Gossip in a Library. Edmund Gosse

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       Edmund Gosse

      Gossip in a Library

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066244651

Table of Contents

       INTRODUCTORY

       CAMDEN'S "BRITANNIA"

       A MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES

       A POET IN PRISON

       DEATH'S DUEL

       GERARD'S HERBAL

       PHARAMOND

       A VOLUME OF OLD PLAYS

       A CENSOR OF POETS

       THE ROMANCE OF A DICTIONARY

       LADY WINCHILSEA'S POEMS

       AMASIA

       LOVE AND BUSINESS

       WHAT ANN LANG READ

       CATS

       SMART'S POEMS

       POMPEY THE LITTLE

       THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNCLE

       BEAU NASH

       THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

       THE DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE

       PETER BELL AND HIS TORMENTORS

       THE FANCY

       ULTRA-CREPIDARIUS

       THE DUKE OF RUTLAND'S POEMS

       IONICA

       THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT

       INDEX

      INTRODUCTORY

      CAMDEN'S "BRITANNIA"

      A MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES

      A POET IN PRISON

      DEATH'S DUEL

      GERARD'S HERBAL

      PHARAMOND

      A VOLUME OF OLD PLAYS

      A CENSOR OF POETS

      THE ROMANCE OF A DICTIONARY

      LADY WINCHILSEA'S POEMS

      AMASIA

      LOVE AND BUSINESS

      WHAT ANN LANG READ

      CATS

      SMART'S POEMS

      POMPEY THE LITTLE

      THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNGLE

      BEAU NASH

      THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

      THE DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE

      PETER BELL AND HIS TORMENTORS

      THE FANCY

      ULTRA-CREPIDARIUS

      THE DUKE OF RUTLAND'S POEMS

      IONICA

      THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT

      INDEX

      O blessed Letters, that combine in one All ages past, and make one live with all: By you we doe conferre with who are gone, And the dead-living unto councell call: By you th' unborne shall have communion Of what we feele, and what doth us befall.

      SAM. DANIEL Musophilus. 1602.

INTRODUCTORY

       Table of Contents

      It is curious to reflect that the library, in our customary sense, is quite a modern institution. Three hundred years ago there were no public libraries in Europe. The Ambrosian, at Milan, dates from 1608; the Bodleian, at Oxford, from 1612. To these Angelo Rocca added his in Rome, in 1620. But private collections of books always existed, and these were the haunts of learning, the little glimmering hearths over which knowledge spread her cold fingers, in the darkest ages of the world. To-day, although national and private munificence has increased the number of public libraries so widely that almost every reader is within reach of books, the private library still flourishes. There are men all through the civilised world to whom a book is a jewel—an individual possession of great price. I have been asked to gossip about my books, for I also am a bibliophile. But when I think of the great collections of fine books, of the libraries of the magnificent, I do not know whether I dare admit any stranger to glance at mine. The Mayor of Queenborough feels as though he were a very important personage till Royalty drives through his borough without noticing his scarf and his cocked hat; and then, for the first time, he observes how small the Queenborough town-hall is. But if one is to gossip about books, it is, perhaps, as well that one should have some limits. I will leave the masters of bibliography to sing of greater matters, and will launch upon no more daring voyage than one autour de ma pauvre bibliothèque.

      I have heard that the late Mr. Edward Solly, a very pious and worshipful lover of books, under several examples of whose book-plate I have lately reverently placed my own, was so anxious to fly all outward