LITERARY PURSUITS OF BOOKSELLERS AND PRINTERS: SOLOMON GESNER-ALDUS MANUTIUS, PAUL, AND ALDUS THE YOUNGER -ROBERT STEPHENS-HENRY STEPHENS-JOHN SCAPULACOLINEUS-BADIUS-FROBEN-OPORINUS-THOMAS RUDDI MAN-WILLIAM BOWYER-NICHOLS-RICHARDSON. MANY of our readers are pro- | his literary taste nourished. We bably familiar with the English are told that Gesner was actranslation of the popular Ger- counted a dunce by his first man work, The Death of Abel. schoolmaster, who predicted SOLOMON GESNER, the cele- that he would never get beyond brated author of this produc- reading and writing; and yet tion, and of many others written the person who was thus unsucin a similar style that rank high cessful in developing, or even in the literature of his native discerning, the talents of the country, carried on the business future poet, was no other than of a bookseller at Zurich, in the celebrated Bodmer, one of Switzerland. In his case, how- the distinguished names of ever, as in that of the Dutch German literature, and who poet Vondel, whom we have afterwards became a great poet already mentioned, the cares himself. This anecdote shows and interruptions of business that even genius will not always were, during the latter part of discover genius in another; his life, rendered less annoying although possibly some may by the attention of his wife, think that Bodmer must have who is said to have charged been but an indifferent teacher, herself with the principal whatever he was in another management of his commercial capacity. Young Gesner was concerns, that he might have afterwards sent by his father, more leisure for literature. But who, like himself, was a bookit was amid the drudgery of the seller in Zurich, to the house shop that almost all his earliest of a clergyman in the neighstudies were carried on, and bourhood, who, having probably no poetical powers of his own, had more leisure to attend to the intellectual character of his pupil, and soon drew forth from the condemned dunce no doubtful indications of the light that was hidden within. But the young poet was after some time removed from the care of this congenial or judicious instructor, and despatched to Berlin, to take up his abode with a bookseller of that city, to do duty as his apprentice or shop-boy. Here he was of course surrounded with books; but either disliking the business, or not finding that it left him sufficient leisure to derive much advantage from the treasures of knowledge that were within his reach, he soon abandoned it, and took lodgings, under the idea of supporting himself by poetry and painting-for he had already, without having any one to give him lessons, begun to apply himself also to the latter art. In this scheme he encountered at the outset the difficulties which naturally beset one in his situation. There was no deficiency of talent, but a sad lack of experience, and ignorance of many things that a person more regularly instructed could not have failed to know. Having shown his verses to some of his literary acquaintances, he was told that they were awkwardly constructed that he certainly never would be a poet, and advised to turn his attention forthwith to some less SO difficult species of composition. His paintings were still more literally the efforts of his own unaided genius than even his poetry. Here he had neither any model to imitate, nor was even acquainted with the elementary rules and most common methods and processes of the art. He had covered the walls of his humble lodging with landscapes, and he one day prevailed upon a painter of some reputation and talent, who resided in the city, to come to see what he had done. His visitor had taste enough to discern the genius that animated many parts of his strange and lawless performances, but was not at all surprised, when, upon asking him after what models he worked, he was told that he had no models, and that the whole was merely the inspiration of his own invention. He was somewhat amused, however, when Gesner, in his ignorance of the way of managing his oilcolours, complained to him that his pictures never dried. The end of all this was, as might have been anticipated, that the runaway was forced to throw himself once more upon the protection of his friends, when he was again placed by his father at his own business. He did not, however, relinquish literature; and although his first productions were not very flatteringly received, he persevered in writing and publishing until he had established for himself a distinguished reputa the celebrated ALDUS MANUTIUS, one of the earliest of the Italian printers, whose services to literature, and we may add to civilisation, it is scarcely possible to enumerate. Manutius received a learned education, and passed the early part of his life in literary pursuits, and in the society of some of the most distinguished scholars of his time. He was forty years old before he set about the establishment of his printing-office at Venice; and it was six years later before the first production of his press made its appearance. The period, therefore, of his labours as a printer, as he died at the age of sixtysix, only extended over twenty years; and even this space was broken in upon by various diffi tion. He began, too, after some years to add to his other employments that of an engraver, having already matured his taste and skill in painting by the study of the great masters of the Flemish school. The father of his wife possessed a valuable collection, the inspection of which had the effect of strongly exciting his early ardour. The remainder of Gesner's life was divided between his business, his duties as a public man (for he had now become a member of the legislative council of his native city), and those different intellectual occupations and elegant arts in each of which he had attained so honourable a celebrity. His works were not only in general published by himself, but often embellished with en-culties and interruptions, arising gravings by his own hand from his own designs. Many of them were still more popular in other parts of Europe, especially in France, than even in Germany; and among the testimonies of affection and respect which he received from his foreign admirers, he was presented with a gold medal by the Empress Catherine of Russia. He died of an attack of apoplexy, in 1788, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. A pretty long catalogue, indeed, might be given of literary booksellers and printers, among whom, in former times especially, even profound learning was not uncommon. At the head of this list would stand from his limited resources and the distracted condition of the country. The latter cause, on one occasion, obliged him to retire altogether from Venice for above a twelvemonth; when not only was his property pillaged during his absence, but he himself, on quitting the city of Milan, in which he had taken refuge, was seized as a spy and consigned to a prison, from which he only obtained his deliverance through the good offices of one of his friends, who happened to be vice-chancellor of the Milanese senate. All this being kept in mind, it is impossible not to be astonished at the immense professional labours of this father Dur from irretrievable destruction. Had Manutius not exerted himself as he did to rescue the writings in question from their insecure existence in a few half-defaced and rapidly-perishing manuscripts, and to bestow on them a sure immortality through the printing-press, we know not how many of those of them we now possess it might never have been our fate to look upon, nor how much slower that march of civilisation might have proceeded which owed to their widespread influence so much both of its of the typographical art. ing these twenty years, partially disturbed as they were, and in spite of the scanty means by which his spirit of enterprise was frequently cramped and restrained, he gave to the world editions of nearly all the Greek Roman authors whose works were then known to be in existence, transcribing the text, in almost every instance, from manuscripts which it required the utmost learning, sagacity, and patience to decipher; and, with great critical acumen, selecting from the various readings which pre-excitement and of its conquests. sented themselves those which appeared best entitled to be considered genuine. He was, in fact, the editor of nearly every work which he published; and, in the performance of his duties in that character, had difficulties to struggle with and surmount, with which those that have fallen to the share of the generality of his successors are not for a moment to be compared. And yet it was in these circumstances, as we have said, that he produced, in the course of a few years, the first printed editions of many of the Greek and Roman classics; thus entitling himself, in common with other editors of editiones principe (original editions), to the gratitude of all succeeding times, as not only the author of the earliest general diffusion of this most precious literature, but not improbably the preserver of much of it For whatever opinion may be entertained as to the present and future value of the productions of Greek and Roman literature, or their importance in guiding and sustaining the intellectual progress of the world at the point which it has now reached, it can hardly be disputed that Europe never would have made the advancement it did in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but for them, and that it is to their inspiration that we owe, in a great measure at least, the beginnings of our existing refinement. But if this be so, it is to Manutius that a part of our gratitude is due; since, had it not been for him, some, very probably, of these ancient poets, orators, historians, and philosophers would have written, both for us and for our fathers, in vain. But his admirable labours, in tian Academy was founded, in 1558, PAUL MANUTIUS was appointed Professor of Eloquence, and director of the printing restoring and preserving the works of others, did not by any means form the only occupation of this great printer during those twenty years. Be-establishment; but that associaside carrying through the press tion continued in existence only the productions of several of for three years. He was afterhis contemporaries, he found wards induced to settle as a time for the composition of printer in Rome, at the invitamany works of his own, all of tion of the Pope; and although them full of erudition, and he still kept his press at work some of considerable magni- | in Venice also, the last years of tude. Among these may be his life were spent in that city. mentioned grammars of the He died there in 1574, leaving Greek and Latin languages, a son, commonly called the and a Greek and Latin Dic-younger Aldus (to distinguish tionary in folio, being the ear-him from his grandfather), who, liest work of the kind that had been given to the world. He also founded at his own house a literary association, known by the name of the Aldine Academy, which obtained great celebrity, and reckoned among its members the celebrated Erasmus, Cardinal Bembo, and several others of the most distinguished persons of that age. During the first years, too, of his residence at Venice, and while he was making preparations for commencing business as a printer, he delivered several courses of lectures on Greek and Roman literature. although a person of some learning and talent, did not quite sustain the reputation of his family in either of the two departments in which its preceding members had acquired so much and such well-merited distinction. Under him, the printing-office fell into discredit and decay; and he at last gave up the business to one of his workmen. He died, it is said, from the effects of a surfeit, in 1597; and the valuable library collected by his father and his grandfather was soon afterwards seized upon by his creditors, and sold to pay his debts. Contemporary with the Manutii in Italy were the Estiennes or STEPHENSES in France. Of this family, celebrated as printers for nearly a hundred and fifty years, about a dozen members are enumerated as distinguished for their literary attainments; but we can only afford to notice the two most eminent |