MR. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL'S ESSAYS.* IT is always easy, but not
always comforting, to read Mr. Birrell. When he is writing about books he is commonly delightful, though even here he cannot resist the temptation to "get his knife into" something or somebody that he dislikes. The essay which gives a title to the volume is an excellent specimen of the author's method and manner. Its general purpose is an account of Thomas Bodley and the great library which he founded. It comes, therefore, within the region where Mr. Birrell is to be seen at his best, but it also gives dangerous opportunities. Bodley was born in 1544, and the sixty-nine years which followed—he died in 1613—were years of stress and storm. "It is our fate," cries Mr. Birrell, "never to be for long quit of the religious difficulty." That is true enough, and one would think that the reason was
sufficiently obvious,—it is a matter that we care about. Not at all ; it is simply bad luck. "Nobody, I suppose, would call the English a 'religious' people." A more astonishing statement we have seldom seen. Probably the four peoples that make up the United Kingdom are, each in its different way, the most religious in the world. Before Bodley'a work can be described, some notice must be taken of his predecessors,—of Bishop Cobham and Duke Humphrey of Gloucester. A lover of books does well to be angry when be speaks of the fate which befell the gifts of these men. But it is a little hard to ascribe this fate to the action of the "Reformers." The word at once suggests such names as Cranmer, Ridley, and Jewel: Are we to suppose that those men shared in or approved' of such deeds ? In all great changes fanatics and knaves find their opportunities, and the Reformation, though not conspicuous for violence, was not an exception. The language that Mr. Birrell uses elsewhere on the same subject, as at pp. 28-29, is sadly wanting in sobriety. After this we are, so to speak, in smooth water. It is an interesting story that is told, not the least curious detail being the list' of books which the Bodleian and the Cambridge University Library have refused to receive. Sir Thomas Bodley excluded almanacs and plays, thinking that of the latter "hardly one in forty may be worthy the keeping." This would account for the curators or the librarian rejecting Hannah More's Sacred Dramas. But it does not excuse the banishment of Ossian. Mr. Birrell, dutiful son of Cambridge though he is, has to bring against his Alma Mater a weightier indictment. On their Index are to be found The Siege of Corinth, The Story of Rimini, Headlong Hall, and The Antiquary. (There is a slight mistake about Mr. Hackman's thirty-two years' tenure of office as sub-librarian. He was minister for eighteen years and sub-librarian for fourteen.) "Bookworms," with its curious details about the beings to which this name is applied, whether naturally or metaphori- cally, "Confirmed Readers," "Librarians at Play," and "Old Booksellers" are all excellent. (But why interject a scoff at those who "denounced Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill without having read a line bf it" ? Few people, we take it, read the text of a Bill. The contents are better ascer- tained from the debates on the second reading and in Committee, and from articles in which every point is dis- cussed.) The "Few Word t on Copyright in Books" seem to us full of good sense, though the facts are -not invariably correct. It may be true that international copyright "has not enriched a single author "—authors are seldom "enriched "—but it has certainly increased their gains. An author well known to the writer of this review declares that the books be has copyrighted in the United States bring in better returns there than they do in this country. It is the Colonies that are "drawn blank."
"A Connoisseur" may be read with unmixed pleasure. Here Mr. Birrell gives us an appreciation of Frederick Locker, a work for which he has every qualification, chief among them a sympathetic intelligence and the opportunities of intimate observation. To his own people Mr. Locker was known as the most discriminating of collectors; to the world lie was the author of London Lyrics, a book which ranks him with Praed
In the Name of the Bodleian, and other Essays. By Augustine Birrell. London: Elliot Stock. [5s. net.]
and Calverley. It is the connoisseur who comes out in the anecdote which we venture to quote, though it cannot be fully enjoyed by any one who did not know the learned Judge, a robust embodiment of common-sense, who figures in it :—
" My father-in-law was only once in the witness-box. I had the felicity to see him there. It was a dispute about the price of a picture, and in the course of his very short evidence he hazarded the opinion that the grouping of the figures (they were portraits) was in bad taste. The Judge, the late Mr. Justice Cave, an excellent lawyer of the old school, snarled out, Do you think you could explain to ins what is taste ? ' Mr. Locker surveyed the Judge through the eye-glass which seemed almost part of his being, with a glance modest, deferential, deprecatory, as if suggesting "Who am / to explain anything to you ?' but at tho same time critical, ironical, and humorous. It was but for one brief moment ; the eye-glass dropped, and there came the mourn- ful answer, as from a man baffled at all points : No, my lord ; I should find it impossible!' Tho Judge grunted a ready, almost a cheerful, assent.'
In the article on "The Non-Jurors" Mr. Birrell shows to less advantage. To us he seems not fully to comprehend the question. "The High Church party were bound hand and foot to the doctrine of passive obedience to the Lord's Anointed. Whoever else might actively resist or forsake the King, they could not without apostasy." Surely this is not exact. The Seven Bishops had shown plainly enough that they could, on occasion, resist the King, and some of the seven were among the Non-jurors. The fallacy lies in the conjunction of the words "resist or forsake." " Resist " they did ; but when they were asked to " forsake " they refused. James was, in their belief, their legal Sovereign, and they could not transfer their allegiance to another ruler. That is an intelligible principle, whatever we may think of its validity—as a general rule, the great Christian doctors had accepted de facto authority—but it is not exactly what is represented here. The essay seems to have appeared as a review of Canon Overton's book, The Non-jurors. It is the penalty of a high literary reputation that what commonly passes, and happily passes, out of sight and memory in the course of a week or so, is recalled to existence. But for the presence of this and one or two other survivals, this volume would have been more uniformly agreeable than it is.
Previous page
