Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs | Page 7

warm but fickle both in choice and duration. He would frequently part from one with whom he had lived on terms of close intimacy, without any assignable cause, and his enmities once fixed were immovable. There was indeed a kind of venom in his antipathies, nor would he suffer his ears to be assailed or his heart to relent in favour of those against whom he entertained animosities, however capricious and unfounded. In one pursuit only was he consistent: one object only did he woo with an inflexible attachment; and that object was Dame Drama."
In Dibdin's Bibliomaniacal romance, "Philemon" is credited with the following narrative concerning one who was probably a bibliomaniac in all that the compound sense of the term implies:--
"You all know my worthy friend Ferdinand, a very helluo librorum. It was on a warm evening in summer, about an hour after sunset, that Ferdinand made his way towards a small inn or rather village alehouse that stood on a gentle eminence skirted by a luxuriant wood. He entered, oppressed with heat and fatigued, but observed, on walking up to the porch 'smothered with honeysuckles,' as I think Cowper expresses it, that everything around bore the character of neatness and simplicity. The hollyhocks were tall and finely variegated in blossom, the pinks were carefully tied up, and roses of all colours and fragrance stood around in a compacted form like a body-guard forbidding the rude foot of trespasser to intrude. Within, Ferdinand found corresponding simplicity and comfort.
"The 'gude man' of the house was spending the evening with a neighbour, but poached eggs and a rasher of bacon, accompanied with a flagon of sparkling ale, gave our guest no occasion to doubt the hospitality of the house on account of the absence of its master. A little past ten, after reading some dozen pages in a volume of Sir Edgerton Brydges's Censura Literaria, which he happened to carry about him, and partaking pretty largely of the aforesaid eggs and ale, Ferdinand called for his candle and retired to repose. His bedroom was small but neat and airy; at one end and almost facing the window there was a pretty large closet with the door open; but Ferdinand was too fatigued to indulge any curiosity about what it might contain.
"He extinguished his candle and sank upon his bed to rest. The heat of the evening seemed to increase. He became restless, and throwing off his quilt and drawing his curtain aside, turned towards the window to inhale the last breeze which yet might be wafted from the neighbouring heath. But no zephyr was stirring. On a sudden a broad white flash of lightning--nothing more than summer heat--made our bibliomaniac lay his head upon his pillow and turn his eyes in an opposite direction. The lightning increased; and one flash more vivid than the rest illuminated the interior of the closet and made manifest an old mahogany book-case stored with books. Up started Ferdinand and put his phosphoric treasures into action. He lit his match and trimmed his candle and rushed into the closet, no longer mindful of the heavens, which now were in a blaze with the summer heat.
"The book-case was guarded both with glass and brass wires; and the key--nowhere to be found! Hapless man! for to his astonishment he saw Morte d'Arthur, printed by Caxton--Richard Coeur de Lion, by W. de Worde--The Widow Edyth, by Pynson--and, towering above the rest, a large-paper copy of the original edition of Prince's Worthies of Devon, while lying transversely at the top reposed John Weever's Epigrams!
"'The spirit of Captain Cox is here revived,' exclaimed Ferdinand; while on looking above he saw a curious set of old plays with Dido, Queen of Carthage, at the head of them! What should he do? No key! No chance of handling such precious tomes till the morning light with the landlord returned!
"He moved backwards and forwards with a hurried step, prepared his pocketknife to cut out the panes of glass and untwist the brazen wires; but a 'prick of conscience' made him desist from carrying his wicked design into execution. Ferdinand then advanced towards the window, and, throwing it open and listening to the rich notes of a concert of nightingales, forgot the cause of his torments--his situation reminded him of The Churl and the Bird--he rushed with renewed madness into the cupboard, then searched for the bell, but finding none, he made all sorts of strange noises. The landlady rose, and, conceiving robbers to have broken into the stranger's room, came and demanded the cause of the disturbance.
"'Madam,' said Ferdinand, 'is there no possibility of inspecting the books in the cupboard? Where is the key?'
"'Alack, sir,' rejoined the landlady, 'what is there that thus disturbs you in the sight of those books? Let me shut