{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_626/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_626","id":"gutenberg_626","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/626","summary":null,"tags":["Bibliomania","Book collecting","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Manuscripts, Medieval -- Collectors and collecting"],"text":"Produced by Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LOVE OF BOOKS\n\nTHE PHILOBIBLON OF RICHARD DE BURY\n\n\nTRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH\n\nBY\n\nE. C. THOMAS\n\n\n\n\"TAKE THOU A BOOK INTO THINE HANDS AS SIMON THE JUST TOOK THE CHILD\nJESUS INTO HIS ARMS TO CARRY HIM AND KISS HIM.  AND WHEN THOU HAST\nFINISHED READING, CLOSE THE BOOK AND GIVE THANKS FOR EVERY WORD OUT OF\nTHE MOUTH OF GOD; BECAUSE IN THE LORD'S FIELD THOU HAST FOUND A HIDDEN\nTREASURE.\"\n\nTHOMAS A KEMPIS: Doctrinale Juvenum\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe Author of the Book.\n\nRichard de Bury (1281-1345), so called from being born near Bury St.\nEdmunds, was the son of Sir Richard Aungerville. He studied at Oxford;\nand was subsequently chosen to be tutor to Prince Edward of Windsor,\nafterwards Edward III.  His loyalty to the cause of Queen Isabella and\nthe Prince involved him in danger.  On the accession of his pupil he\nwas made successively Cofferer, Treasurer of the Wardrobe, Archdeacon\nof Northampton, Prebendary of Lincoln, Sarum, and Lichfield, Keeper of\nthe Privy Purse, Ambassador on two occasions to Pope John XXII, who\nappointed him a chaplain of the papal chapel, Dean of Wells, and\nultimately, at the end of the year 1333, Bishop of Durham; the King and\nQueen, the King of Scots, and all the magnates north of the Trent,\ntogether with a multitude of nobles and many others, were present at\nhis enthronization.  It is noteworthy that during his stay at Avignon,\nprobably in 1330, he made the acquaintance of Petrarch, who has left us\na brief account of their intercourse.  In 1332 Richard visited\nCambridge, as one of the King's commissioners, to inquire into the\nstate of the King's Scholars there, and perhaps then became a member of\nthe Gild of St. Mary--one of the two gilds which founded Corpus Christi\nCollege.\n\nIn 1334 he became High Chancellor of England, and Treasurer in 1336,\nresigning the former office in 1335, so that he might help the King in\ndealing with affairs abroad and in Scotland, and took a most\ndistinguished part in diplomatic negociations between England and\nFrance.  In 1339 he was again in his bishopric.  Thereafter his name\noccurs often among those appointed to treat of peace with Philip of\nFrance, and with Bruce of Scotland.  It appears that he was not in\nParliament in 1344.  Wasted by long sickness--longa infirmitate\ndecoctus--on the 14th of April, 1345, Richard de Bury died at Auckland,\nand was buried in Durham Cathedral.\n\nDominus Ricardus de Bury migravit ad Dominum.\n\n\n\nThe Bishop as Booklover.\n\nAccording to the concluding note, the Philobiblon was completed on the\nbishop's fifty-eighth birthday, the 24th of January, 1345, so that even\nthough weakened by illness, Richard must have been actively engaged in\nhis literary efforts to the very end of his generous and noble life.\nHis enthusiastic devoted biographer Chambre[1] gives a vivid account of\nthe bishop's bookloving propensities, supplementary to what can be\ngathered from the Philobiblon itself.  Iste summe delectabatur in\nmultitudine librorum; he had more books, as was commonly reported, than\nall the other English bishops put together.  He had a separate library\nin each of his residences, and wherever he was residing, so many books\nlay about his bed-chamber, that it was hardly possible to stand or move\nwithout treading upon them.  All the time he could spare from business\nwas devoted either to religious offices or to his books.  Every day\nwhile at table he would have a book read to him, unless some special\nguest were present, and afterwards would engage in discussion on the\nsubject of the reading.  The haughty Anthony Bec delighted in the\nappendages of royalty--to be addressed by nobles kneeling, and to be\nwaited on in his presence-chamber and at his table by Knights\nbare-headed and standing; but De Bury loved to surround himself with\nlearned scholars.  Among these were such men as Thomas Bradwardine,\nafterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and author of the De Causa Dei;\nRichard Fitzralph, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, and famous for his\nhostility to the mendicant orders; Walter Burley, who dedicated to him\na translation of the Politics of Aristotle made at his suggestion; John\nMauduit, the astronomer; Robert Holkot, author of many books; Richard\nde Kilvington; Richard Benworth, afterwards Bishop of London; and\nWalter Seagrave, who became Dean of Chichester.\"[2]\n\n\n\n[1] Cp. Surtees Society's edition of Scriptores Tres; also Wharton's\nAnglia Sacra.\n\n[2] An unsuccessful attempt has been made to transfer the authorship of\nthe book to Robert Holkot.  Various theories have been advanced against\nRichard's claims.  It is noteworthy that his contemporary Adam Murimuth\ndisparages him as \"mediocriter literatus, volens tamen magnus clericus\nreputari,\" but such disparagement must be taken with the utmost\ncaution. The really difficult fact to be accounted for is the omission\non the part of Chambre to mention the book.\n\n\n\nThe Bishop's Books.\n\nIn the Philobiblon, Richard de Bury frankly and clearly describes his\nmeans and method of collecting books.  Anyhow his object was clearly\nnot selfish.  The treatise contains his rules for the library of the\nnew College at Oxford--Durham College (where Trinity College now\nstands)--which he practically founded, though his successor, Bishop\nHatfield, carried the scheme into effect.  It is traditionally reported\nthat Richard's books were sent, in his lifetime or after his death, to\nthe house of the Durham Benedictines at Oxford, and there remained\nuntil the dissolution of the College by Henry VIII., when they were\ndispersed, some going into Duke Humphrey's (the University) library,\nothers to Balliol College, and the remainder passing into the hands of\nDr. George Owen, who purchased the site of the dissolved College.[3]\n\n[3] Mr. J. W. Clark puts the matter as follows:--\"Durham College,\nmaintained by the Benedictines of Durham, was supplied with books from\nthe mother-house, lists of which have been preserved; and subsequently\na library was built there to contain the collection bequeathed in 1345\nby Richard de Bury\" (The Care of Books, p.  142).  Mr. Thomas points\nout that De Bury's executors sold at least some portion of his books;\nand, moreover, his biographer says nothing of a library at Oxford.\nPossibly the scheme was never carried out.  In the British Museum (Roy.\n13 D. iv. 3) is a large folio MS. of the works of John of Salisbury,\nwhich was one of the books bought back from the Bishop's executors.\n\nUnfortunately, the \"special catalogue\" of his books prepared by Richard\nhas not come down to us; but \"from his own book and from the books\ncited in the works of his friends and housemates, who may reasonably be\nsupposed to have drawn largely from the bishop's collection, it would\nbe possible to restore a hypothetical but not improbable Bibliotheca\nRicardi de Bury.  The difficulty would be with that contemporary\nliterature, which they would think below the dignity of quotation, but\nwhich we know the Bishop collected.\"\n\n\n\nEarly Editions of the Philobiblon.\n\nThe book was first printed at Cologne in 1473, at Spires in 1483, and\nat Paris in 1500.  The first English edition appeared in 1598-9, edited\nby Thomas James, Bodley's first librarian.  Other editions appeared in\nGermany in 1610, 1614, 1674 and 1703; at Paris in 1856; at Albany in\n1861.  The texts were, with the exception of those issued in 1483 and\n1599, based on the 1473 edition; though the French edition and\ntranslation of 1856, prepared by M. Cocheris, claimed to be a critical\nversion, it left the text untouched, and merely gave the various\nreadings of the three Paris manuscripts at the foot of the pages; these\nreadings are moreover badly chosen, and the faults of the version are\nfurther to be referred to the use of the ill-printed 1703 edition as\ncopy.\n\nIn 1832 there appeared an anonymous English translation, now known to\nhave been by J. B. Inglis; it followed the edition of 1473, with all\nits errors and inaccuracies.\n\nMr. E. C. Thomas' Text.--The first true text of the Philobiblon, the\nresult of a careful examination of twenty-eight MSS., and of the\nvarious printed editions, appeared in the year 1888:\n\n\"The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, Treasurer and\nChancellor of Edward III, edited and translated by Ernest C.  Thomas,\nBarrister-at-law, late Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, and\nLibrarian of the Oxford Union.  London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.\"\n\nFor fifteen years the enthusiastic editor--an ideal Bibliophile--had\ntoiled at his labour of love, and his work was on all sides received\nwith the recognition due to his monumental achievement.  To the great\nloss of English learning, he did not long survive the conclusion of his\nlabours.  The very limited edition of the work was soon exhausted, and\nit is by the most generous permission of his father, Mr. John Thomas,\nof Lower Broughton, Manchester, that the translation--the only\ntrustworthy rendering of Richard de Bury's precious treatise--is now,\nfor the first time, made accessible to the larger book-loving public,\nand fittingly inaugurates the present series of English classics.  The\ngeneral Editor desires to express his best thanks to Mr. John Thomas,\nas also to Messrs. Kegan Paul, for their kindness in allowing him to\navail himself of the materials included in the 1888 edition of the\nwork.  He has attempted, in the brief Preface and Notes, to condense\nMr. Thomas' labours in such a way as would have been acceptable to the\nlamented scholar, and though he has made bold to explain some few\ntextual difficulties, and to add some few references, he would fain\nhope that these additions have been made with modest caution--with the\nreverence due to the unstinted toil of a Bibliophile after Richard de\nBury's own pattern.  Yet once again Richard de Bury's Philobiblon,\nedited and translated into English by E. C. Thomas, is presented to new\ngenerations of book-lovers:--\"LIBRORUM DILECTORIBUS.\"\n\n\n\nTHE PHILOBIBLON NEWLY TRANSLATED\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\n     I  That the treasure of wisdom is chiefly contained in books\n\n    II  The degree of affection that is properly due to books\n\n   III  What we are to think of the price in the buying of books\n\n    IV  The complaint of books against the clergy already promoted\n\n     V  The complaint of books against the possessioners\n\n    VI  The complaint of books against the mendicants\n\n   VII  The complaint of books against wars\n\n  VIII  Of the numerous opportunities we have had of collecting a\n        store of books\n\n    IX  How, although we preferred the works of the ancients, we\n        have not condemned the studies of the moderns\n\n     X  Of the gradual perfecting of books\n\n    XI  Why we have preferred books of liberal learning to books of law\n\n   XII  Why we have caused books of grammar to be so diligently\n        prepared\n\n  XIII  Why we have not wholly neglected the fables of the poets\n\n   XIV  Who ought to be special lovers of books\n\n    XV  Of the advantages of the love of books\n\n   XVI  That it is meritorious to write new books and to renew the old\n\n  XVII  Of showing due propriety in the custody of books\n\n XVIII  Showeth that we have collected  so great store of books for\n        the common benefit of scholars and not only for our own pleasure\n\n   XIX  Of the manner of lending all our books to students\n\n    XX  An exhortation to scholars to requite us by pious prayers\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nTo all the faithful of Christ to whom the tenor of these presents may\ncome, Richard de Bury, by the divine mercy Bishop of Durham, wisheth\neverlasting salvation in the Lord and to present continually a pious\nmemorial of himself before God, alike in his lifetime and after his\ndeath.\n\nWhat shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me? asks\nthe most devout Psalmist, an invincible King and first among the\nprophets; in which most grateful question he approves himself a willing\nthank-offerer, a multifarious debtor, and one who wishes for a holier\ncounsellor than himself: agreeing with Aristotle, the chief of\nphilosophers, who shows (in the 3rd and 6th books of his Ethics) that\nall action depends upon counsel.\n\nAnd indeed if so wonderful a prophet, having a fore-knowledge of divine\nsecrets, wished so anxiously to consider how he might gratefully repay\nthe blessings graciously bestowed, what can we fitly do, who are but\nrude thanksgivers and most greedy receivers, laden with infinite divine\nbenefits?  Assuredly we ought with anxious deliberation and abundant\nconsideration, having first invoked the Sevenfold Spirit, that it may\nburn in our musings as an illuminating fire, fervently to prepare a way\nwithout hinderance, that the bestower of all things may be cheerfully\nworshipped in return for the gifts that He has bestowed, that our\nneighbour may be relieved of his burden, and that the guilt contracted\nby sinners every day may be redeemed by the atonement of almsgiving.\n\nForewarned therefore through the admonition of the Psalmist's devotion\nby Him who alone prevents and perfects the goodwill of man, without\nWhom we have no power even so much as to think, and Whose gift we doubt\nnot it is, if we have done anything good, we have diligently inquired\nand considered in our own heart as well as with others, what among the\ngood offices of various works of piety would most please the Almighty,\nand would be more beneficial to the Church Militant.  And lo! there\nsoon occurred to our contemplation a host of unhappy, nay, rather of\nelect scholars, in whom God the Creator and Nature His handmaid planted\nthe roots of excellent morals and of famous sciences, but whom the\npoverty of their circumstances so oppressed that before the frown of\nadverse fortune the seeds of excellence, so fruitful in the cultivated\nfield of youth, not being watered by the rain that they require, are\nforced to wither away. Thus it happens that \"bright virtue lurks buried\nin obscurity,\" to use the words of Boethius, and burning lights are not\nput under a bushel, but for want of oil are utterly extinguished.  Thus\nthe field, so full of flower in Spring, has withered up before harvest\ntime; thus wheat degenerates to tares, and vines into the wild vines,\nand thus olives run into the wild olive; the tender stems rot away\naltogether, and those who might have grown up into strong pillars of\nthe Church, being endowed with the capacity of a subtle intellect,\nabandon the schools of learning.  With poverty only as their\nstepmother, they are repelled violently from the nectared cup of\nphilosophy as soon as they have tasted of it and have become more\nfiercely thirsty by the very taste.  Though fit for the liberal arts\nand disposed to study the sacred writings alone, being deprived of the\naid of their friends, by a kind of apostasy they return to the\nmechanical arts solely to gain a livelihood, to the loss of the Church\nand the degradation of the whole clergy.  Thus Mother Church conceiving\nsons is compelled to miscarry, nay, some misshapen monster is born\nuntimely from her womb, and for lack of that little with which Nature\nis contented, she loses excellent pupils, who might afterwards become\nchampions and athletes of the faith.  Alas, how suddenly the woof is\ncut, while the hand of the weaver is beginning his work! Alas, how the\nsun is eclipsed in the brightness of the dawn, and the planet in its\ncourse is hurled backwards, and, while it bears the nature and likeness\nof a star suddenly drops and becomes a meteor! What more piteous sight\ncan the pious man behold? What can more sharply stir the bowels of his\npity? What can more easily melt a heart hard as an anvil into hot\ntears? On the other hand, let us recall from past experience how much\nit has profited the whole Christian commonwealth, not indeed to\nenervate students with the delights of a Sardanapalus or the riches of\na Croesus, but rather to support them in their poverty with the frugal\nmeans that become the scholar.  How many have we seen with our eyes,\nhow many have we read of in books, who, distinguished by no pride of\nbirth, and rejoicing in no rich inheritance, but supported only by the\npiety of the good, have made their way to apostolic chairs, have most\nworthily presided over faithful subjects, have bent the necks of the\nproud and lofty to the ecclesiastical yoke and have extended further\nthe liberties of the Church!\n\nAccordingly, having taken a survey of human necessities in every\ndirection, with a view to bestow our charity upon them, our\ncompassionate inclinations have chosen to bear pious aid to this\ncalamitous class of men, in whom there is nevertheless such hope of\nadvantage to the Church, and to provide for them, not only in respect\nof things necessary to their support, but much more in respect of the\nbooks so useful to their studies.  To this end, most acceptable in the\nsight of God, our attention has long been unweariedly devoted.  This\necstatic love has carried us away so powerfully, that we have resigned\nall thoughts of other earthly things, and have given ourselves up to a\npassion for acquiring books.  That our intent and purpose, therefore,\nmay be known to posterity as well as to our contemporaries, and that we\nmay for ever stop the perverse tongues of gossipers as far as we are\nconcerned, we have published a little treatise written in the lightest\nstyle of the moderns; for it is ridiculous to find a slight matter\ntreated of in a pompous style.  And this treatise (divided into twenty\nchapters) will clear the love we have had for books from the charge of\nexcess, will expound the purpose of our intense devotion, and will\nnarrate more clearly than light all the circumstances of our\nundertaking.  And because it principally treats of the love of books,\nwe have chosen, after the fashion of the ancient Romans, fondly to name\nit by a Greek word, Philobiblon.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHAT THE TREASURE OF WISDOM IS CHIEFLY CONTAINED IN BOOKS\n\nThe desirable treasure of wisdom and science, which all men desire by\nan instinct of nature, infinitely surpasses all the riches of the\nworld; in respect of which precious stones are worthless; in comparison\nwith which silver is as clay and pure gold is as a little sand; at\nwhose splendour the sun and moon are dark to look upon; compared with\nwhose marvellous sweetness honey and manna are bitter to the taste.  O\nvalue of wisdom that fadeth not away with time, virtue ever\nflourishing, that cleanseth its possessor from all venom!  O heavenly\ngift of the divine bounty, descending from the Father of lights, that\nthou mayest exalt the rational soul to the very heavens!  Thou art the\ncelestial nourishment of the intellect, which those who eat shall still\nhunger and those who drink shall still thirst, and the gladdening\nharmony of the languishing soul which he that hears shall never be\nconfounded.  Thou art the moderator and rule of morals, which he who\nfollows shall not sin.  By thee kings reign and princes decree justice.\nBy thee, rid of their native rudeness, their minds and tongues being\npolished, the thorns of vice being torn up by the roots, those men\nattain high places of honour, and become fathers of their country, and\ncompanions of princes, who without thee would have melted their spears\ninto pruning-hooks and ploughshares, or would perhaps be feeding swine\nwith the prodigal.\n\nWhere dost thou chiefly lie hidden, O most elect treasure! and where\nshall thirsting souls discover thee?\n\nCertes, thou hast placed thy tabernacle in books, where the Most High,\nthe Light of lights, the Book of Life, has established thee.  There\neveryone who asks receiveth thee, and everyone who seeks finds thee,\nand to everyone that knocketh boldly it is speedily opened.  Therein\nthe cherubim spread out their wings, that the intellect of the students\nmay ascend and look from pole to pole, from the east and west, from the\nnorth and from the south.  Therein the mighty and incomprehensible God\nHimself is apprehensibly contained and worshipped; therein is revealed\nthe nature of things celestial, terrestrial, and infernal; therein are\ndiscerned the laws by which every state is administered, the offices of\nthe celestial hierarchy are distinguished, and the tyrannies of demons\ndescribed, such as neither the ideas of Plato transcend, nor the chair\nof Crato contained.\n\nIn books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee\nthings to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come\nforth the laws of peace.  All things are corrupted and decay in time;\nSaturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the\nglory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided\nmortals with the remedy of books.\n\nAlexander, the conqueror of the earth, Julius, the invader of Rome and\nof the world, who, the first in war and arts, assumed universal empire\nunder his single rule, faithful Fabricius and stern Cato, would now\nhave been unknown to fame, if the aid of books had been wanting.\nTowers have been razed to the ground; cities have been overthrown;\ntriumphal arches have perished from decay; nor can either pope or king\nfind any means of more easily conferring the privilege of perpetuity\nthan by books.  The book that he has made renders its author this\nservice in return, that so long as the book survives its author remains\nimmortal and cannot die, as Ptolemy declares in the Prologue to his\nAlmagest: He is not dead, he says, who has given life to science.\n\nWho therefore will limit by anything of another kind the price of the\ninfinite treasure of books, from which the scribe who is instructed\nbringeth forth things new and old?  Truth that triumphs over all\nthings, which overcomes the king, wine, and women, which it is reckoned\nholy to honour before friendship, which is the way without turning and\nthe life without end, which holy Boethius considers to be threefold in\nthought, speech, and writing, seems to remain more usefully and to\nfructify to greater profit in books.  For the meaning of the voice\nperishes with the sound; truth latent in the mind is wisdom that is hid\nand treasure that is not seen; but truth which shines forth in books\ndesires to manifest itself to every impressionable sense.  It commends\nitself to the sight when it is read, to the hearing when it is heard,\nand moreover in a manner to the touch, when it suffers itself to be\ntranscribed, bound, corrected, and preserved.   The undisclosed truth\nof the mind, although it is the possession of the noble soul, yet\nbecause it lacks a companion, is not certainly known to be delightful,\nwhile neither sight nor hearing takes account of it.  Further the truth\nof the voice is patent only to the ear and eludes the sight, which\nreveals to us more of the qualities of things, and linked with the\nsubtlest of motions begins and perishes as it were in a breath.  But\nthe written truth of books, not transient but permanent, plainly offers\nitself to be observed, and by means of the pervious spherules of the\neyes, passing through the vestibule of perception and the courts of\nimagination, enters the chamber of intellect, taking its place in the\ncouch of memory, where it engenders the eternal truth of the mind.\n\nFinally we must consider what pleasantness of teaching there is in\nbooks, how easy, how secret! How safely we lay bare the poverty of\nhuman ignorance to books without feeling any shame!  They are masters\nwho instruct us without rod or ferule, without angry words, without\nclothes or money.  If you come to them they are not asleep; if you ask\nand inquire of them they do not withdraw themselves; they do not chide\nif you make mistakes; they do not laugh at you if you are ignorant.  O\nbooks, who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who ask of you\nand enfranchise all who serve you faithfully!  By how many thousand\ntypes are ye commended to learned men in the Scriptures given us by\ninspiration of God!  For ye are the minds of profoundest wisdom, to\nwhich the wise man sends his son that he may dig out treasures: Prov.\nii.  Ye are the wells of living waters, which father Abraham first\ndigged, Isaac digged again, and which the Philistines strive to fill\nup: Gen. xxvi.  Ye are indeed the most delightful ears of corn, full of\ngrain, to be rubbed only by apostolic hands, that the sweetest food may\nbe produced for hungry souls: Matt. xii.  Ye are the golden pots in\nwhich manna is stored, and rocks flowing with honey, nay, combs of\nhoney, most plenteous udders of the milk of life, garners ever full; ye\nare the tree of life and the fourfold river of Paradise, by which the\nhuman mind is nourished, and the thirsty intellect is watered and\nrefreshed.  Ye are the ark of Noah and the ladder of Jacob, and the\ntroughs by which the young of those who look therein are coloured; ye\nare the stones of testimony and the pitchers holding the lamps of\nGideon, the scrip of David, from which the smoothest stones are taken\nfor the slaying of Goliath.  Ye are the golden vessels of the temple,\nthe arms of the soldiers of the Church with which to quench all the\nfiery darts of the wicked, fruitful olives, vines of Engadi, fig-trees\nthat are never barren, burning lamps always to be held in\nreadiness--and all the noblest comparisons of Scripture may be applied\nto books, if we choose to speak in figures.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE DEGREE OF AFFECTION THAT IS PROPERLY DUE TO BOOKS\n\nSince the degree of affection a thing deserves depends upon the degree\nof its value, and the previous chapter shows that the value of books is\nunspeakable, it is quite clear to the reader what is the probable\nconclusion from this.  I say probable, for in moral science we do not\ninsist upon demonstration, remembering that the educated man seeks such\ndegree of certainty as he perceives the subject-matter will bear, as\nAristotle testifies in the first book of his Ethics.  For Tully does\nnot appeal to Euclid, nor does Euclid rely upon Tully.  This at all\nevents we endeavour to prove, whether by logic or rhetoric, that all\nriches and all delights whatsoever yield place to books in the\nspiritual mind, wherein the Spirit which is charity ordereth charity.\nNow in the first place, because wisdom is contained in books more than\nall mortals understand, and wisdom thinks lightly of riches, as the\nforegoing chapter declares.  Furthermore, Aristotle, in his Problems,\ndetermines the question, why the ancients proposed prizes to the\nstronger in gymnastic and corporeal contests, but never awarded any\nprize for wisdom.  This question he solves as follows:  In gymnastic\nexercises the prize is better and more desirable than that for which it\nis bestowed; but it is certain that nothing is better than wisdom:\nwherefore no prize could be assigned for wisdom.  And therefore neither\nriches nor delights are more excellent than wisdom.  Again, only the\nfool will deny that friendship is to be preferred to riches, since the\nwisest of men testifies this; but the chief of philosophers honours\ntruth before friendship, and the truthful Zorobabel prefers it to all\nthings.  Riches, then, are less than truth.  Now truth is chiefly\nmaintained and contained in holy books--nay, they are written truth\nitself, since by books we do not now mean the materials of which they\nare made.  Wherefore riches are less than books, especially as the most\nprecious of all riches are friends, as Boethius testifies in the second\nbook of his Consolation; to whom the truth of books according to\nAristotle is to be preferred.  Moreover, since we know that riches\nfirst and chiefly appertain to the support of the body only, while the\nvirtue of books is the perfection of reason, which is properly speaking\nthe happiness of man, it appears that books to the man who uses his\nreason are dearer than riches.  Furthermore, that by which the faith is\nmore easily defended, more widely spread, more clearly preached, ought\nto be more desirable to the faithful.  But this is the truth written in\nbooks, which our Saviour plainly showed, when he was about to contend\nstoutly against the Tempter, girding himself with the shield of truth\nand indeed of written truth, declaring \"it is written\" of what he was\nabout to utter with his voice.\n\nAnd, again, no one doubts that happiness is to be preferred to riches.\nBut happiness consists in the operation of the noblest and diviner of\nthe faculties that we possess--when the whole mind is occupied in\ncontemplating the truth of wisdom, which is the most delectable of all\nour virtuous activities, as the prince of philosophers declares in the\ntenth book of the Ethics, on which account it is that philosophy is\nheld to have wondrous pleasures in respect of purity and solidity, as\nhe goes on to say.  But the contemplation of truth is never more\nperfect than in books, where the act of imagination perpetuated by\nbooks does not suffer the operation of the intellect upon the truths\nthat it has seen to suffer interruption.  Wherefore books appear to be\nthe most immediate instruments of speculative delight, and therefore\nAristotle, the sun of philosophic truth, in considering the principles\nof choice, teaches that in itself to philosophize is more desirable\nthan to be rich, although in certain cases, as where for instance one\nis in need of necessaries, it may be more desirable to be rich than to\nphilosophize.\n\nMoreover, since books are the aptest teachers, as the previous chapter\nassumes, it is fitting to bestow on them the honour and the affection\nthat we owe to our teachers.  In fine, since all men naturally desire\nto know, and since by means of books we can attain the knowledge of the\nancients, which is to be desired beyond all riches, what man living\naccording to nature would not feel the desire of books?  And although\nwe know that swine trample pearls under foot, the wise man will not\ntherefore be deterred from gathering the pearls that lie before him.  A\nlibrary of wisdom, then, is more precious than all wealth, and all\nthings that are desirable cannot be compared to it.  Whoever therefore\nclaims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge,\naye, even of the faith, must needs become a lover of books.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nWHAT WE ARE TO THINK OF THE PRICE IN THE BUYING OF BOOKS\n\nFrom what has been said we draw this corollary welcome to us, but (as\nwe believe) acceptable to few: namely, that no dearness of price ought\nto hinder a man from the buying of books, if he has the money that is\ndemanded for them, unless it be to withstand the malice of the seller\nor to await a more favourable opportunity of buying.  For if it is\nwisdom only that makes the price of books, which is an infinite\ntreasure to mankind, and if the value of books is unspeakable, as the\npremises show, how shall the bargain be shown to be dear where an\ninfinite good is being bought? Wherefore, that books are to be gladly\nbought and unwillingly sold, Solomon, the sun of men, exhorts us in the\nProverbs: Buy the truth, he says, and sell not wisdom.  But what we are\ntrying to show by rhetoric or logic, let us prove by examples from\nhistory.  The arch-philosopher Aristotle, whom Averroes regards as the\nlaw of Nature, bought a few books of Speusippus straightway after his\ndeath for 72,000 sesterces.  Plato, before him in time, but after him\nin learning, bought the book of Philolaus the Pythagorean, from which\nhe is said to have taken the Timaeus, for 10,000 denaries, as Aulus\nGellius relates in the Noctes Atticae. Now Aulus Gellius relates this\nthat the foolish may consider how wise men despise money in comparison\nwith books.  And on the other hand, that we may know that folly and\npride go together, let us here relate the folly of Tarquin the Proud in\ndespising books, as also related by Aulus Gellius.  An old woman,\nutterly unknown, is said to have come to Tarquin the Proud, the seventh\nking of Rome, offering to sell nine books, in which (as she declared)\nsacred oracles were contained, but she asked an immense sum for them,\ninsomuch that the king said she was mad.  In anger she flung three\nbooks into the fire, and still asked the same sum for the rest.  When\nthe king refused it, again she flung three others into the fire and\nstill asked the same price for the three that were left.  At last,\nastonished beyond measure, Tarquin was glad to pay for three books the\nsame price for which he might have bought nine.  The old woman\nstraightway disappeared, and was never seen before or after.  These\nwere the Sibylline books, which the Romans consulted as a divine oracle\nby some one of the Quindecemvirs, and this is believed to have been the\norigin of the Quindecemvirate.  What did this Sibyl teach the proud\nking by this bold deed, except that the vessels of wisdom, holy books,\nexceed all human estimation; and, as Gregory says of the kingdom of\nHeaven:  They are worth all that thou hast?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE CLERGY ALREADY PROMOTED\n\nA generation of vipers destroying their own parent and base offspring\nof the ungrateful cuckoo, who when he has grown strong slays his nurse,\nthe giver of his strength, are degenerate clerks with regard to books.\nBring it again to mind and consider faithfully what ye receive through\nbooks, and ye will find that books are as it were the creators of your\ndistinction, without which other favourers would have been wanting.\n\nIn sooth, while still untrained and helpless ye crept up to us, ye\nspake as children, ye thought as children, ye cried as children and\nbegged to be made partakers of our milk.  But we being straightway\nmoved by your tears gave you the breast of grammar to suck, which ye\nplied continually with teeth and tongue, until ye lost your native\nbarbarousness and learned to speak with our tongues the mighty things\nof God.  And next we clad you with the goodly garments of philosophy,\nrhetoric and dialectic, of which we had and have a store, while ye were\nnaked as a tablet to be painted on.  For all the household of\nphilosophy are clothed with garments, that the nakedness and rawness of\nthe intellect may be covered. After this, providing you with the\nfourfold wings of the quadrivials that ye might be winged like the\nseraphs and so mount above the cherubim, we sent you to a friend at\nwhose door, if only ye importunately knocked, ye might borrow the three\nloaves of the Knowledge of the Trinity, in which consists the final\nfelicity of every sojourner below.  Nay, if ye deny that ye had these\nprivileges, we boldly declare that ye either lost them by your\ncarelessness, or that through your sloth ye spurned them when offered\nto you. If these things seem but a light matter to you, we will add yet\ngreater things.  Ye are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy\nrace, ye are a peculiar people chosen into the lot of God, ye are\npriests and ministers of God, nay, ye are called the very Church of\nGod, as though the laity were not to be called churchmen.  Ye, being\npreferred to the laity, sing psalms and hymns in the chancel, and,\nserving the altar and living by the altar, make the true body of\nChrist, wherein God Himself has honoured you not only above the laity,\nbut even a little higher than the angels.  For to whom of His angels\nhas He said at any time:  Thou art a priest for ever after the order of\nMelchisedech?  Ye dispense the patrimony of the crucified one to the\npoor, wherein it is required of stewards that a man be found faithful.\nYe are shepherds of the Lord's flock, as well in example of life as in\nthe word of doctrine, which is bound to repay you with milk and wool.\n\nWho are the givers of all these things, O clerks?  Is it not books?  Do\nye remember therefore, we pray, how many and how great liberties and\nprivileges are bestowed upon the clergy through us?  In truth, taught\nby us who are the vessels of wisdom and intellect, ye ascend the\nteacher's chair and are called of men Rabbi.  By us ye become\nmarvellous in the eyes of the laity, like great lights in the world,\nand possess the dignities of the Church according to your various\nstations.  By us, while ye still lack the first down upon your cheeks,\nye are established in your early years and bear the tonsure on your\nheads, while the dread sentence of the Church is heard: Touch not mine\nanointed and do my prophets no harm, and he who has rashly touched them\nlet him forthwith by his own blow be smitten violently with the wound\nof an anathema.  At length yielding your lives to wickedness, reaching\nthe two paths of Pythagoras, ye choose the left branch, and going\nbackward ye let go the lot of God which ye had first assumed, becoming\ncompanions of thieves.  And thus ever going from bad to worse, dyed\nwith theft and murder and manifold impurities, your fame and conscience\nstained by sins, at the bidding of justice ye are confined in manacles\nand fetters, and are kept to be punished by a most shameful death.\nThen your friend is put far away, nor is there any to mourn your lot.\nPeter swears that he knows not the man: the people cry to the judge:\nCrucify, crucify Him!  If thou let this man go, thou act not Caesar's\nfriend.  Now all refuge has perished, for ye must stand before the\njudgment-seat, and there is no appeal, but only hanging is in store for\nyou. While the wretched man's heart is thus filled with woe and only\nthe sorrowing Muses bedew their cheeks with tears, in his strait is\nheard on every side the wailing appeal to us, and to avoid the danger\nof impending death he shows the slight sign of the ancient tonsure\nwhich we bestowed upon him, begging that we may be called to his aid\nand bear witness to the privilege bestowed upon him.  Then straightway\ntouched with pity we run to meet the prodigal son and snatch the\nfugitive slave from the gates of death.  The book he has not forgotten\nis handed to him to be read, and while with lips stammering with fear\nhe reads a few words, the power of the judge is loosed, the accuser is\nwithdrawn, and death is put to flight.  O marvellous virtue of an\nempiric verse!  O saving antidote of dreadful ruin!  O precious reading\nof the psalter, which for this alone deserves to be called the book of\nlife! Let the laity undergo the judgment of the secular arm, that\neither sewn up in sacks they may be carried out to Neptune, or planted\nin the earth may fructify for Pluto, or may be offered amid the flames\nas a fattened holocaust to Vulcan, or at least may be hung up as a\nvictim to Juno: while our nursling at a single reading of the book of\nlife is handed over to the custody of the Bishop, and rigour is changed\nto favour, and the forum being transferred from the laity, death is\nrouted by the clerk who is the nursling of books.\n\nBut now let us speak of the clerks who are vessels of virtue.  Which of\nyou about to preach ascends the pulpit or the rostrum without in some\nway consulting us?  Which of you enters the schools to teach or to\ndispute without relying upon our support?  First of all, it behoves you\nto eat the book with Ezechiel, that the belly of your memory may be\nsweetened within, and thus as with the panther refreshed, to whose\nbreath all beasts and cattle long to approach, the sweet savour of the\nspices it has eaten may shed a perfume without.  Thus our nature\nsecretly working in our own, listeners hasten up gladly, as the\nload-stone draws the iron nothing loth.  What an infinite host of books\nlie at Paris or Athens, and at the same time resound in Britain and in\nRome! In truth, while resting they yet move, and while retaining their\nown places they are carried about every way to the minds of listeners.\nFinally, by the knowledge of literature, we establish Priests, Bishops,\nCardinals, and the Pope, that all things in the ecclesiastical\nhierarchy may be fitly disposed.  For it is from books that everything\nof good that befalls the clerical condition takes its origin.  But let\nthis suffice: for it pains us to recall what we have bestowed upon the\ndegenerate clergy, because whatever gifts are distributed to the\nungrateful seem to be lost rather than bestowed.\n\nLet us next dwell a little on the recital of the wrongs with which they\nrequite us, the contempts and cruelties of which we cannot recite an\nexample in each kind, nay, scarcely the main classes of the several\nwrongs.  In the first place, we are expelled by force and arms from the\nhomes of the clergy, which are ours by hereditary right, who were used\nto have cells of quietness in the inner chamber, but, alas! in these\nunhappy times we are altogether exiled, suffering poverty without the\ngates.  For our places are seized now by dogs, now by hawks, now by\nthat biped beast whose cohabitation with the clergy was forbidden of\nold, from which we have always taught our nurslings to flee more than\nfrom the asp and the cockatrice; wherefore she, always jealous of the\nlove of us, and never to be appeased, at length seeing us in some\ncorner protected only by the web of some dead spider, with a frown\nabuses and reviles us with bitter words, declaring us alone of all the\nfurniture in the house to be unnecessary, and complaining that we are\nuseless for any household purpose, and advises that we should speedily\nbe converted into rich caps, sendal and silk and twice-dyed purple,\nrobes and furs, wool and linen: and, indeed, not without reason, if she\ncould see our inmost hearts, if she had listened to our secret\ncounsels, if she had read the book of Theophrastus or Valerius, or only\nheard the twenty-fifth chapter of Ecclesiasticus with understanding\nears.\n\nAnd hence it is that we have to mourn for the homes of which we have\nbeen unjustly robbed; and as to our coverings, not that they have not\nbeen given to us, but that the coverings anciently given to us have\nbeen torn by violent hands, insomuch that our soul is bowed down to the\ndust, our belly cleaveth unto the earth.  We suffer from various\ndiseases, enduring pains in our backs and sides; we lie with our limbs\nunstrung by palsy, and there is no man who layeth it to heart, and no\nman who provides a mollifying plaster.  Our native whiteness that was\nclear with light has turned to dun and yellow, so that no leech who\nshould see us would doubt that we are diseased with jaundice.  Some of\nus are suffering from gout, as our twisted extremities plainly show.\nThe smoke and dust by which we are continuously plagued have dulled the\nkeenness of our visual rays, and are now infecting our bleared eyes\nwith ophthalmia.  Within we are devoured by the fierce gripings of our\nentrails, which hungry worms cease not to gnaw, and we undergo the\ncorruption of the two Lazaruses, nor is there anyone to anoint us with\nbalm of cedar, nor to cry to us who have been four days dead and\nalready stink, Lazarus come forth!  No healing drug is bound around our\ncruel wounds, which are so atrociously inflicted upon the innocent, and\nthere is none to put a plaster upon our ulcers; but ragged and\nshivering we are flung away into dark corners, or in tears take our\nplace with holy Job upon his dunghill, or--too horrible to relate--are\nburied in the depths of the common sewers.  The cushion is withdrawn\nthat should support our evangelical sides, which ought to have the\nfirst claim upon the incomes of the clergy, and the common necessaries\nof life thus be for ever provided for us, who are entrusted to their\ncharge.\n\nAgain, we complain of another sort of injury which is too often\nunjustly inflicted upon our persons.  We are sold for bondmen and\nbondwomen, and lie as hostages in taverns with no one to redeem us.  We\nfall a prey to the cruel shambles, where we see sheep and cattle\nslaughtered not without pious tears, and where we die a thousand times\nfrom such terrors as might frighten even the brave.  We are handed over\nto Jews, Saracens, heretics and infidels, whose poison we always dread\nabove everything, and by whom it is well known that some of our parents\nhave been infected with pestiferous venom.  In sooth, we who should be\ntreated as masters in the sciences, and bear rule over the mechanics\nwho should be subject to us, are instead handed over to the government\nof subordinates, as though some supremely noble monarch should be\ntrodden under foot by rustic heels.  Any seamster or cobbler or tailor\nor artificer of any trade keeps us shut up in prison for the luxurious\nand wanton pleasures of the clergy.\n\nNow we would pursue a new kind of injury by which we suffer alike in\nperson and in fame, the dearest thing we have.  Our purity of race is\ndiminished every day, while new authors' names are imposed upon us by\nworthless compilers, translators, and transformers, and losing our\nancient nobility, while we are reborn in successive generations, we\nbecome wholly degenerate; and thus against our will the name of some\nwretched stepfather is affixed to us, and the sons are robbed of the\nnames of their true fathers.  The verses of Virgil, while he was yet\nliving, were claimed by an impostor; and a certain Fidentinus\nmendaciously usurped the works of Martial, whom Martial thus deservedly\nrebuked:\n\n       \"The book you read is, Fidentinus! mine,\n  Though read so badly, 't well may pass for thine!\"\n\n\nWhat marvel, then, if when our authors are dead clerical apes use us to\nmake broad their phylacteries, since even while they are alive they try\nto seize us as soon as we are published?  Ah! how often ye pretend that\nwe who are ancient are but lately born, and try to pass us off as sons\nwho are really fathers, calling us who have made you clerks the\nproduction of your studies.  Indeed, we derived our origin from Athens,\nthough we are now supposed to be from Rome; for Carmentis was always\nthe pilferer of Cadmus, and we who were but lately born in England,\nwill to-morrow be born again in Paris; and thence being carried to\nBologna, will obtain an Italian origin, based upon no affinity of\nblood.  Alas! how ye commit us to treacherous copyists to be written,\nhow corruptly ye read us and kill us by medication, while ye supposed\nye were correcting us with pious zeal.  Oftentimes we have to endure\nbarbarous interpreters, and those who are ignorant of foreign idioms\npresume to translate us from one language into another; and thus all\npropriety of speech is lost and our sense is shamefully mutilated\ncontrary to the meaning of the author!  Truly noble would have been the\ncondition of books if it had not been for the presumption of the tower\nof Babel, if but one kind of speech had been transmitted by the whole\nhuman race.\n\nWe will add the last clause of our long lament, though far too short\nfor the materials that we have. For in us the natural use is changed to\nthat which is against nature, while we who are the light of faithful\nsouls everywhere fall a prey to painters knowing nought of letters, and\nare entrusted to goldsmiths to become, as though we were not sacred\nvessels of wisdom, repositories of gold-leaf.  We fall undeservedly\ninto the power of laymen, which is more bitter to us than any death,\nsince they have sold our people for nought, and our enemies themselves\nare our judges.\n\nIt is clear from what we have said what infinite invectives we could\nhurl against the clergy, if we did not think of our own reputation.\nFor the soldier whose campaigns are over venerates his shield and arms,\nand grateful Corydon shows regard for his decaying team, harrow, flail\nand mattock, and every manual artificer for the instruments of his\ncraft; it is only the ungrateful cleric who despises and neglects those\nthings which have ever been the foundation of his honours.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE POSSESSIONERS\n\nThe venerable devotion of the religious orders is wont to be solicitous\nin the care of books and to delight in their society, as if they were\nthe only riches.  For some used to write them with their own hands\nbetween the hours of prayer, and gave to the making of books such\nintervals as they could secure and the times appointed for the\nrecreation of the body.  By whose labours there are resplendent to-day\nin most monasteries these sacred treasuries full of cherubic letters,\nfor giving the knowledge of salvation to the student and a delectable\nlight to the paths of the laity.  O manual toil, happier than any\nagricultural task!  O devout solicitude, where neither Martha nor Mary\ndeserves to be rebuked!  O joyful house, in which the fruitful Leah\ndoes not envy the beauteous Rachel, but action and contemplation share\neach other's joys!  O happy charge, destined to benefit endless\ngenerations of posterity, with which no planting of trees, no sowing of\nseeds, no pastoral delight in herds, no building of fortified camps can\nbe compared!  Wherefore the memory of those fathers should be immortal,\nwho delighted only in the treasures of wisdom, who most laboriously\nprovided shining lamps against future darkness, and against hunger of\nhearing the Word of God, most carefully prepared, not bread baked in\nthe ashes, nor of barley, nor musty, but unleavened loaves made of the\nfinest wheat of divine wisdom, with which hungry souls might be\njoyfully fed These men were the stoutest champions of the Christian\narmy, who defended our weakness by their most valiant arms; they were\nin their time the most cunning takers of foxes, who have left us their\nnets, that we might catch the young foxes, who cease not to devour the\ngrowing vines.  Of a truth, noble fathers, worthy of perpetual\nbenediction, ye would have been deservedly happy, if ye had been\nallowed to beget offspring like yourselves, and to leave no degenerate\nor doubtful progeny for the benefit of future times.\n\nBut, painful to relate, now slothful Thersites handles the arms of\nAchilles and the choice trappings of war-horses are spread upon lazy\nasses, winking owls lord it in the eagle's nest, and the cowardly kite\nsits upon the perch of the hawk.\n\n  Liber Bacchus is ever loved,\n  And is into their bellies shoved,\n  By day and by night;\n  Liber Codex is neglected,\n  And with scornful hand rejected\n  Far out of their sight.\n\nAnd as if the simple monastic folk of modern times were deceived by a\nconfusion of names, while Liber Pater is preferred to Liber Patrum, the\nstudy of the monks nowadays is in the emptying of cups and not the\nemending of books; to which they do not hesitate to add the wanton\nmusic of Timotheus, jealous of chastity, and thus the song of the\nmerry-maker and not the chant of the mourner is become the office of\nthe monks.  Flocks and fleeces, crops and granaries, leeks and\npotherbs, drink and goblets, are nowadays the reading and study of the\nmonks, except a few elect ones, in whom lingers not the image but some\nslight vestige of the fathers that preceded them.  And again, no\nmaterials at all are furnished us to commend the canons regular for\ntheir care or study of us, who though they bear their name of honour\nfrom their twofold rule, yet have neglected the notable clause of\nAugustine's rule, in which we are commended to his clergy in these\nwords:  Let books be asked for each day at a given hour; he who asks\nfor them after the hour is not to receive them.  Scarcely anyone\nobserves this devout rule of study after saying the prayers of the\nChurch, but to care for the things of this world and to look at the\nplough that has been left is reckoned the highest wisdom.  They take up\nbow and quiver, embrace arms and shield, devote the tribute of alms to\ndogs and not to the poor, become the slaves of dice and draughts, and\nof all such things as we are wont to forbid even to the secular clergy,\nso that we need not marvel if they disdain to look upon us, whom they\nsee so much opposed to their mode of life.\n\nCome then, reverend fathers, deign to recall your fathers and devote\nyourselves more faithfully to the study of holy books, without which\nall religion will stagger, without which the virtue of devotion will\ndry up like a sherd, and without which ye can afford no light to the\nworld.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE MENDICANTS\n\nPoor in spirit, but most rich in faith, off-scourings of the world and\nsalt of the earth, despisers of the world and fishers of men, how happy\nare ye, if suffering penury for Christ ye know how to possess your\nsouls in patience!  For it is not want the avenger of iniquity, nor the\nadverse fortune of your parents, nor violent necessity that has thus\noppressed you with beggary, but a devout will and Christ-like election,\nby which ye have chosen that life as the best, which God Almighty made\nman as well by word as by example declared to be the best.  In truth,\nye are the latest offspring of the ever-fruitful Church, of late\ndivinely substituted for the Fathers and the Prophets, that your sound\nmay go forth into all the earth, and that instructed by our healthful\ndoctrines ye may preach before all kings and nations the invincible\nfaith of Christ.  Moreover, that the faith of the Fathers is chiefly\nenshrined in books the second chapter has sufficiently shown, from\nwhich it is clearer than light that ye ought to be zealous lovers of\nbooks above all other Christians.  Ye are commanded to sow upon all\nwaters, because the Most High is no respecter of persons, nor does the\nMost Holy desire the death of sinners, who offered Himself to die for\nthem, but desires to heal the contrite in heart, to raise the fallen,\nand to correct the perverse in the spirit of lenity.  For which most\nsalutary purpose our kindly Mother Church has planted you freely, and\nhaving planted has watered you with favours, and having watered you has\nestablished you with privileges, that ye may be co-workers with pastors\nand curates in procuring the salvation of faithful souls.  Wherefore,\nthat the order of Preachers was principally instituted for the study of\nthe Holy Scriptures and the salvation of their neighbours, is declared\nby their constitutions, so that not only from the rule of Bishop\nAugustine, which directs books to be asked for every day, but as soon\nas they have read the prologue of the said constitutions they may know\nfrom the very title of the same that they are pledged to the love of\nbooks.\n\nBut alas! a threefold care of superfluities, viz., of the stomach, of\ndress, and of houses, has seduced these men and others following their\nexample from the paternal care of books, and from their study.  For,\nforgetting the providence of the Saviour (who is declared by the\nPsalmist to think upon the poor and needy), they are occupied with the\nwants of the perishing body, that their feasts may be splendid and\ntheir garments luxurious, against the rule, and the fabrics of their\nbuildings, like the battlements of castles, carried to a height\nincompatible with poverty.  Because of these three things, we books,\nwho have ever procured their advancement and have granted them to sit\namong the powerful and noble, are put far from their heart's affection\nand are reckoned as superfluities; except that they rely upon some\ntreatises of small value, from which they derive strange heresies and\napocryphal imbecilities, not for the refreshment of souls, but rather\nfor tickling the ears of the listeners.  The Holy Scripture is not\nexpounded, but is neglected and treated as though it were commonplace\nand known to all, though very few have touched its hem, and though its\ndepth is such, as Holy Augustine declares, that it cannot be understood\nby the human intellect, however long it may toil with the utmost\nintensity of study.  From this he who devotes himself to it\nassiduously, if only He will vouchsafe to open the door who has\nestablished the spirit of piety, may unfold a thousand lessons of moral\nteaching, which will flourish with the freshest novelty and will\ncherish the intelligence of the listeners with the most delightful\nsavours. Wherefore the first professors of evangelical poverty, after\nsome slight homage paid to secular science, collecting all their force\nof intellect, devoted themselves to labours upon the sacred scripture,\nmeditating day and night on the law of the Lord.  And whatever they\ncould steal from their famishing belly, or intercept from their\nhalf-covered body, they thought it the highest gain to spend in buying\nor correcting books.  Whose worldly contemporaries observing their\ndevotion and study bestowed upon them for the edification of the whole\nChurch the books which they had collected at great expense in the\nvarious parts of the world.\n\nIn truth, in these days as ye are engaged with all diligence in pursuit\nof gain, it may be reasonably believed, if we speak according to human\nnotions, that God thinks less upon those whom He perceives to distrust\nHis promises, putting their hope in human providence, not considering\nthe raven, nor the lilies, whom the Most High feeds and arrays.  Ye do\nnot think upon Daniel and the bearer of the mess of boiled pottage, nor\nrecollect Elijah who was delivered from hunger once in the desert by\nangels, again in the torrent by ravens, and again in Sarepta by the\nwidow, through the divine bounty, which gives to all flesh their meat\nin due season.  Ye descend (as we fear) by a wretched anticlimax,\ndistrust of the divine goodness producing reliance upon your own\nprudence, and reliance upon your own prudence begetting anxiety about\nworldly things, and excessive anxiety about worldly things taking away\nthe love as well as the study of books; and thus poverty in these days\nis abused to the injury of the Word of God, which ye have chosen only\nfor profit's sake.\n\nWith summer fruit, as the people gossip, ye attract boys to religion,\nwhom when they have taken the vows ye do not instruct by fear and\nforce, as their age requires, but allow them to devote themselves to\nbegging expeditions, and suffer them to spend the time, in which they\nmight be learning, in procuring the favour of friends, to the annoyance\nof their parents, the danger of the boys, and the detriment of the\norder.  And thus no doubt it happens that those who were not compelled\nto learn as unwilling boys, when they grow up presume to teach though\nutterly unworthy and unlearned, and a small error in the beginning\nbecomes a very great one in the end.  For there grows up among your\npromiscuous flock of laity a pestilent multitude of creatures, who\nnevertheless the more shamelessly force themselves into the office of\npreaching, the less they understand what they are saying, to the\ncontempt of the Divine Word and the injury of souls.  In truth, against\nthe law ye plough with an ox and an ass together, in committing the\ncultivation of the Lord's field to learned and unlearned.  Side by\nside, it is written, the oxen were ploughing and the asses feeding\nbeside them: since it is the duty of the discreet to preach, but of the\nsimple to feed themselves in silence by the hearing of sacred\neloquence.  How many stones ye fling upon the heap of Mercury nowadays!\nHow many marriages ye procure for the eunuchs of wisdom!  How many\nblind watchmen ye bid go round about the walls of the Church!\n\nO idle fishermen, using only the nets of others, which when torn it is\nall ye can do to clumsily repair, but can net no new ones of your own!\nye enter on the labours of others, ye repeat the lessons of others, ye\nmouth with theatric effort the superficially repeated wisdom of others.\nAs the silly parrot imitates the words that he has heard, so such men\nare mere reciters of all, but authors of nothing, imitating Balaam's\nass, which, though senseless of itself, yet became eloquent of speech\nand the teacher of its master though a prophet.  Recover yourselves, O\npoor in Christ, and studiously regard us books, without which ye can\nnever be properly shod in the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.\n\nPaul the Apostle, preacher of the truth and excellent teacher of the\nnations, for all his gear bade three things to be brought to him by\nTimothy, his cloak, books and parchments, affording an example to\necclesiastics that they should wear dress in moderation, and should\nhave books for aid in study, and parchments, which the Apostle\nespecially esteems, for writing: AND ESPECIALLY, he says, the\nparchments. And truly that clerk is crippled and maimed to his\ndisablement in many ways, who is entirely ignorant of the art of\nwriting.  He beats the air with words and edifies only those who are\npresent, but does nothing for the absent and for posterity.  The man\nbore a writer's ink-horn upon his loins, who set a mark Tau upon the\nforeheads of the men that sigh and cry, Ezechiel ix.; teaching in a\nfigure that if any lack skill in writing, he shall not undertake the\ntask of preaching repentance.\n\nFinally, in conclusion of the present chapter, books implore of you:\nmake your young men who though ignorant are apt of intellect apply\nthemselves to study, furnishing them with necessaries, that ye may\nteach them not only goodness but discipline and science, may terrify\nthem by blows, charm them by blandishments, mollify them by gifts, and\nurge them on by painful rigour, so that they may become at once\nSocratics in morals and Peripatetics in learning.  Yesterday, as it\nwere at the eleventh hour, the prudent householder introduced you into\nhis vineyard.  Repent of idleness before it is too late: would that\nwith the cunning steward ye might be ashamed of begging so shamelessly;\nfor then no doubt ye would devote yourselves more assiduously to us\nbooks and to study.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST WARS\n\nAlmighty Author and Lover of peace, scatter the nations that delight in\nwar, which is above all plagues injurious to books.  For wars being\nwithout the control of reason make a wild assault on everything they\ncome across, and, lacking the check of reason they push on without\ndiscretion or distinction to destroy the vessels of reason.  Then the\nwise Apollo becomes the Python's prey, and Phronesis, the pious mother,\nbecomes subject to the power of Phrenzy.  Then winged Pegasus is shut\nup in the stall of Corydon, and eloquent Mercury is strangled.  Then\nwise Pallas is struck down by the dagger of error, and the charming\nPierides are smitten by the truculent tyranny of madness.  O cruel\nspectacle!  where you may see the Phoebus of philosophers, the all-wise\nAristotle, whom God Himself made master of the master of the world,\nenchained by wicked hands and borne in shameful irons on the shoulders\nof gladiators from his sacred home.  There you may see him who was\nworthy to be lawgiver to the lawgiver of the world and to hold empire\nover its emperor, made the slave of vile buffoons by the most\nunrighteous laws of war.  O most wicked power of darkness, which does\nnot fear to undo the approved divinity of Plato, who alone was worthy\nto submit to the view of the Creator, before he assuaged the strife of\nwarring chaos, and before form had put on its garb of matter, the ideal\ntypes, in order to demonstrate the archetypal universe to its author,\nso that the world of sense might be modelled after the supernal\npattern.  O tearful sight! where the moral Socrates, whose acts were\nvirtue and whose discourse was science, who deduced political justice\nfrom the principles of nature, is seen enslaved to some rascal robber.\nWe bemoan Pythagoras, the parent of harmony, as, brutally scourged by\nthe harrying furies of war, he utters not a song but the wailings of a\ndove.  We mourn, too, for Zeno, who lest he should betray his secret\nbit off his tongue and fearlessly spat it out at the tyrant, and now,\nalas! is brayed and crushed to death in a mortar by Diomedon.\n\nIn sooth we cannot mourn with the grief that they deserve all the\nvarious books that have perished by the fate of war in various parts of\nthe world.  Yet we must tearfully recount the dreadful ruin which was\ncaused in Egypt by the auxiliaries in the Alexandrian war, when seven\nhundred thousand volumes were consumed by fire.  These volumes had been\ncollected by the royal Ptolemies through long periods of time, as Aulus\nGellius relates.  What an Atlantean progeny must be supposed to have\nthen perished: including the motions of the spheres, all the\nconjunctions of the planets, the nature of the galaxy, and the\nprognostic generations of comets, and all that exists in the heavens or\nin the ether!  Who would not shudder at such a hapless holocaust, where\nink is offered up instead of blood, where the glowing ashes of\ncrackling parchment were encarnadined with blood, where the devouring\nflames consumed so many thousands of innocents in whose mouth was no\nguile, where the unsparing fire turned into stinking ashes so many\nshrines of eternal truth!  A lesser crime than this is the sacrifice of\nJephthah or Agamemnon, where a pious daughter is slain by a father's\nsword.  How many labours of the famous Hercules shall we suppose then\nperished, who because of his knowledge of astronomy is said to have\nsustained the heaven on his unyielding neck, when Hercules was now for\nthe second time cast into the flames.  The secrets of the heavens,\nwhich Jonithus learnt not from man or through man but received by\ndivine inspiration; what his brother Zoroaster, the servant of unclean\nspirits, taught the Bactrians; what holy Enoch, the prefect of\nParadise, prophesied before he was taken from the world, and finally,\nwhat the first Adam taught his children of the things to come, which he\nhad seen when caught up in an ecstasy in the book of eternity, are\nbelieved to have perished in those horrid flames.  The religion of the\nEgyptians, which the book of the Perfect Word so commends; the\nexcellent polity of the older Athens, which preceded by nine thousand\nyears the Athens of Greece; the charms of the Chaldaeans; the\nobservations of the Arabs and Indians; the ceremonies of the Jews; the\narchitecture of the Babylonians; the agriculture of Noah the magic arts\nof Moses; the geometry of Joshua; the enigmas of Samson; the problems\nof Solomon from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop; the antidotes of\nAesculapius; the grammar of Cadmus; the poems of Parnassus; the oracles\nof Apollo; the argonautics of Jason; the stratagems of Palamedes, and\ninfinite other secrets of science are believed to have perished at the\ntime of this conflagration.\n\nNay, Aristotle would not have missed the quadrature of the circle, if\nonly baleful conflicts had spared the books of the ancients, who knew\nall the methods of nature.  He would not have left the problem of the\neternity of the world an open question, nor, as is credibly conceived,\nwould he have had any doubts of the plurality of human intellects and\nof their eternity, if the perfect sciences of the ancients had not been\nexposed to the calamities of hateful wars.  For by wars we are\nscattered into foreign lands, are mutilated, wounded, and shamefully\ndisfigured, are buried under the earth and overwhelmed in the sea, are\ndevoured by the flames and destroyed by every kind of death. How much\nof our blood was shed by warlike Scipio, when he was eagerly compassing\nthe overthrow of Carthage, the opponent and rival of the Roman empire!\nHow many thousands of thousands of us did the ten years' war of Troy\ndismiss from the light of day! How many were driven by Anthony, after\nthe murder of Tully, to seek hiding places in foreign provinces! How\nmany of us were scattered by Theodoric, while Boethius was in exile,\ninto the different quarters of the world, like sheep whose shepherd has\nbeen struck down!  How many, when Seneca fell a victim to the cruelty\nof Nero, and willing yet unwilling passed the gates of death, took\nleave of him and retired in tears, not even knowing in what quarter to\nseek for shelter!\n\nHappy was that translation of books which Xerxes is said to have made\nto Persia from Athens, and which Seleucus brought back again from\nPersia to Athens.  O glad and joyful return!  O wondrous joy, which you\nmight then see in Athens, when the mother went in triumph to meet her\nprogeny, and again showed the chambers in which they had been nursed to\nher now aging children! Their old homes were restored to their former\ninmates, and forthwith boards of cedar with shelves and beams of gopher\nwood are most skilfully planed; inscriptions of gold and ivory are\ndesigned for the several compartments, to which the volumes themselves\nare reverently brought and pleasantly arranged, so that no one hinders\nthe entrance of another or injures its brother by excessive crowding.\n\nBut in truth infinite are the losses which have been inflicted upon the\nrace of books by wars and tumults.  And as it is by no means possible\nto enumerate and survey infinity, we will here finally set up the Gades\nof our complaint, and turn again to the prayers with which we began,\nhumbly imploring that the Ruler of Olympus and the Most High Governor\nof all the world will establish peace and dispel wars and make our days\ntranquil under His protection.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nOF THE NUMEROUS OPPORTUNITIES WE HAVE HAD OF COLLECTING A STORE OF BOOKS\n\nSince to everything there is a season and an opportunity, as the wise\nEcclesiastes witnesseth, let us now proceed to relate the manifold\nopportunities through which we have been assisted by the divine\ngoodness in the acquisition of books.\n\nAlthough from our youth upwards we had always delighted in holding\nsocial commune with learned men and lovers of books, yet when we\nprospered in the world and made acquaintance with the King's majesty\nand were received into his household, we obtained ampler facilities for\nvisiting everywhere as we would, and of hunting as it were certain most\nchoice preserves, libraries private as well as public, and of the\nregular as well as of the secular clergy.  And indeed while we filled\nvarious offices to the victorious Prince and splendidly triumphant King\nof England, Edward the Third from the Conquest--whose reign may the\nAlmighty long and peacefully continue--first those about his court, but\nthen those concerning the public affairs of his kingdom, namely the\noffices of Chancellor and Treasurer, there was afforded to us, in\nconsideration of the royal favour, easy access for the purpose of\nfreely searching the retreats of books.  In fact, the fame of our love\nof them had been soon winged abroad everywhere, and we were reported to\nburn with such desire for books, and especially old ones, that it was\nmore easy for any man to gain our favour by means of books than of\nmoney.  Wherefore, since supported by the goodness of the aforesaid\nprince of worthy memory, we were able to requite a man well or ill, to\nbenefit or injure mightily great as well as small, there flowed in,\ninstead of presents and guerdons, and instead of gifts and jewels,\nsoiled tracts and battered codices, gladsome alike to our eye and\nheart.  Then the aumbries of the most famous monasteries were thrown\nopen, cases were unlocked and caskets were undone, and volumes that had\nslumbered through long ages in their tombs wake up and are astonished,\nand those that had lain hidden in dark places are bathed in the ray of\nunwonted light.  These long lifeless books, once most dainty, but now\nbecome corrupt and loathsome, covered with litters of mice and pierced\nwith the gnawings of the worms, and who were once clothed in purple and\nfine linen, now lying in sackcloth and ashes, given up to oblivion,\nseemed to have become habitations of the moth.  Natheless among these,\nseizing the opportunity, we would sit down with more delight than a\nfastidious physician among his stores of gums and spices, and there we\nfound the object and the stimulus of our affections.  Thus the sacred\nvessels of learning came into our control and stewardship; some by\ngift, others by purchase, and some lent to us for a season.\n\nNo wonder that when people saw that we were contented with gifts of\nthis kind, they were anxious of their own accord to minister to our\nneeds with those things that they were more willing to dispense with\nthan the things they secured by ministering to our service.  And in\ngood will we strove so to forward their affairs that gain accrued to\nthem, while justice suffered no disparagement.  Indeed, if we had loved\ngold and silver goblets, high-bred horses, or no small sums of money,\nwe might in those days have furnished forth a rich treasury.  But in\ntruth we wanted manuscripts not moneyscripts; we loved codices more\nthan florins, and preferred slender pamphlets to pampered palfreys.\n\nBesides all this, we were frequently made ambassador of this most\nillustrious Prince of everlasting memory, and were sent on the most\nvarious affairs of state, now to the Holy See, now to the Court of\nFrance, and again to various powers of the world, on tedious embassies\nand in times of danger, always carrying with us, however, that love of\nbooks which many waters could not quench.  For this like a delicious\ndraught sweetened the bitterness of our journeyings and after the\nperplexing intricacies and troublesome difficulties of causes, and the\nall but inextricable labyrinths of public affairs afforded us a little\nbreathing space to enjoy a balmier atmosphere.\n\nO Holy God of gods in Sion, what a mighty stream of pleasure made glad\nour hearts whenever we had leisure to visit Paris, the Paradise of the\nworld, and to linger there; where the days seemed ever few for the\ngreatness of our love! There are delightful libraries, more aromatic\nthan stores of spicery; there are luxuriant parks of all manner of\nvolumes; there are Academic meads shaken by the tramp of scholars;\nthere are lounges of Athens; walks of the Peripatetics; peaks of\nParnassus; and porches of the Stoics.  There is seen the surveyor of\nall arts and sciences Aristotle, to whom belongs all that is most\nexcellent in doctrine, so far as relates to this passing sublunary\nworld; there Ptolemy measures epicycles and eccentric apogees and the\nnodes of the planets by figures and numbers; there Paul reveals the\nmysteries; there his neighbour Dionysius arranges and distinguishes the\nhierarchies; there the virgin Carmentis reproduces in Latin characters\nall that Cadmus collected in Phoenician letters; there indeed opening\nour treasuries and unfastening our purse-strings we scattered money\nwith joyous heart and purchased inestimable books with mud and sand.\nIt is naught, it is naught, saith every buyer.  But in vain; for behold\nhow good and how pleasant it is to gather together the arms of the\nclerical warfare, that we may have the means to crush the attacks of\nheretics, if they arise.\n\nFurther, we are aware that we obtained most excellent opportunities of\ncollecting in the following way.  From our early years we attached to\nour society with the most exquisite solicitude and discarding all\npartiality all such masters and scholars and professors in the several\nfaculties as had become most distinguished by their subtlety of mind\nand the fame of their learning.  Deriving consolation from their\nsympathetic conversation, we were delightfully entertained, now by\ndemonstrative chains of reasoning, now by the recital of physical\nprocesses and the treatises of the doctors of the Church, now by\nstimulating discourses on the allegorical meanings of things, as by a\nrich and well-varied intellectual feast.  Such men we chose as comrades\nin our years of learning, as companions in our chamber, as associates\non our journeys, as guests at our table, and, in short, as helpmates in\nall the vicissitudes of life.  But as no happiness is permitted to\nendure for long, we were sometimes deprived of the bodily companionship\nof some of these shining lights, when justice looking down from heaven,\nthe ecclesiastical preferments and dignities that they deserved fell to\ntheir portion.  And thus it happened, as was only right, that in\nattending to their own cures they were obliged to absent themselves\nfrom attendance upon us.\n\nWe will add yet another very convenient way by which a great multitude\nof books old as well as new came into our hands.  For we never regarded\nwith disdain or disgust the poverty of the mendicant orders, adopted\nfor the sake of Christ; but in all parts of the world took them into\nthe kindly arms of our compassion, allured them by the most friendly\nfamiliarity into devotion to ourselves, and having so allured them\ncherished them with munificent liberality of beneficence for the sake\nof God, becoming benefactors of all of them in general in such wise\nthat we seemed none the less to have adopted certain individuals with a\nspecial fatherly affection.  To these men we were as a refuge in every\ncase of need, and never refused to them the shelter of our favour,\nwherefore we deserved to find them most special furtherers of our\nwishes and promoters thereof in act and deed, who compassing land and\nsea, traversing the circuit of the world, and ransacking the\nuniversities and high schools of various provinces, were zealous in\ncombatting for our desires, in the sure and certain hope of reward.\nWhat leveret could escape amidst so many keen-sighted hunters?  What\nlittle fish could evade in turn their hooks and nets and snares?  From\nthe body of the Sacred Law down to the booklet containing the fallacies\nof yesterday, nothing could escape these searchers.  Was some devout\ndiscourse uttered at the fountain-head of Christian faith, the holy\nRoman Curia, or was some strange question ventilated with novel\narguments; did the solidity of Paris, which is now more zealous in the\nstudy of antiquity than in the subtle investigation of truth, did\nEnglish subtlety, which illumined by the lights of former times is\nalways sending forth fresh rays of truth, produce anything to the\nadvancement of science or the declaration of the faith, this was\ninstantly poured still fresh into our ears, ungarbled by any babbler,\nunmutilated by any trifler, but passing straight from the purest of\nwine-presses into the vats of our memory to be clarified.\n\nBut whenever it happened that we turned aside to the cities and places\nwhere the mendicants we have mentioned had their convents, we did not\ndisdain to visit their libraries and any other repositories of books;\nnay, there we found heaped up amid the utmost poverty the utmost riches\nof wisdom.  We discovered in their fardels and baskets not only crumbs\nfalling from the masters' table for the dogs, but the shewbread without\nleaven and the bread of angels having in it all that is delicious; and\nindeed the garners of Joseph full of corn, and all the spoil of the\nEgyptians, and the very precious gifts which Queen Sheba brought to\nSolomon.\n\nThese men are as ants ever preparing their meat in the summer, and\ningenious bees continually fabricating  cells of honey.  They are\nsuccessors of Bezaleel in devising all manner of workmanship in silver\nand gold and precious stones for decorating the temple of the Church.\nThey are cunning embroiderers, who fashion the breastplate and ephod of\nthe high priest and all the various vestments of the priests.  They\nfashion the curtains of linen and hair and coverings of ram's skins\ndyed red with which to adorn the tabernacle of the Church militant.\nThey are husbandmen that sow, oxen treading out corn, sounding\ntrumpets, shining Pleiades and stars remaining in their courses, which\ncease not to fight against Sisera.  And to pay due regard to truth,\nwithout prejudice to the judgment of any, although they lately at the\neleventh hour have entered the lord's vineyard, as the books that are\nso fond of us eagerly declared in our sixth chapter, they have added\nmore in this brief hour to the stock of the sacred books than all the\nother vine-dressers; following in the footsteps of Paul, the last to be\ncalled but the first in preaching, who spread the gospel of Christ more\nwidely than all others.  Of these men, when we were raised to the\nepiscopate we had several of both orders, viz., the Preachers and\nMinors, as personal attendants and companions at our board, men\ndistinguished no less in letters than in morals, who devoted themselves\nwith unwearied zeal to the correction, exposition, tabulation, and\ncompilation of various volumes.  But although we have acquired a very\nnumerous store of ancient as well as modern works by the manifold\nintermediation of the religious, yet we must laud the Preachers with\nspecial praise, in that we have found them above all the religious most\nfreely communicative of their stores without jealousy, and proved them\nto be imbued with an almost Divine liberality, not greedy but fitting\npossessors of luminous wisdom.\n\nBesides all the opportunities mentioned above, we secured the\nacquaintance of stationers and booksellers, not only within our own\ncountry, but of those spread over the realms of France, Germany, and\nItaly, money flying forth in abundance to anticipate their demands; nor\nwere they hindered by any distance or by the fury of the seas, or by\nthe lack of means for their expenses, from sending or bringing to us\nthe books that we required.  For they well knew that their expectations\nof our bounty would not be defrauded, but that ample repayment with\nusury was to be found with us.\n\nNor, finally, did our good fellowship, which aimed to captivate the\naffection of all, overlook the rectors of schools and the instructors\nof rude boys.  But rather, when we had an opportunity, we entered their\nlittle plots and gardens and gathered sweet-smelling flowers from the\nsurface and dug up their roots, obsolete indeed, but still useful to\nthe student, which might, when their rank barbarism was digested heal\nthe pectoral arteries with the gift of eloquence.  Amongst the mass of\nthese things we found some greatly meriting to be restored, which when\nskilfully cleansed and freed from the disfiguring rust of age, deserved\nto be renovated into comeliness of aspect.  And applying in full\nmeasure the necessary means, as a type of the resurrection to come, we\nresuscitated them and restored them again to new life and health.\n\nMoreover, we had always in our different manors no small multitude of\ncopyists and scribes, of binders, correctors, illuminators, and\ngenerally of all who could usefully labour in the service of books.\nFinally, all of both sexes and of every rank or position who had any\nkind of association with books, could most easily open by their\nknocking the door of our heart, and find a fit resting-place in our\naffection and favour.  In so much did we receive those who brought\nbooks, that the multitude of those who had preceded them did not lessen\nthe welcome of the after-comers, nor were the favours we had awarded\nyesterday prejudicial to those of to-day.  Wherefore, ever using all\nthe persons we have named as a kind of magnets to attract books, we had\nthe desired accession of the vessels of science and a multitudinous\nflight of the finest volumes.\n\nAnd this is what we undertook to narrate in the present chapter.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nHOW, ALTHOUGH WE PREFERRED THE WORKS OF THE ANCIENTS, WE HAVE NOT\nCONDEMNED THE STUDIES OF THE MODERNS\n\nAlthough the novelties of the moderns were never disagreeable to our\ndesires, who have always cherished with grateful affection those who\ndevote themselves to study and who add anything either ingenious or\nuseful to the opinions of our forefathers, yet we have always desired\nwith more undoubting avidity to investigate the well-tested labours of\nthe ancients.  For whether they had by nature a greater vigour of\nmental sagacity, or whether they perhaps indulged in closer application\nto study, or whether they were assisted in their progress by both these\nthings, one thing we are perfectly clear about, that their successors\nare barely capable of discussing the discoveries of their forerunners,\nand of acquiring those things as pupils which the ancients dug out by\ndifficult efforts of discovery.  For as we read that the men of old\nwere of a more excellent degree of bodily development than modern times\nare found to produce, it is by no means absurd to suppose that most of\nthe ancients were distinguished by brighter faculties, seeing that in\nthe labours they accomplished of both kinds they are inimitable by\nposterity.   And so Phocas writes in the prologue to his Grammar:\n\n     Since all things have been said by men of sense\n     The only novelty is--to condense.\n\nBut in truth, if we speak of fervour of learning and diligence in\nstudy, they gave up all their lives to philosophy; while nowadays our\ncontemporaries carelessly spend a few years of hot youth, alternating\nwith the excesses of vice, and when the passions have been calmed, and\nthey have attained the capacity of discerning truth so difficult to\ndiscover, they soon become involved in worldly affairs and retire,\nbidding farewell to the schools of philosophy.  They offer the fuming\nmust of their youthful intellect to the  difficulties of philosophy,\nand bestow the clearer wine upon the money-making business of life.\nFurther, as Ovid in the first book of the De Vetula justly complains:\n\n  The hearts of all men after gold aspire;\n  Few study to be wise, more to acquire:\n  Thus, Science! all thy virgin charms are sold,\n  Whose chaste embraces should disdain their gold,\n  Who seek not thee thyself, but pelf through thee,\n  Longing for riches, not philosophy.\n\nAnd further on:\n\n  Thus Philosophy is seen\n  Exiled, and Philopecuny is queen,\n\nwhich is known to be the most violent poison of learning.\n\nHow the ancients indeed regarded life as the only limit of study, is\nshown by Valerius, in his book addressed to Tiberius, by many examples.\nCarneades, he says, was a laborious and lifelong soldier of wisdom:\nafter he had lived ninety years, the same day put an end to his life\nand his philosophizing.  Isocrates in his ninety-fourth year wrote a\nmost noble work.  Sophocles did the same when nearly a hundred years\nold.  Simonides wrote poems in his eightieth year.  Aulus Gellius did\nnot desire to live longer than he should be able to write, as he says\nhimself in the prologue to the Noctes Atticae.\n\nThe fervour of study which possessed Euclid the Socratic, Taurus the\nphilosopher used to relate to incite young men to study, as Gellius\ntells in the book we have mentioned.  For the Athenians, hating the\npeople of Megara, decreed that if any of the Megarensians entered\nAthens, he should be put to death.  Then Euclid, who was a Megarensian,\nand had attended the lectures of Socrates before this decree,\ndisguising himself in a woman's dress, used to go from Megara to Athens\nby night to hear Socrates, a distance of twenty miles and back.\nImprudent and excessive was the fervour of Archimedes, a lover of\ngeometry, who would not declare his name, nor lift his head from the\ndiagram he had drawn, by which he might have prolonged his life, but\nthinking more of study than of life dyed with his life-blood the figure\nhe was studying.\n\nThere are very many such examples of our proposition, but the brevity\nwe aim at does not allow us to recall them.  But, painful to relate,\nthe clerks who are famous in these days pursue a very different course.\nAfflicted with ambition in their tender years, and slightly fastening\nto their untried arms the Icarian wings of presumption, they\nprematurely snatch the master's cap; and mere boys become unworthy\nprofessors of the several faculties, through which they do not make\ntheir way step by step, but like goats ascend by leaps and bounds; and,\nhaving slightly tasted of the mighty stream, they think that they have\ndrunk it dry, though their throats are hardly moistened.  And because\nthey are not grounded in the first rudiments at the fitting time, they\nbuild a tottering edifice on an unstable foundation, and now that they\nhave grown up, they are ashamed to learn what they ought to have\nlearned while young, and thus they are compelled to suffer for ever for\ntoo hastily jumping at dignities they have not deserved.  For these and\nthe like reasons the tyros in the schools do not attain to the solid\nlearning of the ancients in a few short hours of study, although they\nmay enjoy distinctions, may be accorded titles, be authorized by\nofficial robes, and solemnly installed in the chairs of the elders.\nJust snatched from the cradle and hastily weaned, they mouth the rules\nof Priscian and Donatus; while still beardless boys they gabble with\nchildish stammering the Categorics and Peri Hermeneias, in the writing\nof which the great Aristotle is said to have dipped his pen in his\nheart's blood.  Passing through these faculties with baneful haste and\na harmful diploma, they lay violent hands upon Moses, and sprinkling\nabout their faces dark waters and thick clouds of the skies, they offer\ntheir heads, unhonoured by the snows of age, for the mitre of the\npontificate. This pest is greatly encouraged, and they are helped to\nattain this fantastic clericate with such nimble steps, by Papal\nprovisions obtained by insidious prayers, and also by the prayers,\nwhich may not be rejected, of cardinals and great men, by the cupidity\nof friends and relatives, who, building up Sion in blood, secure\necclesiastical dignities for their nephews and pupils, before they are\nseasoned by the course of nature or ripeness of learning.\n\nAlas! by the same disease which we are deploring, we see that the\nPalladium of Paris has been carried off in these sad times of ours,\nwherein the zeal of that noble university, whose rays once shed light\ninto every corner of the world, has grown lukewarm, nay, is all but\nfrozen.  There the pen of every scribe is now at rest, generations of\nbooks no longer succeed each other, and there is none who begins to\ntake place as a new author.  They wrap up their doctrines in unskilled\ndiscourse, and are losing all propriety of logic, except that our\nEnglish subtleties, which they denounce in public, are the subject of\ntheir furtive vigils.\n\nAdmirable Minerva seems to bend her course to all the nations of the\nearth, and reacheth from end to end mightily, that she may reveal\nherself to all mankind.  We see that she has already visited the\nIndians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians and Greeks, the Arabs and the\nRomans.  Now she has passed by Paris, and now has happily come to\nBritain, the most noble of islands, nay, rather a microcosm in itself,\nthat she may show herself a debtor both to the Greeks and to the\nBarbarians.  At which wondrous sight it is conceived by most men, that\nas philosophy is now lukewarm in France, so her soldiery are unmanned\nand languishing.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nOF THE GRADUAL PERFECTING OF BOOKS\n\nWhile assiduously seeking out the wisdom of the men of old, according\nto the counsel of the Wise Man (Eccles. xxxix.):  The wise man, he\nsays, will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, we have not thought\nfit to be misled into the opinion that the first founders of the arts\nhave purged away all crudeness, knowing that the discoveries of each of\nthe faithful, when weighed in a faithful balance, makes a tiny portion\nof science, but that by the anxious investigations of a multitude of\nscholars, each as it were contributing his share, the mighty bodies of\nthe sciences have grown by successive augmentations to the immense bulk\nthat we now behold.  For the disciples, continually melting down the\ndoctrines of their masters, and passing them again through the furnace,\ndrove off the dross that had been previously overlooked, until there\ncame out refined gold tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times\nto perfection, and stained by no admixture of error or doubt.\n\nFor not even Aristotle, although a man of gigantic intellect, in whom\nit pleased Nature to try how much of reason she could bestow upon\nmortality, and whom the Most High made only a little lower than the\nangels, sucked from his own fingers those wonderful volumes which the\nwhole world can hardly contain.  But, on the contrary, with lynx-eyed\npenetration he had seen through the sacred books of the Hebrews, the\nBabylonians, the Egyptians, the Chaldaeans, the Persians and the Medes,\nall of which learned Greece had transferred into her treasuries.  Whose\ntrue sayings he received, but smoothed away their crudities, pruned\ntheir superfluities, supplied their deficiencies, and removed their\nerrors.  And he held that we should give thanks not only to those who\nteach rightly, but even to those who err, as affording the way of more\neasily investigating truth, as he plainly declares in the second book\nof his Metaphysics.  Thus many learned lawyers contributed to the\nPandects, many physicians to the Tegni, and it was by this means that\nAvicenna edited his Canon, and Pliny his great work on Natural History,\nand Ptolemy the Almagest.\n\nFor as in the writers of annals it is not difficult to see that the\nlater writer always presupposes the earlier, without whom he could by\nno means relate the former times, so too we are to think of the authors\nof the sciences.  For no man by himself has brought forth any science,\nsince between the earliest students and those of the latter time we\nfind intermediaries, ancient if they be compared with our own age, but\nmodern if we think of the foundations of learning, and these men we\nconsider the most learned.  What would Virgil, the chief poet among the\nLatins, have achieved, if he had not despoiled Theocritus, Lucretius,\nand Homer, and had not ploughed with their heifer?  What, unless again\nand again he had read somewhat of Parthenius and Pindar, whose\neloquence he could by no means imitate?  What could Sallust, Tully,\nBoethius, Macrobius, Lactantius, Martianus, and in short the whole\ntroop of Latin writers have done, if they had not seen the productions\nof Athens or the volumes of the Greeks?  Certes, little would Jerome,\nmaster of three languages, Ambrosius, Augustine, though he confesses\nthat he hated Greek, or even Gregory, who is said to have been wholly\nignorant of it, have contributed to the doctrine of the Church, if more\nlearned Greece had not furnished them from its stores.  As Rome,\nwatered by the streams of Greece, had earlier brought forth\nphilosophers in the image of the Greeks, in like fashion afterwards it\nproduced doctors of the orthodox faith.  The creeds we chant are the\nsweat of Grecian brows, promulgated by their Councils, and established\nby the martyrdom of many.\n\nYet their natural slowness, as it happens, turns to the glory of the\nLatins, since as they were less learned in their studies, so they were\nless perverse in their errors.  In truth, the Arian heresy had all but\neclipsed the whole Church; the Nestorian wickedness presumed to rave\nwith blasphemous rage against the Virgin, for it would have robbed the\nQueen of Heaven, not in open fight but in disputation, of her name and\ncharacter as Mother of God, unless the invincible champion Cyril, ready\nto do single battle, with the help of the Council of Ephesus, had in\nvehemence of spirit utterly extinguished it.  Innumerable are the forms\nas well as the authors of Greek heresies; for as they were the original\ncultivators of our holy faith, so too they were the first sowers of\ntares, as is shown by veracious history.  And thus they went on from\nbad to worse, because in endeavouring to part the seamless vesture of\nthe Lord, they totally destroyed primitive simplicity of doctrine, and\nblinded by the darkness of novelty would fall into the bottomless pit,\nunless He provide for them in His inscrutable prerogative, whose wisdom\nis past reckoning.\n\nLet this suffice; for here we reach the limit of our power of judgment.\nOne thing, however, we conclude from the premises, that the ignorance\nof the Greek tongue is now a great hindrance to the study of the Latin\nwriters, since without it the doctrines of the ancient authors, whether\nChristian or Gentile, cannot be understood.  And we must come to a like\njudgment as to Arabic in numerous astronomical treatises, and as to\nHebrew as regards the text of the Holy Bible, which deficiencies,\nindeed, Clement V.  provides for, if only the bishops would faithfully\nobserve what they so lightly decree.  Wherefore we have taken care to\nprovide a Greek as well as a Hebrew grammar for our scholars, with\ncertain other aids, by the help of which studious readers may greatly\ninform themselves in the writing, reading, and understanding of the\nsaid tongues, although only the hearing of them can teach correctness\nof idiom.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nWHY WE HAVE PREFERRED BOOKS OF LIBERAL LEARNING TO BOOKS OF LAW\n\nThat lucrative practice of positive law, designed for the dispensation\nof earthly things, the more useful it is found by the children of this\nworld, so much the less does it aid the children of light in\ncomprehending the mysteries of holy writ and the secret sacraments of\nthe faith, seeing that it disposes us peculiarly to the friendship of\nthe world, by which man, as S.  James testifies, is made the enemy of\nGod.  Law indeed encourages rather than extinguishes the contentions of\nmankind, which are the result of unbounded greed, by complicated laws,\nwhich can be turned either way; though we know that it was created by\njurisconsults and pious princes for the purpose of assuaging these\ncontentions.  But in truth, as the same science deals with contraries,\nand the power of reason can be used to opposite ends, and at the same\nthe human mind is more inclined to evil, it happens with the practisers\nof this science that they usually devote themselves to promoting\ncontention rather than peace, and instead of quoting laws according to\nthe intent of the legislator, violently strain the language thereof to\neffect their own purposes.\n\nWherefore, although the over-mastering love of books has possessed our\nmind from boyhood, and to rejoice in their delights has been our only\npleasure, yet the appetite for the books of the civil law took less\nhold of our affections, and we have spent but little labour and expense\nin acquiring volumes of this kind.  For they are useful only as the\nscorpion in treacle, as Aristotle, the sun of science, has said of\nlogic in his book De Pomo.  We have noticed a certain manifest\ndifference of nature between law and science, in that every science is\ndelighted and desires to open its inward parts and display the very\nheart of its principles, and to show forth the roots from which it buds\nand flourishes, and that the emanation of its springs may be seen of\nall men; for thus from the cognate and harmonious light of the truth of\nconclusion  to principles, the whole body of science will be full of\nlight, having no part dark.  But laws, on the contrary, since they are\nonly human enactments for the regulation of social life, or the yokes\nof princes thrown over the necks of their subjects, refuse to be\nbrought to the standard of synteresis, the origin of equity, because\nthey feel that they possess more of arbitrary will than rational\njudgment.  Wherefore the judgment of the wise for the most part is that\nthe causes of laws are not a fit subject of discussion.  In truth, many\nlaws acquire force by mere custom, not by syllogistic necessity, like\nthe arts: as Aristotle, the Phoebus of the Schools, urges in the second\nbook of the Politics, where he confutes the policy of Hippodamus, which\nholds out rewards to the inventors of new laws, because to abrogate old\nlaws and establish new ones is to weaken the force of those which\nexist.  For whatever receives its stability from use alone must\nnecessarily be brought to nought by disuse.\n\nFrom which it is seen clearly enough, that as laws are neither arts nor\nsciences, so books of law cannot properly be called books of art or\nscience.  Nor is this faculty which we may call by a special term\ngeologia, or the earthly science, to be properly numbered among the\nsciences.  Now the books of the liberal arts are so useful to the\ndivine writings, that without their aid the intellect would vainly\naspire to understand them.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nWHY WE HAVE CAUSED BOOKS OF GRAMMAR TO BE SO DILIGENTLY PREPARED\n\nWhile we were constantly delighting ourselves with the reading of\nbooks, which it was our custom to read or have read to us every day, we\nnoticed plainly how much the defective knowledge even of a single word\nhinders the understanding, as the meaning of no sentence can be\napprehended, if any part of it be not understood.  Wherefore we ordered\nthe meanings of foreign words to be noted with particular care, and\nstudied the orthography, prosody, etymology, and syntax in ancient\ngrammarians with unrelaxing carefulness, and took pains to elucidate\nterms that had grown too obscure by age with suitable explanations, in\norder to make a smooth path for our students.\n\nThis is the whole reason why we took care to replace the antiquated\nvolumes of the grammarians by improved codices, that we might make\nroyal roads, by which our scholars in time to come might attain without\nstumbling to any science.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nWHY WE HAVE NOT WHOLLY NEGLECTED THE FABLES OF THE POETS\n\nAll the varieties of attack directed against the poets by the lovers of\nnaked truth may be repelled by a two-fold defence: either that even in\nan unseemly subject-matter we may learn a charming fashion of speech,\nor that where a fictitious but becoming subject is handled, natural or\nhistorical truth is pursued under the guise of allegorical fiction.\n\nAlthough it is true that all men naturally desire knowledge, yet they\ndo not all take the same pleasure in learning.  On the contrary, when\nthey have experienced the labour of study and find their senses\nwearied, most men inconsiderately fling away the nut, before they have\nbroken the shell and reached the kernel.  For man is naturally fond of\ntwo things, namely, freedom from control and some pleasure in his\nactivity; for which reason no one without reason submits himself to the\ncontrol of others, or willingly engages in any tedious task.  For\npleasure crowns activity, as beauty is a crown to youth, as Aristotle\ntruly asserts in the tenth book of the Ethics.  Accordingly the wisdom\nof the ancients devised a remedy by which to entice the wanton minds of\nmen by a kind of pious fraud, the delicate Minerva secretly lurking\nbeneath the mask of pleasure.  We are wont to allure children by\nrewards, that they may cheerfully learn what we force them to study\neven though they are unwilling.  For our fallen nature does not tend to\nvirtue with the same enthusiasm with which it rushes into vice.  Horace\nhas expressed this for us in a brief verse of the Ars Poetica, where he\nsays:\n\n  All poets sing to profit or delight.\n\nAnd he has plainly intimated the same thing in another verse of the\nsame book, where he says:\n\n     He hits the mark, who mingles joy with use.\n\nHow many students of Euclid have been repelled by the Pons Asinorum, as\nby a lofty and precipitous rock, which no help of ladders could enable\nthem to scale!  THIS IS A HARD SAYING, they exclaim, AND WHO CAN\nRECEIVE IT.  The child of inconstancy, who ended by wishing to be\ntransformed into an ass, would perhaps never have given up the study of\nphilosophy, if he had met him in friendly guise veiled under the cloak\nof pleasure; but anon, astonished by Crato's chair and struck dumb by\nhis endless questions, as by a sudden thunderbolt, he saw no refuge but\nin flight.\n\nSo much we have alleged in defence of the poets; and now we proceed to\nshow that those who study them with proper intent are not to be\ncondemned in regard to them.  For our ignorance of one single word\nprevents the understanding of a whole long sentence, as was assumed in\nthe previous chapter.  As now the sayings of the saints frequently\nallude to the inventions of the poets, it must needs happen that\nthrough our not knowing the poem referred to, the whole meaning of the\nauthor is completely obscured, and assuredly, as Cassiodorus says in\nhis book Of the Institutes of Sacred Literature:  Those things are not\nto be considered trifles without which great things cannot come to\npass.  It follows therefore that through ignorance of poetry we do not\nunderstand Jerome, Augustine, Boethius, Lactantius, Sidonius, and very\nmany others, a catalogue of whom would more than fill a long chapter.\n\nThe Venerable Bede has very clearly discussed and determined this\ndoubtful point, as is related by that great compiler Gratian, the\nrepeater of numerous authors, who is as confused in form as he was\neager in collecting matter for his compilation.  Now he writes in his\n37th section:  Some read secular literature for pleasure, taking\ndelight in the inventions and elegant language of the poets; but others\nstudy this literature for the sake of scholarship, that by their\nreading they may learn to detest the errors of the Gentiles and may\ndevoutly apply what they find useful in them to the use of sacred\nlearning.  Such men study secular literature in a laudable manner. So\nfar Bede.\n\nTaking this salutary instruction to heart, let the detractors of those\nwho study the poets henceforth hold their peace, and let not those who\nare ignorant of these things require that others should be as ignorant\nas themselves, for this is the consolation of the wretched.  And\ntherefore let every man see that his own intentions are upright, and he\nmay thus make of any subject, observing the limitations of virtue, a\nstudy acceptable to God.  And if he have found profit in poetry, as the\ngreat Virgil relates that he had done in Ennius, he will not have done\namiss.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nWHO OUGHT TO BE SPECIAL LOVERS OF BOOKS\n\nTo him who recollects what has been said before, it is plain and\nevident who ought to be the chief lovers of books.  For those who have\nmost need of wisdom in order to perform usefully the duties of their\nposition, they are without doubt most especially bound to show more\nabundantly to the sacred vessels of wisdom the anxious affection of a\ngrateful heart.  Now it is the office of the wise man to order rightly\nboth himself and others, according to the Phoebus of philosophers,\nAristotle, who deceives not nor is deceived in human things.  Wherefore\nprinces and prelates, judges and doctors, and all other leaders of the\ncommonwealth, as more than others they have need of wisdom, so more\nthan others ought they to show zeal for the vessels of wisdom.\n\nBoethius, indeed, beheld Philosophy bearing a sceptre in her left hand\nand books in her right, by which it is evidently shown to all men that\nno one can rightly rule a commonwealth without books. Thou, says\nBoethius, speaking to Philosophy, hast sanctioned this saying by the\nmouth of Plato, that states would be happy if they were ruled by\nstudents of philosophy, or if their rulers would study philosophy.  And\nagain, we are taught by the very gesture of the figure that in so far\nas the right hand is better than the left, so far the contemplative\nlife is more worthy than the active life; and at the same time we are\nshown that the business of the wise man is to devote himself by turns,\nnow to the study of truth, and now to the dispensation of temporal\nthings.\n\nWe read that Philip thanked the Gods devoutly for having granted that\nAlexander should be born in the time of Aristotle, so that educated\nunder his instruction he might be worthy to rule his father's empire.\nWhile Phaeton unskilled in driving becomes the charioteer of his\nfather's car, he unhappily distributes to mankind the heat of Phoebus,\nnow by excessive nearness, and now by withdrawing it too far, and so,\nlest all beneath him should be imperilled by the closeness of his\ndriving, justly deserved to be struck by the thunderbolt.\n\nThe history of the Greeks as well as Romans shows that there were no\nfamous princes among them who were devoid of literature.  The sacred\nlaw of Moses in prescribing to the king a rule of government, enjoins\nhim to have a copy made of the book of Divine law (Deut. xvii.)\naccording to the copy shown by the priests, in which he was to read all\nthe days of his life.  Certes, God Himself, who hath made and who\nfashioneth every day the hearts of every one of us, knows the\nfeebleness of human memory and the instability of virtuous intentions\nin mankind.  Wherefore He has willed that books should be as it were an\nantidote to all evil, the reading and use of which He has commanded to\nbe the healthful daily nourishment of the soul, so that by them the\nintellect being refreshed and neither weak nor doubtful should never\nhesitate in action.  This subject is elegantly handled by John of\nSalisbury, in his Policraticon.  In conclusion, all classes of men who\nare conspicuous by the tonsure or the sign of clerkship, against whom\nbooks lifted up their voices in the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters,\nare bound to serve books with perpetual veneration.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nOF THE ADVANTAGES OF THE LOVE OF BOOKS\n\nIt transcends the power of human intellect, however deeply it may have\ndrunk of the Pegasean fount, to develop fully the title of the present\nchapter.  Though one should speak with the tongue of men and angels,\nthough he should become a Mercury or Tully, though he should grow sweet\nwith the milky eloquence of Livy, yet he will plead the stammering of\nMoses, or with Jeremiah will confess that he is but a boy and cannot\nspeak, or will imitate Echo rebounding from the mountains.  For we know\nthat the love of books is the same thing as the love of wisdom, as was\nproved in the second chapter.  Now this love is called by the Greek\nword philosophy, the whole virtue of which no created intelligence can\ncomprehend; for she is believed to be the mother of all good things:\nWisdom vii.  She as a heavenly dew extinguishes the heats of fleshly\nvices, the intense activity of the mental forces relaxing the vigour of\nthe animal forces, and slothfulness being wholly put to flight, which\nbeing gone all the bows of Cupid are unstrung.\n\nHence Plato says in the Phaedo:  The philosopher is manifest in this,\nthat he dissevers the soul from communion with the body.  Love, says\nJerome, the knowledge of the scriptures, and thou wilt not love the\nvices of the flesh.  The godlike Xenocrates showed this by the firmness\nof his reason, who was declared by the famous hetaera Phryne to be a\nstatue and not a man, when all her blandishments could not shake his\nresolve, as Valerius Maximus relates at length.  Our own Origen showed\nthis also, who chose rather to be unsexed by the mutilation of himself,\nthan to be made effeminate by the omnipotence of woman--though it was a\nhasty remedy, repugnant alike to nature and to virtue, whose place it\nis not to make men insensible to passion, but to slay with the dagger\nof reason the passions that spring from instinct.\n\nAgain, all who are smitten with the love of books think cheaply of the\nworld and wealth; as Jerome says to Vigilantius:  The same man cannot\nlove both gold and books.  And thus it has been said in verse:\n\n  No iron-stained hand is fit to handle books,\n  Nor he whose heart on gold so gladly looks:\n  The same men love not books and money both,\n  And books thy herd, O Epicurus, loathe;\n  Misers and bookmen make poor company,\n  Nor dwell in peace beneath the same roof-tree.\n  No man, therefore, can serve both books and Mammon.\n\n\nThe hideousness of vice is greatly reprobated in books, so that he who\nloves to commune with books is led to detest all manner of vice.  The\ndemon, who derives his name from knowledge, is most effectually\ndefeated by the knowledge of books, and through books his multitudinous\ndeceits and the endless labyrinths of his guile are laid bare to those\nwho read, lest he be transformed into an angel of light and circumvent\nthe innocent by his wiles.  The reverence of God is revealed to us by\nbooks, the virtues by which He is worshipped are more expressly\nmanifested, and the rewards are described that are promised by the\ntruth, which deceives not, neither is deceived.  The truest likeness of\nthe beatitude to come is the contemplation of the sacred writings, in\nwhich we behold in turn the Creator and the creature, and draw from\nstreams of perpetual gladness.  Faith is established by the power of\nbooks; hope is strengthened by their solace, insomuch that by patience\nand the consolation of scripture we are in good hope.  Charity is not\npuffed up, but is edified by the knowledge of true learning, and,\nindeed, it is clearer than light that the Church is established upon\nthe sacred writings.\n\nBooks delight us, when prosperity smiles upon us; they comfort us\ninseparably when stormy fortune frowns on us.  They lend validity to\nhuman compacts, and no serious judgments are propounded without their\nhelp.  Arts and sciences, all the advantages of which no mind can\nenumerate, consist in books.  How highly must we estimate the wondrous\npower of books, since through them we survey the utmost bounds of the\nworld and time, and contemplate the things that are as well as those\nthat are not, as it were in the mirror of eternity.  In books we climb\nmountains and scan the deepest gulfs of the abyss; in books we behold\nthe finny tribes that may not exist outside their native waters,\ndistinguish the properties of streams and springs and of various lands;\nfrom books we dig out gems and metals and the materials of every kind\nof mineral, and learn the virtues of herbs and trees and plants, and\nsurvey at will the whole progeny of Neptune, Ceres, and Pluto.\n\nBut if we please to visit the heavenly inhabitants, Taurus, Caucasus,\nand Olympus are at hand, from which we pass beyond the realms of Juno\nand mark out the territories of the seven planets by lines and circles.\nAnd finally we traverse the loftiest firmament of all, adorned with\nsigns, degrees, and figures in the utmost variety.  There we inspect\nthe antarctic pole, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard; we admire\nthe luminous Milky Way and the Zodiac, marvellously and delightfully\npictured with celestial animals.  Thence by books we pass on to\nseparate substances, that the intellect may greet kindred\nintelligences, and with the mind's eye may discern the First Cause of\nall things and the Unmoved Mover of infinite virtue, and may immerse\nitself in love without end.  See how with the aid of books we attain\nthe reward of our beatitude, while we are yet sojourners below.\n\nWhy need we say more?  Certes, just as we have learnt on the authority\nof Seneca, leisure without letters is death and the sepulture of the\nliving, so contrariwise we conclude that occupation with letters or\nbooks is the life of man.\n\nAgain, by means of books we communicate to friends as well as foes what\nwe cannot safely entrust to messengers; since the book is generally\nallowed access to the chambers of princes, from which the voice of its\nauthor would be rigidly excluded, as Tertullian observes at the\nbeginning of his Apologeticus.  When shut up in prison and in bonds,\nand utterly deprived of bodily liberty, we use books as ambassadors to\nour friends, and entrust them with the conduct of our cause, and send\nthem where to go ourselves would incur the penalty of death.  By the\naid of books we remember things that are past, and even prophesy as to\nthe future; and things present, which shift and flow, we perpetuate by\ncommitting them to writing.\n\nThe felicitous studiousness and the studious felicity of the\nall-powerful eunuch, of whom we are told in the Acts, who had been so\nmightily kindled by the love of the prophetic writings that he ceased\nnot from his reading by reason of his journey, had banished all thought\nof the populous palace of Queen Candace, and had forgotten even the\ntreasures of which he was the keeper, and had neglected alike his\njourney and the chariot in which he rode.  Love of his book alone had\nwholly engrossed this domicile of chastity, under whose guidance he\nsoon deserved to enter the gate of faith.  O gracious love of books,\nwhich by the grace of baptism transformed the child of Gehenna and\nnursling of Tartarus into a Son of the Kingdom!\n\nLet the feeble pen now cease from the tenor of an infinite task, lest\nit seem foolishly to undertake what in the beginning it confessed to be\nimpossible to any.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTHAT IT IS MERITORIOUS TO WRITE NEW BOOKS AND TO RENEW THE OLD\n\nJust as it is necessary for the state to prepare arms and to provide\nabundant stores of victuals for the soldiers who are to fight for it,\nso it is fitting for the Church Militant to fortify itself against the\nassaults of pagans and heretics with a multitude of sound writings.\n\nBut because all the appliances of mortal men with the lapse of time\nsuffer the decay of mortality, it is needful to replace the volumes\nthat are worn out with age by fresh successors, that the perpetuity of\nwhich the individual is by its nature incapable may be secured to the\nspecies; and hence it is that the Preacher says: Of making many books\nthere is no end.  For as the bodies of books, seeing that they are\nformed of a combination of contrary elements, undergo a continual\ndissolution of their structure, so by the forethought of the clergy a\nremedy should be found, by means of which the sacred book paying the\ndebt of nature may obtain a natural heir and may raise up like seed to\nits dead brother, and thus may be verified that saying of\nEcclesiasticus: His father is dead, and he is as if he were not dead;\nfor he hath left one behind him that is like himself.  And thus the\ntranscription of ancient books is as it were the begetting of fresh\nsons, on whom the office of the father may devolve, lest it suffer\ndetriment.  Now such transcribers are called antiquarii, whose\noccupations Cassiodorus confesses please him above all the tasks of\nbodily labour, adding: \"Happy effort,\" he says, \"laudable industry, to\npreach to men with the hand, to let loose tongues with the fingers,\nsilently to give salvation to mortals, and to fight with pen and ink\nagainst the illicit wiles of the Evil One.\"  So far Cassiodorus.\nMoreover, our Saviour exercised the office of the scribe when He\nstooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground (John viii.), that\nno one, however exalted, may think it unworthy of him to do what he\nsees the wisdom of God the Father did.\n\nO singular serenity of writing, to practise which the Artificer of the\nworld stoops down, at whose dread name every knee doth bow!  O\nvenerable handicraft pre-eminent above all other crafts that are\npractised by the hand of man, to which our Lord humbly inclines His\nbreast, to which the finger of God is applied, performing the office of\na pen!  We do not read of the Son of God that He sowed or ploughed,\nwove or digged; nor did any other of the mechanic arts befit the divine\nwisdom incarnate except to trace letters in writing, that every\ngentleman and sciolist may know that fingers are given by God to men\nfor the task of writing rather than for war.  Wherefore we entirely\napprove the judgment of books, wherein they declared in our sixth\nchapter the clerk who cannot write to be as it were disabled.\n\nGod himself inscribes the just in the book of the living; Moses\nreceived the tables of stone written with the finger of God.  Job\ndesires that he himself that judgeth would write a book.  Belshazzar\ntrembled when he saw the fingers of a man's hand writing upon the wall,\nMene tekel phares.  I wrote, says Jeremiah, with ink in the book.\nChrist bids his beloved disciple John, What thou seest write in a book.\nSo the office of the writer is enjoined on Isaiah and on Joshua, that\nthe act and skill of writing may be commended to future generations.\nChrist Himself has written on His vesture and on His thigh King of\nKings and Lord of Lords, so that without writing the royal ornaments of\nthe Omnipotent cannot be made perfect.  Being dead they cease not to\nteach, who write books of sacred learning.  Paul did more for building\nup the fabric of the Church by writing his holy epistles, than by\npreaching by word of mouth to Jews and Gentiles.  He who has attained\nthe prize continues daily by books, what he long ago began while a\nsojourner upon the earth; and thus is fulfilled in the doctors writing\nbooks the saying of the Prophet:  They that turn many to righteousness\nshall be as the stars for ever and ever.\n\nMoreover, it has been determined by the doctors of the Church that the\nlongevity of the ancients, before God destroyed the original world by\nthe Deluge, is to be ascribed to a miracle and not to nature; as though\nGod granted to them such length of days as was required for finding out\nthe sciences and writing them in books; amongst which the wonderful\nvariety of astronomy required, according to Josephus, a period of six\nhundred years, to submit it to ocular observation.  Nor, indeed, do\nthey deny that the fruits of the earth in that primitive age afforded a\nmore nutritious aliment to men than in our modern times, and thus they\nhad not only a livelier energy of body, but also a more lengthened\nperiod of vigour; to which it contributed not a little that they lived\naccording to virtue and denied themselves all luxurious delights.\nWhoever therefore is by the good gift of God endowed with gift of\nscience, let him, according to the counsel of the Holy Spirit, write\nwisdom in his time of leisure (Eccles.  xxxviii.), that his reward may\nbe with the blessed and his days may be lengthened in this present\nworld.\n\nAnd further, if we turn our discourse to the princes of the world, we\nfind that famous emperors not only attained excellent skill in the art\nof writing, but indulged greatly in its practice.  Julius Caesar, the\nfirst and greatest of them all, has left us Commentaries on the Gallic\nand the Civil Wars written by himself; he wrote also two books De\nAnalogia, and two books of Anticatones, and a poem called Iter; and\nmany other works.  Julius and Augustus devised means of writing one\nletter for another, and so concealing what they wrote.  For Julius put\nthe fourth letter for the first, and so on through the alphabet; whilst\nAugustus used the second for the first, the third for the second, and\nso throughout.  He is said in the greatest difficulties of affairs\nduring the Mutinensian War to have read and written and even declaimed\nevery day.  Tiberius wrote a lyric poem and some Greek verses.\nClaudius likewise was skilled in both Greek and Latin, and wrote\nseveral books.  But Titus was skilled above all men in the art of\nwriting, and easily imitated any hand he chose; so that he used to say\nthat if he had wished it he might have become a most skilful forger.\nAll these things are noted by Suetonius in his Lives of the XII.\nCaesars.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nOF SHOWING DUE PROPRIETY IN THE CUSTODY OF BOOKS\n\nWe are not only rendering service to God in preparing volumes of new\nbooks, but also exercising an office of sacred piety when we treat\nbooks carefully, and again when we restore them to their proper places\nand commend them to inviolable custody; that they may rejoice in purity\nwhile we have them in our hands, and rest securely when they are put\nback in their repositories.  And surely next to the vestments and\nvessels dedicated to the Lord's body, holy books deserve to be rightly\ntreated by the clergy, to which great injury is done so often as they\nare touched by unclean hands.  Wherefore we deem it expedient to warn\nour students of various negligences, which might always be easily\navoided and do wonderful harm to books.\n\nAnd in the first place as to the opening and closing of books, let\nthere be due moderation, that they be not unclasped in precipitate\nhaste, nor when we have finished our inspection be put away without\nbeing duly closed.  For it behoves us to guard a book much more\ncarefully than a boot.\n\nBut the race of scholars is commonly badly brought up, and unless they\nare bridled in by the rules of their elders they indulge in infinite\npuerilities.  They behave with petulance, and are puffed up with\npresumption, judging of everything as if they were certain, though they\nare altogether inexperienced.\n\nYou may happen to see some headstrong youth lazily lounging over his\nstudies, and when the winter's frost is sharp, his nose running from\nthe nipping cold drips down, nor does he think of wiping it with his\npocket-handkerchief until he has bedewed the book before him with the\nugly moisture.  Would that he had before him no book, but a cobbler's\napron!  His nails are stuffed with fetid filth as black as jet, with\nwhich he marks any passage that pleases him.  He distributes a\nmultitude of straws, which he inserts to stick out in different places,\nso that the halm may remind him of what his memory cannot retain.\nThese straws, because the book has no stomach to digest them, and no\none takes them out, first distend the book from its wonted closing, and\nat length, being carelessly abandoned to oblivion, go to decay.  He\ndoes not fear to eat fruit or cheese over an open book, or carelessly\nto carry a cup to and from his mouth; and because he has no wallet at\nhand he drops into books the fragments that are left.  Continually\nchattering, he is never weary of disputing with his companions, and\nwhile he alleges a crowd of senseless arguments, he wets the book lying\nhalf open in his lap with sputtering showers.  Aye, and then hastily\nfolding his arms he leans forward on the book, and by a brief spell of\nstudy invites a prolonged nap; and then, by way of mending the\nwrinkles, he folds back the margin of the leaves, to the no small\ninjury of the book.  Now the rain is over and gone, and the flowers\nhave appeared in our land.  Then the scholar we are speaking of, a\nneglecter rather than an inspecter of books, will stuff his volume with\nviolets, and primroses, with roses and quatrefoil.  Then he will use\nhis wet and perspiring hands to turn over the volumes; then he will\nthump the white vellum with gloves covered with all kinds of dust, and\nwith his finger clad in long-used leather will hunt line by line\nthrough the page; then at the sting of the biting flea the sacred book\nis flung aside, and is hardly shut for another month, until it is so\nfull of the dust that has found its way within, that it resists the\neffort to close it.\n\nBut the handling of books is specially to be forbidden to those\nshameless youths, who as soon as they have learned to form the shapes\nof letters, straightway, if they have the opportunity, become unhappy\ncommentators, and wherever they find an extra margin about the text,\nfurnish it with monstrous alphabets, or if any other frivolity strikes\ntheir fancy, at once their pen begins to write it.  There the Latinist\nand sophister and every unlearned writer tries the fitness of his pen,\na practice that we have frequently seen injuring the usefulness and\nvalue of the most beautiful books.\n\nAgain, there is a class of thieves shamefully mutilating books, who cut\naway the margins from the sides to use as material for letters, leaving\nonly the text, or employ the leaves from the ends, inserted for the\nprotection of the book, for various uses and abuses--a kind of\nsacrilege which should be prohibited by the threat of anathema.\n\nAgain, it is part of the decency of scholars that whenever they return\nfrom meals to their study, washing should invariably precede reading,\nand that no grease-stained finger should unfasten the clasps, or turn\nthe leaves of a book.  Nor let a crying child admire the pictures in\nthe capital letters, lest he soil the parchment with wet fingers; for a\nchild instantly touches whatever he sees.  Moreover, the laity, who\nlook at a book turned upside down just as if it were open in the right\nway, are utterly unworthy of any communion with books.  Let the clerk\ntake care also that the smutty scullion reeking from his stewpots does\nnot touch the lily leaves of books, all unwashed, but he who walketh\nwithout blemish shall minister to the precious volumes.  And, again,\nthe cleanliness of decent hands would be of great benefit to books as\nwell as scholars, if it were not that the itch and pimples are\ncharacteristic of the clergy.\n\nWhenever defects are noticed in books, they should be promptly\nrepaired, since nothing spreads more quickly than a tear and a rent\nwhich is neglected at the time will have to be repaired afterwards with\nusury.\n\nMoses, the gentlest of men, teaches us to make bookcases most neatly,\nwherein they may be protected from any injury: Take, he says, this book\nof the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the\nLord your God.   O fitting place and appropriate for a library, which\nwas made of imperishable shittim-wood, and was all covered within and\nwithout with gold!  But the Saviour also has warned us by His example\nagainst all unbecoming carelessness in the handling of books, as we\nread in S.  Luke.  For when He had read the scriptural prophecy of\nHimself in the book that was delivered to Him, He did not give it again\nto the minister, until He had closed it with his own most sacred hands.\nBy which students are most clearly taught that in the care of books the\nmerest trifles ought not to be neglected.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nSHOWETH THAT WE HAVE COLLECTED SO GREAT STORE OF BOOKS FOR THE COMMON\nBENEFIT OF SCHOLARS AND NOT ONLY FOR OUR OWN PLEASURE\n\nNothing in human affairs is more unjust than that those things which\nare most righteously done, should be perverted by the slanders of\nmalicious men, and that one should bear the reproach of sin where he\nhas rather deserved the hope of honour.  Many things are done with\nsingleness of eye, the right hand knoweth not what the left hand doth,\nthe lump is uncorrupted by leaven, nor is the garment woven of wool and\nlinen; and yet by the trickery of perverse men a pious work is\nmendaciously transformed into some monstrous act.  Certes, such is the\nunhappy condition of sinful nature, that not merely in acts that are\nmorally doubtful it adopts the worse conclusion; but often it depraves\nby iniquitous subversion those which have the appearance of rectitude.\n\nFor although the love of books from the nature of its object bears the\naspect of goodness, yet, wonderful to say, it has rendered us obnoxious\nto the censures of many, by whose astonishment we were disparaged and\ncensured, now for excess of curiosity, now for the exhibition of\nvanity, now for intemperance of delight in literature; though indeed we\nwere no more disturbed by their vituperation than by the barking of so\nmany dogs, satisfied with the testimony of Him to whom it appertaineth\nto try the hearts and reins.  For as the aim and purpose of our inmost\nwill is inscrutable to men and is seen of God alone, the searcher of\nhearts, they deserve to be rebuked for their pernicious temerity, who\nso eagerly set a mark of condemnation upon human acts, the ultimate\nsprings of which they cannot see.  For the final end in matters of\nconduct holds the same position as first principles in speculative\nscience or axioms in mathematics, as the chief of philosophers,\nAristotle, points out in the seventh book of the Ethics.  And\ntherefore, just as the truth of our conclusions depends upon the\ncorrectness of our premises, so in matters of action the stamp of moral\nrectitude is given by the honesty of aim and purpose, in cases where\nthe act itself would otherwise be held to be morally indifferent.\n\nNow we have long cherished in our heart of hearts the fixed resolve,\nwhen Providence should grant a favourable opportunity, to found in\nperpetual charity a Hall in the reverend university of Oxford, the\nchief nursing mother of all liberal arts, and to endow it with the\nnecessary revenues, for the maintenance of a number of scholars; and\nmoreover to enrich the Hall with the treasures of our books, that all\nand every of them should be in common as regards their use and study,\nnot only to the scholars of the said Hall, but by their means to all\nthe students of the before-named university for ever, in the form and\nmanner which the following chapter shall declare.  Wherefore the\nsincere love of study and zeal for the strengthening of the orthodox\nfaith to the edifying of the Church, have begotten in us that\nsolicitude so marvellous to the lovers of pelf, of collecting books\nwherever they were to be purchased, regardless of expense, and of\nhaving those that could not he bought fairly transcribed.\n\nFor as the favourite occupations of men are variously distinguished\naccording to the disposition of the heavenly bodies, which frequently\ncontrol our natural composition, so that some men choose to devote\nthemselves to architecture, others to agriculture, others to hunting,\nothers to navigation, others to war, others to games, we have under the\naspect of Mercury entertained a blameless pleasure in books, which\nunder the rule of right reason, over which no stars are dominant, we\nhave ordered to the glory of the Supreme Being, that where our minds\nfound tranquillity and peace, thence also might spring a most devout\nservice of God.  And therefore let our detractors cease, who are as\nblind men judging of colours; let not bats venture to speak of light;\nand let not those who carry beams in their own eyes presume to pull the\nmote out of their brother's eye. Let them cease to jeer with satirical\ntaunts at things of which they are ignorant, and to discuss hidden\nthings that are not revealed to the eyes of men; who perchance would\nhave praised and commended us, if we had spent our time in hunting,\ndice-playing, or courting the smiles of ladies.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nOF THE MANNER OF LENDING ALL OUR BOOKS TO STUDENTS\n\nIt has ever been difficult so to restrain men by the laws of rectitude,\nthat the astuteness of successors might not strive to transgress the\nbounds of their predecessors, and to infringe established rules in\ninsolence of licence.  Accordingly, with the advice of prudent men, we\nhave prescribed the manner in which we desire that the communication\nand use of our books should be permitted for the benefit of students.\n\nImprimis, we give and grant all and singular the books, of which we\nhave made a special catalogue, in consideration of affection, to the\ncommunity of scholars living in ---- Hall at Oxford, as a perpetual\ngift, for our soul and the souls of our parents, and also for the soul\nof the most illustrious King Edward the Third from the Conquest, and of\nthe most pious Queen Philippa, his consort: to the intent that the same\nbooks may be lent from time to time to all and singular the scholars\nand masters of the said place, as well regular as secular, for the\nadvancement and use of study, in the manner immediately following, that\nis to say:\n\nFive of the scholars sojourning in the Hall aforesaid shall be\nappointed by the Master thereof, who shall have the charge of all the\nbooks, of which five persons three and not fewer may lend any book or\nbooks for inspection and study; but for copying or transcribing we\ndirect that no book shall be allowed outside the walls of the house.\nTherefore, when any scholar secular or religious, whom for this purpose\nwe regard with equal favour, shall seek to borrow any book, let the\nkeepers diligently consider if they have a duplicate of the said book,\nand if so, let them lend him the book, taking such pledge as in their\njudgment exceeds the value of the book delivered, and let a record be\nmade forthwith of the pledge and of the book lent, containing the names\nof the persons delivering the book and of the person who receives it,\ntogether with the day and year when the loan is made.\n\nBut if the keepers find that the book asked for is not in duplicate,\nthey shall not lend such book to any one whomsoever, unless he shall\nbelong to the community of scholars of the said Hall, unless perhaps\nfor inspection within the walls of the aforesaid house or Hall, but not\nto be carried beyond it.\n\nBut to any of the scholars of the said Hall, any book may be lent by\nthree of the aforesaid keepers, after first recording, however, his\nname, with the day on which he receives the book.  Nevertheless, the\nborrower may not lend the book entrusted to him to another, except with\nthe permission of three of the aforesaid keepers, and then the name of\nthe first borrower being erased, the name of the second with the time\nof delivery is to be recorded.\n\nEach keeper shall take an oath to observe all these regulations when\nthey enter upon the charge of the books.  And the recipients of any\nbook or books shall thereupon swear that they will not use the book or\nbooks for any other purpose but that of inspection or study, and that\nthey will not take or permit to be taken it or them beyond the town and\nsuburbs of Oxford.\n\nMoreover, every year the aforesaid keepers shall render an account to\nthe Master of the House and two of his scholars whom he shall associate\nwith himself, or if he shall not be at leisure, he shall appoint three\ninspectors, other than the keepers, who shall peruse the catalogue of\nbooks, and see that they have them all, either in the volumes\nthemselves or at least as represented by deposits.  And the more\nfitting season for rendering this account we believe to be from the\nFirst of July until the festival of the Translation of the Glorious\nMartyr S.  Thomas next following.\n\nWe add this further provision, that anyone to whom a book has been\nlent, shall once a year exhibit it to the keepers, and shall, if he\nwishes it, see his pledge.  Moreover, if it chances that a book is lost\nby death, theft, fraud, or carelessness, he who has lost it or his\nrepresentative or executor shall pay the value of the book and receive\nback his deposit.  But if in any wise any profit shall accrue to the\nkeepers, it shall not be applied to any purpose but the repair and\nmaintenance of the books.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nAN EXHORTATION TO SCHOLARS TO REQUITE US BY PIOUS PRAYERS\n\nTime now clamours for us to terminate this treatise which we have\ncomposed concerning the love of books; in which we have endeavoured to\ngive the astonishment of our contemporaries the reason why we have\nloved books so greatly.  But because it is hardly granted to mortals to\naccomplish aught that is not rolled in the dust of vanity, we do not\nventure entirely to justify the zealous love which we have so long had\nfor books, or to deny that it may perchance sometimes have been the\noccasion of some venial negligence, albeit the object of our love is\nhonourable and our intention upright.  For if when we have done\neverything, we are bound to call ourselves unprofitable servants; if\nthe most holy Job was afraid of all his works; if according to Isaiah\nall our righteousness is as filthy rags, who shall presume to boast\nhimself of the perfection of any virtue, or deny that from some\ncircumstance a thing may deserve to be reprehended, which in itself\nperhaps was not reprehensible.  For good springs from one selfsame\nsource, but evil arises in many ways, as Dionysius informs us.\nWherefore to make amends for our iniquities, by which we acknowledge\nourselves to have frequently offended the Creator of all things, in\nasking the assistance of their prayers, we have thought fit to exhort\nour future students to show their gratitude as well to us as to their\nother benefactors in time to come by requiting our forethought for\ntheir benefit by spiritual retribution.  Let us live when dead in their\nmemories, who have lived in our benevolence before they were born, and\nlive now sustained by our beneficence.  Let them implore the mercy of\nthe Redeemer with unwearied prayer, that the pious Judge may excuse our\nnegligences, may pardon the wickedness of our sins, may cover the\nlapses of our feebleness with the cloak of piety, and remit by His\ndivine goodness the offences of which we are ashamed and penitent.\nThat He may preserve to us for a due season of repentance the gifts of\nHis good grace, steadfastness of faith, loftiness of hope, and the\nwidest charity to all men.  That He may turn our haughty will to lament\nits faults, that it may deplore its past most vain elations, may\nretract its most bitter indignations, and detest its most insane\ndelectations.  That His virtue may abound in us, when our own is found\nwanting, and that He who freely consecrated our beginning by the\nsacrament of baptism, and advanced our progress to the seat of the\nApostles without any desert of ours, may deign to fortify our outgoing\nby the fitting sacraments.  That we may be delivered from the lust of\nthe flesh, that the fear of death may utterly vanish and our spirit may\ndesire to be dissolved and be with Christ, and existing upon earth in\nbody only, in thought and longing our conversation may be in Heaven.\nThat the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation may\ngraciously come to meet the prodigal returning from the husks; that He\nmay receive the piece of silver that has been lately found and transmit\nit by His holy angels into His eternal treasury.  That He may rebuke\nwith His terrible countenance, at the hour of our departure, the\nspirits of darkness, lest Leviathan, that old serpent, lying hid at the\ngate of death, should spread unforeseen snares for our feet.  But when\nwe shall be summoned to the awful judgment-seat to give an account on\nthe testimony of conscience of all things we have done in the body, the\nGod-Man may consider the price of the holy blood that He has shed, and\nthat the Incarnate Deity may note the frame of our carnal nature, that\nour weakness may pass unpunished where infinite loving-kindness is to\nbe found, and that the soul of the wretched sinner may breathe again\nwhere the peculiar office of the Judge is to show mercy.  And further,\nlet our students be always diligent in invoking the refuge of our hope\nafter God, the Virgin Mother of God and Blessed Queen of Heaven, that\nwe who for our manifold sins and wickednesses have deserved the anger\nof the Judge, by the aid of her ever-acceptable supplications may merit\nHis forgiveness; that her pious hand may depress the scale of the\nbalance in which our small and few good deeds shall be weighed, lest\nthe heaviness of our sins preponderate and cast us down to the\nbottomless pit of perdition.  Moreover, let them ever venerate with due\nobservance the most deserving Confessor Cuthbert, the care of whose\nflock we have unworthily undertaken, ever devoutly praying that he may\ndeign to excuse by his prayers his all-unworthy vicar, and may procure\nhim whom he hath admitted as his successor upon earth to be made his\nassessor in Heaven.  Finally, let them pray God with holy prayers as\nwell of body as of soul, that He will restore the spirit created in the\nimage of the Trinity, after its sojourn in this miserable world, to its\nprimordial prototype, and grant to it for ever to enjoy the sight of\nHis countenance: through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.\n\n  THE END OF THE PHILOBIBLON OF MASTER RICHARD DE\n  AUNGERVILLE, SURNAMED DE BURY, LATE BISHOP OF\n  DURHAM THIS TREATISE WAS FINISHED IN OUR\n  MANORHOUSE OF AUCKLAND ON THE 24TH\n  DAY OF JANUARY, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD\n  ONE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND\n  FORTY-FOUR, THE FIFTY-EIGHTH\n  YEAR OF OUR AGE BEING EXACTLY\n  COMPLETED, AND THE ELEVENTH\n  YEAR OF OUR PONTIFICATE\n  DRAWING TO AN END;\n  TO THE GLORY\n  OF GOD.\n  AMEN.","title":"The Love of Books: The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":24832}