Chapter XVI: Part 16

In those prescient views by which the genius of Verulam has often anticipated the institutions and the discoveries of succeeding times, there was one important object which even his foresight does not appear to have contemplated. Lord Bacon did not foresee that the English language would one day be capable of embalming all that philosophy can discover, or poetry can invent; that his country would at length possess a national literature of its own, and that it would exult in classical compositions which might be appreciated with the finest models of antiquity. His taste was far unequal to his invention. So little did he esteem the language of his country, that his favourite works are composed in Latin; and he was anxious to have what he had written in English preserved in that "universal language which may last as long as books last." It would have surprised Bacon to have been told, that the most learned men in Europe have studied English authors to learn to think and to write. Our philosopher was surely somewhat mortified, when in his dedication of the Essays he observed, that "of all my other works my Essays have been most current; for that, _as it seems_, they come home to men's business and bosoms." It is too much to hope to find in a vast and profound inventor a writer also who bestows immortality on his language. The English language is the only object in his great survey of art and of nature, which owes nothing of its excellence to the genius of Bacon.

He had reason indeed to be mortified at the reception of his philosophical works; and Dr. Rawley, even some years after the death of his illustrious master, had occasion to observe, that "His fame is greater and sounds louder in foreign parts abroad than at home in his own nation"; thereby verifying that divine sentence, a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and in his own house. Even the men of genius, who ought to have comprehended this new source of knowledge thus opened to them, reluctantly entered into it; so repugnant are we suddenly to give up ancient errors which time and habit have made a part of ourselves. Harvey, who himself experienced the sluggish obstinacy of the learned, which repelled a great but a novel discovery, could, however, in his turn deride the amazing novelty of Bacon's _Novum Organum_. Harvey said to Aubrey, that "Bacon was no great philosopher; he writes philosophy like a lord chancellor." It has been suggested to me that Bacon's philosophical writings have been much overrated.--His experimental philosophy from the era in which they were produced must be necessarily defective: the time he gave to them could only have been had at spare hours; but like the great prophet on the mount, Bacon was doomed to view the land afar, which he himself could never enter.

Bacon found but small encouragement for his _new learning_ among the most eminent scholars, to whom he submitted his early discoveries. A very copious letter by Sir Thomas Bodley on Bacon's desiring him to return the manuscript of the _Cogitata et Visa_, some portion of the _Novum Organum_, has come down to us; it is replete with objections to the new philosophy. "I am one of that crew," says Sir Thomas, "that say we possess a far greater holdfast of certainty in the sciences than you will seem to acknowledge." He gives a hint too that Solomon complained "of the infinite making of books in his time;" that all Bacon delivers is only "by averment without other force of argument, to disclaim all our axioms, maxims, &c., left by tradition from our elders unto us, which have passed all probations of the sharpest wits that ever were;" and he concludes that the end of all Bacon's philosophy, by "a fresh creating new principles of sciences, would be to be dispossessed of the learning we have;" and he fears that it would require as many ages as have marched before us that knowledge should be perfectly achieved. Bodley truly compares himself to "the carrier's horse which cannot blanch the beaten way in which I was trained."[225]

Bacon did not lose heart by the timidity of the "carrier's horse:" a smart vivacious note in return shows his quick apprehension.

"As I am going to my house in the country, I shall want my papers, which I beg you therefore to return. You are slothful, and you help me nothing, so that I am half in conceit you affect not the argument; for myself I know well you love and affect. I can say no more, but _non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvae_. If you be not _of the lodgings chalked up_, whereof I speak in my preface, I am but to pass by your door. But if I had you a fortnight at Gorhambury, I would make you tell another tale; or else I would add a cogitation _against libraries_, and be revenged on you that way."

A keen but playful retort of a great author too conscious of his own views to be angry with his critic! The singular phrase of the _lodgings chalked up_ is a sarcasm explained by this passage in "The Advancement of Learning." "As Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of truth that cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention."[226] The threatened agitation _against libraries_ must have caused Bodley's cheek to tingle.

Let us now turn from the scholastic to the men of the world, and we shall see what sort of notion these critics entertained of the philosophy of Bacon. Chamberlain writes, "This week the lord chancellor hath set forth his new work, called _Instauratio Magna_, or a kind of _Novum Organum_ of all philosophy. In sending it to the king, he wrote that he wished his majesty might be so long in reading it as he hath been in composing and polishing it, which is well near thirty years. I have read no more than the bare title, and am not greatly encouraged by Mr. Cuffe's judgment,[227] who having long since perused it, gave this censure, that a fool could not have written such a work, and a wise man would not." A month or two afterwards we find that "the king cannot forbear sometimes in reading the lord chancellor's last book to say, that it is like _the peace of God, that surpasseth all understanding_."

Two years afterwards the same letter-writer proceeds with another literary paragraph about Bacon. "This lord busies himself altogether about _books_, and hath set out two lately, _Historia Ventorum_ and _De Vita et Morte_, with promise of more. I have yet seen neither of them, because I have not leisure; but if the Life of Henry the Eighth (the Seventh), which they say he is about, might _come out after his own manner_ (meaning his Moral Essays), I should find time and means enough to read it." When this history made its appearance, the same writer observes, "My Lord Verulam's history of Henry the Seventh is come forth; I have not read much of it, but they say it is a very pretty book."[228]

Bacon, in his vast survey of human knowledge, included even its humbler provinces, and condescended to form a collection of apophthegms: his lordship regretted the loss of a collection made by Julius Caesar, while Plutarch indiscriminately drew much of the dregs. The wits, who could not always comprehend his plans, ridiculed the sage. I shall now quote a contemporary poet, whose works, for by their size they may assume that distinction, were never published. A Dr. Andrews wasted a sportive pen on fugitive events; but though not always deficient in humour and wit, such is the freedom of his writings, that they will not often admit of quotation. The following is indeed but a strange pun on Bacon's title, derived from the town of St. Albans and his collection of apophthegms:--

ON LORD BACON PUBLISHING APOPHTHEGMS

When learned Bacon wrote Essays,
He did deserve and hath the praise;
But now he writes his _Apophthegms_,
Surely he dozes or he dreams;
One said, _St. Albans_ now is grown unable,
And is in the high-road way--_to Dunstable_ [i.e., _Dunce-table_.]

To the close of his days were Lord Bacon's philosophical pursuits still disregarded and depreciated by ignorance and envy, in the forms of friendship or rivality. I shall now give a remarkable example. Sir Edward Coke was a mere great lawyer, and, like all such, had a mind so walled in by law-knowledge, that in its bounded views it shut out the horizon of the intellectual faculties, and the whole of his philosophy lay in the statutes. In the library at Holkham there will be found a presentation copy of Lord Bacon's _Novum Organum_, the _Instauratio Magna_, 1620. It was given to Coke, for it bears the following note on the title-page, in the writing of Coke:--

Edw. Coke, _Ex dono authoris,
Auctori consilium
Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophorum
Instaura leges, justitiamque prius_.

The verses not only reprove Bacon for going out of his profession, but must have alluded to his character as a prerogative lawyer, and his corrupt administration of the chancery. The book was published in October, 1620, a few months before his impeachment. And so far one may easily excuse the causticity of Coke; but how he really valued the philosophy of Bacon appears by this: in this first edition there is a device of a ship passing between Hercules's pillars; the _plus ultra_, the proud exultation of our philosopher. Over this device Coke has written a miserable distich in English, which marks his utter contempt of the philosophical pursuits of his illustrious rival. This ship passing beyond the columns of Hercules he sarcastically conceits as "The Ship of Fools," the famous satire of the German Sebastian Brandt, translated by Alexander Barclay.

_It deserveth not to be read in schools,
But to be freighted in the Ship of Fools._

Such then was the fate of Lord Bacon; a history not written by his biographers, but which may serve as a comment on that obscure passage dropped from the pen of his chaplain, and already quoted, that he was more valued abroad than at home.

FOOTNOTES:

[225] This letter may be found in _Reliquiae Bodleianae_, p. 369.

[226] I have been favoured with this apt illustration by an
anonymous communicator, who dates from the "London University." I
request him to accept my grateful acknowledgments.

[227] Henry Cuffe, secretary to Robert, Earl of Essex, and executed,
being concerned in his treason. A man noted for his classical
acquirements and his genius, who perished early in life.

[228] Chamberlain adds the price of this moderate-sized folio, which
was six shillings. It would be worth the while of some literary
student to note the prices of our earlier books, which are often
found written upon them by their original possessor. A rare tract
first purchased for twopence has often realized four guineas or more
in modern days.

SECRET HISTORY OF THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

It is an extraordinary circumstance in our history, that the succession to the English dominion, in two remarkable cases, was never settled by the possessors of the throne themselves during their lifetime; and that there is every reason to believe that this mighty transfer of three kingdoms became the sole act of their ministers, who considered the succession merely as a state expedient. Two of our most able sovereigns found themselves in this predicament: Queen Elizabeth and the Protector Cromwell! Cromwell probably had his reasons not to name his successor; his positive election would have dissatisfied the opposite parties of his government, whom he only ruled while he was able to cajole them. He must have been aware that latterly he had need of conciliating all parties to his usurpation, and was probably as doubtful on his death-bed whom to appoint his successor as at any other period of his reign. Ludlow suspects that Cromwell was "so discomposed in body or mind, that he could not attend to that matter; and whether he named any one is to me uncertain." All that we know is the report of the Secretary Thurlow and his chaplains, who, when the protector lay in his last agonies, suggested to him the propriety of choosing his eldest son, and they tell us that he agreed to this choice. Had Cromwell been in his senses, he would have probably fixed on _Henry_, the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, rather than on _Richard_, or possibly had not chosen either of his sons!

Elizabeth, from womanish infirmity, or from state-reasons, could not endure the thoughts of her successor; and long threw into jeopardy the politics of all the cabinets of Europe, each of which had its favourite candidate to support. The legitimate heir to the throne of England was to be the creature of her breath, yet Elizabeth would not speak him into existence! This had, however, often raised the discontents of the nation, and we shall see how it harassed the queen in her dying hours. It is even suspected that the queen still retained so much of the woman, that she could never overcome her perverse dislike to name a successor; so that, according to this opinion, she died and left the crown to the mercy of a party! This would have been acting unworthy of the magnanimity of her great character--and as it is ascertained that the queen was very sensible that she lay in a dying state several days before the natural catastrophe occurred, it is difficult to believe that she totally disregarded so important a circumstance. It is therefore, reasoning _a priori_, most natural to conclude that the choice of a successor must have occupied her thoughts, as well as the anxieties of her ministers; and that she would not have left the throne in the same unsettled state at her death as she had persevered in during her whole life. How did she express herself when bequeathing the crown to James the First, or did she bequeath it at all?

In the popular pages of her female historian Miss Aikin, it is observed that "the closing scene of the long and eventful life of Queen Elizabeth was marked by that peculiarity of character and destiny which attended her from the cradle, and pursued her to the grave." The last days of Elizabeth were indeed most melancholy--she died a victim of the higher passions, and perhaps as much of grief as of age, refusing all remedies and even nourishment. But in all the published accounts, I can nowhere discover how she conducted herself respecting the circumstance of our present inquiry. The most detailed narrative, or as Gray the poet calls it, "the Earl of Monmouth's _odd account_ of Queen Elizabeth's death," is the one most deserving notice; and there we find the circumstance of this inquiry introduced. The queen at that moment was reduced to so sad a state, that it is doubtful whether her majesty was at all sensible of the inquiries put to her by her ministers respecting the succession. The Earl of Monmouth says, "On Wednesday, the 23rd of March, she grew speechless. That afternoon, by signs, she called for her council, and by putting her hand to her head when the King of Scots was named to succeed her, they all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her." Such a sign as that of a dying woman putting her hand to her head was, to say the least, a very ambiguous acknowledgment of the right of the Scottish monarch to the English throne. The "odd" but very _naive_ account of Robert Cary, afterwards Earl of Monmouth, is not furnished with dates, nor with the exactness of a diary. Something might have occurred on a preceding day which had not reached him. Camden describes the death-bed scene of Elizabeth; by this authentic writer it appears that she had confided her state-secret of the succession to the lord admiral (the Earl of Nottingham); and when the earl found the queen almost at her extremity, _he communicated her majesty's secret to the council_, who commissioned the lord admiral, the lord keeper, and the secretary, to wait on her majesty, and acquaint her that they came in the name of the rest to learn her pleasure in reference to _the succession_. The queen was then very weak, and answered them with a faint voice, that she had already declared, that as she held a regal sceptre, so she desired no other than a royal successor. When the secretary requested her to explain herself, the queen said, "I would have a king succeed me; and who should that he but my nearest kinsman, the King of Scots?" Here this state conversation was put an end to by the interference of the archbishop advising her majesty to turn her thoughts to God. "Never," she replied, "has my mind wandered from him."

An historian of Camden's high integrity would hardly have forged a fiction to please the new monarch: yet Camden has not been referred to on this occasion by the exact Birch, who draws his information from the letters of the French ambassador, Villeroy; information which it appears the English ministers had confided to this ambassador; nor do we get any distinct ideas from Elizabeth's more recent popular historian, who could only transcribe the account of Cary. He had told us a fact which he could not be mistaken in, that the queen fell speechless on Wednesday, 23rd of March, on which day, however, she called her council, and made that sign with her hand, which, as the lords choose to understand, for ever united the two kingdoms. But the noble editor of Cary's Memoirs (the Earl of Cork and Orrery) has observed that "the speeches made for Elizabeth on her death-bed are all forged." Echard, Rapin, and a long string of historians, make her say faintly (so faintly indeed that it could not possibly be heard), "I will that a king succeed me, and who should that be but my nearest kinsman, the King of Scots?" A different account of this matter will be found in the following memoirs. "She was speechless, and almost expiring, when the chief councillors of state were called into her bedchamber. As soon as they were perfectly convinced that she could not utter an articulate word, and scarce could hear or understand one, they named the King of Scots to her, _a liberty they dared not to have taken if she had been able to speak_; she put her hand to her head, which was probably at that time in agonising pain. _The lords, who interpreted her signs just as they pleased_, were immediately convinced that the _motion of her hand to her head was a declaration of James the Sixth as her successor_. What was this but the unanimous interpretation of persons who were adoring the rising sun?"

This is lively and plausible; but the noble editor did not recollect that "the speeches made by Elizabeth on her death-bed," which he deems "forgeries," in consequence of the circumstance he had found in Cary's Memoirs, originate with Camden, and were only repeated by Rapin and Echard, &c. I am now to confirm the narrative of the elder historian, as well as the circumstance related by Cary, describing the sign of the queen a little differently, which happened on Wednesday, 23rd. A hitherto unnoticed document pretends to give a fuller and more circumstantial account of this affair, which commenced on _the preceding day_, when the queen retained the power of speech; and it will be confessed that the language here used has all that loftiness and brevity which was the natural style of this queen. I have discovered a curious document in a manuscript volume formerly in the possession of Petyt, and seemingly in his own handwriting. I do not doubt its authenticity, and it could only have come from some of the illustrious personages who were the actors in that solemn scene, probably from Cecil. This memorandum is entitled

"Account of the last words of Queen Elizabeth about her Successor.

"On the Tuesday before her death, being the twenty-third of March, the admiral being on the right side of her bed, the lord keeper on the left, and Mr. Secretary Cecil (afterwards Earl of Salisbury) at the bed's feet, all standing, the lord admiral put her in mind of her speech concerning the succession had at Whitehall, and that they, in the name of all the rest of her council, came unto her to know her pleasure who should succeed; whereunto she thus replied:

"_I told you my seat had been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me. And who should succeed me but a king?_

"The lords not understanding this dark speech, and looking one on the other; at length Mr. Secretary boldly asked her what she meant by those words, that _no rascal should succeed her_. Whereto she replied, that _her meaning was, that a king should succeed: and who_, quoth she, _should, that be but our cousin of Scotland_?

"They asked her whether that were her absolute resolution? whereto she answered, _I pray you trouble me no more; for I will have none but him_. With which answer they departed.

"Notwithstanding, after again, about four o'clock in the afternoon the next day, being Wednesday, after the Archbishop of Canterbury and other divines had been with her, and left her in a manner speechless, the three lords aforesaid repaired unto her again, asking her if she remained in her former resolution, and who should succeed her? but not being able to speak, was asked by Mr. Secretary in this sort, 'We beseech your majesty, if you remain in your former resolution, and that you would have the King of Scots to succeed you in your kingdom, show some sign unto us: whereat, _suddenly heaving herself upwards in her bed, and putting her arms out of bed, she held her hands jointly over her head in manner of a crown_; whence as they guessed, she signified that she did not only wish him the kingdom, but desire continuance of his estate: after which they departed, and the next morning she died. Immediately after her death, all the lords, as well of the council as other noblemen that were at the court, came from Richmond to Whitehall by six o'clock in the morning, where other noblemen that were in London met them. Touching the succession, after some speeches of divers competitors and matters of state, at length the admiral rehearsed all the aforesaid premises which the late queen had spoken to him, and to the lord keeper, and Mr. Secretary (Cecil), with the manner thereof; which they, being asked, did affirm to be true upon their HONOUR."

Such is this singular document of secret history. I cannot but value it as authentic, because the one part is evidently alluded to by Camden, and the other is fully confirmed by Cary; and besides this, the remarkable expression of "rascal" is found in the letter of the French ambassador. There were two interviews with the queen, and Cary appears only to have noticed the last on Wednesday, when the queen lay speechless. Elizabeth all her life had persevered in an obstinate mysteriousness respecting the succession, and it harassed her latest moments. The second interview of her ministers may seem to us quite supernumerary; but Cary's "putting her hand to her head," too meanly describes the "joining her hands in manner of a crown."

JAMES THE FIRST AS A FATHER AND A HUSBAND.

Calumnies and sarcasms have reduced the character of James the First to contempt among general readers; while the narrative of historians, who have related facts in spite of themselves, is in perpetual contradiction with their own opinions. Perhaps no sovereign has suffered more by that art, which is described by an old Irish proverb, of "killing a man by lies." The surmises and the insinuations of one party, dissatisfied with the established government in church and state; the misconceptions of more modern writers, who have not possessed the requisite knowledge; and the anonymous libels, sent forth at a particular period to vilify the Stuarts; all these cannot be treasured up by the philosopher as the authorities of history. It is at least more honourable to resist popular prejudice than to yield to it a passive obedience; and what we can ascertain it would be a dereliction of truth to conceal. Much can be substantiated in favour of the domestic affections and habits of this pacific monarch; and those who are more intimately acquainted with the secret history of the times will perceive how erroneously the personal character of this sovereign is exhibited in our popular historians, and often even among the few who, with better information, have re-echoed their preconceived opinions.

Confining myself here to his domestic character, I shall not touch on the many admirable public projects of this monarch, which have extorted the praise, and even the admiration, of some who have not spared their pens in his disparagement. James the First has been taxed with pusillanimity and foolishness; this monarch cannot, however, be reproached with having engendered them! All his children, in whose education their father was so deeply concerned, sustained through life a dignified character and a high spirit. The short life of Henry was passed in a school of prowess, and amidst an academy of literature. Of the king's paternal solicitude, even to the hand and the letter-writing of Prince Henry when young, I have preserved a proof in the article of "The History of Writing-masters." Charles the First, in his youth more particularly designed for a studious life, with a serious character, was, however, never deficient in active bravery and magnanimous fortitude. Of Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohemia, tried as she was by such vicissitudes of fortune, it is much to be regretted that the interesting story remains untold; her buoyant spirits rose always above the perpetual changes of a princely to a private state--a queen to an exile! The father of such children derives some distinction for capacity, in having reared such a noble offspring; and the king's marked attention to the formation of his children's minds was such as to have been pointed out by Ben Jonson, who, in his "Gipsies Metamorphosed," rightly said of James, using his native term--

You are an honest, good man, and have care of YOUR BEARNS (bairns).

Among the flouts and gibes so freely bespattering the personal character of James the First, is one of his coldness and neglect of his queen. It would, however, be difficult to prove by any known fact that James was not as indulgent a husband as he was a father. Yet even a writer so well informed as Daines Barrington, who, as a lawyer, could not refrain from lauding the royal sage during his visit to Denmark, on his marriage, for having borrowed three statutes from the Danish code, found the king's name so provocative of sarcasm, that he could not forbear observing, that James "spent more time in those courts of judicature than in _attending upon his destined consort_."--"Men of all sorts have taken a pride to gird at me," might this monarch have exclaimed. But everything has two handles, saith the ancient adage. Had an austere puritan chosen to observe that James the First, when abroad, had lived jovially; and had this historian then dropped silently the interesting circumstance of the king's "spending his time in the Danish courts of judicature," the fact would have borne him out in his reproof; and Francis Osborne, indeed, has censured James for giving marks of his _uxoriousness_! There was no deficient gallantry in the conduct of James the First to his queen; the very circumstance, that when the Princess of Denmark was driven by a storm back to Norway, the king resolved to hasten to her, and consummate his marriage in Denmark, was itself as romantic an expedition as afterwards was that of his son's into Spain, and betrays no mark of that tame pusillanimity with which he stands overcharged.

The character of the queen of James the First is somewhat obscure in our public history, for in it she makes no prominent figure; while in secret history she is more apparent. Anne of Denmark was a spirited and enterprising woman; and it appears from a passage in Sully, whose authority should weigh with us, although we ought to recollect that it is the French minister who writes, that she seems to have raised a court faction against James, and inclined to favour the Spanish and catholic interests; yet it may be alleged as a strong proof of James's political wisdom, that the queen was never suffered to head a formidable party, though she latterly might have engaged Prince Henry in that court opposition. The _bonhommie_ of the king, on this subject, expressed with a simplicity of style which, though it may not be royal, is something better, appears in a letter to the queen, which has been preserved in the appendix to Sir David Dalrymple's collections. It is without date, but written when in Scotland, to quiet the queen's suspicions, that the Earl of Mar, who had the care of Prince Henry, and whom she wished to take out of his hands, had insinuated to the king that her majesty was strongly disposed to any "popish or Spanish course." This letter confirms the representation of Sully; but the extract is remarkable for the manly simplicity of style which the king used.

"I say over again, leave these froward womanly apprehensions, for I thank God I carry that love and respect unto you which, by the law of God and nature, I ought to do to my wife, and mother of my children; but not for that ye are a king's daughter; for whether ye were a king's daughter, or a cook's daughter, ye must be all alike to me since my wife. For the respect of your honourable birth and descent I married you; but the love and respect I now bear you is because that ye are my married wife, and so partaker of my honour, as of my other fortunes. I beseech you excuse my plainness in this, for casting up of your birth is a needless impertinent (that is, not pertinent) argument to me. God is my witness, I ever preferred you to my bairns, much more than to a subject."

In an ingenious historical dissertation, but one perfectly theoretical, respecting that mysterious transaction the Gowrie conspiracy, Pinkerton has attempted to show that Anne of Denmark was a lady somewhat inclined to intrigue, and that "the king had cause to be jealous." He confesses that "he cannot discover any positive charge of adultery against Anne of Denmark, but merely of coquetry."[229] To what these accusations amount it would be difficult to say. The progeny of James the First sufficiently bespeak their family resemblance. If it be true, that "the king had ever reason to be jealous," and yet that no single criminal act of the queen's has been recorded, it must be confessed that one or both of the parties were singularly discreet and decent; for the king never complained, and the queen was never accused, if we except this burthen of an old Scottish ballad,

O the bonny Earl of Murray,
He was the queen's love.

Whatever may have happened in Scotland, in England the queen appears to have lived occupied chiefly by the amusements of the court, and not to have interfered with the _arcana_ of state. She appears to have indulged a passion for the elegancies and splendours of the age, as they were shown in those gorgeous court masques with which the taste of James harmonized, either from his gallantry for the queen, or his own poetic sympathy. But this taste for court masques could not escape the slur and scandal of the puritanic, and these "high-flying fancies" are thus recorded by honest Arthur Wilson, whom we summon into court as an indubitable witness of the mutual cordiality of this royal couple. In the spirit of his party, and like Milton, he censures the taste, but likes it. He says, "The court being a continued _maskarado_, where she (the queen) and her ladies, like so many sea-nymphs or Nereides, appeared often in various dresses, to the ravishment of the beholders; the king himself not being a little delighted with such fluent elegancies as made the night more glorious than the day."[230] This is a direct proof that James was by no means cold or negligent in his attentions to his queen; and the letter which has been given is the picture of his mind. That James the First was fondly indulgent to his queen, and could perform an act of chivalric gallantry with all the generosity of passion, and the ingenuity of an elegant mind, a pleasing anecdote which I have discovered in an unpublished letter of the day will show. I give it in the words of the writer.

"_August, 1613._

"At their last being at Theobalds, about a fortnight ago, the queen,
shooting at a deer, mistook her mark, and killed _Jewel_, the king's
most principal and special hound; at which he stormed exceedingly
awhile; but after he knew who did it, he was soon pacified, and with
much kindness wished her not to be troubled with it, for he should
love her never the worse: and the next day sent her a diamond worth
two thousand pounds as _a legacy from his dead dog_. Love and
kindness increased daily between them."

Such is the history of a contemporary living at court, very opposite to that representation of coldness and neglect with which the king's temper has been so freely aspersed; and such too is the true portrait of James the First in domestic life. His first sensations were thoughtless and impetuous; and he would ungracefully thunder out an oath, which a puritan would set down in his "tables," while he omitted to note that this king's forgiveness and forgetfulness of personal injuries were sure to follow the feeling they had excited.

FOOTNOTES:

[229] The historical dissertation is appended to the first volume of
Mr. Malcolm Laing's "History of Scotland," who thinks that "it has
placed that obscure transaction in its genuine light."

[230] See the article on _Court Masques_ in the early pages of the
present volume for notices of the elaborate splendour and costliness
of these favourite displays.

THE MAN OF ONE BOOK.

Mr. Maurice, in his animated Memoirs, has recently acquainted us with a fact which may be deemed important in the life of a literary man. He tells us, "We have been just informed that Sir William Jones _invariably_ read through every year the works of Cicero, whose life indeed was the great exemplar of his own." The same passion for the works of Cicero has been participated by others. When the best means of forming a good style were inquired of the learned Arnauld, he advised the daily study of Cicero; but it was observed that the object was not to form a Latin, but a French style: "In that case," replied Arnauld, "you must still read Cicero."

A predilection for some great author, among the vast number which must transiently occupy our attention, seems to be the happiest preservative for our taste: accustomed to that excellent author whom we have chosen for our favourite, we may in this intimacy possibly resemble him. It is to be feared that, if we do not form such a permanent attachment, we may be acquiring knowledge, while our enervated taste becomes less and less lively. Taste embalms the knowledge which otherwise cannot preserve itself. He who has long been intimate with one great author will always be found to be a formidable antagonist; he has saturated his mind with the excellences of genius; he has shaped his faculties insensibly to himself by his model, and he is like a man who ever sleeps in armour, ready at a moment! The old Latin proverb reminds us of this fact, _Cave ab homine unius libri_: Be cautious of the man of one book!

Pliny and Seneca give very safe advice on reading: that we should read much, but not many books--but they had no "monthly list of new publications!" Since their days others have favoured us with "Methods of Study," and "Catalogues of Books to be Read." Vain attempts to circumscribe that invisible circle of human knowledge which is perpetually enlarging itself! The multiplicity of books is an evil for the many; for we now find an _helluo librorum_ not only among the learned, but, with their pardon, among the unlearned; for those who, even to the prejudice of their health, persist only in reading the incessant book-novelties of our own time, will after many years acquire a sort of learned ignorance. We are now in want of an art to teach how books are to be read, rather than not to read them: such an art is practicable. But amidst this vast multitude still let us be "the man of one book," and preserve an uninterrupted intercourse with that great author with whose mode of thinking we sympathise, and whose charms of composition we can habitually retain.

It is remarkable that every great writer appears to have a predilection for some favourite author; and, with Alexander, had they possessed a golden casket, would have enshrined the works they so constantly turned over. Demosthenes felt such delight in the history of Thucydides, that, to obtain a familiar and perfect mastery of his style, he re-copied his history eight times; while Brutus not only was constantly perusing Polybius, even amidst the most busy periods of his life, but was abridging a copy of that author on the last awful night of his existence, when on the following day he was to try his fate against Antony and Octavius. Selim the Second had the Commentaries of Caesar translated for his use; and it is recorded that his military ardour was heightened by the perusal. We are told that Scipio Africanus was made a hero by the writings of Xenophon. When Clarendon was employed in writing his history, he was in a constant study of Livy and Tacitus, to acquire the full and flowing style of the one, and the portrait-painting of the other: he records this circumstance in a letter. Voltaire had usually on his table the _Athalie_ of Racine, and the _Petit Careme_ of Massillon; the tragedies of the one were the finest model of French verse, the sermons of the other of French prose. "Were I obliged to sell my library," exclaimed Diderot, "I would keep back Moses, Homer, and Richardson;" and, by the _eloge_ which this enthusiastic writer composed on our English novelist, it is doubtful, had the Frenchman been obliged to have lost two of them, whether Richardson had not been the elected favourite. Monsieur Thomas, a French writer, who at times displays high eloquence and profound thinking, Herault de Sechelles tells us, studied chiefly one author, but that author was Cicero; and never went into the country unaccompanied by some of his works. Fenelon was constantly employed on his Homer; he left a translation of the greater part of the Odyssey, without any design of publication, but merely as an exercise for style. Montesquieu was a constant student of Tacitus, of whom he must be considered a forcible imitator. He has, in the manner of Tacitus, characterised Tacitus: "That historian," he says, "who abridged everything, because he saw everything." The famous Bourdaloue re-perused every year Saint Paul, Saint Chrysostom, and Cicero. "These," says a French critic, "were the sources of his masculine and solid eloquence." Grotius had such a taste for Lucan, that he always carried a pocket edition about him, and has been seen to kiss his hand-book with the rapture of a true votary. If this anecdote be true, the elevated sentiments of the stern Roman were probably the attraction with the Batavian republican. The diversified reading of Leibnitz is well known; but he still attached himself to one or two favourites: Virgil was always in his hand when at leisure, and Leibnitz had read Virgil so often, that even in his old age he could repeat whole books by heart; Barclay's Argenis was his model for prose; when he was found dead in his chair, the Argenis had fallen from his hands. Rabelais and Marot were the perpetual favourites of La Fontaine; from one he borrowed his humour, and from the other his style. Quevedo was so passionately fond of the Don Quixote of Cervantes, that often in reading that unrivalled work he felt an impulse to burn his own inferior compositions: to be a sincere admirer and a hopeless rival is a case of authorship the hardest imaginable. Few writers can venture to anticipate the award of posterity; yet perhaps Quevedo had not even been what he was without the perpetual excitement he received from his great master. Horace was the friend of his heart to Malherbe; he laid the Roman poet on his pillow, took him in the fields, and called his Horace his breviary. Plutarch, Montaigne, and Locke, were the three authors constantly in the hands of Rousseau, and he has drawn from them the groundwork of his ideas in his Emile. The favourite author of the great Earl of Chatham was Barrow; and on his style he had formed his eloquence, and had read his great master so constantly, as to be able to repeat his elaborate sermons from memory. The great Lord Burleigh always carried Tully's Offices in his pocket; Charles V. and Buonaparte had Machiavel frequently in their hands; and Davila was the perpetual study of Hampden: he seemed to have discovered in that historian of civil wars those which he anticipated in the land of his fathers.

These facts sufficiently illustrate the recorded circumstance of Sir William Jones's invariable habit of reading his Cicero through every year, and exemplify the happy result for him, who, amidst the multiplicity of his authors, still continues in this way to be "the man of one book."

A BIBLIOGNOSTE.

A startling literary prophecy, recently sent forth from our oracular literature, threatens the annihilation of public libraries, which are one day to moulder away!

Listen to the vaticinator! "As conservatories of mental treasures, their value in times of darkness and barbarity was incalculable; and even in these happier days, when men are incited to explore new regions of thought, they command respect as depots of methodical and well-ordered references for the researches of the curious. But what in one state of society is invaluable, may at another be worthless; and the progress which the world has made within a very few centuries has considerably reduced the estimation which is due to such establishments. We will say more--"[231] but enough! This idea of striking into dust "the god of his idolatry," the Dagon of his devotion, is sufficient to terrify the bibliographer, who views only a blind Samson pulling down the pillars of his temple!

This future universal inundation of books, this superfluity of knowledge, in billions and trillions, overwhelms the imaginnation! It is now about four hundred years since the art of multiplying books has been discovered; and an arithmetician has attempted to calculate the incalculable of these four ages of typography, which he discovers have actually produced 3,641,960 works! Taking each work at three volumes, and reckoning only each impression to consist of three hundred copies, which is too little, the actual amount from the presses of Europe will give to 1816, 3,277,764,000 volumes! each of which being an inch thick, if placed on a line, would cover 6069 leagues! Leibnitz facetiously maintained that such would be the increase of literature, that future generations would find whole cities insufficient to contain their libraries. We are, however, indebted to the patriotic endeavours of our grocers and trunkmakers, alchemists of literature! they annihilate the gross bodies without injuring the finer spirits. We are still more indebted to that neglected race, the bibliographers!

The science of books, for so bibliography is sometimes dignified, may deserve the gratitude of a public, who are yet insensible of the useful zeal of those book-practitioners, the nature of whose labours is yet so imperfectly comprehended. Who is this vaticinator of the uselessness of public libraries? Is he a _bibliognoste_, or a _bibliographe_, or a _bibliomane_, or a _bibliophile_, or a _bibliotaphe_? A _bibliothecaire_, or a _bibliopole_, the prophet cannot be; for the _bibliothecaire_ is too delightfully busied among his shelves, and the _bibliopole_ is too profitably concerned in furnishing perpetual additions to admit of this hyperbolical terror of annihilation![232]

Unawares, we have dropped into that professional jargon which was chiefly forged by one who, though seated in the "scorner's chair," was the Thaumaturgus of books and manuscripts. The Abbe Rive had acquired a singular taste and curiosity, not without a fermenting dash of singular _charlatanerie_, in bibliography: the little volumes he occasionally put forth are things which but few hands have touched. He knew well, that for some books to be noised about, they should not be read: this was one of those recondite mysteries of his, which we may have occasion farther to reveal. This bibliographical hero was librarian to the most magnificent of book-collectors, the Duke de la Valliere. The Abbe Rive was a strong but ungovernable brute, rabid, surly, but _tres-mordant_. His master, whom I have discovered to have been the partner of the cur's tricks, would often pat him; and when the _bibliognostes_, and the _bibliomanes_ were in the heat of contest, let his "bull-dog" loose among them, as the duke affectionately called his librarian. The "bull-dog" of bibliography appears, too, to have had the taste and appetite of the tiger of politics, but he hardly lived to join the festival of the guillotine. I judge of this by an expression he used to one complaining of his parish priest, whom he advised to give "une messe dans son ventre!" He had tried to exhaust his genius in _La Chasse aux Bibliographes et aux Antiquaires mal avises_, and acted Cain with his brothers! All Europe was to receive from him new ideas concerning books and manuscripts. Yet all his mighty promises fumed away in projects; and though he appeared for ever correcting the blunders of others, this French Ritson left enough of his own to afford them a choice of revenge. His style of criticism was perfectly _Ritsonian_. He describes one of his rivals as _l'insolent et tres-insense auteur de l'Almanach de Gotha_, on the simple subject of the origin of playing-cards!

The Abbe Rive was one of those men of letters, of whom there are not a few who pass all their lives in preparations. Dr. Dibdin, since the above was written, has witnessed the confusion of the mind and the gigantic industry of our _bibliognoste_, which consisted of many trunks full of _memoranda_. The description will show the reader to what hard hunting these book-hunters voluntarily doom themselves, with little hope of obtaining fame! "In one trunk were about _six thousand_ notices of MSS. of all ages. In another were wedged about _twelve thousand_ descriptions of books in all languages, except those of French and Italian; sometimes with critical notes. In a third trunk was a bundle of papers relating to the _History of the Troubadours_. In a fourth was a collection of memoranda and literary sketches connected with the invention of arts and sciences, with pieces exclusively bibliographical. A fifth trunk contained between _two_ and _three thousand_ cards, written upon each side, respecting a collection of prints. In a sixth trunk were contained his papers respecting earthquakes, volcanoes, and geographical subjects."[233] This _Ajax flagellifer_ of the bibliographical tribe, who was, as Dr. Dibdin observes, "the terror of his acquaintance, and the pride of his patron," is said to have been in private a very different man from his public character; all which may be true, without altering a shade of that public character. The French Revolution showed how men, mild and even kind in domestic life, were sanguinary and ferocious in their public.

The rabid Abbe Rive gloried in terrifying, without enlightening his rivals; he exulted that he was devoting to "the rods of criticism and the laughter of Europe the _bibliopoles_," or dealers in books, who would not get by heart his "Catechism" of a thousand and one questions and answers: it broke the slumbers of honest De Bure, who had found life was already too short for his own "Bibliographie Instructive."

The Abbe Rive had contrived to catch the shades of the appellatives necessary to discriminate book amateurs; and of the first term he is acknowledged to be the inventor.

A _bibliognoste_, from the Greek, is one knowing in title-pages and colophons, and in editions; the place and year when printed; the presses whence issued; and all the _minutiae_ of a book.

A _bibliographe_ is a describer of books and other literary arrangements.

A _bibliomane_ is an indiscriminate accumulator, who blunders faster than he buys, cock-brained, and purse-heavy!

A _bibliophile_, the lover of books, is the only one in the class who appears to read them for his own pleasure.

A _bibliotaphe_ buries his books, by keeping them under lock, or framing them in glass cases.

I shall catch our _bibliognoste_ in the hour of book-rapture! It will produce a collection of bibliographical writers, and show to the second-sighted Edinburgher what human contrivances have been raised by the art of more painful writers than himself--either to postpone the day of universal annihilation, or to preserve for our posterity, three centuries hence, the knowledge which now so busily occupies us, and transmit to them something more than what Bacon calls "Inventories" of our literary treasures.

"Histories, and literary _bibliotheques_ (or bibliothecas), will always present to us," says La Rive, "an immense harvest of errors, till the authors of such catalogues shall be fully impressed by the importance of their art; and, as it were, reading in the most distant ages of the future the literary good and evil which they may produce, force a triumph from the pure devotion to truth, in spite of all the disgusts which their professional tasks involve; still patiently enduring the heavy chains which bind down those who give themselves up to this pursuit, with a passion which resembles heroism.

"The catalogues of _bibliotheques fixes_ (or critical, historical, and classified accounts of writers) have engendered that enormous swarm of bibliographical errors, which have spread their roots, in greater or less quantities, in all our bibliographers." He has here furnished a long list, which I shall preserve in the note.[234]

The list, though curious, is by no means complete. Such are the men of whom the Abbe Rive speaks with more respect than his accustomed courtesy. "If such," says he, "cannot escape from errors, who shall? I have only marked them out to prove the importance of bibliographical history. A writer of this sort must occupy himself with more regard for his reputation than his own profit, and yield himself up entirely to the study of books."

The mere knowledge of books, which has been called an erudition of title-pages, may be sufficient to occupy the life of some; and while the wits and "the million" are ridiculing these hunters of editions, who force their passage through secluded spots, as well as course in the open fields, it will be found that this art of book-knowledge may turn out to be a very philosophical pursuit, and that men of great name have devoted themselves to labours more frequently contemned than comprehended. Apostolo Zeno, a poet, a critic, and a true man of letters, considered it as no small portion of his glory to have annotated Fontanini, who, himself an eminent prelate, had passed his life in forming his _Bibliotheca Italiana_. Zeno did not consider that to correct errors and to enrich by information this catalogue of Italian writers was a mean task. The enthusiasm of the Abbe Rive considered bibliography as a sublime pursuit, exclaiming on Zeno's commentary on Fontanini--"He chained together the knowledge of whole generations for posterity, and he read in future ages."

There are few things by which we can so well trace the history of the human mind as by a classed catalogue, with dates of the first publication of books; even the relative prices of books at different periods, their decline and then their rise, and again their fall, form a chapter in this history of the human mind; we become critics even by this literary chronology, and this appraisement of auctioneers. The favourite book of every age is a certain picture of the people. The gradual depreciation of a great author marks a change in knowledge or in taste.