ndae super sellas aromatum
redolentes; ibi virens viridarium universorum voluminum,"
&c. _Philobiblion_; p. 31, edit. 1559.]

[Footnote 266: After having intruded, I fear, by the
preceding note respecting _French Bibliomania_, there is
only room left to say of our DE BURY--that he was the friend
and correspondent of Petrarch--and that Mons. Sade, in his
_Memoirs of Petrarch_, tells us that "the former did in
England, what the latter all his life was doing in France,
Italy, and Germany, towards the discovery of the best
ancient writers, and making copies of them under his own
superintendence." De Bury bequeathed a valuable library of
MSS. to Durham, now Trinity College, Oxford. The books of
this library were first packed up in chests; but upon the
completion of the room to receive them, "they were put into
pews or studies, and chained to them." Wood's _History of
the University of Oxford_, vol. ii., p. 911. Gutch's edit.
De Bury's _Philobiblion_, from which so much has been
extracted, is said by Morhof to "savor somewhat of the
rudeness of the age, but is rather elegantly written; and
many things are well expressed in it relating to
bibliothecism." _Polyhist. Literar._, vol. i., 187. The real
author is supposed to have been Robert Holcott, a Dominican
friar. I am, however, loth to suppress a part of what Warton
has so pleasantly written (as above alluded to by Lysander)
respecting such a favourite as DE BURY. "Richard de Bury,
otherwise called Richard Aungervylle, is said to have alone
possessed more books than all the bishops of England
together. Beside the fixed libraries which he had formed in
his several palaces, the floor of his common apartment was
so covered with books that those who entered could not with
due reverence approach his presence. He kept binders,
illuminators, and writers, in his palaces. Petrarch says
that he had once a conversation with him, concerning the
island called by the ancients Thule; calling him 'virum
ardentis ingenii.' While chancellor and treasurer, instead
of the usual presents and new-year's gifts appendant to his
office, he chose to receive those perquisites in books. By
the favour of Edward III. he gained access to the libraries
of most of the capital monasteries; where he shook off the