Chapter M: Coquebert De Montbret (1)

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

DR. THOMAS PIERCE.

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

WRITING AMONG THE GREEKS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The bishop of Durham wrote a treatise containing rules for the management of the library above-mentioned, describing how the books were to be preserved, and upon what conditions they were to be lent out to scholars, and appointed five keepers, to whom he granted yearly salaries. This treatise he called “_Philobiblion_,” from whence he himself came to be called by the same name, “a lover of books,” and this very justly, if, as he says himself in the preface to it, his love of them was so violent that it put him into a kind of rapture, and made him neglect all his other affairs. He finished it at Auckland, the 24th of January, 1345, being then just 63 years of age. It was printed at Spires in 1483; at Paris, by Badius Ascensius, in 1500; by the learned Thomas James, at Oxford, in 1599, in quarto; and at Leipsic, in 1674, at the end of _Philologicarum Epistolarum Centuria una, ex Bibliotheca Melch. Hamingfeldii_. It appears also in manuscript in the Cottonian library, in the royal library, and in other libraries in Oxford and Cambridge.

The “_Philobiblion_,” is written in very indifferent Latin, and in a declamatory style. It is divided into twenty chapters. In chapter 1. the author praises wisdom, and books in which it is contained. 2. That books are to be preferred to riches and pleasure. 3. That they ought to be always bought. 4. How much good arises from books, and that they are misused only by ignorant people. 5. That good monks write books, but the bad ones are otherwise employed. 6. The praise of the ancient begging friars, with a reproof of the modern ones. 7. He bewails the loss of books by fire and wars. 8. He shews what fine opportunities he had had of collecting books, whilst he was chancellor and treasurer, as well as during his embassies. 9. That the ancients outdid the moderns in hard studying. 10. That learning is by degrees arrived at perfection, and that he had procured a Greek and Hebrew grammar. 11. That the law and law books are not properly learning. 12. The usefulness and necessity of grammar. 13. An apology for poetry, and the usefulness of it. 14. Who ought to love books. 15. The manifold advantages of learning. 16. Of writing new books and mending the old. 17. Of using books well, and how to place them. 18. An answer to his calumniators. 19. Upon what conditions books are to be lent to strangers. 20. Conclusion.

In the “_Philobiblion_” the bishop apologizes for admitting the poets into his collection; _quare non negleximus Fabulas Poetarum_. But he is more complaisant to the prejudices of his age, where he says, that the laity are unworthy to be admitted to any commerce with books: _Laici omnium librorum communione sunt indigni_. He prefers books of the liberal arts to treatises of the law. He laments that good literature had entirely ceased in the university of Paris. He admits _Panfletos exiguos_ into his library. He employed _Stationarios_ and _Librarios_, not only in England, but in France, Italy, and Germany. He regrets the total ignorance of the greek language; but adds that he has provided for the students of his library both Greek and Hebrew grammars. He calls Paris the “paradise of the world,” and says that he purchased there a variety of invaluable volumes in all sciences, which yet were neglected and perishing. While he was Chancellor and Treasurer of England, instead of the usual presents and new year’s gifts appendant to his office, he chose to receive those perquisites in books. By the favour of king Edward the third, he gained access to the libraries of the principal monasteries, where he shook off the dust from various volumes preserved in chests and presses, which had not been opened for many ages.

There were several collections of manuscripts in England before the general restoration of science in Europe, which had at different times been brought hither by those who had travelled into foreign countries; these were chiefly preserved in the two Universities, in the cathedral churches, and in religious houses, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth century several valuable libraries were formed in England.

In the reign of king Henry the sixth, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, fourth and youngest son of king Henry the fourth, was a singular promoter of literature, just at the dawning of science and learning. However unqualified this eminent personage was for political intrigue, and to contend with his malicious and powerful enemies, among whom the Cardinal Beaufort was the principal, he was nevertheless the common friend and patron of all the scholars of his time. A sketch of his character and pursuits, as being closely connected with the progress of English literature, cannot fail of proving interesting, more especially as they are peculiarly associated with the subject of the present inquiry.

About the year 1440, the Duke gave to the University of Oxford a library, containing six hundred volumes, one hundred and twenty only of which were valued at more than one thousand pounds of the money of that day. These books, it need not be observed, were all in manuscript, the art of printing not having then been discovered; they are called _Novi Tractatus_, or New Treatises, in the University Register, and are said to be _admirandi apparatus_. They were the most splendid and costly copies that could be procured, finely written on vellum, and elegantly embellished with miniatures and illuminations. Among the rest was a translation into French of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Only a single specimen of these valuable volumes was suffered to remain; it is a beautiful manuscript, in folio, of Valerius Maximus, enriched with the most elegant decorations, and written in Duke Humphrey’s age, evidently with a design of being placed in this sumptuous collection. All the rest of the books, which, like this, being highly ornamented, looked like missals, were destroyed or removed by the pious visitors of the University, in the reign of king Edward the sixth, whose zeal was equalled only by their ignorance, or perhaps by their avarice. A great number of classics, in this grand work of reformation, were condemned as anti-christian, and some of the books, in this library, had even been before this, either stolen or mutilated. In the library of Oriel College, at Oxford, we find a manuscript _Commentary on Genesis_, written by John Capgrave, a monk, belonging to the monastery of St. Austin, at Canterbury, a learned theologist of the fifteenth century. In it is the author’s autograph, and the work is dedicated to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. In the superb initial letter of the dedicatory epistle, is a curious illumination of the author Capgrave, humbly presenting his book to his patron, the Duke, who is seated, and covered with a sort of hat. At the end of the volume is this entry, in the hand-writing of Duke Humphrey “C’est Livre est a moy Humfrey, Duc de Gloucestre, du don de Frere Jehan Capgrave, quy le me fist presenter a mon manoyr de Pensherst le jour ... de l’an MCCCCXXXVIII.” This is one of the books which Humphrey gave to his new library at Oxford, destroyed or dispersed by the active reformers of the young Edward. He also gave to the same library Capgrave _Super Exodum et Regum Libros_.

John Whethamstede, a learned abbot of St. Alban’s, and a lover of scholars, but accused by his monks of neglecting their affairs, while he was too deeply engaged in studious employments, and in procuring transcripts of useful books, notwithstanding his unwearied assiduity in beautifying and enriching their monastery, was in high favour with this munificent prince. The Duke was fond of visiting this monastery, and employed Abbot Whethamstede to collect valuable books for him. Some of Whethamstede’s tracts, manuscript copies of which often occur in our libraries, are dedicated to the Duke, who presented many of them, particularly a fine copy of Whethamstede’s _Granarium_, an immense work, which Leland calls _ingens volumen_ to the new library. The copy of Valerius Maximus, mentioned before, has a curious table or index, made by Whethamstede. Many other Abbots paid their court to the Duke, by sending him presents of books, the margins of which were adorned with the most exquisite paintings.

Gilbert Kymer, physician to king Henry the sixth, and holding, among other ecclesiastical preferments, the Deanery of Salisbury and Chancellorship of the University of Oxford; the latter dignity by the recommendatory letters of the Duke, inscribed to the Duke of Gloucester his famous medical system—_Diætarium de Sanitatis Custodia_—in the year 1424.

Lydgate,[12] one of the early English poets, translated Boccacio’s book, _De Casibus Virorum illustrium_, at the recommendation and command, and under the protection and superintendance, of Duke Humphrey, whose condescension in conversing with learned ecclesiastics, and diligence in study, the translator displays at large, and in the strongest expressions of panegyric. He compares the Duke to Julius Cæsar, who, amidst the weightier cares of state, was not ashamed to enter the rhetorical school of Cicero at Rome. Nor was his patronage confined only to English scholars. His favour was solicited by the most celebrated writers of France and Italy, many of whom he bountifully rewarded. Leonard Aretin,[13] one of the first restorers of the Greek tongue in Italy, (which language he learned of Emanuel Chrysoloras,[14]) and of polite literature in general, dedicates to this universal patron his elegant Latin translation of Aristotle’s _Politics_. The copy presented to the Duke by the translator, most elegantly illuminated, is now in the Bodleian library.

To the same noble encourager of learning, Petrus Candidus, the friend of Laurentius Valla,[15] and secretary to the great Cosmo, Duke of Milan, inscribed by the advice of the Archbishop of Milan, a Latin version of Plato’s _Republic_. An illuminated manuscript of this translation is in the British Museum, perhaps the copy presented, with two epistles from the Duke to Petrus Candidus.

Petrus de Monte, another learned Italian of Venice, in the dedication of his treatise—_De Virtutum et Vitiorum differentia_—to the Duke of Gloucester, mentions the latter’s ardent attachment to books of all kinds, and the singular avidity with which he pursued every species of literature.

A tract entitled _Comparatio Studiorum et Rei Militaris_, written by Lopus de Castellione, a Florentine civilian, and a great translator into Latin of the Greek classics, is also inscribed to the Duke at the desire of Zeno, archbishop of Bayeux. It must not be forgotten that our illustrious Duke invited into England the learned Tito Livio of Foro-Juli, whom he naturalized and constituted his poet and orator. He also retained learned foreigners in his service, for the purpose of transcribing, and of translating from Greek into Latin. One of these was Antonio de Beccaria, a Veronese, who translated into Latin prose the Greek poem of _Dionysius Afer de Situ Orbis_; whom the Duke also employed to translate into Latin six tracts of Athanasius. This translation, inscribed to the Duke, is now among the royal manuscripts in the British Museum, and at the end, in his own hand-writing, is the following insertion:—“C’est Livre est a moi Homphrey Duc le Gloucestre: le quel je fis translater de grec en latin par un de mes secretaires Antoyne de Beccara ne de Verone.”

An astronomical tract, entitled, by Leland, _Fabulæ Directionum_, is erroneously supposed to have been written by Duke Humphrey. But it was compiled at the Duke’s instance, and according to tables which he had himself constructed, called by the anonymous author in his preface, _Tabulas illustrissimi principis et nobilissimi Domini mei, Humfredi, &c._ In the library of Gresham College, however, there is a scheme of calculations in astronomy, which bears his name. Astronomy was then a favourite science; nor is it to be doubted that he was intimately acquainted with the politer branches of knowledge which now began to acquire estimation, and which his liberal and judicious attention greatly contributed to restore.

* * * * *

King Edward the fourth and Henry the seventh greatly assisted the cause of learning, by the encouragement they gave to the art of printing in England, and by purchasing such books as were printed in other countries. William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, purchased many valuable Greek manuscripts which had been brought hither by the prelates and others after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks.

King Henry the eighth may justly be called the founder of the royal library, which was enriched with the manuscripts selected from the _scriptoria_ and libraries of the principal monasteries, by that indefatigable antiquary John Leland.

Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, enriched the library of the college of Corpus Christi, with a great number of ancient and curious manuscripts.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Bodley greatly increased the public library at Oxford, which is now called by his name. This great benefactor to the literature of his country, quitted the court, and applied himself wholly to the purchasing of books and manuscripts both at home and abroad. By these means he had the satisfaction of furnishing that library with 1294 manuscripts, which by the subsequent liberality of many great and illustrious persons, has been since increased to more than eight thousand volumes, including the manuscripts given by Tanner, Bishop of Norwich, and the valuable library bequeathed by the will of Dr. Richard Rawlinson.

Considerable augmentations were made to the libraries of the several colleges in the two universities, as also to those of our cathedral churches, the palace at Lambeth, the Inns of Court, the College of Arms, and others; catalogues of which were published at Oxford in 1697 under the title of _Catalogus Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ_.

Bodley’s great contemporary, Sir Robert Cotton, is also entitled to the gratitude of posterity for his diligence in collecting the Cottonian library; he was engaged in the pursuit of manuscripts and records upwards of forty years, during which time he spared neither trouble nor expense.

The noble manuscript library founded by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and greatly enriched by his son Edward, who inherited his father’s love of science, claims a distinguished place in every account which may be given of the literary treasures of antiquity in general, and of this country in particular. Posterity will ever be indebted to her grace the Duchess Dowager of Portland, for securing this inestimable treasure of learning to the public, by authority of Parliament, under the guardianship of the most distinguished persons of the realm, both for rank and abilities, whose excellent regulations have made this library, as also the Royal, Cottonian, Sloanian, and others, now deposited in the British Museum, easy of access, and consequently of real use to the philosopher, the statesman, the historian, the scholar, and the artist.[16]

Footnote 9:

Gildas, called _Badonicus_, because said to be born at Bath, was, for
his singular prudence and the severity of his morals, surnamed the
WISE; he was a monk of Bangor, and his “Description of the state of
Britain,” above alluded to, is the only one of his writings extant, as
we are assured by Archbishop Usher. Gildas wrote this work in Latin,
in a style, according to that age, harsh and perplexed enough. The
first printed edition of it was published by Polydore Virgil, in
octavo, London, 1525, and dedicated to Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of
Durham, which, however, was from an incorrect copy. It was reprinted
at Basil, in 12mo, in 1541; and at London, 1548, though Bishop
Nicolson says 1568. It was again printed at London, in 12mo, in 1638,
translated by Thomas Habingdon, of Henlip, in Worcestershire. John
Josseline, secretary to Archbishop Parker, reprinted Gildas more
correctly from two new manuscripts, Basil, 1568, 12mo; and Paris 1576;
but these are little more perfect than the first.—The latest and best
copy of Gildas is in Dr. Gale’s collection of Ancient English
Historians, 2 vols. folio, Oxford, 1687 and 1691; who had the
advantage of a more ancient and better copy, as Bishop Nicolson
observes. Besides Habingdons’s translation above mentioned, there was
another printed during the Cromwell rebellion, in 1652, for the mere
purpose, it has been said, of retailing Gildas’s sharp reproofs of
Kings and Priests.—For an account of this edition, see Oldys’s British
Librarian, and Savage’s Librarian, vol. 1. p. 117.

Footnote 10:

Strutt, in his “Chronicle of England” has given a plate representing a
page of this manuscript, and in Astle’s “History of Writing,” there is
a plate of the same page, coloured, in imitation of the original.

Footnote 11:

Bede, commonly called the Venerable Bede, was the most learned man of
the age in which he lived; he was born at Weremouth, in
Northumberland, in the year 672. Both ancient and modern authors have
bestowed the highest encomiums upon the learning of this extraordinary
man. His works are many, making eight large volumes, in folio, the
principal of which is his Ecclesiastical History of the Anglo-Saxons,
consisting of five books, from whence the more perfect part of our
early history is formed; his other works are the Lives of Saints,
Treatises on the Holy Scriptures, and Philosophical Tracts. This great
man died at his cell at Jarrow, in the year 735, aged 63.

Footnote 12:

Lydgate was commonly called the Monk of Bury, because born at that
place, about the year 1380. After some time spent in the English
Universities, he travelled through France and Italy, in which
countries he greatly improved himself. In addition to his poetical
talents, he is described as being an eloquent rhetorician, an expert
mathematician, an acute philosopher, and no mean divine. He is said to
have been so much admired by his contemporaries, that they said of
him, that his wit was fashioned by the Muses themselves. After his
return from France and Italy, he became tutor to the sons of several
of the nobility, and for his excellent endowments, was much esteemed
and reverenced by them. He wrote a poem, called _The Life and Death of
Hector_, some satires, eulogies, and odes, and other learned works in
prose. He died in 1440, aged sixty, and was buried in his own convent
at Bury. Lydgate is said to have been a disciple of Chaucer.

Footnote 13:

Leonard Aretin, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an
orator, and an historian; the secretary of four successive Popes; and
Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, where he died in 1444, aged
seventy-five. He added a Supplement to Livy on the Punic War, and
wrote the History of Italy, with other valuable works.

Footnote 14:

Emanuel Chrysoloras was one of the envoys sent by the Greek Emperor
Manuel, at the end of the fourteenth century, to implore the
compassion of the Western Princes. He was not only conspicuous for the
nobleness of his birth but also for the extent of his learning. After
visiting the courts of France and England, in furtherance of his
mission, he was invited to assume the office of a Professor, and
Florence had the honour of this invitation, as it had had a few years
previously that of the first Greek Professor Leo Pilatus, whose mind
was stored with a treasure of Greek learning, with whom history and
fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike familiar, and who first read
the Poems of Homer in the Schools of Florence. Chrysoloras may be
considered as the founder of the Greek language in Italy, and his
knowledge not only of the Greek, but of the Latin tongue, surpassed
the expectation of the Florentine republic. At the same time and
place, the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the
domestic pupil of the celebrated Petrarch. The Italians, who
illustrated their age and country, were formed in this double school,
and Florence became the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman
erudition. Chrysoloras was recalled by the Emperor from the college to
the court, but he afterwards taught at Pavia and Rome with equal
industry and applause. He died at Constance on a public mission from
the Emperor to the council. _Gibbon’s Hist._ vol. 12. p. 126.

Footnote 15:

Laurentius Valla, was a native of Placenza, where he was born in 1415;
he revived the Latin language from gothic barbarity, but he was a
rigorous critic. He fell under the displeasure of the Church of Rome,
for the freedom with which he hazarded his opinions respecting some of
its doctrines, and he was condemned to be burnt, but was saved by
Alphonsus, king of Naples. Pope Nicholas the fifth, who was himself
one of the greatest encouragers of learning of his time, and who
highly respected the talents of Valla, invited him to Rome, and gave
him a pension.—This Pope, whose pursuits were in direct association
with our present subject, from a plebeian origin, raised himself by
his virtue and his learning to the highest honours of the Church. The
character of the man prevailed over the interest of the Pontiff, and
he sharpened those weapons which were soon pointed against the
religion of Rome. He had been the friend of the most eminent scholars
of the age, and after his elevation to the chair of St. Peter, he
became their patron. Under Pope Nicholas, the influence of the Holy
See pervaded Christendom, and he exerted that influence in the search,
not of benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine
libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he
collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and
whenever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy was
transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican was daily
replenished with precious furniture, and such was his industry, that
in a reign of eight years, he formed a library of five thousand
volumes. To his munificence the Latin world was indebted for the
versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and
Appian; of Strabo’s Geography, of the Iliad, of the more valuable
works of Plato and Aristotle, of Ptolemy, and Theophrastus, and of the
Fathers of the Greek Church.

Footnote 16:

For an account of the following Manuscript Libraries in England, see
Savage’s Librarian, 3 vols. London, 1808-1810—namely, that of the
British Museum, in vol. 1. p. 26; of the Royal Society, p. 71; of the
Heralds Office, p. 73; of the Society of Antiquaries, p. 129; of the
Archbishop of Canterbury’s at Lambeth Palace, p. 133; of Lincoln’s
Inn, p. 183, 225; of the Middle Temple, p. 273; of the Inner Temple,
vol. 2. p. 131; of the Lansdown Collection of Manuscripts, vol. 1. p.
34, and vol. 3. p. 27, and of the Cottonian Manuscripts, vol. 3. p.
31.

The curious reader who is interested in the history of the public
records of his country, will find in the same volumes, the Report of
the Committee of the House of Commons on the State of the Records, in
vol. 1. p. 17, &c.—an account of the Records in the Tower of London,
vol. 2. p. 34, &c. of those in the Rolls Chapel, ibid. p. 185, &c. and
of those in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, vol. 3. p. 41, &c.

TORTURE IN ENGLAND.[17]

In the reign of King Henry the Sixth, the RACK or BRAKE, was placed in the Tower of London, by the Duke of Exeter, when he and the Earl of Suffolk had formed the design of introducing the Civil Law into England. It was called “Exeter’s daughter,” and remained afterwards in the Tower, “where it was occasionally used as an _Engine of State_, more than once in the _reign of Elizabeth_.”

Though the use of the Rack does not appear to have been known in this country until the 26th year of Henry the Sixth, and though it was never authorized by the law, yet to borrow the expression of Mr. Justice Blackstone, it was occasionally used as an “Engine of State,” to extort confession from State Prisoners confined in the Tower, from the time of its introduction, until finally laid aside in consequence of the decision of the judges in Felton’s case. One Hawkins was tortured[18] in the reign of Henry the Sixth; and the case of Anne Askew,[19] in that of Henry the Eighth,[20] cannot escape the recollection of every reader of English history. The Lord Chancellor Wriothesely (I blush for the honour and humanity of an English Judge while I write his name) went to the Tower to take her examination, and upon the Lieutenant’s refusing to draw the cords tighter, _drew them himself_ till every limb was dislocated, and her body nearly torn asunder. In Mary’s reign several persons were racked in order to extort confessions, which was upon account of Sir Thomas Wyat’s rebellion. And Barrington mentions that in Oldmixon’s History of England (p. 284,) one Simpson is said to have been tortured in 1558, and a confession extorted.

In the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth,[21] the Rack was used upon offenders against the State, and among others, upon Francis Throgmorton; in 1571, upon Charles Baillie an attendant upon the Bishop of Ross, Mary’s ambassador, and upon Banastre, one of the Duke of Norfolk’s servants; and Barker, another of his servants was brought to confess by extreme fear of it. In 1581, Campion, the Jesuit, was put upon the rack,[22] and in 1585, Thomas Morgan writes to the Queen of Scots, that he has heard D. Atslow was racked in the Tower, twice about the Earl of Arundel. This is the last instance of the actual application of torture to extort confession.

For the greater part of this reign the application of torture in the examination of State offenders seems to have been in common use, and its legality not disputed. Mr. Daines Barrington says,[23] that among the manuscript papers of Lord Ellesmere, is a copy of instructions to him, as Lord President of the Marches, to use the torture on the taking of some examinations at Ludlow; and Sir Edward Coke himself,[24] in the year 1600, (the 43d of Elizabeth’s reign) then being Attorney General, at the trials of the Earls of Essex and Southampton, boasted of the clemency of the Queen, because, though the rebellious attempts were so exceedingly heinous, yet out of her princely mercy “no person was racked, tortured, or pressed to speak any thing further than of their own accord.” And in the Countess of Shrewsbury’s case (10 James 1st) when Sir Edward was Chief Justice, in enumerating the privileges of the nobility, he mentions as one, that their bodies were not subject to torture _in causa criminis læsæ majestatis_. Barrington justly observes[25] there was a regular establishment for torture, for at his trial,[26] in the first year of James the first, Sir Walter Raleigh stated that Kemish had been threatened with the rack, and the keeper of the instrument sent for. Sir William Wade, who, with the Solicitor General had taken his examination, denied it, but admitted they had told him he deserved it, and Lord Howard declared, “Kemish was never on the rack, _the king gave charge that no rigour should be used_.”

Barrington mentions[27] that Sir John Hayward, the historian, was threatened with the rack, which Dr. Granger confirms; and the former also remarks that it is stated in King James’s works, that the rack was shewn to Guy Faukes when under examination.

Down to this period we do not find the legality of the practice questioned, though it has been said by high authority, as will be stated presently, that some doubts had been suggested to Queen Elizabeth. State Prisoners were confined usually in the Tower, and commissioners, attended by the law officers of the crown, were sent to examine them, who applied the rack at their own discretion, or according to the order of the privy council, or the king’s, without any objection being made to their authority.

In the third year of King Charles the first, Felton was threatened with the rack by the Earl of Dorset in the Tower, and Laud, then bishop of London, repeated the threats in council, but the king insisted upon the judges being consulted as to the legality of the application, and they being unanimously of opinion that it was illegal, it was never attempted afterwards. The answer which Felton made to Laud’s threats, is well worthy of attention; when Laud told him “if he would not confess he must go to the rack,” he replied “if it must be so, he could not tell whom he might nominate in the extremity of torture, and if what he should say then was to go for truth, he could not tell whether his Lordship (meaning the bishop of London) or which of their Lordships he might name, for torture might draw unexpected things from him.”

In the year 1680 (32 Charles 2d) Elizabeth Collier was tried at the Old Bailey,[28] before Mr. Baron Weston, for the publication of a libel, in which many circumstances were related for the purpose of inducing a belief that Prance, when a prisoner in Newgate, had been tortured there, and he was produced to prove the falsehood of the publication. The learned judge in summing up the evidence to the jury said, “But you must first know the laws of the land do not admit a torture, and since Queen Elizabeth’s time there hath been nothing of that kind ever done. The truth is indeed, in the twentieth year of her reign, Campion was just stretched upon the rack, but yet not so but he could walk; but when she was told it was against the law of the land to have any of her subjects racked (though that was an extraordinary case, a world of seminaries being sent over to contrive her death, and she lived in continual danger) yet it was never done after to any one, neither in her reign, who reigned twenty-five years, nor in king James’s reign, who reigned twenty-two years after, nor in king Charles the first’s reign, who reigned twenty-four years after; and GOD in Heaven knows there hath been no such thing offered in this king’s reign; for I think we may say we have lived under as lawful and merciful a government as any people whatsoever, and have as little blood shed, and sanguinary executions as any nation under heaven.”

The learned judge may have been mistaken when stating Campion to be the last person racked, for in Murden’s state papers, one Atslow, as before observed, is mentioned to have been tortured four years afterwards. Mr. Baron Weston states that upon a suggestion made to Queen Elizabeth of the illegality of the practice, it was discontinued in her reign, and thus we may account for Campion being racked with so little severity, as to be able to walk afterwards, and to manage the conferences with protestant doctors during his confinement in prison.