the volumes that had lain
for ages in the sepulchres were roused by the light of day. 'I might have
had,' he said, 'abundance of wealth in those days; but it was books, and
not bags of gold, that I wanted; I preferred folios to florins, and loved
a little thin pamphlet more than an overfed palfrey.' We know that he
bought many books on his embassies to France and Flanders, besides his
constant purchases at home. He tells us that the Friars were his best
agents; they would compass sea and land to meet his desire. 'With such
eager huntsmen, what leveret could lie hid? With such fishermen, what
single little fish could escape the net, the hook, and the trawl?' He
found another source of supply in the country schools, where the masters
were always ready to sell their books; and in these little gardens and
paddocks, as chances occurred, he culled a few flowers or gathered a few
neglected herbs. His money secured the services of the librarians and
bookstall-men on the Continent, who were afraid of no journey by land,
and were deterred by no fury of the sea. 'Moreover,' he added, 'we always
had about us a multitude of experts and copyists, with binders, and
correctors, and illuminators, and all who were in any way qualified for
the service of books.' He ends his chapter on book-collecting with a
reference to an eastern tale, comparing himself to the mountain of
loadstone that attracted the ships of knowledge by a secret force, while
the books in their cargoes, like the iron bars in the story, were
streaming towards the magnetic cliff 'in a multifarious flight.'

CHAPTER IV.

ITALY--THE AGE OF PETRARCH.

The enlightenment of an age of ignorance cannot be attributed to any
single person; yet it has been said with some justice, that as the
mediaeval darkness lifted, one figure was seen standing in advance, and
that Petrarch was rightly hailed as 'the harbinger of day.' His fame
rests not so much on his poems as upon his incessant labours in the task
of educating his countrymen. Petrarch was devoted to books from his
boyhood. His youth was passed near Avignon, 'on the banks of the windy
Rhone.' After receiving the ordinary instruction in grammar and rhetoric,
he passed four years at Montpellier, and proceeded to study law at
Bologna. 'I kept my terms in Civil Law,' he said, 'and made some
progress; but I gave up the subject on becoming my own master, not
because I disliked the Law, which no doubt is full of the Roman lea