was mad. In anger she flung three books into the fire, and still
asked the same sum for the rest. When the king refused it, again
she flung three others into the fire and still asked the same
price for the three that were left. At last, astonished beyond
measure, Tarquin was glad to pay for three books the same price
for which he might have bought nine. The old woman straightway
disappeared, and was never seen before or after. These were the
Sibylline books, which the Romans consulted as a divine oracle by
some one of the Quindecemvirs, and this is believed to have been
the origin of the Quindecemvirate. What did this Sibyl teach the
proud king by this bold deed, except that the vessels of wisdom,
holy books, exceed all human estimation; and, as Gregory says of
the kingdom of Heaven: They are worth all that thou hast?


CHAPTER IV

THE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE CLERGY ALREADY PROMOTED

A generation of vipers destroying their own parent and base
offspring of the ungrateful cuckoo, who when he has grown strong
slays his nurse, the giver of his strength, are degenerate clerks
with regard to books. Bring it again to mind and consider
faithfully what ye receive through books, and ye will find that
books are as it were the creators of your distinction, without
which other favourers would have been wanting.

In sooth, while still untrained and helpless ye crept up to us,
ye spake as children, ye thought as children, ye cried as
children and begged to be made partakers of our milk. But we