Part 32
Since Rouse desires thee, and complains That, though by promise his, Thou yet appear'st not in thy place Among the literary noble stores, Given to his care, But, absent, leavest his numbers incomplete: He, therefore, guardian vigilant Of that unperishing wealth, Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge, Where he intends a richer treasure far Than Iön kept (Iön, Erectheus' son Illustrious, of the fair Creüsa born) In the resplendent temple of his God, Tripods of gold, and Delphic gifts divine.
_Antistrophe._
Haste, then, to the pleasant groves, The Muses' favourite haunt; Resume thy station in Apollo's dome, Dearer to him Than Delos, or the forked Parnassian hill! Exulting go, Since now a splendid lot is also thine, And thou art sought by my propitious friend; For there thou shalt be read With authors of exalted note, The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome.
_Epode._
Ye, then, my works, no longer vain, And worthless deemed by me! Whate'er this sterile genius has produced Expect, at last, the rage of envy spent, An unmolested happy home, Gift of kind Hermes, and my watchful friend, Where never flippant tongue profane Shall entrance find, And whence the coarse unlettered multitude Shall babble far remote. Perhaps some future distant age, Less tinged with prejudice, and better taught, Shall furnish minds of power To judge more equally. Then, malice silenced in the tomb, Cooler heads and sounder hearts, Thanks to Rouse, if aught of praise I merit, shall with candour weigh the claim.
W. COWPER. _Translated from Milton._
PINDARIC ODE
Hail! Learning's Pantheon! Hail, the sacred Ark, Where all the world of science does embark! Which ever shall withstand, and hast so long withstood, Insatiate time's devouring flood! Hail, Tree of Knowledge! thy leaves fruit! which well Dost in the midst of Paradise arise, Oxford, the Muses' Paradise! From which may never Sword the blest expel. Hail, Bank of all past ages, where they lie To enrich with interest posterity! Hail, Wit's illustrious Galaxy, Where thousand lights into one brightness spread, Hail, living University of the Dead!
Unconfused Babel of all Tongues, which e'er The mighty linguist, Fame, or Time, the mighty traveller, That could speak or this could hear! Majestic Monument and Pyramid, Where still the shapes of parted souls abide Embalmed in verse! exalted souls, which now, Enjoy those Arts they wooed so well below! Which now all wonders printed plainly see That have been, are, or are to be, In the mysterious Library, The Beatific Bodley of the Dead!
Will ye into your sacred throng admit The meanest British wit? Ye General Council of the Priests of Fame, Will ye not murmur and disdain That I a place amongst ye claim The humblest Deacon of her train? Will ye allow me the honourable chain? The chain of ornament, which here Your noble prisoners proudly wear? A chain which will more pleasant seem to me Than all my own Pindaric liberty. Will ye to bind me with these mighty names submit Like an Apocrypha with Holy Writ? Whatever happy Book is chainèd here, No other place or people needs to fear; His chain's a passport to go everywhere.
As when a seat in Heaven Is to an unmalicious sinner given, Who casting round his wondering Eye Does none but Patriarchs and Apostles there espy, Martyrs who did their lives bestow And Saints who Martyrs lived below, With trembling and amazement he begins To recollect his frailties past and sins, He doubts almost his station there, His soul says to itself, 'How came I here?' It fares no otherwise with me When I myself with conscious wonder see Amidst this purified elected company; With hardship they and pain Did to their happiness attain. No labours I or merits can pretend; I think, Predestination only was my friend.
Ah! if my author had been tied like me, To such a place and such a company, Instead of several countries, several men, And business, which the Muses hate! He might have then improved that small estate Which Nature sparingly did to him give, He might perhaps have thriven then, And settled upon me, his child, somewhat to live; It had happier been for him, as well as me. For when all, alas, is done, We Books, I mean you Books, will prove to be The best and noblest conversation. For though some errors will get in, Like tinctures of original sin, Yet sure we from our Father's wit Draw all the strength and spirits of it, Leaving the grosser parts for conversation, As the best blood of man's employed on generation.
A. COWLEY.
ON SIR THOMAS BODLEY'S LIBRARY, THE AUTHOR BEING THEN IN OXFORD
Boast not, proud Golgotha, that thou canst show The ruins of mankind and let us know How frail a thing is flesh! though we see there But empty skulls, the Rabbins still live here. They are not dead, but full of blood again, I mean the sense, and every line a vein. Triumph not o'er their dust; whoever looks In here, shall find their brains all in their books. Nor is't old Palestine alone survives, Athens lives here, more than in Plutarch's Lives. The stones which sometimes danced unto the strain Of Orpheus, here do lodge his muse again. And you the Roman spirits, Learning has Made your lives longer than your empire was. Caesar had perished from the world of men, Had not his sword been rescued by his pen. Rare Seneca! how lasting is thy breath! Though Nero did, thou could'st not bleed to death. How dull the expert tyrant was, to look For that in thee, which livèd in thy book! Afflictions turn our blood to ink, and we Commence, when writing, our eternity. Lucilius here I can behold, and see His counsels and his life proceed from thee. But what care I to whom thy Letters be? I change the name, and thou dost write to me; And in this age, as sad almost as thine, Thy stately Consolations are mine. Poor earth! what though thy viler dust enrolls The frail enclosures of these mighty souls? Their graves are all upon record; not one But is as bright and open as the sun, And though some part of them obscurely fell And perished in an unknown, private cell, Yet in their books they found a glorious way To live unto the Resurrection-day! Most noble Bodley! we are bound to thee For no small part of our eternity. Thy treasure was not spent on horse and hound, Nor that new mode, which doth old States confound. Thy legacies another way did go, Nor were they left to those would spend them so. Thy safe, discreet expense on us did flow; Walsam is in the midst of Oxford now. Thou hast made us all thine heirs; whatever we Hereafter write, 'tis thy posterity. This is thy monument! here thou shalt stand Till the times fail in their last grain of sand. And wheresoe'er thy silent relics keep, This tomb will never let thine honour sleep. Still we shall think upon thee; all our fame Meets here to speak one letter of thy name. Thou canst not die! Here thou art more than safe, Where every book is thy large epitaph.
H. VAUGHAN.
THE BODLEIANS OF OXFORD
Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves--
What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.--C. LAMB. _Oxford in the Vacation._
THE BODLEIAN: A DEAD SEA OF BOOKS
Few places affected me more than the Libraries, and especially the Bodleian Library, reputed to have half a million printed books and manuscripts. I walked solemnly and reverently among the alcoves and through the halls, as if in the pyramid of embalmed souls. It was their life, their heart, their mind, that they treasured in these book-urns. Silent as they are, should all the emotions that went to their creation have utterance, could the world itself contain the various sound? They longed for fame? Here it is--to stand silently for ages, moved only to be dusted and catalogued, valued only as units in the ambitious total, and gazed at, occasionally, by men as ignorant as I am, of their name, their place, their language, and their worth. Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw from them as from wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and the bones. A library is but the soul's burial-ground. It is the land of shadows.
Yet one is impressed with the thought, the labour, and the struggle, represented in this vast catacomb of books. Who could dream, by the placid waters that issue from the level mouths of brooks into the lake, all the plunges, the whirls, the divisions, and foaming rushes that had brought them down to the tranquil exit? And who can guess through what channels of disturbance, and experiences of sorrow, the heart passed that has emptied into this Dead Sea of books?--HENRY WARD BEECHER. _Star Papers._
A COLLEGE LIBRARY
A churchyard with a cloister running round And quaint old effigies in act of prayer, And painted banners mouldering strangely there Where mitred prelates and grave doctors sleep, Memorials of a consecrated ground! Such is this antique room, a haunted place Where dead men's spirits come, and angels keep Long hours of watch with wings in silence furled. Early and late have I kept vigil here; And I have seen the moonlight shadows trace Dim glories on the missal's blue and gold, The work of my scholastic sires, that told Of quiet ages men call dark and drear, For Faith's soft light is darkness to the world.
F. W. FABER.
MERTON LIBRARY
Quaint gloomy chamber, oldest relic left Of monkish quiet, like a ship thy form, Stranded keel upward by some sudden storm; Now that a safe and polished age hath cleft Locks, bars and chains, that saved thy tomes from theft, May Time, a surer robber, spare thine age, And reverence each huge black-lettered page, Of real boards and gilt-stamped leather reft. Long may ambitious students here unseal The secret mysteries of classic lore; Though urged not by that blind and aimless zeal With which the Scot within these walls of yore Transcribed the Bible without breaking fast, Toiled through each word and perished at the last.
J. B. NORTON.
OXFORD NIGHTS
About the august and ancient _Square_, Cries the wild wind; and through the air, The blue night air, blows keen and chill: Else, all the night sleeps, all is still. Now, the lone _Square_ is blind with gloom: Now, on that clustering chestnut bloom, A cloudy moonlight plays, and falls In glory upon _Bodley's_ walls: Now, wildlier yet, while moonlight pales, Storm the tumultuary gales. O rare divinity of Night! Season of undisturbed delight: Glad interspace of day and day! Without, a world of winds at play: Within, I hear what dead friends say. Blow, winds! and round that perfect _Dome_, Wail as you will, and sweep, and roam: Above _Saint Mary's_ carven home, Struggle, and smite to your desire The sainted watchers on her spire: Or in the distance vex your power Upon mine own _New College_ tower: You hurt not these! On me and mine, Clear candlelights in quiet shine: My fire lives yet! nor have I done With _Smollett_, nor with _Richardson_: With, gentlest of the martyrs! _Lamb_, Whose lover I, long lover, am: With _Gray_, whose gracious spirit knew The sorrows of art's lonely few: With _Fielding_, great, and strong, and tall; _Sterne_, exquisite, equivocal; _Goldsmith_, the dearest of them all: While _Addison's_ demure delights Turn _Oxford_, into _Attic_, nights. Still _Trim_ and _Parson Adams_ keep Me better company, than sleep: Dark sleep, who loves not me; nor I Love well her nightly death to die, And in her haunted chapels lie. Sleep wins me not: but from his shelf Brings me each wit his very self: Beside my chair the great ghosts throng, Each tells his story, sings his song: And in the ruddy fire I trace The curves of each _Augustan_ face. I sit at _Doctor Primrose'_ board: I hear _Beau Tibbs_ discuss a lord. Mine, _Matthew Bramble's_ pleasant wrath; Mine, all the humours of the _Bath_. _Sir Roger_ and the _Man in Black_ Bring me the _Golden Ages_ back. Now white _Clarissa_ meets her fate, With virgin will inviolate: Now _Lovelace_ wins me with a smile, _Lovelace_, adorable and vile. I taste, in slow alternate way, Letters of _Lamb_, letters of _Gray_: Nor lives there, beneath Oxford towers, More joy, than in my silent hours. Dream, who love dreams! forget all grief: Find, in sleep's nothingness, relief: Better my dreams! Dear, human books, With kindly voices, winning looks! Enchaunt me with your spells of art, And draw me homeward to your heart: Till weariness and things unkind Seem but a vain and passing wind: Till the grey morning slowly creep Upward, and rouse the birds from sleep: Till _Oxford_ bells the silence break, And find me happier, for your sake. Then, with the dawn of common day, Rest you! But I, upon my way, What the fates bring, will cheerlier do, In days not yours, through thoughts of you!
L. JOHNSON.
ON THE LIBRARY AT CAMBRIDGE
In that great maze of books I sighed, and said,-- 'It is a grave-yard, and each tome a tomb; Shrouded in hempen rags, behold the dead, Coffined and ranged in crypts of dismal gloom,-- Food for the worm and redolent of mould, Traced with brief epitaph in tarnished gold.'-- Ah, golden-lettered hope!--Ah, dolorous doom! Yet, mid the common death, when all is cold, And mildewed pride in desolation dwells, A few great Immortalities of old Stand brightly forth;--not tombs but living shrines, Where from high saint or martyr virtue wells, Which on the living yet works miracles, Spreading a relic wealth, richer than golden mines.
J. M.
THE SOUL'S VIATICUM
Books looked on as to their readers or authors do at the very first mention challenge pre-eminence above the world's admired fine things. Books are the glass of council to dress ourselves by. They are life's best business: vocation to these hath more emolument coming in than all the other busy terms of life. They are fee-less councillors, no delaying patrons, of easy access, and kind expedition, never sending away empty any client or petitioner. They are for company the best friends; in doubts, counsellors; in damp, comforters; Time's perspective; the home traveller's ship, or horse, the busy man's best recreation; the opiate of idle weariness; the mind's best ordinary; Nature's garden and seed-plot of Immortality. Time spent, needlessly, from them is consumed, but with them twice gained. Time captivated and snatched from thee by incursions of business, thefts of visitants, or by thy own carelessness lost, is by these redeemed in life; they are the soul's viaticum; and against death its cordial. In a true verdict, no such treasure as a library.--B. WHITELOCKE.
NOTES
PAGE 1. _Lamb._--The extracts from the works of Charles Lamb are from the Oxford edition, edited by T. Hutchinson. Not content with 'grace' before Milton and Shakespeare, Lamb suggests elsewhere (see p. 130) a solemn service.
P. 1. _Petrarch._--When the love-sick Petrarch retired from Avignon to Vaucluse, in 1338, his only companions were his books; for his friends rarely visited him, alleging that his mode of life was unnatural. Petrarch replied as in the text, which is quoted from Mrs. S. Dodson's _Life_. On another occasion, however, Petrarch wrote: 'Many have found the multitude of their books a hindrance to learning, and abundance has bred want, as sometimes happens. But if the many books are at hand, they are not to be cast aside, but to be gleaned, and the best used; and care should be taken that those which might have proved seasonable auxiliaries do not become hindrances out of season.' See Leigh Hunt's reference on page 20 to Petrarch as 'the god of the Bibliomaniacs'.
P. 2. _Waller._--Carlyle, aged 22, wrote to Robert Mitchell that, lacking society, he found 'books are a ready and effectual resource'. 'It is lawful,' he added, 'for the solitary wight to express the love he feels for those companions so steadfast and unpresuming--that go or come without reluctance, and that, when his fellow-animals are proud or stupid or peevish, are ever ready to cheer the languor of his soul, and gild the barrenness of life with the treasures of bygone times.'
Walter Pater, in _Appreciations: Style_, observes that 'different classes of persons, at different times, make, of course, very various demands upon literature. Still, scholars, I suppose, and not only scholars but all disinterested lovers of books, will always look to it, as to all other fine art, for a refuge, a sort of cloistral refuge, from a certain vulgarity in the actual world. A perfect poem like _Lycidas_, a perfect fiction like _Esmond_, the perfect handling of a theory like Newman's _Idea of a University_, has for them something of the uses of a religious "retreat".'
P. 4. _Chesterfield._--Folio, a book whose sheets are folded into two leaves; quarto, sheets folded into four leaves, abbreviated into 4to; octavo, sheets folded into eight leaves, 8vo; duodecimo, sheets folded into twelve leaves, 12mo. The first three words come to us from the Italian, through the French; the last is from the Latin _duodecim_.
P. 4. _Southey._--
Better than men and women, friend, That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain, Are the books their cunning hands have penned, For they depart, but the books remain.... When others fail him, the wise man looks To the sure companionship of books.--R. H. STODDARD.
P. 5. _Southey_ ('A heavenly delight').--See p. 320.
P. 5. _Southey_ ('The best of all possible company').--Castanheda died in 1559, Barros in 1570, Osorio (da Fonseca) in 1580. They were Portuguese historians.
P. 6. _Emerson._
There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on.--J. R. LOWELL.
P. 7. _Whittier._--The poet explains that the 'lettered magnate' was his friend Fields (James Thomas, 1817-81), who edited the _Atlantic Monthly_. Among Fields's friends were Leigh Hunt, Barry Cornwall, Miss Mitford, and Dickens. Longfellow's 'Auf Wiedersehen' was written 'in memory of J. T. F.', and Whittier himself wrote some elegiac verse after his death.
It may be noted that Elzevir was the name of a famous family of Dutch printers, whose books were chiefly issued between 1592 and 1681. Louis Elzevir (? 1540-1617) was the first to make the name famous.
P. 9. _Roscoe._--The sale of Roscoe's library, necessary on account of financial failure, took place in August and September 1816. This Roscoe is the historian of the Medici.
Washington Irving quotes Roscoe's sonnet in his reference to the incident.
P. 10. _Longfellow._--These valedictory lines were written in December 1881. In the following year Longfellow died.
P. 10. _Jonson._--Goodyer or Goodier (spelt Goodyere by Herrick) was the friend of Donne and of many other literary men, and he wrote verses on his own account. His father, Sir Henry Goodyer, was the patron of Michael Drayton.
P. 11. _Sheridan._--Written to Dean Swift, then in London.
P. 12. _Tupper._--'Next to possessing a true, wise, and victorious friend seated by your fireside, it is blessed to have the spirit of such a friend embodied--for spirit can assume any embodiment--on your bookshelves. But in the latter case the friendship is all on one side. For full friendship your friend must love you, and know that you love him.'--GEORGE MACDONALD.
Compare C. S. C.'s parody on page 135; and Goethe's statement that he only hated parodies 'because they lower the beautiful, noble, and great'.
P. 13. _de Bury._--Richard de Bury was born near Bury St. Edmunds in 1287, his father being Sir Richard Aungervile. He had a distinguished career at Oxford, and was the tutor of Edward III. Sent as ambassador to the papal court at Avignon, he formed a friendship with Petrarch (see pp. 1 and 369). While Bishop of Durham, he was for a short time Lord Chancellor and also Treasurer of England. He finished the _Philobiblon_ less than three months before he died, in 1345. Thomas Fuller says that he had more books than all the other English bishops in that age put together. He had a library at each of his residences, and Mr. E. C. Thomas tells us, on the authority of William de Chambre, that wherever he was residing so many books lay about his bedchamber that it was hardly possible to stand or move without treading upon them. All the time he could spare from business was devoted either to religious offices or to books, and daily at table he would have a book read to him. The _Philobiblon_ was printed first at Cologne in 1473, then ten years later at Spires, and in 1500 at Paris. The first edition printed in England appeared in 1598, and it was a product of the Oxford Press. It was not until 1832 that any English translation was published. This, although the name was not divulged in the book, was the work of John Bellingham Inglis. More than half a century passed before another translation was made--that of Mr. Thomas, who personally examined or collated twenty-eight MSS. Inglis's translation, according to his successor, is a work of more spirit than accuracy, but it is the spirit that quickeneth, and it is the 1832 volume which I have used.
P. 14. _Addison._--Ovid, _Met._ xv. 871:
--which nor dreads the rage Of tempests, fire, or war, or wasting age.--WELSTED.
Fielding says in _Tom Jones_:--'I question not but the ingenious author of the _Spectator_ was principally induced to prefix Greek and Latin mottoes to every paper, from the same consideration of guarding against the pursuit of those scribblers who, having no talents of a writer but what is taught by the writing-master, are yet not more afraid nor ashamed to assume the same titles with the greatest genius, than their good brother in the fable was of braying in the lion's skin. By the device, therefore, of his motto, it became impracticable for any man to presume to imitate the _Spectators_, without understanding at least one sentence in the learned languages.'