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-'Cr- 
 
 BOOK-COLLECTORS AS 
 BENEFACTORS OF 
 PUBLIC LIBRARIES 
 
 By 
 
 GEORGE WATSON COLE 
 
 Reprinted for Private Distribution from Papers of 
 
 the Bibliographical Society of America 
 
 Volume IX. Nos. 3-4 
 
 CHICAGO 
 1915 
 
BOOK-COLLECTORS AS 
 BENEFACTORS OF 
 PUBLIC LIBRARIES 
 
 By 
 
 GEORGE WATSON COLE 
 
 Reprinted (or Private Distribution from Papers of 
 
 the Bibliographical Society of America 
 
 Volume IX, Nos. 3-4 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 1915 
 
 t.v, 
 
A 
 
 ,-5,0 64-51 
 
 Author's Separate 
 100 Copies Printed 
 
 Composed and Printed By 
 
 The University of Chicago Press 
 
 ^ Chicairo, Illinois, U.S.A. 
 
HENRY EDWARDS HUXTINGTOX 
 
BOOK-COLLECTORS AS BENEFACTORS OF 
 PUBLIC LIBRARIES 
 
 BY GEORGE WATSON COLE 
 
 nPHE title of this paper is to be taken in its broadest 
 •*• sense. By the term "book-collectors" is meant not 
 only those who are widely known because of their collec- 
 tions of books; but bibUophUes, lovers of books as beauti- 
 ful specimens of the art preservative of arts; dilettanti, 
 followers of a single branch of knowledge as a matter of 
 pleasure or amusement; scholars, versed in learning; 
 and, in fact, all for whom books are necessities, as much 
 so as air, sunlight, and fire, or as their food, shelter, and 
 clothing. Nor is the title to be limited in its application 
 to those who have by their beneficence donated their 
 collections to libraries, for it is our intention to include 
 all who have been conservators of literature and learning. 
 And finally, the term "public libraries" is not to be 
 restricted to the meaning usually attached to those words, 
 but is to be extended so as to include aU libraries, whether 
 pubHc or private, that are so Hberally administered that 
 any weU-accredited scholar may gain access to their 
 treasures for the purpose of pursuing his investigations. 
 It might appear from what has been already said 
 that the subject has been so enlarged as to include any- 
 thing relating to book-lovers or books. A moment's 
 consideration, however, will convince anyone that the 
 subject is of too great an extent to permit of its being 
 
 3 
 
Book-Collectors as 
 
 treated except in a restricted way; for neither time nor 
 space permits the inclusion of more than a few notable 
 or typical examples. 
 
 Until about the middle of the fifteenth century the 
 production of books was both costly and laborious, and 
 was chiefly confined to the monasteries of Europe and 
 Asia, where alone learning was cultivated. Such being 
 the case, we find this industry almost exclusively con- 
 fined to those rehgious communities where the few who 
 were proficient in the art of writing or copying were 
 patiently and peacefully employed in this calling, while 
 their personal needs were provided for by other members 
 of the community less fitted either by abihty, training, 
 or inclination than they for the patient and exacting 
 work of the scrivener. Hence it was, in the nature of 
 things, that the fiurst libraries were mainly confined to 
 rehgious houses and were composed of such volumes as 
 had been written in them or secured by exchange. These 
 libraries, as may be supposed, were naturally restricted 
 to a limited number of subjects. First and most promi- 
 nent of all were works of a rehgious nature, such as the 
 Bible, liturgies, psalters, commentaries, and the hves of 
 saints and martyrs. These, as time progressed, were 
 naturally supplemented by the history of the religious 
 world as found in the writings of the church Fathers, 
 accounts of the various Cotmcils, and the annals of the 
 monasteries themselves. In some cases this monotony, 
 especially after the diffusion of learning consequent upon 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 
 
 the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, was 
 broken by the addition of the writings of the Greek and 
 Latia classical authors. To these institutions we are 
 indeed indebted for the preservation of nearly aU of the 
 literature, scholastic, theological, devotional, hymnic, 
 and classical, that has come down to us from the remote 
 periods of the past. 
 
 The first library in England was that carried thither 
 by St. Augustine in the year 596. As might be expected 
 it contained but a few volumes, nine in number, and all 
 of a reUgious character. They were the Holy Bible, in 
 two volumes, the Psalter, the Gospels, another Psalter, 
 another copy of the Gospels, the [Apocr)^hal] Lives of 
 the Apostles, the Lives of the Martyrs, and an Expo- 
 sition of the Gospels and Epistles. This continued to be 
 the only library in England for about seventy years, 
 when, by the arrival of Theodore of Tarsus, in 669, "an 
 extensive Ubrary," as the annalist informs us, was added 
 to it. Some volumes beUeved to have been added at 
 that time are stiU. to be seen at Canterbury. 
 
 As the monasteries were, in those early times, the 
 training-schools for the clergy and the nurseries for the 
 missions, they became the prototypes of our present- 
 day colleges and universities as weU as of the Kbraries, 
 which naturally belong to such institutions of learning. 
 By gradual changes these community hbraries have, in 
 a long course of years, developed into or engendered 
 those designed for the use of the pubHc in general. First 
 
Book-Collectors as 
 
 in the order of development came subscription or mer- 
 cantile libraries and later, to use Carlyle's term, the 
 "people's university" or the free public library of the 
 present day; a library supported entirely at the expense 
 of the pubhc. 
 
 The history of book-coUecting carries us back to a 
 period before the invention of printing. The pursuit 
 was then confined to a few wealthy scholars and lovers 
 of learning, who by reason of their superior advantages 
 were enabled to form libraries for their individual use. 
 Most prominent among the Enghshmen of this period 
 was Richard d'Aungerville, better known as Richard 
 de Bury, Bishop of Durham and the author of Philo- 
 biblon. De Bury deservedly takes the first rank among 
 the early bibliophiles of England, for he was not only 
 a scholar but also a great promoter of learning. At 
 Oxford he founded a Kbrary in connection with Durham 
 CoUege, known for several generations as " d'Aunger- 
 ville 's Library." It was dispersed on the dissolution of 
 the monasteries during the days of Edward VI., though 
 a few of its volumes are stiU preserved in the library of 
 Balliol CoUege. 
 
 Book-coUecting was naturally greatly encouraged by 
 the invention of printing. Books which previously had 
 been very costly, because of the expense and time neces- 
 sary for their production and of their limited numbers, 
 became more abundant and consequently less expensive. 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 
 
 At a later period a great incentive was given to book- 
 collecting in England by the dissolution of the monas- 
 teries from 1536 to 1539. Then it was that a few men 
 foreseeing the great loss to learning that was likely to 
 ensue from the bigoted and indiscriminate destruction 
 of the books and manuscripts of the monastic libraries 
 strove with all their might to rescue as many of them as 
 possible from complete annihilation. "Every lover of 
 books," says Fletcher in his English Book Collectors, 
 "must feel how greatly indebted he is to Archbishops 
 Cranmer and Parker, the Earl of Anmdel, Lord Ltunleyj 
 Sir Robert Cotton, and other early collectors, for saving 
 so many of the priceless manuscripts from the hbraries 
 of the suppressed monasteries and religious houses which, 
 at the Reformation, intplerance, ignorance, and greed 
 consigned to the hands of the tailor, the goldbeater, and 
 the grocer. A large number of the treasures once to be 
 found in these collections have been irrecoverably lost, 
 but many a volume, now the pride of some great Ubrary, 
 bears witness to the pious and successful exertions of 
 these eminent men." 
 
 We are reminded by the last sentence that book- 
 collecting has been a pursuit almost invariably followed 
 by men. The long Hsts of bibhophiles of every period 
 and of every coimtry are singularly devoid of women's 
 names. Women have themselves not only not been 
 book-collectors, but, what is stiU worse, they have been 
 prominent as discouragers of book-coUecting and have, 
 
Book-Collectors as 
 
 too often, even proved to be the enemies of books. A 
 prominent example of this latter class is that of Lady 
 Balcarres, the grandmother of the late Earl of Craw- 
 ford, one of the most famous of latter-day book-collectors. 
 The Lindsays have always been renowned as bibUophiles 
 and at the time of which we write possessed one of the 
 best libraries in Scotland. This hbrary remained at the 
 family seat on the shores of the Firth of Forth until 
 comparatively recent times. When Lady Balcarres left 
 Fife to estabUsh her residence at Edinburgh, during the 
 absence of her son in the West Indies, she permitted the 
 greater part of the hbrary to be "literally thrown away 
 and dispersed — torn up for grocers as useless trash. 
 ... Of the library collected by generations of Lind- 
 says, all that now remains is a handful of a Uttle over 
 fifty volumes." 
 
 We gladly turn from a picture so harrowing to another, 
 unfortunately, however, almost a solitary example in the 
 annals of book-collecting, in which a woman appears as 
 an enthusiastic bibliophile. Frances Richardson Currer 
 early evinced a fondness for books and collected a large 
 and valuable library. In 1852 it was estimated to con- 
 tain about 20,000 volumes and was rich in the natural 
 sciences, topography, antiquities, and history, besides 
 containing a fair collection of the Greek and Latin classics. 
 AU the books were in choice condition and many of them 
 were in fine bindings. Miss Currer, who possessed a 
 scholar's as well as a collector's love of books, privately 
 printed two catalogues of her library. Dibdin in his 
 
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 
 
 Bibliographical Tour, which he dedicated to her, devotes 
 ten pages to a description of the literary and artistic 
 treasures of this remarkable library and gives four steel 
 engravings representing the exterior and book rooms of 
 Eshton Hall. So highly did he regard her that he refers 
 to her as being "at the head of all female collectors in 
 Europe." 
 
 The motives which actuate book-coUectors in the 
 choice of a subject upon which to exercise their talent 
 are various, but may be divided broadly into two classes. 
 The first, and perhaps the most useful, is that which 
 impels authors, scholars, bibliographers, and others to 
 form collections of books as working- tools of their calling; 
 collections in which subject-matter takes precedence 
 over form, in which a cheap edition, if unabridged, 
 answers as good a purpose as a more elegant one. The 
 size of working libraries depends upon the extent of the 
 subjects in which their collectors may be interested and 
 on their pecuniary ability to add to them. 
 
 An interesting example of a large library of this kind 
 is that formed by Mr. Hubert Howe Bancroft to supply 
 material for his extensive history of the Pacific States of 
 North America. This library, consisting of about 50,000 
 books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, atlases, engravings, 
 and original or copied manuscripts, is now owned by 
 the University of California, having been bought by the 
 state in 1905 or 1906. In his interesting, though very 
 discursive. Literary Industries, Mr. Bancroft tells us how, 
 
10 Book-Collectors as 
 
 when his bookselling and publishing house was preparing 
 the Hand-Book Almanac for publication in i860, it 
 occurred to him to gather all the books, pamphlets, etc., 
 in his stock and place them on shelves near where the 
 work was going on. Similar works were then secured 
 from the shelves of other San Francisco dealers. Later, 
 during a trip to New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, 
 he added to his collection by going through the second- 
 hand stores and book-stalls of dealers in those cities. 
 Those of London and Paris were, at a stiU later period, 
 systematically examined for anything helping to enlarge 
 the collection. From books and pamphlets the search 
 was at length extended to manuscripts of the early 
 Spanish missions in California. If the originals of these 
 could not be secured copies were carefuUy made and 
 these added to the collection. While this work was 
 going on there were many of the old Spanish and Enghsh 
 settlers stiU living in California; pioneers whose memo- 
 ries ran back to the early settlement of the country. 
 These men were interviewed. Some were persuaded 
 to write out their recollections, others were induced to 
 dictate them to Mr. Bancroft's secretaries, and thus, 
 piece by piece, was accumulated a mass of priceless 
 material, which, had it not been for Mr. Bancroft's 
 sagacious enterprise and foresight, would have forever 
 been lost to history. From time to time, as occasion 
 offered, many valuable books relating to his subject 
 were secured at auction sales; notably from those of the 
 Andrade-MaximUian, Squier, and Ramirez Ubraries. 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 
 
 The late Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, who was called 
 upon, by the Regents of the University of CaUfornia, 
 in 1905, to examine this Ubrary with a view of ascertaining 
 its condition and marketable value, reported that he 
 found it "a practically unique collection ... of the 
 highest order of excellence, ... a great storehouse of 
 material for aU of Spanish America," which will afford 
 facihties for graduate work in American and Spanish- 
 American history "unsurpassed elsewhere in the United 
 States." 
 
 That Mr. Bancroft was enabled to collect a Ubrary 
 of such great value to the historical student was due to 
 his sagacity and practical common-sense, traits of which 
 he has given evidence in the following words: "Book 
 coUecting to be worthy of esteem should have some 
 definite object consistent with usefulness. Fine bindings 
 or rare editions, while interestiag, are of less importance 
 than subject-matter. Without the latter, collections of 
 books take rank with those of old china, furniture, or 
 other reUcs gathered with no practical purpose in 
 view." In another place he says: "A collection 
 of books, like everything else, has its history and 
 individuahty. Particularly is this the case in regard 
 to collections limited to a special subject, time, or 
 territory. Such collections are the result of birth 
 and growth; they are not found in the market for 
 sale, ready made; there must have been sometime 
 the engendering idea, followed by a long natural 
 development." 
 
Book-Collectors as 
 
 Another group of libraries is brought together from 
 a quite distinct class of motives: that group of Ubraries 
 formed by bibUophiles and dilettanti to gratify their 
 aesthetic tastes and the pleasure of possession. Books 
 in such libraries are looked upon more as objects of ele- 
 gance and curiosity than for their usefulness. In such 
 a collection the substance upon which a book is printed 
 or written, its format, beauty and clearness of type, 
 elegance of binding, the quaHty and number of its illus- 
 trations or embeUishments, its association interest, and 
 a thousand and one other extraneous matters count for 
 far more than its consideration purely as a work of litera- 
 ture. A collection brought together solely to exemplify 
 such features is not a library but is rather a collection 
 of materials appropriate to grace a bibliothecal museum. 
 
 The highest form of book-coUecting is undoubtedly 
 found where the collector combines excellence of literary 
 quality with rarity and sumptuousness of form. The 
 GrenviUe Collection, now in the British Museum, is one 
 of the most notable of such libraries ever collected by 
 a single individual. 
 
 The Right Honourable Thomas GrenviUe, after 
 having for many years filled various important ofl&ces 
 imder the English government, retired in AprU, 1807, 
 when a little over fifty years of age. In 1800 he had 
 been made Chief Justice in Eyre to the South of the 
 Trent, a sinecure ofl&ce yielding him an annual income of 
 £2,000. This ofl&ce, of which he was the last incumbent, 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 13 
 
 he held until his death, December 17, 1846, at the ad- 
 vanced age of ninety-one years. After his retirement 
 from active ofl&ce he spent the remaining forty years of 
 his life in the collection of the magnificent library that 
 bears his name and which is one of the great glories of 
 the British Museum. The fact that this library was 
 principally purchased with the profits of the sinecure 
 ofl&ce which he held for so many years led him, as "a 
 debt to duty," to bequeath it to the nation. 
 
 In his report on the accessions to the Museum for the 
 year 1847 Sir Anthony Panizzi, the librarian, says: "With 
 exception of the Collection of His Majesty George the 
 Third, the Library of the British Museum has never re- 
 ceived an accession so important in every respect as the 
 Collection of the Right Honourable Thomas GrenviUe. 
 . . . Formed and preserved with the exquisite taste 
 of an accompUshed bibliographer, with the learning of 
 a profound and elegant scholar, and the splendid liber- 
 aUty of a gentleman in affluent circumstances, . . . 
 this addition to the National Library places it in some 
 respects above all libraries known, in others it leaves it 
 inferior only to the Royal Library at Paris." Its volumes 
 are perhaps as fully distinguished for the imiform beauty 
 of their condition and the splendor of their bindings 
 as for their great rarity. 
 
 In our own country the library collected by the late 
 Elihu Dwight Church, now owned by Mr. Henry Edwards 
 Huntington, is distinguished quite as fuUy for the admir- 
 able condition of its volumes as for their great rarity. 
 
14 Book-Collectors as 
 
 The library of the late Robert Hoe was likewise renowned 
 for the rarity of its volumes and the elegance of their 
 bindings. A due, even an excessive, regard for perfection 
 of condition and beauty of bindings needs not therefore 
 be inconsistent with the formation of a library brought 
 together to illustrate some great period of history or 
 literature, or to show the advance made in the arts or 
 sciences. 
 
 In these days when the printiag-press fairly spawns 
 with books of every description, each year addmig innum- 
 erable works in every field of knowledge to those of the 
 past, the collector is compelled by the very mass of 
 material at his disposal to limit his activities to a cir- 
 cumscribed field. Here in America, where our history 
 runs back to but little over four hundred years, or to 
 within a few years of the invention of printing, collectors 
 are usually content to select some field in which the 
 prmted book forms abnost the complete object of their 
 search. StiU, we have a few collectors of manuscripts. 
 Prominent among these are Mr. William Keeney Bixby, 
 of St. Louis, and the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. 
 Mr. Bixby's collection is, if we are correctly informed, 
 restricted to subjects of American interest. He has from 
 time to time pubhshed some of his most interestmg and 
 important manuscripts. Mr. Morgan's collection, more 
 extensive in scope, embraces the original autograph 
 manuscripts of many celebrated works of English and 
 American Hterature, prominent among them being the 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 15 
 
 First Book of Milton's Paradise Lost, several of the 
 Waverley Novels, et cetera. The manuscripts in the 
 Bancroft collection, comprising 1,400 or 1,500 volumes, 
 have already been referred to. 
 
 Of English collectors, John Forster, the biographer 
 and Uterary adviser of Charles Dickens, so far took 
 advantage of his confidential relations with the noted 
 noveUst that the most important manuscripts of that 
 writer passed into his possession. They are now to be 
 seen in the South Kensington Museimi with the rest of 
 Forster's Ubrary, which he bequeathed to the British 
 nation. 
 
 Early specimens of printing, known as incunabula 
 or cradle books, are very attractive to certain collectors. 
 The term "incunabula," usually restricted to books printed 
 in Europe down to and including the year 1500, with us 
 has been extended to include those printed in the Enghsh 
 and Spanish colonies in America for a period two hundred 
 years later. The first Spanish press in America was set 
 up in Mexico about 1541, almost identically a htmdred 
 years before the appearance of the first book printed in 
 the Enghsh colonies, the Bay Psalm Book, pubhshed at 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640. The collector of 
 Americana, if he is wise, never loses an opportunity of 
 adding to his Ubrary any book or pamphlet printed in 
 North or South America prior to and including the year 
 1700. Books falling under this description are by no 
 means equally rare or valuable. Much depends upon 
 
1 6 Book-Collectors as 
 
 their character, condition, and the printer. Notwith- 
 standing this the alert collector thinks twice before letting 
 even a shabby copy pass beyond his reach. 
 
 Mr. Henry Stevens, in his Recollections of Mr. James 
 Lenox, says that after an experience of some forty years 
 in hunting for books, he had observed that the rarest 
 works of Americana seldom appeared in the market more 
 than once. WOHam Carew HazKtt, in his Confessions 
 of a Collector, repeatedly mentions the titles of books of 
 early English poetry and drama that came to his notice 
 during a period of about the same length, but of which 
 he had never seen second copies. John HiU Burton, on 
 the contrary, in his Book-Hunter says: "It is a curious 
 phenomenon in the old-book trade that rarities do not 
 always remain rare; volumes seeming to multiply 
 through some cryptogamic process, when we know per- 
 fectly that no additional copies are printed and thrown 
 off. The fact is the rumor of scarcity, and value, and 
 a hunt after them draws them from their hiding place." 
 
 An interesting example of a case in point came under 
 our observation a few years ago. A young Pennsylvania 
 school-teacher appeared one day at the store of a firm of 
 dealers in rare books on Fifth Avenue with a copy of a 
 very old New England Primer that he had picked up 
 somewhere near his home. Being of limited means, but 
 ambitious withal, he proposed, by disposing of this copy 
 of the Primer, to secure enough money to take an ad- 
 vanced course of training in an eastern college. The 
 firm interviewed one of its customers with such good 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 17 
 
 results that the school teacher soon went his way a happy 
 man. This, like most eighteenth-century copies of the 
 New England Primer, proved to be unique. Though 
 edition after edition of this book was printed in the 
 EngUsh colonies, particularly in Boston, during the 
 eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and their sales 
 ran into the hundreds of thousands, as shown by Paul 
 Leicester Ford, so much were they thumbed and worn 
 that many editions were, without doubt, totally destroyed 
 and but occasional copies of others have survived, most 
 of them in a very shabby condition. 
 
 The circumstances under which the Pennsylvania 
 copy of the Primer changed hands and the price it 
 brought having been heralded in the pubUc press, the 
 booksellers who effected the sale were for weeks overrun 
 with letters from all parts of the country by owners of 
 other New England Primers all eager to seU at fabulous 
 prices. Of course most of these, from a collector's stand- 
 point, were entirely worthless, but from among them a 
 few were found of sufi&cient age to make them desirable. 
 Enough of these were secured by Mr. Church so that, 
 with those he already possessed, he became the happy 
 possessor of seven of the eleven earhest known editions. 
 None of the extant copies of The New England Primer, 
 however, are of a sufficiently early date to entitle them 
 to be classed as American incunabula. 
 
 Of this latter class of books, particularly of books 
 printed in the English colonies in America, no Ubrary 
 
i8 Book-Collectors as 
 
 probably possesses so large a collection as that of the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society. Dr. Samuel A. Green 
 in his Early American Imprints, a new edition of which 
 is in preparation, has minutely described aU that have 
 come under his eye. The collection of the late Mr. 
 Church contained many New England and New York 
 imprints none of which are of greater value and rarity 
 than one of his last acquisitions, a copy of the Massa- 
 chusetts Laws printed at Cambridge, in 1648. Students 
 of early Massachusetts history had for over a century 
 known that such an edition was printed, but were quite 
 unable to locate a copy. So exact and definite was their 
 information respecting it that by putting together con- 
 temporary quotations and references they were almost 
 able to reconstitute the volume, but every effort to trace 
 a copy proved fruitless. The discovery of the one now 
 in the Church-Huntington collection has an interesting 
 history. A collector of music, near Cambridge, England, 
 learning of a book in which some old music was bound, 
 succeeded in securing it. From it he extracted the 
 music for which he had bought the volume. The music 
 itself being of more than usual interest, he retained the 
 remnant of the old volume, in which he had found it, to 
 show his friends, as the source from which he had pro- 
 cured the music. Most of those looking it over saw 
 among the rejected matter a few pages of laws, but as the 
 imprint was merely "Cambridge, 1648," gave the matter 
 but little thought, supposing them to have been printed 
 at Cambridge, England. At length someone more dis- 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 19 
 
 cerning than his fellows suggested that these leaves might 
 be valuable. The attention of a London dealer being 
 called to them, negotiations ensued which finally resulted 
 in the volume being sent to New York where it soon 
 passed into the possession of Mr. Church, by whom it was 
 regarded as one of the most precious of his many treasures. 
 
 Of European incunabula, no library probably pos- 
 sesses so many as the British Museum, of which a cata- 
 logue is being issued imder the able editorship of Mr. 
 Alfred W. Pollard. There are several well-known col- 
 lections in this country, that of the Philadelphia PubUc 
 Library being one of the most important. The collection 
 which General Rush Hawkins, of New York, spent many 
 years in bringing together is especially rich and complete 
 in its copies of first issues from the presses of the earliest 
 European printers. This collection is now in a beauti- 
 ful building in Providence, Rhode Island, that General 
 Hawkins has erected as a memorial to his wife, Annmary 
 Brown. Mr. Pollard, who was engaged in 1909 to come 
 to this country and catalogue it, expressed great surprise 
 at finding it so astonishingly rich and in the possession 
 of so many books not to be found in the British Museum. 
 It contains 150 books from the possible 238 presses set 
 up in Europe before 1501. The late John Boyd Thacher, 
 of Albany, also possessed a remarkably fine collection of 
 incunabula. 
 
 Mr. Adolph Sutro, of San Francisco, in a letter, dated 
 September 5, 1895, offering a site for the Af&Uated 
 
20 Book-Collectors as 
 
 Colleges of the University of California, expressed his 
 intention of founding a large reference library adjoining 
 it in the city of San Francisco. Unfortunately he died 
 before carrying his designs into effect. He had for 
 several years previously been extensively engaged in 
 buying books and had accumulated probably the largest 
 Ubrary ever collected by any single individual. His 
 own estimate, which has been confirmed by his private 
 secretary, placed the number of volumes at about 300,000. 
 Of these but about one- third now remain, the rest having 
 been destroyed in the fire of 1906 which followed the 
 San Francisco earthquake. This hbrary contained a 
 great number of incunabula, perhaps one of the largest 
 collections in private hands, it being estimated by Mr. 
 Sutro himself to contain over 4,000 volumes. Those 
 from European presses were acquired in the purchase 
 of the library of the monastery of Buxheim, which was 
 secured en bloc. To these he added the duplicates of the 
 Royal Library of Munich. To Mr. Sutro's estimate 
 should no doubt be added a considerable number of early 
 Mexican imprints, for he made extensive purchases of 
 books in that country, at one time bringing away two 
 closely-packed carloads. A greater part of the Mexican 
 books escaped the fire, being stored in a block on Mont- 
 gomery Street. The European incunabula, deposited 
 with the most valuable portion of the collection in a 
 building on Battery Street, were unfortunately burned. 
 The remains of this immense collection has recently been 
 presented by the heirs of the Sutro estate to the state of 
 
ADOLPH SUTRO 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 21 
 
 California with the provision that it shall remain in San 
 Francisco. Mr. Sutro was a profound student of his 
 fellow-men and thoroughly understood the subjection of 
 the himian will to the h)T)notic influence of gold. When 
 searching for books he always carried about with him 
 a generous supply of it, and, if negotiations for piirchase 
 flagged, broke down all opposition to a consummation of 
 the transfer by a free display of the alluring metal. 
 
 It has been the ambition of some collectors to bring 
 together the works of a single author, in all their various 
 editions. A notable example of a collection of this char- 
 acter is the Cervantes library, now in the British Museum. 
 It is certainly the finest Ubrary of its kind outside of 
 Spain, and perhaps the finest in the world. It was 
 brought together by Henry Spencer Ashbee and was, 
 together with his other books, consisting of over 15,000 
 voltunes, bequeathed by him to the English national 
 library. His Iconography of Don Quixote, the fruit of 
 many years' labor, was pubUshed by the Bibliographical 
 Society of London in 1895. 
 
 Another example of a collection of this kind is that 
 of the different editions of Petrarch formed by Domenico 
 de Rossetti and given by him to the Town Library of 
 Trieste. His hbrary contained about 7,000 volumes, 
 among them being 772 of Petrarch's works, 123 of the 
 works of Pope Pius II. (Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, 
 author, and benefactor of the Vatican Library), and 750 
 volumes illustrative of the works of those authors, or 
 
Book-Collectors as 
 
 1,645 volumes in all. The portion relating to Petrarch 
 was, on the whole, unrivaled at that time. It was Ros- 
 setti's ambition to collect every known edition of Petrarch 
 as it has later been that of the custodians of the collec- 
 tion to add to it everything that escaped him or has since 
 appeared, so that it may ultimately contain everything 
 by or relating to that famous author. 
 
 Some bibliophiles are satisfied to restrict their collect- 
 ing to first editions. It is certainly interesting to see the 
 work of an author as it left his hands and in the form in 
 which he first saw it in print. But we are disposed to 
 question the advisabihty of limiting collecting to first 
 editions. Authors, as is weU known, are seldom satisfied 
 to let the creations of their brains go down to posterity 
 as they originally see the hght. This being the case, it 
 would certainly seem more reasonable to collect the last 
 edition with which an author had to do than the first, 
 or, better still, to collect all the editions which appeared 
 under his personal supervision. It is seldom that the 
 public is admitted to an author's confidence so far as to 
 be made acquainted with the circumstances attending the 
 original conception of a work and the progressive steps 
 of its growth until it fimaUy appears in printed form. 
 
 In heu of such confidences, there are occasional 
 instances in which we are able to trace changes in the 
 form and character of a work by a critical comparison 
 of the various editions printed during its author's life- 
 time. MUton's Paradise Lost, as it first appeared, was 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 23 
 
 divided into ten instead of twelve books. Published at 
 a time of great political agitation and literary stagnation, 
 it sold slowly and its publisher, in order to dispose of his 
 stock in hand, printed no fewer than six different title- 
 pages and several pages of prefatory matter before he was 
 able to dispose of the last copy. The second edition was 
 divided into twelve books, a few lines being altered or 
 added at the proper places to effect the necessary trans- 
 formation. 
 
 The first edition of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress fell 
 so far short of its author's designs that he made extensive 
 additions to it in the second and third editions. John 
 Stuart Mill in his interesting Autobiography informs us 
 that his Principles of Political Economy was twice com- 
 pletely recast and rewritten before assuming its final 
 form. The first edition therefore may be, doubtless is, 
 a curiosity; but justice to the author requires that the 
 collector of the first editions of MiU's work should at 
 least have this work as it last left his pen. If, therefore, 
 the collector is determined to confine himself to a single 
 edition, he should, in our judgment, select the last that 
 appeared during its author's Hfetime — the last with his 
 final emendations, alterations, and additions. 
 
 Editions whether the first, the last, or all that were 
 published during the lifetime of the author are not 
 necessarily the best. By this term we mean the best 
 textuaUy — the best annotated or variorum edition — 
 quite a different thing from the most luxurious edition 
 though they may be concurrent. The former of course 
 
24 Book-Collectors as 
 
 appeals to the scholarly collector; the latter to one con- 
 trolled chiefly by his artistic tastes. 
 
 Just here we approach the supreme crux of English 
 hterature — the purification of the Shakespearian text. 
 Numerous able scholars, begiiming with Nicholas Rowe, 
 have been at work for over two himdred years to evolve 
 a satisfactory text of the plays of Shakespeare from the 
 Quartos and FoUos which appeared during and after the 
 life of the great dramatist, and yet we stiU have "no 
 absolutely authoritative text." This task has been 
 rendered extremely difiicult from the fact that none of the 
 contemporaneous editions were issued by Shakespeare 
 himself or with his sanction and that they were carelessly 
 and surreptitiously printed with Uttle or no supervision. 
 The Cambridge Edition (1863-66), edited by William 
 George Clark, John Glover, and WUHam Aldis Wright, 
 was "the great event of the nineteenth century" in this 
 field of scholarship and their "text is taken as the basis 
 of most of the popular editions, whose name is legion." 
 Our great American Shakespearian scholar. Dr. Horace 
 Howard Furness, in his monumental Variorum Edition 
 sometimes follows the text of the FoHos, sometimes that 
 of the Cambridge Edition. An able writer upon Shakes- 
 peare and His Critics, Vroiessor Charles Frederick Johnson, 
 speaking of this failure to establish an authoritative text 
 acceptable to all Shakespearian scholars, says: "There 
 is, however, no absolutely authoritative text, nor is it 
 likely that there ever will be one, unless a committee of 
 the leading scholars of England, Germany, and America 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 25 
 
 were formed to deliberate, exchange views, and vote on 
 all disputed points. It is not likely that such a body 
 will ever be formed; and, even if it should be, the results of 
 the labors of the revisers of the English Bible give no 
 surety that the decision of the majority would be accept- 
 able to the great body of the lovers of Shakespeare." 
 The collector of early EngHsh literature is therefore placed 
 in a pecuUar position. As a collector of first and early 
 editions of Shakespeare he must secure all the Quartos 
 possible, say down to 1709, and the four FoKos with their 
 variants. To these, if he does not wish to incumber 
 his collection with a vast mass of Shakespearian Hterature 
 — ^an extensive library in itself — ^he is bound to add some 
 good critical edition with the best available text, pre- 
 sumably the Cambridge Edition. 
 
 Few, we are inclined to believe, will be willing to 
 confess that they do not like best an edition of a work 
 in which the text is embellished and emiched with appro- 
 priate and artistic illustrations. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, that there are numerous collectors who confine 
 their energies to amassing illustrated books, particularly 
 those embellished by famous artists, or extra-illustrated 
 books, both of which have their devotees. A collection 
 of books illustrative of the history of engraving in its 
 various forms, or of book-illustration as a special form of 
 art, is not only interesting but highly instructive. 
 
 Those works of Albrecht Durer that appeared engraved 
 upon wood take on added interest when we consider 
 
26 Book-Collectors as 
 
 that they were executed four hundred years ago and that 
 the results were attained by cutting on the side of the 
 block instead of on its end as now. Coming down to the 
 early years of the last century and examining the work 
 of Thomas Bewick, the restorer of wood engraving in 
 England, we find an entire change of method. Bewick 
 was the first wood engraver to make use of the end of a 
 block instead of its side — to engrave instead of carve. 
 He, also, was the inventor of the white line, formed by 
 cuttmg away the wood instead of leaving it in rehef, 
 by which he secured a dehcacy of result not met with 
 previous to his day and unattained by any of his 
 followers. 
 
 The works of the masters of caricature and of the gro- 
 tesque have always been favorites with certain collectors. 
 No artist of this class probably ever enjoyed a longer 
 period of activity and enjoyed such success as George 
 Cruikshank, whose illustrations of the Grimm Brother's 
 Fairy Stories mark the zenith of his powers, though he 
 continued to produce good work for a full hah-century 
 longer. He illustrated numerous other books, among 
 them Dickens' Oliver Twist, which, in his overmastering 
 conceit, occasioned him to make the audacious claim that 
 he had given Dickens the entire idea of that work or at 
 least the best ideas contained in it. That Dickens wrote 
 the story from Cruikshank's illustrations or even followed 
 his suggestions no one ever seriously believed, notwith- 
 standing the vehemence of Cruikshank's claims to the 
 contrary. 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 27 
 
 There is, however, a notable as well as an exceptional 
 case in which the artist may truly be said to have been 
 the author of his books, in which the illustrations were 
 furnished to have the text written to correspond to them. 
 We refer, of course, to William Rowlandson, the English 
 caricaturist, who during the early part of the last century- 
 executed a series of illustrations which were given to 
 WiUiam Combe, who wrote the accompanying verses. 
 This unusual collaboration resulted in the production of 
 Dr. Syntax's Tour in Search of the Picturesque. The 
 work was issued in parts and attained such popularity 
 that Rowlandson and Combe together produced several 
 other works, two of which continued the Tours of Dr. 
 S)Titax until that remarkable character's death. The 
 success of this collaboration led to many imitations some 
 of which in style and execution are difficult to distinguish 
 from Rowlandson's own work. 
 
 Much more might be said of various other interesting 
 phases of collecting but time and space preclude our 
 giving them further attention. It is entertaining and 
 instructive to note the different methods employed by 
 collectors in obtaining their books. John HiU Burton 
 m his Book-Hunter tersely divides book-collectors into 
 "private prowlers and auction-hunters." Time was 
 when the private prowler rummaged the book-stalls and 
 often picked up nuggets, at what now seems ridiculously 
 low prices, but which have since become priceless pos- 
 sessions. Who would not now, in the light of present 
 
28 Book-Collectors as 
 
 knowledge, enjoy the opportunity of picking from Quar- 
 itch's penny-box a copy of the first edition of Fitzgerald's 
 translation of the Ruhdiydt of Omar Khayyam, a book 
 which has, on more than one occasion, sold for $250. 
 Such opportunities may now be met with, but it takes 
 shrewd discernment to extract future diamonds from 
 among present-day rubbish. 
 
 Books that do not immediately meet with a ready 
 sale when first published may often be picked up at a 
 trivial price as remainders, but the value of second-hand 
 books is now better known by dealers than formerly, and 
 once a book passes into their hands the collector can 
 secure it only by paying a good round price. The profit- 
 able and lucky days of the book prowler are numbered, 
 though indeed we occasionally hear of a veritable nugget 
 coming to hght in some out-of-the-way place. 
 
 The opportunities enjoyed by George Brinley during 
 our Civil War for making his marvelous collection of 
 Americana were extraordinary and are never likely to be 
 repeated. Mr. Brinley hved at Hartford, Connecticut, 
 in the midst of a country abounding with small paper 
 mUls. During the war, prices of aU commodities rose to 
 unprecedented heights, and among them those of old 
 books, pamphlets, newspapers, etc., which were used 
 by the mills as paper-stock to be converted into new 
 paper. In consequence of these high prices the thrifty 
 New England housewives recollected that in their garrets 
 were stored many old and disused books, pamphlets, and 
 newspapers, the accumulations, in many cases, of several 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 29 
 
 generations. The opportunity of turning to use this 
 mass of material, which seemed to them Hke so much 
 lumber, was too strong to be resisted. Down came the 
 storings of many years, and on the next visit of the 
 itinerant tin-peddler they were exchanged for new tin- 
 and woodenware and other household articles. Mr. 
 Brinley, one the shrewdest of shrewd New Englanders, 
 saw his opportunity and made arrangements with the 
 peddlers and paper mills by which he was enabled to 
 secure such books, pamphlets, and other papers as he 
 might select, at a shght advance above the price for which 
 they had been acquired. By improving this extra- 
 ordinary opportunity, one that can never, in the very 
 nature of things, be repeated, Mr. Brinley brought 
 together one of the largest, most valuable, and rare col- 
 lections of native Americana ever accumulated in this 
 coimtry. By pursuing this method he rescued many 
 works, which, but for his foresight, would have certainly 
 disappeared from the face of the earth. This accounts 
 for the great number of dupUcates that were sold in 
 his hbrary and for the many items which have not 
 reappeared in any subsequent sale. 
 
 Quite a different method of collecting was that pur- 
 sued by George John, the Second Earl Spencer, the cele- 
 brated EngUsh book-coUector. He was accustomed to 
 make bibhographical tours on the Continent with his 
 librarian, Thomas FrognaU Dibdin, for the purpose of 
 perfecting certain portions of his collection. His tour 
 in 1819 and that of 1820 resulted in his making many 
 
30 Book-Collectors as 
 
 important additions to his library from various sources 
 and in his buying the entire collection of the Duke of 
 Cassano-Serra, eminently rich in Quattrocentisti — ^books 
 printed before 1501. Modern methods of communi- 
 cation have rendered such tours no longer necessary, as 
 the catalogues of dealers now speedily find their way to 
 the hands of collectors in all parts of the world. 
 
 It not infrequently happens that a collector is able, 
 as in the case of Lord Spencer, just noticed, to obtain 
 a collection aheady formed, which for one reason or 
 another has found its way into the market. One of the 
 most recent and important transfers of this kind took 
 place in 1905 when the hbrary of Frederick Locker- 
 Lampson, rich in early EngUsh poetry and drama, was 
 purchased by the late Mr. Church. Previous to this 
 transaction Mr. Church had secured the finest collection 
 of the Foho editions of Shakespeare ever brought together, 
 containing as it did eleven of the twelve varieties of the 
 Four FoUos. He also had a very choice collection of the 
 Quarto editions of the separate plays and poems. Of the 
 latter there were many in the Locker-Lampson hbrary 
 not in his collection. The acquisition of these at once 
 placed the Church collection of Shakespeare's works 
 foremost among those in this country and fifth among 
 those either here or in England. Only one other private 
 collection, that of the Duke of Devonshire, which has 
 recently followed the Locker-Lampson Quartos to this 
 country and now sits cheek-by-jowl with it upon Mr. 
 Huntington's shelves, contained a greater number of the 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 31 
 
 Quartos printed before 1623, the year when the First 
 FoUo was published. Pubhc Ubraries containing larger 
 collections than either of these are the Bodleian Library, 
 the British Museum, and, possibly, the CapeU Collection 
 at Trinity College, Cambridge, each ranking in the order 
 given. 
 
 The collector of the present day stiU enjoys two 
 sources of supply nearly as old as the history of book- 
 collecting; the dealer in rare and second-hand books and 
 the auction-room. These two sources practically reduce 
 themselves to one — the dealer — ^for it is to the auction- 
 room that the dealer himself resorts as one of the most 
 fruitful sources for the replenishment of his stock in trade. 
 By placing himself in the hands of a reputable dealer the 
 collector possesses advantages unknown to the mere 
 ' ' private prowler " or the " auction-hunter. ' ' The intelli- 
 gent dealer soon comes to recognize his customer's indi- 
 vidual tastes and narrowly watches the market in order 
 that he may cater to them. Having customers of varied 
 interests, the dealer has greater opportunities than the 
 collector can possibly possess for knowing what may at 
 any particular moment be in the market. The constant 
 exchange of catalogues between booksellers keeps them 
 fuUy informed upon this point. Dealers in aU parts of 
 the world thus know in what markets certain classes of 
 books are to be foimd and where they are most in demand. 
 Naturally when any collection rises in importance above 
 the average it becomes widely known and the entire 
 world is, as it were, laid imder contribution to supply it 
 
32 
 
 Book-Collectors as 
 
 with the books it lacks. Such collections are hke mag- 
 nets, the larger they become the more powerfully they 
 attract to themselves like or allied matter. Such a col- 
 lector, therefore, soon comes to have the first choice of 
 everything in the market that falls within the scope of 
 his collection. 
 
 After aU quahty rather than quantity determines the 
 value and excellence of any collection. Henry Stevens 
 if not directly responsible for the term "nuggets," as 
 applied to rare books, so far popularized the expression 
 as to make it more closely associated with his name than 
 with that of any other. The term is pecuUarly appro- 
 priate. Books are hke gems, and, hteraUy so in many 
 cases, as in these latter days, many a book has been sold 
 for far more than its actual weight in gold. No dealers 
 were better aware of the rarity and value of this class 
 of books than those princes of booksellers, Henry Stevens 
 and Bernard Quaritch, who devoted their hves to the 
 search of bibUographical treasures for their patrons. 
 Mr. Quaritch is said to have exclaimed to someone who, 
 gazing about his shop, asked him how he knew the prices 
 of aU the books on his shelves: "The prices! why my 
 dear sir, I make them." 
 
 The CapeU Collection of Shakespeare Fohos and 
 Quartos, especially the latter, was formed by that dis- 
 tinguished commentator to assist him in elucidating the 
 text of the great playwright. It was brought together 
 at a time when those little pamphlets could be secured 
 
ELIHU DWIGHT CHURCH 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 33 
 
 for as many pence or shillings as they now command 
 pounds or hundreds of pounds. Two years before his 
 death he gave his library to Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 where it is now treasured as one of its most priceless 
 possessions. 
 
 Both the collection of Americana and that of Early 
 English Literatture formed by the late Mr. Church were 
 not great in the sense that they contained a large number 
 of volumes. It was rather the rarity and the historical 
 and literary importance of these few volumes that caused 
 his Ubrary to become one of national importance. In 
 a collection superabounding in rarities it seems invidious 
 to select any for special mention, but it may not be 
 without interest to refer to a few of its most prominent 
 gems. First of all it contains copies of every early 
 edition of the letter by Christopher Columbus announcing 
 his discovery of America, not locked up in pubhc libraries. 
 Among these was the First Edition in Latin. Its collection 
 of works relating to American Vespucius is also especially 
 complete, containing, as it does, four of the five editions 
 of the Paesi Nouvamenti Retrouvati, " the most important 
 collection of voyages, and, in the absence of the Libretto 
 of VerceUese, now lost, the earliest." Of the Cortes 
 letters announcing the conquest of Mexico it has aU the 
 early editions in Spanish and Latin, and, in addition, the 
 luiique French edition of the first and second letters. In 
 addition to the weU-known editions giving an account of 
 Magellan's voyage around the world, it contains one 
 printed at Paris of which no other copy, so far known, is 
 
34 Book-Collectors as 
 
 in existence. The collection of works describing Fro- 
 bisher's attempts to discover the Northwest Passage is 
 probably the finest ever brought together outside of the 
 great national hbraries. The nine tracts of Las Casas 
 are aU present, one being represented by two editions. 
 The sets of the collections of voyages and travels pub- 
 lished by De Bry and Hulsius are among the very finest 
 and most complete in existence and are those which Henry 
 Stevens spent the greater part of his life in collecting and 
 perfecting. No other private hbrary, if indeed any 
 public library, possesses so fine a collection of the early 
 pamphlets relating to the settlement of the EngHsh 
 colonies in North America; those concerning Virginia, 
 New England, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey 
 being exceptionally fine both because of their number and 
 because of their extreme rarity. Its sets of the Jesuit 
 Relations and other works relating to Nouvelle France, or 
 Canada, are also very complete. The number of its earliest 
 imprints of the presses of Cambridge, Boston, and New 
 York would of themselves, alone, give distinction to any 
 collection. Its sets of the writings of the Mathers, 
 Increase and Cotton, as well as those of other members of 
 that distinguished family, are particularly fuU, and con- 
 tain aU of the rarest works of those eminent Boston 
 divines. Of almanacs it contains an exceptionally val- 
 uable collection including the first issues printed in Cam- 
 bridge and New York and a very full and complete set of 
 Fra nklin 's Poor Richard's Almanak. The number and 
 rarity of its New England Primers easily place it at the 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 35 
 
 head of all collections of "The Little Bible of New 
 England." 
 
 Much more might be said of this unsurpassed col- 
 lection of Americana, but, in passing, a word should be 
 said regarding the Church Collection of Early EngHsh 
 Literature and Miscellanea. The Shakespeare portion, 
 its most important feature, has already been mentioned. 
 It also contains very complete sets of the early editions 
 of Spencer, Milton, Bunyan, and Butler. Here are also 
 to be found the first editions of many other masterpieces 
 of EngHsh literature. Of Bacon's Essays it contains the 
 first two editions. Here are also Gray's Elegy, Swift's 
 Gulliver's Travels, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and a host 
 of other works, in the form in which they first left the 
 press and greeted the gratified eyes of their illustrious 
 authors. The first editions of later writers, such as 
 Charles Lamb, Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Novels, 
 Dickens, and Thackeray, are unusually complete and 
 interesting. Of the works of the great illustrators and 
 engravers Bewick, Cruikshank, and Rowlandson it 
 contains very full sets. 
 
 Such is the Church-Huntington Collection. To it, 
 since its acquisition, Mr. Huntington has made large and 
 exceedingly important additions, and, if report is to be 
 credited, his Hbrary is now probably the finest, rarest, 
 and most valuable private library in existence. Addi- 
 tions of such importance have been made possible by 
 a combination of circumstances which have afforded an 
 opportimity such as seldom, if ever, has fallen to the lot of 
 
36 Book-Collectors as 
 
 any other collector. The death of Robert Hoe and that 
 of Alfred H. Huth and the dispersal of their hbraries by 
 auction, together with his previous purchase of the col- 
 lection of Mr. Beverly Chew, and the later acquisition 
 of the Duke of Devonshire's Ubrary, have enabled Mr. 
 Huntington to add to his collection an immense number 
 of the very rarest items in early Enghsh hterature, as well 
 as of those in other fields in which he is interested. 
 
 Quahty rather than quantity is after all the proper 
 standard by which the value of a library should be 
 determined. No hbrary however large can faU to con- 
 tain some works of value. Whenever a large collection 
 of books is mentioned our minds instinctively turn to 
 that of Richard Heber, the great EngUsh bibliomaniac, 
 with his eight houses full of books; four in England, and 
 others in Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent, not to 
 mention smaller hoards in other parts of the Continent. 
 With Heber book-collecting was not a taste but a vora- 
 cious passion. He bought whole hbraries, purchasing 
 once in Paris one of 30,000 volumes. Large paper copies 
 he detested because they took up too much shelf-room. 
 He was in the habit of buying copy after copy of the 
 same book and was very hberal in lending his books and 
 in otherwise aiding scholars who wished to make use of 
 them. "Of many books," says Fletcher, in his English 
 Book Collectors, "he possessed several copies, and on being 
 asked by a friend why he purchased them, he seriously 
 rephed: 'Why, you see. Sir, no man can comfortably 
 
ALFRED HENRY HUTH 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 37 
 
 do without three copies of a book. One he must have 
 for his show copy, and he will probably keep it at his 
 country house. Another he will require for his own use 
 and reference; and unless he is inclined to part with this, 
 which is very inconvenient, or risk the injury of his best 
 copy, he must needs have a third at the service of his 
 friends.'" 
 
 His library was dispersed after his death at several 
 sales in London and on the Continent extending over 
 a period of 216 days. It has been estimated to contain 
 146,827 volumes, not including an unmense number of 
 pamphlets and an imknown quantity stored on the Conti- 
 nent, and was supposed to have cost him about £100,000. 
 The English sales realized £56,774, while his books, coins, 
 and drawings, sold on the Continent, brought about 
 £10,000 more. 
 
 Large as was Heber's collection, it has been surpassed 
 by others. The famous Zaluski collection, "made in the 
 lifetime by one PoUsh bishop [Andreas Stanislav Zaluski] 
 with the assistance of another [his youngest brother, Josef 
 Andrei Zaluski], was," says Edwards, "the largest 
 Collection ever made at private expense . . . [and] 
 . . . actually surpassed in numbers the magnificent 
 Library of the Kings of France, and was at the head, in 
 that pohit, of aU the Collections of Europe, some of 
 which had been gathering for centuries at the expense 
 of nations." The first beginnings of this library, col- 
 lected by several members of the Zaluski family, can be 
 traced back to the early part of the seventeenth century. 
 
38 Book-Collectors as 
 
 It was opened to public use at Warsaw (August 8, 1748) 
 with an endowment for its support and increase. Count 
 Josef Andrei Zaluski, who desired to make it a complete 
 repository both of Polish literature and of the materials 
 of Polish history, made great additions to it. By 1770 
 he had so far succeeded in his purpose that he had really 
 brought under one roof about aH that was known to exist 
 in print about Poland. By his will, made in 1761, he 
 bequeathed the collection and the house containing it 
 to the Jesuit College at Warsaw, in trust for the pubhc. 
 The Jesuits being suppressed in 1773, a year before his 
 death, the library passed to the management of the 
 Commissioner of Education appointed by the Polish 
 government and remained in Warsaw until the partition 
 of Poland. Though Poland was assigned to Prussia its 
 literary treasures became the spoil of the Empress of 
 Russia. In 1796, after considerable losses, the collection 
 was transferred to St. Petersburg, where, according to the 
 official returns made as the work of transportation pro- 
 ceeded, 262,640 volumes and 24,573 prints were actually 
 received and counted. This was the first important 
 accession to the Imperial Library of Russia whose founda- 
 tions had already been laid. A fuU account of the forma- 
 tion of the Zaluski Ubrary and of the Imperial Pubhc 
 Library at St. Petersburg (now Petrograd) by Theodore 
 W. Koch can be found in The Library Journal, vol. 40 
 
 (1915)- 
 
 It should not be overlooked that the Zaluski library 
 was not the collection of a single individual, though the 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 39 
 
 elder brother's part in gathering it was comparatively 
 insignificant, and, hence, perhaps it should not be placed 
 in comparison, because of its size, with Heber's. StiU 
 it is not unlikely that a greater number of volumes was 
 collected by Bishop Zaluski, the founder of the collection, 
 than was made by Heber, especially as at one time it 
 was said to contain 400,000 volumes. The great col- 
 lection formed by Adolph Sutro, if his own estimate and 
 that of others is to be credited, before the destruction of 
 one-half or more of it in the San Francisco disaster of 
 1906, surpassed in numbers any collection ever formed 
 by any one person, with the possible exception of the 
 Zaluski Ubrary. After Heber's collection that of Count 
 Otho de Thott (6. 1703, d. 1785), the eminent Danish 
 statesman, bequeathed in 1785 to the Royal Library of 
 Denmark, probably should be placed next in rank. It 
 contained 121,915 volumes and 4,159 manuscripts and 
 was in the judgment of Brunet, the celebrated French 
 bibHographer, who seems to have been unaware of the 
 Zaluski Ubrary, the most considerable collection of books 
 ever brought together by one individual. 
 
 The lives of book-coUectors show, in numerous 
 instances, that the zeal of their pursuit has not been 
 without intervals of relaxation during which they lost 
 opporttmities which they were never afterward able to 
 retrieve. Mr. Stevens in his Recollections of Mr. James 
 Lenox says: "The world outside of book-hunting may 
 smile at [the] eagerness for the first choice, but such 
 
40 Book-Collectors as 
 
 a smile of pity will most likely vanish away into com- 
 plaisance on becoming acquainted with the fact that 
 after forty years' experience in sighting and chasing 
 book-rarities, I found that a very large number of the 
 choicest historical and bibhographical nuggets relating 
 to the 'Age of Discovery,' with the exploration and 
 development of the New World, occurred but once in 
 my time, in the market for sale. Happy he who became 
 the winner in such a chase!" 
 
 A too great particularity as to condition has also been 
 known to result in the rejection of copies to the lasting 
 regret of the collector who had them but once within 
 his grasp. A few years ago a number of early Cambridge 
 imprints were offered to Mr. Church and refused because 
 of their shabby condition. He never afterward ceased 
 to regret that he had not taken in these precious but 
 ragged wanderers. As already remarked, Hazlitt noticed 
 in his long experience as a collector that many books of 
 early English poetry and drama appeared but once in 
 the market. 
 
 The temporary inactivity of a collector, as weU as his 
 lack of appreciation of a nugget which has been offered 
 him, is an opportunity often eagerly seized upon by a 
 rival. Stevens tells us how he sent shipments of Ameri- 
 cana to John Carter Brown for first choice after which 
 the remainder was in turn forwarded to Mr. Lenox and 
 later to George Brinley. He mentions periods, especially 
 during the War of the Rebellion, when Mr. Lenox "sus- 
 pended generally his ardent foraging for rare books, and 
 
JAMES LENOX 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 41 
 
 only occasionally had an intermittent attack of his old 
 bibliographical fever." Whatever may have been the 
 cause of the abatement of Mr. Lenox's ardor in collecting, 
 it could hardly have been that suggested by Hazlitt when 
 speaking of similar cessations from buying in the case of 
 Henry Huth. Mr. Lenox was a bachelor, Mr. Huth, on 
 the contrary, was a man with a fanuly, a fact which 
 makes aU the difference in the world. Mr. HazUtt says: 
 "Mr Huth was not only vacillating in his pursuit of 
 books, and so missed many which he ought to have 
 secured, but his health began to fail some time prior to 
 his decease. ... I suspect that the cause of wavering 
 was one which is common to so many collectors in all 
 departments, and leads in a majority of instances to the 
 abrupt dispersion of the property. I aUude to the almost 
 ostentatious indiEference of relatives and friends to the 
 treasures, unless, perhaps, they are pictures or china, 
 which a man gathers round him. In this instance £120,- 
 000 [$600,000] had been expended in books, mss, draw- 
 ings and prints, and the worthy folks who came to the 
 house, what did they know about them ? what did they 
 care? A man might well hesitate and wonder whether 
 there was any good in persevering in a hobby personal 
 to himself." Fortunately in Mr. Huth's case his Ubrary 
 descended to his son, Mr. Alfred Henry Huth, who 
 cherished his heritage and added to and strengthened it 
 whenever he could do so. On his death, which occurred 
 October 10, 1910, he directed, by his wiU, "That if at any 
 time his hbrary should be sold, the person or persons so 
 
42 Book-Collectors as 
 
 selling it 'should forthwith deliver to the Trustees of the 
 British Museum before such sale shall actually take place 
 such 50 volumes as the Trustees of the British Museum 
 shall in their uncontrolled discretion select'. . . . 
 Further provisions required that the volumes selected 
 should be marked with the words 'Huth Bequest,' and 
 that a separate catalogue of them should be printed by 
 the Trustees of the British Museum." " Fifty volumes " ! 
 I fancy I hear someone say, "not a very generous be- 
 quest." But wait a moment, my friend, and hsten to the 
 sequel. It having been decided to sell the hbrary, the 
 Trustees of the British Museum made their choice and 
 have, in accordance with the provisions of the will, 
 printed a catalogue, in which we read: "It is no exag- 
 geration to say that we must go back more than sixty 
 years, to the GrenviUe bequest of 1846, to find a bene- 
 factor to whom the Library of the British Museum, i.e., 
 the combined Departments of Manuscripts and Printed 
 Books, owes so deep a debt of gratitude as that which is 
 due from it to the memory of Alfred Huth." 
 
 This circumstance calls our attention to another 
 point to be noticed regarding book-coUectors as a class. 
 We refer to the fact that book-collecting is generally the 
 pursuit of a single individual or generation; and that 
 the fate of almost every collection is determined by the 
 death of him who made it. On his demise his heirs, 
 as a rule, indeed almost invariably, proceed to reahze 
 upon it by placing it on sale in one of the many book- 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 43 
 
 auction houses to be found in every large city or by 
 selling it entire to some institution or collector. 
 
 There have been hereditary collections, mostly, be 
 it said, in the older and more estabUshed coimtries of 
 Europe, which have descended from father to son or to 
 other legal heirs; but they are of a limited number, in 
 comparison with those which, sooner or later, have passed 
 from the possession of the family. 
 
 One of the most famous hereditary collections, that 
 of the Spencers, at Althorp, amoimting in 1892 to some 
 41,500 volumes, was in that year transferred from the 
 Spencers to Mrs. John Rylands who removed it to 
 Manchester there to form a memorial to her husband 
 under the name of The John Rylands Library. The 
 collection of Americana formed by four generations of the 
 Brown family, in Providence, Rhode Island, of which 
 John Carter Brown was the virtual foimder, has, under 
 the provisions of the will of his son, John Nicholas Brown, 
 been transferred in trust to Brown University as a per- 
 pertual memorial to his father. In accordance with the 
 same instrument a buUding has been erected for its 
 preservation and a fimd of $500,000 set aside for its 
 maintenance, administration, and increase. In fact 
 everything that human foresight can devise has been 
 done to place this inestimably valuable collection upon 
 a permanent and lasting basis, so that when in the course 
 of time the millennial aimiversary of the discovery of the 
 Western Hemisphere shall roll roxmd it wiU then, perhaps 
 
44 Book-Collectors as 
 
 more than now, be the Mecca to which students of 
 American history will resort in order to consult the 
 original sources of the early history of our continent. 
 
 Our imagination sometimes delights to linger over 
 the bibliographic page and fancy what might have been 
 had circumstances been different from what they were. 
 Momentarily we have in mind another hereditary hbrary, 
 the foundation of which was laid between 1610 and 1650 
 by Sir Robert Gordon {b. 1580, d. 1656), a contemporary 
 of the Elizabethan dramatists. Sir Robert was a man 
 of eminent hterary and poUtical abilities. "He laid 
 by," says Burton, "heaps of the pamphlets, placards, and 
 other documents of his stormy period; and thus many 
 a valuable morsel, which had otherwise disappeared from 
 the world, left a representative in the Gordonstoun 
 collection." A catalogue of this curious hbrary, drawn 
 up by Gordon himself, was pubUshed in 1816, when the 
 collection was sold at auction by Cochrane. Richard 
 Grant White points out as "worthy of remark that this 
 Hbrary was barren of Shakespeare's works, although it 
 was collected by a gentleman of wealth and of curious 
 as well as literary taste, at a time when the now [1863] 
 almost priceless quartos might have been bought for 
 a shiUing." Imagination is staggered to think what 
 prices would be realized if Gordon and his descendants 
 had carefully bought and preserved in their pristine con- 
 dition all of the editions of Shakespeare's poems and plays 
 as they came from the press and had placed them under 
 the auctioneer's hammer during this year of grace 191 5. 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 45 
 
 Of hereditary collections now in the hands of the 
 descendants of their collectors, or of their legal repre- 
 sentatives, the best known are those of Earl Crawford 
 and the Christie-MiUer or Britwell Library. 
 
 Of the latter little-known library we cannot refrain 
 from adding a few words in passing. The library now 
 at BritweU Court, near Burnham, in Buckinghamshire, 
 was begun by WiUiam Henry MUler as early as 1819, 
 when, as Hazhtt informs us, he was foimd bidding "for 
 books of price against all comers." Miller was very 
 particular respecting the condition of his purchases, 
 especially of their size. He was accustomed to carry 
 about with him a foot-rule with which to measure the 
 height of any book that came under his notice, a habit 
 which won for him among collectors the name of "Inch- 
 rule or Measure Miller." His short copies he often 
 replaced with taller ones. During his lifetime he made 
 additions to the Hbrary from all the important sales of the 
 first half of the nineteenth century. On his death, which 
 took place near Edinburgh, BritweU Court and the hbrary 
 were bequeathed to his cousin Miss Marsh from whom 
 they passed to Samuel Christy, the Piccadilly hatter, 
 who assumed the name of Christie-MiUer. On his death 
 they became the property of Wakefield Christie-Miller 
 who died in 1898. 
 
 Since the death of the founder, in 1848, many impor- 
 tant additions have been made "from the Corser, Laing, 
 and other sales of more recent years," those made by its 
 
46' Book-Collectors as 
 
 last owner being especially important. Notable among 
 these is a large portion of the Elizabethan rarities dis- 
 covered, in 1867, at Lamport Hall, the seat of Sir Charles 
 Isham. It now stands unrivaled among English private 
 libraries for the number, rarity, and condition of its 
 examples of early Enghsh and Scottish Uterature. It is 
 especially rich in English poetry and contains the greater 
 part of the Heber collection of ballads and broadsides. 
 "At the Heber sale, this gentleman," says Hazlitt, "saw 
 his opportunity, and used it well. The bibUophobia 
 had set in; prices were depressed, so far as the EngUsh 
 poetry was concerned, and Thorpe the bookseller, under 
 his instructions, swept the field — the Drama, the Classics, 
 and the Miscellanea he left to others. Nearly the whole 
 of the rarities in that particular division, set forth in the 
 second, fourth, sixth, and eighth parts of the catalogue, 
 fell to Mr. MOler; and of many no dupHcates have since 
 occurred. The purchaser must have laid out thousands, 
 and have added to his collection positive cartloads." 
 The unusual opportunity Measure Miller was so prompt 
 to seize and benefit by was not unlike that which, in these 
 latter days, has fallen to the lot of Mr. Huntington in 
 the dispersal of the Hoe and Huth collections. The 
 similarity, however, ceases when we compare the prices 
 Miller paid at the Heber sale with those that have pre- 
 vailed duruig the last few years. Information regarding 
 the volumes m this "rather jealously-guarded repository," 
 the Britwell Library, is difl&cult to obtain as we are able 
 to testify, it bemg one of the exceptionally few Hbraries 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 47 
 
 which decHned to answer, or rather ignored repeated 
 letters applying for information to be used ia the Church 
 Catalogue. The best printed sources respecting it we 
 have found in Hazhtt's series of Bibliographical Collec- 
 tions and Notes and in Fletcher's English Book Collectors. 
 
 Mention has been made of Frederick Locker-Lampson, 
 the author of London Lyrics and other vers de societe. 
 Obhged at an early age to abandon business, he devoted 
 the rest of his life to self-culture as a virtuoso and book- 
 lover. He went much in society and enjoyed the friend- 
 ship of many distinguished persons of aU classes. He 
 knew Lord Tennyson, Thackeray, Lord Houghton, Lord 
 Lytton, George Eliot, Dickens, TroUope, Dean Stanley 
 (his brother-in-law), Hajrward, Kinglake, Cruikshank, 
 Du Maurier, and many others and had met and con- 
 versed with almost every distinguished contemporary 
 of his day. He was an alert and enthusiastic collector. 
 Hazlitt says he "might have been occasionally seen at 
 an early hour walking up and down on the pavement, 
 awaiting the arrival of some bookseller, ia whose brand- 
 new catalogue had appeared a nugget to his taste." He 
 tells us in his autobiography, entitled My Confidences, 
 pubUshed after his death, how he formed the nucleus 
 of his Ubrary by collecting "httle volumes of poetry and 
 the drama from about 1590 to 1610." To these he sub- 
 sequently added rare editions of Sidney, Spencer, Church- 
 yard, Middleton, Herbert, Herrick, Dekker, Chapman, 
 and many other writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 
48 Book-Collectors as 
 
 centuries, including a considerable number of the quarto 
 editions of Shakespeare's poems and plays. The latter, 
 as we have already seen, attracted the attention of Mr. 
 Church and induced him to purchase the entire collection 
 when the exigencies of the Locker-Lampson family re- 
 quired that they should part with it. The Rowfant 
 Ubrary was also rich in first editions of the Victorian poets, 
 many of them with autograph inscriptions from their 
 authors to the collector himself, and in autograph letters, 
 pictures, and drawings. The transfer of the entire hbrary 
 to this country, as usual, whenever any Uterary treas- 
 ures are brought here, eHcited much comment and 
 protest among Enghsh book-lovers. According to the 
 London Standard, Sir Sidney Lee, the well-known 
 Shakespearian scholar, is said to have remarked in a 
 speech: "On the adverse side of any account, which 
 appraised the public interest taken at the moment in 
 Shakespeare in this coimtry, must be set the recent 
 triumphs of American collectors in stripping this country 
 of rare early editions of Shakespeare's plays and poems 
 — editions which had long been regarded among its 
 national heirlooms. The unique first Quarto of "Titus 
 Andronicus," which had lately been discovered in Sweden, 
 was promptly secured at an enormous price by an Ameri- 
 can enthusiast. More lamentable was the sudden flight 
 to the shop of a bookseller in New York of the surpassingly 
 rich library of the late Mr. Locker-Lampson, of Rowfant. 
 "At one fell swoop the country has been deprived by 
 this transaction of as many as twenty-seven copies of 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 49 
 
 lifetime editions of Shakespeare's plays, with much else 
 of almost equal rarity and interest. Never in the history 
 of English book-collecting had this country lost suddenly 
 and secretly such a treasure of Shakespeariana, although 
 some inferior stores of Shakespeariana had suffered 
 the like experience. Before the officers of any public 
 institution like the British Museum or the Bodleian 
 Library, before any private EngKsh collector had 
 any suspicion of their impending fate, those Rowfant 
 volumes crossed the Atlantic, never in all probabihty to 
 return. 
 
 "While we admired the superior enterprise of the 
 American collector, we could not but grieve over the 
 insensibility of our own rich men, who allowed these 
 heirlooms to leave our shores without making any effort 
 to retain them here." If the loss to England of the 
 Rowfant FoUo and Quartos, following as it did the mys- 
 terious disappearance of the Warwick Collection, was 
 able to throw Sir Sidney Lee into a state of mind which 
 provoked the above utterance, we leave it to our readers 
 to imagine the frenzy into which he must have been 
 thrown when he first learned that the Huth and then the 
 Devonshire Collections had followed those previous 
 emigrants across the Atlantic. These constantly increas- 
 ing changes of habitat among bibliographical rarities 
 conclusively prove that EngHshmen value their sovereigns 
 more than their literary treasures. 
 
 The transfer, above referred to, of the Warwick Col- 
 lection of Shakespeare Folios and Quartos to our shores 
 
50 Book-Collectors as 
 
 has been characterized by a well-known EngKsh bibli- 
 ographer as "a shame-faced affair," in which the mouths 
 of all those cognizant of it were sealed to secrecy. Enough 
 shreds of evidence have, however, leaked out to prove 
 satisfactorily that the hand which reached across the 
 Atlantic and seized the unique first edition of "Titus 
 Andronicus," discovered at Lund, Sweden, in January, 
 1905, also added the Warwick Collection to the 
 spoils which its owner now regards "as the finest 
 hbrary of Shakespeariana in America, comprising some 
 20,000 vols." 
 
 In 1886 Locker-Lampson privately printed a catalogue 
 of his treasures, which was preceded by an introduction 
 by himself and several short poems by his friends, among 
 others one of several charming stanzas by Andrew Lang, 
 in which he smgs the praises of the Hbrary. The second 
 stanza runs thus: 
 
 The Rowfant books ! In sun and snow 
 
 They're dear, but most when tempests fall; 
 The folio towers above the row 
 
 As once, o'er minor prophets, — Saul! 
 
 What jolly jest books, and what small 
 "Dear dumpy Twelves" to fill the nooks. 
 
 You do not find in every stall 
 The Rowfant books ! 
 
 In 1900 an Appendix to the Catalogue, containing 
 additions to the collection, was issued by Mr. Godfrey 
 Locker-Lampson. To this Mr. Lang again contributed 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 51 
 
 some verses praising the son for sharing the tastes of his 
 father, as follows : 
 
 How often to the worthy Sire, 
 
 Succeeds th' unworthy son! 
 Extmguished is the ancient fire, 
 Books were the idols of the Squire, 
 
 The graceless heir has none. 
 
 To Sotheby's go both old and new. 
 
 Bindings, and prose, and rhymes, 
 With Shakespeare as with Padeloup 
 The sportive lord has naught to do. 
 He reads The Sporting Times. 
 
 Behold a special act of grace, 
 
 On Rowfant shelves behold, 
 The well-loved honours keep their place. 
 And new-worn glories half efface 
 
 The splendours of the old. 
 
 It has been remarked that when a book-collector 
 prints a catalogue its appearance is likely sooner or later 
 to be followed by the sale of his Ubrary. Whether such 
 be the case or not, it at least indicates that the collector 
 has so far realized his bibliographical ambitions as to 
 consider his collection reasonably complete and that 
 future accessions to it will be few and comparatively 
 unimportant. The collector is by nature prudent, not 
 to say secretive, in disposition and is not given to taking 
 the public into his confidence, especially as by so doing 
 he would in a great measure thwart his own ends. For 
 
52 Book-Collectors as 
 
 the publication of a catalogue not only discloses what he 
 already possesses; but, to his rivals, and especially to deal- 
 ers, the gaps in his collection, and the unscrupulous are 
 ever ready to profit by such disclosures. Hence it is that 
 the pubhcation of a catalogue is a virtual admission that 
 the collector has withdrawn from the field. Such a step, 
 when taken by collectors, with this understanding, is, 
 no doubt, a wise one for several reasons. First, the cata- 
 logue, when properly prepared, serves as a contribution 
 to knowledge by imparting information of a special nature 
 concerning the hterature of the subject which forms the 
 basis of the collection; again it serves to inform scholars, 
 as well as other collectors, where certain hterary or bib- 
 Hographical rarities may be found; and finally in case 
 the collection should be dispersed, as past bibhographical 
 history demonstrates is too often the common fate, the 
 publicity given to the collection by its catalogue is more 
 than likely to increase at its sale the number of competi- 
 tors for its treasures, and so add largely to the amount 
 realized; nor is it to be wondered at that the expense 
 attending the preparation and printing of the catalogue 
 itself may often in consequence be more than reimbursed. 
 Andrew Lang's verses in the Appendix to the Rowfant 
 Catalogue are, as we have seen, dehghtfuUy expressed 
 and convey an exquisite compliment, but unfortunately 
 he failed to take into account a very important con- 
 tingency. It sometimes happens that the cultivated 
 tastes of the father are inherited by his son and that the 
 latter instinctively takes up the work where the former 
 
Benef actors of Libraries 53 
 
 dropped it and carries it on in such wise as to add further 
 luster to the family name, as we have seen was done by 
 the Browns in Providence; but, unhappily, family exi- 
 gencies arise that caU for a sacrifice of tastes; for a parting 
 with the luxuries of life to meet its necessities. Such 
 a consideration is far from poetical, and had the writing 
 of Lang's verses been deferred for a Kttle the collector's 
 family would have been spared the poignant pain elicited 
 by perusing this poem and the world would probably 
 never have enjoyed the pleasure of reading the noble 
 sentiments so delicately expressed in these graceful lines. 
 The Rowf ant Catalogue, as has already been observed, 
 gave to Mr. Church the idea of adding to his own col- 
 lection its Shakespearian treasures, and a few others, 
 thereby giving it world-wide celebrity. 
 
 No matter how arduously or successfully the book- 
 collector pursues his quarry, the time inevitably comes 
 when he must give o'er the chase. The history of book- 
 coUecting shows that while by far the greater number of 
 private collections have been dispersed, a very consider- 
 able number have in one way or another passed, wholly 
 or partially, into the possession of public Ubraries. 
 Edward Edwards at the end of his Free Town Libraries 
 gives a Ust of over one thousand private collections, most 
 of which have found a final resting-place in pubUc libraries. 
 This list naturally includes only the most prominent 
 ones, there being many of smaller private collections, 
 mentioned in his other works relating to Ubraries, that 
 
54 Book-Collectors as 
 
 have also become integral parts of public collections but 
 which he did not consider of sufficient importance to 
 include in the Ust just mentioned. 
 
 The question naturally arises, How are pubUc libraries 
 benefited by the accumulation of private collections 
 formed by the bibhomaniac, the book-coUector, the 
 dilettanti, the scholar, and the more modest lover of 
 books ? The tendency of the present day, as it has ever 
 been, is for rare and costly books to gravitate toward 
 public Ubraries. Dealers and bibliophiles recognize this 
 fact as the primary cause for the increasing scarcity and 
 consequent rise in prices of aU kinds of book rarities. 
 Many a collector ambitious to make a complete collection 
 in some branch of Hterature, history, or art is confronted 
 with the unwelcome information that of certain editions 
 or books necessary for the completion of his collection 
 but a single copy is in existence and that is locked up in 
 a pubhc collection so that it can never be met with in the 
 open market. Many such imique copies, once the chief 
 treasures of private collections, have at last foimd their 
 way into pubhc libraries. 
 
 Book-collectors are, either directly or indirectly, of 
 benefit to pubhc hbraries in a variety of ways. Direct 
 benefactions by book-coUectors to libraries take a variety 
 of forms: (i) by founding libraries or other institutions 
 in which a hbrary is an essential feature; (2) by aiding 
 in the founding of hbraries or of such institutions; or 
 (3) by aiding hbraries already in existence. 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 55 
 
 The best example of the founding of a library is that 
 in which {a) a collection of books conspicuously impor- 
 tant or complete in some particular field of knowledge or 
 as an aU-round collection is donated to form the nucleus 
 of a library; for which {h) a suitable and appropriate 
 building, capable of aU necessary future extensions, is pro- 
 vided for its preservation and protection, and (c) for the 
 adequate maintenance, administration, and growth of 
 these, an ample income is perpetually assured by a safely 
 invested and permanent fund. Without attempting to 
 name more than a few examples of such libraries as fall 
 under this and the foregoing divisions, the John Carter 
 Brown, Lenox, and the Hispanic Society libraries seem 
 good examples in which all these conditions have been 
 met. 
 
 To the class of libraries which have been built up from 
 Uberal endowments belong such as the Astor, Newberry, 
 John Crerar, and Enoch Pratt libraries. The funds being 
 provided, the collections of books and buildings foUow 
 as a natural consequence. 
 
 The Blackstone Memorial Library, at Branford, 
 Connecticut, is an instance in which a building was erected 
 and funds provided for the formation of a library. Other 
 examples of the same kind will no doubt occur to the 
 reader. The erection of a building by a donor with the 
 understanding or condition that others provide the 
 library and maintain it, the Carnegie method, more 
 properly belongs to our second class — ^aid in the foxmding 
 of Ubraries. 
 
56 Book-Collectors as 
 
 The founders of the Leland Stanford and Cornell 
 universities, the Pratt Institute, and such other insti- 
 tutions as require a hbrary in order to properly carry out 
 the purposes of their existence may also be classed among 
 Ubrary benefactors. 
 
 Another class of library benefactors is composed of 
 those book-collectors and book-lovers who afford aid 
 during the formation of a pubhc hbrary. An example 
 falling within this category is that of Joshua Bates, the 
 London banker, who, learning that a public hbrary was 
 to be started in Boston, gave $50,000 as a fund on con- 
 dition that the interest be expended for books. He 
 afterward donated 30,000 volumes, equal in value to his 
 previous gift, which formed a part of the hbrary in the 
 Upper HaU when it was opened to the pubhc in 1861. 
 After his death in 1864 its name was, in his honor, changed 
 to that of Bates HaU. 
 
 The classes of benefactions just named, excepting 
 the first in which the collection of some collector is 
 employed as the nucleus of a new hbrary, apply more 
 particularly to book-lovers in general than to book- 
 coUectors as such. The latter, using the term in its 
 usuaUy restricted sense, are more prone to assist existing 
 libraries than to found or to aid new ones. This is no 
 doubt accounted for by the fact that their time and 
 energies are for the most part engaged in amassing their 
 collections, the question of its final disposition, if the 
 thought enters into their minds at aU, being deferred for 
 later consideration. 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 57 
 
 The gift made by Edward Capell, the Shakespearian 
 commentator, of his collection of Shakespearian FoHos 
 and Quartos to Trinity CoUege, Cambridge, during his 
 lifetime, seems on the whole quite ideal. In such a case 
 the collector enjoys the satisfaction of seeing his Ubrary 
 placed where he most desires to see it and under condi- 
 tions and restrictions mutually acceptable to donor and 
 recipient. The former is, furthermore, saved any anxiety, 
 lest his wishes regarding its ultimate disposition should 
 faU to be carried out by his heirs or legal representatives. 
 The gift of the Old Royal Library of the Kings of Eng- 
 land, made by George II. to the British Museum, may 
 perhaps be considered as falling within this description. 
 By this important donation the Museum came into 
 possession, among a host of other rarities, of the Codex 
 Alexandrinus, the youngest of the three earUest known 
 manuscripts of the Bible; a long series of the early EngUsh 
 chronicles; the autograph manuscript of Basilicon, 
 written by Prince Henry; and a choice collection of books 
 printed on vellum by Anthony V6rard of Paris and pre- 
 sented by him to King Henry VII. 
 
 The form in which by far the greater number of 
 private Ubraries find their way into pubUc collections 
 is by bequest. This form of gift is no doubt due to the 
 feeling naturally entertained by every collector who 
 would like to have his collection preserved as he formed 
 it, together with such additions as may subsequently be 
 added to make it more complete. Corroboration of this 
 view is given by what we read in the Uves of many 
 
58 Book-Collectors as 
 
 collectors who continued their pursuit of book rarities up 
 to the very end of their lives. It is to this large class 
 of gifts that pubhc hbraries are indebted for many of 
 their most valuable and prized acquisitions. The private 
 collector possesses an advantage over the public Hbrary 
 inasmuch as he is able to confine his pursuit to a restricted 
 field of his own choice. The pubhc Hbrary, au contraire, 
 is compelled to cater to readers in aU fields of hterature, 
 science, art, history, et cetera, and to provide for their 
 use many expensive works of reference. Being, too, 
 as a rule, hampered by restricted means, it cannot special- 
 ize on any particular subject. Few, indeed, are the 
 pubUc hbraries that would be justified, for instance, in 
 buying all the different editions of any single author, 
 as Rossetti did those of Petrarch, unless it were endowed 
 with a fund especially devoted to that purpose. After 
 all, the book-coUector does this work so much better and 
 more thoroughly than any hbrarian can ever hope to do 
 it that the latter should be content to aim at building 
 up a well-roimded collection in his hbrary, speciahzing, 
 if at aU, only in those branches for which there is a caU 
 because of local conditions. At the same time he should 
 neglect no opportunity of using his influence with any 
 book-coUectors with whom he may be acquainted to 
 induce them to donate their collections, if suitable, to his 
 own hbrary. In this respect he cannot follow a better 
 example than that of Panizzi, the hbrarian of the British 
 Museum, who did much through his friendship with 
 Thomas Grenville to influence him to leave his uivaluable 
 collection to the British nation. 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 59 
 
 The indirect benefits which accrue to Ubraries from 
 the collections of book-coUectors are various. Though 
 the collector makes no provision for the disposition of his 
 treasures after they have passed beyond his control, yet 
 there have been numerous instances in which the public 
 has benefited greatly. The pleasure of the chase, much 
 more than acquisition, forms, if we may believe human 
 nature, the chief enjoyment of the collector. No sooner 
 is one nugget bagged than it is well-nigh forgotten in 
 the all-absorbing excitement accompanying the discovery 
 of another prize upon whose capture the very honor of his 
 collection seems to him to depend. Your true collector 
 scorns the idea of bringing together a library with the 
 expectation of ultimately reaping a profit on his outlay 
 by its final disposal. Into it have gone experience, expert 
 knowledge, the energy and watchfulness of years, and 
 many other mental quaUties upon which no monetary 
 value can by any possibihty be placed. Hence it is that 
 the pecuniary value of a collection can by no means be 
 gauged by the amount it has cost or what it will bring at 
 pubUc sale even under the most favorable circimistances. 
 
 It is because of these reasons that a collection, which 
 will fit into or supplement the books on the shelves of 
 a library, should, other conditions being favorable, be 
 purchased outright by its authorities. 
 
 PubKc libraries able to do this are not numerous: on 
 the contrary, it more often happens that, recognizing 
 the desirabiUty of possessing such a collection that has 
 come into the market or can be procured by private 
 negotiations, weU-wishers of the Ubrary or its authorities 
 
6o Book-Collectors as 
 
 persuade one or more of its friends to purchase the col- 
 lection and donate it to the Ubrary. The Thomason 
 collection of tracts relating to the EngUsh Revolution 
 (1640-1663) was bought from Thomason's ultimate 
 successors in 1762, nearly a hundred years after his death, 
 by King George III., and by him presented to the British 
 Museum. This collection contained 33,000 pamphlets 
 boimd in 2,200 volumes and is a vast and invaluable 
 storehouse of information regarding the history of those 
 turbulent times. 
 
 It sometimes happens that a private collection is 
 given to a library not by the collector himseH but by his 
 heirs or descendants some years after his death. The 
 hbraries of Increase and Cotton Mather, father and son, 
 two distinguished divines and voluminous authors, were 
 the earhest ones formed in Massachusetts and contained 
 many notable manuscripts. They descended to Mrs. 
 Hannah Mather Crocker, a member of the family, who 
 through the instrumentality of Isaiah Thomas, of Worces- 
 ter, Massachusetts, presented them to the American 
 Antiquarian Society, of which he was the founder. 
 
 As aheady intimated, many private libraries are 
 constantly being dispersed in the numerous book-auction 
 rooms in our large cities. Scarcely a day passes during 
 the season, extending from early autumn until late in 
 the spring, when sales are not taking place in Boston, 
 New York, or Philadelphia, in London or in Paris, and 
 often sales are being carried on simultaneously. That 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 6i 
 
 dealers and collectors may keep track of the prices at 
 which these are sold there have been issued annually for 
 many years in New York and in London volumes giving 
 the prices of aU books bringing more than $3.00 or £1, 
 respectively. 
 
 The dispersal of private collections at these sales is 
 an indirect if not a positive benefit to pubUc libraries. 
 As the auctioneers desire to give as much publicity as 
 possible to these sales, catalogues are sent to aU pro- 
 spective customers, libraries included. By this means 
 librarians are enabled to secure many desiderata either 
 by filing their bids with the auctioneers, their booksellers, 
 or with some of the many accredited persons who make 
 it their business to attend these sales and buy on com- 
 mission for their patrons. In this way books are fre- 
 quently secured at prices much below those they would 
 have to pay second-hand booksellers, and so it is that 
 libraries receive a direct benefit from the dispersal of a 
 book-collector's library. The auction-room at the Brin- 
 ley sales presented an unusual spectacle by which the 
 libraries of several colleges were much benefited. Mr. 
 Brinley bequeathed books to the value of $25,000 to 
 Yale and a number of other colleges, the representatives 
 of which were obUged by the stipulations of his wUl to be 
 present at the sales and compete with other purchasers. 
 They were required, however, to pay for their purchases 
 only the amount that their specific bequest had been 
 exceeded. This shrewd course resulted in increasing 
 the number of competitors at the sales and, as a conse- 
 
62 Book-Collectors as 
 
 quence, many of the books sold for what were, at the 
 time, record prices. Those prices have, however, been 
 so far exceeded since then that the prices then reahzed 
 now seem extremely low. 
 
 Furthermore, such sales are widely known by dealers, 
 who, as we have seen, make use of them for the replen- 
 ishment of their stock. Book-collectors themselves, to 
 whom catalogues are sent, also purchase directly for their 
 collections. Books thus pass either into the hands of the 
 dealers, from whom they may be bought by the hbrarian 
 if he pleases, or into the collection of some other private 
 collector, whose library wiU inevitably, in time, pass 
 directly into some pubUc library or in its turn be 
 dispersed for the benefit of those into whose hands its 
 separate items may chance to fall. 
 
 By leaving a printed catalogue of his Ubrary the book- 
 coUector, no matter what may be its final disposition, 
 confers a benefit to pubhc libraries as well as to all book- 
 lovers. In so doing he leaves a record of what he has 
 accomphshed as a lover and conservator of literature. 
 Not only does he do this but he also makes a contri- 
 bution to knowledge and to bibHography by pubhshing 
 a permanent record of what he has been able to rescue 
 of a certain kind of literature from the devastating hands 
 of time. It is safe to say that the collector who has 
 reached a point where he is ready to print a catalogue 
 has formed a collection which, for one reason or another, 
 is worthy of being catalogued. The world is the richer 
 

 ROBERT HOE 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 63 
 
 by reason of the catalogues of the private libraries that 
 have been issued. Among these the most conspicuous 
 are perhaps those of the Grenville, Huth, Locker- 
 Lampson, Hoe, and Church collections. 
 
 Much more might be said upon this interesting subject 
 and numerous other examples given to show that the 
 book-collector is the ally and friend of the public library, 
 though at times he seems to stand in the way of its growth. 
 We cannot, perhaps, close these somewhat discursive 
 remarks more appropriately than by quoting once more 
 a passage from Burton's Book-Hunter, in which he shows 
 how much the British Museum owes to private col- 
 lectors for its multitudinous book rarities. 
 
 "In the pubUc duty of creating great hbraries, and 
 generally of preserving the literature of the world from 
 being lost to it, the collector's or book-hunter's services 
 are great and varied. In the first place, many of the 
 great pubUc libraries have been absolute donations of the 
 treasures to which some enthusiastic literary sportsman 
 has devoted his life and fortune. Its gradual accumu- 
 lation has been the great solace and enjoyment of his 
 active days; he has beheld it, in his old age, a splendid 
 monument of enlightened exertion, and he resolves that, 
 when he can no longer caU it his own, it shall preserve the 
 relics of past literature for ages yet to come, and form a 
 center whence scholarship and intellectual refinement shall 
 diffuse themselves around. We can see this influence 
 in its most specific and material shape, perhaps, by look- 
 ing round the reading-room of the British Museum — 
 
64 Book-Collectors as 
 
 that great manufactory of intellectual produce, where 
 so many heads are at work. The beginning of this great 
 institution, as everybody knows, was in the fifty thousand 
 volumes collected by Sir Hans Sloane — a wonderful 
 achievement for a private gentleman at the beginning of 
 the last [eighteenth] century. When George III. gave 
 it the hbraries of the kings of England, it gained, as it 
 were, a better start still by absorbing collections which 
 had begun before Sloane was born — those of Cranmer, 
 Prince Henry, and Casaubon. ... In many instances 
 the collectors, whose stores have thus gone to the public, 
 have merely followed their book-hunting propensities, 
 without having the merit of framing the ultimate destiny 
 of their collections, but in others the intention of doing 
 benefit to the world has added zest and energy to the 
 chase." Finis coronal opus. 
 
 SYLLABUS 
 
 I. Introductory. Pp. 3-4. 
 
 II. Book-collecting before the invention of printing. Part 
 the monasteries played. St. Augustine. Theodore of 
 Tarsus. Richard de Bury. Pp. 4-6. 
 
 III. Invention of printing and the dissolution of the monasteries 
 as incentives to book-collecting. Some of the men who 
 saved MSS from the grocer, the tailor, and the goldbeater. 
 Pp. 6-7. 
 
 Collectors not often women. Lady Balcarres an enemy of 
 books. Frances Richardson Currer a friend and collector 
 of books. Pp. 7-9. 
 
Benefactors of Libraries 65 
 
 IV. Motives of collectors. 
 
 1. Books as tools. Hubert Howe Bancroft's library as an 
 example. Pp. 9-1 1. 
 
 2. Books collected as objects of art or for the sake of pos- 
 session. P. 12. 
 
 3. Combination of these two. Thomas Grenville. Elihu 
 Dwight Church. Robert Hoe. Pp. 12-14. 
 
 V. Some manuscript collectors: 
 
 William Keeney Bixby, J. Pierpont Morgan, John Forster. 
 Pp. 14-15- 
 VI. Incunabula — extension of the term. 
 
 1. American. Conditions under which collectors work in 
 America, and some of the rarities they have seciu-ed. 
 Massachusetts Historical Society Library. Church Li- 
 brary. Pp. 15-19. 
 
 2. European. In America: the General Rush Hawkins 
 collection and the Adolph Sutro collection. Pp. 19-21. 
 
 VII. Collections of works and editions of a single author. 
 
 Cervantes collection in British Museum. Petrarch col- 
 lection in Trieste. Pp. 21-22. 
 
 VIII. Collecting of first editions. Discussion of its advisability, 
 etc. Pp. 22-25. 
 
 IX. Books with illustrations as objects for collection. 
 
 Albrecht Diirer. Thomas Bewick. George Cruikshank. 
 Thomas Rowlandson (plus WiUiam Combe). Pp. 25-27. 
 
 X. Methods of collectors, or kinds of collectors. 
 
 Prowlers. George Brinley and the paper mills. Lord 
 Spencer and Thomas FrognaU Dibdin, his Ubrarian. 
 Buyers of collections. Church collection and Shakespeare. 
 Second-hand man, auction-room, and dealer. Pp. 27-32. 
 
66 Book-Collectors as Benefactors of Libraries 
 
 XI. Collections noted for quaUty rather than for size. 
 
 1. Edward Capell collection. Church collection. Pp. 32-36. 
 
 2. Collections noted for size. Richard Heber. Zaluski. 
 Sutro. Count Otho de Thott. Pp. 36-39. 
 
 XII. Temporary relaxation of effort among collectors. 
 
 Lost opportunities. Henry Stevens about James Lenox. 
 Church, Henry Huth, Brinley, John Carter Brown. 
 Pp. 39-42. 
 
 XIII. Collections usually due to individual effort. Pp. 42-43. 
 
 XIV. Some hereditary collections. 
 
 John Rylands Library. J. C. Brown, at Providence, Rhode 
 Island. Sir Robert Gordon. "Measure" MiUer and the 
 Britwell Library. Frederick Locker-Lampson and the 
 Rowfant Library. Pp. 43-49. (Quotations from Andrew 
 Lang anent this last subject. Pp. 50-51.) 
 
 XV. Printed catalogues of private collections. 
 
 Catalogue, completion of collection, and its prospective 
 sale. Advantages of a catalogue. Pp. 51-53. 
 
 XVI. Final disposition of private libraries. 
 
 Public hbraries founded. J. C. Brown, Lenox, Hispanic 
 Society. 
 
 Endowments. Astor, Newberry, Crerar, Pratt. Black- 
 stone Library. Joshua Bates. Other benefits. Pp. 53-58. 
 Indirect benefits. Pp. 59-60. 
 
 Sales of private hbraries. Brinley sales. Part the col- 
 lector's catalogue plays. Pp. 60-62. 
 
 XVII. Conclusion and quotation from Burton's Book-Hunter. 
 Pp. 62-64. 
 
,,,^ Cornell University Library 
 
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 Book-collectors as benefactors ot public 
 
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