Abstract
The antiquary, professed collector of the manuscripts and records of the past, is popularly ranked with the harmless butterfly-collector. Lytton Strachey characterized him as an “amiable muddler,” and Alexander Pope pilloried his dreary obscurantism.But who is he in closet close y-pentOf sober face, with learned dust besprent?Right well mine eyes arede the myster wightOn parchment scraps y-fed and Wormius hight.To future ages may thy dulness lastAs thou preservst the dulness of the past.There dim in clouds, the poring scholiasts mark,Wits who, like owls, see only in the dark,A lumber-house of books in every head,For ever reading, never to be read.These opinions are peculiarly shortsighted, for antiquarianism, the collection and study of old records, has been neither obscure nor harmless in its consequences. Hans Kohn and Carlton Hayes have made clear the considerable part played by antiquaries in stimulating a consciousness of nationalism, the most powerful public emotion of modern times.
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