THE BOOK-LOVERS' ANTHOLOGY [Illustration: LEARNING'S PANTHEON: THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD] THE BOOK-LOVERS' ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY R. M. LEONARD 'Here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine into it but the thred to binde them.' MONTAIGNE (Florio's translation) [Illustration] HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE 1911 OXFORD: HORACE HART PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PREFACE One of the most delightful of the _Last Essays of Elia_ is entitled 'Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading', a title which would serve very well to indicate the contents of this anthology. In bringing together into one volume the tributes and opinions of a galaxy of writers, my object has been the glorification of books as books, a book being regarded as a real and separate entity, and often as an end in itself. There is a wide circle to whom this collection should appeal, in addition to bibliomaniacs or mere collectors of first or rare editions to whom the contents are often anathema, for the love of books is not confined to scholars or great readers. This love is incommunicable: it comes, but happily seldom goes, as the wind which bloweth where it listeth; it is perfectly sincere, and knows nothing of conventions and sham admirations. No greater lover of books has ever lived than that Englishman who was born at Bury St. Edmunds seven hundred and thirty years ago--Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, author of _Philobiblon_, and, as Lord Campbell said, undoubtedly the founder of the order of book-lovers in England. Centuries passed, and then the more modern worship of books was promoted by one of even higher station than this lord chancellor and lord high treasurer of England--by King James, whom sycophants and cynics called the British Solomon. The sixteenth century saw also the births of Bacon, Burton, and Florio, the inspired translator of Montaigne, and Ben Jonson, who all deserved well of the order. Milton, with prose and poetry, handed down the sacred fire in the seventeenth century, and his soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart.