University of Virginia Library

A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.

Mico-cosmographie. 1628.

In the account of my Christmas visit to the
Hall I made some mention of the parson, who
is a kind of family chaplain to the Squire; and
was his chum at Oxford. A farther acquaintance
with the little man has increased my esteem
for him. He is a scholar without arrogance
or pedantry; very ignorant of the world,
having lived almost entirely among books; and
those too, old books, so that his mind is as antiquated
as the Squire's garden, where one
finds formal flower beds and peacocks cut in
yew.

His taste for literary antiquities was first imbibed
when a student at Oxford, where he

spent the chief of his leisure hours in the Bodleian
library, foraging among the old manuscripts.

In the course of his life he has visited most
of the curious libraries in England, and has
ransacked many of the cathedrals. Though in
general quiet and rather dry, yet, on his favourite
theme he kindles up and becomes almost
eloquent. No fox hunter, relating his last day's
sport, could be more animated than I have seen
the worthy parson, when relating his search
after a curious document, which he had traced
from library to library until he fairly earthed
it in the dusty chapter house of a cathedral.
When, too, he describes some venerable manuscript,
with its rich illuminations; its thick
creamy vellum; its glossy ink, and the odour
of the cloisters that seems to exhale from it,
he rivals the enthusiasm of a Parisian epicure
expatiating on the merits of a Paté de Strasbourg.
He has a great desire, however, to
read works in the old libraries and chapter
houses to which they belong; for he thinks a

black letter volume reads best in one of these
old chambers, where the light struggles through
dusty lancet windows and painted glass; and
that it loses half its zest if taken away from the
neighbourhood of the curiously carved oaken
book case and Gothic reading desk.

The parson, I am told, has been for a long
time meditating a commentary on Strutt, Brand,
and Douce; in which he means to detect them
in sundry dangerous errors with respect to popular
games and superstitions. He is also a
casual contributor to that long established
repository of national customs and antiquities,
the Gentleman's Magazine, and is one of those
that every now and then make an inquiry concerning
some obsolete custom or rare legend;
nay, it is said that several of his communications
have been at least six inches in length.

He frequently receives parcels by coach
from different parts of the kingdom, containing
mouldy volumes and almost illegible manuscripts.
It is singular what an active correspondence
is kept up among literary antiquaries;

and how soon the fame of any rare volume, or
unique copy, just discovered among the rubbish
of a library, is circulcated among them. The
parson is more busy than common just now,
being a little flurried by an advertisement of a
work preparing for the press on the mythology
of the middle ages. The little man has long
been gathering together all the hobgoblin tales
he could collect, illustrative of the superstitions
of former times, and he is in a complete fever,
lest this formidable rival should take the field
before him. Shortly after my arrival at the
Hall I called at the parsonage, in company
with Mr. Bracebridge and the general. The
parson had not been seen for several days,
which was a matter of some surprise, as he
was an almost daily visiter at the Hall. We
found him in his study—a small dusky chamber,
lighted by a lattice window that looked into the
church yard, and was overshadowed by a yew
tree. His chair was surrounded by folios and
quartos, piled upon the floor; and his table was
covered with books and manuscripts. The
cause of his seclusion was a work which he
had recently received, and with which he had
retired in rapture from the world, and shut himself
up to enjoy a literary honey moon undisturbed.
Never did boarding school girl devour
the pages of a sentimental novel, or Don Quixote
a chivalrous romance, with more intense delight,
than did the little man banquet on the
pages of this delicious work. It was Dibdin's
bibliographical tour; a work calculated to have
as powerful an effect on the imaginations of literary
antiquaries, as the tales of the early
American adventurers had on the Spanish
Dons; filling them with dreams of Mexican
and Peruvian mines, and of the golden realm
of El Dorado.

The good parson had long been looking forward
to the fruits of this bibliographical crusade;
which had far greater importance in his eyes
than the expeditions to Africa or the north pole.
The work had realized all his anticipations.
He had been transported in idea to the libraries
of the old German convents and universities;

his mind's eye had feasted on vellum manuscripts
and exquisitely illuminated missals; his brain
was haunted with love-sick dreams about gorgeous
old works in “silk linings, triple gold
bands, and tinted leather; locked up in wire
cases, and secured from the vulgar hands of the
mere reader,” and, to continue the happy expressions
of an ingenious writer, “dazzling
one's eyes like eastern beauties peering through
their jealousies.”[1]

When the parson had finished a rapturous
eulogy on this most curious and entertaining
work, he drew forth from a little drawer a
manuscript lately received from a correspondent,
which had perplexed him sadly. It was written
in Norman French, in very ancient characters,
and so faded and mouldered away as to be almost
illegible. It was apparently an old Norman
drinking song, that might have been brought
over by one of William the Conqueror's carousing
followers. The writing was just legible

enough to keep a keen antiquity hunter on a
doubtful chace; here and there would be a few
words so plainly written as to put him on the
scent again. In this way he had been led on
for a whole day, until he had found himself completely
at fault.

The Squire endeavoured to assist him, but
was equally baffled. The old general listened
for some time to the discussion, and then asked
the parson, if he had read Captain Morris', or
George Stevens', or Anacreon Moore's bacchanalian
songs. On the other's replying in the negative,
“Oh then,” said the general, with infinite
bon hommie, “if you want a drinking song,
I can furnish you with the latest collection.
I did not know you had a turn for those kind of
things, and I can lend you the Encyclopædia
of Wit into the bargain. I never travel without
them; they're excellent reading at an inn.”

It would be difficult to describe the odd look
of surprise and perplexity of the parson, on
this proposal; or the difficulty that the Squire
had in making the general comprehend, that

though a jovial song of the present day was
totally abhorrent to the ears of wisdom, and
beneath the notice of a learned man; yet a
trowl, written by a toss-pot several hundred
years since, was a matter worthy of the gravest
research, and enough to set whole colleges by
the ears.