Author’s Postscript
In our endeavour to note the chief points in the history of books, and in considering the manifold interests which are bound up with their bodies, we have had to neglect their minds. To have tried even to touch upon the vast subject of literature in our story would have been as futile as an attempt to transport the ocean in a thimble. For literature consists of all that is transferable of human knowledge and experience, all that is expressible of human thought on whatever matter in heaven or earth has been dreamed of in man’s philosophy. And though our aggregate of knowledge be small, it is vastly beyond the comprehension of one individual being.
Of the influence of books, and their manifold uses, also, this is not the place to speak. Moreover, even had the theme been unheeded by abler pens, no one who loves books needs to be told to how many magic portals they are the keys, while he who loves them not would not understand for all the telling in the world.
Notes
1 The Codex Sinaiticus, now at St Petersburg.
2 The first printed musical notes appear in de Gerson’s Collectorium super Magnificat, printed at Esslingen in 1473 by Conrad Fyner.
3 The Pye, or Pica, directed how saints’-days falling in Lent, Easter, Whitsuntide, and the octave of Trinity, were to be observed with respect to the “commemorations” of these seasons.
4 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that at this period Westminster was quite distinct from London.