Paradisum mundi _Parisios_ visitare vacavimus ibi moraturi? Ubi nobis semper dies pauci, prae amoris magnitudine, videbantur. Ibi Bibliothecae jucundae super sellas aromatum redolentes; ibi virens viridarium universorum voluminum," &c. _Philobiblion_; p. 31, edit. 1559.] [Footnote 266: After having intruded, I fear, by the preceding note respecting _French Bibliomania_, there is only room left to say of our DE BURY--that he was the friend and correspondent of Petrarch--and that Mons. Sade, in his _Memoirs of Petrarch_, tells us that "the former did in England, what the latter all his life was doing in France, Italy, and Germany, towards the discovery of the best ancient writers, and making copies of them under his own superintendence." De Bury bequeathed a valuable library of MSS. to Durham, now Trinity College, Oxford. The books of this library were first packed up in chests; but upon the completion of the room to receive them, "they were put into pews or studies, and chained to them." Wood's _History of the University of Oxford_, vol. ii., p. 911. Gutch's edit. De Bury's _Philobiblion_, from which so much has been extracted, is said by Morhof to "savor somewhat of the rudeness of the age, but is rather elegantly written; and many things are well expressed in it relating to bibliothecism." _Polyhist. Literar._, vol. i., 187. The real author is supposed to have been Robert Holcott, a Dominican friar. I am, however, loth to suppress a part of what Warton has so pleasantly written (as above alluded to by Lysander) respecting such a favourite as DE BURY. "Richard de Bury, otherwise called Richard Aungervylle, is said to have alone possessed more books than all the bishops of England together. Beside the fixed libraries which he had formed in his several palaces, the floor of his common apartment was so covered with books that those who entered could not with due reverence approach his presence. He kept binders, illuminators, and writers, in his palaces. Petrarch says that he had once a conversation with him, concerning the island called by the ancients Thule; calling him 'virum ardentis ingenii.' While chancellor and treasurer, instead of the usual presents and new-year's gifts appendant to his office, he chose to receive those perquisites in books. By the favour of Edward III. he gained access to the libraries of most of the capital monasteries; where he shook off the dust from volumes, preserved in chests and presses, which had not been opened for many ages." _Philobiblion_, cap. 29, 30.--Warton also quotes, in English, a part of what had been already presented to the reader in its original Latin form. _Hist. Engl. Poetry_, vol. i., Diss. II., note g., sign. h. 4.