Bracebridge Hall: A Literary Antiquary

A Literary Antiquary

     Printed bookes he contemnes, as a novelty of this latter age;
     but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly; especially if the
     cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis
     between every syllable.
     MICO-COSMOGRAPHIE, 1628.

The squire receives great sympathy and support in his antiquated humours
from the parson, of whom I made some mention on my former visit to the
Hall, and who acts as a kind of family chaplain. He has been cherished
by the squire almost constantly since the time that they were
fellow-students at Oxford; for it is one of the peculiar advantages of
these great universities that they often link the poor scholar to the
rich patron, by early and heartfelt ties, that last through life,
without the usual humiliations of dependence and patronage. Under the
fostering protection of the squire, therefore, the little parson has
pursued his studies in peace. Having lived almost entirely among books,
and those, too, old books, he is quite ignorant of the world, and his
mind is as antiquated as the garden at the Hall, where the flowers are
all arranged in formal beds, and the yew-trees clipped into urns and
peacocks.

His taste for literary antiquities was first imbibed in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford; where, when a student, he passed many an hour
foraging among the old manuscripts. He has since, at different times,
visited most of the curious libraries in England, and has ransacked many
of the cathedrals. With all his quaint and curious learning, he has
nothing of arrogance or pedantry; but that unaffected earnestness and
guileless simplicity which seem to belong to the literary antiquary.

He is a dark, mouldy little man, and rather dry in his manner: yet, on
his favourite theme, he kindles up, and at times is even eloquent. No
fox-hunter, recounting 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
unearthed 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
seemed to exhale from it he rivals the enthusiasm of a Parisian epicure,
expatiating on the merits of a Perigord pie, or a _P�t� de Strasbourg_.

His brain seems absolutely 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 expression of an ingenious writer,
"dazzling one's eyes, like eastern beauties peering through their
jealousies."

He has a great desire, however, to read such works in the old libraries
and chapter-houses to which they belong; for he thinks a black-letter
volume reads best in one of those venerable 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
quaintly carved oaken book-case and Gothic reading-desk. At his
suggestion, the squire has had the library furnished in this antique
taste, and several of the windows glazed with painted glass, that they
may throw a properly tempered light upon the pages of their favourite
old authors.

The parson, I am told, has been for some time meditating a commentary on
Strutt, Brand, and Douce, in which he means to detect them in sundry
dangerous errors in respect to popular games and superstitions; a work
to which the squire looks forward with great interest. 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 customs
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; for 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 circulated among them. The parson is more busy
than common just now, being a little flurried by an advertisement of a
work, said to be 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 visitor at the Hall. We found him in his study, a small,
dusky chamber, lighted by a lattice window that looked into the
churchyard, 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 honeymoon
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 intoxicating an effect on the imaginations of literary
antiquaries, as the adventures of the heroes of the Round Table on all
true knights; or the tales of the early American voyagers on the ardent
spirits of the age, filling them with dreams of Mexican and Peruvian
mines, and of the golden realm of El Dorado.

The good parson had looked forward to this bibliographical expedition as
of far greater importance than those to Africa, or the North Pole. With
what eagerness had he seized upon the history of the enterprise! With
what interest had he followed the redoubtable bibliographer and his
graphical squire in their adventurous roamings among Norman castles and
cathedrals, and French libraries, and German convents and universities;
penetrating into the prison-houses of vellum manuscripts and exquisitely
illuminated missals, and revealing their beauties to the world!

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 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 chase;
here and there he would be completely thrown out, and then 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's or George Stephens's or Anacreon
Moore's bacchanalian songs; on the other replying in the negative, "Oh,
then," said the general, with a sagacious nod, "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
Encyclopaedia of Wit into the bargain. I never travel without them;
they're excellent reading at an inn."

It would not be easy to describe the odd look of surprise and perplexity
of the parson at this proposal; or the difficulty the squire had in
making the general comprehend, that though a jovial song of the present
day was but a foolish sound in the ears of wisdom, and beneath the
notice of a learned man, yet a trowl written by a tosspot several
hundred years since was a matter worthy of the gravest research, and
enough to set whole colleges by the ears.

I have since pondered much on this matter, and have figured to myself
what may be the fate of our current literature, when retrieved piecemeal
by future antiquaries, from among the rubbish of ages. What a Magnus
Apollo, for instance, will Moore become among sober divines and dusty
schoolmen! Even his festive and amatory songs, which are now the mere
quickeners of our social moments, or the delights of our drawing-rooms,
will then become matters of laborious research and painful collation.
How many a grave professor will then waste his midnight oil, or worry
his brain through a long morning, endeavouring to restore the pure text,
or illustrate the biographical hints of "Come tell me, says Rosa, as
kissing and kissed;" and how many an arid old book-worm, like the worthy
little parson, will give up in despair, after vainly striving to fill up
some fatal hiatus in "Fanny of Timmol!"

Nor is it merely such exquisite authors as Moore that are doomed to
consume the oil of future antiquaries. Many a poor scribbler, who is
now apparently sent to oblivion by pastry-cooks and cheesemongers, will
then rise again in fragments, and flourish in learned immortality.

After all, thought I, time is not such an invariable destroyer as he is
represented. If he pulls down, he likewise builds up; if he impoverishes
one, he enriches another; his very dilapidations furnish matter for new
works of controversy, and his rust is more precious than the most costly
gilding. Under his plastic hand trifles rise into importance; the
nonsense of one age becomes the wisdom of another; the levity of the wit
gravitates into the learning of the pedant, and an ancient farthing
moulders into infinitely more value than a modern guinea.

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