whole school of Westminster among us, that at any rate we may now and then have an airing. »

"

Softly, my worthy friend,» replied I, « you are not aware how much better you are off than most books of your generation. By being stored away in this ancient library, you are like the treasured remains of those saints and monarchs which lie enshrined in the adjoining chapels; while the remains of their contemporary mortals, left to the ordinary course of nature, have long since returned to dust.»

« Sir,» said the little tome, ruffling his leaves and looking big, « I was written for all the world, not for the bookworms of an abbey. I was intended to circulate from hand to hand, like other great contemporary works; but here have I been clasped up for more than two centuries, and might have silently fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the with very vengeance my intestines, if had not by chance given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before I go to pieces.>>

you

My good friend,» rejoined I, « had you

been left to the circulation of which you

speak, you would long ere this have been no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are now well stricken in years: very few of your contemporaries can be at present in existence; and those few owe their longevity to being immured like yourself in old libraries; which, suffer me to add, instead of likening to harems, you might more properly and gratefully have compared to those infirmaries attached to religious establishments, for the benefit of the old and decrepit, and where, by quiet fostering and no employment, they often endure to an amazingly good-for-nothing old age. You talk of your contemporaries as if in circulation

where do we meet with their works? what do we hear of Robert Groteste of Lincoln ? No one could have toiled harder than he for immortality. He is said to have written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, a pyramid of books to perpetuate his name: but, alas! the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely disturbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian,

antiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet? He declined two bishoprics that he might shut himself up and write for posterity; but posterity never inquires after his labours. What of Henry of Huntingdon, who, besides a learned history of England, wrote a treatise on the contempt of the world, which the world has revenged by forgetting him? What is quoted of Joseph of Exeter, styled the miracle of his age in classical composition? Of his three great heroic poems one is lost for ever, excepting a mere fragment; the others are known only to a few of the curious in literature; and as to his love verses and epigrams, they have entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis, the Franciscan, who acquired the name of the tree of life? Of William of Malmsbury ;—of Simeon of Durham ;—of Benedict of Peterborough ;—of John Hanvill of St Albans;-of»

Prithee, friend,» cried the quarto, in a testy tone, « how old do you think me? You are talking of authors that lived long before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French,

VOL. I.

12

I was

so that they in a manner expatriated themselves, and deserved to be forgotten; (a) but I, Sir, was ushered into the world from the press of the renowned Wynkyn de Worde. written in my own native tongue at a time when the language had become fixed; and indeed I was considered a model of pure and elegant English.»

(I should observe that these remarks were couched in such intolerably antiquated terms; that I have had infinite difficulty in rendering them into modern phraseology.)

"

I cry your mercy,» said I, « for mistaking your age; but it matters little; almost all the writers of your time have likewise passed into forgetfulness; and De Worde's publications are mere literary rarities among book-collectors. The purity and stability of language, too, on which you found your claims to per

(a) In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great delyte to endite, and have many noble thinges fulfilde, but certes there ben some that speaken their poisye in French, of which speche the Frenchmen have as good a fantasye as we have in hearying of Frenchmen's Englishe.—Chaucer's Testament of Love.

petuity, have been the fallacious dependance of authors of every age, even back to the times of the worthy Robert of Gloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes of mongrel Saxon. (a) Even now many talk of Spenser's 'well of pure English undefiled,' as if the language ever sprang from a well or fountain head, and was not rather a mere confluence of various tongues, perpetually subject to changes and intermixtures. It is this which has made English literature so extremely mutable, and the reputation built upon it so fleeting. Unless thought can be committed to something more permanent and unchangeable than such a medium, even thought must share the fate of every thing else, and fall into decay. This

(a) Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, « afterwards, also, by diligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and of John Gowre, in the time of Richard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an excellent passe, notwithstanding that it never came unto the type of perfection until the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John Fox, and sundrie learned and excellent writers, have fully accomplished the ornature of the same, to their great praise and immortal commendation.>>