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gealous lovers of books above ali other Christians. Ye are commanded to sow Upon ali waters, because the Most High is norespecter of persons, nor does the Most Holy destre the deathos sinners, who ossered Himself to die sor them, but destresto heal the contrite in heari, to raise the fallen, and to correctthe perverse in the spirit os lenity. For whicli most salutary
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and the salvation of their neighbours, is declared by their constitutions, so that not only frona the rule of Bishop Augustine, whicli directs books to be asked sor every day, biat as Soon aSthey have read the prologue of the said constitutions they mayknow from the very titie of the fame that they are pledged tothe love of books. But alasi a threes id care os superfluities, ViX., of the stomach, of dress, and of houses, has seduced these men and otherssollowing their example from the paternat care of books, and from their study. For, sorgetting the providence of the Saviour
who is declared by the Psalmist to think upon the poor and nee ly), they are occupied with the wants of the perishingbody, that their seasis may be splendid and their garmenisi UXUrious, against the rute, and the fabrics of their biaildings, like the batilements of casties, carried to a height incompatil,lewith poverty. Because of these three things, we books, whohave eVer procured their advancement and have granted themto sit among the powersul and noble, are put far from theirheari's assection and are rechone i as superfluities; excepi thatthey rely Upon sonae treatises of smali value, from whicli theyderive strange herestes and apocryphat imbecilities, not sorthe refrestiment of fouis, but rather sor lickling the ears of the listeners. The Holy Scripture is not expolin led, but is neglected and trealed as though it were commonplace and
of the listeners with the most delightsul favo ars. Wheres rethe sirst prosessors of evangelicat poverty, aster some Stighthomage pald to secular science, collecting ali their sorce of intellect, devoted themselves to labours upon the sacred scrip-
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contemporaries observing their devotion and study bestowedupon them sor the edification of the whole Church the bookswhicli they had collected at great expense in the VarioUS partSof the worid.
according to human notions, that God thinks tess upon those whom He perceives to distrust His promises, pulting theirhope in human providence, not considering the raVen, nor thelities, whom the Most High seeds and arrays. Ye do not thinhupon Daniel and the bearer of the mess of boiled pottage, nor recollect Elij ah who was deli vered from hunger once in the desert by angeis, again in the torrent by ravens, and again in Sarepta by the widow, through the divine bounty, which givesto ali flesti their meet in due season. Ye descend as we sear)
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error in the beginning becomes a very great one in the end. For there grows Up among your promiscuous flock of lalty a pestilent multitude os creatures, who nevertheless the moreshamelessty force themselves into the office of preaching, theless they understand what they are saying, to the contempt of
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THE PHILO BIBLON OF RICHARD DE BURY
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L Icos reason malle a wild assauit on everything theycome across, anil, laching the check of reason they pusti onwithout discretion or distinction to destroy the vesseis of reason. Then the wise Apollo becomes the Python's prey, and Phronesis, the pio is mollier, becomes subject to the power of Phren Zy. Then winged Pegasus is si,ut up in the stati os Corydon, and eloquent Mercury is strangled. Then wise Pallas is struch down by the dagger of error, and the charming Pierides are smitten by the truculent tyranny of madness. Ocriael spectaclet where you may see the Phoebus of philosophers, the all-wise Aristolle, whom God Himself made master of the master of the worid, enchained by wicked handsand borne in s hamesul irons on the shoulders of gladiatorsfrom his sacred home. There you may see him who waSworthy to be lawgiver to the lawgiver of the worid and tohold empire over iis emperor, made the flave of vile bumoons by the most Unrighteous laws of war. most wiched poweros dari ness, which does not sear to undo the approved divin- ity of Plato, who alone was worthy to submit to the View of the Creator, besore he assuaged the strisse of warring chaos,
and besore sorm had put on iis gari, of matter, the ideat types,
in order to demonstrate the archetypat Universe to iis author, so that the worid os sense might be modelled aster the supernat patiern. tearsul sighil where the morat Socrates, whoSe
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dreadsul ruin which was caused in Egypt by the auxiliaries in
the AleXandrian war, when seven hundred thousand volumes were consumed by fire. These volumes had been collected by the royal Ptolemies through long perio is of time, as Aulus Gellius relates. What an Atlantean progeny mUst be sup- posed to have then perished: including the motions of the spheres, ali the conjunctions of the planeis, the nature of the galaXy, and the prognostic generations os comeis, and ali that exisis in the heavens or in the etheri Who would not shudderat such a hapless holocaust, where ink is offered up instead ofblood, where the glowing ashes of crackling parchment were encarnadined with blood, where the devouring flames consumed so many thousan is of innocents in whose mouth was no ghille, where the unsparing fire turned into stinhing ashesso many shrines of eternat truthi A lesser crime than thisis the sacrifice of Iephthali or Agamemnon, where a pioUsdaughter is flain by a father's sword. How many labours of the famous Hercules stiali we suppose then perished, Whobecause of his knowledge of astronomy is sal l to have sus-tained the heaven on his unyiel ling neck, when Hercules was now sor the second time cast into the flames. The secrets of the heavens, whicli Ionithus learni not from man or throughman but received by divine inspiration; what his brother Zoroaster, the Servant of Unclean Spiriis, taught the Bactrians;
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when caught up in an ecstasy in the book of eternity, a re be-lieved to have perished in those horrid flames. The religion of the Egyptians, whicli the book of the Persect Word so commends; the excellent pol ity of the older Athens, whicli preceded by nine thousand years the Athens of Greece; thecharms of the Chaldaeans; the observations of the Arabs and Indians; the ceremontes of the Jews; the architecture of the Babylonians; the agriculture of Noah; the magic aris of Moses; the geometry of Iostiua; the enigmas of Samson; the problems of Solomon from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop; the antidotes of Aesculapius; the grammar of Cadmus; the poems of Parnassus; the oracles of Apollo; the argonauticsos Iason; the stratagems of Palamedes, and infinite other secrets of science are belleved to have perished at the time of this conflagration. Nay, Aristolle would not have missed the quadrature of
the circle, is only balesul conflicis had spared the books of
the ancients, who knew ali the methods of nature. He would not have lest the problem of the eternity of the worid anopen question, nor, as is credibiy conceived, would he have
had any doubis of the plurali ty of human intellecis and of
their eternity, is the persect sciences of the ancients had notbeen exposed to the calamities of halesul wars. For by wars we are scattered into soreign lands, are mutilated, WoUnded,
and shamesully disfigured, are buried under the earth andoverwhelmed in the sea, are devoured by the flames and destroyed by every hind of death. How much of our blood wasshed by warlike Scipio, when he was eagerly compassing the overthrow of Carthage, the opponent and rival of the Romanempiret How many thousands of thousands of his did the tenyears' war of Troy dismiss froni the light of dayl How many were dri ven by Anthony, aster the murder of TUlly, to seeli hi ling places in soreign provincest How many of US wer Scat- tered by Theodoric, while Boethius was in exile, into the dis serent qUarters of the worid, like sheep whose shepherd hasbeen struch downi How many, when Seneca seli a victim to
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But in truth infinite are the losses which have been inflictedupon the race of books by wars and tumulis. And as it is byno means possibie to enumerate and furvey infinity, we willhere finalty set up the Gades of our complaint, and turn again to the prayers with which we began, humbly imploring that the Ruler of Olympus and the Most High Governor os allthe world will establish peace and dispel wars and mahe ourdays tranquil under His protection.