PREFACE. On the close of the EVERY-DAY BOOK, which commenced on new Year's Day, 1825, and ended in the last week of 1826, I began this Work. The only prospectus of the TABLE Book was the eight versified lines on the title-page. They appeared on new Year's Day, prefixed to the first number, which, with the successive sheets, to the present date, constitute the volume now in the reader's hands, and the entire of my endeavours during the half year. So long as I am enabled, and the public continue to be pleased, the TABLE Book will be continued. The kind reception of the weekly numbers, and the monthly parts, encourages me to hope that like favour will be extended to the half-yearly volume. Its multifarious contents and the illustrative engravings, with the help of the copious index, realize my wish, "to please the young, and help divert the wise." Perhaps, if the good old window-seats had not gone out of fashion, it might be called a parlour-window book-a good name for a volume of agreeable reading selected from the book-case, and left lying about, for the constant recreation of the family, and the casual amusement of visitors. Midsummer, 1827. W. HONE. PETRARCH'S INKSTAND. MISS EDGEWORTH'S lines express her estimation of the gem she has the happiness to own. That lady allowed a few casts from it in bronze, and a gentleman who possesses one, and who favours the "Table Book with his approbation, permits its use for a frontispiece to this volume. The engraving will not be questioned as a decoration, and it has some claim to be regarded as an elegant illustration of a miscellany which draws largely on art and literature, and on nature itself, towards its supply. 66 and sent many precious volumes to England to enrich the bishop's magnificent library. He vividly remarks, "I delight passionately in my books;" and yet he, who had accumulated them largely, estimated them rightly: he has a saying of books worthy of himself-"a wise man seeketh not quantity, but sufficiency." Petrarch loved the quiet scenes of nature; and these can scarcely be observed from a carriage or while riding, and are never enjoyed but on foot; and to me on whom that discovery was imposed, and who am sometimes restrained from country walks by necessity-it was no small pleasure, when I read a passage in his "View of Human Nature" which persuaded me of his fondness for the exercise : A journey on foot hath most pleasant commodities; a man may go at his pleasure; none shall stay him, none shall carry him beyond his wish; none shall trouble him; he hath but one labour, the labour of nature-to go." 66 on "I delight," says Petrarch, "in my pictures. I take great pleasure also in images; they come in show more near unto nature than pictures: for they do but appear; but these are felt to be substantial, and their bodies are more durable. Amongst the Grecians, the art of painting was esteemed above all handycrafts, and the chief of all the liberal arts. How great the dignity hath been of statues, and how fervently the study and desire of men have reposed in such pleasures, emperors and kings, and other noble personages, nay, even persons of in- In "The Indicator" there is a paper of ferior degree, have shown, in their indus- peculiar beauty, by Mr. Leigh Hunt, trious keeping of them when obtained." receiving a sprig of myrtle from Vaucluse," Insisting on the golden mean, as a rule of with a paragraph suitable to this occasion: happiness, he says, I possess an amazing "We are supposing that all our readers collection of books, for attaining this, and are acquainted with Petrarch. Many of every virtue: great is my delight in behold- them doubtless know him intimately. ing such a treasure." He slights persons Should any of them want an introduction who collect books "for the pleasure of to him, how should we speak of him in the boasting they have them; who furnish their gross? We should say that he was one chambers with what was invented to furnish of the finest gentlemen and greatest schotheir minds; and use them no otherwise lars that ever lived; that he was a writer than they do their Corinthian tables, or who flourished in Italy in the fourteenth their painted tables and images, to look century, at the time when Chaucer was at." He contemns others who esteem not young, during the reigns of our Edwards; the true value of books, but the price at that he was the greatest light of his age; which they may sell them-"a new prac- that although so fine a writer himself, and tice" (observe it is Petrarch that speaks) the author of a multitude of works, or "crept in among the rich, whereby they may rather because he was both, he took the attain one art more of unruly desire.' He greatest pains to revive the knowledge of repeats, with rivetting force, "I have great the ancient learning, recommending it every plenty of books: where such scarcity has where, and copying out large manuscripts been lamented, this is no small possession: with his own hand; that two great cities, I have an inestimable many of books!" Paris and Rome, contended which should He was a diligent collector, and a liberal have the honour of crowning him; that he imparter of these treasures. He correwas crowned publicly, in the metropolis of sponded with Richard de Bury, an illus- the world, with laurel and with myrtle; trious prelate of our own country, eminent that he was the friend of Boccaccio, the for his love of learning and learned men, father of Italian prose; and, lastly, that his greatest renown nevertheless, as well as the predominant feelings of his existence, arose from the long love he bore for a lady of Avignon, the far-famed Laura, whom he fell in love with on the 6th of April, 1327, on a Good Friday; whom he rendered illustrious in a multitude of sonnets, which have left a sweet sound and sentiment in the ear of all after lovers; and who died, still passionately beloved, in the year 1348, on the same day and hour on which he first beheld her. Who she was, or why their connection was not closer, remains a mystery. But that she was a real person, and that in spite of all her modesty she did not show an insensible countenance to his passion, is clear from his long-haunted imagination, from his own repeated accounts, from all that he wrote, uttered, and thought. One love, and one poet, sufficed to give the whole civilixed world a sense of delicacy in desire, of the abundant riches to be found in one single idea, and of the going out of a man's self to dwell in the soul and happiness of another, which has served to refine the passion for all modern times; and perhaps will do so, as long as love renews the world." At Vaucluse, or Valchiusa, " a remarkable spot in the old poetical region of Provence, consisting of a little deep glen of green meadows surrounded with rocks, and containing the fountain of the river Sorgue," Petrarch resided for several years, and composed in it the greater part of his For ever fatal, yet for ever dear; And ye, that heard my sighs That Love must quite consume My bursting heart, and close my eyes in death; That here my uro may rest, When to its mansion flies my vital breath. In these calm shades, and this enchanting bower. Through yon accustom'd glade To my sad tomb will take her lonely way; Her true, but hapless lover's lowly bier; Shall melt the pitying skies, Meek in her pride, and in her rigour mild; Some in her locks were strung, "Here Love and Youth the reins of empire hold." "The groves of Eden gave this angel birth;" Wafted my soul above the realms of earth: Sighing said, "Whence rose this glittering scene?** This bank, and odorous bower, My morning couch, and evening haunt have been. And fly thus artless to my Laura's ear; But, were thy poet's fire Ardent as his desire, Thou wert a song that Heaven might stoop to hear. It is within probability to imagine that the original of this "ode may have been impressed on the paper, by Petrarch's pen, from the inkstand of the frontispiece. |