The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon

by Washington Irving

  THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING.

  If that severe doom of Synesius be true,--"It is a greater offence tosteal dead men's labor, than their clothes,"--what shall become of mostwriters? BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY.

  I HAVE often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and howit comes to pass that so many heads, on which Nature seems to haveinflicted the curse of barrenness, should teem with voluminousproductions. As a man travels on, however, in the journey of life, hisobjects of wonder daily diminish, and he is continually finding out somevery simple cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced,in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder upon ascene which unfolded to me some of the mysteries of the book-makingcraft, and at once put an end to my astonishment.

  I was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons of theBritish Museum, with that listlessness with which one is apt to saunterabout a museum in warm weather; sometimes lolling over the glass casesof minerals, sometimes studying the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy,and some times trying, with nearly equal success, to comprehend theallegorical paintings on the lofty ceilings. Whilst I was gazing aboutin this idle way, my attention was attracted to a distant door, at theend of a suite of apartments. It was closed, but every now and then itwould open, and some strange-favored being, generally clothed in black,would steal forth, and glide through the rooms, without noticing anyof the surrounding objects. There was an air of mystery about this thatpiqued my languid curiosity, and I determined to attempt the passage ofthat strait, and to explore the unknown regions beyond. The door yieldedto my hand, with all that facility with which the portals of enchantedcastles yield to the adventurous knight-errant. I found myself in aspacious chamber, surrounded with great cases of venerable books. Abovethe cases, and just under the cornice, were arranged a great number ofblack-looking portraits of ancient authors. About the room were placedlong tables, with stands for reading and writing, at which sat manypale, studious personages, poring intently over dusty volumes, rummagingamong mouldy manuscripts, and taking copious notes of their contents.A hushed stillness reigned through this mysterious apartment, exceptingthat you might hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper, andoccasionally the deep sigh of one of these sages, as he shifted hisposition to turn over the page of an old folio; doubtless arising fromthat hollowness and flatulency incident to learned research.

  Now and then one of these personages would write something on a smallslip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a familiar would appear, takethe paper in profound silence, glide out of the room, and return shortlyloaded with ponderous tomes, upon which the other would fall, toothand nail, with famished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I hadhappened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged in the study of occultsciences. The scene reminded me of an old Arabian tale, of a philosophershut up in an enchanted library, in the bosom of a mountain, whichopened only once a year; where he made the spirits of the place bringhim books of all kinds of dark knowledge, so that at the end of theyear, when the magic portal once more swung open on its hinges, heissued forth so versed in forbidden lore, as to be able to soar abovethe heads of the multitude, and to control the powers of Nature.

  My curiosity being now fully aroused, I whispered to one ofthe familiars, as he was about to leave the room, and begged aninterpretation of the strange scene before me. A few words weresufficient for the purpose. I found that these mysterious personages,whom I had mistaken for magi, were principally authors, and were in thevery act of manufacturing books. I was, in fact, in the reading-room ofthe great British Library, an immense collection of volumes of all agesand languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which areseldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature towhich modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or"pure English, undefiled," wherewith to swell their own scanty rills ofthought.

  Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in a corner, andwatched the process of this book manufactory. I noticed one lean,bilious-looking wight, who sought none but the most worm-eaten volumes,printed in black letter. He was evidently constructing some work ofprofound erudition, that would be purchased by every man who wished tobe thought learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his library, orlaid open upon his table--but never read. I observed him, now and then,draw a large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket, and gnaw; whetherit was his dinner, or whether he was endeavoring to keep off thatexhaustion of the stomach, produced by much pondering over dry works, Ileave to harder students than myself to determine.

  There was one dapper little gentleman in bright-colored clothes, with achirping gossiping expression of countenance, who had all the appearanceof an author on good terms with his bookseller. After considering himattentively, I recognized in him a diligent getter-up of miscellaneousworks, which bustled off well with the trade. I was curious to see howhe manufactured his wares. He made more stir and show of business thanany of the others; dipping into various books, fluttering over theleaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel out ofanother, "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and therea little." The contents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous asthose of the witches' cauldron in Macbeth. It was here a finger andthere a thumb, toe of frog and blind worm's sting, with his own gossippoured in like "baboon's blood," to make the medley "slab and good."

  After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be implanted inauthors for wise purposes? may it not be the way in which Providencehas taken care that the seeds of knowledge and wisdom shall be preservedfrom age to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the works inwhich they were first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, thoughwhimsically provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime,in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, arelittle better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of theorchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, Nature's carriers to disperseand perpetuate her blessings. In like manner, the beauties and finethoughts of ancient and obsolete authors are caught up by these flightsof predatory writers, and cast forth, again to flourish and bear fruitin a remote and distant tract of time. Many of their works, also,undergo a kind of metempsychosis, and spring up under new forms. Whatwas formerly a ponderous history, revives in the shape of a romance--anold legend changes into a modern play--and a sober philosophicaltreatise furnishes the body for a whole series of bouncing and sparklingessays. Thus it is in the clearing of our American woodlands; where weburn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up intheir place; and we never see the prostrate trunk of a tree moulderinginto soil, but it gives birth to a whole tribe of fungi.

  Let us not then, lament over the decay and oblivion into which ancientwriters descend; they do but submit to the great law of Nature, whichdeclares that all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in theirduration, but which decrees, also, that their element shall neverperish. Generation after generation, both in animal and vegetable life,passes away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, andthe species continue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors,and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they sleepwith their fathers, that is to say, with the authors who precededthem--and from whom they had stolen.

  Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies I had leaned my headagainst a pile of reverend folios. Whether it was owing to the soporificemanations for these works; or to the profound quiet of the room; orto the lassitude arising from much wandering; or to an unlucky habitof napping at improper times and places, with which I am grievouslyafflicted, so it was, that I fell into a doze. Still, however, myimagination continued busy, and indeed the same scene continued beforemy mind's eye, only a little changed in some of the details. I dreamtthat the chamber was still decorated with the portraits of ancientauthors, but that the number was increased. The long tables haddisappeared, and, in place of the sage magi, I beheld a ragged,threadbare throng, such as may be seen plying about
the great repositoryof cast-off clothes, Monmouth Street. Whenever they seized upon a book,by one of those incongruities common to dreams, methought it turned intoa garment of foreign or antique fashion, with which they proceeded toequip themselves. I noticed, however, that no one pretended to clothehimself from any particular suit, but took a sleeve from one, a capefrom another, a skirt from a third, thus decking himself out piecemeal,while some of his original rags would peep out from among his borrowedfinery.

  There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed oglingseveral mouldy polemical writers through an eyeglass. He soon contrivedto slip on the voluminous mantle of one of the old fathers, and havingpurloined the gray beard of another, endeavored to look exceedinglywise; but the smirking commonplace of his countenance set at naughtall the trappings of wisdom. One sickly-looking gentleman was busiedembroidering a very flimsy garment with gold thread drawn out of severalold court-dresses of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Another had trimmedhimself magnificently from an illuminated manuscript, had stuck anosegay in his bosom, culled from "The Paradise of Dainty Devices," andhaving put Sir Philip Sidney's hat on one side of his head, strutted offwith an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A third, who was but of punydimensions, had bolstered himself out bravely with the spoils fromseveral obscure tracts of philosophy, so that he had a very imposingfront, but he was lamentably tattered in rear, and I perceived thathe had patched his small-clothes with scraps of parchment from a Latinauthor.

  There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, who only helpedthemselves to a gem or so, which sparkled among their own ornaments,without eclipsing them. Some, too, seemed to contemplate the costumesof the old writers, merely to imbibe their principles of taste, and tocatch their air and spirit; but I grieve to say, that too many were aptto array themselves, from top to toe, in the patchwork manner I havementioned. I shall not omit to speak of one genius, in drab breechesand gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, who had a violent propensity to thepastoral, but whose rural wanderings had been confined to the classichaunts of Primrose Hill, and the solitudes of the Regent's Park. He haddecked himself in wreaths and ribbons from all the old pastoral poets,and, hanging his head on one side, went about with a fantastical,lackadaisical air, "babbling about green field." But the personage thatmost struck my attention was a pragmatical old gentleman in clericalrobes, with a remarkably large and square but bald head. He entered theroom wheezing and puffing, elbowed his way through the throng with alook of sturdy self-confidence, and, having laid hands upon a thickGreek quarto, clapped it upon his head, and swept majestically away in aformidable frizzled wig.

  In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly resounded fromevery side, of "Thieves! thieves!" I looked, and lo! the portraits aboutthe walls became animated! The old authors thrust out, first a head,then a shoulder, from the canvas, looked down curiously for an instantupon the motley throng, and then descended, with fury in their eyes,to claim their rifled property. The scene of scampering and hubbub thatensued baffles all description. The unhappy culprits endeavored in vainto escape with their plunder. On one side might be seen half a dozenold monks, stripping a modern professor; on another, there was saddevastation carried into the ranks of modern dramatic writers. Beaumontand Fletcher, side by side, raged round the field like Castor andPollux, and sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more wonders than when a volunteerwith the army in Flanders. As to the dapper little compiler of farragosmentioned some time since, he had arrayed himself in as many patches andcolors as harlequin, and there was as fierce a contention of claimantsabout him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. I was grieved tosee many men, to whom I had been accustomed to look up with awe andreverence, fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their nakedness.Just then my eye was caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in theGreek grizzled wig, who was scrambling away in sore affright with halfa score of authors in full cry after him. They were close upon hishaunches; in a twinkling off went his wig; at every turn some strip ofraiment was peeled away, until in a few moments, from his domineeringpomp, he shrunk into a little, pursy, "chopp'd bald shot," and made hisexit with only a few tags and rags fluttering at his back.

  There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe of this learnedTheban that I burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, which broke thewhole illusion. The tumult and the scuffle were at an end. The chamberresumed its usual appearance. The old authors shrunk back into theirpicture-frames, and hung in shadowy solemnity along the walls. In short,I found myself wide awake in my corner, with the whole assemblage ofhookworms gazing at me with astonishment. Nothing of the dream had beenreal but my burst of laughter, a sound never before heard in that gravesanctuary, and so abhorrent to the ears of wisdom, as to electrify thefraternity.

  The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded whether I had a card ofadmission. At first I did not comprehend him, but I soon found that thelibrary was a kind of literary "preserve," subject to game-laws, andthat no one must presume to hunt there without special license andpermission. In a word, I stood convicted of being an arrant poacher, andwas glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole packof authors let loose upon me.