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The Bible, heav'nly wisdom's choicest mine,
Teeming with wealth exhaustless and divine;
A field of treasure for the mind and heart-
Oh! how more rich than nature, science, art.
Here would'st thou show us how by thought to gain
Truths without which our other thoughts are vain,
But graced with which, "fair science," truly fair,
Not vainly pants for her own native air,
Springs into life immortal, lives indeed;
Borrows from Heav'n all help for time of need;
Lures to a fount where mortals thirst no more;
Points to a realm for souls in spirit poor,
Where smiles a home to faith's far-seeing eyes,
Not made with hands, eternal in the skies!
Be strong, dear Sir, meanwhile to rise or fall,
"The way, the truth, the life "-thy all in all.
May but His spirit in our hearts abide,

Rend'ring His word our comfort, strength, and guide;
So shall we soon, from sin's decreasing load,

Rise to full likeness of th' incarnate God;

Nor longer darkly, as in mirrors, here,
Shall see Him as He is for ever, ever near.

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW.

The MSS. of the Royal Library at Paris.*

THE Bibliothèque du Roi at Paris contains, without any doubt, the richest collection of manuscripts in Europe, and, perhaps, on the whole, has generally done more service hitherto to the cause of letters than any other. We found this latter opinion on the extensive contributions which have been made from its stores to the purifying our printed texts of classical authors, and to such works as the Notices des Manuscrits, the Histoire Litteraire de France, &c. In its internal arrangements, we think, at the present day, there is room for improvement; and, in spite of all that has been said of our own great national collection, the British Museum, the general reader has much greater facility in the latter in finding MSS. and sometimes in using them, than in the Royal Library in France. However, in both instances, the want of a knowledge of their contents is less felt by those who are in the constant habit of consulting them, than by those who have seldom an opportunity of going there, and yet who, by their studies and pursuits, would often be able to use them to more advantage than those by whom they are better known. In this manner, a good and detailed catalogue of their contents becomes an invaluable acquisition to a private library. For our own part, we are entirely in favour of the publication of such catalogues in separate divisions, according to the general subjects of the MSS. because by this measure people may purchase at a more moderate expense that part only which is interesting to them. Thus M. Paulin Paris turned his attention at present only to the publication of the French manuscripts contained in the Royal Library. So Dr. Endlicher of Vienna has recently published in a very portable volume the catalogue of the Philological manuscripts of the Imperial Library; a book, by the way, which we would instance as the most perfect specimen of a good catalogue that we have ever seen.

* Les Manuscrits François de la Bibliothèque du Roi .. Par M. Paulin Paris. Tom. I. et II. Formats in-folio maximo et in-folio magno. Evo. Paris, Techener, London, Pickering, 1836-1838.

Inventaire ou Catalogue des livres de l'ancienne Bibliothèque du Louvre, fait en l'année 1373, par Gilles Mallet, garde de la dite Bibliothèque. 8vo. Paris. 1836.

The foundation of the present Bibliothèque du Roi was laid chiefly in the sixteenth century. Some of its most splendid volumes came from the collection made at Bruges by the magnificent Louis Seigneur de la Gruthuyse, who during a long life employed, at a vast expense, most of the distinguished artists of his time in illuminating and writing manuscripts for his cabinet. Various gifts and purchases increased it during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but it is to the reign of Louis XIV. and to the administration of the famous Colbert, that it owes its first great extension. That minister not only caused great acquisitions to be made, but he employed distinguished scholars, such as Baluze, Doat, &c. to make exact copies of the most important pieces in the archives of the distant departments, which were all lodged in this grand depôt.

"This great man had an extraordinary passion for collections of books. With the object of making a great improvement in the collection of the King, he had, in 1656, caused his brother Nicholas Colbert to be nominated to the place of Librarian, vacant by the death of the two brothers Dupuy. The abbé Colbert did not retain the place long; made in 1661 bishop of Luçon, he left to his brother, the minister, the care of fulfilling the duties of keeper of the library, of which, however, he still retained the honorary title, though he acted but as the secondary. It was under the auspices of John Baptist Colbert that the Bibliothèque du Roi was successively increased by the admirable collections of Béthune, of Brienne, of Gaston Duke of Orleans, of Mazarin, and by a multitude of other partial acquisitions of the highest importance. Not content with these valuable augmentations, Colbert employed in foreign countries scholars of the first order, charged with the acquisition of whatever they thought worthy to hold an honourable place in the cabinets of engravings, medals, manuscripts, or printed books. He caused the library to be transported from the rue de la Harpe to two houses in the rue

Vivienne, which belonged to him, and which formed a kind of continuation of the hôtel which he inhabited. It was a happy time for this admirable establishment when the chief minister chose to see with his own eyes, and as it were day by day, the gradual ameliorations of which he believed it susceptible. It was by his orders that a general catalogue of the manuscripts was drawn up, the same which we still use; it was by his orders that they took an account of the duplicates of books which might be exchanged for others which they did not possess. Nothing seemed to him impossible, which might conduce to the enormous accessions, might diminish the expense, and promptly facilitate the use of them by studious and serious persons. In a treaty with the States of Barbary, Colbert took care to have an article inserted obliging them to an annual present of a certain number of skins of Marocco leather, especially destined for the bindings of the Royal Library. This was the origin of the beautiful covers of manuscripts and printed books which are the admiration of amateurs of this kind of ornament." Paulin Paris, Les Manuscrits François, I. p. 7, 8.

This tribute was received constantly till the time of the great Revolution. Since that time, the MSS. of all the monasteries, &c. of Paris and the neighbourhood, have been thrown into the grand national collection.

Before the first foundation of this library, there was a much more ancient library of the Kings of France, an inventory of which, made by the librarian, Gilles Mallet, in 1373, is still preserved, and has been published with some others in the volume whose title we have given in a note at the beginning of the present article. This early catalogue contains a great number of most interesting articles, all described somewhat in detail. We may mention, as an instance, that there are no less than two copies of the curious metrical life of Eustace the Monk, both differing from the one preserved in the present Bibliothèque du Roi, which was published three or four years ago. This library was preserved in the Louvre until the occupation of Paris by the English in the fifteenth century, when it fell into the hands of the Duke of Bedford, made Regent of France by Henry the Fifth of England, who is said to have bought it, and is supposed to have brought it into England, where it was dispersed. A few of the volumes which belonged to it have been identified in modern collections, bearing still the Duke of Bedford's signature as their possessor. One

now exists in the Royal Library at Paris, with a note that it was bought in London in 1441, by John Comte d'Angoulême.

M. Paulin Paris is certainly doing more than most of his predecessors towards making the contents of the Bibliothèque du Roi known to the public. We might perhaps object that his descriptions are too long, and that when his book is finished it will be very cumbersome and expensive; but when we consider that these two volumes contain the large folios, those splendid volumes which have preserved to us such multitudes of exquisite specimens of the skill of the miniature-painters of the fifteenth century, we are little inclined to quarrel with his detailed descriptions, because they are of that kind which will seldom recur when he proceeds to the other classes, and they will be found of infinite value to those who would study the fine arts as they existed at this period,-whether in France, Italy, or Flanders.

The contents of these ponderous volumes are less interesting in a literary point of view, than to the artist. Most of them are filled with translations of Latin authors, a very popular class of books in the fifteenth century, long prose romances, illustrated Bibles, and chronicles of ancient history, with here and there a moral, philosophical, or miscellaneous treatise. There is a great deal about the misfortunes of Troy, and the wonderful achievements of Alexander, and the adventures of that chivalrous knight Æneas-much of that maudlin book-doctrine of chivalry, which was peculiar to this age-much of Quinte-Curce, Tite-Live, Valère-Maxime-something of Tristan le Léonnois, Perceforest, the St. Graal, and the like.

There is, among the largest in-folios, one historical work to which we would call the attention of our readers, because it has been entirely neglected -the Chronicles of England by John de Waurin. John de Waurin was a natural son of a distinguished family, and was himself present at the battle of Azincourt. In 1455 he began his History of England, which, complete in six parts, fills twelve volumes of the largest folio. There are in the Royal Library several copies of parts of this work, but only one complete copy is mentioned in the two volumes of M. Paris's Catalogue. Each of the parts of this work is divided into six books, which embrace, severally, the following periods of history :

PART I.-Book 1, begins with Theseus and Hercules, and ends with the Lady Albine, from whom came the name of Albion; 2, reaches to Hengist; 3, to the entire subjugation of the Isle by the Saxons; 4, to the Norman Conquest; 5, to the death of Edward I.; 6, to the time of Philip-le-Bel and Ed. ward III.

PART II.-Book 1, treats of the first causes of the war between England and France, until the death of the Lord of Clisson; 2, reaches to the battle of Crécy; 3, to the delivery from prison of the King of Navarre; 4, to the peace made with the Earl of Montfort; 5, to the defeat of the Earl of Pembroke; 6, to the death of the Black Prince.

PART III.-Book 1, goes to the death of Charles V. of France; 2, to the revolt of the Gantois; 3, to the pacification of Ghent; 4, to the entry of the English into Castille; 5, treats of the sequel of the war of Spain; 6, goes to the embassy sent by the King of France to the Duke of Bretagne.

PART IV.-Book 1, ends with the excursions and ravages of Amerigot; 2, reaches to the sickness of Charles VI.;

3, to the death of the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel; 4, to the resignation of the Crown of England by Richard of Bordeaux to Henry of Lancaster; 5, to the death of King Richard; 6, to the death of Henry IV.

PART V.-Book 1. ends with the marriage of the lady Catharine of France to the King of England; 2, goes to the death of Charles VI.; 3, to the return of the Duke of Bedford to France with a fair "chevauchée de gendarmes ;" 4, to the death of Joan of Arc; 5, to the deliverance of the comte d'Eu from prison; 6, to the relief carried by Louis Dauphin of France to the inhabitants of Dieppe.

PART VI.-Book 1, ends with the departure of the Seigneur Walleran de Waurin (to whom the book is dedicated) to Constantinople; 2, ends with the exploits of the Seigneur de Croy against the Germans in the duchy of Luxembourg; 3, reaches to the coronation of Edward IV.; 4, to the marriage of Edward IV.; 5, to the defeat of the Welsh by the people of Northumberland; 6, to the expedition of King Edward against the Bastard of Falconbridge in 1471.

As such a very large portion of John de Waurin's history belongs to his own times, it must contain much which would repay a careful examination. M. Paulin Paris's work is rendered very valuable and interesting by extracts illustrative of literature, manners, and customs, &c. Many of these cumbrous works-even the translations, which are often tolerably free-contain here and there a curious passage, which we should never seek in such books, and we ought therefore to be thankful when in places like the present they are pointed out and presented to us. Before we bid adieu to these volumes,-and we do so with the sincere hope that they may soon be followed by others,—we are tempted to give one of these extracts: it is taken from a composition called the Jardin des Nobles, and affords an amusing illustration of the costume of the 15th century. The monkish author is inveighing against the vanity of his countrywomen.

"A great abuse of clothes is in the form, which I consider in four parts, in women. The first is in the head, which used to be horned, but now is mitred in these parts of France and in them I consider four great evils. The first is pride naturally the first member which the heart influences is the head, and so pride mounts into their head. And their mitres are now in the manner of chimneys. And also it is a great abuse, that the more beautiful and younger they are. the higher chimneys they have; and therefore it is a great folly to hoist out and raise up the sign of one's ill-doing; as it would be great folly in a thief to carry about the purse he had stolen, hung at his neck.

"The battlements above to fight against God, are beautiful works of silk, fine figures, gold, silver, pearls, sometimes precious stones, and rich embroidery. Those before, are the sweet regards which they cast from their pleasant eyes; the smirking mouth, the soft words, the false supports, the bared forehead, the painted face, the exquisite colour. Those behind, are the plaited hair, the fine bands, the good and fine coiffures, and the floating drapery. The lances are the great forked pins; the arrows are the little pins. The shield is the large forehead, stripped of hair.* The third evil, is the great standard which they carry; this great floating kerchief which hangs down to their derrière; it is the sign that the Devil has gained the castle against God. When the men at arms gain a place, they raise their standard above it.

"Another evil is in the body. By a detestable vanity, the ladies of quality now carry their gowns so low at the

breast, and so open at the shoulders, that people see almost to their belly and all their shoulders, and very far down the back; and so tight, that they can scarcely breathe in them, and often suffer much pain, for the sake of making their body genteel and little. In this I find four evils. The first is the tavern of luxury And if they cover their breast and their neck, I answer for it the covering is only vanity, for they cover it with drapery so fine that we see the flesh perfectly through it.

waste.

"The third evil is in the tail. They make such great tails, that I see in them four great evils. The first is useless To what serves this great heap of drapery and furs, and this great train of fine cloth and of silk, which draggles along the ground, and is often the cause of the perdition of the robe, and of the loss of the time which it requires to clean these great tails, and of patience of the servants? . . In the third place, it is the carriage of the devil. We read of St. Zeno, bishop of Verona, that once when he was a little child, and was going about. the town with St. Ambrose, he burst into a fit of laughter. St. Ambrose was astonished, for the child was always very grave, and asked him why he laughed. I saw,' said he, on the tail of that lady who is walking before us, the devil, and he was asleep; and when she lifted her tail, that it might not be spoilt in that mud, the devil fell in it and was all spoilt.

"The fourth evil is when they have such small shoes to their feet that they can scarcely bear in them, and have often their feet deformed, and all lamed, and covered with corns.' ""

* It appears that it was then the custom to pluck out the hair around the forehead; and this explains to us the large foreheads of the ladies à cheminées in the illuminated MSS. of the end of the fifteenth century.

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REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Letters from Egypt, Edom, and the Holy-Land. By Lord Lindsay. 2 vols. LORD LINDSAY is neither a learned traveller nor a poetical one; neither deeply versed in antiquities like Mr. Hamilton or Mr. Salt, nor has he the imaginative pen of Chateaubriand or La Martine; nor does he hit off national manners and customs with so felicitous a touch as Mr. Lane;-but he writes like a man of sense and observation: he has all the zeal of the traveller, and he appears to have the good and amiable qualities which belong to his rank and his country. Yet, conceding to him, as we readily do, the praise of much activity of research, and much diligence of inquiry, and comparison of his own labours with those of former travellers; we think his work should either have been more profoundly scientific, or more lightly descriptive and amusing. As it is, the architectural descriptions are long without being precise, and are not sufficiently relieved by other subjects of inquiry. Now that the very learned volumes of Mr. Wilkinson and others have been published, which every one anxious for deep and accurate information will consult, we think that he who travels merely for the indulgence of an enlightened and praiseworthy curiosity in the same country, had better content himself with laying before his readers the general impression produced on his feelings and imagination by the colossal remains of Egyptian arts; while a few bold and picturesque sketches, happily hit off, will produce more effect than the most laboured details by any

one who has not attained a scientific knowledge of the art which he admires, and whose praise must be expressed in terms too general and undefined to satisfy or to instruct. We could also earnestly wish that the pencil was called in much more commonly to aid the descriptions of the pen in the present instance, we lament that Lord Lindsay has not presented us with more drawings of his friend Mr. Ramsay; especially as the cheapness of lithographic plates reGENT. MAG. VOL. XI.

moves the difficulties which formerly existed, when the cautious publisher was obliged carefully to consult his purse before he availed himself of the expensive assistance of the engraver.

That part of his work which contains his tour in Syria, and especially his visit to Petra and Bosrah, we consider to be the most interesting, and such as will well repay the perusal. Perhaps there is no other spot in the whole globe of such surpassing interest. The rest of the world is left under the general laws of undisturbed nature this awful and solitary district is lying under the wings of Prophecy. Athens is ruined; and Carthage is no more:-they fell beneath that law which none escapeth-the power of change and time. Not so that sacred territory, which the Deity has kept, as it were, apart as his own: the cities that were here destroyed were foredoomed by the lips of the prophet: : the armies that perished here were cut off by the Angel of the Lord the very tent of the Bedouin has a sanctity not its own; for it was doomed to be here, even when the cities, whose site it now occupies, were rejoicing in the strength of their bulwarks, and the multitude of their riches and population. Certainly, to the observant eye and the thoughtful heart, "Carmel and the heights of Lebanon " speak a language that cannot be mistaken;-a voice too awful to be put aside comes forth from the Asphaltic lake. From Lebanon to the southern peaks of Sinai, a country is lying which hath seen the Lord. Every ruined city, every blasted and desolate plain, every tent of the stranger, and every den of the savage, is a living commentary on the Prophetic Truth. Three thousand years ago the present desolation of Judah was visible to the prescient eye of the afflicted servant of God:-three thousand years since the Prophet wept at the sight of that misery and ruin which now prove to us, that when the "fountains of his eyes were opened," it was for the "abomination of desolation " which he alone was permitted to behold!

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