The great book-collectors / by Charles Isaac Elton ... & Mary Augusta Elton.

  • Elton, Charles Isaac, 1839-1900.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The great book-collectors / by Charles Isaac Elton ... & Mary Augusta Elton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    with the volume that he had fetched from Tours, ' where it had lain on St. Martin's breast a hundred years in the ground.' In one of the biographies there is a story about ' Langarad of the White Legs,' who dwelt in the region of Ossory. To him Columba came as a guest, and found that the sage was hiding all his books away. Then Columba left his curse upon them ; ' May that,' quoth he, ' about which thou art so niggardly be never of any profit after thee'; and this was fulfilled, ' for the books remain to this day, and no man reads them.' When Langarad died ' all the book-satchels in Ireland that night fell down'; some say,' all the satchels and wallets in the saint's house fell then : and Columba and all who were in his house marvelled at the noisy shaking of the books.' So then speaks Columba: ' Langarad in Ossory,' quoth he,' is just now dead.' ' Long may it be ere that happens,' said Baithen. ' May the burden of that disbelief fall on him and not on thee,' said Columba. Another tradition relates to St. Finnen's book that caused a famous battle ; and that was because of a false judgment which King Diarmid gave against Columba, when he copied St. Finnen's Psalter with- out leave. St. Finnen claimed the copy as being the produce of his original, and on the appeal to the court at Tara his claim was confirmed. King Diarmid decided that to every mother-book belongs the child-book, as to the cow belongs her calf; 'and so,' said the King,' the book that you wrote, Columba, belongs to Finnen by right.' 'That is an unjust