Almost immediately after the invention of printing in Germany there arose a vast public demand for all useful kinds of knowledge. The study of Greek was essential to those who would compete with the Italians in any of the higher departments of science, and great schools were established for the purpose by Dringeberg in a town of Alsace, and by Rudolf Lange at Münster. The Alsatian Academy had the credit of educating Rhenanus and Bilibald Pirckheimer. Lange filled his shelves with a quantity of excellent classics that he had purchased during a tour in Italy. Hermann Busch, the great critic, was taught in this school, and he used to say in after life that he often dreamed of Lange's house, and saw an altar of the Muses surrounded by the shadowy figures of ancient poets and orators. Busch was sent afterwards to Deventer, where he was the class-mate of Erasmus. Here one day, while the boys were at their themes, came Rudolf Agricola, the sturdy doctor from Friesland, who wanted to see a Germany 'more Latin than Latium,' and had vowed to abate the 'Italian insolence.' The visitor told Erasmus that he was sure to be a great man, and patted the young Hermann on the head,saying that he had the look of a poet; and he is, indeed, still faintly remembered for the lines in which he celebrated the triumph of Reuchlin.
Reuchlin had learned Greek at Paris and Poitiers; at Florence he studied the secrets of the Cabala with Mirandula; and he perfected his Hebrew at Rome, where he acted as an envoy from the Elector Palatine. Reuchlin for many years led a peaceful life at Tübingen, an oasis of freedom, in which he could print or read what he pleased. But in 1509 he was forced into a quarrel, which involved the whole question of the liberty of the press, and incidentally associated the cause of the Reformation with the maintenance of classical learning.
In the year 1509 one Pfefferkorn, a monk who had been a convert from Judaism, obtained an imperial decree that all Hebrew books, except the Scriptures, should be destroyed. Reuchlin sprang forth to defend his beloved Cabala, and maintained that only those volumes ought to be burned which were proved to have a taint of magic or blasphemy. He was cited to answer for his heresy before the Grand Inquisitor at Cologne; and the world, at first indifferent, soon saw that the cause of the New Learning was at stake. In the summer of 1514 there was a notable gathering of Reformers at Frankfort Fair. We have nothing in our own days that quite resembles these mediæval marts; the annual concourse of merchants might perhaps be compared to one of our industrial exhibitions, or to some conjunction of all the trade of Leipsic andNijni Novgorod. The Italians affected to believe that the Fair by the Main was chiefly taken up with the sale of mechanical contrivances; the Germans knew that their 'Attic mart' held streets of book-shops and publishers' offices. Henri Estienne saw Professors here from Oxford and Cambridge, from Louvain, and from Padua: there was a crowd of poets, historians, and men of science; and he declared that another Alexandrian Library might be bought in those seething stalls, if one laid out money like a king, or like a maniac, as others might say. In this German Athens a meeting was arranged between Reuchlin and Erasmus; they were joined at Frankfort by Hermann Busch, who brought with him the manuscript of his 'Triumph'; and perhaps it was not difficult to predict that the cause of the old books would be safe in the hands of Pope Leox. They found themselves in company with that ferocious satirist, Ulric von Hutten, memorable for his threat to the citizens of Mainz, when they proposed to destroy his library, and he answered, 'If you burn my books, I will burn your town.' The Grand Inquisitor was utterly overwhelmed by his volume of Pasquinades, a work so witty that it was constantly attributed to Erasmus, and so carefully destroyed that Heinsius gave a hundred gold pieces for the copy which Count Hohendorf afterwards placed among the imperial rarities at Vienna. The satirist's volume ofLetters from Obscure Mencompleted the rout of the Inquisition; and we are told by the way that itsaved the life of Erasmus by throwing him into a violent fit of laughter.
We do not suppose that many Germans of that day loved books for their delicate appearance, or the damask and satin of their 'pleasant coverture.' Reuchlin may be counted among the bibliophiles, since he refused a large sum from the Emperor in lieu of a Hebrew Bible. Melanchthon's books were rough volumes in stamped pigskin, made valuable by his marginal notes. The library of Erasmus may be shown to have been somewhat insignificant by these words in his will: 'Some time ago I sold my library to John à Lasco of Poland, and according to the contract between us it is to be delivered to him on his paying two hundred florins to my heir; if he refuses to accede to this condition, or die before me, my heir is to dispose of the books as he shall think proper.' The principal bibliophiles in Germany were the wealthy Fuggers of Augsburg, of whom Charlesv.used to say when he saw any display of magnificence, 'I have a burgess at Augsburg who can do better than that.' These merchants were commonly believed to have discovered the philosopher's stone: they were in fact enriched by their trade with the East, and had found another fortune in the quicksilver of Almaden, by which the gold was extracted from the ores of Peru. Raimond Fugger amassed a noble library before the end of the fifteenth century. Ulric his successor was the friend of Henri Estienne, who proudly announced himself as printer to the Fuggers on many a title-page. Ulric spent so much money on books that his family at one time obtained a decree to restrain his extravagance. His library was said to contain as many books as there were stars in heaven. The original stock received a vast accession under his brother's will, and he purchased another huge collection formed by Dr. Achilles Gasparus. On his death he left the whole accumulated mass to the Elector Palatine, and the books thenceforth shared the fortunes of the Heidelberg Library. When Tilly took the city in 1622 the best part of the collection was offered to the Vatican, and Leo Allatius the librarian was sent to make the selection, and to superintend their transport to Rome. The Emperor Napoleon thought fit to remove some of themss. to Paris; but, on their being seized by the Allies in 1815, it was thought that prescription should not be pleaded by Rome: 'especially,' says Hallam, 'when she was recovering what she had lost by the same right of spoliation'; and the whole collection of which the Elector had been deprived was restored to the library at Heidelberg.
Flanders had been the home of book-learning in very early times. The Counts of Hainault and the Dukes of Brabant were patrons of literature when most of the princes of Europe were absorbed in the occupations of the chase. The Flemish monasteries preserved the literary tradition. At Alne, near Liège, the monks had a Bible which Archdeacon Philip, the friend of St. Bernard, had transcribed before the year1140. We hear of another at Louvain, about a century later in date, with initials in blue and gold throughout, which had taken three years in copying. Deventer was known as 'the home of Minerva' before the days of St. Thomas à Kempis. The Forest of Soigny provided a retreat for learning in its houses of Val-Rouge and Val-Vert and the Sept-Fontaines. The Brothers of the Common Life had long been engaged in the production of books before they gave themselves to the labours of the printing-press at Brussels. Thomas à Kempis himself has described their way of living at Deventer. 'Much was I delighted,' he said, 'with the devout conversation, the irreproachable demeanour and humility of the brethren: I had never seen such piety and charity: they took no concern about what passed outside, but remained at home, employed in prayer and study, or in copying useful books.' This work at good books, he repeated, is the opening of the fountains of life: 'Blessed are the hands of the copyists: for which of the world's writings would be remembered, if there had been no pious hand to transcribe them?' He himself during his stay at Deventer copied out a Bible, a Missal, and four of St. Bernard's works, and when he went to Zwolle he composed and wrote out a chronicle of the brotherhood.
The Abbey of St. Bavon at Ghent was endowed with a great number of books by Rafael de Mercatellis, the reputed son of Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy. As Abbot he devoted his life to increasing thesplendour of his monastery. The illuminatedmss. survived the perils of war and the excesses of the Revolution, and are still to be seen in the University with the Abbot's signature on their glittering title-pages.
A more important collection belonged to Louis de Bruges, Seigneur de La Gruthuyse. As titular Earl of Winchester he was in some degree connected with this country. When Edwardiv.fled from England, and was chased by German pirates, this nobleman was Governor of Holland. He rescued the fugitives, and paid their expenses; and when Edward recovered his throne he rewarded his friend with a title and a charge on the Customs. The dignity carried no active privileges, and in 1499 it was surrendered to the King at Calais. The books of La Gruthuyse have been described as 'the bibliographical marvel of the age.' They were celebrated for their choice vellum, their delicate penmanship, and their exquisite illustrations. Louis de Bruges was the friend and patron of Colard Mansion, who printed in partnership with Caxton. Three copies are known of his work called the 'Penitence of Adam.' One belonged to the Royal Library of France: another was borrowed from a monastery by the Duc d'Isenghien, an enthusiastic but somewhat unscrupulous collector, and this copy was sold at the Gaignat sale in 1769; the third was the property of M. Lambinet of Brussels, and is remarkable for the miniature in which Mansion is represented as offering the bookto his patron in the garden of La Gruthuyse. After the death of Louis his books passed to his son Jean de Bruges; but most of them were soon afterwards acquired by Louisxii., who added them to the library at Blois, the insignia of La Gruthuyse being replaced by the arms of France. Others were bequeathed to Louisxiv.by the bibliophile Hippolyte de Béthune, who refused a magnificent offer from Queen Christina of Sweden in order that his books might remain in France. A fine copy of theForteresse du Foybelonged to Claude d'Urfé, whose library of 4000 books, 'all in green velvet,' was kept in his castle at La Bastie; when all the others were dispersed the Gruthuyse volume remained as an heirloom, and descended to Honoré d'Urfé, the dreariest of all writers of romance. In 1776 it belonged to the Duc de la Vallière, and was purchased for the French Government at one of his numerous sales. Some of the Flemish books remained in their original home. A volume of Wallon songs was discovered at Ghent in the last generation; and two other Gruthuyse books in the same language, from the great collection of M. Van Hulthem, are now deposited in the Burgundian Library at Brussels.
The Dukes of Burgundy were of the book-loving race of the Valois. The brothers, Charles le Sage, Jean Duc de Berry, and Philippe le Hardi of Burgundy, were all founders of celebrated libraries. Philippe increased his store of books by his marriage with the heiress of Flanders; he kept a large staff of scribesat work, and made incessant purchases from the Lombard booksellers in Paris. Duke John, his successor, is remembered for his acquisition of a wonderfulValerius Maximusfrom the librarian of the Sorbonne. But the collections of which the remnants are now preserved in Belgium were almost entirely the work of Duke Philippe le Bon. He kept his books in many different places. He had a library at Dijon, and another in Paris, a few volumes in the treasury at Ghent, a thousand volumes at Bruges, and nearly as many at Antwerp. It has been calculated that he possessed more than 3200mss.in all; and, if that figure is correct, the House of Bourgogne-Valois was in this respect almost the richest of the reigning families of Europe.
Under Charles the Bold the libraries appear to have been left alone, except as regards a few characteristic additions. The Duchess Margaret was the patroness of her countryman Caxton, whoseRecuyell, probably published at Bruges in 1474 during his partnership with Colard Mansion, was the first printed English book. The taste of the Duchess may answer for the appearance in the library of theMoral Discourses, and the elegantDebates upon Happiness. TheCyropædiaand the romance ofQuintus Curtiusmust be attributed to the warlike Duke. At Berne they have a relic of the fight where his men were shot down 'like ducks in the reeds.' It is a manuscript, with a note added to the following effect: 'These military ordinances of the excellent and invincibleDuke Charles of Burgundy were taken at Morat on the 14th of June 1476, being found in the pavilion of that excellent and potent prince.' When Charles was killed at Nancy in the following year his favouriteCyropædiawas found by the Swiss in his baggage. This volume was bought in 1833 by the Queen of the Belgians at a book-sale in Paris, and has now been restored to its original home at Brussels.
After the death of Charles the Bold his library at Dijon was given by the French King to George de la Tremouille, the governor of the province. It passed to the family of Guy de Rocheford, and in the course of time many of the best works have found their way into the national collection. Mary of Burgundy retained the other libraries at Brussels. After her marriage with Maximilian her family treasures were for the most part dispersed in France, Germany, and Sweden, the needy prince being unable to resist the temptation of pilfering and pawning the books; but the generosity of Margaret of Austria, a great collector herself of fine copies and first editions, in some measure repaired the loss; and Mary of Austria, who became Regent in 1530, continued the work of restoration.
The magnificence of the Burgundian Court and the commercial prosperity of the Low Countries led to a continuous demand for fine books among the other productions of luxury. We learn also by the Venetian Archives that throughout the fifteenth century books were being imported into England by the galleysthat brought the produce of the East to our merchants in London and Southampton. There were as yet but slight signs of literary activity; but it has been well said that 'the seed was germinating in the ground'; and many foreign works were brought home from time to time by those who had studied or travelled in Italy. It was the fashion of the day to learn under Guarini at Ferrara; the list of his scholars includes the names of Robert Fleming, and Bishop William Gray, and the book-loving John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, whose virtue and learning became the object of William Caxton's celebrated eulogy. We may commemorate here the earlier labours of Lord Cobham, who caused Wicliffe's works to be copied at a great expense and to be conveyed for safety to Bohemia, and of Sir Walter Sherington, who early in the same century built a library at Glastonbury, and furnished it with 'fair books upon vellum.' Towards the end of the century learning began to flourish under the patronage of Lord Saye, and the accomplished Anthony Lord Rivers: and its future in this country was secure, when the English scholars began to flock towards Florence to hear the lectures of Chalcondylas and his successor Politian. Grocyn, our first Greek Professor, had drawn his learning from that source, and Linacre had sat there in a class with the children of Lorenzo de' Médici. Cardinal Pole and the Ciceronian De Longueil shared as students in those tasks and sports at Padua which were so vividly described by the English churchmanin his record of their life-long friendship. Thomas Lilly, the master at St. Paul's, not only worked at Florence but went to perfect his Greek in the Isle of Rhodes. Sir Thomas More was the pupil of Grocyn, whom he seems to have excelled in scholarship. His affection for books is known by his son-in-law's careful biography. An anecdote cited by Dibdin preserves a record of the fate of his library. When the Chancellor was arrested, the officers were expected to listen to his talk with certain spies, on the chance that the prisoner might be led into a treasonable conversation; but, as Mr. Palmer said in his deposition, 'he was so busy trussing up Sir Thomas More's books in a sack that he took no heed to their talk'; and Sir Richard Southwell on the same occasion deposed, that 'being appointed only to look to the conveyance of the books, he gave no ear unto them.' Erasmus praised More as 'the most gentle soul ever framed by Nature.' He was astonished at his learning, and indeed at the high standard that had already been attained in England. 'It is incredible,' he said, 'what a thick crop of old books spreads out on every side: there is so much erudition, not of any ordinary kind, but recondite and accurate and antique, both in Greek and Latin, that you need not go to Italy except for the pleasure of travelling.' Hallam remarked that Erasmus was always ready with a compliment; but he admitted that before the year 1520 there were probably more scholars in England than in France, 'though all together they might not weigh as heavy as Budæus.'
We shall take Budæus as our first example of the French bookmen in the period that followed the invention of printing. Of Guillaume Budé, to give him his original name, it was said that he knew Greek as minutely as the orators of the age of Demosthenes. If there was any real foundation for the compliment it must have consisted in the fact that the Frenchman had more acquaintance with the language than his instructor George of Sparta. Budæus is said to have paid a very large sum for a course of lectures on Homer, and to have been not a pennyworth the wiser at the end. Erasmus, who also learned of the Spartan, confessed that his tutor only 'stammered in Greek,' and that he seemed to have neither the desire nor the capacity for teaching. It is interesting to see how these students made the best of their bad materials. 'I have given my whole soul to Greek,' wrote Erasmus, 'and as soon as I get any money I shall buy books first, and then some clothes.' Budæus was known as 'the prodigy of France,' and even Scaliger allowed that his country would never see such a scholar again; and it is rather surprising thatErasmus should have compared his style unfavourably with that of Badius, the printer from Brabant.
Budæus was the first to apply the historical method to the explanation of the Civil Law: with the assistance of Jean Grolier he brought out a very learned treatise on ancient weights and measures; and in publishing his commentaries on the Greek language he was said to have raised himself to 'a pinnacle of philological glory.' One of the stories about his devotion to books may have been told of others, but is certainly characteristic of the man. A servant rushes in to say that the house is on fire; but the scholar answers, 'Tell my wife: you know that I never interfere with the household.' He was married twice over, he used to say, to the Muse of philology as well as to a mortal wife; but he confessed that he would never have got far with the first, if the second had not commanded in the library, always ready to look out passages and to hand down the necessary books.
When Charlesviii.seized the royal library at Naples, a few of the bestmss.escaped his scrutiny, and these were sold by the dispossessed King to the Cardinal D'Amboise. A new school of illuminators at Rouen provided the Cardinal with a number of other splendid volumes. He lived till the year 1510, and was able to collect a second library of printed books. He divided the whole into two portions at his death, the French books passing to a relation and afterwards to the family of La Rochefoucauld, andthe rest forming the foundation of a fine library long possessed by the Archbishops of Rouen.
The Archbishop Juvenal des Ursins died in the middle of the fifteenth century. He is celebrated as a lover of good books, though only a single example of his choice survived into the present generation. It was a magnificent missal on vellum, filled with the choicest miniatures, and known as the best specimen of its class in the possession of Prince Soltikoff. It is only a few years ago that it entered the collection of M. Firmin-Didot, who paid 36,000 francs for it at the Prince's sale: in the year 1861 he gave it up to the City of Paris; but like so many of the great books of France it perished in the fires of the Commune.
Jacques de Pars, the physician to Charlesvii., bequeathed his scientificmss.to the College of Medicine at Paris: and the value of his gift was manifested when the powerful Louisxi.was forbidden to take out a medical treatise for transcription unless he would pledge his silver plate and find collateral security for its safe return. Étienne Chevalier was one of the few servants of King Charles who were tolerated by King Louis. He became Chief Treasurer to Louisxi., and built a great mansion in the Rue de la Verrerie in Paris. The walls and ceilings were decorated with allegorical designs in honour of his friend Agnès Sorel, whose courage had led to the expulsion of the English invaders. The library was filled with choicemss., illuminated for the most part by Jehan Foucquet, thefamous miniaturist from Tours. Nicholas Chevalier, his descendant in the sixteenth century, was also illustrious as a bibliophile, and amidst his own printed folios and pedigrees rolled in blue velvet could still show the marvellousLivre d'Heures, of which all that now remains is a set of paintings hacked out from the text. M. Le Roux de Lincy has compiled a long and interesting list of the French bibliophiles who preceded the age of Grolier. We can only mention a few out of the number. Of the poets we have Charles, Duke of Orléans, the owner of eighty magnificent volumes preserved in the Castle of Blois, and Pierre Ronsard; and we may add the Abbé Philippe Desportes, renowned not less for a rivalry with Ronsard than for his sumptuous mode of living and the fortune expended on his library. To the statesmen may be added Florimond Robertet, the first of a long line of bibliophiles. Among the learned ladies of the sixteenth century we may choose Louise Labé, surnamed 'La Belle Cordière,' who made a collection of a new kind, composed entirely of works in French, Spanish, and Italian, and Charlotte Guillard, a printer as well as a book-collector, who published at her own expense a volume of the Commentaries of St. Jerome.
The most important of the private collectors in this period was Arthur Gouffier, Seigneur de Boissy, another of the faithful followers of Charlesvii.who were so fortunate as to gain the confidence of his jealous successor.
He was a lover of fine bindings in the style rendered famous by Grolier. One of his books belonged to the late Baron Jérôme Pichon, the head of the FrenchSociété des Bibliophiles, and it is admitted that nothing even in Grolier's library could excel it in delicacy of execution. His son, Claude Gouffier, created Duc de Rouannais, was a collector of an essentially modern type. He bought autographs and historical portraits, as well as raremss.and good specimens of printing, and was careful to have his books well clothed in the fashionable painted binding. Claude Gouffier was tutor to the young Duc d'Angoulême, who came to the throne as Francisi.; and to him may be due his royal pupil's affection for the books bedecked with the salamander in flames and the silverfleurs-de-lys.
Francisi.cared little for printed books in comparison with manuscript rarities; he added very few to the collection at Fontainebleau beyond what he received as presents from his mother, Queen Louise, and his sister Marguerite d'Angoulême. The royal library owed many of its finest manuscripts to the delicate taste of the princess who was compared to the 'blossom of poetry' and praised as the 'Marguerite des Marguerites.' Its wealth was much increased by the confiscation of the property of the Constable de Bourbon; and it should be remembered that among the additions from this source were most of the magnificently illuminated manuscripts that had belonged to Jean Duc de Berri.
The King was much attracted by the hope ofmaking literary discoveries in the East; he obtained much information on the subject from John Lascaris, and despatched Pierre Gilles to make purchases in the Levantine monasteries. A similar commission was entrusted to Guillaume Postel, one of the greatest linguists that ever lived, but so crazy that he believed himself to be Adam born to live again, and so unfortunate that he could seldom keep out of a prison.
The reign of Henri Deux is of great importance in the annals of bibliography. An ordinance was made in 1558, through the influence, as it is supposed, of Diane de Poitiers, by which every publisher was compelled to present copies of his books, printed on vellum and suitably bound, to the libraries at Blois and Fontainebleau, and such others as the King should appoint. About eight hundred volumes in the national collection represent the immediate results of this copy-tax; they are all marked with the ambiguous cypher, which might either represent the initials of the King and Queen or might indicate the names of Henri and Diane. Queen Catherine de Médici was an enthusiastic collector. When she arrived in France as a girl she brought with her from Urbino a number ofmss.that had belonged to the Eastern Emperors, and had been purchased by Cosmo de' Médici. She afterwards seized the whole library of Marshal Strozzi on the ground that they must be regarded as 'Médici books,' having been inherited at one time by a nephew of Leox.On her death in 1589 she was found to have beenpossessed of about eight hundred Greek manuscripts, all of the highest rarity and value. There was some danger that they would be seized by her creditors; but the King was advised that such an assemblage could not be got together again in any country or at any cost. The library was made an heir-loom of the Crown: and at De Thou's suggestion the books were stripped of their rich coverings and disguised in an official costume.
Diane de Poitiers, a truechasseresse des bouquins, was herself the daughter of a bibliophile. The Comte de St. Vallier loved books in Italian bindings, and there is aRoman de Perceforestin the collection of the Duc d'Aumale, that bears the Saint Vallier arms and marks of ownership, though it was confidently believed to have been bound for Grolier when it belonged to King Louis-Philippe. Henri Deux and the Duchesse Diane kept a treasure of books between them in the magnificent castle of Anet: and after they were dead the books remained unknown and unnoticed in their hall until the death of the Princesse de Condé in the year 1723. The sale which then took place was a revelation of beauty. The books were in good condition, and were all clad in sumptuous bindings. There was a remarkable diversity in their contents, the Fathers and the poets standing side by side with treatises upon medicine and the management of a household, as if they had been acquired in great part by virtue of the tax upon the publishers. Most of them, we are told, were bought by the 'intrepid book-hunter' M. Guyon de Sardières, whose whole library in its turn was engulphed in the miscellaneous collections of the Duc de la Vallière. An article in theBibliophile Françaiscontains a curious argument in favour of Diane de Poitiers, as being one of a band of devoted Frenchwomen who saved their country from foreign ideas. We are reminded of the patriotism of Agnès Sorel, and of the excellent influence of Gabrielle d'Estrées. The Duchesse d'Estampes, we are told, preserved Francisi.from the influence of the Italian renaissance, and prevented the subjugation of France 'by a Benvenuto or Da Vinci'; and in the same way, when Catherine de Médici was preparing to introduce other strange fashions, Diane came forward in her 'magical beauty' and saved the originality of her nation.
The three sons of Catherine were all fond of books in their way. Francisii.died before he had time to make any collection; if he had lived, Mary of Scotland, who shared his throne for a few weeks, might have led him into the higher paths of literature. Some of their favourite volumes have been preserved; the young King's books bear the dolphin or the arms of France; the Queen bound everything in black morocco emblasoned with the lion of Scotland. Charlesix.had a turn for literature, as beseemed the pupil of Bishop Amyot; he studied archæology in some detail, and purchased Grolier's cabinet of coins. He brought the library of Fontainebleau to Paris, where his father had made the beginning of a newcollection out of the confiscated property of the Président Ranconnet, and gave the management of the whole to the venerable Amyot. His brother, the effeminate Henri Trois, cared much for bindings and little for books: it is said that he was somewhat of a book-binder himself, as his brother Charles had worked at the armourer's smithy, and as some of his successors were to take up the technicalities of the barber, the cook, and the locksmith. Being an extravagant idler himself, he passed laws against extravagance in his subjects; but though furs and heavy chains might be forbidden, he allowed gilt edges and arabesques on books, and only drew the line at massive gold stamps. His own taste combined the gloomy and the grotesque, his clothes and his bindings alike being covered with skulls and cross-bones, and spangles to represent tears, with other conventional emblems of sorrow.
Louise of Lorraine, after the King's death, retired to the castle of Chenonceau: and the widowed queen employed her time, in that 'palace of fairy-land,' at forming a small cabinet of books. The catalogue describes about eighty volumes, mostly bound by Nicolas Eve; and the gay morocco covers in red, blue, and green, were decorated with brilliant arabesques, or sprinkled with golden lilies. Hardly any perfect specimens remain, even in the National Library. They were all bequeathed by the Queen to her niece the Duchesse de Vendôme; but in the hands of a later possessor they were put up for saleand dispersed, and have now for the most part disappeared.
Henri Quatre is said to have fled to his books for consolation when abandoned by Gabrielle d'Estrées. Though no bibliophile himself, he was anxious that everything should be done that could promote the interests of literature. He intended to establish a magnificent library in the Collège de Cambray, but died before the plans were completed. The books at Blois, however, were brought to Paris and thrown open to deserving students; the library already transported from Fontainebleau and themss.of Catherine de Médici were removed to the Collège de Clermont, and placed under the guardianship of De Thou.
Marguerite de Valois agreed with the King, if in nothing else, at least in a desire for the extension of knowledge. She was a most learned lady as well as a collector of exquisite books. No branch of science, sacred or profane, came amiss to the 'Reine Margot.' She may be regarded as the Queen of the 'Femmes Bibliophiles' who occupied so important a position in the history of the Court of France. In the domain of good taste she excels all competitors; as regards intellect we can hardly estimate the distance between Marguerite and the elegant collectors whom we distinguish according to the names of their book-binders. Anne of Austria is remembered for the lace-like patterns of Le Gascon; and Queen Marie Leczinska is famous for the splendour of her volumesbound by Padeloup. Even the libraries of the daughters of Louis Quinze, three diligent and well-instructed princesses, are only known apart by the colours of the moroccos employed by Derôme. The dull contents of the Pompadour's shelves would hardly be noticeable without her 'three castles,' or the 'ducal mantle,' by Biziaux; and no one but Louis Quinze himself would have praised the intelligent choice of Du Barry, or cast a look upon her collection of odd volumes and 'remainders,' if they had not been decorated like the rest of her furniture. In all the lists of these 'ladies of old-time' by M. Guigard, by M. Quentin-Bauchart, or by M. Uzanne, it is difficult to find one who preferred the inside to the outside of the book. M. Uzanne, indeed, has contended that no female bibliophile ever felt the passion that inspired a Grolier or a De Thou: that Marie Antoinette herself may have caged thousands of books at the Trianon like birds in an aviary, without any real regard to their nature or the right way of using them; that these devotees of the book-chase were like an invalid master of hounds, keeping the pack in a gilded kennel without any exercise or any chance of practical work. We think that something perhaps might be said on the other side. The Duchesse de Berry in our own time possessed a serious collection, made under her own direction, in which might be found theLivre d'Heuresof Henri Deux, the prayer-book of Joanna of Naples, the best books of Marguerite de Valois and Marie Leczinska. The PrincessPauline Buonaparte was the owner of a well-selected library. But our best example is Madame Elisabeth, the ill-fated daughter of France, who was dragged from her books at Montreuil in the tumults of 1789. Only a short time before she had been absorbed in her simple collection. In the spring of 1786 she gave up her mornings to its arrangement. 'My library,' she wrote, 'is nearly finished: the desks are being put up, and you cannot imagine the fine effect of the books.' On September the 15th she writes to her friend again: 'Montreuil and its mistress get on as well as two sweethearts. I am writing in the small room at the end; the books are settled in their shelves, and my library is really a little gem.' On the 5th of October she was standing on the terrace by the library-window, when she saw a crowd coming along the Sèvres road, and heard the noise of pipes and drums; and on the same day she was forced to leave Montreuil, and never saw her books again.
Henryvii.was the founder of a royal collection which in time became a constituent portion of the library at the British Museum. Careful as he was of his money, the King endeavoured to buy every book published in French, and he acquired the whole of Vérard's series of classics, printed on vellum with initials in gold and gorgeous illuminations, in some of which the printer is shown presenting his books to the royal collector. Henryviii.established the separate library which was long maintained at St. James's; he intended it mainly for the education of princes of the blood royal, and supplied it with a quantity of early-printed books and a miscellaneous gathering of wreckage from the monasteries. During several succeeding reigns there were 'studies' and galleries of books at Whitehall and Windsor Castle, at Greenwich and Oatlands, or wherever the Court might be held. It is said that in the time of Henryviii.the best English collection belonged to Bishop Fisher. 'He had the notablest library,' said Fuller, 'two long galleries full, the books sorted in stalls, and a register of the name of each book at theend of its stall.' This great storehouse of knowledge the Bishop had intended to transfer to St. John's College at Cambridge; but on his disgrace it was seized by Thomas Cromwell and dispersed among his greedy retainers.
Under the Protector Somerset the Protestant feeling ran high. Martin Bucer's manuscripts were bought for the young King; and the Reformer's printed books were divided between Archbishop Cranmer and the Duchess of Somerset. About the same time an order was issued in the name of Edwardvi.for purging the King's library at Westminster of missals, legends, and other 'superstitious volumes'; and their 'garniture,' according to the fashion of the time, was bestowed as a perquisite upon a grasping courtier.
BINDING EXECUTED FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH.
BINDING EXECUTED FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Queen Elizabeth was naturally fond of fine books. She had a small collection before she reached the throne, and became in due course the recipient of a number of splendid presentation volumes. There is a copy of a French poem in her praise in the public library at Oxford: its pages are full of exquisite portraits and designs, and on the sides there are 'brilliant bosses composed of humming-birds' feathers.' As a child she had bound her books in needle-work, or in 'blue corded silk, with gold and silver thread,' in the style afterwards adopted by the sisters at Little Gidding in the time of Charlesi.Her Testament, most carefully covered by her own handiwork, contains a note quoted by Mr. Macray in his 'Annalsof the Bodleian Library'; it refers to her walks in the field of Scripture, where she plucked up the 'goodlie greene herbes,' which she afterwards ate by her reading, 'and chawed by musing.' Her gallery at Whitehall made a gallant show ofmss.and classics in red velvet, with gilt clasps and jewelled sides, and all the French and Italian books standing by in morocco and gold. Archbishop Parker tried to induce her to establish a national library; but the Queen seems to have cared little about the plan. She allowed the Archbishop on his own behalf to seek out the books remaining from the suppressed monasteries: at another time he obtained leave to recover as many as he could find of Cranmer's books. He tracked some of them to the house of one Dr. Nevinson, who was forced to disgorge his treasures. Parker kept a staff of scribes and painters in miniature, and had his own press and fount of type. He published many scarce tracts to save them from oblivion. Others he ordered to be copied in manuscript, and these and all his ancient books he caused to be 'trimly covered'; so that we may say with Dibdin, 'a more determined book-fancier existed not in Great Britain.' He gave some of his books to 'his nurse Corpus Christi' at Cambridge, and some to the public library; and his gift to the College was compared to 'the sun of our English antiquity,' eclipsed only by the shadow of Cotton's palace of learning.
One would like to fancy a symposium of the greatmen talking over their books, in the room where Ben Jonson was king, and where
'Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quillCommanded mirth and passion, was but Will.'
'Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quillCommanded mirth and passion, was but Will.'
Jonson's books, as was said of himself, were like the great Spanish galleons, bulky folios with 'Sum Ben Jonson' boldly inscribed. We know little about Shakespeare's books, except that they probably went to the New Place and passed among the chattels to Susanna Hall and her husband. His Florio's version of Montaigne is in the British Museum, if the authenticity of his signature can be trusted. His neat Aldine Ovid is at the Bodleian, inscribed with his initials, and a note: 'this little booke of Ovid was given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will Shakspere's.'
We would call to our meeting Gabriel Harvey with his new Italian books and pamphlets; and Spenser, if possible, should be there; Dr. Dee would tell the piteous story of his four thousand volumes, printed and unprinted, Greek, in French, and High-Dutchmss., etc., and of forty years spent in gathering the books that were all on their way to the pawnshop. He might have told the fortunes of all the books with the help of his magical mirrors and crystals. Francis Bacon's store was to increase and multiply, to adorn the library at Cambridge and fill the shelves at Gray's Inn; Lord Leicester's books, with their livery of the 'bear and ragged staff,' were to freeze for ages in the galleries at Lambeth. We should have Ascham inveighingagainst the ancients and their idle and blind way of living: 'in our father's time,' he says, 'nothing was read but books of feigned chivalry'; but Captain Cox would come forth to meet him, attired as in the tournament at Kenilworth, or in the picture which Dibdin has extracted from Laneham. 'Captain Cox came marching on, clean trussed and gartered above the knee, all fresh in a velvet cap: an odd man, I promise you: by profession a mason, and that right skilful and very cunning in fence.... As for King Arthur and Huon of Bourdeaux, ... the Fryar and the Boy, Elynor Rumming, and the Nut-brown Maid, with many more than I can rehearse, I believe he has them all at his fingers' ends.'
Jamesi., as became a 'Solomon,' was the master of many books; but not being a 'fancier' he gave them shabby coverings and scribbled idle notes on their margins. He is forgiven for being a pedant, since Buchanan said it was the best that could be made of him; it is difficult to be patient about his hint to the Dutch that it would be well to burn the old scholar Vorstius instead of making him a professor at Leyden. He seems to have done more harm than good to the libraries in his own possession. We know how he broke into a 'noble speech' when he visited Bodley at Oxford, with the librarian trembling lest the King should see a book by Buchanan, who had often whipped his royal pupil in days gone by: 'If I were not a King I would be an University-man, and if it was so that I must be aprisoner I would desire no other durance than to be chained in that library with so many noble authors.'
The King gave Sir Thomas Bodley a warrant under the Privy Seal to take what books he pleased from any of the royal palaces and libraries; 'howbeit,' said Bodley, 'for that the place at Whitehall is over the Queen's chamber, I must needs attend her departure from thence, whereof at present there is no certainty known: how I shall proceed for other places I have not yet resolved.'
Prince Henry had a more refined taste. The dilettanti of the Prince's set took no part in the drunken antics of the Court, where Goring was master of the games, but Sir John Millicent 'made the bestextemporefool.' The Prince bought almost the whole of the monastic library originally formed by Henry Lord Arundel: about forty volumes had already been given by Lord Lumley to Oxford.
There was some danger that the books at Whitehall would be destroyed in the fury of the Civil War; but almost all of them were saved by the personal exertions of Hugh Peters, when Selden had told him that there was not the like of these rare monuments in Christendom, outside the Vatican. Whitelocke was appointed their keeper, and to his deputy, John Dury, we owe the first English treatise on library management. Thomas, Lord Fairfax, did a similar good service at Oxford. When the city was surrended in 1646 the first thing that the General did was to place a guard of soldiers at the Bodleian.There was more hurt done by the Cavaliers, said Aubrey, in the way of embezzlement and cutting the chains off the books, than was ever done afterwards. Fairfax, he adds, was himself a lover of learning, and had he not taken this special care the library would have been destroyed; 'for there were ignorant senators enough who would have been content to have it so.' As a rule, we must admit that the Puritans were friendly to literature, with a very natural exception as to merely ecclesiastical records. Oliver Cromwell gave some of the Baroccimss.to the University of Oxford; and the preservation of Usher's library at Trinity College, Dublin, was due to the public spirit of the Cromwellian soldiers, officers and men having subscribed alike for its purchase 'out of emulation to a former noble action of Queen Elizabeth's army in Ireland.'
SIR ROBERT COTTON.
SIR ROBERT COTTON.
Sir Robert Cotton began about 1588 to gather materials for a history of England. With the help of Camden and Sir Henry Spelman he obtained nearly a thousand volumes of records and documents; and these he arranged under a system, by which they are still cited, in fourteen wainscot presses marked with the names of the twelve Cæsars, Cleopatra, and Faustina. He was so rich in State Papers that, as Fuller said, 'the fountains were fain to fetch water from the stream,' and the secretaries and clerks of the Council were glad in many cases to borrow back valuable originals. Sir Robert was at one time accused of selling secrets to the Spanish ambassador,and various excuses were found for closing the library, until at last it was declared to be unfit for public use on account of its political contents. He often told his friends that this tyranny had broken his heart, and shortly before his death in 1631 he informed the Lords of the Council that their conduct was the cause of his mortal malady. The library was restored to his son Sir Thomas: and in Sir John Cotton's time the public made a considerable use of its contents; but it seems to have been still a matter of favour, for Burnet complains that he was refused admittance unless he could procure a recommendation from the Archbishop and the Secretary of State. Anthony Wood gives a pleasant account of his visit: 'Posting off forthwith he found Sir John Cotton in his house, joining almost to Westminster Hall: he was then practising on his lute, and when he had done he came out and received Wood kindly, and invited him to dinner, and directed him to Mr. Pearson who kept the key. Here was another trouble; for the said Mr. Pearson being a lodger in the shop of a bookseller living in Little Britain, Wood was forced to walk thither, and much ado there was to find him.' The library was afterwards moved to Essex Street, and then to Ashburnham House in Little Dean's Yard, where the great fire took place in 1731, which some attributed to 'Dr. Bentley's villainy.' Dean Stanley has told us how the Headmaster of Westminster, coming to the rescue, saw a figure issue from the burning house, 'in his dressing-gown, with a flowingwig on his head, and a huge volume under his arm.' This was Dr. Bentley the librarian, doing his best to save the Alexandrianms.of the New Testament. Mr. Speaker Onslow and some of the other trustees worked hard in the crowd at pumping, breaking open the presses, and throwing the volumes out at a window. The destruction was lamentable; but wonders have been done in extending the shrivelled documents and rendering their ashes legible. The public use of the collection had been already regulated by Parliament when a comprehensive Act was passed in 1753, and the nation acquired under one title the Cottonian Library, Sir Hans Sloane's Museum, the Earl of Oxford's pamphlets and manuscripts, and all that remained of the ancient royal collections.
Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, made a great purchase in 1705, and spent the next twenty years in building on that foundation. His son, Earl Edward, threw himself with zeal into the undertaking, and left at his death about 50,000 books, besides a huge body of manuscripts and an incredible number of pamphlets. We shall quote from the sketch by Oldys, who shared with Dr. Johnson the task of compiling the catalogue. 'The Earl had the rarest books of all countries, languages, and sciences': thousands of fragments, some a thousand years old: vellum books, of which some had been scraped and used again as 'palimpsests': 'a great collection of Bibles, and editions of all the first printed books, classics, and others of our own country, ecclesiastical as well as civil, by Caxton,Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, Berthelet, Rastall, Grafton, and the greatest number of pamphlets and English heads of any other person: abundance of ledgers, chartularies, etc., and original letters of eminent persons as many as would fill two hundred volumes; all the collections of his librarian Humphrey Wanley, of Stow, Sir Symonds D'Ewes, Prynne, Bishop Stillingfleet, John Bagford, Le Neve, and the flower of a hundred other libraries.'
A few of these collections ought to be separately mentioned. Stow had died in great poverty, and indeed had been for many years a licensed beggar or bedesman; but in his youth he had been enabled by Parker's protection to make a good collection out of the spoils of the Abbeys; during the Elizabethan persecution he was nearly convicted of treason for being in possession of remnants of Popery, and found it very hard to convince the stern inquisitor that he was only a harmless antiquary. Sir Symonds D'Ewes had endeavoured by his will, which he modelled upon that of De Thou, to preserve undispersed through the ages to come the 'precious library' bequeathed in a touching phrase 'to Adrian D'Ewes, my young son, yet lying in the cradle.' Notwithstanding all his bonds and penalties the event which he dreaded came to pass. Harley had advised Queen Anne to buy a collection that included so many precious documents and records: the Queen, wishing perhaps to rebuff her minister, said that it was indeed no merit in her to prefer arts to arms, 'but while the blood andhonour of the nation was at stake in her wars she could not, till she had secured her living subjects an honourable peace, bestow their money upon dead letters'; and so, we are told, 'the Earl stretched his own purse, and gave £6000 for the library.' Peter Le Neve spent his life in gathering important papers about coat-armour and pedigrees. He had intended them for the use of his fellow Kings-at-Arms; but it was said that he had some pique against the Heralds' College, and so 'cut them off with a volume.' The rest went to the auction-room: 'The Earl of Oxford,' said Oldys, 'will have a sweep at it'; and we know that the cast was successful. As for John Bagford, the scourge of the book-world, we have little to say in his defence. In his audacious design of compiling a history of printing he mangled and mutilated about 25,000 volumes, tearing out the title pages and colophons and shaving the margins even of such priceless jewels of bibliography as the Bible of Gutenberg andthoseof 'Polyglott' Cardinal Ximènes. He cannot avoid conviction as a literary monster; yet his contemporaries regarded him as a miracle of erudition, and Mr. Pollard has lately put in a kindly plea in mitigation. We are reminded that Bagford made no money by his crimes, that he took walking-tours through Holland and Germany in search of bargains, and that he made 'a priceless collection of ballads.' It might be said also for a further plea that what one age regards as sport another condemns as butchery. The Ferrar family at Little Gidding were the inventors of 'pasting-printing,' as they called their barbarous mode of embellishment; and Charlesi.himself, in Laud's presence, called their largest scrap-book 'the Emperor of all books,' and 'the incomparablest book this will be, as ever eye beheld.' The huge volume made up for Prince Charles out of pictures and scraps of text was joyfully pronounced to be 'the gallantest greatest book in the world.' The practice of 'grangerising,' or stuffing out an author with prints and pages from other works, was even praised by Dibdin as 'useful and entertaining,' though in our own time it is rightly condemned as a malpractice.
Next to Harley's library in importance was that of John Moore, Bishop of Ely, of which Burnet said that it was a treasure beyond what one would think the life and labour of a man could compass. Oldys has described it in his notes upon London libraries, which it is fair to remember were based on Bagford's labours, as regards the earlier entries. 'The Bishop,' he says, 'had a prodigious collection of books, written as well as printed on vellum, some very ancient, others finely illuminated. He had a Capgrave's Chronicle, books of the first printing at Maintz and other places abroad, as also at Oxford, St. Alban's, Westminster, etc.' There was some talk of uniting it with Harley's collection; but in 1715 it was bought by Georgei.for 6000 guineas, and was presented to the Public Library at Cambridge.
The University had possessed a library from very early times. It owed much to the liberality of severalsuccessive Bishops of Durham. Theodore Beza and Lord Bacon were afterwards among its most distinguished benefactors. Bishop Hacket made a donation of nearly fifteen hundred volumes: and in 1647 a large collection of Easternmss., brought home from Italy by George Thomason, was added by an ordinance of the Commonwealth. But, until the royal gift of the Bishop of Ely's books, the University received no such extraordinary favour of fortune as came to the sister institution through the splendid beneficence of Bodley.
The University of Oxford still offers public thanks for Bodley's generosity upon his calendar-day. The ancient library of Duke Humphrey and his pious predecessors had, as we have seen, been plundered and devastated. But Sir Thomas Bodley, when retiring from office in 1597, conceived the idea of restoring it to prosperity again; 'and in a few years so richly endowed it with books, revenues, and buildings, that it became one of the most famous in the world.' Bodley has left us his own account of the matter:—'I concluded at the last to set up my staff at the library-door in Oxon. I found myself furnished with such four kinds of aids as, unless I had them all, I had no hope of success. For without some kind of knowledge, without some purse-ability to go through with the charge, without good store of friends to further the design, and without special good leisure to follow such a work, it could not but have proved a vain attempt.' When Méric Casaubon visited Oxford a few years afterwards he found the hall filled with books. 'Do not imagine,' he wrote, 'that there are as manymss.here as in the royal library at Paris. There are a good many in England,though nothing to what our King possesses; but the number of printed books is wonderful, and increasing every year. During my visit to Oxford I passed whole days in this place. The books cannot be taken away, but it is open to scholars for seven or eight hours a day, and one may always see a number of them revelling at their banquet, which gave me no small pleasure.' Bodley was not one of those who like libraries to be open to all comers. 'A grant of such scope,' said his statute, 'would but minister an occasion of pestering all the room with their gazing; and the babbling and trampling up and down may disturb out of measure the endeavours of those that are studious. Admission, from the first, was granted only to graduates, and every one on his entrance had to take the oath against 'razing, defacing, cutting, noting, slurring, and mangling the books.'
Sir Thomas was ably seconded by 'good Mr. James,' his first librarian, and by the bookseller John Bill, who collected for him at Frankfort and Lyons and other likely places on the Continent. The most minute rules were laid down for the protection of the books against embezzlement. The volumes were chained to the desks, and readers were entreated to fasten the clasps and strings, to untangle the chains, and to leave the books as they found them. Bodley was always enquiring about the store of chains and wires. 'I pray you write to John Smith,' he said to James, 'that I may be furnished against Easter with a thousand chains'; he hopes to bring enough forthat number, 'if God send my books safe out of Italy.' About the time of the King's visit he writes that he has sent a case of wires and clips by the carrier, 'which I make no doubt but you may in good time get fastened to your books.' His carefulness is shown by his directions for cleaning the room: 'I do desire that, after the library is well swept and the books cleansed from dust, you would cause the floor to be well washed and dried, and after rubbed with a little rosemary, for a stronger scent I should not like.' He often writes about his Continental purchases. John Bill, he says, had been at Venice, Florence, and Rome, and half a score other Italian cities, 'and hath bought us many books as he knew I had not, amounting to the sum of at least £400.' With regard to certain duplicates he says: 'the fault is mine and John Bill's, who dealing with multitudes must perforce make many scapes.' 'Jo. Bill hath gotten everywhere what the place would afford, for his commission was large, his leisure very good, and his payment sure at home.' The agent bought largely at Seville; 'but the people's usage towards all of our nation is so cruel and malicious that he was utterly discouraged.'
SIR THOMAS BODLEY.
SIR THOMAS BODLEY.
Sir Thomas Bodley would accept a very small contribution or the gift of a single volume of any respectable sort. But he would have no 'riff-raff,' as he told Dr. James, and would certainly have scorned the almanacs and play-books acquired after his death under a bequest from the melancholy Burton, and the ships' logs and 'pickings of chandlers' and grocers'papers' which were received long afterwards as part of Dr. Rawlinson's great donation. He was always grateful for a well-meant present. He writes to his librarian: 'Mr. Schoolmaster of Winton's gift of Melanchthon and Huss I do greatly esteem, and will thank him, if you will, by letter.' Some of the earliest gifts were of a splendid kind. Lord Essex sent three hundred folios, including a fine Budæus from the library of Jerome Osorio, captured at Faro in Portugal when the fleet was returning from Cadiz. Bodley himself gave a magnificentRomance of Alexanderthat had belonged in 1466 to Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers. The librarian contributed about a hundred volumes, including earlymss.procured from Balliol and Merton by his persuasion. Merton College, for its own part, sent nearly two-score volumes of 'singular good books in folio.' Sir Henry Savile gave the 'Gospels' in Russian and the Greek 'Commentaries on St. Augustine,' and William Camden out of his poverty brought a few manuscripts and ancient books. Lawrence Bodley, the founder's brother, came with thirty-seven 'very fair and new-bought works in folio, and Lord Lumley with forty volumes reserved out of the library sold to the Prince. Lord Montacute contributed the works of the Fathers, 'in sixty-six costly great volumes, all bought of set purpose and fairly bound with his arms,' Mr. Gent a number of medical treatises, Sir John Fortescue five good Greekmss.and forty other books. We only mention a few of the choicer specimens or note the reappearance of old friends described in earlier chapters. In 1602 there arrived from Exeter Bishop Leofric's vellum service-book, with several others that had lodged in its company since the days of Edward the Confessor. Next year came one of the exquisite 'Gospels' which Pope Gregory, as men said, had given to the missionary Augustine; the other had been included in Parker's gift to Corpus Christi. Sir Henry Wotton contributed a valuable Koran, to which in later years he added Tycho Brahés 'Astronomy' with the author'sms.notes. Thomas Allen gave a relic of St. Dunstan, containing the Saint's portrait drawn by himself, and one of Grostête's books that had been given by the Friars to Dr. Gascoigne. Mr. Allen gave in all twelve raremss.besides printed books, 'with a purpose to do more'; and Bodley commends him as a most careful provoker and solicitor of benefactions. He was the mathematician, or rather the cabalistical astrologer, who taught Sir Kenelm Digby, introducing that romantic giant to the art of ruling the stars, and how to melt and puff 'until the green dragon becomes the golden goose,' and all the otherarcanaof alchemy.
Digby was a good friend to the Bodleian. When quite a youth he cut down fifty great oaks to purchase a building-site near Exeter College. The laying of the foundation-stone in 1634 was amusingly described by Wood. The Heads of Houses were all assembled, and the University musicians 'had sounded a lesson on their wind-music,' standing on the leads at the westend of the library; but while the Vice-Chancellor was placing a piece of gold on the first stone, the earth fell in, and the scaffold broke, 'so that all those who were thereon, the Proctors, Principals of Halls, etc., fell down all together one upon another, among whom the under-butler of Exeter College had his shoulder broken or put out of joint, and a scholar's arm bruised.' It was at this time that Digby made a generous gift of books, all tall copies in good bindings with his initials on the panels at the back. Among them were early works on science by Grostête and Roger Bacon, besides histories and chronicles. Many of these books had belonged to Thomas Allen, who gave them to Digby as a token of regard. Sir Kenelm wrote about them to Sir Robert Cotton, who was to thank Allen for his kindness: 'in my hands they will not be with less honourable memory of him than in any man's else.' He felt sure that Allen would have wished them to be freely used: 'all good things are the better the more they are communicated'; but the University was to be the absolute mistress, 'to dispose of them as she pleaseth.' Mr. Macray quotes another passage about two trunks of Arabicmss.Digby had given them to Laud for St. John's College or the Bodleian, as he might prefer, but nothing had been heard about their arrival. He promised more books from his own library, which had been taken over to France after the Civil War broke out. The books, however, remained abroad, and were confiscated on Digby's death as being the chattels of an alienresident; but either by favour or purchase they soon became the property of the Earl of Bristol, and were afterwards sold by auction in London. Two volumes were purchased for the Bodleian in 1825 which must be regarded with the deepest interest. The 'Bacon' and 'Proclus' had belonged to the Oxford Friars, to Gascoigne, to the astrologer secluded in Gloucester Hall. Digby had written a note in each that it was the book of the University Library, as witnessed by his initials; but it had taken them many generations to make the last stage of their journey from his book-shelf to their acknowledged home at Oxford.
It was chiefly through the generosity of Laud that the Bodleian obtained its wealth of Oriental learning. But it was not only in the East that the Archbishop devoted himself to book-collecting. Like Dr. Dee, he saw the value of Ireland as a hunting-ground, and employed his emissaries to procure painted service-books, the records of native princes, and the archives of the Anglo-Norman nobility. Among his most precious acquisitions was an Irishms.containing thePsalter of Cashel, Cormac's still unpublishedGlossary, and some of the poems ascribed to St. Patrick and St. Columba. On the Continent the armies of Gustavus Adolphus were ravaging the cities of Germany; and Laud's agents were always at hand to rescue the fair books and vellums from the Swedish pikemen. In this way he obtained the printed Missal of 1481 and a number of Latinmss.from the College of Würzburg, and other valuable books from monasteries near Mainzand Eberbach in the Duchy of Baden. It appears by Mr. Macray's Annals that his gifts to the University between 1635 and 1640 amounted to about thirteen hundred volumes, in more than twenty languages. To our minds the most attractive will always be the very copy of the 'Acts' perused by the Venerable Bede, and the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' compiled in the Abbey of Peterborough. The men of Laud's age would perhaps have attached greater importance to the Easternmss.acquired by the Archbishop through Robert Huntingdon, the consul at Aleppo, or the Greek library of Francesco Barocci, which he persuaded William Earl of Pembroke to present to the University. In describing the Persianmss.of his last gift, Laud specially mentioned one as containing a history of the world from the Creation to the end of the Saracen Empire, and as being of a very great value. He shows the greatest anxiety for the safety of the volumes: 'I would to God the place for them were ready, that they might be set up safe, and chained as the other books are.' He gave many books to St. John's College; and he retained a large collection in his Palace at Lambeth, which was bestowed on Hugh Peters after his death; it is satisfactory, however, to remember that 'the study of books' was recovered at the Restoration, and that Mr. Ashmole was appointed to examine the accounts of the fanatic.
Laud was not the first to seek for the treasures of the East. Before his gifts began Sir Thomas Roe, who sat for Oxford with Selden, had presented to theBodleian a number ofmss.acquired during his embassy to Constantinople. Joseph Scaliger, the restorer of Arabic learning in the West, had been especially interested in Samaritan literature, and had corresponded about a copy of the Pentateuch with one Rabbi Eleazar, 'who dwelt in Sichem'; and, though the papers fell into the hands of robbers, they were afterwards delivered to Peiresc. The traveller Minutius had returned with Coptic service-books, and Peiresc, captivated with a new branch of learning, established an agency for Eastern books at Smyrna. The Capucin Gilles de Loche averred that he had seen 8000 volumes in a monastery of the Nitrian Desert,'many of which seemed to be of the age of St. Anthony': he had pushed into Abyssinia and had heard the 'uncouth chaunts and clashing cymbals,' as Mr. Curzon heard them in a later age; and he had even cast his eyes on theBook of Enochwith pallid figures and a shining black text; and Peiresc was so inflamed with a desire to buy it at any price that in the end he acquired it. The books seen by the Capucin in the Convent of the Syrians, stored 'in the vault beyond the oil-cellar,'have become our national property; and if there are not many of the age of St. Anthony we have at least the volume, completed by the help of a monk's note of the eleventh century, and originally written in the year 411 'at Ur of the Chaldees by the hand of a man named Jacob.'
Much less attention seems to have been paid to the collection of Hebrew books than to those in Copticand Arabic. Selden, it is true, gave to the University Library 'such of his Talmudical and Rabbinical books as were not already to be found there,' and purchases were made at the Crevenna sale in Amsterdam and at a sale during the present century of themss.of Matheo Canonici at Venice. The chief source from which the Bodleian was supplied was the collection formed before 1735 by David Oppenheimer, the Chief Rabbi at Prague. In the British Museum are the Hebrew books presented by Solomon da Costa in 1759. The donor's letter contained a few interesting details. There were three Biblicalmss.and a hundred and eighty printed books, all in very old editions: 'They were bound by order of King Charlesii., and marked with his cypher, and were purchased by me in the days of my youth, and the particulars are they not written in the book that is found therewith?' They had been collected under the Commonwealth, and had afterwards been sent to the binder by King Charles; but as the bill was never paid they lay in the shop until the reign of Georgei., when they were sold to pay expenses, and so came into the possession of the excellent Solomon da Costa.
The best antiquarian collections were those given to Oxford by Dr. Rawlinson in the last century, by Richard Gough in 1809, and by Mr. Douce in 1834. Mr. Macray has enumerated nearly thirty libraries which Richard Rawlinson had laid under contribution, and his list includes such headings as the Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys, the ThurloeState Papers, the remains of Thomas Hearne, and documents belonging to Gale and Michael Maittaire, Sir Joseph Jekyll, and Walter Clavell of the Temple. He cites a letter written by Rawlinson in 1741, as showing the curious accidents by which some of these documents were preserved: 'My agent last week met with some papers of Archbishop Wake at a chandler's shop: this is unpardonable in his executors, as all hismss.were left to Christ Church; butquærewhether these did not fall into some servant's hands, who was ordered to burn them, and Mr. Martin Folkes ought to have seen that done.'
Mr. Gough's collection related chiefly to English topography, Anglo-Saxon and Northern literature, and printed service-books; it is stated to contain more than 3700 volumes, all given by a generous bequest to form 'an Antiquary's Closet.' Mr. Douce's large library contained a number of Missals andLivres d'Heures. Some of these are described as 'priceless gems rivalled only by the Bedford Missal,' especially one prayer-book illuminated for Leonora, Duchess of Urbino, another that belonged to Marie de Médici, and 'a Psalter on purple vellum, probably of the ninth century, which came from the old Royal Library of France.' Among the most important of the earlier benefactions was the gift oftheDodsworth Papers by Thomas Lord Fairfax. The archives of the Northern monasteries had been kept for a time in eight chests in St. Mary's Tower at York. Roger Dodsworth, Sir WilliamDugdale's colleague in the preparation of the Monasticon, made copies of many of these documents; and when the tower was blown up in the siege of 1644 he was one of the zealous antiquarians who saved the mouldering fragments on the breach. His whole store of archæological records became the property of Fairfax at his death. They are of great historical importance, but at one time they were strangely neglected. Wood says that all the papers were nearly spoiled in a damp season, when he obtained leave to dry them on the leads near the schools; but though it cost him a month's labour he undertook it with pleasure 'out of respect to the memory of Mr. Dodsworth.'
The Ashmolean books were some years ago transferred to the Bodleian, but for several generations there was a strange assortment of antiquarian libraries gathered together in the Museum which Ashmole developed out of Madam Tradescant's 'closet of curiosities.' Here were the books of the shiftless John Aubrey, described by Wood as 'sometimes little better than crazed': and here, according to Wood's dying wish, lay his own books, 'and papers and notes about two bushels full,' side by side with Dugdale's manuscripts. Dibdin quotes several extracts from Elias Ashmole's diary, to show the old book-hunter's prowess in the chase. He buys on one day Mr. Milbourn's books, and on the next all that Mr. Hawkins left; he sees Mrs. Backhouse of London about the purchase of her late husband'slibrary. In 1667 he writes: 'I bought Mr. John Booker's study of books, and gave £140.' Being somewhat of an alchemist, he was glad to become the owner of Lilly's volumes on magic, and most of Dr. Dee's collection came into his hands through the kindness of his friend Mr. Wale. When Ashmole brought out his book upon the Order of the Garter he became the associate of the nobility; and we will leave him feasting at his house in South Lambeth, clad in a velvet gown, and wearing his great chain 'of philagreen links in great knobs,' with ninety loops of gold.