Many a general has
been beaten by having too many troops. If books came in like recruits one
would not turn them away, but would stow them in proper quarters, and use
the best of them, taking care not to bring up a force too soon which
would be more useful on another occasion.
_Pet._ I have a great variety of books.
_Crit._ A variety of paths will often deceive the traveller.
_Pet._ I have collected a number of fine books.
_Crit._ To gain glory by means of books you must not only possess them
but know them; their lodging must be in your brain and not on the
book-shelf.
_Pet._ I keep a few beautiful books.
_Crit._ Yes, you keep in irons a few prisoners, who, if they could escape
and talk, would have you indicted for wrongful imprisonment. But now
they lie groaning in their cells, and of this they ever complain, that an
idle and a greedy man is overflowing with the wealth that might have
sustained a multitude of starving scholars.'
Petrarch was in truth a careless custodian of his prisoners. He was too
ready to lend a book to a friend, and his generosity on one occasion
caused a serious loss to literature. The only known copy of a treatise by
Cicero was awaiting transcription in his library; but he allowed it to be
carried off by an old scholar in need of assistance: it was pledged in
some unknown quarter, and nothing was ever heard again of the precious
deposit.
He returned to Avignon in 1337, and made himself a quiet home at
Vaucluse.
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