Part 5

The present form of our English heroic rhyme in couplets, is a modern species of versification. The measure generally used in the days of queen Elizabeth, king James, and king Charles I. was the stanza of eight lines, such as Spenser employs, borrowed from the Italian, a measure very constrained and artificial. Waller was the first who brought couplets into vogue;[8] and Dryden afterwards established the usage. Waller first smoothed our verse; Dryden perfected it. Pope’s versification has a peculiar character. It is flowing and smooth in the highest degree; far more laboured and correct than that of any who went before him. He introduced one considerable change into heroic verse, by almost throwing aside the triplets, or three lines rhyming together, in which Dryden abounded. Dryden’s versification, however, has very great merit; and like all his productions, has much spirit, mixed with carelessness. If not so smooth and correct as Pope’s, it is however more varied and easy. He subjects himself less to the rule of closing the sense with the couplet; and frequently takes the liberty of making his couplets run into one another, with somewhat of the freedom of blank verse.

Footnote 8:

Shakespeare, occasionally, in his plays, uses couplets.

M. COQUEBERT DE MONTBRET.

This gentleman was one of the commercial commissioners from France to England during the short peace which took place after the treaty of Amiens. In March, 1803, I was in company with M. de Montbret, who expressed his dissatisfaction in very angry terms, because he was not able to procure specimens of the different clays made use of by Mr. Wedgwood in his manufacture of earthen ware in Staffordshire. He urged with much vehemence the politeness and attention that were shewn to Mr. Thomas Wedgwood in France the preceding summer, when on a visit to that country, and who it appeared had made something like a promise that he would send to France specimens of the various clays made use of in the potteries. In answer to Monsieur de Montbret it was observed, that Mr. Thomas Wedgwood had no concern whatever in the potteries, and that his brother, Mr. Josiah Wedgwood, who was the proprietor, would never give his consent that specimens of the clays should be sent to France, but on the contrary always strongly resisted every application for that purpose. M. de Montbret replied, that as clay was a natural production, if there was not that particular sort in France, it would be impossible to form it by any artificial means—besides, he only wished to have those things as specimens of English earths, merely with a view of forming a collection of the earths and minerals of this country.

DR. THOMAS PIERCE.

Dr. Pierce, Dean of Sarum, a perpetual controversialist, and to whom it was dangerous to refuse a request, lest it might raise a controversy, asked Dr. Ward, bishop of Salisbury, for a Prebend for his son. He was refused; and studying revenge, he opened a controversy with the bishop, maintaining that the king had the right of bestowing every dignity in all the Cathedral Churches of the kingdom, and not the bishops. This required a reply from the bishop, who had formerly been an active controversialist himself. Dean Pierce renewed his attack with a folio volume, entitled “A vindication of the king’s sovereign right, &c.” Thus it proceeded, and the web thickened round the bishop in replies and rejoinders. It cost him many tedious journeys to London, through bad roads, fretting at “the king’s sovereign right” all the way; and in the words of a witness, “in unseasonable times and weather, that by degrees his spirits were exhausted, his memory quite gone, and he was totally unfitted for business.” Such was the fatal disturbance occasioned by Dean Pierce’s folio of “The king’s sovereign right.”

WRITING AMONG THE GREEKS.

As a proof of the simplicity of the times described by Homer, it is a great doubt if his kings and heroes could write or read; at least when the Grecian leaders cast lots who should engage Hector in single combat, in the seventh Iliad, they only made their marks, for when the lot signed by Ajax fell out of the helmet, and was carried round by the herald, none of the chiefs knew to whom it belonged till it was brought to Ajax himself.

The learned Mr. Wood in his Essay on the original genius and writings of Homer, after observing that neither in the Iliad nor Odyssey is there any thing that conveys the idea of letters or reading, nor any allusion to literal writing, adds, “As to symbolical, hieroglyphical, or picture-like description, something of that kind was, no doubt, known to Homer, of which the letter (as it is called) which Bellerophon carried to the king of Lycia is a proof.” This letter was sent from Prœtus; (_Iliad_, vi. line, 168, &c.)

“To Lycia the devoted youth he sent, With _marks_, expressive of his dire intent GRAV’D on a tablet, that the Prince should die.”

The probability that Homer lived much nearer the times he described than is usually supposed, has been shewn by Mr. Mitford (_Hist. of Greece, Appx. to ch. 4._) with all the clearness of which so distant an event is capable.

To this account of the ignorance of the Greeks in literal writing may be added that the Mexicans, though a civilized people, had no alphabet; the art of writing was no farther advanced among them than the using of figures composed of painted feathers, by which they made a shift to communicate some simple thoughts; and in that manner was the Emperor Montezuma informed of the landing of the Spaniards in his territories.

ACCOUNT OF THE SCRIPTORIA, OR WRITING ROOMS IN THE MONASTERIES OF ENGLAND.

It would be in vain to attempt to trace the state of learning among the Anglo-Saxons before their conversion to Christianity, sometime after which event, schools and seminaries of learning were established in the kingdom of Kent, and soon after the year 635, in that of the East Angles. Previously to this period of our history, the two principal scholars of the Britons were Gildas and Nennius, the first of whom flourished towards the latter end of the sixth century, and the latter in the beginning of the seventh. To Gildas we owe the first lights which are cast upon the troublesome times of the Britons, and of the miseries those wretched people suffered by the invasion and conquests of the Saxons. He has left a short history of Britain and an epistle, in which he heavily accuses the British princes and clergy who were contemporary with him.[9]

To Nennius we owe also a short history of the Britons, and their wars with the Saxons, but the whole is so concise, and so many miracles are crowded into it, that it is no easy matter to separate truth from fiction.

Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, who came into Britain at the latter end of the seventh century, contributed greatly to the improvement of learning. About the same time flourished Aldhelm, a near relation of Ina, king of the West Saxons; he was Abbot of Malmesbury, which monastery himself had founded, and he was afterwards Bishop of Sherborne, where he died in the year 709. Besides other works he left a book on the prosody of the Latin tongue in which he was very expert, being the first Anglo-Saxon that ever wrote in that language both in prose and verse.

On the establishment of Monasteries and Religious Houses in this kingdom, there was a room called the _Scriptorium_, allotted in all the greater Abbeys, or else some portion of the cloister was appropriately fitted up for the same purpose, where their music and missals, the works of the fathers and other religious books, the latin classics, and such literary works as the monks could obtain, were copied. In the old library in Worcester Cathedral, and in the remaining libraries of some other Cathedral churches, may still be seen the manner of writing music, before the invention of the present notes, and some of the old copies of books.

By means of these _Scriptoria_, or writing rooms, the monks compiled and preserved, the first annals of Saxon History; without which, however strange the composition of some of them may appear at this time, this would now have been a land of darkness, as to any account of what passed therein, during former ages.

The custom of making this one good use of monasteries and of christian societies, was derived from very early days. About the year 220, Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, built a library there, for preserving the epistles of learned ecclesiastical persons, written one to another; and their commentaries on the holy scriptures. And in what manner Origen was aided to write his admirable works, we learn from Eusebius, who tells us that he had more than seven notaries appointed for him, who, every one in his turn, wrote that which he uttered; and as many more scriveners, together with _maidens_, well exercised and practised in penmanship, who were to write copies. (_Eccl. Hist. of Eusebius Pamphilus, lib. 6. cap. 20 and 21._)

The preservation and progress of science by means of monasteries, is a very curious fact, and the precious estimation in which books were held, when few could read them, is still more so. Some few learned men existed in different parts of Europe throughout those times of darkness and ignorance. Our countryman the Venerable Bede was well versed both in sacred and profane history, as his numerous works testify.

St. Egbert, Archbishop of York, was a disciple of Venerable Bede; he was a man of great learning, and founded a noble library at York about 735, which was casually burnt in the reign of king Stephen, with the cathedral, the monastery of St. Mary, and several other religious houses.

Alcuin, called also Albinus Flaccus, was born in Northumberland; he was the disciple of Archbishop Egbert, whom he succeeded in the charge of the famous school, which that prelate had opened at York. Alcuin was in all respects the most learned man of the age in which he lived; he was an orator, historian, poet, mathematician, and divine. The fame of his learning induced Charlemagne to invite him to his court; and by his assistance that Emperor, founded, enriched, and instructed, the universities of Tours and Paris. In 794 Alcuin was one of the fathers of the synod of Frankfort, and died at his abbey at Tours, in 804. In his epistle to Charlemagne he mentions with great respect his master Egbert, and the noble library which he had founded at York. Towards the latter end of the same century flourished our great king Alfred, who engaged the learned Grimbald, and other foreigners of distinguished abilities in his service.

Eadfrid, who was bishop of Lindisfarne in the year 698, was one of the most learned men of his time. He translated the gospels into latin, which work after his death was highly decorated by his successor with gold and jewels. Bilfrid, a hermit, illuminated it with various paintings and rich devices; and Adred a priest, interlined it with a Saxon version. Before each gospel is prefixed a painting of the evangelist who wrote it, and the opposite page is full of beautiful ornaments, enriched with various colours; then follows the commencement of the gospel, the first page of which is most elaborately ornamented with letters of a peculiar form, and very large, which displays at once the zeal of the writer, and the taste of the age in which the book was written.[10] This curious work is now among the Cottonian manuscripts in the British Museum. It was lost in the sea during the removal of the body of St. Cuthbert in those troublesome times, about the year 876, when the Danes were laying waste the whole country, but it was afterwards found washed up on the shore without suffering any injury. (_Hutchinson’s History of Durham_, 1. p. 57.) It was under the patronage of the same learned prelate Eadfrid, that the Venerable Bede[11] wrote the life of St. Cuthbert.

The books which Fergus the second, king of Scotland, who assisted Alaric the Goth, had brought with him as a part of the plunder from Rome, had been deposited in the monastery in the island of Iona. From thence they were, by degrees, copied for the use of other monasteries; and besides these, other books were obtained afterwards by means of various journeys to Rome. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monastery of Weremouth, and the friend of Archbishop Wilfrid, made no fewer than five journeys to Rome to purchase copies of books. These books became deposited in various monasteries. Some such were at Canterbury, where also were books that had been brought from Rome, both by Augustine and Theodore. And the letter of Aldhelm, the very person who founded the monastery of Malmesbury, containing an account of his studies, and progress at Canterbury by the help of such books, is one of the most curious fragments of antiquity. (_Angl. Sacra. tom. 2. p. 6._)

The price of these books was at various times enormous. Aldfred, king of Northumberland, gave _eight hides of land_, that is, as much as eight ploughs could till, for one volume of cosmography; and on this occasion it perhaps ought not to be forgotten, that there is still preserved in the library of Hereford cathedral, an ancient map on parchment, for the illustration of cosmography as known at the period of its being drawn. In the reign of William the Conqueror books were extremely scarce. Grace, Countess of Anjou, paid for a collection of homilies, two hundred sheep, a quarter of wheat, another of rye, and a third of millet, besides a number of martin skins. (_Kaimes’s Sketches_, 1. 136.)

In these conventual _Scriptoria_ were copied the writings of the fathers and the abstruse works of the first schoolmen; here also were copied little works of genius, sometimes the effusion of fancy and imagination. The fables of Æsop were so much in repute, that we are told king Alfred himself made a translation of them from the Greek. The fanciful devices on the friezes and mouldings of some of our ecclesiastical structures, which have an allusion to Æsop’s Fables, had their first origin amongst pious and ingenious persons, in the peaceful retirement of their conventual retreats. This remark is much confirmed by a curious observation which has been lately made, that even many of the fables themselves that now pass for Æsop’s, seem to have had their real invention and origin in the abodes of the religious. In a very curious memoir concerning the works of Mary, an Anglo-Norman poetess, born in France, who wrote in the French language in the reign of king Henry the third of England, and who among other things translated the fables of Æsop, it is made to appear that there were indeed but few of Æsop’s original fables in her collection, and even those she had borrowed entirely from England, and the greater part, from several allusions in them, evidently shew, that they must have been composed in monasteries, before her time. (_See Hume’s Hist. of Eng. vol. 1. 4to. p. 68.—King’s Munimenta Ant. vol. 4. p. 113.—and Archæologia, vol. 13. p. 36-67._)

It is an interesting circumstance, deserving to be mentioned on this occasion, that before the time of Venerable Bede, there lived an Anglo-Saxon poet, of the name of _Cædman_, or _Kedman_, of the wondrous powers of whose mind Bede speaks in the highest terms, (_Bede’s Eccles. Hist. book 4. ch. 24._) and says he sung of the creation of the world, of the origin of mankind, and of the whole history of the book of Genesis. He died about the year 680, and therefore must have been contemporary with Etheldreda, who founded the monastery of Ely. And it is a very curious fact, little known, that Lye, the author of the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, translated this poem, and that therein it was found had been introduced, almost exactly, the same idea of the fallen angels, and even the peculiarity of the nine days falling, and of Satan’s assembling his _Thanes_, on their rousing themselves, which was afterwards introduced by Milton into his Paradise Lost. This account, Mr. King says, he received from Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, who had several manuscripts of Lye’s bequeathed to him; and who was well qualified to investigate such curious matters of ancient literature.

It should not be forgotten with regard to manuscripts, the productions of these industrious penmen in their _Scriptoria_, that king Alfred is said by the Saxon writers, to have first received his eagerness for erudition, in an age when he himself complained of the general ignorance even of the clergy, from his mother’s shewing him a book of Saxon poems, beautifully written, and illuminated, and promising to give it to which ever of her sons should soonest learn to read it.

Until the eleventh century, musical notes were expressed only by letters of the alphabet; and till the fourteenth century they were expressed only by large lozenge-shaped black dots or points, placed on different lines, one above another, and then first named _ut_, _re_, _mi_, _fa_, _sol_, _la_, to which _si_ was afterwards added; and they were all expressed without any distinction as to length of time; and without any such things as breves, semi-breves, minims, crotchets, or quavers, &c. The old psalters in many cathedral churches are found thus written; and in consequence of this it was, that the _Scriptoria_ in some other places, as well as at Gloucester, are found so contrived, as to have long ranges of seats, or benches, one beyond another, for the copyists; so that a master or person standing at one end, and naming each note, it might quickly be copied out by all, naming it in succession from one end to the other. Hence the psalters were more easily copied than any other books, and it is not a little remarkable that in the library at Worcester, there is a copy of St. Matthew’s gospel, set to music throughout, with these sort of notes.

In foreign monasteries, the boys and novices were chiefly occupied in these labours, but the missals and bibles were ordered to be written by monks of mature age and discretion. The _Scriptorium_ of St. Albans’s abbey was built by Abbot Paulin, a Norman, who ordered many volumes to be written there, about the year 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the copies. Estates were often granted for the support of the _Scriptorium_; that at St. Edmundsbury was endowed with two mills, and in the year 1171, the tithes of a rectory were appropriated to the cathedral convent of St. Swithin at Winchester, _ad Libros transcribendos_. Many instances of this species of benefaction occur from the tenth century. Nigel, in the year 1160, gave the monks of Ely two churches, _ad libros faciendos_.

This employment of copying manuscripts appears to have been diligently practised at Croyland; for Ingulphus relates, that when the library of that convent was burned in the year 1091, seven hundred volumes were consumed. Fifty-eight volumes were transcribed at Glastonbury, during the government of one abbot, about the year 1300. And in the library of this monastery, the richest in England, there were upwards of four hundred volumes in the year 1248. More than eighty books were thus transcribed for St. Alban’s abbey, by Abbot Whethamstede, who died about 1400. At the foundation of Winchester college, by William of Wykeham, about 1393, one or more transcribers were hired and employed by the founder to _make books_ for the library. They transcribed and took their commons within the college, as appears by computations of expenses on their account now remaining.

In the monastery of Ely, the Precentor, or Chantor, was the chief librarian, and had within his Office, the _Scriptorium_, where writers were employed in transcribing books for the library, and missals and other books used in divine service. This officer furnished the vellum, parchment, paper, ink, colours, gums, and other necessaries for limners, used in illuminating their books; and leather, and other implements for binding, and keeping them in repair.

Some of the Roman classics were copied in the English monasteries at a very early period. Henry, a Benedictine monk of Hyde abbey, near Winchester, transcribed in the year 1178, Terence, Boethius, Suetonius, and Claudian. Of these he formed one volume, illuminating the initials, and forming the brazen bosses of the covers with his own hands; but this abbot had more devotion than taste, for he exchanged this manuscript a few years afterwards for four missals, the legend of St. Christopher, and St. Gregory’s PASTORAL CARE, with the Prior of the neighbouring cathedral convent. Benedict, abbot of Peterborough, author of the latin chronicle of king Henry the second, amongst a great variety of scholastic and theological treatises, transcribed Seneca’s epistles and tragedies, Terence, Martial, and Claudian, to which may be added GESTA ALEXANDRI, about the year 1180.

In a catalogue of the books of the library of Glastonbury, we find Livy, Sallust, Seneca, Tully de SENECTUTE and AMICITIA, Virgil, Persius, and Claudian, in the year 1248. Among the royal manuscripts of the British Museum, is one of the twelve books of Statius’s Thebaid, supposed to have been written in the tenth century, which once belonged to the cathedral convent of Rochester. And another of Virgil’s Æneid, written in the thirteenth, which came from the library of St. Austin’s, Canterbury. Wallingford, abbot of St. Alban’s, gave or sold from the library of that monastery to Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, author of the “PHILOBIBLION,” and a great collector of books, Terence, Virgil, Quintilian, and Jerome against Rufinus, together with thirty-two other volumes, valued at fifty pounds of silver. The scarcity of parchment undoubtedly prevented the transcription of many other books in these societies. About the year 1120, one Master Hugh, being appointed by the convent of St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk, to write and illuminate a grand copy of the bible for their library, could procure no parchment for this purpose in England. It is to this scarcity of parchment that we owe the loss and destruction of many valuable manuscripts of the ancients, which otherwise might have been preserved to us. The venerable fathers who employed themselves in erasing the writing of some of the best works of the most eminent Greek or Latin authors for the purpose of transcribing upon the obliterated parchment or vellum the lives of saints, or legendary tales, possibly mistook these lamentable depredations for works of piety. The ancient fragment of the 91st book of Livy, discovered by Mr. Burns in the Vatican, in 1772, was found to be much defaced in this respect by the pious labours of some well-intentioned monk.

The monks of Durham having begun to build a college for their novices at Oxford, about the year 1290, Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, not only assisted, but also partly endowed it. At his decease, in 1345, he left to this college, then called Durham, and since Trinity, college, all his books, which were more in number than all the bishops in England then possessed, in order that the students of that college, and of the University, might, under certain conditions make use of them. After the college came into possession of these books, they were, for many years, kept in chests, under the custody of several scholars deputed for that purpose, and a library being built in the reign of king Henry the fourth, these books were put into pews or studies, and chained to them. They continued in this manner till the college was dissolved by king Henry the eighth, when they were conveyed away, some to Duke Humphrey’s library, where they remained till the reign of king Edward the sixth, and others to the library of Baliol college. Some which remained came into the hands of Dr. George Owen, a physician of Godstow, who purchased Trinity college of Edward the sixth.