Bibliomania; or Book-Madness: A Bibliographical RomanceDibdin, Thomas Frognall
History
Bibliomania; or Book-Madness: A Bibliographical Romance
Dibdin, Thomas Frognall
Bibliography; Bibliomania; Book collecting; Books -- Prices
[Footnote 282: Lysander is perfectly correct about the feast
which was given at the archbishop's inthronization; as the
particulars of it--"out of an old paper roll in the archives
of the Bodleian library," are given by Hearne in the sixth
volume of _Leland's Collectanea_, p. 1-14: and a most
extraordinary and amusing bill of fare it is. The last
twenty dinners given by the Lord Mayors at Guildhall, upon
the first day of their mayoralties, were only
_sandwiches_--compared with such a repast! What does the
reader think of 2000 chickens, 4000 pigeons, 4000 coneys,
500 "and mo," stags, bucks, and roes, with 4000 "pasties of
venison colde?"--and these barely an 18th part of the kind
of meats served up! At the high table our amiable EARL of
WORCESTER was seated, with the Archbishop, three Bishops,
the Duke of Suffolk, and the Earl of Oxford. The fictitious
archiepiscopal feast was the one intended to be given by
NEVELL to Edward IV.; when the latter "appointed a day to
come to hunt in More in Hertfordshire, and make merry with
him." Nevell made magnificent preparations for the royal
visit; but instead of receiving the monarch as a guest, he
was saluted by some of his officers, who "arrested him for
treason," and imprisoned him at Calais and Guisnes. The
cause of this sudden, and apparently monstrous, conduct, on
the part of Edward, has not been told by Stow (_Chronicles_,
p. 426; edit. 1615), nor by Godwyn, (_Catalogue of the
Bishops of England_, p. 481, edit. 1601): both of whom
relate the fact with singular naivete. I have a strong
suspicion that Nevell was so far a bibliomaniac as to have
had a curious collection of _astrological books_; for "there
was greate correspondency betweene this Archbishop and the
Hermetique philosophers of his time; and this is partly
confirmed to me from Ripley's dedication of his '_Medulla_'
to him, ann. 1746; as also the presentation of Norton's
'_Ordinall_,'" &c. Thus writes Ashmole, in his _Theatrum
Chemicum_, p. 455.]
Enough has probably been said of Edward. We will stop, therefore, but
a minute, to notice the completion of the HUMPHREY LIBRARY, and the
bibliomaniacal spirit of master RICHARD COURTNEY,[283] during the same
reign; and give but another minute to the mention of the statute of
RICHARD III. in protection of English printers,[284] when we reach the
AUGUSTAN BOOK-AGE, in the reign of HENRY VII.
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