Curiosities of Literature Volume Iii Part 30

An historian of Camden's high integrity would hardly have forged a fiction to please the new monarch: yet Camden has not been referred to on this occasion by the exact Birch, who draws his information from the letters of the French amba.s.sador, Villeroy; information which it appears the English ministers had confided to this amba.s.sador; nor do we get any distinct ideas from Elizabeth's more recent popular historian, who could only transcribe the account of Cary. He had told us a fact which he could not be mistaken in, that the queen fell speechless on Wednesday, 23rd of March, on which day, however, she called her council, and made that sign with her hand, which, as the lords choose to understand, for ever united the two kingdoms. But the n.o.ble editor of Cary's Memoirs (the Earl of Cork and Orrery) has observed that "the speeches made for Elizabeth on her death-bed are all forged." Echard, Rapin, and a long string of historians, make her say faintly (so faintly indeed that it could not possibly be heard), "I will that a king succeed me, and who should that be but my nearest kinsman, the King of Scots?" A different account of this matter will be found in the following memoirs. "She was speechless, and almost expiring, when the chief councillors of state were called into her bedchamber. As soon as they were perfectly convinced that she could not utter an articulate word, and scarce could hear or understand one, they named the King of Scots to her, _a liberty they dared not to have taken if she had been able to speak_; she put her hand to her head, which was probably at that time in agonising pain.

_The lords, who interpreted her signs just as they pleased_, were immediately convinced that the _motion of her hand to her head was a declaration of James the Sixth as her successor_. What was this but the unanimous interpretation of persons who were adoring the rising sun?"

This is lively and plausible; but the n.o.ble editor did not recollect that "the speeches made by Elizabeth on her death-bed," which he deems "forgeries," in consequence of the circ.u.mstance he had found in Cary's Memoirs, originate with Camden, and were only repeated by Rapin and Echard, &c. I am now to confirm the narrative of the elder historian, as well as the circ.u.mstance related by Cary, describing the sign of the queen a little differently, which happened on Wednesday, 23rd. A hitherto unnoticed doc.u.ment pretends to give a fuller and more circ.u.mstantial account of this affair, which commenced on _the preceding day_, when the queen retained the power of speech; and it will be confessed that the language here used has all that loftiness and brevity which was the natural style of this queen. I have discovered a curious doc.u.ment in a ma.n.u.script volume formerly in the possession of Petyt, and seemingly in his own handwriting. I do not doubt its authenticity, and it could only have come from some of the ill.u.s.trious personages who were the actors in that solemn scene, probably from Cecil. This memorandum is ent.i.tled

"Account of the last words of Queen Elizabeth about her Successor.

"On the Tuesday before her death, being the twenty-third of March, the admiral being on the right side of her bed, the lord keeper on the left, and Mr. Secretary Cecil (afterwards Earl of Salisbury) at the bed's feet, all standing, the lord admiral put her in mind of her speech concerning the succession had at Whitehall, and that they, in the name of all the rest of her council, came unto her to know her pleasure who should succeed; whereunto she thus replied:

"_I told you my seat had been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me. And who should succeed me but a king?_

"The lords not understanding this dark speech, and looking one on the other; at length Mr. Secretary boldly asked her what she meant by those words, that _no rascal should succeed her_. Whereto she replied, that _her meaning was, that a king should succeed: and who_, quoth she, _should, that be but our cousin of Scotland_?

"They asked her whether that were her absolute resolution? whereto she answered, _I pray you trouble me no more; for I will have none but him_.

With which answer they departed.

"Notwithstanding, after again, about four o'clock in the afternoon the next day, being Wednesday, after the Archbishop of Canterbury and other divines had been with her, and left her in a manner speechless, the three lords aforesaid repaired unto her again, asking her if she remained in her former resolution, and who should succeed her? but not being able to speak, was asked by Mr. Secretary in this sort, 'We beseech your majesty, if you remain in your former resolution, and that you would have the King of Scots to succeed you in your kingdom, show some sign unto us: whereat, _suddenly heaving herself upwards in her bed, and putting her arms out of bed, she held her hands jointly over her head in manner of a crown_; whence as they guessed, she signified that she did not only wish him the kingdom, but desire continuance of his estate: after which they departed, and the next morning she died.

Immediately after her death, all the lords, as well of the council as other n.o.blemen that were at the court, came from Richmond to Whitehall by six o'clock in the morning, where other n.o.blemen that were in London met them. Touching the succession, after some speeches of divers compet.i.tors and matters of state, at length the admiral rehea.r.s.ed all the aforesaid premises which the late queen had spoken to him, and to the lord keeper, and Mr. Secretary (Cecil), with the manner thereof; which they, being asked, did affirm to be true upon their HONOUR."

Such is this singular doc.u.ment of secret history. I cannot but value it as authentic, because the one part is evidently alluded to by Camden, and the other is fully confirmed by Cary; and besides this, the remarkable expression of "rascal" is found in the letter of the French amba.s.sador. There were two interviews with the queen, and Cary appears only to have noticed the last on Wednesday, when the queen lay speechless. Elizabeth all her life had persevered in an obstinate mysteriousness respecting the succession, and it hara.s.sed her latest moments. The second interview of her ministers may seem to us quite supernumerary; but Cary's "putting her hand to her head," too meanly describes the "joining her hands in manner of a crown."

JAMES THE FIRST AS A FATHER AND A HUSBAND.

Calumnies and sarcasms have reduced the character of James the First to contempt among general readers; while the narrative of historians, who have related facts in spite of themselves, is in perpetual contradiction with their own opinions. Perhaps no sovereign has suffered more by that art, which is described by an old Irish proverb, of "killing a man by lies." The surmises and the insinuations of one party, dissatisfied with the established government in church and state; the misconceptions of more modern writers, who have not possessed the requisite knowledge; and the anonymous libels, sent forth at a particular period to vilify the Stuarts; all these cannot be treasured up by the philosopher as the authorities of history. It is at least more honourable to resist popular prejudice than to yield to it a pa.s.sive obedience; and what we can ascertain it would be a dereliction of truth to conceal. Much can be substantiated in favour of the domestic affections and habits of this pacific monarch; and those who are more intimately acquainted with the secret history of the times will perceive how erroneously the personal character of this sovereign is exhibited in our popular historians, and often even among the few who, with better information, have re-echoed their preconceived opinions.

Confining myself here to his domestic character, I shall not touch on the many admirable public projects of this monarch, which have extorted the praise, and even the admiration, of some who have not spared their pens in his disparagement. James the First has been taxed with pusillanimity and foolishness; this monarch cannot, however, be reproached with having engendered them! All his children, in whose education their father was so deeply concerned, sustained through life a dignified character and a high spirit. The short life of Henry was pa.s.sed in a school of prowess, and amidst an academy of literature. Of the king's paternal solicitude, even to the hand and the letter-writing of Prince Henry when young, I have preserved a proof in the article of "The History of Writing-masters." Charles the First, in his youth more particularly designed for a studious life, with a serious character, was, however, never deficient in active bravery and magnanimous fort.i.tude. Of Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohemia, tried as she was by such vicissitudes of fortune, it is much to be regretted that the interesting story remains untold; her buoyant spirits rose always above the perpetual changes of a princely to a private state--a queen to an exile! The father of such children derives some distinction for capacity, in having reared such a n.o.ble offspring; and the king's marked attention to the formation of his children's minds was such as to have been pointed out by Ben Jonson, who, in his "Gipsies Metamorphosed,"

rightly said of James, using his native term--

You are an honest, good man, and have care of YOUR BEARNS (bairns).

Among the flouts and gibes so freely bespattering the personal character of James the First, is one of his coldness and neglect of his queen. It would, however, be difficult to prove by any known fact that James was not as indulgent a husband as he was a father. Yet even a writer so well informed as Daines Barrington, who, as a lawyer, could not refrain from lauding the royal sage during his visit to Denmark, on his marriage, for having borrowed three statutes from the Danish code, found the king's name so provocative of sarcasm, that he could not forbear observing, that James "spent more time in those courts of judicature than in _attending upon his destined consort_."--"Men of all sorts have taken a pride to gird at me," might this monarch have exclaimed. But everything has two handles, saith the ancient adage. Had an austere puritan chosen to observe that James the First, when abroad, had lived jovially; and had this historian then dropped silently the interesting circ.u.mstance of the king's "spending his time in the Danish courts of judicature," the fact would have borne him out in his reproof; and Francis...o...b..rne, indeed, has censured James for giving marks of his _uxoriousness_! There was no deficient gallantry in the conduct of James the First to his queen; the very circ.u.mstance, that when the Princess of Denmark was driven by a storm back to Norway, the king resolved to hasten to her, and consummate his marriage in Denmark, was itself as romantic an expedition as afterwards was that of his son's into Spain, and betrays no mark of that tame pusillanimity with which he stands overcharged.

The character of the queen of James the First is somewhat obscure in our public history, for in it she makes no prominent figure; while in secret history she is more apparent. Anne of Denmark was a spirited and enterprising woman; and it appears from a pa.s.sage in Sully, whose authority should weigh with us, although we ought to recollect that it is the French minister who writes, that she seems to have raised a court faction against James, and inclined to favour the Spanish and catholic interests; yet it may be alleged as a strong proof of James's political wisdom, that the queen was never suffered to head a formidable party, though she latterly might have engaged Prince Henry in that court opposition. The _bonhommie_ of the king, on this subject, expressed with a simplicity of style which, though it may not be royal, is something better, appears in a letter to the queen, which has been preserved in the appendix to Sir David Dalrymple's collections. It is without date, but written when in Scotland, to quiet the queen's suspicions, that the Earl of Mar, who had the care of Prince Henry, and whom she wished to take out of his hands, had insinuated to the king that her majesty was strongly disposed to any "popish or Spanish course." This letter confirms the representation of Sully; but the extract is remarkable for the manly simplicity of style which the king used.

"I say over again, leave these froward womanly apprehensions, for I thank G.o.d I carry that love and respect unto you which, by the law of G.o.d and nature, I ought to do to my wife, and mother of my children; but not for that ye are a king's daughter; for whether ye were a king's daughter, or a cook's daughter, ye must be all alike to me since my wife. For the respect of your honourable birth and descent I married you; but the love and respect I now bear you is because that ye are my married wife, and so partaker of my honour, as of my other fortunes. I beseech you excuse my plainness in this, for casting up of your birth is a needless impertinent (that is, not pertinent) argument to me. G.o.d is my witness, I ever preferred you to my bairns, much more than to a subject."

In an ingenious historical dissertation, but one perfectly theoretical, respecting that mysterious transaction the Gowrie conspiracy, Pinkerton has attempted to show that Anne of Denmark was a lady somewhat inclined to intrigue, and that "the king had cause to be jealous." He confesses that "he cannot discover any positive charge of adultery against Anne of Denmark, but merely of coquetry."[229] To what these accusations amount it would be difficult to say. The progeny of James the First sufficiently bespeak their family resemblance. If it be true, that "the king had ever reason to be jealous," and yet that no single criminal act of the queen's has been recorded, it must be confessed that one or both of the parties were singularly discreet and decent; for the king never complained, and the queen was never accused, if we except this burthen of an old Scottish ballad,

O the bonny Earl of Murray, He was the queen's love.

Whatever may have happened in Scotland, in England the queen appears to have lived occupied chiefly by the amus.e.m.e.nts of the court, and not to have interfered with the _arcana_ of state. She appears to have indulged a pa.s.sion for the elegancies and splendours of the age, as they were shown in those gorgeous court masques with which the taste of James harmonized, either from his gallantry for the queen, or his own poetic sympathy. But this taste for court masques could not escape the slur and scandal of the puritanic, and these "high-flying fancies" are thus recorded by honest Arthur Wilson, whom we summon into court as an indubitable witness of the mutual cordiality of this royal couple. In the spirit of his party, and like Milton, he censures the taste, but likes it. He says, "The court being a continued _maskarado_, where she (the queen) and her ladies, like so many sea-nymphs or Nereides, appeared often in various dresses, to the ravishment of the beholders; the king himself not being a little delighted with such fluent elegancies as made the night more glorious than the day."[230] This is a direct proof that James was by no means cold or negligent in his attentions to his queen; and the letter which has been given is the picture of his mind. That James the First was fondly indulgent to his queen, and could perform an act of chivalric gallantry with all the generosity of pa.s.sion, and the ingenuity of an elegant mind, a pleasing anecdote which I have discovered in an unpublished letter of the day will show. I give it in the words of the writer.

"_August, 1613._

"At their last being at Theobalds, about a fortnight ago, the queen, shooting at a deer, mistook her mark, and killed _Jewel_, the king's most princ.i.p.al and special hound; at which he stormed exceedingly awhile; but after he knew who did it, he was soon pacified, and with much kindness wished her not to be troubled with it, for he should love her never the worse: and the next day sent her a diamond worth two thousand pounds as _a legacy from his dead dog_. Love and kindness increased daily between them."

Such is the history of a contemporary living at court, very opposite to that representation of coldness and neglect with which the king's temper has been so freely aspersed; and such too is the true portrait of James the First in domestic life. His first sensations were thoughtless and impetuous; and he would ungracefully thunder out an oath, which a puritan would set down in his "tables," while he omitted to note that this king's forgiveness and forgetfulness of personal injuries were sure to follow the feeling they had excited.

FOOTNOTES:

[229] The historical dissertation is appended to the first volume of Mr. Malcolm Laing's "History of Scotland," who thinks that "it has placed that obscure transaction in its genuine light."

[230] See the article on _Court Masques_ in the early pages of the present volume for notices of the elaborate splendour and costliness of these favourite displays.

THE MAN OF ONE BOOK.

Mr. Maurice, in his animated Memoirs, has recently acquainted us with a fact which may be deemed important in the life of a literary man. He tells us, "We have been just informed that Sir William Jones _invariably_ read through every year the works of Cicero, whose life indeed was the great exemplar of his own." The same pa.s.sion for the works of Cicero has been partic.i.p.ated by others. When the best means of forming a good style were inquired of the learned Arnauld, he advised the daily study of Cicero; but it was observed that the object was not to form a Latin, but a French style: "In that case," replied Arnauld, "you must still read Cicero."

A predilection for some great author, among the vast number which must transiently occupy our attention, seems to be the happiest preservative for our taste: accustomed to that excellent author whom we have chosen for our favourite, we may in this intimacy possibly resemble him. It is to be feared that, if we do not form such a permanent attachment, we may be acquiring knowledge, while our enervated taste becomes less and less lively. Taste embalms the knowledge which otherwise cannot preserve itself. He who has long been intimate with one great author will always be found to be a formidable antagonist; he has saturated his mind with the excellences of genius; he has shaped his faculties insensibly to himself by his model, and he is like a man who ever sleeps in armour, ready at a moment! The old Latin proverb reminds us of this fact, _Cave ab homine unius libri_: Be cautious of the man of one book!

Pliny and Seneca give very safe advice on reading: that we should read much, but not many books--but they had no "monthly list of new publications!" Since their days others have favoured us with "Methods of Study," and "Catalogues of Books to be Read." Vain attempts to circ.u.mscribe that invisible circle of human knowledge which is perpetually enlarging itself! The multiplicity of books is an evil for the many; for we now find an _h.e.l.luo librorum_ not only among the learned, but, with their pardon, among the unlearned; for those who, even to the prejudice of their health, persist only in reading the incessant book-novelties of our own time, will after many years acquire a sort of learned ignorance. We are now in want of an art to teach how books are to be read, rather than not to read them: such an art is practicable. But amidst this vast mult.i.tude still let us be "the man of one book," and preserve an uninterrupted intercourse with that great author with whose mode of thinking we sympathise, and whose charms of composition we can habitually retain.

It is remarkable that every great writer appears to have a predilection for some favourite author; and, with Alexander, had they possessed a golden casket, would have enshrined the works they so constantly turned over. Demosthenes felt such delight in the history of Thucydides, that, to obtain a familiar and perfect mastery of his style, he re-copied his history eight times; while Brutus not only was constantly perusing Polybius, even amidst the most busy periods of his life, but was abridging a copy of that author on the last awful night of his existence, when on the following day he was to try his fate against Antony and Octavius. Selim the Second had the Commentaries of Caesar translated for his use; and it is recorded that his military ardour was heightened by the perusal. We are told that Scipio Africa.n.u.s was made a hero by the writings of Xenophon. When Clarendon was employed in writing his history, he was in a constant study of Livy and Tacitus, to acquire the full and flowing style of the one, and the portrait-painting of the other: he records this circ.u.mstance in a letter. Voltaire had usually on his table the _Athalie_ of Racine, and the _Pet.i.t Careme_ of Ma.s.sillon; the tragedies of the one were the finest model of French verse, the sermons of the other of French prose. "Were I obliged to sell my library," exclaimed Diderot, "I would keep back Moses, Homer, and Richardson;" and, by the _eloge_ which this enthusiastic writer composed on our English novelist, it is doubtful, had the Frenchman been obliged to have lost two of them, whether Richardson had not been the elected favourite. Monsieur Thomas, a French writer, who at times displays high eloquence and profound thinking, Herault de Sech.e.l.les tells us, studied chiefly one author, but that author was Cicero; and never went into the country unaccompanied by some of his works. Fenelon was constantly employed on his Homer; he left a translation of the greater part of the Odyssey, without any design of publication, but merely as an exercise for style. Montesquieu was a constant student of Tacitus, of whom he must be considered a forcible imitator. He has, in the manner of Tacitus, characterised Tacitus: "That historian," he says, "who abridged everything, because he saw everything." The famous Bourdaloue re-perused every year Saint Paul, Saint Chrysostom, and Cicero. "These," says a French critic, "were the sources of his masculine and solid eloquence."

Grotius had such a taste for Lucan, that he always carried a pocket edition about him, and has been seen to kiss his hand-book with the rapture of a true votary. If this anecdote be true, the elevated sentiments of the stern Roman were probably the attraction with the Batavian republican. The diversified reading of Leibnitz is well known; but he still attached himself to one or two favourites: Virgil was always in his hand when at leisure, and Leibnitz had read Virgil so often, that even in his old age he could repeat whole books by heart; Barclay's Argenis was his model for prose; when he was found dead in his chair, the Argenis had fallen from his hands. Rabelais and Marot were the perpetual favourites of La Fontaine; from one he borrowed his humour, and from the other his style. Quevedo was so pa.s.sionately fond of the Don Quixote of Cervantes, that often in reading that unrivalled work he felt an impulse to burn his own inferior compositions: to be a sincere admirer and a hopeless rival is a case of authors.h.i.+p the hardest imaginable. Few writers can venture to antic.i.p.ate the award of posterity; yet perhaps Quevedo had not even been what he was without the perpetual excitement he received from his great master. Horace was the friend of his heart to Malherbe; he laid the Roman poet on his pillow, took him in the fields, and called his Horace his breviary. Plutarch, Montaigne, and Locke, were the three authors constantly in the hands of Rousseau, and he has drawn from them the groundwork of his ideas in his Emile. The favourite author of the great Earl of Chatham was Barrow; and on his style he had formed his eloquence, and had read his great master so constantly, as to be able to repeat his elaborate sermons from memory. The great Lord Burleigh always carried Tully's Offices in his pocket; Charles V. and Buonaparte had Machiavel frequently in their hands; and Davila was the perpetual study of Hampden: he seemed to have discovered in that historian of civil wars those which he antic.i.p.ated in the land of his fathers.

These facts sufficiently ill.u.s.trate the recorded circ.u.mstance of Sir William Jones's invariable habit of reading his Cicero through every year, and exemplify the happy result for him, who, amidst the multiplicity of his authors, still continues in this way to be "the man of one book."

A BIBLIOGNOSTE.

A startling literary prophecy, recently sent forth from our oracular literature, threatens the annihilation of public libraries, which are one day to moulder away!

Listen to the vaticinator! "As conservatories of mental treasures, their value in times of darkness and barbarity was incalculable; and even in these happier days, when men are incited to explore new regions of thought, they command respect as depots of methodical and well-ordered references for the researches of the curious. But what in one state of society is invaluable, may at another be worthless; and the progress which the world has made within a very few centuries has considerably reduced the estimation which is due to such establishments. We will say more--"[231] but enough! This idea of striking into dust "the G.o.d of his idolatry," the Dagon of his devotion, is sufficient to terrify the bibliographer, who views only a blind Samson pulling down the pillars of his temple!

This future universal inundation of books, this superfluity of knowledge, in billions and trillions, overwhelms the imaginnation! It is now about four hundred years since the art of multiplying books has been discovered; and an arithmetician has attempted to calculate the incalculable of these four ages of typography, which he discovers have actually produced 3,641,960 works! Taking each work at three volumes, and reckoning only each impression to consist of three hundred copies, which is too little, the actual amount from the presses of Europe will give to 1816, 3,277,764,000 volumes! each of which being an inch thick, if placed on a line, would cover 6069 leagues! Leibnitz facetiously maintained that such would be the increase of literature, that future generations would find whole cities insufficient to contain their libraries. We are, however, indebted to the patriotic endeavours of our grocers and trunkmakers, alchemists of literature! they annihilate the gross bodies without injuring the finer spirits. We are still more indebted to that neglected race, the bibliographers!

The science of books, for so bibliography is sometimes dignified, may deserve the grat.i.tude of a public, who are yet insensible of the useful zeal of those book-pract.i.tioners, the nature of whose labours is yet so imperfectly comprehended. Who is this vaticinator of the uselessness of public libraries? Is he a _bibliognoste_, or a _bibliographe_, or a _bibliomane_, or a _bibliophile_, or a _bibliotaphe_? A _bibliothecaire_, or a _bibliopole_, the prophet cannot be; for the _bibliothecaire_ is too delightfully busied among his shelves, and the _bibliopole_ is too profitably concerned in furnis.h.i.+ng perpetual additions to admit of this hyperbolical terror of annihilation![232]

Unawares, we have dropped into that professional jargon which was chiefly forged by one who, though seated in the "scorner's chair," was the Thaumaturgus of books and ma.n.u.scripts. The Abbe Rive had acquired a singular taste and curiosity, not without a fermenting dash of singular _charlatanerie_, in bibliography: the little volumes he occasionally put forth are things which but few hands have touched. He knew well, that for some books to be noised about, they should not be read: this was one of those recondite mysteries of his, which we may have occasion farther to reveal. This bibliographical hero was librarian to the most magnificent of book-collectors, the Duke de la Valliere. The Abbe Rive was a strong but ungovernable brute, rabid, surly, but _tres-mordant_.

His master, whom I have discovered to have been the partner of the cur's tricks, would often pat him; and when the _bibliognostes_, and the _bibliomanes_ were in the heat of contest, let his "bull-dog" loose among them, as the duke affectionately called his librarian. The "bull-dog" of bibliography appears, too, to have had the taste and appet.i.te of the tiger of politics, but he hardly lived to join the festival of the guillotine. I judge of this by an expression he used to one complaining of his parish priest, whom he advised to give "une messe dans son ventre!" He had tried to exhaust his genius in _La Cha.s.se aux Bibliographes et aux Antiquaires mal avises_, and acted Cain with his brothers! All Europe was to receive from him new ideas concerning books and ma.n.u.scripts. Yet all his mighty promises fumed away in projects; and though he appeared for ever correcting the blunders of others, this French Ritson left enough of his own to afford them a choice of revenge.

His style of criticism was perfectly _Ritsonian_. He describes one of his rivals as _l'insolent et tres-insense auteur de l'Almanach de Gotha_, on the simple subject of the origin of playing-cards!

The Abbe Rive was one of those men of letters, of whom there are not a few who pa.s.s all their lives in preparations. Dr. Dibdin, since the above was written, has witnessed the confusion of the mind and the gigantic industry of our _bibliognoste_, which consisted of many trunks full of _memoranda_. The description will show the reader to what hard hunting these book-hunters voluntarily doom themselves, with little hope of obtaining fame! "In one trunk were about _six thousand_ notices of MSS. of all ages. In another were wedged about _twelve thousand_ descriptions of books in all languages, except those of French and Italian; sometimes with critical notes. In a third trunk was a bundle of papers relating to the _History of the Troubadours_. In a fourth was a collection of memoranda and literary sketches connected with the invention of arts and sciences, with pieces exclusively bibliographical.

A fifth trunk contained between _two_ and _three thousand_ cards, written upon each side, respecting a collection of prints. In a sixth trunk were contained his papers respecting earthquakes, volcanoes, and geographical subjects."[233] This _Ajax flagellifer_ of the bibliographical tribe, who was, as Dr. Dibdin observes, "the terror of his acquaintance, and the pride of his patron," is said to have been in private a very different man from his public character; all which may be true, without altering a shade of that public character. The French Revolution showed how men, mild and even kind in domestic life, were sanguinary and ferocious in their public.

The rabid Abbe Rive gloried in terrifying, without enlightening his rivals; he exulted that he was devoting to "the rods of criticism and the laughter of Europe the _bibliopoles_," or dealers in books, who would not get by heart his "Catechism" of a thousand and one questions and answers: it broke the slumbers of honest De Bure, who had found life was already too short for his own "Bibliographie Instructive."