y, while the frost pinches him in winter time; oppressed with
cold his watery nose drops, nor does he take the trouble to wipe it with
his handkerchief till it has moistened the book beneath it with its vile
dew;" nor is he "ashamed to eat fruit and cheese over an open book, or to
transfer his empty cup from side to side; he reclines his elbow on the
volume, turns down the leaves, and puts bits of straw to denote the place
he is reading; he stuffs the book with leaves and flowers, and so
pollutes it with filth and dust." With this our extracts from the
Philobiblon must close; enough has been said and transcribed to place the
Lord Chancellor of the puissant King Edward III. among the foremost of
the bibliomaniacs of the past, and to show how valuable were his efforts
to literature and learning; indeed, like Petrarch in Italy was Richard De
Bury in England: both enthusiastic collectors and preservers of ancient
manuscripts, and both pioneers of that revival of European literature
which soon afterwards followed. In the fourteenth century we cannot
imagine a more useful or more essential person than the bibliomaniac, for
that surely was the harvest day for the gathering in of that food on
which the mind of future generations were to subsist. And who reaped so
laboriously or gleaned so carefully as those two illustrious scholars?

Richard de Bury was no unsocial bookworm; for whilst he loved to seek the
intercourse of the learned dead, he was far from being regardless of the
living. Next to his clasped vellum tomes, nothing afforded him so much
delight as an erudite disputation with his chaplains, who were mostly men
of acknowledged learning and talent; among them were "Thomas Bradwardyn,
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; and Richard Fitz-Raufe, afterwards
Archbishop of Armagh; Walter Burley, John Maudyt, Robert Holcote, Richard
of Kilwington, all Doctors in Theology, _omnes Doctores in Theologia_;
Richard Benworth, afterwards Bishop of London, and Walter Segraffe,
afterwards Bishop of Chester;"[204] with these congenial spirits Richard
de Bury held long and pleasing conversations, doubtless full of old
bookwisdom and quaint Gothic lore, derived from still quainter volumes;
and after meals I dare say they discussed the choice volume which had
been read during their repast, as was the pious custom of those old days,
and which was not neglected by De Bury, for "his manner was at dinner
and supper time to have some good booke