BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS AND NIGHTMARE
Reading edition
Of the great passion of Henry the Seventh for fine books, even before he ascended the throne of England, there can be no doubt. I will not, however, take upon me to say that the slumbers of this monarch were disturbed in consequence of the extraordinary and frightful passages, which, accompanied with bizarre cuts, were now introduced into almost every work, both of ascetic divinity, and also of plain practical morality. His predecessor, Richard, had in all probability been alarmed by the images which the reading of these books had created; and I guess that it was from such frightful objects, rather than from the ghosts of his murdered brethren, that he was compelled to pass a sleepless night before the memorable battle of Bosworth Field. If one of those artists who used to design the horrible pictures which are engraved in many old didactic volumes of the period, had ventured to take a peep into Richard's tent, I question whether he would not have seen, lying upon an oaken table, an early edition of some of those fearful works of which he had himself aided in the embellishment, and of which Heinecken has given us such curious facsimiles: and this, in my humble apprehension, is quite sufficient to account for all the terrible workings in Richard which Shakespeare has so vividly described.—T. F. Dibdin. Bibliomania.
DELIGHT IN BOOK-PRINTS
I yield to none in my love of bookstall urbanity. I have spent as happy moments over the stalls (until the woman looked out) as any literary apprentice boy who ought to be moving onwards. But I confess my weakness in liking to see some of my favourite purchases neatly bound. The books I like to have about me most are Spenser, Chaucer, the minor poems of Milton, the Arabian Nights, Theocritus, Ariosto, and such old good-natured speculations as Plutarch's Morals. For most of these I like a plain good old binding, never mind how old, provided it wears well; but my Arabian Nights may be bound in as fine and flowery a style as possible, and I should love an engraving to every dozen pages. Book-prints of all sorts, bad and good, take with me as much as when I was a child: and I think some books, such as Prior's Poems, ought always to have portraits of the authors. Prior's airy face with his cap on, is like having his company. From early association, no edition of Milton pleases me so much, as that in which there are pictures of the Devil with brute ears, dressed like a Roman General: nor of Bunyan, as the one containing the print of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, with the Devil whispering in Christian's ear, or old Pope by the wayside, and
Vanity Fair, With the Pilgrims suffering there.
I delight in the recollection of the puzzle I used to have with the frontispiece of the Tale of a Tub, of my real horror at the sight of that crawling old man representing Avarice, at the beginning of Enfield's Speaker, the Looking Glass, or some such book; and even of the careless schoolboy hats, and the prim stomachers and cottage bonnets, of such golden-age antiquities as the Village School. The oldest and most worn-out woodcut, representing King Pippin, Goody Two Shoes, or the grim Soldan, sitting with three staring blots for his eyes and mouth, his sceptre in one hand, and his other five fingers raised and spread in admiration at the feats of the Gallant London Prentice, cannot excite in me a feeling of ingratitude.—J. H. Leigh Hunt. My Books.
A NEAT RIVULET OF TEXT
Lady Sneerwell. I wonder, Sir Benjamin, you never publish anything.
Sir Benjamin Backbite. To say truth, ma'am, 'tis very vulgar to print; and as my little productions are mostly satires and lampoons on particular people, I find they circulate more by giving copies in confidence to the friends of the parties. However, I have some love elegies, which, when favoured with this lady's smiles, I mean to give to the public.
Crabtree. 'Fore Heaven, ma'am, they'll immortalize you!—you will be handed down to posterity, like Petrarch's Laura, or Waller's Sacharissa.
Sir Benjamin. Yes, madam, I think you will like them, when you shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.—R. B. Sheridan. The School for Scandal.
THE BOOKWORMS
Through and through the inspired leaves, Ye maggots, make your windings; But, oh! respect his lordship's taste, And spare his golden bindings. R. Burns.
THE BOOKWORM
Come hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day The bookworm, ravening beast of prey, Produced by parent Earth, at odds, As fame reports it, with the Gods. Him frantic hunger wildly drives Against a thousand authors' lives: Through all the fields of wit he flies; Dreadful his head with clustering eyes, With horns without, and tusks within, And scales to serve him for a skin. Observe him nearly, lest he climb To wound the bards of ancient time, Or down the vale of fancy go To tear some modern wretch below. On every corner fix thine eye, Or ten to one he slips thee by. See where his teeth a passage eat: We'll rouse him from his deep retreat. But who the shelter's forced to give? 'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live! From leaf to leaf, from song to song, He draws the tadpole form along, He mounts the gilded edge before, He's up, he scuds the cover o'er, He turns, he doubles, there he passed, And here we have him, caught at last. Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse The sweetest servants of the Muse— Nay, never offer to deny, I took thee in the act to fly. His roses nipped in every page, My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage; By thee my Ovid wounded lies; By thee my Lesbia's Sparrow dies; Thy rabid teeth have half destroyed The work of love in Biddy Floyd; They rent Belinda's locks away, And spoiled the Blouzelind of Gay. For all, for every single deed, Relentless justice bids thee bleed: Then fall a victim to the Nine, Myself the priest, my desk the shrine. Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near, To pile a sacred altar here: Hold, boy, thy hand outruns thy wit, You reached the plays that Dennis writ; You reached me Philips' rustic strain; Pray take your mortal bards again. Come, bind the victim,—there he lies, And here between his numerous eyes This venerable dust I lay From manuscripts just swept away. The goblet in my hand I take, For the libation's yet to make: A health to poets! all their days May they have bread, as well as praise; Sense may they seek, and less engage In papers filled with party rage. But if their riches spoil their vein, Ye Muses, make them poor again. Now bring the weapon, yonder blade With which my tuneful pens are made. I strike the scales that arm thee round, And twice and thrice I print the wound; The sacred altar floats with red, And now he dies, and now he's dead. How like the son of Jove I stand, This Hydra stretched beneath the hand! Lay bare the monster's entrails here, And see what dangers threat the year: Ye gods! what sonnets on a wench! What lean translations out of French! 'Tis plain, this lobe is so unsound, S— prints, before the months go round. But hold, before I close the scene The sacred altar should be clean. O had I Shadwell's second bays, Or, Tate, thy pert and humble lays! (Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow I never missed your works till now,) I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine, That only way you please the Nine: But since I chance to want these two, I'll make the songs of D'Urfey do. Rent from the corpse, on yonder pin, I hang the scales that braced it in; I hang my studious morning gown, And write my own inscription down. 'This trophy from the Python won, This robe, in which the deed was done, These, Parnell, glorying in the feat, Hung on these shelves, the Muses' seat. Here Ignorance and Hunger found Large realms of wit to ravage round; Here Ignorance and Hunger fell, Two foes in one I sent to hell. Ye poets who my labours see Come share the triumph all with me! Ye critics, born to vex the Muse, Go mourn the grand ally you lose!' T. Parnell.
A MOTH
Here he beholds in triumph sit The bane of beauty, sense, and wit; Demolished distichs round his head, Half lines and shattered stanzas spread, While the insulting conqueror climbs O'er mighty heaps of ruined rhymes, And, proudly mounted, views from high, Beneath, the harmonious fragments lie; Boasting himself from foes secured, In stanzas lodged, in verse immured. W. King (?) Bibliotheca.
THE CURE FOR BOOKWORMS
There is a sort of busy worm That will the fairest books deform, By gnawing holes throughout them; Alike through every leaf they go, Yet of its merits naught they know, Nor care they aught about them. Their tasteless tooth will tear and taint The poet, patriot, sage, or saint, Nor sparing wit nor learning: Now, if you'd know the reason why, The best of reasons I'll supply— 'Tis bread to the poor vermin. Of pepper, snuff, or 'bacca smoke, And russia-calf they make a joke. Yet why should sons of science These puny, rankling reptiles dread? 'Tis but to let their books be read, And bid the worms defiance. J. F. M. Dovaston.
ROYAL PATRONAGE OF BOOKS
Queen Charlotte, when discussing books with Fanny Burney and Mrs. Delany, during the former's residence at Court at Windsor, praised the work of a writer who had translated a German book into English, saying 'I wish I knew the translator,' to which Miss Burney replied, 'I wish the translator knew that!'
'Oh,' said the Queen,—'it is not—I should not like to give my name, for fear I have judged ill: I picked it up on a stall. Oh, it is amazing what good books there are on stalls.'
'It is amazing to me,' said Mrs. Delany, 'to hear that.'
'Why, I don't pick them up myself; but I have a servant very clever; and if they are not to be had at the bookseller's, they are not for me any more than for another.'—From Madame d'Arblay. Diary.
THE TREASURE
Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so thread-bare—and all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late at night from Barker's in Covent-garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should be too late—and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bed-wards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures—and when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome—and when you presented it to me—and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating you called it)—and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left till daybreak—was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can those neat black clothes, which you wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that over-worn suit—your old corbeau—for four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen—or sixteen shillings was it?—a great affair we thought it then—which you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any nice old purchases now.—C. Lamb. Old China.
THE MOST VALUABLE BOOK
We ought not to get books too cheaply. No book, I believe, is ever worth half so much to its reader as one that has been coveted for a year at a bookstall, and bought out of saved halfpence; and perhaps a day or two's fasting. That's the way to get at the cream of a book.—J. Ruskin. Political Economy of Art (A Joy for Ever).
THE READERS AT THE BOOKSTALL
There is a class of street-readers, whom I can never contemplate without affection—the poor gentry, who, not having wherewithal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open stalls—the owner, with his hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while, and thinking when they will have done. Venturing tenderly, page after page, expecting every moment when he shall interpose his interdict, and yet unable to deny themselves the gratification, they 'snatch a fearful joy'. Martin B——, in this way, by daily fragments, got through two volumes of Clarissa, when the stall-keeper damped his laudable ambition, by asking him (it was in his younger days) whether he meant to purchase the work. M. declares that under no circumstances of his life did he ever peruse a book with half the satisfaction which he took in those uneasy snatches. A quaint poetess of our day has moralized upon this subject in two very touching but homely stanzas:
I saw a boy with eager eye Open a book upon a stall, And read, as he'd devour it all; Which when the stall-man did espy, Soon to the boy I heard him call, 'You, Sir, you never buy a book, Therefore in one you shall not look.' The boy passed slowly on and with a sigh He wished he never had been taught to read, Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need. Of sufferings the poor have many, Which never can the rich annoy: I soon perceived another boy, Who looked as if he'd not had any Food, for that day at least—enjoy The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder. This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder, Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny, Beholding choice of dainty-dressèd meat: No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learned to eat. C. Lamb. Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading.
TETRACHORDON
A book was writ of late called Tetrachordon; And woven close, both matter, form and style; The subject new: it walked the town awhile, Numbering good intellects; now seldom pored on. Cries the stall-reader, bless us! what a word on A title-page is this! and some in file Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile- End Green. Why is it harder, Sirs, than Gordon, Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp? Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp. Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheek, Hated not learning worse than toad or asp; When thou taught'st Cambridge, and King Edward Greek. J. Milton.
THE SECOND-HAND CATALOGUE
A Second-hand Bookseller's Catalogue is not a mere catalogue or list of saleables, as the uninitiated may fancy. Even a common auctioneer's catalogue of goods and chattels suggests a thousand reflections to a peruser of any knowledge; judge then what the case must be with a catalogue of Books; the very titles of which run the rounds of the whole world, visible and invisible; geographies—biographies— histories—loves—hates—joys—sorrows—cookeries—sciences—fashion—and eternity! We speak on this subject from the most literal experience; for often and often have we cut open a new catalogue of old books, with all the fervour and ivory folder of a first love; often read one at tea; nay, at dinner; and have put crosses against dozens of volumes in the list, out of the pure imagination of buying them, the possibility being out of the question!—
Nothing delights us more than to overhaul some dingy tome, and read a chapter gratuitously. Occasionally when we have opened some very attractive old book, we have stood reading for hours at the stall, lost in a brown study and worldly forgetfulness, and should probably have read on to the end of the last chapter, had not the vendor of published wisdom offered, in a satirically polite way, to bring us out a chair—'Take a chair, sir; you must be tired.'—J. H. Leigh Hunt. Retrospective Review.
THE FIND
Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard, And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since? Examine it yourselves! I found this book, Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just, (Mark the predestination!) when a Hand, Always above my shoulder, pushed me once, One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm, Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths, Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time; Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge O' the pedestal where sits and menaces John of the Black Bands with the upright spear, 'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived, His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie. This book,—precisely on that palace-step Which, meant for lounging knaves o' the Medici, Now serves re-venders to display their ware,— 'Mongst odds and ends of ravage, picture-frames White through the worn gilt, mirror-sconces chipped, Bronze angel-heads once knobs attached to chests, (Handled when ancient dames chose forth brocade) Modern chalk drawings, studies from the nude, Samples of stone, jet, breccia, porphyry Polished and rough, sundry amazing busts In baked earth, (broken, Providence be praised!) A wreck of tapestry, proudly-purposed web When reds and blues were indeed red and blue, Now offered as a mat to save bare feet (Since carpets constitute a cruel cost) Treading the chill scagliola bedward: then A pile of brown-etched prints, two crazie each, Stopped by a conch a-top from fluttering forth —Sowing the Square with works of one and the same Master, the imaginative Sienese Great in the scenic backgrounds—(name and fame None of you know, nor does he fare the worse:) From these.... Oh, with a Lionard going cheap If it should prove, as promised, that Joconde Whereof a copy contents the Louvre!—these I picked this book from. Five compeers in flank Stood left and right of it as tempting more— A dogseared Spicilegium, the fond tale O' the Frail One of the Flower, by young Dumas, Vulgarized Horace for the use of schools, The Life, Death, Miracles of Saint Somebody, Saint Somebody Else, his Miracles, Death, and Life,— With this, one glance at the lettered back of which, And 'Stall!' cried I: a lira made it mine. Here it is, this I toss and take again; Small-quarto size, part print part manuscript: A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard, And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since. Give it me back! The thing's restorative I' the touch and sight. R. Browning. The Ring and the Book.
PURCHASING AN ACT OF PIETY
When Providence throws a good book in my way, I bow to its decree and purchase it as an act of piety, if it is reasonably or unreasonably cheap. I adopt a certain number of books every year, out of a love for the foundlings and stray children of other people's brains that nobody seems to care for. Look here.
He took down a Greek Lexicon finely bound in calf, and spread it open.
Do you see that Hedericus? I had Greek dictionaries enough and to spare, but I saw that noble quarto lying in the midst of an ignoble crowd of cheap books, and marked with a price which I felt to be an insult to scholarship, to the memory of Homer, sir, and the awful shade of Aeschylus, I paid the mean price asked for it, and I wanted to double it, but I suppose it would have been a foolish sacrifice of coin to sentiment. I love that book for its looks and behaviour. None of your 'half-calf' economies in that volume, sir! And see how it lies open anywhere! There isn't a book in my library that has such a generous way of laying its treasures before you. From Alpha to Omega, calm, assured rest at any page that your choice or accident may light on. No lifting of a rebellious leaf like an upstart servant that does not know his place and can never be taught manners, but tranquil, well-bred repose. A book may be a perfect gentleman in its aspect and demeanour, and this book would be good company for personages like Roger Ascham and his pupils the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Jane Grey.—O. W. Holmes. The Poet at the Breakfast-Table.
A FORCED SALE
I fear that I must sell this residue Of my father's books; although the Elzevirs Have fly-leaves over-written by his hand, In faded notes as thick and fine and brown As cobwebs on a tawny monument Of the old Greeks—conferenda haec cum his— Corruptè citat—lege potiùs, And so on, in the scholar's regal way Of giving judgement on the parts of speech, As if he sate on all twelve thrones up-piled, Arraigning Israel. Ay, but books and notes Must go together. And this Proclus too, In quaintly dear contracted Grecian types, Fantastically crumpled, like his thoughts Which would not seem too plain; you go round twice For one step forward, then you take it back, Because you're somewhat giddy! there's the rule For Proclus. Ah, I stained this middle leaf With pressing in't my Florence iris-bell, Long stalk and all: my father chided me For that stain of blue blood,—I recollect The peevish turn his voice took,—'Silly girls, Who plant their flowers in our philosophy To make it fine, and only spoil the book! No more of it, Aurora.' Yes—no more! Ah, blame of love, that's sweeter than all praise Of those who love not! 'tis so lost to me, I cannot, in such beggared life, afford To lose my Proclus.... The kissing Judas, Wolff, shall go instead, Who builds us such a royal book as this To honour a chief-poet, folio-built, And writes above, 'The house of Nobody': Who floats in cream, as rich as any sucked From Juno's breasts, the broad Homeric lines, And, while with their spondaic prodigious mouths They lap the lucent margins as babe-gods, Proclaims them bastards. Wolff's an atheist; And if the Iliad fell out, as he says, By mere fortuitous concourse of old songs, We'll guess as much, too, for the universe. E. B. Browning. Aurora Leigh.
THE VOCATION
One of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand book-shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages was represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of Homer to the mortal prose of the railway novel. That the mixture was judicious was apparent from Deronda's finding in it something that he wanted—namely, that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the Polish Jew, Salomon Maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his pocket, he took from its place, and entered the shop to pay for, expecting to see behind the counter a grimy personage showing that nonchalance about sales which seems to belong universally to the second-hand book-business. In most other trades you find generous men who are anxious to sell you their wares for your own welfare; but even a Jew will not urge Simson's Euclid on you with an affectionate assurance that you will have pleasure in reading it, and that he wishes he had twenty more of the article, so much is it in request. One is led to fear that a second-hand bookseller may belong to that unhappy class of men who have no belief in the good of what they get their living by, yet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than unctuous in their vocation.—G. Eliot. Daniel Deronda.
TO MY BOOKSELLER
Thou that makst gain thy end, and, wisely well, Callst a book good, or bad, as it doth sell, Use mine so too: I give thee leave; but crave For the luck's sake it thus much favour have To lie upon thy stall, till it be sought; Not offered, as it made suit to be bought; Nor have my title-leaf on posts or walls, Or in cleft sticks, advanced to make calls For termers, or some clerk-like servingman, Who scarce can spell the hard names: whose knight less can. If without these vile arts it will not sell, Send it to Bucklersbury, there 'twill well. Ben Jonson.
THE WRITER TO HIS BOOK
Whither thus hastes my little book so fast? To Paul's Churchyard. What? in those cells to stand, With one leaf like a rider's cloak put up To catch a termer? or lie musty there With rhymes a term set out, or two, before? Some will redeem me. Few. Yes, read me too. Fewer. Nay, love me. Now thou dot'st, I see. Will not our English Athens art defend? Perhaps. Will lofty courtly wits not aim Still at perfection? If I grant? I fly. Whither? To Paul's. Alas, poor book, I rue Thy rash self-love; go, spread thy papery wings: Thy lightness cannot help or hurt my fame. T. Campion.
AD BIBLIOPOLAM
Printer or stationer or whate'er thou prove Shalt me record to Time's posterity: I'll not enjoin thee, but request in love, Thou so much deign my Book to dignify, As, first, it be not with your ballads mixed Next, not at play-houses 'mongst pippins sold: Then that on posts by the ears it stand not fixt, For every dull mechanic to behold. Last, that it come not brought in pedler's packs, To common fairs, of country, town, or city: Sold at a booth 'mongst pins and almanacks; Yet on thy hands to lie, thou'lt say 'twere pity; Let it be rather for tobacco rent, Or butchers-wives, next Cleansing-week in Lent. H. Parrot. The Mastive, or Young-Whelpe of the Olde-Dogge.
IN BONDAGE TO THE BOOKSELLER
Nevertheless conceive me not, I pray you, that I go about to lay a general imputation upon all stationers. For to disparage the whole profession were an act neither becoming an honest man to do, nor a prudent auditory to suffer. Their mystery, as they not untruly term it, consists of divers trades incorporated together: as printers, book-binders, clasp-makers, booksellers, &c. And of all these be some honest men, who to my knowledge are so grieved, being overborne by the notorious oppressions and proceedings of the rest, that they have wished themselves of some other calling. The printers' mystery is ingenious, painful, and profitable: the book-binders' necessary; the clasp-makers' useful. And indeed, the retailer of books, commonly called a bookseller, is a trade, which, being well governed and limited within certain bounds, might become somewhat serviceable to the rest. But as it is now, for the most part abused, the bookseller hath not only made the printer, the binder, and the clasp-maker a slave to him: but hath brought authors, yea, the whole Commonwealth, and all the liberal sciences into bondage. For he makes all professors of Art labour for his profit, at his own price, and utters it to the Commonwealth in such fashion, and at those rates, which please himself. Insomuch, that I wonder so insupportable and so impertinent a thing as a mere bookseller, considering what the profession is become now, was ever permitted to grow up in the Commonwealth.—G. Wither. The Schollers Purgatory.
IN PATERNOSTER ROW
Methinks, oh vain, ill-judging book! I see thee cast a wistful look, Where reputations won and lost are In famous row called Paternoster. Incensed to find your precious olio Buried in unexplored port-folio, You scorn the prudent lock and key; And pant, well-bound and gilt, to see Your volume in the window set Of Stockdale, Hookham, and Debrett. Go then, and pass that dangerous bourne Whence never book can back return; And when you find—condemned, despised, Neglected, blamed, and criticized— Abuse from all who read you fall (If haply you be read at all), Sorely will you for folly sigh at, And wish for me, and home, and quiet. Assuming now a conjurer's office, I Thus on your future fortune prophesy:— Soon as your novelty is o'er, And you are young and new no more, In some dark dirty corner thrown, Mouldy with damps, with cobwebs strown, Your leaves shall be the bookworm's prey; Or sent to chandler's shop away, And doomed to suffer public scandal, Shall line the trunk, or wrap the candle. M. G. Lewis. The Monk.
THE ELEPHANT AND THE BOOKSELLER
The Bookseller, who heard him speak, And saw him turn a page of Greek, Thought, what a genius have I found! Then thus addressed with bow profound: 'Learned Sir, if you'd employ your pen Against the senseless sons of men, Or write the history of Siam, No man is better pay than I am. Or, since you're learned in Greek, let's see Something against the Trinity.' When, wrinkling with a sneer his trunk, 'Friend', quoth the Elephant, 'you're drunk: E'en keep your money, and be wise; Leave man on man to criticize: For that you ne'er can want a pen Among the senseless sons of men. They unprovoked will court the fray; Envy's a sharper spur than pay. No author ever spared a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one another.' J. Gay. Fables.
LITERARY UPHOLSTERERS
Our booksellers here at London disgrace literature by the trash they bespeak to be written, and at the same time prevent everything else from being sold. They are little more or less than upholsterers, who sell sets or bodies of arts and sciences for furniture; and the purchasers, for I am very sure they are not readers, buy only in that view. I never thought there was much merit in reading: but yet it is too good a thing to be put upon no better footing than damask and mahogany.—H. Walpole. Earl of Orford (Letter to Sir David Dalrymple) .
No furniture so charming as books, even if you never open them or read a single word.—S. Smith. Memoirs.
ON A MISCELLANY OF POEMS
To Bernard Lintott
'Ipsa varietate tentamus efficere ut alia aliis, quaedam fortasse omnibus placeant.' Plin. Epist.
As when some skilful cook, to please each guest, Would in one mixture comprehend a feast, With due proportion and judicious care He fills his dish with different sorts of fare, Fishes and fowls deliciously unite, To feast at once the taste, the smell, and sight. So, Bernard, must a Miscellany be Compounded of all kinds of poetry; The Muses' olio, which all tastes may fit, And treat each reader with his darling wit. Wouldst thou for Miscellanies raise thy fame, And bravely rival Jacob's mighty name, Let all the Muses in the piece conspire; The lyric bard must strike the harmonious lyre; Heroic strains must here and there be found; And nervous sense be sung in lofty sound; Let elegy in moving numbers flow, And fill some pages with melodious woe; Let not your amorous songs too numerous prove, Nor glut thy reader with abundant love; Satire must interfere, whose pointed rage May lash the madness of a vicious age; Satire! the Muse that never fails to hit, For if there's scandal, to be sure there's wit. Tire not our patience with Pindaric lays, Those swell the piece, but very rarely please; Let short-breathed epigram its force confine, And strike at follies in a single line. Translations should throughout the work be sown, And Homer's godlike Muse be made our own; Horace in useful numbers should be sung, And Virgil's thoughts adorn the British tongue. Let Ovid tell Corinna's hard disdain, And at her door in melting notes complain; His tender accents pitying virgins move, And charm the listening ear with tales of love Let every classic in the volume shine, And each contribute to thy great design; Through various subjects let the reader range, And raise his fancy with a grateful change. Variety's the source of joy below, From whence still fresh revolving pleasures flow. In books and love, the mind one end pursues, And only change the expiring flame renews. Where Buckingham will condescend to give, That honoured piece to distant times must live; When noble Sheffield strikes the trembling strings, The little Loves rejoice, and clap their wings; Anacreon lives, they cry, the harmonious swain Retunes the lyre, and tries his wonted strain, 'Tis he—our lost Anacreon lives again. But, when the illustrious poet soars above The sportive revels of the God of Love, Like Mars's Muse, he takes a loftier flight, And towers beyond the wondering Cupid's sight. If thou wouldst have thy volume stand the test, And of all others be reputed best, Let Congreve teach the listening groves to mourn, As when he wept o'er fair Pastora's urn. Let Prior's Muse with softening accents move, Soft as the strains of constant Emma's love: Or let his fancy choose some jovial theme, As when he told Hans Carvel's jealous dream; Prior the admiring reader entertains With Chaucer's humour, and with Spenser's strains. Waller in Granville lives; when Mira sings, With Waller's hand he strikes the sounding strings, With sprightly turns his noble genius shines, And manly sense adorns his easy lines. On Addison's sweet lays attention waits, And silence guards the place while he repeats; His Muse alike on every subject charms, Whether she paints the god of love, or arms: In him pathetic Ovid sings again, And Homer's Iliad shines in his Campaign. Whenever Garth shall raise his sprightly song, Sense flows in easy numbers from his tongue; Great Phoebus in his learned son we see, Alike in physic, as in poetry. When Pope's harmonious Muse with pleasure roves Amidst the plains, the murmuring streams, and groves, Attentive Echo, pleased to hear his songs, Through the glad shade each warbling note prolongs; His various numbers charm our ravished ears, His steady judgement far out-shoots his years, And early in the youth the god appears. From these successful bards collect thy strains; And praise with profit shall reward thy pains: Then, while calf's-leather-binding bears the sway, And sheepskin to its sleeker gloss gives way; While neat old Elzevir is reckoned better Than Pirate Hill's brown sheets and scurvy letter; While print-admirers careful Aldous choose, Before John Morphew, or the Weekly News; So long shall live thy praise in books of fame, And Tonson yield to Lintott's lofty name. J. Gay.
VERSES TO BE PREFIXED BEFORE BERNARD LINTOTT'S NEW MISCELLANY
Some Colinaeus praise, some Bleau, Others account them but so so; Some Plantin to the rest prefer, And some esteem old Elzevir; Others with Aldous would besot us; I, for my part, admire Lintotus.— His character's beyond compare, Like his own person, large and fair. They print their names in letters small, But Lintott stands in capital: Author and he with equal grace Appear, and stare you in the face. Stephens prints Heathen Greek, 'tis said, Which some can't construe, some can't read; But all that comes from Lintott's hand, Even Rawlinson might understand. Oft in an Aldous, or a Plantin, A page is blotted, or leaf wanting: Of Lintott's books this can't be said, All fair, and not so much as read. Their copy cost 'em not a penny To Homer, Virgil, or to any; They ne'er gave sixpence for two lines To them, their heirs, or their assigns: But Lintott is at vast expense, And pays prodigious dear for—sense. Their books are useful but to few, A scholar or a wit or two; Lintott's for general use are fit. A. Pope.
TO MR. MURRAY
Strahan, Tonson, Lintott of the times, Patron and publisher of rhymes, For thee the bard up Pindus climbs, My Murray. To thee, with hope and terror dumb, The unpledged MS. authors come; Thou printest all—and sellest some— My Murray. Upon thy table's baize so green The last new Quarterly is seen,— But where is thy new Magazine, My Murray? Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine The works thou deemest most divine— The 'Art of Cookery', and mine, My Murray. Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist, And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist; And then thou hast the 'Navy List', My Murray. And heaven forbid I should conclude Without 'the Board of Longitude', Although this narrow paper would, My Murray. G. Gordon, Lord Byron.
TO THE EDITOR OF 'THE EVERY-DAY BOOK'
I like you, and your book, ingenuous Hone! In whose capacious all-embracing leaves The very marrow of tradition's shown; And all that history—much that fiction—weaves. By every sort of taste your work is graced. Vast stores of modern anecdote we find, With good old story quaintly interlaced— The theme as various as the reader's mind. Rome's life-fraught legends you so truly paint— Yet kindly,—that the half-turned Catholic Scarcely forbears to smile at his own Saint, And cannot curse the candid heretic. Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your page; Our father's mummeries we well-pleased behold, And, proudly conscious of a purer age, Forgive some fopperies in the times of old. Verse-honouring Phoebus, Father of bright Days, Must needs bestow on you both good and many, Who, building trophies of his Children's praise, Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any. Dan Phoebus loves your book—trust me, friend Hone— The title only errs, he bids me say: For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown, He swears, 'tis not a work of every day. C. Lamb.
I love everything that is old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.—O. Goldsmith.