LIS. Pray give us your sentiments upon this latter subject. We have almost the whole day before us:--the sun has hardly begun to decline from his highest point.

LYSAND. A very pretty and smooth subject to discuss, truly! The longest day and the most effectually-renovated powers of body and mind, are hardly sufficient to come to any satisfactory conclusion, upon the subject. How can I, therefore, after the fatigues of the whole of yesterday, and with barely seven hours of daylight yet to follow, pretend to enter upon it? No: I will here only barely mention TRITHEMIUS[458]--who might have been numbered among the patriarchal bibliographers we noticed when discoursing in our friend's CABINET--as an author from whom considerable assistance has been received respecting early typographical researches. Indeed, Trithemius merits a more marked distinction in the annals of Literature than many are supposed to grant him: at any rate, I wish his labours were better known to our own countrymen.

[Footnote 458: We are indebted to the Abbe TRITHEMIUS, who was a diligent chronicler and indefatigable visitor of old Libraries, for a good deal of curious and interesting intelligence; and however Scioppius (_De Orig. Doms Austriac._), Brower (_Vit. Fortunat. Pictav._, p. 18.), and Possevinus (_Apparant sacr._ p. 945), may carp at his simplicity and want of judgment, yet, as Baillet (from whom I have borrowed the foregoing authorities) has justly remarked--"since the time of Trithemius there have been many libraries, particularly in Germany, which have been pillaged or burnt in the destruction of monasteries; so that the books which he describes as having seen in many places, purposely visited by him for inspection, may have been destroyed in the conflagration of religious houses."

_Jugemens des Savans_; vol. ii., pt. i., p. 71, edit. 12mo.

It is from Trithemius, after all, that we have the only _direct_ evidence concerning the origin of printing with metal types: and the bibliographical world is much indebted to Chevelier (_L'Origine de l'Imprimerie de Paris_, 1691, 4to., pp. 3-6.) for having been the first to adduce the positive evidence of this writer; who tells us, in his valuable _Chronicon Hirsaugiens_ (1690, 2 vols. folio), that he received his testimony from the mouth of Fust's son-in-law--"ex ore Petri Opilionis audivi,"--that Guttenburg [Transcriber's Note: Gutenberg] was the author of the invention. The historical works of Trithemius were collected and published in 1601, in folio, two parts, and his other works are minutely detailed in the 9th volume of the _Dictionnarie [Transcriber's Note: Dictionnaire]

Historique_, published at Caen, in 1789. Of these, one of the most curious is his _Polygraphia_: being first printed at Paris, in 1518, in a beautiful folio volume; and presenting us, in the frontispiece, with a portrait of the abbe; which is probably the first, if not the only legitimate, print of him extant. Whether it be copied from a figure on his tomb--as it has a good deal of the _monumental_ character--I have no means of ascertaining. For the gratification of all tasteful bibliomaniacs, an admirable facsimile is here annexed. The _Polygraphia_ of Trithemius was translated into French, and published in 1601, folio. His work _De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis_, Colon, 1546, 4to., with two appendices, contains much valuable matter. The author died in his 55th year, A.D.

1516: according to the inscription upon his tomb in the monastery of the Benedictines at Wirtzburg. His life has been written by Busaeus, a Jesuit. See La Monnoye's note in the _Jugemens des Savans_; _ibid._

[Illustration]]

LIS. I will set his works down among my literary _desiderata_. But proceed.

LYSAND. With what? Am I to talk for ever?

BELIN. While you discourse so much to the purpose, you may surely not object to a continuance of this conversation. I wish only to be informed whether bibliomaniacs are indisputably known by the prevalence of all, or of any, of the symptoms which you have just described.

ALMAN. Is there any other passion, or fancy, in the book-way, from which we may judge of Bibliomaniacism?

LYSAND. Let me consider. Yes; there is one other characteristic of the book-madman that may as well be noticed. It is an ardent desire to collect ALL THE EDITIONS of a work which have been published. Not only the FIRST--whether _uncut, upon large paper_, _in the black-letter_, _unique_, _tall_, or _illustrated_--but ALL the editions.[459]

[Footnote 459: I frankly confess that I was, myself, once desperately afflicted with this _eleventh_ symptom of _The Bibliomania_; having collected not fewer than _seventy-five_ editions of the GREEK TESTAMENT--but time has cooled my ardour, and mended my judgment. I have discarded seventy, and retain only five: which are _R. Steevens's_ of 1550, _The Elzevir_ of 1624, _Mill's_ of 1707, _Westein's_ of 1751, and _Griesbach's_ of 1810--as beautifully and accurately reprinted at Oxford.]

BELIN. Strange--but true, I warrant!

LYSAND. Most true; but, in my humble opinion, most ridiculous; for what can a sensible man desire beyond the earliest and best editions of a work?

Be it also noticed that these works are sometimes very capricious and extroardinary [Transcriber's Note: extraordinary]. Thus, BAPTISTA is wretched unless he possess every edition of our early grammarians, _Holt_, _Stanbridge_, and _Whittinton_: a reimpression, or a new edition, is a matter of almost equal indifference: for his slumbers are broken and oppressive unless _all_ the _dear Wynkyns_ and _Pynsons_ are found within his closet!--Up starts FLORIZEL, and blows his bugle, at the annunciation of any work, new or old, upon the diversions of _Hawking_, _Hunting_, or _Fishing_![460] Carry him through CAMILLO'S cabinet of Dutch pictures, and you will see how instinctively, as it were, his eyes are fixed upon a sporting piece by Wouvermans. The hooded hawk, in his estimation, hath more charms than Guido's Madonna:--how he envies every rider upon his white horse!--how he burns to bestride the foremost steed, and to mingle in the fair throng, who turn their blue eyes to the scarcely bluer expanse of heaven! Here he recognises _Gervase Markham_, spurring his courser; and there he fancies himself lifting _Dame Juliana_ from her horse!

Happy deception! dear fiction! says Florizel--while he throws his eyes in an opposite direction, and views every printed book upon the subject, from _Barnes_ to _Thornton_.

[Footnote 460: Some superficial notes, accompanied by an interesting wood-cut of a man carrying hawks for sale, in my edition of Robinson's translation of _More's Utopia_, kindled, in the breast of Mr. Joseph Haslewood, a prodigious ardour to pursue the subjects above-mentioned to their farthest possible limits. Not Eolus himself excited greater commotion in the Mediterranean waves than did my bibliomaniacal friend in agitating the black-letter ocean--'a sedibus imis'--for the discovering of every volume which had been published upon these delectable pursuits.

Accordingly there appeared in due time--'[post] magni procedere menses'--some very ingenious and elaborate disquisitions upon Hunting and Hawking and Fishing, in the ninth and tenth volumes of _The Censura Literaria_; which, with such additions as his enlarged experience has subsequently obtained, might be thought an interesting work if reprinted in a duodecimo volume. But Mr. Haslewood's mind, as was to be expected, could not rest satisfied with what he considered as mere _nuclei_ productions: accordingly, it became clothed with larger wings, and meditated a bolder flight; and after soaring in a _hawk_-like manner, to mark the object of its prey, it pounced upon the book of _Hawking, Hunting, Fishing, &c._, which had been reprinted by W. de Worde, from the original edition published in the abbey of St. Albans. Prefixed to the republication of this curious volume, the reader will discover a great deal of laborious and successful research connected with the book and its author. And yet I question whether, in the midst of all the wood-cuts with which it abounds, there be found any thing more suitable to the 'high and mounting spirit' (see Braithwait's amusing discourse upon Hawking, in his _English Gentleman_, p. 200-1.) of the editor's taste, than the ensuing representation of a pilgrim Hawker?!--taken from one of the frontispieces of _L'Acadamia Peregrina del Doni_; 1552, 4to., fol. 73.

[Illustration]

We will conclude this _Hawking_ note with the following excerpt from one of the earliest editions of the abridgment of our statutes:--'nul home pringe les oves dascu[n]

_faucon_, _goshawke_, _lan_, ou swan hors de le nyst sur peyn de inprison p[our] vn an et vn iour et de faire fyn all volunte le roy et que nul home puis le fest de paque p[ro]chyn auenpart ascun _hawke_ de le brode dengl' appell vne _nyesse_, _goshawke_, _lan_, ou _laneret_ sur sa mayn, sur peyn de forfaiture son _hawke_, et que null enchasse ascun hawke hors de c[ou]uerte sur peyne de forfaiture x li.

lun moyte al roy et lauter a celuy que voet sur.' Anno xi.

H. vij. ca. xvij. _Abbreviamentum Statutorum_; printed by Pynson, 1499, 8vo., fol. lxxvij.]

There are other tastes of an equally strange, but more sombre, character. DION will possess every work which has any connexion, intimate or remote, with _Latimer_ and _Swedenborg_;[461] while ANTIGONUS is resolved upon securing every lucubration of _Withers_ or _Warburton_; whether grave or gay, lively or severe.

[Footnote 461: As I could not consistently give EMANUEL SWEDENBORG a niche among the bibliomaniacal heroes noticed towards the conclusion of Part V. of this work, I have reserved, for the present place, a few extracts of the titles of his works, from a catalogue of the same, published in 1785; which I strenuously advise the curious to get possession of--and for two reasons: first, if he be a _Swedenborgian_, his happiness will be nearly complete, and he will thank me for having pointed out such a source of comfort to him: secondly, if he be _not_ a disciple of the same master, he may be amused by meditating upon the strange whims and fancies which possess certain individuals, and which have sufficient attractions yet to make proselytes and converts!! Written March 10, A.D. 1811. Now for the extracts. '_A Catalogue of the printed and unprinted Works_ of the HON. EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, in chronological order. To which are added some observations, recommending the perusal of his Theological Writings. Together with a compendious view of the Faith of a new Heaven and a new Church, in its Universal and Particular Forms. London, printed by Robert Hindmarsh, No. 32, Clerkenwell Close, MDCCLXXXV. Those marked thus (*) are translated into English.'

NO. 18. _Regnum Animale_, or the Animal Kingdom in three parts. The first treats of the Viscera of the Abdomen, or the lower Region. The second, of the Viscera of the Breast, or of the Organs of the superior Region. The third, of the Skin, the Touch, and the Taste, and of organical forms in general. Part printed at the Hague, and part in London, 1744, 1745, in 4to.

19. _De Cultu et Amore Dei_, or of the Worship and Love of God. The first part treats of the Origin of the Earth, of Paradise, of the Birth, Infancy, and Love of the first Man, or Adam. London, 1744, in 4to. The second part treats of the Marriage of the first man, of the Soul, of the intellectual Spirit, of the State of Integrity, and of the Image of God.

London, 1745, 4to.

20. _Arcana Coelestia_, or Heavenly Mysteries contained in the Sacred Scriptures or Word of the Lord, manifested and laid open, in an Explanation of the Books of Genesis and Exodus, interspersed with relations of wonderful things seen in the World of Spirits, and the Heaven of Angels. London, from 1747 to 1758, in eight volumes, 4to. "In this work the reader is taught to regard the letter of the Scriptures as the Repository of Holy and Divine Things within; as a Cabinet containing the infinite Treasures and bright Gems of spiritual and celestial Wisdom; &c."(*)....

21. _De Coelo et Inferno_; or A Treatise concerning Heaven and Hell, and of the wonderful Things therein heard and seen. London, 1758, 4to. "By this work the reader may attain to some conception of the heavenly kingdom, and may learn therein that all social virtues, and all the tender affections that give consistence and harmony to society, and do honour to humanity, find place and exercise in the utmost purity in those delectable abodes; where every thing that can delight the eye, or rejoice the heart, entertain the imagination, or exalt the understanding, conspire with Innocence, Love, Joy, and Peace, to bless the spirits of just men made perfect, and to make glad the city of our God," &c.(*)]

LOREN. I suspect that, like many dashing artists, you are painting for _effect_?

PHIL. On the part of Lysander, I may safely affirm that the preceding has been no caricatured description. I know more than one Baptista, and Florizel, and Dion, and Antigonus.

LIS. I hope I shall shortly add to the number of such an enthusiastic class of book-collectors--I'm for _Natural History_; and, in this department, for birds and beasts--_Gesner_ and _Bewick_![462]

[Footnote 462: The works upon Natural History by Gesner, and especially the large tomes published about the middle of the sixteenth century, are, some of them, well worth procuring; on account of the fidelity and execution of the wood-cuts of birds and animals. Bewick's earliest editions of _Birds_ and _Beasts_ should be in the cabinet of every choice collector.]

PHIL. Restrain your wild feelings--listen to the sober satire of Lysander. Have you nothing else, in closing this symptomatic subject, to discourse upon?

LYSAND. There is certainly another point not very remotely connected with the two preceding; and it is this: a passion to possess large and voluminous works, and to estimate the treasures of our libraries rather by their extent and splendour than by their intrinsic worth: forgetting how prettily Ronsard[463] has illustrated this subject by the utility and beauty of small rivers in comparison with those which overflow their banks and spread destruction around. "Oh combien (says Cailleau, in his _Roman Bibliographique_) un petit livre bien pense, bein [Transcriber's Note: bien] plein, et bein [Transcriber's Note: bien] ecrit, est plus agreable, plus utile a lire, que ces vastes compilations a la formation desquelles l'interet a preside plus souvent que le bon-got!"

[Footnote 463:

Ie te confesse bien que le fleuve de Seine A le cours grand et long, mais tousiours il attraine Avec soy de la fange, et ses plis recourbrez, Sans estre iamais nets, sont tousiours embourbez: Vn petit ruisselet a tousiours l'onde nette, Aussi le papillon et la gentille auette Y vont puiser de l'eau, et non en ces torrens Qui tonnent d'vn grand bruit pas les roches courant: Petit Sonnets bien faits, belles chansons petites, Petits discourds gentils, sont les fleurs des Charites, Des Soeurs et d'Apollon, qui ne daignent aymer Ceux qui chantent une oeuvre aussi grand que la mer, Sans riue ny sans fond, de tempestes armee Et qui iamais ne dort tranquille ny calmee.

_Poems de Ronsard_; fol. 171. Paris 1660. 12mo.

These are pretty lines, and have a melodious flow; but Ronsard, in his 8 and 9 feet metres, is one of the most fascinating of the old French poets. The subject, above alluded to by Lysander, may be yet more strongly illustrated: for thus speaks Spizelius upon it. 'Solent viri multijugae lectionis, qui avide, quos possunt versant libros, ut in mentis ventrem trajicere eos velle, totosque devorare videantur, elegantis proverbii saliva LIBRORUM HELLUONES nuncupari; ipso quidem Tullio praelucente, qui avidos lectores librorum, ac propemodum insiatiables Helluones dixit, siquidem _vastissima volumina_ percurrant, et quicquid boni succi exprimere possunt, propriis et alienis impendant emolumentis." Again: "Maxima cum sit eorum Literarum stoliditas, qui, quod nocte somniarunt, continuo edunt in lucem, neque ipsa virium imbecillitate suarum, ab arduo scribendi munere et onere, sese revocari patiuntur,"

&c. _Infelix Literatus_; pp. 295, 447. Morof is worth our notice upon this subject: "Veniamus ad Bibliothecas ipsas, quales vel privatae sunt, vel publicae. Illae, quanquam in molem tantam non excrescant ut publicae; sunt tamen etiam inter privatos viri illustres et opulenti qui in libris omnis generis coemendis nullis parcunt sumptibus. Quorum [Greek: bibliomanian] reprehendit Seneca _Ep._ 2. 45, _et de Tranquil. animi_ c. 9, ridet Lucianus in libello [Greek: pros apaideuton kai polla biblia onoumenon]; et Auson.

_epigr._ 43. Sunt ita animati nonnulli, ut

_magno de flumine malint Quam de fonticulo tantundem sumere;_

cum vastioris Bibliothecae minor interdum usus sit, quam ejus quae selectis paucioribus libris constat." _Polyhist.

Literar._ vol. i., p. 21. He goes on in a very amusing manner; but this note may be thought already too long.]

BELIN. Well; we live in a marvellous book-collecting and book-reading age--yet a word more:

ALMAN. I crave your pardon, Belinda; but I have a thought which must be now imparted, or the consequence may be serious.

LYSAND. I wait both your commands.

ALMAN. My thought--or rather the subject which now occupies my mind--is this: You have told us of the symptoms of the _Disease of Book-Madness_, now pray inform us, as a tender-hearted physician, what are the _means of its cure_?

BELIN. The very question I was about to put to our bibliomaniacal physician. Pray inform us what are the means of cure in this disorder?

LYSAND. You should say PROBABLE MEANS OF CURE, as I verily believe there are no certain and correct remedies.

BELIN. Well, Sir, _probable_ means--if it must be so. Discourse largely and distinctly upon these.

LYSAND. Briefly and perspicuously, if you please: and thus we begin.

In the _first place_, the disease of the Bibliomania is materially softened, or rendered mild, by directing our studies to _useful_ and _profitable_ works; whether these be printed upon small or large paper, in the gothic, roman, or italic type. To consider merely the _intrinsic excellence_, and not the _exterior splendour_, or adventitious value, of any production will keep us perhaps wholly free from this disease. Let the midnight lamp be burnt to illuminate the stores of antiquity--whether they be romances, or chronicles, or legends, and whether they be printed by ALDUS or CAXTON--if a brighter lustre can thence be thrown upon the pages of modern learning! To trace genius to its source, or to see how she has been influenced or modified by the lore of past times, is both a pleasing and profitable pursuit. To see how Shakspeare, here and there, has plucked a flower from some old ballad or popular tale, to enrich his own unperishable garland;--to follow Spenser and Milton in their delightful labyrinths 'midst the splendour of Italian literature; are studies which stamp a dignity upon our intellectual characters! But, in such a pursuit, let us not overlook the wisdom of modern times, nor fancy that what is only ancient can be excellent. We must remember that Bacon, Boyle, Locke, Taylor, Chillingworth, Robertson, Hume, Gibbon, and Paley, are names which always command attention from the wise, and remind us of the improved state of reason and acquired knowledge during the two last centuries.

ALMAN. There seems at least sound sense, with the prospect of much future good, in this _first_ recipe. What is your second.