Ballads Of Books
Ballads of Books
CHOSEN BY
BRANDER MATTHEWS
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1900
Copyright, 1886
By George J. Coombes
Printed by
The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.
To
FREDERICK LOCKER
POET AND LOVER OF BOOKS
Come and take a choice of all my library
PREFATORY NOTE.
he poets have ever been lovers ofbooks; indeed, one might ask howshould a man be a poet who didnot admire a treasure as preciousand as beautiful as a book may be.With evident enjoyment, Keats describes
A glorious folio of Anacreon;
and it was a glorious folio of Beaumont and Fletcherwhich another English poet (whose most poetic workwas done in prose) "dragged home late at night fromBarker's in Covent Garden," and to pacify his consciencefor the purchase of which he kept to his overwornsuit of clothes for four or five weeks longerthan he ought. Charles Lamb was a true bibliophile,in the earlier and more exact sense of the term; heloved his ragged volumes as he loved his fellow-men,and he was as intolerant of books that are not books[Pg vi]as he was of men who were not manly. He conferredthe dukedom of his library on Coleridge, whowas no respecter of books, though he could not butenrich them with his marginal notes. Southey andLord Houghton and Mr. Locker are English poetswith libraries of their own, more orderly and farricher than the fortuitous congregation of printedatoms, a mere medley of unrelated tomes, which oftenmasquerades as The Library in the mansions of thenoble and the wealthy. Shelley said that he thoughtSouthey had a secret in every one of his books whichhe was afraid the stranger might discover: but thiswas probably no more, and no other, than the secretof comfort, consolation, refreshment, and happinessto be found in any library by him who shallbring with him the golden key that unlocks its silentdoor.
Mr. Lo