[Footnote 224: This truly chivalrous speech may be seen extracted in Mr. Burnet's _Specimens of English Prose Writers_, vol. i., 269. One of Virgil's heroes, to the best of my recollection, dies serenely upon thinking of his beloved countrymen:

----dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos!]

[Footnote 225: It is always pleasant to me to make comparisons with eminent book-patrons, or, if the reader pleases, bibliomaniacs. CARDINAL XIMENES was the promoter and patron of the celebrated Complutensian Polyglott Bible; concerning which I have already submitted some account to the public in my _Introduction to the Classics_, vol. i., pp. 7, 8. His political abilities and personal courage have been described by Dr. Robertson (in his history of Charles V.), with his usual ability. We have here only to talk of him as connected with books. Mallinkrot and Le Long have both preserved the interesting anecdote which is related by his first biographer, Alvaro Gomez, concerning the completion of the forementioned Polyglott. "I have often heard John Brocarius (says Gomez) son of Arnoldus Brocarius, who printed the Polyglott, tell his friends that, when his father had put the finishing stroke to the last volume, he deputed _him_ to carry it to the Cardinal. John Brocarius was then a lad; and, having dressed himself in an elegant suit of clothes, he gravely approached Ximenes, and delivered the volume into his hands. 'I render thanks to thee, oh God!' exclaimed the Cardinal, 'that thou hast protracted my life to the completion of these biblical labours.' Afterwards, when conversing with his friends, Ximenes would often observe that the surmounting of the various difficulties of his political situation did not afford him half the satisfaction which he experienced from the finishing of his Polyglott. He died in the year 1517, not many weeks after the last volume was published." Gomez, or Gomecius's work "_de rebus gestis, a Francisco Ximenio Cisnerio Archiepiscopo Complut_," 1569, fol., is a book of very uncommon occurrence. It is much to be wished that Lord Holland, or Mr. Southey, would give us a life of this celebrated political character: as the biographies of Flechier and Marsolier seem miserably defective, and the sources of Gomez to have been but partially consulted. But I must not let slip this opportunity of commemorating the book-reputation of XIMENES, without making the reader acquainted with two other singularly scarce and curious productions of the press, which owe their birth to the bibliomanical spirit of our Cardinal. I mean the "_Missale mixtum secundun [Transcriber's Note: secundum] regulum B.

Isidori, dictum Mozarabes, cum praefat._" _A. Ortiz._ Toleti, 1500, fol. and the "_Breviarium, mixtum," &c._ _Mozarabes._ Toleti, 1502, fol.: of the former of which there was a copy in the Harleian collection; as the ensuing interesting note, in the catalogue of Lord Harley's books, specifies. I shall give it without abridgment: "This is the scarcest book in the whole Harleian collection. At the end of it are the following words, which deserve to be inserted here:--Adlaudem Omnipotentis Dei, nec non Virginis Mariae Matris ejus, omnium sanctorum sanctarumq; expletum est Missale mixtum secundum regulam beati Isidori dictum Mozarabes: maxima cum diligentia perlectum et emendatum, per Reverendum in utroq; Jure Doctorem Dominum Alfonsum Ortiz, Canonicum Toletanum. Impressum in regal. civitate Toleti, Jussu Reverendissimi in Christo Patris Domini D. Francisci Ximenii, ejusdem civitatis Archiepiscopi. Impensis Nobilis Melchioris Gorricii Novariensis, per Magistrum Petrum Hagembach, Almanum, anno salutis nostrae 1500, Die 29o mensis Januarii." "This is supposed to be the ancient Missal amended and purged by St. Isidore, archbishop of Sevil, and ordered by the Council of Toledo to be used in all churches; every one of which before that time had a missal peculiar to itself. The Moors afterwards committing great ravages in Spain, destroying the churches, and throwing every thing there, both civil and sacred, into confusion, all St.

Isidore's missals, excepting those in the city of Toledo, were lost. But those were preserved even after the Moors had made themselves masters of that city; since they left six of the churches there to the Christians, and granted them the free exercise of their religion. Alphonsus the Sixth, many ages afterwards, expelled the Moors from Toledo, and ordered the Roman missal to be used in those churches where St.

Isidore's missal had been in vogue, ever since the council above-mentioned. But the people of Toledo insisting that their missal was drawn up by the most ancient bishops, revised and corrected by St. Isidore, proved to be the best by the great number of saints who had followed it, and been preserved during the whole time of the Moorish government in Spain, he could not bring his project to bear without great difficulty. In short, the contest between the Roman and Toletan missals came to that height that, according to the genius of the age, it was decided by a single combat, wherein the champion of the Toletan missal proved victorious. But King Alphonsus, say some of the Spanish writers, not being satisfied with this, which he considered as the effect of chance only, ordered a fast to be proclaimed, and a great fire to be then made; into which, after the king and people had prayed fervently to God for his assistance in this affair, both the missals were thrown; but the Toletan only escaped the violence of the flames.

This, continue the same authors, made such an impression upon the king that he permitted the citizens of Toledo to use their own missal in those churches that had been granted the Christians by the Moors. However, the copies of this missal grew afterwards so scarce, that Cardinal Ximenes found it extremely difficult to meet with one of them: which induced him to order this impression, and to build a chapel, in which this service was chanted every day, as it had at first been by the ancient Christians. But, notwithstanding this, the copies of the Toletan missal are become now so exceeding rare that it is at present almost in as much danger of being buried in oblivion as it was when committed to the press by Cardinal Ximenes." _Bibl. Harl._, vol. iii., p. 117. But let the reader consult the more extended details of De Bure (_Bibl. Instruct._, vol. i., no. 210, 211), and De La Serna Santander (_Dict. Chois. Bibliogr. du_ xv.

_Siecle_, part iii., p. 178); also the very valuable notice of Vogt; _Cat. Libror. Rarior._, p. 591; who mention a fine copy of the missal and breviary, each struck off UPON VELLUM, in the collegiate church of St. Ildefonso. If I recollect rightly, Mr. Edwards informed me that an Italian Cardinal was in possession of a similar copy of each. This missal was republished at Rome, with a capital preface and learned notes, by Lesleus, a Jesuit, in 1755, 4to.: and Lorenzana, archbishop of Toledo, republished the breviary in a most splendid manner at Madrid, in 1788. Both these re-impressions are also scarce. I know not whether the late king of Spain ever put his design into execution of giving a new edition of these curious religious volumes; some ancient MSS. of which had been carefully collated by Burriel.

Consult Osmont's _Dict. Typog._, vol. i., p. 477; _Cat. de Gaignat_, nos. 179, 180; _Cat. de la Valliere_, nos.

271, 272; _Bibl. Solger._, vol. ii. no. 1280; and _Bibl.

Colbert_, nos. 342, 366. Having expatiated thus much, and perhaps tediously, about these renowned volumes, let me introduce to the notice of the heraldic reader the _Coat of Arms_ of the equally renowned Cardinal--of whose genuine editions of the Mozarabic Missal and Breviary my eyes were highly gratified with a sight, in the exquisite library of Earl Spencer, at Althorp.

[Illustration]]

[Footnote 226: Of the _Tower_ or _Rook_ (or _Elephant_) one may indeed--to speak in the scripture style--(and properly speaking, considering its situation) call this piece "the head stone of the corner." There are two of them; and, whilst they remain firm, his majesty is ever in safety. The common enemies, therefore, of them and their king watch their least motion very narrowly, and try a hundred tricks to decoy them from the king's side, by feints, false alarms, stumbling blocks, or any other method that can be contrived to divert them from their duty. The _same_, p. 15. (vide.

159, ante.)]

Thus ended one of the most memorable chess contests upon record. Not more stubbornly did the Grecians and Romans upon Troy's plain, or the English and French upon Egypt's shores, contend for the palm of victory, than did Philemon and Narcottus compel their respective forces to signalize themselves in this hard-fought game. To change the simile for a more homely one; no Northamptonshire hunt was ever more vigorously kept up; and had it not been (at least so Philemon thought!) for the inadvertent questions of Lysander, respecting the antiquity of the amusement, an easy victory would have been obtained by my guest over my neighbour. Lysander, with his usual politeness, took all the blame upon himself. Philemon felt, as all chess-combatants feel upon defeat, peevish and vexed. But the admirably well adapted conversation of Lysander, and the natural diffidence of Narcottus, served to smooth Philemon's ruffled plumage; and at length diffused o'er his countenance his natural glow of good humour.

It was now fast advancing towards midnight; when Narcottus withdrew to his house, and my guests to their chambers.

To-morrow came; and with the morrow came composure and hilarity in the countenances of my guests. The defeat of the preceding evening was no longer thought of; except that Philemon betrayed some little marks of irritability on Lysander's shewing him the fac-simile wood-cuts of the pieces and men in Caxton's edition of the game of chess, which are published in the recent edition of the Typographical Antiquities of our country.

Lisardo visited us betimes. His countenance, on his entrance gave indication of vexation and disappointment--as well it might; for, on his return home the preceding evening, he found the following note from Lorenzo:--

"My dear Lisardo;

Our friend's visitors, Lysander and Philemon, are coming with their host to eat old mutton, and drink old sherry, with me to-morrow; and afterwards to discuss subjects of bibliography. I do not ask you to join them, because I know your thorough aversion to every thing connected with such topics. Adieu!

Truly yours,

LORENZO."

"Little," exclaimed Lisardo, "does he know of my conversion. I'll join you uninvited; and abide by the consequences."

At four o'clock we set off, in company with Lisardo, for Lorenzo's dinner. I need hardly add that the company of the latter was cordially welcomed by our host; who, before the course of pastry was cleared away, proposed a sparkling bumper of Malmsey madeira, to commemorate his conversion to Bibliomaniacism. By half-past-five we were ushered into THE LIBRARY, to partake of a costly dessert of rock melons and Hamburgh grapes, with all their appropriate embellishments of nectarines and nuts. Massive and curiously cut decanters, filled with the genuine juice of the grape, strayed backwards and forwards upon the table: and well-furnished minds, which could not refuse the luxury of such a feast, made every thing as pleasant as rational pleasure could be.

LIS. If Lorenzo have not any thing which he may conceive more interesting to propose, I move that you, good Lysander, now resume the discussion of a subject which you so pleasantly commenced last night.

PHIL. I rise to second the motion.

LOREN. And I, to give it every support in my power.

LYSAND. There is no resisting such adroitly levelled attacks. Do pray tell me what it is you wish me to go on with?

PHIL. The history of book-collecting and of book-collectors in this country.

LIS. The history of BIBLIOMANIA, if you please.

LYSAND. You are madder than the maddest of book-collectors, Lisardo.

But I will gossip away upon the subjects as well as I am able.

I think we left off with an abuse of the anti-bibliomaniacal powers of chivalry. Let us pursue a more systematic method; and begin, as Lisardo says, "at the beginning."

In the plan which I may pursue, you must forgive me, my friends, if you find it desultory and irregular: and, as a proof of the sincerity of your criticism, I earnestly beg that, like the chivalrous judge, of whom mention was made last night, you will cry out "_Ho!_" when you wish me to cease. But where shall we begin? From what period shall we take up the history of BOOKISM (or, if you please, BIBLIOMANIA) in this country? Let us pass over those long-bearded gentlemen called the Druids; for in the various hypotheses which sagacious antiquaries have advanced upon their beloved _Stone-henge_, none, I believe, are to be found wherein the traces of a _Library_, in that vast ruin, are pretended to be discovered. As the Druids were sparing of their writing,[227] they probably read the more; but whether they carried their books with them into trees, or made their pillows of them upon Salisbury-plain, tradition is equally silent. Let us therefore preserve the same prudent silence, and march on at once into the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries; in which the learning of Bede, Alcuin, Erigena, and Alfred, strikes us with no small degree of amazement. Yet we must not forget that their predecessor THEODORE, archbishop of Canterbury, was among the earliest book-collectors in this country; for he brought over from Rome, not only a number of able professors, but a valuable collection of books.[228] Such, however, was the scarcity of the book article, that Benedict Biscop (a founder of the monastery of Weremouth in Northumberland), a short time after, made not fewer than five journeys to Rome to purchase books, and other necessary things for his monastery--for one of which books our immortal Alfred (a very _Helluo Librorum_! as you will presently learn) gave afterwards as much land as eight ploughs could labour.[229] We now proceed to BEDE; whose library I conjecture to have been both copious and curious. What matin and midnight vigils must this literary phenomenon have patiently sustained! What a full and variously furnished mind was his! Read the table of contents of the eight folio volumes of the Cologne edition[230] of his works, as given by Dr. Henry in the appendix to the fourth volume of his history of our own country; and judge, however you may wish that the author had gone less into abstruse and ponderous subjects, whether it was barely possible to avoid falling upon such themes, considering the gross ignorance and strong bias of the age? Before this, perhaps, I ought slightly to have noticed INA, king of the West Saxons, whose ideas of the comforts of a monastery, and whose partiality to _handsome book-binding_, we may gather from a curious passage in Stow's Chronicle or Annals.[231]

[Footnote 227: Julius Caesar tells us that they dared not to commit their laws to writing. _De Bell. Gall._, lib. vi., -- xiii.-xviii.]

[Footnote 228: Dr. Henry's _Hist. of Great Britain_, vol.

iv., p. 12, edit. 1800, 8vo. We shall readily forgive Theodore's singularity of opinions in respect to some cases of pharmacy, in which he held it to be "dangerous to perform bleeding on the fourth day of the moon; because both the light of the moon and the tides of the sea were then upon the increase."--We shall readily forgive this, when we think of his laudable spirit of BIBLIOMANIA.]

[Footnote 229: Dr. Henry says that "This bargain was concluded by Benedict with the king a little before his death, A.D. 690; and the book was delivered, and the estate received by his successor abbot Ceolfred." _Hist. of Great Britain_, vol. iv., p. 21. There must be some mistake here: as Alfred was not born till the middle of the ninth century.

_Bed. Hist. Abbat Wermuthien, edit. Smith_, pp. 297-8, is quoted by Dr. Henry.]

[Footnote 230: 1612, folio. De Bure (_Bibliogr. Instruct._ no. 353) might have just informed us that the Paris and Basil editions of Bede's works are incomplete: and, at no. 4444, where he notices the Cambridge edition of Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_, (1644, fol.) we may add that a previous English translation of it, by the celebrated Stapleton, had been printed at Antwerp in 1565, 4to., containing some few admirably-well executed wood cuts.

Stapleton's translation has become a scarce book; and, as almost every copy of it now to be found is in a smeared and crazy condition, we may judge that it was once popular and much read.]

[Footnote 231: The passage is partly as follows--"the sayde king did also erect a chapell of gold and silver (to wit, garnished) with ornaments and vesselles likewise of golde and siluer, to the building of the which chappell hee gaue 2640 pounds of siluer, and to the altar 264 pounde of golde, a chaleis with the patten, tenne pounde of golde, a censar 8 pound, and twenty mancas of golde, two candlesticks, twelue pound and a halfe of siluer, A KIVER FOR THE GOSPEL BOOKE TWENTY POUNDS"! &c. This was attached to the monastery of Glastonbury; which Ina built "in a fenni place out of the way, to the end the monkes mought so much the more giue their minds to heauenly things," &c. _Chronicle_, edit.

1615, p. 76.]

We have mentioned ALCUIN: whom Ashmole calls one of the school-mistresses to France.[232] How incomparably brilliant and beautifully polished was this great man's mind!--and, withal, what an enthusiastic bibliomaniac! Read, in particular, his celebrated letter to Charlemagne, which Dr. Henry has very ably translated; and see, how zealous he there shews himself to enrich the library of his archiepiscopal patron with good books and industrious students.[233]

Well might Egbert be proud of his librarian: the first, I believe upon record, who has composed a catalogue[234] of books in Latin hexameter verse: and full reluctantly, I ween, did this librarian take leave of his _Cell_ stored with the choicest volumes--as we may judge from his pathetic address to it, on quitting England for France! If I recollect rightly, Mr. Turner's elegant translation[235] of it begins thus:

"O my lov'd cell, sweet dwelling of my soul, Must I for ever say, dear spot, farewell?"

[Footnote 232: _Theatrum Chemicum_, proleg. sign. A. 3.

rect.]

[Footnote 233: _History of Great Britain_, vol. iv., pp. 32, 86. "Literatorum virorum fautor et Maecenas habebatur aetate sua maximus ac doctissimus," says Bale: _Scrip. Brytan.

Illustr._, p. 109, edit. 1559. "Prae caeteris (says Lomeier) insignem in colligendis illustrium virorum scriptis operam dedit Egbertus Eboracensis archiepiscopus, &c.: qui nobilissimam Eboraci bibliothecam instituit, cujus meminit Alcuinis," &c. _De Bibliothecis_, p. 151. We are here informed that the archbishop's library, together with the cathedral of York, were accidentally burnt by fire in the reign of Stephen.]

[Footnote 234: This curious catalogue is printed by Dr.

Henry, from Gale's _Rer. Anglicar. Scriptor. Vet._, tom. i., 730. The entire works of Alcuin were printed at Paris, in 1617, folio: and again, at Ratisbon, in 1777, fol., 2 vols.

See Fournier's _Dict. Portat. de Bibliographie_, p. 12. Some scarce separately-printed treatises of the same great man are noticed in the first volume of the appendix to Bauer's _Bibl. Libror. Rarior._, p. 44.]

[Footnote 235: _Anglo-Saxon History_, vol. ii., p. 355, edit. 1808, 4to.]

Now, don't imagine, my dear Lisardo, that this anguish of heart proceeded from his leaving behind all the woodbines, and apple-trees, and singing birds, which were wont to gratify his senses near the said cell, and which he could readily meet with in another clime!--No, no: this monody is the genuine language of a bibliomaniac, upon being compelled to take a long adieu of his choicest _book-treasures_, stored in some secretly-cut recess of his hermitage; and of which neither his patron, nor his illustrious predecessor, Bede, had ever dreamt of the existence of copies! But it is time to think of Johannes SCOTUS ERIGENA; the most facetious wag of his times, notwithstanding his sirname of the _Wise_. "While Great Britain (says Bale) was a prey to intestine wars, our philosopher was travelling quietly abroad amidst the academic bowers of Greece;"[236] and there I suppose he acquired, with his knowledge of the Greek language, a taste for book-collecting and punning.[237] He was in truth a marvellous man; as we may gather from the eulogy of him by Brucker.[238]

[Footnote 236: Freely translated from his _Script. Brytan.

Illustr._, p. 124.]

[Footnote 237: Scot's celebrated reply to his patron and admirer, Charles the Bald, was first made a popular story, I believe, among the "wise speeches" in _Camden's Remaines_, where it is thus told: "Johannes Erigena, surnamed Scotus, a man renowned for learning, sitting at the table, in respect of his learning, with Charles the Bauld, Emperor and King of France, behaved himselfe as a slovenly scholler, nothing courtly; whereupon the Emperor asked him merrily, _Quid interest inter Scotum et Sotum_? (what is there between a Scot and a Sot?) He merrily, but yet malapertly answered, '_Mensa_'--(the table): as though the emperor were the Sot and he the Scot." p. 236. _Roger Hoveden_ is quoted as the authority; but one would like to know where Hoveden got his information, if Scotus has not mentioned the anecdote in his own works? Since Camden's time, this facetious story has been told by almost every historian and annalist.]

[Footnote 238: _Hist. Philosoph._, tom. 3, 616: as referred to and quoted by Dr. Henry; whose account of our book-champion, although less valuable than Mackenzie's, is exceedingly interesting.]

In his celebrated work upon predestination, he maintained that "material fire is no part of the torments of the damned;"[239] a very singular notion in those times of frightful superstition, when the minds of men were harrowed into despair by descriptions of hell's torments--and I notice it here merely because I should like to be informed in what curious book the said John Scotus Erigena acquired the said notion? Let us now proceed to ALFRED; whose bust, I see, adorns that department of Lorenzo's library which is devoted to English History.