Philobiblon

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Chapter VIII

SINCL TO EVERYTHING there is a season and an opportu nity, as the wise Ecclesiastes witnesseth, let Us now pro- ceed to relate the manis id opportunities through whichwe have been assisted by the divine goodness in the acquisition of books. Although from our youth upwards we had always delighted in holding sociat commune with learned men and lovers of books, yet when we prospered in the worid and made ac- quaintance with the Ling's majesty and were received into his household, we obtained ampler facilities sor visiting eVery-where as we would, and of hunting as it were certain most Choice preserves, libraries private as weli as public, and of the regUlar as weli as of the secular clergy. And indeed while wefilled various ossices to the victorious Prince and splendidly

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CtS Were Undone, and volumes that had flumbered throughlong ages in their tombs wake up and are astonished, and those that had lain hidden in dark places are bathed in the rayofunwonted light. These long liseless books, once most dainty,bUt now become corrupi and loathsome, covered with litters of mice and pierced with the gnawings of the worms, and whowere Once Clothed in purple and fine linen, now lying in sackcloth and ashes, given up to oblivion, seemed to have become habitations of the moth. Natheless among these, seiZing the opportunity, we would sit down with more delight than a fastidiotas physician among his stores of gums and spices, and there we found the objeci and the stimulus of our assections. Thus the sacred vesseis of learning came into our controi and steWard ship; some by gist, others by purchase, and some lent

scripis; we loved codices more than florins, and preserred flender pamphleis to pampered palsreys. Besides ali this, we were frequently made ambassador of thismost illustrious Prince of evertasting memory, and were Senton the most various affairs of state, now to the Holy See, nowto the Court of France, and again to Various powers of the worid, on tedious embassies and in times of danger, alwayscarrying with Us, however, that love of books whicli many

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pleasiare made glad our hearis whenever we had leisure tovisit Paris, the Paradise of the worid, and to linger there;where the days seemed ever sew sor the greatness of our lovel There are delightsul libraries, more aromatic than storeS of spicery; there are luXuriant parks of ali manner of volumes; there are Academic meads shaken by the tramp of scholars; there are lounges of Athens; wallis of the Peripatetics; pealis of Parnassus; and porches of the Stoics. There is seen thesurVeyor os ali aris and sciences, Aristolle, to whom belongsali that is most excellent in doctrine, so far as relates to this passing sublunary world; there Ptolemy measures epicycles and eccentric apogees and the nodes of the planeis by figures and numbers; there Paul reveais the mysteries; there his neigh- bour Dionysius arranges and distinguishes the hierarchies; there the virgin Carmentis reproduces in Latin characters allthat Cadmus collected in Phoenician letters; there indeed

ant it is to gather together the arms of the clerical warfare, that we may have the means to crusti the attacks of heretics, is they ariSC. Further, we are aware that we obtained most excellent opportunities of collecting in the sollowing way. From OUr early yearS we attached to our society with the most eXquisite solicitude and discar ling ali partiali ty, ali suci, masters and scholars and professors in the severat faculties as had become most distinguished by their subitety of mind and the fame of theirlearning. Deri ving consolation from their sympathetic con Ver-

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sation, we were delightsilly entertained, now by demonstratiVe chains os reasoning, now by the recitat of physical processes and the treatises of the doctors of the Church, now bystimulating discourses on the allegorical meanings of things,as by a ricli and well-varied intellectual seast. Such men we

table, and , in stiori, as helpmates in ali the vicissitudes of lisse. But as no happiness is permitted to endure sor long, we were

the ecclesiasticat preserments and dignities that they deserved seli to their portion. And thus it happened, as was only right, that in attending to their own cures they were obliged to

We will add yet another very convenient way by whicli agreat multitude of books old as weli as new came into ourhands. For we never regarded with dis lain or disgust the poverty of the mendicant orders, adopted sor the salie of Christ; but in ali paris of the worid took them into the hindly arms of our compassion, allured them by the most friendly familiar- ity into devotion to ourseives, and having so allured them cherished them with munificent liberality of beneficence sortite salie of God, hecoming benefactors of ali of them in generat in such wise that we seemed none the less to have adopted certa in individuals with a speciat fallierly assection. To these

refused to them the shelter of our favour, wheres re we deserved to find them most special surtherers of our wishes and promoters thereos in aci and deed, who compassing land and Sea, traVersing the circuit of the worid, and ransacking the universities and high schools of Various proVinces, were Zealous in combating sor our destres, in the fure and certain hopeos reward. What leveret could escape amidst so many keen

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down to the booklet containing the fallacies of yesterday, nothing could escape these searchers. Was some devout dis-cΟUrse Uttered at the fountain-head os Christian faith, the holy Roman Curia, or was some strange question Ventilated with novel arguments; did the solidity of Paris whicli is now more Zealous in the study of antiquity than in the subile investigation os truth, did En isti sub lety, whicli illumined by the

out leaven and the bread os angels having in it ali that is deliciolis; and indeed the garners of Ioseph suli os corn, and allthe spoli of the Egyptians, and the very precious gisits whichQueen Sheba brought to Solomon.

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we were raised to the episcopale we had severat os both orders, ViZ., the Preachers and Minors, as personat attendanis and companions at our board, men distinguished no less in letters than in morais, who devoted themselves with unwearied Zealto the correction, eXposition, tabulation, and compilation os Various volumes. But although we have acquired a very numerous store os ancient as weli as modern works by the mani-

sold intermediation of the religious, yet we must laud the Preachers with special praise, in that we have sound themabove ali the religious most freely communicative of their stores Without jealousy, and proved them to be imbued withan almost Divine liberality, not greedy but satting possessors

France, Germany, and Italy, money flying sortii in abundanceto anticipate their demands; nor were they hindered by any distance or by the svry of the seas, or by the lack of means sor

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OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLECTING

means, as a type of the resurrection to come, we resuscitated

them and restored them again to new lisse and health. Moreover, we had always in Our disserent manors no smali multitude of copyisis and scribes, of binders, correctors, illU-

minators, and generalty of ait who could usesilly labour in the service of books. Finalty, ali os both seges and of everyrank or position who had any hind of association with books, could most eastly open by their knocking the door of ourheari, and find a fit resting-place in Our affection and faVour. In so much did we receive those who brought books, that themultitude of those who had prece led them did not lessen thewelcome of the aster-comers, nor were the favoUrs we hadawarded yesterday prejudiciat to those of to-day. Wheresore, CVer Using ali the persons we have named as a Lind of magnet to attraci books, we had the destred accession of the vesseis of science and a multitudinous flight of the finest volumes. And this is what we undertook to narrate in the present

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Chapter IX

usesul to the opinions of our fores athers, yet we have always destred with more undoubting avidity to investigate the well- tested labours of the ancients. For whether they had by naturea greater vigoUr of mental sagacity, or whether they perhapsindulged in closer application to study, or whether they were assisted in their progress by both these things, one thing weare perfectly clear abolit, that their successors are barely capa-ble os discussing the discoveries of their sorerunners, and of acquiring those things as pupils whicli the ancients dug out by dissiculi emoris of discovery. For as we read that the menos old were os a more excellent degree of bodily developinent than modern times are found to produce, it is by no means absurd to suppose that most of the ancients were distinguished by brighter faculties, feeing that in the laboUrs they accom

Phocas writes in the prologue to his Grammar:

adayS OUr contemporaries caretessty spend a sew years of holyouth, alternating with the excesses of Vice, and when the passions have been calmed, and they have alta ined the capacityos discerning truth so dissiculi to discover, they soon become

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Further, as Ovid in the sirst book of the De Vetula justly complains:

Thus Philosophy is seen Exiled, and Philopecvny is queen,

whicli is known to be the most violent polson os learning. How the ancients indeed regarded lisse as the only limit os study, is stlown by Valerius, in his book addressed to Tiberius, by many examples. Carneades, he says, was a laborious and liselong soldier of wisdom: aster he had lived ninely years, thesame day put an end to his life and his philosophiging. Isocrates in his ninely-s urth year wrote a most nobie work. Sophocles did the fame when nearly a hundred years old. Simonides wrote poems in his eightieth year. Aulus Gellius did not destreto live longer than he should be able to write, as he says himself in the prologue to the Noctes Atticae. The servour os study whicli possessed Euclid the Socratic, Taurus the philosopher Used to relate to incite yοUng men tostudy, as Gellius telis in the book we have mentioned. For the Athenians, haling the people of Megara, decreed that is any of the Megarensians entered Athens, he should be put to death. Then Euclid, who was a Megarensian, and had attended thelectures of Socrates bes ore this decree, disguising himself in a woman'S dress, Used to go from Megara to Athens by nightto hear Socrates, a distance of twenty miles and bach. Imprudent and excessive was the servour of Archimedes, a lover of

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geometry, who would not declare his name, nor list his head

There are Very many such examples of our proposition, butthe brevity we aim at does not allow us to recati them. BUt, pa insul to relate, the cierks who are famous in these days pur-SUe a Very disserent course. Afflicted with ambition in their tender years, and stightly fastening to their uniried arms the Icarian wings of presumption, they prematurely snatch themaster's cap ; and mere boys become ianworthy professors of the severat faculties, through whicli they do not mahe their

staminering the Categories and Peri Hermeneias, in the writ-ing of whicli the great Aristocle is sal l to have dipped his penin his heari's blood. Passing through these faculties with bane-sul haste and a harmsul diploma, they lay violent hands Upon Moses, and sprinkling about their faces dark waters and isichclou is of the skies, they offer their hea is, hinhonoured by thesnows of age, sor the mitre of the pontificate. This pest is greatly encouraged, and they are helped to attain this fantastic