CHAPTER IX

Summary

In the previous chapters I have sketched the history of library-fittings from the earliest times to the end of the eighteenth century; and I have shewn that the libraries to which these fittings belonged were, for the most part, public, or as good as public. But, as in history we have recognised the important fact that a record of battles and sieges and enactments in Parliament gives an imperfect conception of the life of a people, so I should feel that this archeological subject had been insufficiently treated if I made no attempt to discover how private scholars disposed their books, or with what appliances they used them. For instance, in what sort of chair was the author of the Philobiblon sitting when he wrote the last words of his treatise, 24 January, 1345, and how was his study in his palace at Auckland furnished? Further, how were private students bestowed in the fifteenth century, when a love of letters had become general? Lastly, how were libraries fitted up for private use in the succeeding century, when the great people of the earth, like the wealthy Romans of imperial times, added the pursuit of literature to their other fashions, and considered a library to be indispensable in their luxurious palaces?

In the hope of obtaining reliable information on these interesting questions, I have for some years past let no opportunity slip of examining illuminated manuscripts.