Chapter XVII: Part IV: =The Library.= (4)

LIS. This is, at least, an original idea; and has escaped the sagacity of every commentator in the last twenty-one volume edition of the works of our bard.

LYSAND. But to return to Henry. I should imagine that his mind was not much affected by the perusal of this description of books: but rather that he was constantly meditating upon some old arithmetical work--the prototype of Cocker--which, in the desolation of the ensuing half century, has unfortunately perished. Yet, if this monarch be accused of avaricious propensities--if, in consequence of speculating deeply in _large paper_ and _vellum_ copies, he made his coffers to run over with gold--it must be remembered that he was, at the same time, a patron as well as judge of architectural artists; and while the completion of the structure of King's college Chapel, Cambridge, and the building of his own magnificent chapel[289] at Westminster (in which latter, I suspect, he had a curiously-carved gothic closet for the preservation of choice copies from Caxton's neighbouring press), afford decisive proofs of Henry's skill in matters of taste, the rivalship of printers and of book-buyers shews that the example of the monarch was greatly favourable to the propagation of the Bibliomania. Indeed, such was the progress of the book-disease that, in the very year of Henry's death, appeared, for the first time in this country, an edition of _The Ship of Fools_--in which work, ostentatious and ignorant book-collectors[290] are, amongst other characters, severely satirized.

[Footnote 289: Harpsfield speaks with becoming truth and
spirit of Henry's great attention to ecclesiastical
establishments: "Splendidum etiam illud sacellum
westmonasterij, magno sumptu atque magnificentia ab eodem
est conditum. In quod coenobium valde fuit liberalis et
munificus. Nullumque fere fuit in tota Anglia monachorum,
aut fratrum coenobium, nullum collegium, cujus preces, ad
animam ipsius Deo post obitum commendandam, sedulo non
expetierat. Legavit autem singulorum præfectis sex solidos
et octo denarios, singulis autem eorundem presbyteris, tres
solidos et quatuor denarios: ceteris non presbyteris viginti
denarios." _Hist. Eccles. Anglic._, p. 606, edit. 1622,
fol.]

[Footnote 290: The reader is here introduced to his old
acquaintance, who appeared in the title-page to my first
"_Bibliomania_:"--

I am the firste fole of all the hole navy
To kepe the pompe, the helme, and eke the sayle:
For this is my mynde, this one pleasoure have I--
Of bokes to haue great plenty and aparayle.
I take no wysdome by them: nor yet avayle
Nor them perceyve nat: And then I them despyse.
Thus am I a foole, and all that serue that guyse.

_Shyp of Folys_, &c., _Pynson's edit._, 1509, fol.]

We have now reached the threshhold of the reign of HENRY VIII.--and of the era of THE REFORMATION. An era in every respect most important, but, in proportion to its importance, equally difficult to describe--as it operates upon the history of the Bibliomania. Now blazed forth, but blazed for a short period, the exquisite talents of Wyatt, Surrey, Vaux, Fischer, More, and, when he made his abode with us, the incomparable Erasmus. But these in their turn.

PHIL. You omit Wolsey. Surely he knew something about books?

LYSAND. I am at present only making the sketch of my grand picture. Wolsey, I assure you, shall stand in the foreground. Nor shall the immortal Leland be treated in a less distinguished manner. Give me only "ample room and verge enough," and a little time to collect my powers, and then--

LIS. "Yes, and then"--you will infect us from top to toe with the BOOK-DISEASE!

PHIL. In truth I already begin to feel the consequence of the innumerable miasma of it, which are floating in the atmosphere of this library. I move that we adjourn to a purer air.

LYSAND. I second the motion: for, having reached the commencement of Henry's reign, it will be difficult to stop at any period in it previous to that of the Reformation.

LIS. Agreed. Thanks to the bacchanalian bounty of Lorenzo, we are sufficiently enlivened to enter yet further, and more enthusiastically, into this congenial discourse. Dame nature and good sense equally admonish us now to depart. Let us, therefore, close the apertures of these gorgeous decanters:--

"Claudite jam rivos, pueri: sat prata bibêrunt!"