Ballads of Books Part 5

Music that lifts the thought from trodden places, And coa.r.s.e confusions that around us lie, Up to the calm of high, cloud-silvered s.p.a.ces, Where the tall spire points through the soundless sky.

CONCERNING THE HONOR OF BOOKS.

_This sonnet, prefixed to the second edition of Florio's Montaigne, 1613, is_ SAMUEL DANIEL. _generally attributed to the translator, but the best critics now incline to the belief that it is by his friend, Daniel._

Since honor from the honorer proceeds, How well do they deserve, that memorize And leave in books for all posterity The names of worthies and their virtuous deeds; When all their glory else, like water-weeds Without their element, presently dies, And all their greatness quite forgotten lies, And when and how they flourished no man heeds; How poor remembrances are statues, tombs, And other monuments that men erect To princes, which remain in closed rooms, Where but a few behold them, in respect Of books, that to the universal eye Show how they lived; the other where they lie!

LINES.

ISAAC D'ISRAELI. _Imitated from Rantzau, the founder of the library at Copenhagen._

Golden volumes! richest treasures!

Objects of delicious pleasures!

You my eyes rejoicing please, You my hands in rapture seize!

Brilliant wits, and musing sages, Lights who beamed through many ages, Left to your conscious leaves their story, And dared to trust you with their glory; And now their hope of fame achieved!

Dear volumes! you have not deceived!

MY BOOKS.

AUSTIN DOBSON. _From 'At the Sign of the Lyre.' 1885._

They dwell in the odor of camphor, They stand in a Sheraton shrine, They are "warranted early editions,"

These wors.h.i.+pful tomes of mine;--

In their creamy "Oxford vellum,"

In their redolent "crushed Levant,"

With their delicate watered linings, They are jewels of price, I grant;--

Blind-tooled and morocco-jointed, They have Bedford's daintiest dress, They are graceful, attenuate, polished, But they gather the dust, no less;--

For the row that I prize is yonder, Away on the unglazed shelves, The bulged and the bruised _octavos_, The dear and the dumpy twelves,--

Montaigne with his sheepskin blistered, And Howell the worse for wear, And the worm-drilled Jesuits' Horace, And the little old cropped Moliere,--

And the Burton I bought for a florin, And the Rabelais foxed and flea'd,-- For the others I never have opened, But those are the ones I read.

TO A MISSAL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

AUSTIN DOBSON. _From 'At the Sign of the Lyre.' 1885._

Missal of the Gothic age, Missal with the blazoned page, Whence, O Missal, hither come, From what dim scriptorium?

Whose the name that wrought thee thus, Ambrose or Theophilus, Bending, through the waning light, O'er thy vellum sc.r.a.ped and white;

Weaving 'twixt thy rubric lines Sprays and leaves and quaint designs: Setting round thy border scrolled Buds of purple and of gold?

Ah!--a wondering brotherhood, Doubtless, round that artist stood, Strewing o'er his careful ways Little choruses of praise;

Glad when his deft hand would paint Strife of Sathanas and Saint, Or in secret coign entwist Jest of cloister humorist.

Well the worker earned his wage, Bending o'er the blazoned page!

Tired the hand and tired the wit Ere the final _Explicit_!

Not as ours the books of old-- Things that steam can stamp and fold; Not as ours the books of yore-- Rows of type, and nothing more.

Then a book was still a Book, Where a wistful man might look, Finding something through the whole, Beating--like a human soul.

In that growth of day by day, When to labor was to pray, Surely something vital pa.s.sed To the patient page at last;

Something that one still perceives Vaguely present in the leaves; Something from the worker lent; Something mute--but eloquent!

THE BOOK-PLATE'S PEt.i.tION.

BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE TEMPLE.

AUSTIN DOBSON. _Published originally in 'Notes and Queries,' January 8, 1881._

While cynic CHARLES still trimm'd the vane 'Twixt _Querouaille_ and _Castlemaine_, In days that shocked JOHN EVELYN, My First Possessor fix'd me in.

In days of _Dutchmen_ and of frost, The narrow sea with JAMES I crossed; Returning when once more began The Age of _Saturn_ and of ANNE.

I am a part of all the past; I knew the GEORGES, first and last; I have been oft where else was none Save the great wig of ADDISON; And seen on shelves beneath me grope The little eager form of POPE.

I lost the Third that own'd me when French NOAILLES fled at Dettingen; The year JAMES WOLFE surpris'd Quebec, The Fourth in hunting broke his neck; The day that WILLIAM HOGARTH dy'd, The Fifth one found me in Cheapside.

This was a _Scholar_, one of those Whose _Greek_ is sounder than their _hose_; He lov'd old books, and nappy ale, So liv'd at Streatham, next to THRALE.

'Twas there this stain of grease I boast Was made by DR. JOHNSON'S toast.

(He did it, as I think, for spite; My Master called him _Jacobite_!) And now that I so long to-day Have rested _post discrimina_, Safe in the bra.s.s-wir'd book-case where I watched the Vicar's whit'ning hair Must I these travell'd bones inter In some _Collector's_ sepulchre!