Chapter XVIII: Part V: =The Drawing Room.= (1)

HISTORY OF THE BIBLIOMANIA, OR ACCOUNT OF BOOK COLLECTORS, CONCLUDED.

Some in Learning's garb
With formal hand, and sable-cinctur'd gown,
And rags of mouldy volumes.

AKENSIDE; _Pleasures of Imagination_, b. iii., v. 96.

=The Drawing Room.=

HISTORY OF THE BIBLIOMANIA, OR ACCOUNT OF BOOK-COLLECTORS, CONTINUED.

Volatile as the reader may comceive [Transcriber's Note: conceive] the character of Lisardo to be, there were traits in it of marked goodness and merit. His enthusiasm so frequently made him violate the rules of severe politeness; and the quickness with which he flew from one subject to another, might have offended a narrator of the gravity, without the urbanity, of Lysander; had not the frankness with which he confessed his faults, and the warmth with which he always advocated the cause of literature, rendered him amiable in the eyes of those who thoroughly knew him. The friends, whose company he was now enjoying, were fully competent to appreciate his worth. They perceived that Lisardo's mind had been rather brilliantly cultivated; and that, as his heart had always beaten at the call of virtue, so, in a due course of years, his judgment would become matured, and his opinions more decidedly fixed. He had been left, very early in life, without a father, and bred up in the expectation of a large fortune; while the excessive fondness of his mother had endeavoured to supply the want of paternal direction, and had encouraged her child to sigh for every thing short of impossibility for his gratification.

In consequence, Lisardo was placed at College upon the most respectable footing. He wore the velvet cap, and enjoyed the rustling of the tassels upon his silk gown, as he paraded the High street of Oxford. But although he could translate Tacitus and Theocritus with creditable facility, he thought it more advantageous to gratify the cravings of his body than of his mind. He rode high-mettled horses; he shot with a gun which would have delighted an Indian prince; he drank freely out of cut-glasses, which were manufactured according to his own particular taste; and wines of all colours and qualities sparkled upon his table; he would occasionally stroll into the Bodleian Library and Picture Gallery, in order to know whether any acquisitions had been recently made to them; and attended the Concerts when any performer came down from London. Yet, in the midst of all his gaiety, Lisardo passed more sombrous than joyous hours: for when he looked into a book, he would sometimes meet with an electrical sentence from Cicero, Seneca, or Johnson, from which he properly inferred that life was uncertain, and that time was given us to prepare for eternity.

He grew dissatisfied and melancholy. He scrambled through his terms; took his degree; celebrated his anniversary of twenty-one, by drenching his native village in ale which had been brewed at his birth; added two wings to his father's house; launched out into coin and picture collecting; bought fine books with fine bindings; then sold all his coins and pictures; and, at the age of twenty-five, began to read, and think, and act for himself.

At this crisis, he became acquainted with the circle which has already been introduced to the reader's attention; and to which circle the same reader may think it high time now to return.

Upon breaking up for THE DRAWING ROOM, it was amusing to behold the vivacity of Lisardo; who, leaping about Lysander, and expressing his high gratification at the discourse he had already heard, and his pleasure at what he hoped yet to hear, reminded us of what Boswell has said of Garrick, who used to flutter about Dr. Johnson, and try to soften his severity by a thousand winning gestures.

The doors were opened; and we walked into Lorenzo's Drawing Room. The reader is not to figure to himself a hundred fantastical and fugitive pieces of furniture, purchased at Mr. Oakley's, and set off with curtains, carpet, and looking-glasses--at a price which would have maintained a country town of seven hundred poor with bread and soup during the hardest winter--the reader will not suppose that a man of Lorenzo's taste, who called books his best wealth, would devote two thousand pounds to such idle trappings; which in the course of three years, at farthest, would lose their comfort by losing their fashion. But he will suppose that elegance and propriety were equally consulted by our host.

Accordingly, a satin-wood book-case of 14 feet in width and 11 in height, ornamented at the top with a few chaste Etruscan vases--a light blue carpet, upon which were depicted bunches of grey roses, shadowed in brown--fawn-coloured curtains, relieved with yellow silk and black velvet borders--alabaster lamps shedding their soft light upon small marble busts--and sofas and chairs corresponding with the curtains--(and upon which a visitor might sit without torturing the nerves of the owner of them) these, along with some genuine pictures of Wouvermans, Berghem, and Rysdael, and a few other (subordinate) ornaments, formed the furniture of Lorenzo's Drawing Room. As it was _en suite_ with the library, which was fitted up in a grave style or character, the contrast was sufficiently pleasing.

Lisardo ran immediately to the book-case. He first eyed, with a greedy velocity, the backs of the folios and quartos; then the octavos; and, mounting an ingeniously-contrived mahogany rostrum, which moved with the utmost facility, he did not fail to pay due attention to the duodecimos; some of which were carefully preserved in Russia or morocco backs, with water-tabby silk linings, and other appropriate embellishments. In the midst of his book-reverie, he heard, on a sudden, the thrilling notes of a harp--which proceeded from the further end of the library!--it being Lorenzo's custom, upon these occasions, to request an old Welch servant to bring his instrument into the library, and renew, if he could, the strains of "other times." Meanwhile the curtains were "let fall;" the sofa wheeled round;

--and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate,

with "the bubbling and loud hissing urn," "welcomed the evening in." Lorenzo brought from his library a volume of Piranesi, and another of engravings from the heads of Vandyke. Lisardo, in looking at them, beat time with his head and foot; and Philemon and Lysander acknowledged that Dr. Johnson himself could never have so much enjoyed the beverage which was now before them.

If it should here be asked, by the critical reader, why our society is not described as being more congenial, by the presence of those "whom man was born to please," the answer is at once simple and true--Lorenzo was a bachelor; and his sisters, knowing how long and desperate would be our discussion upon the black letter and white letter, had retreated, in the morning, to spend the day with Lisardo's mother--whither ---- ---- had been invited to join them.

The harper had now ceased. The tea-things were moved away; when we narrowed our circle, and, two of us upon the sofa, and three upon chairs, entreated Lysander to resume his narrative; who, after "clearing his pipes (like Sir Roger de Coverley) with a loud hem or two," thus proceeded.

"I think we left off," said Lysander, "with seating HENRY THE EIGHTH upon the throne of England. It will be as well, therefore, to say something of this monarch's pretensions to scholarship and love of books. Although I will not rake together every species of abuse which has been vented against him by one Anthony Gilbie,[291] yet Henry must be severely censured, in the estimation of the most candid inquirer, for that gross indifference which he evinced to the real interests of literature, in calmly suffering the libraries of convents and monasteries to be pillaged by the crafty and rapacious. He was bibliomaniac enough to have a few copies of his own work, in defence of the Roman Catholic exposition of the Sacrament, struck off UPON VELLUM:[292] but when he quarrelled with the Roman pontiff about his divorce from Queen Catharine, in order to marry Anne Boleyn,[293] he sounded the tocsin for the eventful destruction of all monastic libraries: and although he had sent Leland, under an express commission, to make a due examination of them, as well as a statistical survey of the realm, yet, being frustrated in the forementioned darling object, he cared for nothing about books, whether _upon vellum_ or _large paper_. But had we not better speak of the book ravages, during the reformation, in their proper place?"

[Footnote 291: "In the time (saith he) of King HENRIE THE
EIGHT, when by Tindall, Frith, Bilney, and other his
faithful seruantes, God called England to dresse his
vineyarde, many promise ful faire, whome I coulde name, but
what fruite followed? Nothing but bitter grapes, yea, bryers
and brambles, the wormewood of auarice, the gall of
crueltie, the poison of filthie fornication, flowing from
head to fote, the contempt of God, and open defence of the
cake idole, by open proclamation to be read in the churches
in steede of God's Scriptures. Thus was there no
reformation, but a deformation, in the time of the tyrant
and lecherouse monster. The bore I graunt was busie,
wrooting and digging in the earth, and all his pigges that
followed him, but they sought onely for the pleasant
fruites, that they winded with their long snoutes; and for
their own bellies sake, they wrooted up many weeds; but they
turned the grounde so, mingling goode and badde togeather,
sweet and sower, medecine and poyson, they made, I saye,
suche confusion of religion and lawes, that no good thinge
could growe, but by great miracle, under suche gardeners.
And no maruaile, if it be rightlye considered. For this bore
raged against God, against the Divell, against Christe, and
against Antichrist, as the fome that he cast oute against
Luther, the racing out of the name of the pope, and yet
allowing his lawes, and his murder of many Christian
souldiars, and of many Papists, doe declare and evidentlie
testifie unto us; especially the burning of Barnes, Jerome,
and Garrette, their faithfull preachers of the truthe, and
hanging the same daye for the maintenaunce of the pope,
Poel, Abel, and Fetherstone, dothe clearlie painte his
beastlines, that he cared for no religion. This monsterous
bore for all this must needes be called the head of the
church in paine of treason, displacing Christ, our onely
head, who ought alone to haue this title." _Admonition to
England and Scotland, &c._, Geneva, 1558, p. 69. Quoted by
Stapleton in his _Counter Blaste to Horne's Vayne Blaste_,
Lovan., 1567, 4to., fol. 23. Gilbie was a Protestant; upon
which Stapleton who was a rigid Roman Catholic, shrewdly
remarks in the margin: "See how religiously the Protestantes
speak of their princes!"]

[Footnote 292: Mr. Edwards informs me that he has had a copy
of the "_Assertio Septem Sacramentorum aduersus Martin
Lutherum_," &c. (printed by Pynson in 4to., both with and
without date--1521), UPON VELLUM. The presentation copy to
Henry, and perhaps another to Wolsey, might have been of
this nature. I should have preferred a similar copy of the
small book, printed a few years afterwards, in 12mo., of
Henry's Letters in answer to Luther's reply to the foregoing
work. This is not the place to talk further of these curious
pieces. I have seen some of Pynson's books printed upon
vellum; which are not remarkable for their beauty.]

[Footnote 293: Those readers who are not in possession of
Hearne's rare edition of _Robert de Avesbury_, 1720, 8vo.,
and who cannot, in consequence, read the passionate letters
of Henry VIII. to his beloved Boleyn, which form a leading
feature in the Appendix to the same, will find a few
extracts from them in the _British Bibliographer_; vol. ii.,
p. 78. Some of the monarch's signatures, of which Hearne has
given fac-similes, are as follow:

When one thinks of the then imagined happiness of the fair
object of these epistles--and reads the splendid account of
her coronation dinner, by Stow--contrasting it with the
melancholy circumstances which attended her death--one is at
loss to think, or to speak, with sufficient force, of the
fickleness of all sublunary grandeur! The reader may,
perhaps, wish for this, "coronation dinner?" It is, in part,
strictly as follows: "While the queen was in her chamber,
every lord and other that ought to do service at the
coronation, did prepare them, according to their duty: as
the Duke of Suffolk, High-Steward of England, which was
richly apparelled--his doublet and jacket set with orient
pearl, his gown crimson velvet embroidered, his courser
trapped with a close trapper, head and all, to the ground,
of crimson velvet, set full of letters of gold, of
goldsmith's work; having a long white rod in his hand. On
his left-hand rode the Lord William, deputy for his brother,
as Earl Marshall, with ye marshal's rod, whose gown was
crimson velvet, and his horse's trapper purple velvet cut on
white satin, embroidered with white lions. The Earl of
Oxford was High Chamberlain; the Earl of Essex, carver; the
Earl of Sussex, sewer; the Earl of Arundel, chief butler; on
whom 12 citizens of London did give their attendance at the
cupboard; the Earl of Derby, cup-bearer; the Viscount Lisle,
panter; the Lord Burgeiny, chief larder; the Lord Broy,
almoner for him and his copartners; and the Mayor of Oxford
kept the buttery-bar: and Thomas Wyatt was chosen ewerer for
Sir Henry Wyatt, his father." "When all things were ready
and ordered, THE QUEEN, under her canopy, came into the
hall, and washed; and sat down in the middest of the table,
under her cloth of estate. On the right side of her chair
stood the Countess of Oxford, widow: and on her left hand
stood the Countess of Worcester, all the dinner season;
which, divers times in the dinner time, did hold a fine
cloth before the Queen's face, when she list to spit, or do
otherwise at her pleasure. And at the table's end sate the
Archbishop of Canterbury, on the right hand of the Queen;
and in the midst, between the Archbishop and the Countess of
Oxford, stood the Earl of Oxford, with a white staff, all
dinner time; and at the Queen's feet, under the table, sate
two gentlewomen all dinner time. When all these things were
thus ordered, came in the Duke of Suffolk and the Lord
William Howard on horseback, and the Serjeants of arms
before them, and after them the sewer; and then the knights
of the Bath, bringing in the _first course_, which was eight
and twenty dishes, besides subtleties, and ships made of
wax, marvellous gorgeous to behold: all which time of
service, the trumpets standing in the window, at the nether
end of the hall, played," &c. _Chronicles_; p. 566: edit.
1615, fol.]

LORENZ. As you please. Perhaps you will go on with the mention of some distinguished patrons 'till you arrive at that period?

LYSAND. Yes; we may now as well notice the efforts of that extraordinary _bibliomaniacal triumvirate_, Colet, More, and Erasmus.

PHIL. Pray treat copiously of them. They are my great favourites. But can you properly place Erasmus in the list?

LYSAND. You forget that he made a long abode here, and was Greek professor at Cambridge. To begin, then, with the former. COLET, as you well know, was Dean of St. Paul's; and founder of the public school which goes by the latter name. He had an ardent and general love of literature;[294] but his attention to the improvement of youth, in superintending appropriate publications, for their use, was unremitting. Few men did so much and so well, at this period: for while he was framing the statutes by which his little community was to be governed, he did not fail to keep the presses of Wynkyn De Worde and Pynson pretty constantly at work, by publishing the grammatical treatises of Grocyn, Linacre, Stanbridge, Lilye, Holte, Whittington, and others--for the benefit, as well of the public, as of his own particular circle. I take it, his library must have been both choice and copious; for books now began to be multiplied in an immense ratio, and scholars and men of rank thought _a Study_, or _Library_, of some importance to their mansions. What would we not give for an authenticated representation of Dean Colet in his library,[295] surrounded with books? You, Lisardo, would be in ecstacies with such a thing!

[Footnote 294: How anxiously does COLET seem to have watched
the progress, and pushed the sale, of his friend Erasmus's
first edition of the Greek Testament! "Quod scribis de Novo
Testamento intelligo. Et libri novæ editionis tuæ _hic avide
emuntur et passim leguntur_!" The entire epistle (which may
be seen in Dr. Knight's dry Life of Colet, p. 315) is
devoted to an account of Erasmus's publications. "I am
really astonished, my dear Erasmus (does he exclaim), at the
fruitfulness of your talents; that, without any fixed
residence, and with a precarious and limited income, you
contrive to publish so many and such excellent works."
Adverting to the distracted state of Germany at this period,
and to the wish of his friend to live secluded and
unmolested, he observes--"As to the tranquil retirement
which you sigh for, be assured that you have my sincere
wishes for its rendering you as happy and composed as you
can wish it. Your age and erudition entitle you to such a
retreat. I fondly hope, indeed, that you will choose this
country for it, and come and live amongst us, whose
disposition you know, and whose friendship you have proved."
There is hardly a more curious picture of the custom of the
times relating to the education of boys, than the Dean's own
Statutes for the regulation of St. Paul's School, which he
had founded. These shew, too, the _popular books_ then read
by the learned. "The children shall come unto the school in
the morning at seven of the clock, both winter and summer,
and tarry there until eleven; and return again at one of the
clock, and depart at five, &c. In the school, no time in the
year, they shall use tallow candle, in no wise, but _only
wax candle_, at the costs of their friends. Also I will they
bring no meat nor drink, nor bottle, nor use in the school
no breakfasts, nor drinkings, in the time of learning, in no
wise, &c. I will they use no cockfighting, nor riding about
of victory, nor disputing at Saint Bartholomew, which is but
foolish babbling and loss of time." The master is then
restricted, under the penalty of 40 shillings, from granting
the boys a holiday, or "remedy" (play-day), as it is here
called, "except the king, an archbishop, or a bishop,
present in his own person in the school, desire it." The
studies for the lads were "Erasmus's _Copia_ et _Institutum
Christiani Hominii_ (composed at the Dean's request),
_Lactantius_, _Prudentius_, _Juvencus_, _Proba_ and
_Sedulius_, and _Baptista Mantuanus_, and such other as
shall be thought convenient and most to purpose unto the
true Latin speech; all barbary, all corruption, all Latin
adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this
world, and with the same hath distained and poisoned the old
Latin speech, and the _veray_ Roman tongue, which in the
time of Tully, and Sallust, and Virgil, and Terence, was
used--I say, that filthiness, and all such abusion, which
the later blind world brought in, which more rather may be
called BLOTERATURE than LITERATURE, I utterly banish and
exclude out of THIS SCHOOL." Knight's _Life of Colet_, 362,
4. The sagacious reader will naturally enough conclude that
boys, thus educated, would, afterwards, of necessity, fall
victims to the ravages of the BIBLIOMANIA!]

[Footnote 295: I wish it were in my power to come forward
with any stronger degree of probability than the exhibition
of the subjoined cut, of what might have been the interior
of _Dean Colet's Study_. This print is taken from an old
work, printed in the early part of the sixteenth century,
and republished in a book of Alciatus's emblems, translated
from the Latin into Italian, A.D. 1549, 8vo. There is an air
of truth about it; but the frame work is entirely modern,
and perhaps not in the purest taste. It may turn out that
this interior view of a private library is somewhat too
perfect and finished for the times of Colet, in this
country; especially if we may judge from the rules to be
observed in completing a public one, just about the period
of Colet's death: "Md. couenawntyd and agreid wyth Comell
Clerke, for the making off the dextis in the library, (of
Christ Church College, Oxford) to the summe off xvi, after
the maner and forme as they be in Magdalyn college, except
the popie heedes off the seites, this to be workmanly
wrought and clenly, and he to have all manner off stooff
foond hym, and to have for the makyng off one dexte xs.
the sum off the hole viii. li. Item: borowd att Magdaleyn
college one c. off v. d nayle, a c. off vi. d nayle, dim. c.
x. d. nayle."--_Antiquities of Glastonbury_; edit. Hearne,
p. 307.

]

LIS. Pray don't make such tantalizing appeals to me! Proceed, proceed.

LYSAND. Of this amiable and illustrious character I will only further observe that he possessed solid, good sense--unaffected and unshaken piety--a love towards the whole human race--and that he dignified his attachment to learning by the conscientious discharge of his duty towards God and man. He sleeps in peace beneath a monument, which has been consecrated by the tears of all who were related to him, and by the prayers of those who have been benefitted by his philanthropy.

Of SIR THOMAS MORE,[296] where is the schoolboy that is ignorant? He was unquestionably, next to Erasmus, the most brilliant scholar of his age: while the precious biographical memoirs of him, which have luckily descended to us, place his character, in a domestic point of view, beyond that of all his contemporaries. Dr. Wordsworth[297] has well spoken of "the heavenly mindedness" of More: but how are bibliomaniacs justly to appreciate the classical lore, and incessantly-active book-pursuits,[298] of this scholar and martyr! How he soared "above his compeers!" How richly, singularly, and curiously, was his mind furnished! Wit, playfulness, elevation, and force--all these are distinguishable in his writings, if we except his polemical compositions; which latter, to speak in the gentlest terms, are wholly unworthy of his name. When More's head was severed from his body, virtue and piety exclaimed, in the language of Erasmus,--"He is dead: More, whose breast was purer than snow, whose genius was excellent above all his nation."[299]

[Footnote 296: In the first volume of my edition of SIR
THOMAS MORE'S _Utopia_, the reader will find an elaborate
and faithful account of the biographical publications
relating to this distinguished character, together with a
copious _Catalogue Raisonnè_ of the engraved portraits of
him, and an analysis of his English works. It would be
tedious to both the reader and author, here to repeat what
has been before written of Sir Thomas More--whose memory
lives in every cultivated bosom. Of this edition of the
Utopia there appeared a flimsy and tart censure in the
_Edinburgh Review_, by a critic, who, it was manifest, had
never examined the volumes, and who, when he observes upon
the fidelity of Bishop Burnet's translation of the original
Latin of More, was resolved, from pure love of Whiggism, to
defend an author at the expense of truth.]

[Footnote 297: I have read this newly published biographical
memoir of Sir Thomas More: which contains nothing very new,
or deserving of particular notice in this place.]

[Footnote 298: A bibliomanical anecdote here deserves to be
recorded; as it shews how More's love of books had infected
even those who came to seize upon him to carry him to the
Tower, and to endeavour to inveigle him into treasonable
expressions:--"While Sir Richard Southwell and Mr. Palmer
were bussie in _trussinge upp his bookes_, Mr. Riche,
pretending," &c.--"Whereupon Mr. Palmer, on his desposition,
said, that he was soe bussie about the _trussinge upp Sir
Tho. Moore's bookes_ in a sacke, that he tooke no heed to
there talke. Sir Richard Southwell likewise upon his
disposition said, that because he was appoynted only to
looke to the conveyance _of his bookes_, he gave noe ear
unto them."--_Gulielmi Roperi Vita D.T. Mori_; edit Herne,
p. 47, 51.]

[Footnote 299: Epistle Dedicatory to Ecclesiastes: quoted in
that elegant and interesting quarto volume of the "_Lives of
British Statesmen_," by the late Mr. Macdiarmid; p. 117.]

How can I speak, with adequate justice, of the author of these words!--Yes, ERASMUS!--in spite of thy timidity, and sometimes, almost servile compliances with the capricious whims of the great; in spite of thy delicate foibles, thou shalt always live in my memory; and dear to me shall be the possession of thy intellectual labours! No pen has yet done justice to thy life.[300] How I love to trace thee, in all thy bookish pursuits, from correcting the press of thy beloved Froben, to thy social meetings with Colet and More! You remember well, Lisardo,--we saw, in yonder room, a _large paper_ copy of the fine Leyden edition of this great man's works! You opened it; and were struck with the variety--the solidity, as well as gaiety, of his productions.

[Footnote 300: It were much to be wished that Mr. Roscoe,
who has so successfully turned his attention to the history
of _Italian Literature_, of the period of Erasmus, would
devote himself to the investigation of the philological
history of the German schools, and more especially to the
literary life of the great man of whom Lysander is above
speaking. The biographical memoirs of Erasmus by Le Clerc,
anglicised and enlarged by the learned Jortin, and Dr.
Knight's life of the same, can never become popular. They
want method, style and interest. Le Clerc, however, has made
ample amends for the defectiveness of his biographical
composition, by the noble edition of Erasmus's works which
he put forth at Leyden, in the year 1703-6, in eleven
volumes folio: of which volumes the reader will find an
excellent analysis or review in the _Act. Erudit._, A.D.
1704, &c. Le Clerc, _Bibl. Choisie_, vol. i., 380; Du Pin's
_Bibl. Eccles._, vol. xiv., and _Biblioth. Fabric_, pt. i.,
359; from which latter we learn that, in the public library,
at Deventer, there is a copy of Erasmus's works, in which
those passages, where the author speaks freely of the laxity
of the monkish character, have been defaced, "chartâ
fenestrata." A somewhat more compressed analysis of the
contents of these volumes appeared in the _Sylloge
Opusculorum Hist.-Crit., Literariorum, J.A. Fabricii, Hamb._
1738, 4to., p. 363, 378--preceded, however, by a pleasing,
yet brief account of the leading features of Erasmus's
literary life. Tn one of his letters to Colet, Erasmus
describes himself as "a very poor fellow in point of
fortune, and wholly exempt from ambition." A little before
his death he sold his library to one John a Lasco, a
Polonese, for only 200 florins. (Of this amiable foreigner,
see Stypye's [Transcriber's Note: Strype's] _Life of
Crammer_ [Transcriber's Note: Cranmer]; b. ii., ch. xxii.)
Nor did he--notwithstanding his services to booksellers--and
although every press was teeming with his lucubrations--and
especially that of Colinæeus--(which alone put forth 24,000
copies of his _Colloquies_) ever become much the wealthier
for his talents as an author. His bibliomaniacal spirit was
such, that he paid most liberally those who collated or
described works of which he was in want. In another of his
letters, he declares that "he shall not recieve
[Transcriber's Note: receive] an _obolus_ that year; as he
had spent more than what he had gained in rewarding those
who had made book-researches for him;" and he complains,
after being five months at Cambridge, that he had,
fruitlessly, spent upwards of fifty crowns. "Noblemen," says
he, "love and praise literature, and my lucubrations; but
they praise and do not reward." To his friend Eobanus Hessus
(vol. vi., 25), he makes a bitter complaint "de Comite
quodam." For the particulars, see the last mentioned
authority, p. 363, 4. In the year 1519, Godenus, to whom
Erasmus had bequeathed a silver bowl, put forth a facetious
catalogue of his works, in hexameter and pentameter verses;
which was printed at Louvain by Martin, without date, in
4to.; and was soon succeeded by two more ample and
methodical ones by the same person in 1537, 4to.; printed by
Froben and Episcopius. See Marchand's _Dict. Bibliogr. et
Histor._, vol. i., p. 98, 99. The bibliomaniac may not
object to be informed that Froben, shortly after the death
of his revered Erasmus, put forth this first edition of the
entire works of the latter, in nine folio volumes; and that
accurate and magnificent as is Le Clerc's edition of the
same (may I venture to hint at the rarity of LARGE PAPER
copies of it?), "it takes no notice of the _Index
Expurgatorius_ of the early edition of Froben, which has
shown a noble art of curtailing this, as well as other
authors." See _Knight's Life of Erasmus_, p. 353. The
mention of Froben and Erasmus, thus going down to
immortality together, induces me to inform the curious
reader that my friend Mr. Edwards is possessed of a chaste
and elegant painting, by Fuseli, of this distinguished
author and printer--the portraits being executed after the
most authentic representations. Erasmus is in the act of
calmly correcting the press, while Froben is urging with
vehemence some emendations which he conceives to be of
consequence, but to which his master seems to pay no
attention! And now having presented the reader (p. 221,
ante) with the _supposed_ study of Colet, nothing remains
but to urge him to enter in imagination, with myself, into
the _real_ study of Erasmus; of which we are presented with
the exterior in the following view--taken from Dr. Knight's
_Life of Erasmus_; p. 124.

I shall conclude this ERASMIANA (if the reader will premit
[Transcriber's Note: permit] me so to entitle it) with a
wood-cut exhibition of a different kind: it being perhaps
the earliest portrait of Erasmus published in this country.
It is taken from a work entitled, "_The Maner and Forme of
Confesion_," printed by Byddell [Transcriber's Note:
Byddel], in 8vo., without date; and is placed immediately
under an address from Erasmus, to Moline, Bishop of Condome;
dated 1524; in which the former complains bitterly of "the
pain and grief of the reins of his back." The print is taken
from a tracing of the original, made by me, from a neat copy
of Byddel's edition, in the collection of Roger Wilbraham,
Esq. I am free to confess that it falls a hundred degrees
short of Albert Durer's fine print of him, executed A.D.
1526.

]

LIS. Let me go and bring it here! While you talk thus, I long to feast my eyes upon these grand books.

LYSAND. You need not. Nor must I give to Erasmus a greater share of attention than is due to him. We have a large and varied field--or rather domain--yet to pass over. Wishing, therefore, Lorenzo speedily to purchase a small bronze figure of him, from the celebrated large one at Rotterdam, and to place the same upon a copy of his first edition of the _Greek Testament_ printed _upon vellum_,[301] by way of a pedestal--I pass on to the notice of other bibliomaniacs of this period.

[Footnote 301: In the library of York cathedral there is a
copy of the first edition of Erasmus's Greek and Latin
Testament, 1516, fol., struck off UPON VELLUM. This, I
believe, was never before generally known.]

Subdued be every harsher feeling towards WOLSEY, when we contemplate even the imperfect remains of his literary institutions which yet survive! That this chancellor and cardinal had grand views, and a magnificent taste, is unquestionable: and I suppose few libraries contained more beautiful or more numerous copies of precious volumes than his own. For, when in favour with his royal master, Henry VIII., Wolsey had, in all probability, such an ascendency over him as to coax from him almost every choice book which he had inherited from his father, Henry VII.; and thus I should apprehend, although no particular mention is made of his library in the inventories of his goods[302] which have been published, there can be no question about such a character as that of Wolsey having numerous copies of the choicest books, bound in velvet of all colours, embossed with gold or silver, and studded even with precious stones! I conceive that his own _Prayer Book_ must have been gorgeous in the extreme! Unhappy man--a pregnant and ever-striking example of the fickleness of human affairs, and of the instability of human grandeur! When we think of thy baubles and trappings--of thy goblets of gold, and companies of retainers--and turn our thoughts to Shakspeare's shepherd, as described in the soliloquy of one of our monarchs, we are fully disposed to admit the force of such truths as have been familiar to us from boyhood, and which tell us that those shoulders feel the most burdened upon which the greatest load of responsibility rests. Peace to the once proud, and latterly repentant, spirit of Wolsey!

[Footnote 302: In the last _Variorum edition of Shakspeare_,
1803, vol. xv., p. 144, we are referred by Mr. Douce to "the
particulars of this inventory at large, in Stowe's
_Chronicle_, p. 546, edit. 1631:" my copy of Stowe is of the
date of 1615; but, not a syllable is said of it in the place
here referred to, or at any other page; although the account
of Wolsey is ample and interesting. Mr. Douce (_ibid._) says
that, among the _Harl. MSS._ (no. 599) there is one
entitled "An Inventorie of Cardinal Wolsey's rich householde
stuffe; temp. Hen. VIII.; the original book, as it seems,
kept by his own officers." In Mr. Gutch's _Collectanea
Curiosa_, vol. ii., 283-349, will be found a copious account
of Wolsey's plate:--too splendid, almost, for belief. To a
life and character so well known as are those of Wolsey, and
upon which Dr. Fiddes has published a huge folio of many
hundred pages, the reader will not here expect any
additional matter which may convey much novelty or interest.
The following, however, may be worth submitting to his
consideration. The Cardinal had poetical, as well as
political, enemies. Skelton and Roy, who did not fail to
gall him with their sharp lampoons, have shewn us, by their
compositions which have survived, that they were no
despicable assailants. In the former's "_Why come ye not to
Court?_" we have this caustic passage:

He is set so high
In his hierarchy
Of frantic _frenesy_
And foolish fantasy,
That in chamber of stars
All matters there he mars,
Clapping his rod on the _borde_
No man dare speake a word;
For he hath all the saying
Without any _renaying_:
He rolleth in his records
He saith: "How say ye my lords?
Is not my reason good?"
Good!--even good--Robin-hood?
Borne upon every side
_With pomp and with pride, &c._
To drink and for to eat
Sweet _ypocras_, and sweet meat,
To keep his flesh chaste
In Lent, for his repast
He eateth capons stew'd
Pheasant and partidge mewed.

WARTON'S _Hist. Engl. Poetry_, vol. ii., 345.

Steevens has also quoted freely from this poem of Skelton;
see the editions of _Shakspeare_, 1793, and 1803, in the
play of "King Henry VIII." Skelton's satire against Wolsey
is noticed by our chronicler Hall: "In this season, the
cardinal, by his power legantine, dissolved the convocation
at Paul's, called by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and
called him and all the clergy to his convocation to
Westminster, which was never seen before in England; whereof
Master Skelton, a merry poet, wrote:

Gentle Paul lay down thy _sweard_
For Peter of Westminster hath shaven thy beard."

_Chronicle_, p. 637, edit. 1809.

In Mr. G. Ellis's _Specimens of the Early English Poets_,
vol. ii., pp. 7, 8, there is a curious extract from the same
poet's "_Image of Ypocrycye_"--relating to Sir Thomas
More--which is printed for the first time from "an
apparently accurate transcript" of the original, in the
possession of Mr. Heber. From the last mentioned work (vol.
ii., p. 11, &c.), there is rather a copious account of a yet
more formidable poetical attack against Wolsey, in the
"_Rede me and be not wroth_," of William Roy: a very rare
and precious little black-letter volume, which, although it
has been twice printed, is scarcely ever to be met with, and
was unknown to Warton. It will, however, make its appearance
in one of the supplemental volumes of Mr. Park's valuable
reprint of the _Harleian Miscellany_. While the cardinal was
thus attacked, in the biting strains of poetry, he was
doomed to experience a full share of reprobation in the
writings of the most popular theologians. William Tyndale
stepped forth to shew his zeal against papacy in his
"_Practise of Popishe Prelates_," and from this work, as it
is incorporated in those of Tyndale, Barnes, and Frith,
printed by Day in 1572, fol., the reader is presented with
the following amusing specimen of the author's vein of
humour and indignation: "And as I heard it spoken of divers,
he made, by craft of necromancy, graven imagery to bear upon
him; wherewith he bewitched the king's mind--and made the
king to doat upon him, more than he ever did on any lady or
gentlewoman: so that now the king's grace followed him, as
he before followed the king. And then what he said, that was
wisdom; what he praised, that was honourable only." Practise
of Popishe Prelates, p. 368. At p. 369, he calls him "Porter
of Heaven." "There he made a journey of gentlemen, arrayed
altogether in silks, so much as their very shoes and lining
of their boots; more like their mothers than men of war:
yea, I am sure that many of their mothers would have been
ashamed of so nice and wanton array. Howbeit, they went not
to make war, but peace, for ever and a day longer. But to
speak of the pompous apparel of my lord himself, and of his
chaplains, it passeth the xij Apostles. I dare swear that if
Peter and Paul had seen them suddenly, and at a blush, they
would have been harder in belief that they, or any such,
should be their successors than Thomas Didimus was to
believe that Christ was risen again from death." _Idem_, p.
370,--"for the worship of his hat and glory of his precious
shoes--when he was pained with the cholic of an evil
conscience, having no other shift, because his soul could
find no other issue,--he took himself a medicine, _ut
emitteret spiritum per posteriora_." Exposition upon the
first Ep. of St. John, p. 404. Thomas Lupset, who was a
scholar of Dean Colet, and a sort of _elève_ of the
cardinal, (being appointed tutor to a bastard son of the
latter) could not suppress his sarcastical feelings in
respect of Wolsey's pomp and severity of discipline. From
Lupset's works, printed by Berthelet in 1546, 12mo., I
gather, in his address to his "hearty beloved Edmond"--that
"though he had there with him plenty of books, yet the place
suffered him not to spend in them any study: for you shall
understand (says he) that I lie waiting on my LORD CARDINAL,
whose hours I must observe to be always at hand, lest I
should be called when I am not by: the which should be taken
for a fault of great negligence. Wherefore, that I am now
well satiated with the beholding of these gay hangings, that
garnish here every wall, I will turn me and talk with you."
(_Exhortacion to yonge men_, fol. 39, rev.) Dr. Wordsworth,
in the first volume of his _Ecclesiastical Biography_, has
printed, for the first time, the genuine text of Cavendish's
interesting life of his reverend master, Wolsey. It is well
worth perusal. But the reader, I fear, is beginning to be
outrageous (having kept his patience, during this
long-winded note, to the present moment) for some
_bibliomaniacal_ evidence of Wolsey's attachment to gorgeous
books. He is presented, therefore, with the following case
in point. My friend Mr. Ellis, of the British Museum,
informs me that, in the splendid library of that
establishment, there are two copies of Galen's "_Methodus
Medendi_," edited by Linacre, and printed at Paris, in
folio, 1519. One copy, which belonged to Henry the Eighth,
has an illuminated title, with the royal arms at the bottom
of the title-page. The other, which is also illuminated, has
the cardinal's cap in the same place, above an empty shield.
Before the dedication to the king, in the latter copy,
Linacre has inserted an elegant Latin epistle to WOLSEY, in
manuscript. The king's copy is rather the more beautiful of
the two: but the _unique_ appendage of the Latin epistle
shews that the editor considered the cardinal a more
distinguished bibliomaniac than the monarch.]

We have now reached the REFORMATION; upon which, as Burnet, Collier, and Strype, have written huge folio volumes, it shall be my object to speak sparingly: and chiefly as it concerns the history of the Bibliomania. A word or two, however, about its origin, spirit, and tendency.

It seems to have been at first very equivocal, with Henry the Eighth, whether he would take any decisive measures in the affair, or not. He hesitated, resolved, and hesitated again.[303] The creature of caprice and tyranny, he had neither fixed principles, nor settled data, upon which to act. If he had listened to the temperate advice of CROMWELL or CRANMER,[304] he would have attained his darling object by less decisive, but certainly by more justifiable, means. Those able and respectable counsellors saw clearly that violent measures would produce violent results; and that a question of law, of no mean magnitude, was involved in the very outset of the transaction--for there seemed, on the one side, no right to possess; and, on the other, no right to render possession.[305]

[Footnote 303: "The king seemed to think that his subjects
owed an entire resignation of their reasons and consciences
to him; and, as he was highly offended with those who still
adhered to the papal authority, so he could not bear the
haste that some were making to a further reformation, before
or beyond his allowance. So, in the end of the year 1538, he
set out a proclamation, in which he prohibits the importing
of all foreign books, or the printing of any at home without
license; and the printing of any parts of the scripture,
'till they were examined by the king and his council," &c.
"He requires that none may argue against the presence of
Christ in the Sacrament, under the pain of death, and of the
loss of their goods; and orders all to be punished who did
disuse any rites or ceremonies not then abolished; yet he
orders them only to be observed without superstition, only
as remembrances, and not to repose in them a trust of
salvation."--Burnet's _Hist. of the Reformation_. But long
before this obscure and arbitrary act was passed, Henry's
mind had been a little shaken against papacy from a singular
work, published by one Fish, called "_The Supplication of
Beggers_." Upon this book being read through in the presence
of Henry, the latter observed, shrewdly enough, "If a man
should pull down an old stone wall, and begin at the lower
part, the upper part thereof might chance to fall upon his
head." "And then he took the book, and put it into his desk,
and commanded them, upon their allegiance, that they should
not tell to any man that he had seen this book." Fox's _Book
of Martyrs_; vol. ii., p. 280: edit. 1641. Sir Thomas More
answered this work (which depicted, in frightful colours,
the rapacity of the Roman Catholic clergy), in 1529; see my
edition of the latter's _Utopia_; vol. i., xciii.]

[Footnote 304: "These were some of the resolute steps King
Henry made towards the obtaining again this long struggled
for, and almost lost, right and prerogative of kings, in
their own dominions, of being supreme, against the
encroachments of the bishops of Rome. Secretary CROMWEL had
the great stroke in all this. All these counsels and methods
were struck out of his head." Strype's _Ecclesiastical
Memorials_; vol. i., p. 205. When great murmurs ensued, on
the suppression of the monasteries, because of the cessation
of hospitality exercised in them, "CROMWELL advised the king
to sell their lands, at very easie rates, to the gentry in
the several counties, obliging them, since they had them
upon such terms, to keep up the wonted hospitality. This
drew in the gentry apace," &c. Burnet's _Hist. of the
Reformation_; vol. i., p. 223. "ARCHBISHOP CRANMER is said
to have counselled and pressed the king to dissolve the
monasteries; but for other ends (than those of personal
enmity against 'the monks or friars'--or of enriching
himself 'with the spoils' of the same); viz. that, out of
the revenues of these monasteries, the king might found more
bishoprics; and that dioceses, being reduced into less
compass, the diocesans might the better discharge their
office, according to the scripture and primitive
rules.----And the archbishop hoped that, from these ruins,
there would be new foundations in every cathedral erected,
to be nurseries of learning for the use of the whole
diocese." Strype's _Life of Archbishop Cranmer_, p. 35.]

[Footnote 305: "A very rational doubt yet remained, how
religious persons could alienate and transfer to the king a
property, of which they themselves were only tenants for
life: and an act of parliament was framed in order to remove
all future scruples on this head, and 'settle rapine and
sacrilege,' as Lord Herbert terms them, 'on the king and his
heirs for ever.'----It does not appear to have been debated,
in either house, whether they had a power to dispossess some
hundred thousand persons of their dwellings and fortunes,
whom, a few years before, they had declared to be good
subjects: if such as live well come under that
denomination."--"Now," says Sir Edward Coke, "observe the
conclusion of this tragedy. In that very parliament, when
the great and opulent priory of St. John of Jerusalem was
given to the king, and which was the last monastery seized
on, he demanded a fresh subsidy of the clergy and laity: he
did the same again within two years; and again three years
after; and since the dissolution exacted great loans, and
against law obtained them."--_Life of Reginald Pole_; vol.
i., p. 247-9: edit. 1767, 8vo. Coke's 4th _Institute_, fol.
44.]

LATIMER, more hasty and enthusiastic than his episcopal brethren, set all the engines of his active mind to work, as if to carry the point by a _coup de main_; and although his resolution was, perhaps, upon more than one occasion, shaken by the sufferings of the innocent, yet, by his example, and particularly by his sermons,[306] he tried to exasperate every Protestant bosom against the occupiers of monasteries and convents.

[Footnote 306: "It was once moved by LATYMER, the good
bishop of Worcester, that two or three of these foundations
might be spared in each diocese, for the sake of
hospitality. Which gave the foresaid bishop occasion to move
the Lord Crumwell once in the behalf of the _Priory of
Malvern_." Strype's _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, vol. i.,
259. Latimer's letter is here printed; and an interesting
one it is. Speaking of the prior, he tells Cromwell that
"The man is old, a good housekeeper, feedeth many; and that,
daily. For the country is poor, and full of penury." But the
hospitality and infirmities of this poor prior were less
likely to operate graciously upon the rapacious mind of
Henry than "the 500 marks to the king, and 200 marks more to
the said Lord Crumwell," which he tendered at the same time.
See Strype, _ibid._ For the credit of Latimer, I hope this
worthy prior was not at the head of the priory when the
former preached before the king, and thus observed: "To let
pass the _solempne_ and nocturnal bacchanals, the prescript
miracles, that are done upon certain days in the West part
of England, who hath not heard? I think ye have heard of
Saint _Blesis's_ heart, which is _at Malvern_, and of Saint
Algar's bones, how long they deluded the people!" See
Latimer's _Sermons_: edit. 1562, 4to.: fol. 12, rect. In
these Sermons, as is justly said above, there are many
cutting philippics--especially against "in-preaching
prelates;" some of whom Latimer doth not scruple to call
"minters--dancers--crouchers--pamperers of their paunches,
like a monk that maketh his jubilee--mounchers in their
mangers, and moilers in their gay manors and mansions:" see
fol. 17, rect. Nevertheless, there are few productions which
give us so lively and interesting a picture of the manners
of the age as the SERMONS OF LATIMER; which were spoilt in
an "_editio castrata_" that appeared in the year 1788, 8vo.
But Latimer was not the only popular preacher who directed
his anathemas against the Roman Catholic clergy. The well
known JOHN FOX entered into the cause of the reformation
with a zeal and success of which those who have slightly
perused his compositions can have but a very inadequate
idea. The following curious (and I may add very interesting)
specimen of Fox's pulpit eloquence is taken from "_A Sermon
of Christ crucified, preached at Paule's Crosse, the Friday
before Easter, commonly called Good Fridaie_:"--"Let me tell
you a story, which I remember was done about the beginning
of Queen Mary's reign, anno 1554. There was a certain
message sent, not from heaven, but from Rome: not from God,
but from the pope: not by any apostle, but by a certain
cardinal, who was called Cardinal Poole, Legatus a latere,
Legatus natus, a legate from the pope's own white side, sent
hither into England. This cardinal legate, first coming to
Dover, was honourably received and brought to Greenwich:
where he again, being more honourably received by lords of
high estate, and of the Privy Council (of whom some are yet
alive) was conducted thence to the privy stairs of the
queen's court at Westminster, no less person than King
Philip himself waiting upon him, and receiving him; and so
was brought to the queen's great chamber, she then being, or
else pretending, not to be well at ease. Stephen Gardiner,
the bishop of Winchester, and Lord Chancellor of England,
receiving this noble legate in the king and the queen's
behalf, to commend and set forth the authority of this
legate, the greatness of his message, and the supreme
majesty of the sender, before the public audience of the
whole parliament at that time assembled, there openly
protested, with great solemnity of words, what a mighty
message, and of what great importance was then brought into
the realm, even the greatest message (said he) that ever
came into England, and therefore desired them to give
attentive and inclinable ears to such a famous legation,
sent from so high authority." "Well, and what message was
this? forsooth, that the realm of England should be
reconciled again unto their father the pope; that is to say,
that the queen, with all her nobility and sage council, with
so many learned prelates, discreet lawyers, worthy commons,
and the whole body of the realm of England, should captive
themselves, and become underlings to an Italian stranger,
and friarly priest, sitting in Rome, which never knew
England, never was here, never did, or shall do, England
good. And this forsooth (said Gardiner) was the greatest
ambassage, the weightiest legacy that ever came to England:
forgetting belike either this message of God, sent here by
his apostles unto vs, or else because he saw it made not so
much for his purpose as did the other, he made the less
account thereof." "Well, then, and will we see what a
weighty message this was that Gardiner so exquisitely
commended? first, the sender is gone, the messenger is gone,
the queen is gone, and the message gone, and yet England
standeth not a rush the better. Of which message I thus say,
answering again to Gardiner, _per inversionem Rhetoricam_,
that, as he sayeth, it was the greatest--so I say again, it
was the lightest--legacy; the most ridiculous trifle, and
most miserablest message, of all other that ever came, or
ever shall come, to England, none excepted, for us to be
reconciled to an outlandish priest, and to submit our necks
under a foreign yoke. What have we to do more with him than
with the great Calypha of Damascus? If reconciliation ought
to follow, where offences have risen, the pope hath offended
us more than his coffers are able to make us amends. We
never offended him. But let the pope, with his
reconciliation and legates, go, as they are already gone
(God be thanked): and I beseech God so they may be gone,
that they never come here again. England never fared better
than when the pope did most curse it. And yet I hear
whispering of certain privy reconcilers, sent of late by the
pope, which secretly creep in corners. But this I leave to
them that have to do with all. Let us again return to our
matter."--_Imprinted by Jhon Daie_, &c., 1575, 8vo., sign.
A. vij.-B. i.]