Curiosities of Literature Volume Iii Part 31

The Abbe Rive had contrived to catch the shades of the appellatives necessary to discriminate book amateurs; and of the first term he is acknowledged to be the inventor.

A _bibliognoste_, from the Greek, is one knowing in t.i.tle-pages and colophons, and in editions; the place and year when printed; the presses whence issued; and all the _minutiae_ of a book.

A _bibliographe_ is a describer of books and other literary arrangements.

A _bibliomane_ is an indiscriminate acc.u.mulator, who blunders faster than he buys, c.o.c.k-brained, and purse-heavy!

A _bibliophile_, the lover of books, is the only one in the cla.s.s who appears to read them for his own pleasure.

A _bibliotaphe_ buries his books, by keeping them under lock, or framing them in gla.s.s cases.

I shall catch our _bibliognoste_ in the hour of book-rapture! It will produce a collection of bibliographical writers, and show to the second-sighted Edinburgher what human contrivances have been raised by the art of more painful writers than himself--either to postpone the day of universal annihilation, or to preserve for our posterity, three centuries hence, the knowledge which now so busily occupies us, and transmit to them something more than what Bacon calls "Inventories" of our literary treasures.

"Histories, and literary _bibliotheques_ (or bibliothecas), will always present to us," says La Rive, "an immense harvest of errors, till the authors of such catalogues shall be fully impressed by the importance of their art; and, as it were, reading in the most distant ages of the future the literary good and evil which they may produce, force a triumph from the pure devotion to truth, in spite of all the disgusts which their professional tasks involve; still patiently enduring the heavy chains which bind down those who give themselves up to this pursuit, with a pa.s.sion which resembles heroism.

"The catalogues of _bibliotheques fixes_ (or critical, historical, and cla.s.sified accounts of writers) have engendered that enormous swarm of bibliographical errors, which have spread their roots, in greater or less quant.i.ties, in all our bibliographers." He has here furnished a long list, which I shall preserve in the note.[234]

The list, though curious, is by no means complete. Such are the men of whom the Abbe Rive speaks with more respect than his accustomed courtesy. "If such," says he, "cannot escape from errors, who shall? I have only marked them out to prove the importance of bibliographical history. A writer of this sort must occupy himself with more regard for his reputation than his own profit, and yield himself up entirely to the study of books."

The mere knowledge of books, which has been called an erudition of t.i.tle-pages, may be sufficient to occupy the life of some; and while the wits and "the million" are ridiculing these hunters of editions, who force their pa.s.sage through secluded spots, as well as course in the open fields, it will be found that this art of book-knowledge may turn out to be a very philosophical pursuit, and that men of great name have devoted themselves to labours more frequently contemned than comprehended. Apostolo Zeno, a poet, a critic, and a true man of letters, considered it as no small portion of his glory to have annotated Fontanini, who, himself an eminent prelate, had pa.s.sed his life in forming his _Bibliotheca Italiana_. Zeno did not consider that to correct errors and to enrich by information this catalogue of Italian writers was a mean task. The enthusiasm of the Abbe Rive considered bibliography as a sublime pursuit, exclaiming on Zeno's commentary on Fontanini--"He chained together the knowledge of whole generations for posterity, and he read in future ages."

There are few things by which we can so well trace the history of the human mind as by a cla.s.sed catalogue, with dates of the first publication of books; even the relative prices of books at different periods, their decline and then their rise, and again their fall, form a chapter in this history of the human mind; we become critics even by this literary chronology, and this apprais.e.m.e.nt of auctioneers. The favourite book of every age is a certain picture of the people. The gradual depreciation of a great author marks a change in knowledge or in taste.

But it is imagined that we are not interested in the history of indifferent writers, and scarcely in that of the secondary ones. If none but great originals should claim our attention, in the course of two thousand years we should not count twenty authors! Every book, whatever be its character, may be considered as a new experiment made by the human understanding; and as a book is a sort of individual representation, not a solitary volume exists but may be personified, and described as a human being. Hints start discoveries: they are usually found in very different authors who could go no further; and the historian of obscure books is often preserving for men of genius indications of knowledge, which without his intervention we should not possess! Many secrets we discover in bibliography. Great writers, unskilled in this science of books, have frequently used defective editions, as Hume did the castrated Whitelocke; or, like Robertson, they are ignorant of even the sources of the knowledge they would give the public; or they compose on a subject which too late they discover had been antic.i.p.ated. Bibliography will show what has been done, and suggest to our invention what is wanted. Many have often protracted their journey in a road which had already been worn out by the wheels which had traversed it: bibliography unrolls the whole map of the country we purpose travelling over--the post-roads and the by-paths.

Every half-century, indeed, the obstructions multiply; and the Edinburgh prediction, should it approximate to the event it has foreseen, may more reasonably terrify a far distant posterity. Mazzuch.e.l.li declared, after his laborious researches in Italian literature, that one of his more recent predecessors, who had commenced a similar work, had collected notices of forty thousand writers--and yet, he adds, my work must increase that number to ten thousand more! Mazzuch.e.l.li said this in 1753; and the amount of nearly a century must now be added, for the presses of Italy have not been inactive.

But the literature of Germany, of France, and of England has exceeded the multiplicity of the productions of Italy, and an appalling population of authors swarm before the imagination.[235] Hail then the peaceful spirit of the literary historian, which sitting amidst the night of time, by the monuments of genius, trims the sepulchral lamps of the human mind! Hail to the literary Reaumur, who by the clearness of his gla.s.ses makes even the minute interesting, and reveals to us the world of insects! These are guardian spirits who, at the close of every century standing on its ascent, trace out the old roads we had pursued, and with a lighter line indicate the new ones which are opening, from the imperfect attempts, and even the errors of our predecessors!

FOOTNOTES:

[231] "Edinburgh Review," vol. x.x.xiv, 384.

[232] Will this writer pardon me for ranking him, for a moment, among those "generalisers" of the age who excel in what a critical friend has happily discriminated as _ambitious writing_? that is, writing on any topic, and not least strikingly on that of which they know least; men otherwise of fine taste, and who excel in every charm of composition.

[233] The late Wm. Upcott possessed, in a large degree, a similar taste for miscellaneous collections. He never threw an old hat away, but used it as a receptacle for certain "cuttings" from books and periodicals on some peculiar subjects. He had filled a room with hats and trunks thus crammed; but they were sacrificed at his death for want of necessary arrangement.

[234] Gessner--Simler--Bellarmin--L'Abbe--Mabillon--Montfaucon--Moreri-- Bayle--Baillet--Niceron--Dupin--Cave--Warton--Casimir Oudin--Le Long--Goujet--Wolfius--John Albert Fabricius--Argelati--Tiraboschi-- Nicholas Antonio--Walchius--Struvius--Brucker--Scheuchzer--Linnaeus-- Seguier--Haller--Adamson--Manget--Kestner--Eloy--Douglas--Weidler-- Hailbronner--Montucla--Lalande--Bailly--Quadrio--Morhoff--Stollius-- Funccius--Schelhorn--Engles--Beyer--Gerdesius--Vogts--Freytag--David Clement--Chevillier--Maittaire--Orlandi--Prosper Marchand--Schoeplin-- De Boze--Abbe Sallier--and de Saint Leger.

[235] The British Museum Library now numbers more than 500,000 volumes.

The catalogue alone forms a small library.

SECRET HISTORY OF AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY.

A POLITICAL SKETCH.

Poland, once a potent and magnificent kingdom, when it sunk into an elective monarchy, became "venal thrice an age." That country must have exhibited many a diplomatic scene of intricate intrigue, which although they could not appear in its public, have no doubt been often consigned to its secret, history. With us the corruption of a rotten borough has sometimes exposed the guarded proffer of one party, and the dexterous chaffering of the other: but a masterpiece of diplomatic finesse and political invention, electioneering viewed on the most magnificent scale, with a kingdom to be canva.s.sed, and a crown to be won and lost, or lost and won in the course of a single day, exhibits a political drama, which, for the honour and happiness of mankind, is of rare and strange occurrence. There was one scene in this drama which might appear somewhat too large for an ordinary theatre; the actors apparently were not less than fifty to a hundred thousand; twelve vast tents were raised on an extensive plain, a hundred thousand horses were in the environs--and palatines and castellans, the ecclesiastical orders, with the amba.s.sadors of the royal compet.i.tors, all agitated by the ceaseless motion of different factions during the six weeks of the election, and of many preceding months of preconcerted measures and vacillating opinions, now were all solemnly a.s.sembled at the diet.--Once the poet, amidst his gigantic conception of a scene, resolved to leave it out:

So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain-- Then build a new, or _act it in a plain_!

exclaimed "La Mancha's knight," kindling at a scene so novel and so vast!

Such an electioneering negotiation, the only one I am acquainted with, is opened in the "Discours" of Choisin, the secretary of Montluc, Bishop of Valence, the confidential agent of Catharine de' Medici, and who was sent to intrigue at the Polish diet, to obtain the crown of Poland for her son the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry the Third. This bold enterprise at first seemed hopeless, and in its progress encountered growing obstructions; but Montluc was one of the most finished diplomatists that the genius of the Gallic cabinet ever sent forth. He was nicknamed in all the courts of Europe, from the circ.u.mstance of his limping, "le Boiteux;" our political bishop was in cabinet intrigues the Talleyrand of his age, and sixteen emba.s.sies to Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, and Turkey, had made this "connoisseur en hommes" an extraordinary politician!

Catharine de' Medici was infatuated with the dreams of judicial astrology; her pensioned oracles had declared that she should live to see each of her sons crowned, by which prediction probably they had only purposed to flatter her pride and her love of dominion. They, however, ended in terrifying the credulous queen; and she, dreading to witness a throne in France, disputed perhaps by fratricides, anxiously sought a separate crown for each of her three sons. She had been trifled with in her earnest negotiations with our Elizabeth; twice had she seen herself baffled in her views in the Dukes of Alencon and of Anjou. Catharine then projected a new empire for Anjou, by incorporating into one kingdom Algiers, Corsica, and Sardinia; but the other despot, he of Constantinople, Selim the Second, dissipated the brilliant speculation of our female Machiavel. Charles the Ninth was sickly, jealous, and desirous of removing from the court the Duke of Anjou, whom two victories had made popular, though he afterwards sunk into a Sardanapalus. Montluc penetrated into the secret wishes of Catharine and Charles, and suggested to them the possibility of encircling the brows of Anjou with the diadem of Poland, the Polish monarch then being in a state of visible decline. The project was approved; and, like a profound politician, the bishop prepared for an event which might be remote, and always problematical, by sending into Poland a natural son of his, Balagny, as a disguised agent; his youth, his humble rank, and his love of pleasure, would not create any alarm among the neighbouring powers, who were alike on the watch to s.n.a.t.c.h the expected spoil; but as it was necessary to have a more dexterous politician behind the curtain, he recommended his secretary, Choisnin, as a travelling tutor to a youth who appeared to want one.

Balagny proceeded to Poland, where, under the veil of dissipation, and in the midst of splendid festivities, with his trusty adjutant, this hair-brained boy of revelry began to weave those intrigues which were afterwards to be knotted, or untied, by Montluc himself. He had contrived to be so little suspected, that the agent of the emperor had often disclosed important secrets to his young and amiable friend. On the death of Sigismond Augustus, Balagny, leaving Choisnin behind to trumpet forth the virtues of Anjou, hastened to Paris to give an account of all which he had seen or heard. But poor Choisnin found himself in a dilemma among those who had so long listened to his panegyrics on the humanity and meek character of the Duke of Anjou; for the news of St.

Bartholomew's ma.s.sacre had travelled faster than the post; and Choisnin complains that he was now treated as an impudent liar, and the French prince as a monster. In vain he a.s.sured them that the whole was an exaggerated account, a mere insurrection of the people, or the effects of a few private enmities, praying the indignant Poles to suspend their decision till the bishop came: "Attendez le Boiteux!" cried he, in agony.

Meanwhile, at Paris, the choice of a proper person for this emba.s.sy had been difficult to settle. It was a business of intrigue more than of form, and required an orator to make speeches and addresses in a sort of popular a.s.sembly; for though the people, indeed, had no concern in the diet, yet the greater and the lesser n.o.bles and gentlemen, all electors, were reckoned at one hundred thousand. It was supposed that a lawyer who could negotiate in good Latin, and one, as the French proverb runs, who could _aller et parler_, would more effectually puzzle their heads, and satisfy their consciences to vote for his client. Catharine at last fixed on Montluc himself, from the superst.i.tious prejudice, which, however, in this case accorded with philosophical experience, that "Montluc had ever been _lucky_ in his negotiations."

Montluc hastened his departure from Paris; and it appears that our political bishop had, by his skilful penetration into the French cabinet, foreseen the horrible catastrophe which occurred very shortly after he had left it; for he had warned the Count de Rochefoucault to absent himself; but this lord, like so many others, had no suspicions of the perfidious projects of Catharine and her cabinet. Montluc, however, had not long been on his journey ere the news reached him, and it occasioned innumerable obstacles in his progress, which even his sagacity had not calculated on. At Strasburgh he had appointed to meet some able coadjutors, among whom was the famous Joseph Scaliger; but they were so terrified by _Les Matinees Parisiennes_, that Scaliger flew to Geneva, and would not budge out of that safe corner: and the others ran home, not imagining that Montluc would venture to pa.s.s through Germany, where the protestant indignation had made the roads too hot for a catholic bishop. But Montluc had set his cast on the die. He had already pa.s.sed through several hair-breadth escapes from the stratagems of the Guise faction, who more than once attempted to hang or drown the bishop, who, they cried out, was a Calvinist; the fears and jealousies of the Guises had been roused by this political mission. Among all these troubles and delays, Montluc was most affected by the rumour that the election was on the point of being made, and that the plague was universal throughout Poland, so that he must have felt that he might be too late for the one, and too early for the other.

At last Montluc arrived, and found that the whole weight of this negotiation was to fall on his single shoulders; and further, that he was to sleep every night on a pillow of thorns. Our bishop had not only to allay the ferment of the popular spirit of the evangelicals, as the protestants were then called, but even of the more rational catholics of Poland. He had also to face those haughty and feudal lords, of whom each considered himself the equal of the sovereign whom he created, and whose avowed principle was, and many were incorrupt, that their choice of a sovereign should be regulated solely by the public interest; and it was hardly to be expected that the emperor, the czar, and the King of Sweden would prove unsuccessful rivals to the cruel, and voluptuous, and bigoted duke of Anjou, whose political interests were too remote and novel to have raised any faction among these independent Poles.

The crafty politician had the art of dressing himself up in all the winning charms of candour and loyalty; a sweet flow of honeyed words melted on his lips, while his heart, cold and immovable as a rock, stood unchanged amidst the most unforeseen difficulties.

The emperor had set to work the Abbe Cyre in a sort of ambiguous character, an envoy for the nonce, to be acknowledged or disavowed as was convenient; and by his activity he obtained considerable influence among the Lithuanians, the Wallachians, and nearly all Prussia, in favour of the Archduke Ernest. Two Bohemians, who had the advantage of speaking the Polish language, had arrived with a state and magnificence becoming kings rather than amba.s.sadors. The Muscovite had written letters full of golden promises to the n.o.bility, and was supported by a palatine of high character; a perpetual peace between two such great neighbours was too inviting a project not to find advocates; and this party, Choisnin observes, appeared at first the most to be feared. The King of Sweden was a close neighbour, who had married the sister of their late sovereign, and his son urged his family claims as superior to those of foreigners. Among these parties was a patriotic one, who were desirous of a Pole for their monarch; a king of their fatherland, speaking their mother-tongue, one who would not strike at the independence of his country, but preserve its integrity from the stranger. This popular party was even agreeable to several of the foreign powers themselves, who did not like to see a rival power strengthening itself by so strict a union with Poland; but in this choice of a sovereign from among themselves, there were at least thirty lords who equally thought that they were the proper wood of which kings should be carved out. The Poles therefore could not agree on the Pole who deserved to be a _Piaste_; an endearing t.i.tle for a native monarch, which originated in the name of the family of the _Piastis_, who had reigned happily over the Polish people for the s.p.a.ce of five centuries!

The remembrance of their virtues existed in the minds of the honest Poles in this affectionate t.i.tle, and their party were called the _Piastis_.

Montluc had been deprived of the a.s.sistance he had depended on from many able persons, whom the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew had frightened away from every French political connexion. He found that he had himself only to depend on. We are told that he was not provided with the usual means which are considered most efficient in elections, nor possessed the interest nor the splendour of his powerful compet.i.tors: he was to derive all his resources from diplomatic finesse. The various amba.s.sadors had fixed and distant residences, that they might not hold too close an intercourse with the Polish n.o.bles. Of all things, he was desirous to obtain an easy access to these chiefs, that he might observe, and that they might listen. He who would seduce by his own ingenuity must come in contact with the object he would corrupt. Yet Montluc persisted in not approaching them without being sought after, which answered his purpose in the end. One favourite argument which our Talleyrand had set afloat, was to show that all the benefits which the different compet.i.tors had promised to the Poles were accompanied by other circ.u.mstances which could not fail to be ruinous to the country: while the offer of his master, whose interests were remote, could not be adverse to those of the Polish nation: so that much good might be expected from him, without any fear of accompanying evil. Montluc procured a clever Frenchman to be the bearer of his first despatch, in Latin, to the diet; which had hardly a.s.sembled, ere suspicions and jealousies were already breaking out. The emperor's amba.s.sadors had offended the pride of the Polish n.o.bles by travelling about the country without leave, and resorting to the infanta; and besides, in some intercepted letters the Polish nation was designated as _gens barbara et gens inepta_. "I do not think that the said letter was really written by the said amba.s.sadors, who were statesmen too politic to employ such unguarded language," very ingeniously writes the secretary of Montluc.

However, it was a blow levelled at the imperial amba.s.sadors; while the letter of the French bishop, composed "in a humble and modest style,"

began to melt their proud spirits, and two thousand copies of the French bishop's letter were eagerly spread.

"But this good fortune did not last more than four-and twenty hours,"

mournfully writes our honest secretary; "for suddenly the news of the fatal day of St. Bartholomew arrived, and every Frenchman was detested."

Montluc, in this distress, published an apology for _les Matinees Parisiennes_, which he reduced to some excesses of the people, the result of a conspiracy plotted by the protestants; and he adroitly introduced as a personage his master Anjou, declaring that "he scorned to oppress a party whom he had so often conquered with sword in hand."

This pamphlet, which still exists, must have cost the good bishop some invention; but in elections the lie of the moment serves a purpose; and although Montluc was in due time bitterly recriminated on, still the apology served to divide public opinion.

Montluc was a whole cabinet to himself: he dispersed another tract in the character of a Polish gentleman, in which the French interests were urged by such arguments, that the leading chiefs never met without disputing; and Montluc now found that he had succeeded in creating a French party. The Austrian then employed a real Polish gentleman to write for his party; but this was too genuine a production, for the writer wrote too much in earnest; and in politics we must not be in a pa.s.sion.

The mutual jealousies of each party a.s.sisted the views of our negotiator; they would side with him against each other. The archduke and the czar opposed the Turk; the Muscovite could not endure that Sweden should be aggrandised by this new crown; and Denmark was still more uneasy. Montluc had discovered how every party had its vulnerable point, by which it could be managed. The cards had now got fairly shuffled, and he depended on his usual good play.

Our bishop got hold of a palatine to write for the French cause in the vernacular tongue; and appears to have held a more mysterious intercourse with another palatine, Albert Lasky. Mutual accusations were made in the open diet: the Poles accused some Lithuanian lords of having contracted certain engagements with the czar; these in return accused the Poles, and particularly this Lasky, with being corrupted by the gold of France. Another circ.u.mstance afterwards arose; the Spanish amba.s.sador had forty thousand _thalers_ sent to him, but which never pa.s.sed the frontiers, as this fresh supply arrived too late for the election. "I believe," writes our secretary with great simplicity, "that this money was only designed to distribute among the trumpeters and the tabourines." The usual expedient in contested elections was now evidently introduced; our secretary acknowledging that Montluc daily acquired new supporters, because he did not attempt to gain them over _merely by promises_--resting his whole cause on this argument, that the interest of the nation was concerned in the French election.

Still would ill fortune cross our crafty politician when everything was proceeding smoothly. The ma.s.sacre was refreshed with more d.a.m.ning particulars; some letters were forged, and others were but too true; all parties, with rival intrepidity, were carrying on a complete scene of deception. A rumour spread that the French king disavowed his accredited agent, and apologised to the emperor for having yielded to the importunities of a political speculator, whom he was now resolved to recall. This somewhat paralysed the exertions of those palatines who had involved themselves in the intrigues of Montluc, who was now forced patiently to wait for the arrival of a courier with renewed testimonials of his diplomatic character from the French court. A great odium was cast on the French in the course of this negotiation by a distribution of prints, which exposed the most inventive cruelties practised by the Catholics on the Reformed; such as women cleaved in half in the act of attempting to s.n.a.t.c.h their children from their butchers; while Charles the Ninth and the Duke of Anjou were hideously represented in their persons, and as spectators of such horrid tragedies, with words written in labels, complaining that the executioners were not zealous enough in this holy work. These prints, accompanied by libels and by horrid narratives, inflamed the popular indignation, and more particularly the women, who were affected to tears, as if these horrid scenes had been pa.s.sing before their eyes.

Montluc replied to the libels as fast as they appeared, while he skilfully introduced the most elaborate panegyrics on the Duke of Anjou; and in return for the caricatures, he distributed two portraits of the king and the duke, to show the ladies, if not the diet, that neither of these princes had such ferocious and inhuman faces. Such are the small means by which the politician condescends to work his great designs; and the very means by which his enemies thought they should ruin his cause, Montluc adroitly turned to his own advantage. Anything of instant occurrence serves electioneering purposes, and Montluc eagerly seized this favourable occasion to exhaust his imagination on an ideal sovereign, and to hazard, with address, anecdotes, whose authenticity he could never have proved, till he perplexed even unwilling minds to be uncertain whether that intolerant and inhuman duke was not the most heroic and most merciful of princes. It is probable that the Frenchman abused even the license of the French _eloge_, for a n.o.ble Pole told Montluc that he was always amplifying his duke with such ideal greatness, and attributing to him such immaculate purity of sentiment, that it was inferred there was no man in Poland who could possibly equal him; and that his declaration, that the duke was not desirous of reigning over Poland to possess the wealth and grandeur of the kingdom, and that he was solely ambitious of the honour to be the head of such a great and virtuous n.o.bility, had offended many lords, who did not believe that the duke sought the Polish crown _merely_ to be the sovereign of a virtuous people.

These Polish statesmen appear, indeed, to have been more enlightened than the subtle politician perhaps calculated on; for when Montluc was over anxious to exculpate the Duke of Anjou from having been an actor in the Parisian ma.s.sacre, a n.o.ble Pole observed, "That he need not lose his time at framing any apologies; for if he could prove that it was the interest of the country that the duke ought to be elected their king, it was all that was required. His cruelty, were it true, would be no reason to prevent his election, for we have nothing to dread from it: once in our kingdom, he will have more reason to fear us than we him, should he ever attempt our lives, our property, or our liberty."

Another Polish lord, whose scruples were as pious as his patriotism was suspicious, however observed that, in his conferences with the French bishop, the bishop had never once mentioned G.o.d, whom all parties ought to implore to touch the hearts of the electors in the choice of G.o.d's "anointed." Montluc might have felt himself unexpectedly embarra.s.sed at the religious scruples of this lord, but the politician was never at a fault. "Speaking to a man of letters, as his lords.h.i.+p was," replied the French bishop, "it was not for him to remind his lords.h.i.+p what he so well knew; but since he had touched on the subject, he would, however, say, that were a sick man desirous of having a physician, the friend who undertook to procure one would not do his duty should he say it was necessary to call in one whom G.o.d had chosen to restore his health; but another who should say that the most learned and skilful is he whom G.o.d has chosen, would be doing the best for the patient, and evince most judgment. By a parity of reason we must believe that G.o.d will not send an angel to point out the man whom he would have his anointed; sufficient for us that G.o.d has given us a knowledge of the requisites of a good king; and if the Polish gentlemen choose such a sovereign, it will be him whom G.o.d has chosen." This shrewd argument delighted the Polish lord, who repeated the story in different companies, to the honour of the bishop. "And in this manner," adds the secretary with great _navete_, "did the _sieur_, strengthened by good arguments, divulge his opinions, which were received by many, and run from hand to hand."