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Printer John Johnson Issues his Poem, "The Book of Life: A Bibliographical Melody"

1820

In 1820 printer John Johnson, who would later be known for his Typographia (1824), issued fifty copies on paper and two on vellum of a poem entitled The Book of Life; A Bibliographical Melody. These copies Richard Thomson presented to the members of The Roxburghe Club on June 17, 1820. In 2013 I obtained an edition of the poem printed at the Feathered Serpent Press by Susan Acker and presented to the members of the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco and the Zamorano Club of Los Angeles by William P. Wreden in October 1990. The text reads as follows:

THE BOOK OF LIFE; A Bibliographical Melody

THAT Life is a Comedy oft hath been shown,

By all who Mortality's changes have known;

But more like a Volume it's actions appear,

Where each Day is Page, and Chapter a Year.

'Tis a Manuscript Time shall full surely unfold,

Though with Black-Letter shaded, or shining with Gold;

The Initial, like Youth, glitters bright on its Page,

But its Text is as dark—as the gloom of Old Age.

Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast,

And deep on thine Heart be her lessons imprest.

 

Though the Title stand first it can little declare,

The Contents which the Pages ensuing shall bear;

As little the first day of Life can explain

The succeeding events which shall glide in its train.

The Book follows next, and delighted we trace,

An Elzevir's beauty, a Guttemberg's grace;

Thus on pleasure we gaze with as 'raptured an eye, 

Till cut off like a Volume imperfect—we die!

The Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast,

And deep on thine Heart be her lessons imprest.

 

Yet e'en thus imperfect, complete, or defaced,

The skill of the Printer is still to be traced;

And though Death bend us early in life to his will,

The wise hand of our Author is visible still.

Like the Colophon lines, the Epitaph's lay,

Which tells of what age and what nation our day;

And, like the Device of the Printer, we bear

The form of the Founder, whose Image we wear.

The Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast,

And deep on thine Heart be her lessons imprest.

 

The work thus completed it's Boards shall enclose,

Till a Binding more bright and more beauteous it shows;

And who can deny, when Life's Vision hath past,

That the dark Boards of Death shall surround us at last.

Yet our Volume illumed with fresh splendours shall rise,

To be gazed at by Angels, and read to the skies,

Reviewed by it's Author, revised by his pen,

In a fair New Edition to flourish again.

The Life's Counsels of Wisdom engraved on thy breast,

And deep on thine Heart be her lessons Imprest.

Timeline Themes