The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 | Page 7

that respectable character. I
have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a
bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort.
I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in Christ Church
reverend quadrangle, I can be content to pass for nothing short of a
Seraphic Doctor.
The walks at these times are so much one's own,--the tall trees of
Christ's, the groves of Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open
doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some
Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours)
whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and to
adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at the
butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality: the immense
caves of kitchens, kitchen fire-places, cordial recesses; ovens whose
first pies were baked four centuries ago; and spits which have cooked
for Chaucer! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but is
hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a

Manciple.
Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art
every thing! When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity--then thou wert
nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou called'st it, to look back
to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, _jejune,
modern_! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half
Januses[1] are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with
which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being every
thing! the past is every thing, being nothing!
What were thy _dark ages_? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as now,
and man got him to his work in the morning. Why is it that we can
never hear mention of them without an accompanying feeling, as
though a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our
ancestors wandered to and fro groping!
Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace me,
are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves--
What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls
of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians,
were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not
want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as
soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their
foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as
the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy
orchard.
Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS. Those
_variæ lectiones_, so tempting to the more erudite palates, do but
disturb and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean raker. The credit of
the three witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I leave these
curiosities to Porson, and to G.D.--whom, by the way, I found busy as a
moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some
seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is
grown almost into a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of the
old shelves. I longed to new-coat him in Russia, and assign him his
place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula.
D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No inconsiderable
portion of his moderate fortune, I apprehend, is consumed in journeys
between them and Clifford's-inn--where, like a dove on the asp's nest,

he has long taken up his unconscious abode, amid an incongruous
assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, apparitors, promoters, vermin
of the law, among whom he sits, "in calm and sinless peace." The fangs
of the law pierce him not--the winds of litigation blow over his humble
chambers--the hard sheriffs officer moves his hat as he passes--legal
nor illegal discourtesy touches him--none thinks of offering violence or
injustice to him--you would as soon "strike an abstract idea."
D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years,
in an investigation into all curious matter connected with the two
Universities; and has lately lit upon a MS. collection of charters,
relative to C----, by which he hopes to settle some disputed
points--particularly that long controversy between them as to priority of
foundation. The ardor with which he engages in these liberal pursuits, I
am afraid, has not met with all the encouragement it deserved, either
here, or at C----. Your caputs, and heads of colleges, care less than any
body else about these questions.--Contented to suck the milky fountains
of their Alma Maters, without inquiring into the venerable
gentlewomen's years, they rather hold such curiosities to be
impertinent--unreverend.