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Page 11
``Peregrinantur?'' Indeed, they do share our peregrinations,
these literary pursuits do. If Thomas Hearne (of blessed
memory!) were alive to-day he would tell us that he used always
to take a book along with him whenever he went walking, and was
wont to read it as he strolled along. On several occasions (as
he tells us in his diary) he became so absorbed in his reading
that he missed his way and darkness came upon him before he knew
it.
I have always wondered why book-lovers have not had more to say
of Hearne, for assuredly he was as glorious a collector as ever
felt the divine fire glow within him. His character is
exemplified in this prayer, which is preserved among other papers
of his in the Bodleian Library:
``O most gracious and merciful Lord God, wonderful is Thy
providence. I return all possible thanks to Thee for the care
Thou hast always taken of me. I continually meet with most
signal instances of this Thy providence, and one act yesterday,
when I unexpectedly met with three old MSS., for which, in a
particular manner, I return my thanks, beseeching Thee to
continue the same protection to me, a poor, helpless sinner,''
etc.
Another prayer of Hearne's, illustrative of his faith in
dependence upon Divine counsel, was made at the time Hearne was
importuned by Dr. Bray, commissary to my Lord Bishop of London,
``to go to Mary-Land'' in the character of a missionary. ``O
Lord God, Heavenly Father, look down upon me with pity,'' cries
this pious soul, ``and be pleased to be my guide, now I am
importuned to leave the place where I have been educated in the
university. And of Thy great goodness I humbly desire Thee to
signify to me what is most proper for me to do in this affair.''
Another famous man who made a practice of reading books as he
walked the highways was Dr. Johnson, and it is recorded that he
presented a curious spectacle indeed, for his shortsightedness
compelled him to hold the volume close to his nose, and he
shuffled along, rather than walked, stepping high over shadows
and stumbling over sticks and stones.
But, perhaps, the most interesting story illustrative of the
practice of carrying one's reading around with one is that which
is told of Professor Porson, the Greek scholar. This human
monument of learning happened to be travelling in the same coach
with a coxcomb who sought to air his pretended learning by
quotations from the ancients. At last old Porson asked:
``Pri'thee, sir, whence comes that quotation?''
``From Sophocles,''quoth the vain fellow.
``Be so kind as to find it for me?'' asked Porson, producing a
copy of Sophocles from his pocket.
Then the coxcomb, not at all abashed, said that he meant not
Sophocles, but Euripides. Whereupon Porson drew from another
pocket a copy of Euripides and challenged the upstart to find the
quotation in question. Full of confusion, the fellow thrust his
head out of the window of the coach and cried to the driver:
``In heaven's name, put me down at once; for there is an old
gentleman in here that hath the Bodleian Library in his pocket!''
Porson himself was a veritable slave to the habit of reading in
bed. He would lie down with his books piled around him, then
light his pipe and start in upon some favorite volume. A jug of
liquor was invariably at hand, for Porson was a famous drinker.
It is related that on one occasion he fell into a boosy slumber,
his pipe dropped out of his mouth and set fire to the bed-
clothes. But for the arrival of succor the tipsy scholar would
surely have been cremated.
Another very slovenly fellow was De Quincey, and he was devoted
to reading in bed. But De Quincey was a very vandal when it came
to the care and use of books. He never returned volumes he
borrowed, and he never hesitated to mutilate a rare book in order
to save himself the labor and trouble of writing out a quotation.
But perhaps the person who did most to bring reading in bed into
evil repute was Mrs. Charles Elstob, ward and sister of the Canon
of Canterbury (circa 1700). In his ``Dissertation on
Letter-Founders,'' Rowe Mores describes this woman as the
``indefessa comes'' of her brother's studies, a female student in
Oxford. She was, says Mores, a northern lady of an ancient
family and a genteel fortune, ``but she pursued too much the drug
called learning, and in that pursuit failed of being careful of
any one thing necessary. In her latter years she was tutoress in
the family of the Duke of Portland, where we visited her in her
sleeping-room at Bulstrode, surrounded with books and dirtiness,
the usual appendages of folk of learning!''
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