The book-cases of the monasteries
were opened, and their caskets unclasped, and the volumes that had lain
for ages in the sepulchres were roused by the light of day. 'I might have
had,' he said, 'abundance of wealth in those days; but it was books, and
not bags of gold, that I wanted; I preferred folios to florins, and loved
a little thin pamphlet more than an overfed palfrey.' We know that he
bought many books on his embassies to France and Flanders, besides his
constant purchases at home. He tells us that the Friars were his best
agents; they would compass sea and land to meet his desire. 'With such
eager huntsmen, what leveret could lie hid? With such fishermen, what
single little fish could escape the net, the hook, and the trawl?' He
found another source of supply in the country schools, where the masters
were always ready to sell their books; and in these little gardens and
paddocks, as chances occurred, he culled a few flowers or gathered a few
neglected herbs. His money secured the services of the librarians and
bookstall-men on the Continent, who were afraid of no journey by land,
and were deterred by no fury of the sea. 'Moreover,' he added, 'we always
had about us a multitude of experts and copyists, with binders, and
correctors, and illuminators, and all who were in any way qualified for
the service of books.' He ends his chapter on book-collecting with a
reference to an eastern tale, comparing himself to the mountain of
loadstone that attracted the ships of knowledge by a secret force, while
the books in their cargoes, like the iron bars in the story, were
streaming towards the magnetic cliff 'in a multifarious flight.
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