han he could read, and
for an excessive devotion to the antique. 'Here is a library like an
arsenal,' said the satirist, 'stored with all the requisites for any
campaign. The owner buys all the books that come in his way: it is true
that he will not read them; but he will have them magnificently bound,
and ranged on the shelves with a mighty show, and there he will salute
them several times a day, and will bring his friends and servants to make
their acquaintance.' Orsini is rebuked for his admiration of a dusty
manuscript. 'When one of these old parchments falls into his hands, he
makes you examine the decayed leaves on which the eye can hardly trace
any marks of an ancient pen. 'What is this treasure that we have here?'
he cries, 'and oh! what joy, here we have the delight of mankind, and
the world's desire, and pleasures not to be matched in Paradise!'
'There,' says our satirist, 'you have the very portrait of Fulvio Orsini.
Why, he once took a manuscript _Terence_, full of holes and mistakes, in
writing to Cardinal Toletus, and told him that it was worth all the gold
in the world'; and, to convince his Spanish Eminence, he said that the
book was a thousand years' old. '_Est-il possible?_' replies the
Cardinal, 'you don't say so. I can only say, my friend, I would rather
have a book hot from the press than all the old parchments that the Sibyl
had for sale.'

Jacques Bongars, the faithful councillor and ambassador of Henri Quatre,
was the owner of a remarkable library, consisting to a great extent of
State papers and historical documents, which Bongars had special
facilities for collecting during his official visits to Germany. He had
studied law at Bourges under the learned Cujacius, of whom it is recorded
that when his name was mentioned in the German lecture-rooms, every one
present took off his hat. Bongars has described his excitement at
purchasing the great lawyer's library. 'My chief care has been to seek
out the books belonging to Cujas. I expect that you will have a fine
laugh when you think of all that crowd that goes to Court as if it were a
fair, to do their business together, and to try to get money out of the
King, while a regular courtier like myself rushes off to this lonely spot
to spend his fortune on books and papers, all in disorder and half eaten
by the book-worms. You will be able to judge if I am an avaricious man.
No trouble or expense is anything to me where books are concerned. Would
to God