[Footnote 322: Like all men, who desert a religion which they once enthusiastically profess, Bale, after being zealous for the papal superstitions, holding up his hands to rotten posts, and calling them his "fathers in heaven,"

(according to his own confession) became a zealous Protestant, and abused the church of Rome with a virulence almost unknown in the writings of his predecessors. But in spite of his coarseness, positiveness, and severity, he merits the great praise of having done much in behalf of the cause of literature. His attachment to Leland is, unquestionably, highly to his honour; but his biographies, especially of the Romish prelates, are as monstrously extravagant as his plays are incorrigibly dull. He had a certain rough honesty and prompt benevolence of character, which may be thought to compensate for his grosser failings.

His reputation as a _bibliomaniac_ is fully recorded in the anecdote mentioned at p. 234, ante. His "magnum opus," the _Scriptores Britanniae_, has already been noticed with sufficient minuteness; vide p. 31, ante. It has not escaped severe animadversion. Francis Thynne tells us that Bale has "mistaken infynyte thinges in that booke de Scriptoribus Anglie, being for the most part the collections of Lelande."

_Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer_; p. 23. Picard, in his wretched edition of _Gulielmus Neubrigensis_ (edit. 1610, p.

672), has brought a severe accusation against the author of having "burnt or torn all the copies of the works which he described, after he had taken the titles of them;" but see this charge successfully rebutted in Dr. Pegge's _Anonymiana_; p. 311. That Bale's library, especially in the department of manuscripts, was both rich and curious, is indisputable, from the following passage in _Strype's Life of Archbishop Parker_. "The archbishop laid out for BALE'S rare collection of MSS. immediately upon his death, fearing that they might be gotten by somebody else. Therefore he took care to bespeak them before others, and was promised to have them for his money, as he told Cecil. And perhaps divers of those books that do now make proud the University Library, and that of Benet and some other colleges, in Cambridge, were Bale's," p. 539. It would seem, from the same authority, that our bibliomaniac "set himself to search the libraries in Oxford, Cambridge, London (wherein there was but one, and that a slender one), Norwich, and several others in Norfolk and Suffolk: whence he had collected enough for another volume De Scriptoribus Britannicis."

_Ibid._ The following very beautiful wood-cut of Bale's portrait is taken from the original, of the same size, in the _Acta Romanorum Pontificum_; Basil, 1527, 8vo. A similar one, on a larger scale, will be found in the "_Scriptores_,"

&c., published at Basil, 1557, or 1559--folio. Mr. Price, the principal librarian of the Bodleian Library, shewed me a rare head of Bale, of a very different cast of features--in a small black-letter book, of which I have forgotten the name.

[Illustration]]

Before I enter upon the reign of Elizabeth, let me pay a passing, but sincere, tribute of respect to the memory of CRANMER; whose _Great Bible_[323] is at once a monument of his attachment to the Protestant religion, and to splendid books. His end was sufficiently lamentable; but while the flames were consuming his parched body, and while his right hand, extended in the midst of them, was reproached by him for its former act of wavering and "offence," he had the comfort of soothing his troubled spirit by reflecting upon what his past life had exhibited in the cause of learning, morality, and religion.[324] Let his memory be respected among virtuous bibliomaniacs!

[Footnote 323: I have perused what Strype (_Life of Cranmer_, pp. 59, 63, 444), Lewis (_History of English Bibles_, pp. 122-137), Johnson (_Idem opus_, pp. 33-42), and Herbert (_Typog. Antiquities_, vol. i., p. 513,) have written concerning the biblical labours of Archbishop Cranmer; but the accurate conclusion to be drawn about the publication which goes under the name of CRANMER'S, or THE GREAT BIBLE, [Transcriber's Note: 'is' missing in original]

not quite so clear as bibliographers may imagine. However, this is not the place to canvass so intricate a subject. It is sufficient that a magnificent impression of the Bible in the English language, with a superb frontispiece (which has been most feebly and inadequately copied for Lewis's work), under the archiepiscopal patronage of CRANMER, did make its appearance in 1539: and it has been my good fortune to turn over the leaves of the identical copy of it, printed UPON VELLUM, concerning which Thomas Baker expatiates so eloquently to his bibliomaniacal friend, Hearne. _Rob. of Gloucester's Chronicle_; vol. i., p. xix. This copy is in the library of St. John's College, Cambridge; and is now placed upon a table, to the right hand, upon entering of the same: although formerly, according to Bagford's account, it was "among some old books in a private place nigh the library." _Idem_; p. xxii. There is a similar copy in the British Museum.]

[Footnote 324: "And thus"--says Strype--(in a strain of pathos and eloquence not usually to be found in his writings) "we have brought this excellent prelate unto his end, after two years and a half hard imprisonment. His body was not carried to the grave in state, nor buried, as many of his predecessors were, in his own cathedral church, nor inclosed in a monument of marble or touchstone. Nor had he any inscription to set forth his praises to posterity. No shrine to be visited by devout pilgrims, as his predecessors, S. Dunstan and S. Thomas had. Shall we therefore say, as the poet doth:

Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo, Pompeius nullo. Quis putet esse Deos?

No; we are better Christians, I trust, than so: who are taught, that the rewards of God's elect are not temporal but eternal. And Cranmer's martyrdom is his monument, and his name will outlast an epitaph or a shrine." _Life of Cranmer_; p. 391. It would seem, from the same authority, that RIDLEY, LATIMER, and CRANMER, were permitted to dine together in prison, some little time before they suffered; although they were "placed in separate lodgings that they might not confer together." Strype saw "a book of their diet, every dinner and supper, and the charge thereof,"--as it was brought in by the bailiffs attending them.

_Dinner Expenses of Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer._

Bread and Ale ii_d._ Item, Oisters i_d._ Item, Butter ii_d._ Item, Eggs ii_d._ Item, Lyng viii_d._ Item, A piece of fresh Salmon x_d._ Wine iii_d._ Cheese and pears ii_d._

_Charges for burning Ridley and Latimer._

_s._ _d._ For three loads of wood fagots 12 0 Item, One load of furs fagots 3 4 For the carriage of the same 2 0 Item, A Post 1 4 Item, Two chains 3 4 Item, Two staples 0 6 Item, Four Labourers 2 8

_Charges for burning Cranmer._

_s._ _d._ For an 100 of wood fagots, 06 0 For an 100 and half of furs fagots 03 4 For the carriage of them 0 8 To two labourers 1 4

I will draw the curtain upon this dismal picture, by a short extract from one of Cranmer's letters, in which this great and good man thus ingeniously urges the necessity of the Scriptures being translated into the English language; a point, by the bye, upon which neither he, nor Cromwell, nor Latimer, I believe, were at first decided; "God's will and commandment is, (says Cranmer) that when the people be gathered together, the minister should use such language as the people may understand, and take profit thereby; or else hold their peace. For as an harp or lute, if it give no certain sound that men may know what is stricken, who can dance after it--for all the sound is vain; so is it vain and profiteth nothing, sayeth Almighty God, by the mouth of St.

Paul, if the priest speak to the people in a language which they know not." _Certain most godly, fruitful, and comfortable letters of Saintes and holy Martyrs, &c._, 1564; 4to., fol. 8.]

All hail to the sovereign who, bred up in severe habits of reading and meditation, loved books and scholars to the very bottom of her heart!

I consider ELIZABETH as a royal bibliomaniac of transcendent fame!--I see her, in imagination, wearing her favourite little _Volume of Prayers_,[325] the composition of Queen Catherine Parr, and Lady Tirwit, "bound in solid gold, and hanging by a gold chain at her side," at her morning and evening devotions--afterwards, as she became firmly seated upon her throne, taking an interest in the embellishments of the _Prayer Book_,[326] which goes under her own name; and then indulging her strong bibliomaniacal appetites in fostering the institution "for the erecting of _a Library and an Academy for the study of Antiquities and History_."[327]

Notwithstanding her earnestness to root out all relics of the Roman Catholic religion (to which, as the best excuse, we must, perhaps, attribute the sad cruelty of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots), I cannot in my heart forbear to think but that she secured, for her own book-boudoir, one or two of the curious articles which the commissioners often-times found in the libraries that they inspected: and, amongst other volumes, how she could forbear pouncing upon "_A great Pricksong Book of parchment_"--discovered in the library of All Soul's College[328]--is absolutely beyond my wit to divine!

[Illustration]

[Footnote 325: Of this curious little devotional volume the reader has already had some account (p. 119, ante); but if he wishes to enlarge his knowledge of the same, let him refer to vol. lx. pt. ii. and vol. lxi. pt. i. of the _Gentleman's Magazine_. By the kindness of Mr. John Nichols, I am enabled to present the bibliomaniacal virtuoso with a fac-simile of the copper-plate inserted in the latter volume (p. 321) of the authority last mentioned. It represents the GOLDEN COVER, or binding, of this precious manuscript. Of the Queen's attachment to works of this kind, the following is a pretty strong proof: "In the Bodl. library, among the MSS. in mus. num. 235, are the _Epistles of St. Paul, &c._, printed in an old black letter in 12o. which was _Queen Elizabeth's own book_, and her own hand writing appears at the beginning, viz.: "August. I walke many times into the pleasant fieldes of the Holy Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodliesome herbes of sentences by pruning: eate them by reading: chawe them by musing: and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together: that so having tasted their sweetenes I may the lesse perceave the bitterness of this miserable life." The covering is done in needle work by the Queen [then princess] herself, and thereon are these sentences, viz. on one side, on the borders; CELVM PATRIA: SCOPVS VITae XPVS. CHRISTVS VIA.

CHRISTO VIVE. In the middle a heart, and round about it, ELEVA COR SVRSVM IBI VBI E.C. [est Christus]. On the other side, about the borders, BEATVS QVI DIVITIAS SCRIPTVRae LEGENS VERBA VERTIT IN OPERA. In the middle a star, and round it, VICIT OMNIA PERTINAX VIRTVS with E.C., _i.e._ as I take it, ELISABETHA CAPTIVA, or [provided it refer to Virtus] ELISABETHae CAPTIVae, she being, then, when she worked this covering, a prisoner, if I mistake not, at Woodstock."

_Tit. Liv. For. Jul. vit. Henrici_ v., p. 228-229.

[Illustration]]

[Footnote 326: In the PRAYER-BOOK which goes by the name of QUEEN ELIZABETH'S, there is a portrait of her Majesty kneeling upon a superb cushion, with elevated hands, in prayer. This book was first printed in 1575; and is decorated with wood-cut borders of considerable spirit and beauty; representing, among other things, some of the subjects of Holbein's dance of death. The last impression is of the date of 1608. Vide _Bibl. Pearson_; no. 635. The presentation copy of it was probably printed UPON VELLUM.[F]]

[Footnote 327: The famous John Dee entreated QUEEN MARY to erect an institution similar [Transcriber's Note: 'to'

missing in original] the one above alluded to. If she adopted the measure, Dee says that "her highnesse would have a most NOTABLE LIBRARY, learning wonderfully be advanced, the passing excellent works of our forefathers from rot and worms preserved, and also hereafter continually the whole realm may (through her grace's goodness) use and enjoy the incomparable treasure so preserved: where now, no one student, no, nor any one college, hath half a dozen of those excellent jewels, but the whole stock and store thereof drawing nigh to utter destruction, and extinguishing, while here and there by private men's negligence (and sometimes malice) many a famous and excellent author's book is rent, burnt, or suffered to rot and decay. By your said suppliant's device your Grace's said library might, in very few years, most plentifully be furnisht, and that without any one penny charge unto your Majesty, or doing injury to any creature." In another supplicatory article, dated xv.

Jan. 1556, Dee advises copies of the monuments to be taken, and the original, after the copy is taken, to be restored to the owner. That there should be "allowance of all necessary charges, as well toward the riding and journeying for the recovery of the said worthy monuments, as also for the copying out of the same, and framing of necessary stalls, desks, and presses."--He concludes with proposing to make copies of all the principal works in MS. "in the NOTABLEST libraries beyond the sea"--"and as concerning all other excellent authors printed, that they likewise shall be gotten in wonderful abundance, their carriage only to be chargeable." He supposes that three months' trial would shew the excellence of his plan; which he advises to be instantly put into practice "for fear of the spreading of it abroad might cause many to hide and convey away their good and ancient writers--which, nevertheless, were ungodly done, and a certain token that such are not sincere lovers of good learning." [In other words, not sound bibliomaniacs.] See the Appendix to Hearne's edition of _Joh. Confrat. Monach.

de Reb. Glaston._ Dee's "supplication" met with no attention from the bigotted sovereign to whom it was addressed. A project for a similar establishment in Queen Elizabeth's reign, when a Society of Antiquaries was first established in this kingdom, may be seen in Hearne's _Collection of Curious Discourses of Antiquaries_; vol. ii., p. 324,--when this library was "to be entitled THE LIBRARY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, and the same to be well furnished with divers ancient books, and rare monuments of antiquity," &c., edit.

1775.]

[Footnote 328: In Mr. Gutch's _Collectanea Curiosa_, vol.

ii., p. 275, we have a "Letter from Queen Elizabeth's high commissioners, concerning the superstitious books belonging to All Soul's College:" the "schedule" or list returned was as follows:

Three mass books, old and new, and 2 portmisses Item, 8 grailes, 7 antiphoners of parchment and bound ---- 10 Processionals old and new ---- 2 Symnalls ---- an old manual of paper ---- an Invitatorie book ---- 2 psalters--and one covered with a skin ---- _A great pricksong book of parchment_ ---- One other pricksong book of vellum covered with a hart's skyn ---- 5 other of paper bound in parchment ---- The Founder's mass-book in parchment bound in board ---- In Mr. Mill his hand an antiphoner and a legend ---- A portmisse in his hand two volumes, a manual, a mass-book, and a processional.]

[Footnote F: The two following pages are appropriated to copies of the frontispiece (of the edit. of 1608), and a page of the work, from a copy in the possession of the printer of this edition of the _Bibliomania_.

[Illustration: =Elizabeth Regina.=

2 PARALIPOM 6.

=Domine Deus Israel, non est similis tui Deus in coelo & in terra, qui pacta custodis & misericordiam cum seruis tuis, qui ambulant coram te in toto corde suo.=]

[Illustration: A prayer for charitie, or loue towards our neighbours.

=Lord, inlighten and instruct our mindes, that we may esteeme euerie thing as it is worth, & yet not make the lesse reckoning of thee, sith nothing can be made better then thou. And secondly let us make account of man, then whome, there is nothing more excellent among the things of this world. Make vs to loue him next thee, either as likest our selues, or as thy childe, and therefore our brother, or as one ordayned to bee a member of one selfe same countrie with vs.=

=And cause vs also euen heere, to resemble the heauenly kingdome through mutual loue, where all hatred is quite banished, and all is full of loue, and consequently full of joy and gladnes.= Amen.

=Giue a sweete smell as incense, &c.=

=Eccles. 39.=

=Matthew xxvi. 26-29.=]]

LOREN. You are full of book anecdote of Elizabeth: but do you forget her schoolmaster, ROGER ASCHAM?

LYSAND. The master ought certainly to have been mentioned before his pupil. Old Roger is one of my most favourite authors; and I wish English scholars in general not only to read his works frequently, but to imitate the terseness and perspicuity of his style. There is a great deal of information in his treatises, respecting the manners and customs of his times; and as Dr. Johnson has well remarked, "his philological learning would have gained him honour in any country."[329] That he was an ardent bibliomaniac, his letters when upon the continent, are a sufficient demonstration.

[Footnote 329: ROGER ASCHAM is now, I should hope, pretty firmly established among us as one of the very best classical writers in our language. Nearly three centuries are surely sufficient to consecrate his literary celebrity.

He is an author of a peculiar and truly original cast. There is hardly a dull page or a dull passage in his lucubrations.

He may be thought, however, to have dealt rather harshly with our old romance writers; nor do I imagine that the original edition of his _Schoolmaster_ (1571), would be placed by a _Morte d'Arthur_ collector alongside of his thin black-letter quarto romances. Ascham's invectives against the Italian school, and his hard-hearted strictures upon the innocent ebullitions of Petrarch and Boccaccio, have been noticed, with due judgment and spirit, by Mr. Burnet, in his pleasing analysis of our philosopher's works. See _Specimens of English Prose Writers_; vol. ii., p. 84. Our tutor's notions of academical education, and his courteous treatment of his royal and noble scholars, will be discoursed of anon; meantime, while we cursorily, but strongly, applaud Dr.

Johnson's almost unqualified commendation of this able writer; and while the reader may be slightly informed of the elegance and interest of his epistles; let the bibliomaniac hasten to secure Bennet's edition of Ascham's works (which incorparates [Transcriber's Note: incorporates] the notes of Upton upon the Schoolmaster, with the Life of, and remarks upon Ascham, by Dr. Johnson), published in a handsome quarto volume [1761]. This edition, though rather common and cheap, should be carefully reprinted in an octavo volume; to harmonize with the greater number of our best writers published in the same form. But it is time to mention something of the author connected with the subject of this work. What relates to the BIBLIOMANIA, I here select from similar specimens in his English letters, written when he was abroad: "Oct. 4. at afternoon I went about the town [of Bruxelles]. I went to the frier Carmelites house, and heard their even song: after, I desired to see the LIBRARY. A frier was sent to me, and led me into it. There was not one good book but _Lyra_. The friar was learned, spoke Latin readily, entered into Greek, having a very good wit, and a greater desire to learning. He was gentle and honest," &c.

pp. 370-1. "Oct. 20. to Spira: a good city. Here I first saw _Sturmius de Periodis_. I also found here _Ajax_, _Electra_, and _Antigone_ of _Sophocles_, excellently, by my good judgment, translated into verse, and fair printed this summer by Gryphius. Your stationers do ill, that at least do not provide you the register of all books, especially of old authors," &c., p. 372. Again: "Hieronimus Wolfius, that translated Demosthenes and Isocrates, is in this town. I am well acquainted with him, and have brought him twice to my lord's to dinner. He looks very simple. He telleth me that one Borrheus, that hath written well upon Aristot. priorum, &c., even now is printing goodly commentaries upon Aristotle's Rhetoric. But Sturmius will obscure them all."

p. 381. These extracts are taken from Bennet's edition. Who shall hence doubt of the propriety of classing Ascham among the most renowned bibliomaniacs of the age?]

From the tutor of Elizabeth let us go to her prime minister, CECIL.[330] We have already seen how successfully this great man interposed in matters of religion; it remains to notice his zealous activity in the cause of learning. And of this latter who can possibly entertain a doubt? Who that has seen how frequently his name is affixed to Dedications, can disbelieve that Cecil was a LOVER OF BOOKS? Indeed I question whether it is inserted more frequently in a diplomatic document or printed volume. To possess all the presentation copies of this illustrious minister would be to possess an ample and beautiful library of the literature of the sixteenth century.

[Footnote 330: The reader, it is presumed, will not form his opinion of the bibliomaniacal taste of this great man, from the distorted and shameful delineation of his character, which, as a matter of curiosity only, is inserted at p. 237, ante. He will, on the contrary, look upon Cecil as a lover of books, not for the sake of the numerous panegyrical dedications to himself, which he must have so satisfactorily perused, but for the sake of the good to be derived from useful and ingenious works. With one hand, this great man may be said to have wielded the courageous spirit, and political virtue, of his country--and with the other, to have directed the operations of science and literature.

Without reading the interesting and well-written life of Cecil, in Mr. Macdiarmid's _Lives of British Statesmen_ (a work which cannot be too often recommended, or too highly praised), there is evidence sufficient of this statesman's bibliomaniacal passion and taste, in the FINE OLD LIBRARY which is yet preserved at Burleigh in its legitimate form--and which, to the collector of such precious volumes, must have presented a treat as exquisite as are the fresh blown roses of June to him who regales himself in the flowery fragrance of his garden--the production of his own manual labour! Indeed Strypes tells us that Cecil's "library was a very choice one:" his care being "in the preservation, rather than in the private possession of (literary) antiquities." Among other curiosities in it, there was a grand, and a sort of presentation, copy of Archbishop Parker's Latin work of the _Antiquity of the British Church_; "bound costly, and laid in colours the arms of the Church of Canterbury, empaled with the Archbishop's own paternal coat." Read Strype's tempting description; _Life of Parker_; pp. 415, 537. Well might Grafton thus address Cecil at the close of his epistolary dedication of his _Chronicles_: "and now having ended this work, and seeking to whom I might, for testification of my special good-will, present it, or for patronage and defence dedicate it, and principally, for all judgment and correction to submit it--among many, I have chosen your MASTERSHIP, moved thereto by experience of your courteous judgment towards those that travail to any honest purpose, rather helping and comforting their weakness, than condemning their simple, but yet well meaning, endeavours. By which, your accustomed good acceptation of others, I am the rather boldened to beseech your Mastership to receive this my work and me, in such manner as you do those in whom (howsoever there be want of power) there wanteth no point of goodwill and serviceable affection." Edit. 1809, 4to. If a chronicler could talk thus, a poet (who, notwithstanding the title of his poem, does not, I fear, rank among Pope's bards, that "sail aloft among _the Swans of Thames_,") may be permitted thus to introduce Cecil's name and mansion:

Now see these Swannes the new and worthie seate Of famous CICILL, treasorer of the land, Whose wisedome, counsell skill of Princes state The world admires, then Swannes may do the same: The house itselfe doth shewe the owner's wit, And may for bewtie, state, and every thing, Compared be with most within the land,

Vallan's _Tale of Two Swannes_, 1590, 4to., reprinted in _Leland's Itinerary_; vol. v. p. xiii, edit. 1770.]