The Enemies of Books | Page 3

raised above the crowd, the Apostle,
preaching with great power and persuasion concerning superstition,
holds in thrall the assembled multitude. On the outskirts of the crowd
are numerous bonfires, upon which Jew and Gentile are throwing into
the flames bundle upon bundle of scrolls, while an Asiarch with his
peace-officers looks on with the conventional stolidity of policemen in
all ages and all nations. It must have been an impressive scene, and
many a worse subject has been chosen for the walls of the Royal
Academy.
Books in those early times, whether orthodox or heterodox, appear to
have had a precarious existence. The heathens at each fresh outbreak of

persecution burnt all the Christian writings they could find, and the
Christians, when they got the upper hand, retaliated with interest upon
the pagan literature. The Mohammedan reason for destroying
books--"If they contain what is in the Koran they are superfluous, and
if they contain anything opposed to it they are immoral," seems, indeed,
mutatis mutandis, to have been the general rule for all such devastators.
The Invention of Printing made the entire destruction of any author's
works much more difficult, so quickly and so extensively did books
spread through all lands. On the other hand, as books multiplied, so did
destruction go hand in hand with production, and soon were printed
books doomed to suffer in the same penal fires, that up to then had
been fed on MSS. only.
At Cremona, in 1569, 12,000 books printed in Hebrew were publicly
burnt as heretical, simply on account of their language; and Cardinal
Ximenes, at the capture of Granada, treated 5,000 copies of the Koran
in the same way.
At the time of the Reformation in England a great destruction of books
took place. The antiquarian Bale, writing in 1587, thus speaks of the
shameful fate of the Monastic libraries:--
"A greate nombre of them whyche purchased those superstycyouse
mansyons (_Monasteries_) reserved of those librarye bookes some to
serve their jakes, some to scoure theyr candelstyckes, and some to
rubbe theyr bootes. Some they solde to the grossers and sope sellers,
and some they sent over see to yeS booke bynders, not in small nombre,
but at tymes whole shyppes full, to yeS, wonderynge of foren nacyons.
Yea yeS. Universytees of thys realme are not alle clere in thys
detestable fact. But cursed is that bellye whyche seketh to be fedde with
suche ungodlye gaynes, and so depelye shameth hys natural conterye. I
knowe a merchant manne, whych shall at thys tyme be namelesse, that
boughte yeS contentes of two noble lybraryes for forty shyllynges
pryce: a shame it is to be spoken. Thys stuffe hathe heoccupyed in yeS
stede of greye paper, by yeS, space of more than these ten yeares, and
yet he bathe store ynoughe for as manye years to come. A prodygyous
example is thys, and to be abhorred of all men whyche love theyr

nacyon as they shoulde do. The monkes kepte them undre dust, yeS,
ydle-headed prestes regarded them not, theyr latter owners have most
shamefully abused them, and yeS covetouse merchantes have solde
them away into foren nacyons for moneye."
How the imagination recoils at the idea of Caxton's translation of the
Metamorphoses of Ovid, or perhaps his "Lyf of therle of Oxenforde,"
together with many another book from our first presses, not a fragment
of which do we now possess, being used for baking "pyes."
At the Great Fire of London in 1666, the number of books burnt was
enormous. Not only in private houses and Corporate and Church
libraries were priceless collections reduced to cinders, but an immense
stock of books removed from Paternoster Row by the Stationers for
safety was burnt to ashes in the vaults of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Coming nearer to our own day, how thankful we ought to be for the
preservation of the Cotton Library. Great was the consternation in the
literary world of 1731 when they heard of the fire at Ashburnham
House, Westminster, where, at that time, the Cotton MSS. were
deposited. By great exertions the fire was conquered, but not before
many MSS. had been quite destroyed and many others injured. Much
skill was shown in the partial restoration of these books, charred almost
beyond recognition; they were carefully separated leaf by leaf, soaked
in a chemical solution, and then pressed flat between sheets of
transparent paper. A curious heap of scorched leaves, previous to any
treatment, and looking like a monster wasps' nest, may be seen in a
glass case in the MS. department of the British Museum, showing the
condition to which many other volumes had been reduced.
Just a hundred years ago the mob, in the "Birmingham Riots," burnt the
valuable library of Dr. Priestley, and in the "Gordon Riots" were burnt
the