THE BANNATYNE CLUB, OR ONE VOLUME MORE
Reading edition
Assist me, ye friends of Old Books and Old Wine, To sing in the praises of sage Bannatyne, Who left such a treasure of old Scottish lore As enables each age to print one volume more. One volume more, my friends, one volume more, We'll ransack old Banny for one volume more. And first, Allan Ramsay was eager to glean From Bannatyne's Hortus his bright Evergreen; Two light little volumes (intended for four) Still leave us the task to print one volume more. One volume more, &c. His ways were not ours, for he cared not a pin How much he left out, or how much he put in; The truth of the reading he thought was a bore, So this accurate age calls for one volume more. One volume more, &c. Correct and sagacious, then came my Lord Hailes, And weighed every letter in critical scales, And left out some brief words, which the prudish abhor, And castrated Banny in one volume more. One volume more, my friends, one volume more; We'll restore Banny's manhood in one volume more. John Pinkerton next, and I'm truly concerned I can't call that worthy so candid as learned; He railed at the plaid and blasphemed the claymore, And set Scots by the ears in his one volume more. One volume more, my friends, one volume more, Celt and Goth shall be pleased with one volume more. As bitter as gall, and as sharp as a razor, And feeding on herbs as a Nebuchadnezzar, His diet too acid, his temper too sour, Little Ritson came out with his two volumes more. But one volume, my friends, one volume more, We'll dine on roast-beef and print one volume more. The stout Gothic yeditur, next on the roll, With his beard like a brush, and as black as a coal; And honest Greysteel that was true to the core, Lent their hearts and their hands each to one volume more. One volume more, &c. Since by these single champions what wonders were done, What may not be achieved by our Thirty and One? Law, Gospel, and Commerce we count in our corps, And the Trade and the Press join for one volume more. One volume more, &c. Ancient libels and contraband books, I assure ye, We'll print as secure from Exchequer or Jury; Then hear your Committee and let them count o'er The Chiels they intend in their three volumes more. Three volumes more, &c. They'll produce your King Jamie, the Sapient and Sext, And the Bob of Dumblane and her Bishops come next; One tome miscellaneous they'll add to your store, Resolving next year to print four volumes more. Four volumes more, my friends, four volumes more; Pay down your subscriptions for four volumes more. Sir W. Scott.
THE BOOKSELLERS' BANQUET
Grave vendors of volumes, best friends of the Nine, Give ear to my song as to charm you I try; Other bards may in vain look for audience like mine, For the muses they chant, for the booksellers I. Their notes I have drawn, so 'tis nothing but fair That my notes should be drawn, if they please, at a beck; Undaunted I warble—I truly declare My song is most valued when met by a cheque. The work we've just finished went off very well; It was set out with plates, such as Finden, or Heath, If even their professional feelings rebel, Must praise on account (not in spite) of their teeth. Though by Fraser cut up, and by Murray reviewed, Lovegrove's articles all fit insertion have found. We have cleared off our boards, but as business is good, We keep wetted for use, and for pleasure unbound. But here not for pleasure alone are we stored Like holiday tomes in our gilding so bright; Some care 'tis our duty and wish to afford In the moment of need to a less lucky wight, Whose title is lost, and whose covers are torn, When the moth has gnawed through, dust or cobwebs surround, And to lift on the shelf our poor brother forlorn, As a much damaged old folio treasured by Lowndes. Though his back stock of life may perchance weigh him down, By our aid may the old heavy pressure be moved, And new-titled we start him again on the town, As a second edition revised and improved. And for dealings like this a commission will find, And that of a date that the primest is given, The commission is—Strive to do good to mankind, And the place of its dates is no other than Heaven. I won't keep the press waiting—my copy is gone, Having finished a lay which Bob Fisher, perhaps, May out of the head of old Caxton call one, If not of his Drawing, yet Dining-room Scraps; But as we all still think of Tom Talfourd's bill, After sixty years' date, I respectfully beg, As a knight of the quill, here to offer for nil, My right in this song as a present to Tegg. W. Maginn.
WHAT A HEART-BREAKING SHOP
But what were even gold and silver, precious stones and clockwork, to the bookshops, whence a pleasant smell of paper freshly pressed came issuing forth, awakening instant recollections of some new grammar had at school, long time ago, with 'Master Pinch, Grove House Academy', inscribed in faultless writing on the fly-leaf! That whiff of russia leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes, neatly ranged within: what happiness did they suggest! And in the window were the spick-and-span new works from London, with the title-pages, and sometimes even the first page of the first chapter, laid wide open: tempting unwary men to begin to read the book, and then, in the impossibility of turning over, to rush blindly in, and buy it! Here too were the dainty frontispiece and trim vignette, pointing like handposts on the outskirts of great cities, to the rich stock of incident beyond; and store of books, with many a grave portrait and time-honoured name, whose matter he knew well, and would have given mines to have, in any form, upon the narrow shelf beside his bed at Mr. Pecksniff's. What a heart-breaking shop it was!—C. Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit.
GENTEEL ORNAMENTS
If people bought no more books than they intended to read, and no more swords than they intended to use, the two worst trades in Europe would be a bookseller's and a sword-cutler's; but luckily for both they are reckoned genteel ornaments.—Lord Chesterfield.
MAMMON AND BOOKS
All who are affected by the love of books hold worldly affairs and money very cheap, as Jerome writes to Vigilantius (Epist. 54): 'It is not for the same man to ascertain the value of gold coins and of writings;' which somebody thus repeated in verse:
No tinker's hand shall dare a book to stain; No miser's heart can wish a book to gain; The gold assayer cannot value books; On them the epicure disdainful looks. One house at once, believe me, cannot hold Lovers of books and hoarders up of gold.
No man, therefore, can serve mammon and books.—R. de Bury. Philobiblon.
THE POOR STUDENT
In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor student shrunk from observation. He found shelter among books, which insult not; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond his domains.—C. Lamb. Poor Relations.
NATIONAL EXPENDITURE ON BOOKS
I say first we have despised literature. What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses? If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him mad—a bibliomaniac. But you never call any one a horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, as compared with the contents of its wine-cellars? What position would its expenditure on literature take, as compared with its expenditure on luxurious eating? We talk of food for the mind, as of food for the body: now a good book contains such food inexhaustibly; it is a provision for life, and for the best part of us; yet how long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it! Though there have been men who have pinched their stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than most men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such trial, and more the pity; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been won by work or economy; and if public libraries were half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish men and women might sometimes suspect there was good in reading, as well as in munching and sparkling; whereas the very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armoury, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store. Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book; and the family must be poor indeed which, once in their lives, cannot, for such multipliable barley-loaves, pay their baker's bill. We call ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish enough to thumb each other's books out of circulating libraries!—J. Ruskin. Sesame and Lilies.
THE VALUE OF BOOK BORROWING
I have sent you the Philosophy—books you writ to me for; anything that you want of this kind for the advancement of your studies, do but write, and I shall furnish you. When I was a student as you are, my practice was to borrow rather than buy, some sort of books, and to be always punctual in restoring them upon the day assigned, and in the interim to swallow of them as much as made for my turn. This obliged me to read them through with more haste to keep my word, whereas I had not been so careful to peruse them had they been my own books, which I knew were always ready at my dispose.—J. Howell. Familiar Letters.
ACCIDENTS TO BOOKS
Fortunate are those who only consider a book for the utility and pleasure they may derive from its possession. Those students who, though they know much, still thirst to know more, may require this vast sea of books; yet in that sea they may suffer many shipwrecks.
Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners!—I. d'Israeli. Curiosities of Literature.
BORROWERS OF BOOKS
To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in leather covers than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators more formidable than that which I have touched upon; I mean your borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch [Coleridge], matchless in his depredations!
That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth knocked out—(you are now with me in my little back study in Bloomsbury, reader!)—with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of nothing), once held the tallest of my folios, Opera Bonaventurae, choice and massy divinity, to which its two supporters (school divinity also, but of a lesser calibre,—Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas), showed but as dwarfs,—itself an Ascapart!—that Comberbatch abstracted upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that 'the title to property in a book (my Bonaventure, for instance), is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the same'. Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves is safe?
The slight vacuum in the left-hand case—two shelves from the ceiling—scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser—was whilom the commodious resting-place of Browne on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who introduced it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to discover its beauties—but so have I known a foolish lover to praise his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her off than himself.—Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona is! The remainder nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the Fates borrowed Hector. Here stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in sober state.—There loitered the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream side.—In yonder nook, John Buncle, a widower-volume, with 'eyes closed', mourns his ravished mate.
One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like the sea, sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea-like, he throws up as rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small under-collection of this nature (my friend's gatherings in his various calls), picked up, he has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as little memory as mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews. There they stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalised. The latter seem as little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am.—I charge no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses.
To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning in it. You are sure that he will make one hearty meal on your viands, if he can give no account of the platter after it. But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K., to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle?—knowing at the time, and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over one leaf of the illustrious folio:—what but the mere spirit of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better of thy friend?—Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the Gallican land—
Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness, A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder!
—hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and fancies, about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou keepest all companies with thy quips and mirthful tales?—Child of the Green-room, it was unkindly done of thee. Thy wife, too, that part-French, better-part Englishwoman!—that she could fix upon no other treatise to bear away in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke—of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a tittle! Was there not Zimmerman on Solitude?
Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate collection, be shy of showing it; or if thy heart overfloweth to lend them, lend thy books; but let it be to such a one as S. T. C.—he will return them (generally anticipating the time appointed) with usury; enriched with annotations, tripling their value. I have had experience. Many are these precious MSS. of his—(in matter oftentimes, and almost in quantity not unfrequently, vying with the originals)—in no very clerky hand—legible in my Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir Thomas Browne; and those abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas! wandering in Pagan lands.—I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy library, against S. T. C.—C. Lamb. The Two Races of Men.
BORROWING AND LENDING
I own I borrow books with as much facility as I lend. I cannot see a work that interests me on another person's shelf, without a wish to carry it off: but, I repeat, that I have been much more sinned against than sinning in the article of non-return; and am scrupulous in the article of intention.—J. H. Leigh Hunt. My Books.
WEDDED TO BOOKS
If people are to be wedded to their books, it is hard that, under our present moral dispensations, they are not to be allowed the usual exclusive privileges of marriage. A friend thinks no more of borrowing a book nowadays, than a Roman did of borrowing a man's wife; and what is worse, we are so far gone in our immoral notions on this subject, that we even lend it as easily as Cato did his spouse. Now what a happy thing ought it not to be to have exclusive possession of a book,—one's Shakespeare for instance; for the finer the wedded work, the more anxious of course we should be, that it should give nobody happiness but ourselves. Think of the pleasure of not only being with it in general, of having by far the greater part of its company, but of having it entirely to oneself; of always saying internally, 'It is my property'; of seeing it well-dressed in 'black or red', purely to please one's own eyes; of wondering how any fellow could be so impudent as to propose borrowing it for an evening; of being at once proud of his admiration, and pretty certain that it was in vain; of the excitement nevertheless of being a little uneasy whenever we saw him approach it too nearly; of wishing that it could give him a cuff of the cheek with one of its beautiful boards, for presuming to like its beauties as well as ourselves; of liking other people's books, but not at all thinking it proper that they should like ours; of getting perhaps indifferent to it, and then comforting ourselves with the reflection that others are not so, though to no purpose; in short, of all the mixed transport and anxiety to which the exclusiveness of the book-wedded state would be liable; not to mention the impossibility of other people's having any literary offspring from our fair unique, and consequently of the danger of loving any compilations but our own. Really, if we could burn all other copies of our originals, as the Roman Emperor once thought of destroying Homer, this system would be worth thinking of. If we had a good library, we should be in the situation of the Turks with their seraglios, which are a great improvement upon our petty exclusivenesses. Nobody could then touch our Shakespeare, our Spenser, our Chaucer, our Greek and Italian writers. People might say, 'Those are the walls of the library!' and 'sigh, and look, and sigh again'; but they should never get in. No Retrospective rake should anticipate our privileges of quotation. Our Mary Wollstonecrafts and our Madame de Staëls—no one should know how finely they were lettered,—what soul there was in their disquisitions. We once had a glimpse of the feelings which people would have on these occasions. It was in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The keeper of it was from home; and not being able to get a sight of the manuscript of Milton's Comus, we were obliged to content ourselves with looking through a wire-work, a kind of safe, towards the shelf on which it reposed. How we winked, and yearned, and imagined we saw a corner of the all-precious sheets, to no purpose! The feelings were not very pleasant, it is true; but then as long as they were confined to others, they would of course only add to our satisfaction.—J. H. Leigh Hunt. Wedded to Books.
THE ART OF BOOK-KEEPING
How hard, when those who do not wish To lend, that's lose, their books, Are snared by anglers—folks that fish With literary hooks; Who call and take some favourite tome, But never read it through;— They thus complete their set at home, By making one at you. Behold the bookshelf of a dunce Who borrows—never lends: Yon work, in twenty volumes, once Belonged to twenty friends. New tales and novels you may shut From view—'tis all in vain; They're gone—and though the leaves are 'cut' They never 'come again'. For pamphlets lent I look around, For tracts my tears are spilt; But when they take a book that's bound, 'Tis surely extra-guilt. A circulating library Is mine—my birds are flown; There's one odd volume left to be Like all the rest, a-lone. I, of my Spenser quite bereft, Last winter sore was shaken; Of Lamb I've but a quarter left, Nor could I save my Bacon. My Hall and Hill were levelled flat, But Moore was still the cry; And then, although I threw them Sprat, They swallowed up my Pye. O'er everything, however slight, They seized some airy trammel; They snatched my Hogg and Fox one night, And pocketed my Campbell. And then I saw my Crabbe at last, Like Hamlet's, backward go; And as my tide was ebbing fast, Of course I lost my Rowe. I wondered into what balloon My books their course had bent; And yet, with all my marvelling, soon I found my Marvell went. My Mallet served to knock me down, Which makes me thus a talker; And once, while I was out of town, My Johnson proved a Walker. While studying o'er the fire one day My Hobbes amidst the smoke, They bore my Colman clean away, And carried off my Coke. They picked my Locke, to me far more Than Bramah's patent's worth; And now my losses I deplore Without a Home on earth. If once a book you let them lift, Another they conceal; For though I caught them stealing Swift, As swiftly went my Steele. Hope is not now upon my shelf, Where late he stood elated; But, what is strange, my Pope himself Is excommunicated. My little Suckling in the grave Is sunk, to swell the ravage; And what 'twas Crusoe's fate to save 'Twas mine to lose—a Savage. Even Glover's works I cannot put My frozen hands upon; Though ever since I lost my Foote My Bunyan has been gone. My Hoyle with Cotton went; oppressed, My Taylor too must sail; To save my Goldsmith from arrest, In vain I offered Bayle. I Prior sought, but could not see The Hood so late in front; And when I turned to hunt for Lee, Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt? I tried to laugh, old care to tickle, Yet could not Tickell touch, And then, alas! I missed my Mickle, And surely mickle's much. 'Tis quite enough my griefs to feed, My sorrows to excuse, To think I cannot read my Reid, Nor even use my Hughes. To West, to South, I turn my head, Exposed alike to odd jeers; For since my Roger Ascham's fled, I ask 'em for my Rogers. They took my Horne—and Horne Tooke, too, And thus my treasures flit; I feel when I would Hazlitt view, The flames that it has lit. My word's worth little, Wordsworth gone, If I survive its doom; How many a bard I doated on Was swept off—with my Broome. My classics would not quiet lie, A thing so fondly hoped; Like Dr. Primrose, I may cry, 'My Livy has eloped!' My life is wasting fast away— I suffer from these shocks; And though I've fixed a lock on Gray, There's grey upon my locks. I'm far from young—am growing pale— I see my Butter fly; And when they ask about my ail, 'Tis Burton! I reply. They still, have made me slight returns, And thus my griefs divide; For oh! they've cured me of my Burns, And eased my Akenside. But all I think I shall not say, Nor let my anger burn; For as they never found me Gay, They have not left me Sterne. S. Laman Blanchard.
THE BOOK OF NATURE
Of this fair volume which we World do name, If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care, Of Him who it corrects, and did it frame, We clear might read the art and wisdom rare: Find out His power which wildest powers doth tame, His providence extending everywhere, His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, In every page, no, period of the same. But silly we, like foolish children, rest Well pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold, Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best, On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold; Or if by chance our minds do muse on aught, It is some picture on the margin wrought. W. Drummond.
In Nature's infinite book of secrecy A little I can read. W. Shakespeare. Antony and Cleopatra.
THE BOOK
Eternal God! Maker of all That have lived here since the Man's fall! The Rock of Ages! in whose shade They live unseen when here they fade! Thou knew'st this paper when it was Mere seed, and after that but grass; Before 'twas dressed or spun, and when Made linen, who did wear it then, What were their lives, their thoughts and deeds, Whether good corn, or fruitless weeds. Thou knew'st this tree, when a green shade Covered it, since a cover made, And where it flourished, grew, and spread, As if it never should be dead. Thou knew'st this harmless beast, when he Did live and feed by thy decree On each green thing; then slept, well fed, Clothed with this skin, which now lies spread A covering o'er this aged book, Which makes me wisely weep, and look On my own dust; mere dust it is, But not so dry and clean as this. Thou knew'st and saw'st them all, and though Now scattered thus, dost know them so. O knowing, glorious Spirit! when Thou shalt restore trees, beasts and men, When thou shalt make all new again, Destroying only death and pain, Give him amongst thy works a place Who in them loved and sought thy face! H. Vaughan.
THE BOOK OF LIFE
That Life is a Comedy oft hath been shown, By all who Mortality's changes have known; But more like a Volume its actions appear, Where each Day is a Page and each Chapter a year. 'Tis a Manuscript Time shall full surely unfold, Though with Black-Letter shaded, or shining with gold; The Initial, like youth, glitters bright on its Page, But its text is as dark—as the gloom of old Age. Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast, And deep on thine Heart be her lessons impressed. Though the Title stands first it can little declare The Contents which the Pages ensuing shall bear; As little the first day of Life can explain The succeeding events which shall glide in its train. The Book follows next, and, delighted, we trace An Elzevir's beauty, a Gutenberg's grace; Thus on pleasure we gaze with as raptured an eye, Till, cut off like a Volume imperfect, we die! Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast, And deep on thine Heart be her lessons impressed. Yet e'en thus imperfect, complete, or defaced, The skill of the Printer is still to be traced; And though death bend us early in life to his will, The wise hand of our Author is visible still. Like the Colophon lines is the Epitaph's lay, Which tells of what age and what nation our day, And, like the Device of the Printer, we bear The form of the Founder, whose Image we wear. Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast, And deep on thine Heart be her lessons impressed. The work thus completed its Boards shall enclose, Till a Binding more bright and more beauteous it shows; And who can deny, when Life's Vision hath passed, That the dark Boards of Death shall surround us at last. Yet our Volume illumed with fresh splendours shall rise, To be gazed at by Angels, and read to the skies, Reviewed by its Author, revised by his Pen, In a fair new Edition to flourish again. Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast, And deep on thine Heart be her lessons impressed. R. Thomson.
THE WIND OVER THE CHIMNEY
See, the fire is sinking low, Dusky red the embers glow, While above them still I cower, While a moment more I linger, Though the clock, with lifted finger, Points beyond the midnight hour. Sings the blackened log a tune Learned in some forgotten June From a school-boy at his play, When they both were young together, Heart of youth and summer weather Making all their holiday. And the night-wind rising, hark! How above there in the dark, In the midnight and the snow, Ever wilder, fiercer, grander. Like the trumpets of Iskander, All the noisy chimneys blow! Every quivering tongue of flame Seems to murmur some great name, Seems to say to me, 'Aspire!' But the night-wind answers, 'Hollow Are the visions that you follow, Into darkness sinks your fire!' Then the flicker of the blaze Gleams on volumes of old days, Written by masters of the art, Loud through whose majestic pages Rolls the melody of ages, Throb the harp-strings of the heart. And again the tongues of flame Start exulting and exclaim: 'These are prophets, bards, and seers; In the horoscope of nations, Like ascendant constellations, They control the coming years.' But the night-wind cries: 'Despair! Those who walk with feet of air Leave no long-enduring marks; At God's forges incandescent Mighty hammers beat incessant, These are but the flying sparks. 'Dust are all the hands that wrought; Books are sepulchres of thought; The dead laurels of the dead Rustle for a moment only, Like the withered leaves in lonely Churchyards at some passing tread.' Suddenly the flame sinks down; Sink the rumours of renown; And alone the night-wind drear Clamours louder, wilder, vaguer,— ''Tis the brand of Meleager Dying on the hearth-stone here!' And I answer,—'Though it be, Why should that discomfort me? No endeavour is in vain; Its reward is in the doing, And the rapture of pursuing Is the prize the vanquished gain.' H. W. Longfellow. Wise Books.
For half the truths they hold are honoured tombs.—G. Eliot. The Spanish Gipsy.
A GREAT NECROMANCER
Alonso of Aragon was wont to say of himself that he was a great Necromancer, for that he used to ask counsel of the dead: meaning Books.—F. Bacon, Lord Verulam. Apophthegmes.
BOOKS FOR MAGIC
Resolve you, doctors, Bacon can by books Make storming Boreas thunder from his cave, And dim fair Luna to a dark Eclipse. The great arch-ruler, potentate of hell, Trembles, when Bacon bids him, or his fiends, Bow to the force of his Pentageron. What art can work, the frolic friar knows, And therefore will I turn my Magic books, And strain out Necromancy to the deep. I have contrived and framed a head of brass (I made Belcephon hammer out the stuff), And that by art shall read Philosophy: And I will strengthen England by my skill, That if ten Caesars lived and reigned in Rome, With all the legions Europe doth contain, They should not touch a grasse of English ground: The work that Ninus reared at Babylon, The brazen walls framed by Semiramis, Carved out like to the portal of the sun, Shall not be such as rings the English strand From Dover to the market place of Rye. R. Greene. The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay.
THE SECRET OF STRENGTH
'Tis a custom with him I' the afternoon to sleep: there thou may'st brain him, Having first seized his books; or with a log Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command: they all do hate him As rootedly as I. Burn but his books. W. Shakespeare. The Tempest.
RED LETTERS AND CONJURING
Smith. The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read and cast accompt.
Cade. O monstrous!
Smith. We took him setting of boys' copies.
Cade. Here's a villain!
Smith. Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.
Cade. Nay, then, he is a conjurer.
W. Shakespeare. Second Part of King Henry the Sixth.
MERLIN'S BOOK
You read the book, my pretty Vivien! O aye, it is but twenty pages long, But every page having an ample marge, And every marge enclosing in the midst A square of text that looks a little blot, The text no larger than the limbs of fleas; And every square of text an awful charm, Writ in a language that has long gone by. So long, that mountains have arisen since With cities on their flanks—you read the book! And every margin scribbled, crost, and crammed With comment, densest condensation, hard To mind and eye; but the long sleepless nights Of my long life have made it easy to me. And none can read the text, not even I; And none can read the comment but myself; And in the comment did I find the charm. Lord Tennyson. Idylls of the King: Vivien.
FAST AND LOOSE
Fast bind, fast find: my Bible was well bound; A Thief came fast, and loose my Bible found: Was't bound and loose at once? how can that be? 'Twas loose for him, although 'twas bound for me. J. Taylor.
READ THE SCRIPTURES
Read the Scriptures, which Hyperius holds available of itself; 'the mind is erected thereby from all worldly cares, and hath much quiet and tranquillity.' For, as Austin well hath it, 'tis scientia scientiarum, omni melle dulcior, omni pane suavior, omni vino hilarior: 'tis the best nepenthe, surest cordial, sweetest alterative, presentest diverter: for neither as Chrysostom well adds, 'those boughs and leaves of trees which are plashed for cattle to stand under, in the heat of the day, in summer, so much refresh them with their acceptable shade, as the reading of the Scripture doth recreate and comfort a distressed soul, in sorrow and affliction.' Paul bids us 'pray continually'; quod cibus corpori, lectio animae facit, saith Seneca, 'as meat is to the body, such is reading to the soul.' 'To be at leisure without books is another hell, and to be buried alive.' Cardan calls a library the physic of the soul; 'Divine authors fortify the mind, make men bold and constant'; and (as Hyperius adds) 'godly conference will not permit the mind to be tortured with absurd cogitations.'—R. Burton. The Anatomy of Melancholy.
TO THE HOLY BIBLE
O Book! Life's guide! how shall we part, And thou so long seized of my heart? Take this last kiss; and let me weep True thanks to thee before I sleep. Thou wert the first put in my hand When yet I could not understand, And daily didst my young eyes lead To letters, till I learnt to read. But as rash youths, when once grown strong, Fly from their nurses to the throng, Where they new consorts choose, and stick To those till either hurt or sick; So with the first light gained from thee Ran I in chase of vanity, Cried dross for gold, and never thought My first cheap book had all I sought. Long reigned this vogue; and thou cast by, With meek, dumb looks didst woo mine eye, And oft left open would'st convey A sudden and most searching ray Into my soul, with whose quick touch Refining still, I struggled much. By this mild art of love at length Thou overcam'st my sinful strength, And having brought me home, didst there Show me that pearl I sought elsewhere,— Gladness, and peace, and hope, and love, The secret favours of the Dove; Her quickening kindness, smiles, and kisses, Exalted pleasures, crowning blisses, Fruition, union, glory, life, Thou didst lead to, and still all strife. Living, thou wert my soul's sure ease, And dying mak'st me go in peace:— Thy next effects no tongue can tell; Farewell, O Book of God! farewell! H. Vaughan.
ON BUYING THE BIBLE
'Tis but a folly to rejoice or boast How small a price thy well-bought Pen'worth cost: Until thy death thou shalt not fully know Whether thy purchase be good cheap, or no; And at that day, believe 't, it will appear If not extremely cheap, extremely dear. F. Quarles. Divine Fancies.
'I READ ONLY THE BIBLE'
Read the most useful books, and that regularly, and constantly. Steadily spend all the morning in this employ, or, at least, five hours in four-and-twenty.
'But I read only the Bible.' Then you ought to teach others to read only the Bible, and, by parity of reason, to hear only the Bible. But if so, you need preach no more. 'Just so,' said George Bell. 'And what is the fruit? Why, now he neither reads the Bible, nor anything else. This is rank enthusiasm.' If you need no book but the Bible, you are got above St. Paul. He wanted others too. 'Bring the books,' says he, 'but especially the parchments,' those wrote on parchment. 'But I have no taste for reading.' Contract a taste for it by use, or return to your trade.—J. Wesley. Minutes of Some Late Conversations.
A MAN OF ONE BOOK
I want to know one thing,—the way to heaven; how to land safe on the happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach me the way. For this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me the book! At any price, give me the book of God. I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone; only God is here. In His presence I open, I read His book.... And what I thus learn, that I teach.—J. Wesley. Preface to Sermons.
HOMO UNIUS LIBRI
When St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best become learned, he answered, 'By reading one book.' The homo unius libri is indeed proverbially formidable to all conversational figurantes.—R. Southey. The Doctor.
THE SCRIPTURES: WHAT ARE THEY?
I remember he alleged many a scripture, but those I valued not; the scriptures, thought I, what are they? A dead letter, a little ink and paper, of three or four shillings price. Alas! What is the scripture? Give me a ballad, a news-book, George on horseback, or Bevis of Southampton; give me some book that teaches curious arts, that tells of old fables; but for the holy scriptures I cared not.—J. Bunyan. Sighs from Hell.
'THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS'
I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgement and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best summa theologiae evangelicae ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.
This wonderful work is one of the few books which may be read repeatedly at different times, and each time with a new and different pleasure. I read it once as a theologian—and let me assure you that there is great theological acumen in the work—once with devotional feelings—and once as a poet. I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colours....
The Pilgrim's Progress is composed in the lowest style of English, without slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.—S. T. Coleridge. Table Talk.