Piers Plowman, that from it were taken watchwords at the
great rising of the peasants.[2] The power of such works
could not be wholly hemmed in by the barrier of manuscript:
like a spring torrent it would burst forth and carry
all before it. In the manuscript period a book of great
originality and power, or a work which reproduced the
thought of the time accurately and with spirit, ran no
great risk of being passed over and forgotten; too little
was produced for much that was good to be lost. It was
copied once and again; became very slowly but very
surely known to a few, then to many; and all the time
waxed more and more influential in its teaching. The
growth was slow, but then the lifetime was long. Now
the chance of a good book going astray is much greater
What watcher of the great procession of modern books
does not fear that something supremely fine and great has
passed unobserved in the huge, motley crowd?
[1] Camb. Lit., i. 262.
[2] Jusserand, Piers, 13.
End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Old English Libraries, The
Making, Collection, and Use of Books During the Middle Ages
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