 | BOOK MAKING. The beauties of Washington Irving, author of "The sketch-book," "Knickerbocker," "Crayon miscellany," &c. |  |
BOOK MAKING.
There was one dapper little gentleman in bright coloured
clothes, with a chirping gossiping expression of countenance,
who had all the appearance of an author on good
terms with his bookseller. After considering him attentively,
I recognized in him a diligent getter up of miscellaneous
works, which bustled off well with the trade. I
was curious to see how he manufactured his wares. He
made more stir and show of business than any of the
others; dipping into various books, fluttering over the
leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel
out of another, “line upon line, precept upon precept,
here a little and there a little.” The contents of his book
seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches'
caldron in Macbeth. It was here a finger and there a
thumb, toe of frog and blind worm's sting, with his own
gossip poured in, like “baboon's blood,” to make the medley
“slab and good.”
After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition
be implanted in authors for wise purposes; may it not
be the way in which Providence has taken care that the
seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from
age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works
in which they were first produced? We see that nature
has wisely, though whimsically, provided for the conveyance
of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of certain
birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little
better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers
of the orchard and the corn field, are, in fact, Nature's,
carriers to disperse and perpetuate her blessings. In like
manner, the beauties and fine thoughts of ancient and
obsolete authors are caught up by these flights of predatory
writers, and cast forth again to flourish and bear
fruit in a remote and distant tract of time. Many of
their works, also, undergo a kind of metemphsychosis, and
spring up under new forms. What was formerly a ponderous
history, revives in the shape of a romance—an old
legend changes into a modern play—and a sober philosophical
treatise furnishes the body for a whole series of
bouncing and sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing
of our American woodlands; where we burn down
a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up
tree mouldering into soil, but it gives birth to a whole tribe
of fungi.
Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion
into which ancient writers descend; they do but
submit to the great law of nature, which declares that
all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their
duration, but which decrees, also, that their elements
shall never perish. Generation after generation, both
in animal and vegetable life, passes away, but the vital
principle is transmitted to posterity, and the species continue
to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors,
and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old
age they sleep with their fathers, that is to say, with the authors
who preceded them—and from whom they had stolen.
Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies, I had
leaned my head against a pile of reverend folios. Whether
it was owing to the soporific emanations from these
works; or to the profound quiet of the room; or to the
lassitude arising from much wandering; or to an unlucky
habit of napping at improper times and places, with which
I am grievously afflicted, so it was, that I fell into a
doze. Still, however, my imagination continued busy,
and indeed the same scene remained before my mind's
eye, only a little changed in some of the details. I dreamt
that the chamber was still decorated with the portraits
of ancient authors, but the number was increased. The
long tables had disappeared, and in place of the sage magi,
I beheld a ragged, threadbare throng, such as may be
seen plying about the great repository of cast-off clothes,
Monmouth Street. Whenever they seized upon a book,
by one of those incongruities common to dreams, methought
it turned into a garment of foreign or antique
fashion, with which they proceeded to equip themselves.
I noticed, however, that no one pretended to clothe himself
from any particular suit, but took a sleeve from one,
a cape from another, a skirt from a third, thus decking
himself out piecemeal, while some of his original rags
would peep out from among his borrowed finery.
There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I
observed ogling several mouldy polemical writers through
an eye-glass. He soon contrived to slip on the voluminous
mantle of one of the old fathers, and having purloined
the gray beard of another, endeavoured to look
exceedingly wise; but the smirking common place of his
One sickly looking gentleman was busied embroidering
a very flimsy garment with gold thread drawn out of
several old court dresses of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Another had trimmed himself magnificently from an illuminated
manuscript, had stuck a nosegay in his bosom,
culled from “The Paradise of dainty devices,” and having
put Sir Philip Sidney's hat on one side of his head,
strutted off with an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A
third, who was but of puny dimensions, had bolstered
himself out bravely with the spoils from several obscure
tracts of philosophy, so that he had a very imposing front;
but he was lamentably tattered in rear, and I perceived
that he had patched his small-clothes with scraps of parchment
from a Latin author.
There were some well dressed gentlemen, it is true,
who only helped themselves to a gem or so, which sparkled
among their own ornaments, without eclipsing them.
Some, too, seemed to contemplate the costumes of the old
writers, merely to imbibe their principles of taste, and
to catch their air and spirit; but I grieve to say, that
too many were apt to array themselves from top to toe,
in the patchwork manner I have mentioned. I shall
not omit to speak of one genius, in drab breeches and
gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, who had a violent propensity
to the pastoral, but whose rural wanderings had been
confined to the classic haunts of Primrose Hill, and the
solitudes of the Regent's Park. He had decked himself
in wreaths and ribands from all the old pastoral poets,
and hanging his head on one side, went about with a
fantastical lack-a-daisical air, “babbling about green
fields.” But the personage that most struck my attention
was a pragmatical old gentleman, in clerical robes
with a remarkably large and square, but bald head. He
entered the room wheezing and puffing, elbowed his way
through the throng, with a look of sturdy self-confidence,
and having laid hands upon a thick Greek quarto, clapped
it upon his head, and swept majestically away in a
formidable frizzled wig.
In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly
resounded from every side, of “Thieves! thieves!”
I looked, and lo! the portraits about the wall became animated!
The old authors thrust out, first a head, then a
shoulder from the canvass, looked down curiously, for an
instant, upon the motley throng, and then descended, with
scene of scampering and hubbub that ensued baffles all
description. The unhappy culprits endeavoured in vain
to escape with the plunder. On one side might be seen
half a dozen old monks, stripping a modern professor; on
another, there was sad devastation carried into the ranks
of modern dramatic writers. Beaumont and Fletcher,
side by side, raged round the field like Castor and Pollux,
and sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more wonders than when
a volunteer with the army in Flanders. As to the dapper
little compiler of farragos, mentioned some time since, he
had arrayed himself in as many patches and colours as
Harlequin, and there was as fierce a contention of claimants
about him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. I
was grieved to see many men, to whom I had been accustomed
to look upon with awe and reverence, fain to steal
off with scarce a rag to cover their nakedness. Just then
my eye was caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in
the Greek frizzled wig, who was scrambling away sore affrighted
with half a score of authors in full cry after him.
They were close upon his haunches; in a twinkling off
went his wig; at every turn some strip of raiment was
peeled away; until in a few moments, from his domineering
pomp, he shrunk into a little, pursy, “chopp'd bald
shot,” and made his exit with only a few tags and bags
fluttering at his back.
There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe
of this learned Theban, that I burst into an immoderate
fit of laughter, which broke the whole illusion. The tumult
and the scuffle were at an end. The chamber resumed
its usual appearance. The old authors shrunk back
into their picture-frames, and hung in shadowy solemnity
along the walls. In short, I found myself wide awake in
my corner, with the whole assemblage of book worms gazing
at me with astonishment. Nothing of the dream had been
real but my burst of laughter, a sound never before heard
in that grave sanctuary, and so abhorrent to the ears of
wisdom, as to electrify the fraternity.
The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded
whether I had a card of admission. At first I did not
comprehend him, but I soon found that the library was a
kind of literary “preserve,” subject to game laws, and that
no one must presume to hunt there without special license
and permission. In a word, I stood convicted of being an
arrant poacher, and was glad to make a precipitate retreat,
me.
| BOOK MAKING. The beauties of Washington Irving, author of "The sketch-book," "Knickerbocker," "Crayon miscellany," &c. | |