Bristol.

Had these unpretending memorials of the literary treasures of our Cathedral Churches been written earlier, they might have given some idea of the loss sustained by that of Bristol in the memorable riots of the 31st of October, 1831.

The Chapter-house, so much admired for the beauty of its Saxon architecture, was at that time the receptacle of about six or seven thousand volumes, constituting the Library of the Dean and Chapter.

The lawless ruffians, who fired the adjoining Palace, threw the greater number of these volumes into the flames, and the Catalogue, of which, unfortunately, no duplicate was kept, shared a similar fate.

The mob appeared most anxious to destroy the larger volumes, under the idea that they were Bibles, “but,” added my informant, who visited the delinquents in prison, “I found many of them reading the sacred volume, which, in their madness, they would fain have extirpated.”

Other books of this Library were thrown into the river Avon, many into ditches, and almost all were more or less dirtied and torn, having been thrown about the streets, and otherwise defaced. Of these, however, about eleven hundred were recovered from old clothes mops, and dealers in “Marine stores,” that convenient designation, under which another person’s property is so frequently misappropriated; and this wreck of the Library, which is now deposited in the Vestry, must form the subject of the present notice.

As the Chapter-house was completely cleared of every book before the populace quitted the place, the volumes which have been recovered all present the most deplorable signs of the rude treatment they received.

So complete was the work of destruction, that only a calf-bound copy of Walton’s Polyglott, and a set of Doddridge’s Expositor were preserved entire; together with a copy of Harris’s Voyages.

So that of all the sets of books which once adorned the Library, single volumes alone remain to testify that such works as Rapin’s History of England; Camden’s Britannia; the Commentaries of Patrick, Whitby, and Nicolas de Lyra; the Works of S. Cyril, Eusebius, Bellarmine, Thomas Aquinas, Cave, Puffendorf, and Gerard; with Newton’s Prophecies; Calmet’s Dictionary; Conybeare’s Sermons; Whiston’s Sacred History; Hudson’s Josephus; Spencer de Legibus Hebræorum; Leydekker de Statu Reipublicæ Hebræorum; and some tracts against Popery, were once contained within its walls.

Alas! it is not for the Bibliographer to imitate the genius of Cuvier, and from the disjointed members of any body to discover what in its integrity it must have been, and bid those dry bones live. From the relics of a Library it is not possible to collect what it must have been in its perfect state; and here we must drop the metaphor, “ex ungue leonem.”

It may be interesting, however, to enumerate some of those single volumes which have been recovered from the wreck, and we may begin with the well-known Breeches Bible, bound in old calf, being that printed at London by Christopher Barker, in 1599, in 4to. The Bible printed at Oxford, in 1807, folio; Bacon’s Thesaurus, Butler’s Analogy, Pitt’s Virgil, Ogilby’s Homer, Cary’s Account of Ancient Time, folio; Corpus Juris Civilis Gothofredi, folio; Vegetius de Re Militari, Parisiis, 1535, folio, in a vellum wrapper; Crellii Opera; Livii Opera Parisiis, 1552, folio; Blackmore’s Prince Arthur, a Poem; and Camden’s Annals.

In closing this necessarily imperfect account of what remains of the Bristol Cathedral Library, I am happy to say, that the beautiful Chapter-house was not involved in the ruin of the adjacent Palace, but, having suffered only trifling injury, has been subsequently restored to its pristine appearance.

The books will henceforth be deposited in a small room adjoining the Chapter-house, which is now building for their reception, in the hope that their number may be increased by some future benefaction or bequest.

It is well known that the Library of the present Dean of Bristol, Dr. Beke, who has now nearly reached the span of human life, is most valuable and extensive, and were such a collection to be appropriated to the Cathedral, then would the Bristol Cathedral Library rise again, Phœnix-like, from the flames; and the venerable donor of so munificent a bequest, would, by all true Bibliopolists, be in their flowing cups freshly “remembered.”

I cannot shut the door of the Bristol Cathedral without noticing, truncated though it be, the symmetry of its Gothic Architecture, and feeling more than ordinary sensations of melancholy within its precincts.

For the mailed Barons of Berkeley, who here lie in grim repose, one has little sympathy; but for the beautiful, the young, cut off in the springtide of early enjoyment by that insidious and fatal malady, Consumption, it is for these, whose monuments, thick as leaves in Val’ombrosa, are strewed around, that the heart of an Englishman must ever heave the sigh of unavailing regret; nor can the current of his thoughts find a purer channel than that afforded by Mason’s beautiful memorial of his “dear departed saint.”