pastoral Amos; the high songsOf David; and the tale of Joseph's wrongs,Simply pathetic, eloquently plain.
Sir Aubrey de Vere.
It is your lordship's observation, that if it were not for the Bible and Common Prayer Book in the vulgar tongue, we should hardly be able to understand anything that was written among us a hundred years ago; which is certainly true: for those books, being perpetually read in churches, have proved a kind of standard for language, especially to the common people.... As to the greatest parts of our liturgy, compiled long before the translation of the Bible now in use, and little altered since, these seem to be in as great strains of true sublime eloquence as are anywhere to be found in our language.—J. Swift.A proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining the English Tongue(Letter to the Earl of Oxford).
... He [the translator of Homer] will find one English book and one only, where, as in theIliaditself, perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness; and that book is the Bible. No one could see this more clearly than Pope saw it: 'This pure and noble simplicity,' he says, 'is nowhere in such perfection as in the Scripture and Homer': yet even with Pope a woman is a 'fair', a father is a 'sire', and an old man a 'reverend sage', and so on through all the phrases of that pseudo-Augustan, and most unbiblical, vocabulary. The Bible, however, is undoubtedly the grand mine of diction for the translator of Homer; and, if he knows how to discriminate truly between what will suit him and what will not, the Bible may afford him also invaluable lessons of style.—M. Arnold.On Translating Homer.
Who will say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy in this country? It lives on in the ear, like a music that never can be forgotten, like the sound of church bells which the convert hardly knows how he can forgo. Its felicities seem often to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of the national seriousness.... Nay, it is worshipped with a positive idolatry, in extenuation of whose grotesque fanaticism its intrinsic beauty pleads availingly with the man of letters and the scholar. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him for ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing which doubt never dimmed and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant, with one spark of religiousness about him, whose spiritual biography is not his Saxon Bible.—F. W. Faber.The Interest and Characteristics of the Lives of the Saints.
Search Scotland over, from the Pentland to the Solway, and there is not a cottage-hut so poor and wretched as to be without its Bible; and hardly one that, on the same shelf, and next to it, does not treasure a Burns. Have the people degenerated since their adoption of this new manual? Has their attachment to the Book of Books declined? Are their hearts less firmly bound, than were their fathers', to the old faith and the old virtues? I believe he that knows the most of the country will be the readiest to answer all these questions, as every lover of genius and virtue would desire to hear them answered.... Extraordinary ... has been the unanimity of his critics. While differing widely in their estimates of his character andmorale, they have, without a single exception, expressed a lofty idea of his powers of mind and of the excellence of his poetry. Here, as on the subject of Shakespeare, and on scarcely any other, have Whigs and Tories, Infidels and Christians, bigoted Scotchmen and bigoted sons of John Bull, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the prosaic and the enthusiastic lovers of poetry, the strait-laced and the morally lax, met and embraced each other.—J. G. Lockhart.Life of Burns.
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,They round the ingle form a circle wide;The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,The big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride:The priest-like father reads the sacred page,How Abram was the friend of God on high;Or Moses bade eternal warfare wageWith Amalek's ungracious progeny;Or how the royal Bard did groaning lieBeneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.R. Burns.The Cotter's Saturday Night.
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,They round the ingle form a circle wide;The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,The big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride:
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,How Abram was the friend of God on high;Or Moses bade eternal warfare wageWith Amalek's ungracious progeny;Or how the royal Bard did groaning lieBeneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
R. Burns.The Cotter's Saturday Night.
She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and, in the ardour of first discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived—how could she until she had lived longer?—the inmost truth of the old monk's outpourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems—of mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul's belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message.
I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a bookstall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart's prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust and triumph—not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations: the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced—in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours—but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness.—G. Eliot.The Mill on the Floss.
Scotland.
The globe we inhabit is divisible into two worlds; one hardly less tangible, and far more known than the other,—the common geographical world, and the world of books; and the latter may be as geographically set forth. A man of letters, conversant with poetry and romance, might draw out a very curious map, in which this world of books should be delineated and filled up, to the delight of all genuine readers, as truly as that in Guthrie or Pinkerton. To give a specimen, and begin with Scotland,—Scotland would not be the mere territory it is, with a scale of so many miles to a degree, and such and such a population. Who (except a patriot or cosmopolite) cares for the miles or the men, or knows that they exist, in any degree of consciousness with which he cares for the never-dying population of books? How many generations of men have passed away, and will pass, in Ayrshire or Dumfries, and not all the myriads be as interesting to us as a single Burns? What have we known of them, or shall ever know, whether lairds, lords, or ladies, in comparison with the inspired ploughman? But we know of the bards and the lasses, and the places which he has recorded in song; we know the scene of 'Tam o' Shanter's' exploit; we know the pastoral landscapes ... and the scenes immortalized in Walter Scott and the old ballads; and, therefore, the book-map of Scotland would present us with the most prominent of these. We should have the Border, with its banditti, towns, and woods; Tweedside, Melrose, and Roslin, 'Edina,' otherwise called Edinburgh and Auld Reekie, or the town of Hume, Robertson, and others; Woodhouselee, and other classical and haunted places; the bower built by the fair hands of 'Bessie Bell' and 'Mary Gray'; the farm-houses of Burns's friends; the scenes of his loves and sorrows; the land of 'Old Mortality', of the 'Gentle Shepherd', and of 'Ossian'. The Highlands, and the great blue billowy domains of heather, would be distinctly marked out, in their most poetical regions; and we should have the tracks of Ben Jonson to Hawthornden, of 'Rob Roy' to his hiding-places, and of 'Jeanie Deans'towards England. Abbotsford, be sure, would not be left out; nor the house of the 'Antiquary'—almost as real a man as his author. Nor is this all: for we should have older Scotland, the Scotland of James the First, and of 'Peeblis at the Play', and Gawin Douglas, and Bruce, and Wallace; we should have older Scotland still, the Scotland of Ariosto, with his tale of 'Ginevra', and the new 'Andromeda', delivered from the sea-monster at the Isle of Ebuda (the Hebrides); and there would be the residence of the famous 'Launcelot of the Lake', at Berwick, called the Joyeuse Garde, and other ancient sites of chivalry and romance; nor should the nightingale be left out in 'Ginevra's' bower, for Ariosto has put it there, and there, accordingly, it is and has been heard, let ornithology say what it will; for what ornithologist knows so much of the nightingale as a poet? We would have an inscription put on the spot—'Here the nightingale sings, contrary to what has been affirmed by White and others.' This is the Scotland of books, and a beautiful place it is. I will venture to affirm, Sir, even to yourself, that it is a more beautiful place than the other Scotland, always excepting to an exile or a lover.
England.
Book-England, on the map, would shine as the Albion of the old Giants; as the 'Logres' of the Knights of the Round Table; as the scene of Amadis of Gaul, with itsislandof Windsor; as the abode of fairies, of the Druids, of the divine Countess of Coventry, of Guy, Earl of Warwick, of 'Alfred' (whose reality was a romance), of the Fair Rosamond, of theArcadesandComus, of Chaucer and Spenser, of the poets of the Globe and the Mermaid, the wits of Twickenham and Hampton Court. Fleet Street would be Johnson's Fleet Street; the Tower would belong to Julius Caesar; and Blackfriars to Suckling, Vandyke, and theDunciad. Chronology and the mixture of truth and fiction, that is to say, of one sort of truth and another, would come to nothing in a work of this kind; for, as it has been before observed, things are real in proportion as they are impressive. And who has not as 'gross, open, and palpable' an idea of 'Falstaff' in Eastcheap, as of'Captain Grose' himself, beating up his quarters? A map of fictitious, literary, and historical London, would, of itself, constitute a great curiosity.
Ireland.
Swift speaks of maps, in which they
Place elephants for want of towns.
Place elephants for want of towns.
Here would be towns and elephants too, the popular and the prodigious. How much would not Swift do for Ireland, in this geography of wit and talent! What a figure would not St. Patrick's Cathedral make! The other day, mention was made of a 'Dean of St. Patrick's'now living; as if there was, or ever could be, more than one Dean of St. Patrick's! In the Irish maps we should have the Saint himself driving out all venomous creatures (what a pity that the most venomous retain a property as absentees!); and there would be the old Irish kings, and O'Donoghue with his White Horse, and the lady of the 'gold wand' who made the miraculous virgin pilgrimage, and all the other marvels of lakes and ladies, and the Round Towers still remaining to perplex the antiquary, and Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village', and Goldsmith himself, and the birthplaces of Steele and Sterne, and the brief hour of poor Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Carolan with his harp, and the schools of the poor Latin boys under the hedges, and Castle Rackrent, and Edgeworth's-town, and the Giant's Causeway, and Ginleas and other classical poverties, and Spenser's castle on the river Mulla, with the wood-gods whom his pipe drew round him.—J. H. Leigh Hunt.The World of Books.
Tom Coryat, I have seen thy Crudities,And, methinks, very strangely brewed—it isWith piece and patch together glued—it isAnd how, like thee, ill-favoured hued—it isIn many lines I see that lewd—it isAnd therefore fit to be subdued—it isWithin thy broiling brain-pan stewed—it isAnd 'twixt thy grinding jaws well chewed—it isWithin thy stomach closely mewed—it isAnd last, in Court and Country spewed—it isBut now by wisdom's eye that viewed—it isThey all agree that very rude—it isWith foolery so full endued—it isThat wondrously by fools pursued—it isAs sweet as gall's amaritude—it isAnd seeming full of pulchritude—it isBut more to write, but to intrude—it isAnd therefore wisdom to conclude—it is.J. Taylor.The World's Eighth Wonder.
Tom Coryat, I have seen thy Crudities,And, methinks, very strangely brewed—it isWith piece and patch together glued—it isAnd how, like thee, ill-favoured hued—it isIn many lines I see that lewd—it isAnd therefore fit to be subdued—it is
Within thy broiling brain-pan stewed—it isAnd 'twixt thy grinding jaws well chewed—it isWithin thy stomach closely mewed—it isAnd last, in Court and Country spewed—it isBut now by wisdom's eye that viewed—it isThey all agree that very rude—it isWith foolery so full endued—it is
That wondrously by fools pursued—it isAs sweet as gall's amaritude—it isAnd seeming full of pulchritude—it isBut more to write, but to intrude—it isAnd therefore wisdom to conclude—it is.
J. Taylor.The World's Eighth Wonder.
I've thought very often 'twould be a good thingIn all public collections of books, if a wingWere set off by itself, like the seas from the dry lands,MarkedLiterature suited to desolate islands,And filled with such books as could never be readSave by readers of proofs, forced to do it for bread,—Such books as one's wrecked on in small country taverns,Such as hermits might mortify over in caverns,Such as Satan, if printing had then been invented,As a climax of woe, would to Job have presented,Such as Crusoe might dip in, although there are few soOutrageously cornered by fate as poor Crusoe;I propose to shut up every doer of wrongWith these desperate books, for such term, short or long,As by statute in such cases made and provided,Shall be by you wise legislators decided.J. R. Lowell.A Fable for Critics.
I've thought very often 'twould be a good thingIn all public collections of books, if a wingWere set off by itself, like the seas from the dry lands,MarkedLiterature suited to desolate islands,And filled with such books as could never be readSave by readers of proofs, forced to do it for bread,—Such books as one's wrecked on in small country taverns,Such as hermits might mortify over in caverns,Such as Satan, if printing had then been invented,As a climax of woe, would to Job have presented,Such as Crusoe might dip in, although there are few soOutrageously cornered by fate as poor Crusoe;
I propose to shut up every doer of wrongWith these desperate books, for such term, short or long,As by statute in such cases made and provided,Shall be by you wise legislators decided.
J. R. Lowell.A Fable for Critics.
I have sometimes heard of an Iliad in a nutshell; but it has been my fortune to have much oftener seen a nutshell in an Iliad.—J. Swift.A Tale of a Tub.
I am sure that if Madame de Sablé lived now, books would be seen in her salon as part of its natural indispensable furniture; not brought out, and strewed here and there when 'company was coming', but as habitual presences in her room, wanting which, she would want a sense of warmth and comfort and companionship. Putting out books as a sort of preparation for an evening, as a means for making it pass agreeably, is running a great risk. In the first place, books are by such people, and on such occasions, chosen more for their outside than their inside. And in the next, they are the 'mere material with which wisdom (or wit) builds'; and if persons don't know how to use the material, they will suggest nothing. I imagine Madame de Sablé would have the volumes she herself was reading, or those which, being new, contained any matter of present interest, left about, as they would naturally be. I could also fancy that her guests would not feel bound to talk continually, whether they had anything to say or not, but that there might be pauses of not unpleasant silence—a quiet darkness out of which they might be certain that the little stars would glimmer soon. I can believe that in such pauses of repose, some one might open a book, and catch on a suggestive sentence, might dash off again into a full flow of conversation. But I cannot fancy any grand preparations for what was to be said among people, each of whom brought the best dish in bringing himself; and whose own store of living, individual thought and feeling, and mother-wit, would be infinitely better than any cut-and-dry determination to devote the evening to mutual improvement. If people are really good and wise, their goodness and their wisdom flow out unconsciously, and benefit like sunlight. So, books for reference, books for impromptu suggestion, but never books to serve for texts to a lecture.—Elizabeth C. Gaskell.Company Manners.
Far more seemly were it for thee to have thy study full of books, than thy purse full of money.—J. Lyly.Euphues.
To Sir H. G.
Sir,—This letter hath more merits than one of more diligence, for I wrote it in bed, and with much pain. I have occasion to sit late some nights in my study (which your books make a pretty library) and now I find that that room hath a wholesome emblematic use: for having under it a vault, I make that promise me that I shall die reading; since my book and a grave are so near.—John Donne.Letters to Several Persons of Honour.
That place, that does containMy books, the best companions, is to meA glorious court, where hourly I converseWith the old sages and philosophers.And sometimes, for variety, I conferWith kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;Calling their victories, if unjustly got,Unto a strict account: and in my fancy,Deface their ill-planned statues. Can I thenPart with such constant pleasures, to embraceUncertain vanities? No: be it your careTo augment your heap of wealth; it shall be mineTo increase in knowledge. Lights there for my study!J. Fletcher.The Elder Brother.
That place, that does containMy books, the best companions, is to meA glorious court, where hourly I converseWith the old sages and philosophers.And sometimes, for variety, I conferWith kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;Calling their victories, if unjustly got,Unto a strict account: and in my fancy,Deface their ill-planned statues. Can I thenPart with such constant pleasures, to embraceUncertain vanities? No: be it your careTo augment your heap of wealth; it shall be mineTo increase in knowledge. Lights there for my study!
J. Fletcher.The Elder Brother.
I like a great library next my study; but for the study itself, give me a small snug place, almost entirely walled with books. There should be only one window in it, looking upon trees. Some prefer a place with few, or no books at all—nothing but a chair or a table, like Epictetus; but I should say that these were philosophers, not lovers of books, if I did not recollect that Montaigne was both. He had a study in a round tower, walled as aforesaid. It is true, one forgets one's books while writing—at least theysay so. For my part, I think I have them in a sort of sidelong mind's eye; like a second thought, which is none—like a waterfall, or a whispering wind.
I dislike a grand library to study in. I mean an immense apartment, with books all in Museum order, especially wire-safed. I say nothing against the Museum itself, or public libraries. They are capital places to go to, but not to sit in; and talking of this, I hate to read in public, and in strange company. The jealous silence; the dissatisfied looks of the messengers; the inability to help yourself; the not knowing whether you really ought to trouble the messengers, much less the Gentleman in black, or brown, who is, perhaps, half a trustee; with a variety of other jarrings between privacy and publicity, prevent one's settling heartily to work.... A grand private library, which the master of the house also makes his study, never looks to me like a real place of books, much less of authorship. I cannot take kindly to it. It is certainly not out of envy; for three parts of the books are generally trash, and I can seldom think of the rest and the proprietor together. It reminds me of a fine gentleman, of a collector, of a patron, of Gil Blas and the Marquis of Marialva; of anything but genius and comfort. I have a particular hatred of a round table (nottheRound Table, for that was a dining one) covered and irradiated with books, and never met with one in the house of a clever man but once. It is the reverse of Montaigne's Round Tower. Instead of bringing the books around you, they all seem turning another way, and eluding your hands.
Conscious of my propriety and comfort in these matters, I take an interest in the bookcases as well as the books of my friends. I long to meddle and dispose them after my own notions.—J. H. Leigh Hunt.My Books.
Come, and take choice of all my library.
W. Shakespeare.Titus Andronicus.
W. Shakespeare.Titus Andronicus.
Libraries are the wardrobes of literature, whence men, properly informed, might bring forth something for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use.—G. Dyer.
Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic willOn the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill,Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard,And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred,Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone,Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone.Not all unblessed the mild interior sceneWhere the red curtain spread its falling screen;O'er some light task the lonely hours were passed,And the long evening only flew too fast;Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lendIn genial welcome to some easy friend,Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves,Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves;Perchance indulging, if of generous creed,In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed.Or, happier still, the evening hour would bringTo the round table its expected ring,And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,—Its silver cherubs, smiling as they heard,—Our hearts would open, as at evening's hourThe close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower.Such the warm life this dim retreat has known,Not quite deserted when its guests were flown;Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set,Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette,Ready to answer, never known to ask,Claiming no service, prompt for every task.On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes,O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns;A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time,That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime,Each knows his place, and each may claim his partIn some quaint corner of his master's heart.This old Decretal, won from Kloss's hoards,Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards,Stands the grey patriarch of the graver rows,Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close;Not daily conned, but glorious still to view,With glistening letters wrought in red and blue.There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage,The Aldine anchor on his opening page;There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind,In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confined.Olim e libris(dare I call it mine?)Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine!In those square sheets the songs of Maro fillThe silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville;High over all, in close, compact array,Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display.In lower regions of the sacred spaceRange the dense volumes of a humbler race;There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach,In spectral pictures, or in crabbèd speech;Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page,Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age,Lully and Geber, and the learnèd crewThat loved to talk of all they could not do.Why count the rest,—those names of later daysThat many love, and all agree to praise,—Or point the titles, where a glance may readThe dangerous lines of party or of creed?Too well, perchance, the chosen list would showWhat few may care and none can claim to know.Each has his features, whose exterior sealA brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal;Go to his study,—on the nearest shelfStands the mosaic portrait of himself.What though for months the tranquil dust descends,Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends,While the damp offspring of the modern pressFlaunts on my table with its pictured dress;Not less I love each dull familiar face,Nor less should miss it from the appointed place;I snatch the book, along whose burning leavesHis scarlet web our wild romancer weaves,Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share,My oldMagnaliamust be standingthere!O. W. Holmes.
Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic willOn the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill,Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard,And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred,Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone,Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone.
Not all unblessed the mild interior sceneWhere the red curtain spread its falling screen;O'er some light task the lonely hours were passed,And the long evening only flew too fast;Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lendIn genial welcome to some easy friend,Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves,Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves;Perchance indulging, if of generous creed,In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed.Or, happier still, the evening hour would bringTo the round table its expected ring,And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,—Its silver cherubs, smiling as they heard,—Our hearts would open, as at evening's hourThe close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower.
Such the warm life this dim retreat has known,Not quite deserted when its guests were flown;Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set,Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette,Ready to answer, never known to ask,Claiming no service, prompt for every task.
On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes,O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns;A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time,That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime,Each knows his place, and each may claim his partIn some quaint corner of his master's heart.This old Decretal, won from Kloss's hoards,Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards,Stands the grey patriarch of the graver rows,Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close;Not daily conned, but glorious still to view,With glistening letters wrought in red and blue.There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage,The Aldine anchor on his opening page;There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind,In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confined.Olim e libris(dare I call it mine?)Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine!In those square sheets the songs of Maro fillThe silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville;High over all, in close, compact array,Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display.
In lower regions of the sacred spaceRange the dense volumes of a humbler race;There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach,In spectral pictures, or in crabbèd speech;Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page,Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age,Lully and Geber, and the learnèd crewThat loved to talk of all they could not do.Why count the rest,—those names of later daysThat many love, and all agree to praise,—Or point the titles, where a glance may readThe dangerous lines of party or of creed?Too well, perchance, the chosen list would showWhat few may care and none can claim to know.Each has his features, whose exterior sealA brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal;Go to his study,—on the nearest shelfStands the mosaic portrait of himself.
What though for months the tranquil dust descends,Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends,While the damp offspring of the modern pressFlaunts on my table with its pictured dress;Not less I love each dull familiar face,Nor less should miss it from the appointed place;I snatch the book, along whose burning leavesHis scarlet web our wild romancer weaves,Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share,My oldMagnaliamust be standingthere!
O. W. Holmes.
The great consulting room of a wise man is a library. When I am in perplexity about life, I have but to come here, and, without fee or reward, I commune with the wisest souls that God has blessed the world with. If I want a discourse on immortality Plato comes to my help. If I want to know the human heart Shakespeare opens all its chambers. Whatever be my perplexity or doubt, I know exactly the great man to call to me, and he comes in the kindest way, he listens to my doubts and tells me his convictions. So that a library may be regarded as the solemn chamber in which a man can take counsel with all that have been wise and great and good and glorious amongst the men that have gone before him. If we come down for a moment and look at the bare and immediate utilities of a library we find that here a man gets himself ready for his calling, arms himself for his profession, finds out the facts that are to determine his trade, prepares himself for his examination. The utilities of it are endless and priceless. It is too a place of pastime; for man has no amusement more innocent, more sweet, more gracious, more elevating, and more fortifying than he can find in a library.—George Dawson.Address at the opening of the Birmingham Free Reference Library, 1866.
The first thing, naturally, when one enters a scholar's study or library, is to look at his books. One gets a notion very speedily of his tastes and the range of his pursuits by a glance round his bookshelves.
Of course, you know there are many fine houses where a library is a part of the upholstery, so to speak. Books in handsome binding kept locked under plate-glass in showy dwarf bookcases are as important to stylish establishments as servants in livery, who sit with folded arms, are to stylish equipages. I suppose those wonderful statues with the folded arms do sometimes change their attitude, and I suppose those books with the gilded backs do sometimes get opened, but it is nobody's business whether they do or not, and it is best not to ask too many questions.
This sort of thing is common enough, but there is another case that may prove deceptive if you undertake to judge from appearances. Once in a while you will come on a house where you will find a family of readers and almost no library. Some of the most indefatigable devourers of literature have very few books. They belong to book clubs, they haunt the public libraries, they borrow of friends, and somehow or other get hold of everything they want, scoop out all it holds for them, and have done with it.—O. W. Holmes.The Poet at the Breakfast-Table.
I know men who say they had as lief read any book in a library copy as in one from their own shelf. To me that is unintelligible. For one thing, I know every book of mine by itsscent, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things. My Gibbon, for example, my well-bound eight-volume Milman edition, which I have read and read and read again for more than thirty years—never do I open it but the scent of the noble pages restores to me all the exultant happiness of that moment when I received it as a prize. Or my Shakespeare, the great Cambridge Shakespeare—it has an odour which carries me yet further back in life; for these volumes belonged to my father, and before I was old enough to read them with understanding, it was often permitted me, as a treat, to take down one of them from the bookcase, and reverently to turn the leaves. The volumes smell exactly as they did in that old time, and what a strange tenderness comes upon me when I hold one of them in hand. For that reason I do not often read Shakespeare in this edition.—G. Gissing.The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft.