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 FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

189

CkroHteUt, and in Skelton's Poena. In a pre- face of Nash, he has the phrase to " pamphlet on a person, " and pamphleteer.

In the PkUobihtion of Richard de Bury, the following passage is found in the eighth chapter.

" Sed rerera libros non libras maluimus; co- dicesqae plus dileximusquam florenos : Panfletoi exiguos phaleratis preetulimuspalescedis."

"But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts better than flonns; and we prefer small pamphUtt to war-horses."

In Lydgate's works, quoted by Warton, is a poem " trauQslated &om a,pamflete in Frenche."

The French have not the word pamphlet, and yet it seems to be of French extraction, and no other than palm-feuillet, a leaf to be held in the hand, a book being a thing of greater weight; so the French call it aov fiuiUe-volante, retain- ing one part of the compound.

Robert Copeland, in his poetical prefix to Chaucer's Aaembly of FooU, 1530, says

Cbauccr is dede, the which this punphlete wiatc.

Mrles Daries, in his Icon Libellontm ,- or, a CrittetU Hiitoty of PamphUu, a work which affords much curious information, says, " In pamphlets lawyers will meet with their chica- nery, physicians with their cant, divines with their Snibboleth. Pamphlets become more and more daily amusements to the curious, idle, and InquisitiTe; pastime to gallants and coquettes; chat to the talkative; catch-words to informers; fuel to the envious; poison to the unfortunate; balsam to the wounded; employ to the lazy; and fabulous materials to romanceis and novelists. With pamphlets the booksellers and stationers adorn the gaiety of shop-gazing. Hence accrues to grocers, apothecaries, and chandlers, good furniture, and supplies to necessary retreats and nataral occasions. This author sketches the ori^ and rise of pamphleU. He deduces them from the short writings published by the Jewish Rabbins; various little pieces at the time of the Grst propagation of Christianity; and notices a certain pamphlet which was pretended to have been the composition of Jesus Christ, thrown from heaven, and picked up by the archangel Michael at the entrance of Jerusalem. It was copied by the priest Leora, and sent about from priest to priest, till pope Zachary ventured to call it Ajorifery. He notices several such extra- oniinary publications.

Mr. Disraeli, in the Curiontiet of Literature, lays, " The only proper Latin term for a pam- phlet is Hbelhis, or little book ,-" and that " this word indeed signifies in English an aburite paper or little book, and is generally taken in its worst sense." Again, he says, " The French have bor- rowed the word pamphlet from us, and have the goodness of not disfiguring its orthography. noatt Beef is also in the same perdicament I conclude that pampklett and roast beef have therefore their origin in our country."

Dr. Johnson has pamphlet, [par un filet, Fr.] a small book; properly a book sold unbound, itnd only stitched.

1490. The name of one of the earliest book- binders that has been found is tokamut Cfvilebert. It was discovered in a Miual bound in this year, and was in the possession of the late Mr. Henry Ferrily, who resided near Hull. Of the birUi,

Centage, and education of this early artist in kbinding, perhaps, nothing can now be known. A cover in the Bodleian library, of nearly the same date, bears the name of Jenan Norris.

A manuscript of the Epistles of St. Jerome, bearing the following inscnption : — Liber ligatu* erat Oxanii in Catttrete,adtmlantiamlieuerendi Domini Tfumte Wybarum, in sacra theologia Baealarii Monachi Roffemit anno domini, 1467, has the earliest date which is known to have ex- isted on the cover of a book. — Bih. Deeam.

1490. The munificent patronage afforded to literature by Mattheo Corvini, king of Hungary %nd Bohemia, who died of an apoplexy in this year merits particular notice. He succeeded his father to the throne of Hungary in 1457, and extended his reputation as a soldier throughout Europe, by the captures of Vienna and Nieu- stadt. But his love of literature, and patronage of learning, have transmitted his name with more tranquil and delightful recollections to posterity, uian any warlike feats could possibly nave done. Animated by an ardent thirst for knowledge, he became a moet diligent collector of books, and during the last thirty years of his life spared no expense in die acquisition of a library, which placed him among the most illus- trious patrons and guardians of literature. He purchased innumerable volumes of Greek and Hebrew writers at Constantinople, and other Grecian cities, at the period of the conquest of the Eastern empire by the Turks; and as the operations of the typographical art were vet but slow and imperfect, and the number of books thereto printed but few, he maintained four learned transcribers at Florence, to multiply the copies of such classics as he could not procure in Greece. He erected three libraries in the citadel of Buda, in which he placed 30,000, or, according to others, 60,000 volumes. The prin- cipal one, in which the chief part of his magni- ficent collection was placed, was a sort of vaulted gallery, divided into three parts : a fourth part forming a kind of convenient appendage for the reception of visitors. In this fourth part were two stained glass windows, and two doors; one of the doors opening immediately into the library, and the other leading to the monarch's private apartment. In these libraries he established thirty amanuenses, skilled in writing, illuminat- ing, and painting, who, under the direction of Felix Ragusinus, a Dalmatian, consummately learned in the Greek, Chaldee, and Arabic languages, and an elegant designer and painter of ornaments on vellum, attended constantly to the business of transcription and decoration. The librarian was Bartholomew Fontius, a learned Florentine, the writer of several philolo- gical works, and a professor of Greek and ora- tory, at Florence. The books were placed upon shelves according to their classes; and in this

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