Essays in Librarianship and BibliographyGarnett, Richard
Science
Essays in Librarianship and Bibliography
Garnett, Richard
Bibliography -- Methodology; British Museum; Library science
storming, our man gets his way, and often acquires excellent books among
the heap, for less than if they had been pears or lemons. When the
vendor comes to think over the matter, he concludes that he has been
bewitched, and complains that he would have fared better with the
butterman, or the grocer. Did you see our Naudé coming out of a
bookseller's shop you could never help laughing, so covered from head
to foot is he with cobwebs, and that learned dust which sticks to books,
from which neither thumps nor brushes, it seems, would ever be able to
free him. I have seen multitudes of Hebrew books in his bedroom, so
stained and greasy and stinking, that one's nose seemed damaged
irrecoverably; they must have been disinterred from Jewish kitchens,
smelling as they did of smoke, soup, cheese, pickles, or rather of a
mixture of each and all these aromas. If he gives them a place in his
library, he will undoubtedly bring in the mice; they will flock in from
Paris and the suburbs, hold their feasts, convoke their parliaments, and
deliberate on the ways and means of resisting the cats, their capital
enemies. But, without joking, Naudé means that Paris shall have the
finest public library in Europe."
I need not dwell further on the sad fate of this magnificent collection,
nor remind you that Mazarin formed a second which, especially for one
book's sake, has endeared him to many who know little of him as a
statesman, and that little not always to his advantage. After hearing of
his munificence and indomitable spirit in the collection of books, we
may feel more reconciled to the first book ever printed in Europe being
popularly associated with his name, although "Gutenberg Bible" would
still be the more appropriate designation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account