^1 ^ «^TN? ,ve^ >*< BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg W. Sage 1891 A V'^A»r^Co:i (a|i.o|lao£ Cornell University Library Z992.S63 H8 How to collect books. By J. Herbert Slat olln 3 1924 029 546 201 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029546201 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME, Post Svo, with numerous Illustrations. HOW TO LOOK AT PICTURES. By R. C. Witt, M.A. Third Edition. With 40 Illustrations. 5j. net. *'This book, which we have read with great pleasure, shows that the author has both wide sympathy and knowledge, and it cannot but be largely helpful to those who wish to increase theu- interest in pictures. A better gift for people who are dimly ' fond of pictures,' but who regret that ' they know nothing about them,' could not be found." — Spectator. " One of the best books we have read on the knowledge and criticism of pic- tures." — British Architect. YiO^ TO IDENTIFY OLD CHINA. By Mrs. Willoughby Hodgson. Third Edition. With 40 plates and numerous reproduc- tions of marks. 5J. net. " The authoress . . . has a very thorough grip of her subject, and has been at great pains to supply just the information most needed by the amateur collector." — Studio, "The description of each kind of ware is lucid; the examples chosen for illustration are admirably typical. Wehave tested the value of the book in the only practical manner, and have found it exceedingly useful." — Morning Post. " The information given is precisely what is needed, and is particuUirly well arranged, with a preliminary chapter of practical advice." — Westminster Gazette. HOW TO COLLECT OLD FURNITURE. By Frederick Litch- field, Author of ** Illustrated History of Furniture," etc. Second Edition. With 40 plates and numerous illustrations in the text. 6j.net. "The book is, without question, the most interesting and informing guide that the modern passion for antique furniture has produced. " — Pall Mall Gazette. " Histories of furniture exist in abundance, but we know of no other book which will be of such use to the ordinary collector. Mr. Litchfield has had a long experience of the ways of dealers, and he gives his readers the full benefit of it. The two chapters on ' Faked Furniture ' and * Hints and Cautions ' are alone worth the price of the volume." — Daily Chronicle. HOW TO IDENTIFY PORTRAIT MINIATURES. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. With Chapters on How to Paint Miniatures, by Alyn Williams, R.B.A., A.R.C.A. Second Edition. With 40 plates illustrating upwards of 70 miniatures, ds. net. "Contains much valuable information for the collector of examples of this form of art. The book is finely illustrated, and is enriched with chapters explain- ing technicalities and describing the special qualifications ofa miniature painter." — Morning Post. " By its arrangement and contents this most useful book will be found of the greatest assistance to the collector. ... In view of the revival of this fas- cinating art, some extremely helpful chapters on the practical side have been added by that distinguished miniaturist, Mr. Alyn Williams, which, with the admirable reproduction of characteristic examples, cannot fail to make this volume a very valuable contribution to the literature o{thesuhji:a."—St./atiies'sGazeite. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK HOUSE, PORTUGAL STREET, W.C. HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS LONDON: GKOKGE BELL AND SONS PORTUGAL ST. LINCOLN'S INN, W.C. CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL & CO. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER & CO. FROM A FLEMISH .MS. " HOR.MC " OF THE L.VTTER P.\RT OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY \}''to)!tispieLC HOW to COLLECT BOOKS BY J: HERBERT SLATER EDITOR OF "BOOK PRICES CURRENT," AUTHOR OF "EARLY EDITIONS," " THE ROMANCE OF BOOK-COLLECTING," " ENGRAV- INGS AND THEIR VALUE," ETC. LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1905 CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. PREFACE AN attempt is made in the following pages to anticipate some of the questions most likely to be asked by the collector of books at the com- mencement of his career. The treatise is in effect a handbook designed, and it is to be hoped destined, so far as its limits extend, to let a little light upon the simpler phases of a subject which in its more ambitious aspects is exceedingly com- plicated and beyond the power of any one to master in its entirety. All that can be done within the limits of a single volume, dealing as this does with a variety of subjects, is to touch the fringe of each and to quote authorities capable of leading the reader some further distance along his road when he has taken leave of me. These authorities, which are quoted in italics in the Index, are all of excellent standing. They are for the most part readily accessible and that also is an additional point in their favour. J. H.S. Croydon, Surrey. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PREFACE V I. HINTS TO BEGINNERS i The modern collector — Necessity for rules — The Roxburghe Library — Fashion in book-collecting — The question of cost — Scarcity — " Uncut " books — Original bindings and variations — Binding parts or numbers — Large and small paper copies — " Limited editions " — Editions de Luxe — Pedigrees of books — Buying to sell again — Imperfect copies and odd volumes. II. SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS 17 Sizes of books — Table of measurements of whole sheets — Diagrams showing method of folding — " Signatures " — Books printed on half sheets — Judg- ing size by catchwords, watermarks, waterlines, and measurements — Table of approximate measurements of books — The method of collation — The " Orlando Furioso" of 1584 — Restoring books- — Damp— Book- worms — Grease marks — Surface stains — Ink, iron, lead, and pencil marks — Restoration of leather, vellum, and cloth bindings. in. MANUSCRIPTS 34 Manuscripts necessarily unique — Their importance and rarity — The earliest existing manuscripts — The fate of ancient libraries — Some early classical manu- scripts — Lost classics — Corrupt texts — Two main classes of manuscripts — Monastic manuscripts — Judg- ing the age of a manuscript — Books to consult — Characteristics of the earliest manuscripts — Psalters, vii CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE bibles, and devotional books — Chronicles, romances, and other works — The collation of manuscripts — Different classes of devotional books — The public libraries. IV. PAPER AND PAPER MARKS 50 "Water marks'' defined — Useful sometimes in detecting fabrications — The Ireland forgeries — Un- authorized issues of books — Byron's " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" — The Papyrus — Leaves of palm, olive, and poplar — Parchment — Introduction of paper into Europe and England — The first Eng- lish paper mill — India and Japan papers — Laid and wove papers — Water or paper marks — The oldest form of the " water mark " — Various examples — Books of reference. V. THE TITLE-PAGE AND THE COLOPHON . 62 The earliest books were modelled on manuscripts — The "Mazarin" Bible — The rubricators — Colo- phons — The evolution of the title-page — " Label " title-pages — Half-titles — The first English title-pages — The merits of the old title-pages — John Bagford's collection — The "Paradise Lost" titles — List of Latinized place-names — Roman numerals. VI. INCUNABULA AND THE EARLY PRINTERS 78 Incunabula — Xylography — Block books — Wooden types — Donatuses — Catho — Early progress of the printers' art — The claims of Gutenberg and Coster —The "Indulgence" of Nicholas V— The "Mazarin" Bible — Pfister's Bible— The Psalter of 1457 — Guten- berg and Fust — Fust and Schoeffer — Early presses in Germany — in the Netherlands — in Italy — in France — in England — William Caxton — The Oxford Press — Lettou and Machlinia — The "Schoolmaster" of St. Albans — Printing in Scotland, Ireland, and America — Characteristics of early printed books. VII. ILLUSTRATED BOOKS 94 Printed initial letters — The first illustrated books — "Thymage or Myrrour of the World" — "Gameand viii CONTENTS Playe of the Chesse " — The " Hypnerotomachia " of 1499 — Book illustration in England — Hans Holbein — Halle's Chronicle — Illustrations from copper — The earliest English examples — Aims of the collector — The Bewicks — Blake's works — The Earl of Crewe's collection — Muir's facsimiles — Bartolozzi and other Illustrators — Rogers's "Italy" and "Poems"— The Liber Studiorum— The Liber Veritatis — Rowlandson, the Cruik- shanks, and others — Kinds of illustrated books chiefly in demand — The " Drawing-room books " — " Grangerizing " — Nicolas Ferrar — Examples of " Extra-Illustrated " books — Printers' marks. VIII. SOME CELEBRATED PRESSES .... no Specialist collectors — The Aldine Press — The El- zevir Presses — The Estiennes — The Plantin Press — ErhardRatdoIt — Jenson — The Junta — Geoffroy Tory— Etienne Dolet and Bodoni — English print- ers — John Daye — Baskerville — The Strawberry Hill and other Presses — The Kelmscott, Vale, Doves, Essex House, and Walpole Presses — Pri- vately printed books — The importance of a collec- tion considered apart from the individual books contained in it. IX. ON BOOKBINDING 129 Binding a protection — Rebinding books — Cloth bindings of the present day — Buckram — Vellum — Boards — Half bound books — Monastic bind- ings — The Byzantine style — Dagaeus the Monk — The Saracenic style — Early binding in Germany and the Netherlands — Early binding in Italy and France — The Fanfare and Pointillk styles — Bind- ing in England — The Winchester School — The cottage and Etruscan styles— The Harleian and Roxburghe styles — Eighteenth and nineteenth century binders — Roger Payne — Embroidered bindings — Decorated edges — Edwards of Halifax — Armorial bindings. X. GREAT COLLECTORS 147 Associations with the past — Binding as evidence ix CONTENTS CHAP. ^ PAGE of former ownership — La Bruyere's "Fool" — Lorenzo the Magnificent — "Tho Maioli at Ami- corum " — Other Italian collectors — Antonio Mag- liabecchi — Jean Grolier — The Golden Age of French collectors — Henri II and Diane de Poic- tiers — De Thou — Gabriel Naudd — Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin — Moliere — -"Graille," "Coche," and "Loque"— Marguerite d'Angouleme — Nodier and the later French School — L'Abbd Deseuil — The English collectors — Richard de Bury — The Royal Libraries — The Earls of Arundel and Leicester — Later and modern collectors. XL AUCTION SALES AND CATALOGUES i66 The first book auctions — Prices of books — Knowledge of their value essential — Books of reference — Auction statistics and catalogues — Alphabetical list of the principal book sales held from 1800 to date — Fluctuation in prices — The extent of the demand rules the price — Booksellers' catalogues — The principles of valuation — Books as an investment. XIL EARLY EDITIONS AND STRANGE BOOKS i8o Why early editions are preferred — The quality of illustrations— Author's personal supervision — Classes of books — Tiny volumes — Examples — Books printed from engraved plates — On coloured papers — Books cut from paper — Books on lead and palm leaves — Chained books — Condemned books — Curiously written books — Lord Dexter's masterpiece — Macaronic poetry — Books bound in human skin — Twin bindings — First books on given subjects. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Page of Manuscript, " Book of Hours," by a Flemish Illuminator of the latter part of the Fifteenth Century Frontispiece Diagrams showing the folding of Paper in the text 20-21 Pages of a French MS. "Horae," latter part of Fifteenth Century 45 A Paper Mill of the Sixteenth Century .... 54 Varieties of Paper Marks in the text 57-60 Page from the so-called " Mazarin Bible "... 62 Colophon to Higden's " Polychronicon " printed by Caxton in 1482 64 "Dives et Pauper," Earliest English Illustrated Title-page 66 Page from a Block Book 80 Portions of a Donatus supposed by Dr. Kloss to be THE Editio Prima, probably from types cast prior TO 1450 82 The 31-LINE " Indulgence" of Nicholas V, 1455 ■ • 84 Page from Fust and Schoeffer's Psalter of 1457 . 86 Page from the " Nova Rhetorica " (St. Albans), 1480 90 Woodcuts from the "Compilatio de Astrorum Scientia," 1489 in the text 97 Page from the " Game and Playe of the Chesse " by Caxton, circa 1481 98 Printer's Mark of Andro Myllar . . in the text 107 The Coupled Shield of Fust and Schoeffer „ 109 Page from the Virgil of 1501 (Aldus), probably THE first Book printed in Italics 112 Page from the first Book printed by Aldus, 1495 . 114 xi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Marks OF THE Aldine Press . . . . in the text 114-117 Marks OF THE Elzevirs in the text 120 Page from Baskerville's Greek Testament, 1763 . 124 Specimen of Byzantine Binding 134 Binding. The " Strap-work " Design 136 Section of Binding tooled d, la Fanfare 138 Binding showing the Fointille Style 138 A " Cottage " Binding . . 140 Section of a Binding by Roger Payne 142 Book from the Library of Maioli 148 Binding from the Library of Canevari 150 A Grolier Binding . . 152 Book from the Library of Marie de Medicis . . 154 Binding OF Henri II AND Diane DE Poitiers . . . 156 Binding OF THE Old Pretender 162 Page from the Priced Catalogue of the Roxburghe Sale, 1812 in the text 170 Actual Size of some of the Smallest Books (Dia- gram) in the text 187 A Twin Binding, or Binding dos d dos . . in the text 196 Xll HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS CHAPTER I HINTS TO BEGINNERS The modern collector — Necessity for rules — The Roxburghe Library — Fashion in book-collecting — The question of cost — Scarcity — " Uncut " books — Original bindings and variations — Binding parts or numbers — Large and small paper copies — " Limited editions " — Editions de Luxe — Pedigrees of books — Buying to sell again — Imperfect copies and odd volumes. A BOOK intended primarily for the guidance of the amateur may conveniently commence with observations of a general character suitable to its object, which is to compress into as small a compass as possible, having regard to the extensive and complicated nature of the subject, the prin- ciples which should actuate the inexperienced col- lector of books. One might almost be excused for supposing that collectors of literary works would by this time have but little to learn; that the ex- perience of many years, transmitted as it has been from one generation to another, would supply all that is necessary to enable them to set about their task in a thoroughly practical and confident man- ner, but this is in truth very far from being the case, chiefly, no doubt, because the necessary in- formation is contained in innumerable volumes, HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS many of them of a highly technical nature, and almost all written, not so much for amateurs as for bibliographers, or for those who are, at any rate, some way advanced along the long road that has literally no end. These books are, for the most part, contributions to some particular branch of a great subject, and only guides, as it were, from one stage of the journey to another. One of the first things to strike the amateur is the truism that as times change, so books have their day also, some classes being in greater request than others at different periods. There is also much to be learned with regard to condition, bind- ing, and other details which are very apt to be overlooked, though they areinrealityof thegreatest importance in these days of fine distinctions. The book-collector of the present age is fettered by rule and confined by necessity. The rule he may break, though only at his own heavy cost; the necessity he must submit to whether he will or no. It is the intensely practical necessity of limiting his requirements to a compass which is but narrow when compared with what it might be, for books are so numerous, and many of them so difficult to acquire that he must have something of the special- ist about him if he would be a collector in the modern acceptation of the term. These and many other points require elucidation before they can be thoroughly grasped, and much needs to be said regarding them, elementary though they may appear to be. We commence, then, by reminding the reader that there are two main divisions of bibliography. The first treats of books with reference to their form, degrees of rarity, the history of particular HINTS TO BEGINNERS copies or editions, and the prices that can be got for them — their money value, in fact. The second is concerned with their substance, their contents, and a critical judgement of their merits. With bibliography in the second of its aspects we have nothing to do in this volume, except, of course, incidentally, for it is true that merit is generally the primary point to be considered in questions affecting the importance of a book. Scarcity, ir- respective of merit or in spite of the want of it, sometimes works wonders, but not in the majority of cases. Rather should we regard scarcity as an auxiliary to recognized merit, and of little import- ance in itself. Some books are very scarce in the sense of being difficult to meet with when wanted, but if nobody wants them they are not in an im- proved position on that account. Collections of books are usually quite different in their scope and character from what they were but, let us say, a century ago. At that time a library was regarded as being good only to the extent of its capacity for answering the questions that might be addressed to it. An ideal library of that day would have been composed of standard works of reference upon every imaginable subject, so that the owner would not need to go elsewhere in search of information. An example of a library of this miscellaneous and useful character, though it contained many books which were then very scarce, and have since become excessively so, is furnished by the great collection formed by John, Duke of Roxburghe, which was sold by auction in 1 8 1 2. The bulky catalogue comprises books in every depart- ment of literature, and most of these had evidently been collected on a well-defined and settled plan, 3 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS with an eye to utility. From internal evidence it seems probable that the Duke followed the elabor- ate system disclosed by the catalogues of Gabriel Martin, to which Brunet afterwards had recourse. Martin, who died in 1761, had assimilated the systems of Gabriel Naudd (1643), Christofle de Savigny (1587), Florian Trefler ( 1 5 60), and Conrad Gesner(i548),themselvesfollowersofAldusManu- tius, who, in 1 498, issuedapriced catalogue of Greek books, distributed in five classes, said to be the first of its kind ever issued. This small catalogue, printed on a single leaf, contains but fourteen en- tries, but it is nevertheless extremely important, for it set an example that was afterwards followed by many other printers whose lists will be found in the second and third volumes of Maittaire's " Annales Typographic!." The classification of books, when extensively carried out, is really a classification of learning, and was so recognized by Achard in his " Cours Elementaire de Bibliographic." Gesner, above named, long dreamed of, and actually com- menced, a " Bibliotheca Universalis," or universal catalogue of books, but his life was too short, as would be that of any man who essayed so arduous a task, and his work is but a fragment. An ac- cessible classification is, however, elaborated in the first volume of Home's " Introduction to the Study of Bibliography," and Brunet presents us with a very detailed scheme in his " Manuel du Libraire." Were the Duke of Roxburghe alive now he would, in all probability, be a specialist; he would follow the fashion, for there is a fashion in book- collecting as in most other pursuits, and it is, more- over, continually changing. The great Dibdin was 4 HINTS TO BEGINNERS pained whenever he thought of the disrespect that was slowly but surely dogging really good and scholarly editions of the Classics. He has been dead nearly sixty years, and matters have grown much worse in this respect since his day. Cheap foreign reprints, often on thoroughly bad paper, and full of textual inaccuracies, are the supplanters of his old companions. A study of catalogues and a comparison of the prices paid for books of different classes at different periods would show, as in a mirror, the frolics of fashion and caprice. During the seventeenth cen- tury, works of a religious character are noticeable as having formed the staple of all important libraries; the Greek and Latin Classics also contributing to form a solid foundation. By degrees the ponderous works of the Fathers become less and less notice- able, but the Classics remain, and, with them, a sprinkling of other instructive books, lexicons, grammars, and so forth. Then follow the libraries of general utility, and all this time there was apparently little thought of market values, which were, in truth, small enough in most cases. The English Classics came next, and in their train the works of the minor dramatists and poets who abounded in Elizabethan times and later. In our day we see all but the very early editions of the Greek and Latin Classics almost entirely ignored ; the polemical works of the Fathers are of no account; the lexicons and grammars are not wanted. There may be, and are, exceptional books in each of these classes, but their existence serves no more useful purpose than to prove the rule. In these and other cases fashion, very gradually, but none the less surely, discarded whole classes of 5 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS books in favour of others, which, for a time, took their place till they too were ousted in their turn. The collectorwill now see the necessity of making his position as sure as possible, for, although he may acquire a collection, he cannot form a library unless he proceeds upon some definite and well digested plan. His object should be to secure copies of the best editions of the best writers — an enterprise demanding knowledge, judgement, and taste, rather than wealth. He may perhaps think that the change of fashion, hitherto spoken of, has been universal rather than in detail. But fashion moves with concentric sweeps ; not merely in a single curve which perhaps would hardly be per- ceptible during a lifetime, and, therefore, is not of great importance. Side by side with the slow movement a succession of quick changes takes place unceasingly, and it is with respect to these that the modern collector must be on his guard. As ther^e is a fashion in books, so also there is something much akin to caprice in the prices fre- quently paid for them. This question of cost has, unfortunately, to be reckoned with in the case of nearly all of us, though some collectors, those of the old school especially, think it derogatory to speak of money in connection with books. The majority of people are, however, compelled to count the cost, since they have very little oppor- tunity in these days of following the example of the Antiquary so delightfully taken off by Sir Walter Scott : " See this bundle of ballads, not one of them laterthan 1 700, and some of them a hundred years older. I wheedled an old woman out of these, who loved them better than her psalm-book. To- bacco, sir, snuff, and the ' Complete Syren ' were 6 HINTS TO BEGINNERS the equivalent ! For that mutilated copy of the ' Complaynt of Scotland ' I sat out the drinking of two dozen bottles of strong ale with the late learned proprietor, who, in gratitude, bequeathed it to me by his last Will. These little Elzevirs are the memoranda and trophies of many a walk by night and morning through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, St. Mary's Wynd — wherever, in fine, there were to be found brokers and trokers; those mis- cellaneous dealers in things rare and curious. How often have I stood haggling on a halfpenny, lest by a too ready acquiescence in the dealer's first price he should be led to suspect the value I set upon the article! How have I trembled lest some pass- ing stranger should crop in between me and the prize!" and so on and so on. This quotation sums up the position as it actually existed many years ago. Rather should we now say that he who would collect books must be pre- pared to buy them at a price that will not shame his judgement hereafter; that he should be prepared to avoid the fashionable volumes of the hour, and to join his faith absolutely to literature in its high- est and purest form, seeking the best and not ne- cessarily the scarcest and most expensive editions, and accepting none but really good copies in their original covers if possible. Should he do this his day will assuredly come ; his position is absolutely secure now and always. What he will not acquire just yet, however, is the knowledge that he has something which only a very few other persons can hope to possess themselves of, and this is just one of the points, among many others, that may at first sight appear to be of little importance, though it is in reality of much. 7 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS David Clement, in his " Bibliotheque Curieuse," goes very minutely into the causes, as well as the degrees,of rarity in books. According to this author there are two sorts of scarcity; one absolute, the other conditional or contingent. It is not necessary, however, to analyze his propositions, especially as a summary of the whole position is given in the second volume of Edwards's " Memoirs of Li- braries," a work published in 1859. What the French bibliographer says is undoubtedly true, but curiously enough, he misses the crtix of the situation, for as we have already mentioned, no book can be regarded as really " scarce," from the biblio- phile's point of view, if there is no demand for it. The collector will do well to treat fine distinctions, like those drawn by M. Clement, with caution, and when debating whether a given book is scarce or the reverse, ask himself the question whether it is likely to be in request. Another point to be remembered is that a book may be " uncut " or the reverse, and if " cut " may be very much cropped or only slightly shaved. The term " uncut " is of a technical character. It means that the edges of the leaves have not been trimmed or smoothed by the binder; that the book is, in fact, in the same condition in this respect as when it left the house of the publisher. It must be re- membered that the word " uncut " does not mean " not cut open." The paper-knife is a legitimate implement, and may be used with impunity, we had nearly said, though we hesitate to be sure of this, for a practice is now growing up of using in cata- logues, whether of booksellers or of auction sales, the words " not cut open," or " several of the leaves are unopened," as indicative of some presumed 8 HINTS TO BEGINNERS special interest and value so far as the particular copy is concerned. The book is not merely " uncut," but not even cut open; no one has ever read it, therefore it is of exceptional interest. Theargument is absurd, but it may prevail eventually, since dis- tinctions and differences, already numerous enough, are continually being reinforced by others, and it is impossible to say when, or at what stage, the influx will end. To cut away any part of the margins of a book is, however, a different matter. It is a distinct mutilation. It is true that publishers often issue books with cut edges, the whole edition being treated in this way, and they do that to save the use of the paper-knife which many readers re- gard as troublesome and irritating. But in what- ever way a book may have been published, an " uncut " copy is to be preferred to any other. The rule is inexorable and cannot be broken with im- punity; it frequently affects the market value of a book by as much as seventy-five per cent., and occasionally even in a still greater degree. So universal is it, that should it be known, as a fact, that a whole edition of some scarce work passed under the guillotine, as the binder's shears are familiarly called, even then it not only prevails, but becomes more stringent than ever, for one or two copies are practically certain to have escaped the general mutilation, and it should be, and often is, the book-man's privilege and pleasure to hunt for them. It is almost unnecessary to observe that the col- lector will need to be very careful about the binding of any book that may be offered to him. It should, if possible, be in its original state in this respect, for if it is not, and the work of rebinding has not 9 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS been done in a very special and costly manner, the position of the book can hardly fail to be seriously affected. Rebound books, especially those of any degree of antiquity, are nearly always cut down, especially when in the usual inartistic and cheap " half calf" covers. An old binding, whether of leather, boards, paper, or cloth, should, whenever possible, be restored rather than removed al- together. Should a whole edition have been bound in a particular style, say in leather, it does not neces- sarily follow that one or more copies may not have been bound in some other style, as, for example, in boards. It often happened in the days before the introduction of the familiar cloth covers that a publisher would have several copies of the work he intended to issue bound up in different styles, either to satisfy himself or to submit to the author. These "trial copies," so to speak, are invariably of greater interest than the ordinary ones, especially when they are " uncut," as is often the case. Whether the parts or numbers in which many works were, and are, issued, should be bound up or left as they are, depends upon circumstances. When a work of pure utility is issued in that way, the parts will need binding before they are capable of being readily consulted, and should be bound accordingly, the edges, as usual, being left " uncut." Novels, including many of those by Dickens, Ainsworth, Thackeray, Lever, and other celebrated authors who wrote during the thirty-five or forty years succeeding 1 835, were frequently issued in monthly parts with wrappers designed by Leech, Cruikshank, and other artists of great repute in their profession. These, and what may be called " Belles Lettres," 10 HINTS TO BEGINNERS issued in parts or pamphlet form, should never be bound under any circumstances whatever, but kept in specially made Solander cases, lettered on the face with the short title of the work within. To this rule there would not appear to be any exception. The difference between large and small-paper copies will, of course, need to be thoroughly under- stood. Those on large paper are not as a rule in the demand they were a few years ago, though they are still frequently issued. Books on large paper usually contain the identical text found in the ordin- ary copies, but are printed on paper of a larger size and of better quality, and are bound in a better, or at any rate, more distinctive style, and any plates they may contain are generally in proof state. Large paper copies are always limited in number, and sometimes bear the signature of the author within the front cover. They are also published at a higher price, at least double that of the ordinary copies. It must not be supposed from this that every book is desirable merely because it is printed on large paper. Many of these volumes consist of modern, or rather, almost contemporary essays and poetry, and were published some years ago in large numbers in the aggregate, but individually in small editions, suggestive of "scarcity." These should be approached with great caution. As the term "limited edition" suggests a small issue, so that of Mition de luxe points to excellence in production. Both terms, however, are, or may be, convertible, the edition de luxe being often limited, while the " limited edition " was almost of necessity made as attractive in appearance as possible. The amateur with a fondness for editions de luxe should strive to discriminate between books u HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS of this class, which are showy in their externals, but have little to recommend them from a literary point of view, and those reproducing the works of stand- ard authors. The latter are frequently worthy memorials of great writers, pleasurable to read, and often finely illustrated. Much has been said on occasion about the " pedigree " of books. The individual history of a book is called its " pedigree," though the word is not of course strictly applicable. There are, as is well known, many collectors who love to work out the history of some important volume from the present to the past, to follow it in its wanderings from one library to another, to ascertain the cir- cumstances under which it was written and given to the world, in fact, to discovej^ as much about it, and the man who wrote it, as possible, and to trace its ownership back, step by step, to the time when it left the hands of the printer. It is not often practicable to do this; the history of most books, like that of most families, being obscure and in- volved. Still, the process is possible sometimes, especially when a book contains autograph in- scriptions or memoranda, or is bound in a peculiar style, showing that at one time it must have been in some celebrated library. Every scrap of evidence has its value when a pedigree is in course of construction; no incident is too trifling or in- significant to be safely ignored. The late Henry Bradshaw, librarian of Cambridge University, had a talent for tracing bookish pedigrees, and seemed to be able to jump to conclusions with a minimum of risk. His, however, was an exceptional gift, and though the individual history of a book is often of the greatest possible importance, most 12 HINTS TO BEGINNERS collectors prefer to persuade themselves that it is impracticable to learn anything about it, rather than spend an immense amount of time on what may, after all, prove a fruitless quest. Every col- lector, on the other hand, likes to have books with their " pedigree " worked out for him, and in this connection autograph inscriptions furnish, of course, the best proof of former ownership that can be got. Quite recently, two books of the greatest possible interest came to the hammer at Sotheby's. Both were Bibles of no importance in themselves, but one contained two autograph inscriptions, said to be in Shakespeare's handwriting, while the other had belonged to Burns, the signatures in that in- stance being undoubtedly genuine. The former realized but ^2 10, being evidently under suspicion. The latter sold for ;^ 1,560. Each of these books had its " pedigree," that is to say, it could be traced to the hands of several owners. There are many schools of collectors, and some of them, without being booksellers, nevertheless frequently buy to sell again. They seek, in fact, to build up a library out of the profits of a little amateur dealing. The practice is extremely seduc- tive, and there are many gentleman-dealers to be met with who have fallen victims to its enchant- ment. John Hill Burton, of " Book Hunter " fame, resisted it in his own person, and even objected to bartering. " Where money is the object," says he, " let a man speculate or become a miser. . . . Let him confine all his transactions in the market to purchasing only." This is very well, and would doubtless have received the congratulations of the old Bishop of Durham, Richard de Bury, who, in the twentieth chapter of the " Philobiblon," exhorts 13 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS scholars to requite him with pious prayers, in that he sold no volume voluntarily. The Bishop's pas- sion for collecting books was charitable in its na- ture; he is said to have bestowed at least some of them on his old college at Oxford, the collection being known for several generations as "d' Aunger- ville's Library." This is the generally accepted belief, though it has not been allowed to pass un- challenged. Adam de Murimuth notices the death of the Bishop in his " Chronica sui Temporis " in terms the reverse of flattering, and Mr. E. C. Thomas handles him somewhat roughly in the first volume of " The Library" (pp. 335 et seq.). A few words with reference to imperfect copies and odd volumes, or incomplete sets of books, will not be out of place. There are some books which are so extremely scarce and valuable when in per- fect condition, that they are practically unattainable in that state, and collectors are glad to possess in- complete copies, or even fragments of them. A single leaf from any book printed by Caxton is not an undesirable possession, and there are other books of which the same may be said. Books of -this importance and rarity form an exception to the general rule. The amateur should not, ordin- arily, have anything to do with imperfect books, or even with one or more volumes belonging to a set. Sometimes a volume is manifestly imperfect; it may, for example, want the title-page, or a num- bered leaf, or a plate. Occasionally, however, it is not so easy to say whether a book is perfect or the reverse. It has to be gone through leaf by leaf and "collated," either by reference to some other copy known to be in sound condition, or to a recognized text-book. A volume must be con- 14 HINTS TO BEGINNERS sidered imperfect if anything, even a blank leaf, or a slip of "errata" be missing; it must be re- garded as defective if any of the leaves be patched or otherwise mended, or if the title-page, fronti- spiece, or any of the plates be " laid down," i.e., re- backed with paper, to preserve them or render them stronger. Sometimes an imperfect book is made perfect by the addition of the missing leaves taken from some other copy. If these are not of precisely the same size, some leaves of the volume will be "taller" than others, and the copy is ac- cordingly defective. Books perfected in this man- ner are said to be "made up." So also a book must be regarded as defective if any of the plates or leaves of text are fox marked, I.e., stained with damp, or have been worm-eaten, or if one title-page has been substituted for another, or if the title-page is" washed," ?.g., has been cleaned with chemicals, or if one or more of the leaves are re- produced infacsimile, no matter how closely, whether by hand or by any mechanical process. In the majority of cases it is inadvisable to buy an im- perfect copy of a book. The trouble of obtaining and supplying the missing leaf or leaves is sure to be very great, and the cost nearly always pro- hibitive. So also is it extremely inadvisable, if possible even more so, to buy imperfect sets of books, especially of old books. The difficulty of ob- taining the missing volumes is not the only objec- tion to this rather common practice, for, even should they be obtained, it will be found that they seldom, or never, match the volumes they are intended to supplement. The binding will be different, or the volumes, being more or less cut down, will prove to be smaller or greater in size than the others, or 15 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS they may prove to belong to different editions. A library formed upon such a system, assuming that life were sufficiently long for the enterprise, would be a mere thing of patches, in which no one could take any pride. We should say of such a collection that it would do excellently well to lend by degrees, and about the lending of books so much has already been written that it is not worth while adding to the narrative. i6 CHAPTER II SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS Sizes of books — Table of measurements of whole sheets — Diagrams showing method of folding — "Signatures" — Books printed on half sheets — Judging size by catchwords, watermarks, waterlines, and measurements — Table of approximate measure- ments of books — The method of collation — The "Orlando Furioso" of 1584 — Restoring books — Damp — Book-worms — Grease marks — Surface stains — Ink, iron, lead, and pencil marks — Restoration of leather, vellum, and cloth bindings. THE method usually adopted for determining the technical size of a book, i.e., for ascer- taining with certainty whether any particular vol- ume is a folio, quarto, octavo,ifl»/ infra, seems at first sight so complicated, and has at times given rise to so much discussion and controversy, that some li- brarians attached to public institutions follow a scale in which only seven sizes are recognized. They measure, or at any rate did measure, the books by height, as they stand on the shelves, and say that a volume over 18 inches is a large folio, while one of 1 1 inches and below 1 8 inches is a folio or large 4to. Following the system, a book 9 inches in height and below 1 1 inches would be a 410 or large Svo, one 8 inches in height and below 9 inches, an Svo, one above 6 inches and below 8 inches, a small 4to or i amo. One measuring 6 inches they describe as i8mo, and any size below 6 inches is minimo or mo. Now this system, though it has much 17 c HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS in its favour, simplicity being no small gain in these matters, is not usually followed by collectors, biblio- graphers, publishers, or booksellers. It is, in fact, only a rough and ready way of avoiding a difficulty; it makes no attempt to solve it. A book above 6 inches in height and below 8 inches, may certainly be a small 4to, or it may be a 1 2mo, but no attempt is made to explain the difference between the two. Such a wide measurement would also include books in i6mo, foolscap 8vo, crown Svo, and post Svo, and these sizes must accordingly be abolished if the system is to be anything more than theoretical. That, in fact, has been done, and perhaps wisely, under the circumstances, as it can make very little difference to the reader in a free library whether the book he holds in his hand is a 4to or an Svo, nor would he be likely to take any interest in the dis- tinction. So far as the book-collector is concerned, however, the matter is on quite a different footing. He cannot glance over a bookseller's or auction- eer's catalogue without seeing such expressions as " crown Svo," " royal Svo," or " imperial Svo." Moreover, some books, as, for example, the original edition of Bewick's " History of British Birds," 1 79 7- 1 804, have been printed on paper of different sizes. The" Birds" in questionisfoundindemy Svo, royal Svo, and imperial Svo, and as any particular copy would be described in one or other of these terms, it is absolutely necessary to be in a position to distinguish between the three, a copy on im- perial paper being of infinitely greater importance than one on demy, and of much more importance than one on royal. There are several ways of ascertaining the cor- rect and technical size of a book, but we will, in the 18 SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS first instance, proceed by the familiar method of measurements. It must be understood that paper used in the manufacture of books is made in large sheets of different dimensions, which are sub- sequently folded to the required size. Before the introduction of machines for making paper, the measurements of these whole sheets were sub- stantially the same all over the kingdom, e.g., a sheet of royal would measure about 25 x 20 inches, no matter in what mill it had been manufactured. The sizes of the papers in the whole sheet have, however, altered since the consequent disuse of moulds, and cannot now be regarded otherwise than as approximate to the old measurements, and since an alteration in the sizes of books has neces- sarily occurred as well, they, too, often vary from the standard measurements. Still, the dimensions are close enough to justify their being accepted as approximately correct, especially when it is remem- bered that the difference in the measurement of a whole sheet becomes less noticeable when it is folded. The following table, showing the measure- ment in inches of whole sheets of paper of various sizes, should first of all be looked over. Foolscap . . 17 X13I Super Royal . 27iX2o| Post . . . • i9|xi5f Imperial . . 30 X22 T/arge Post . . 2of X l6| Elephant . . 28 X23 Demy . . . 22|XI7f Atlas . . . 34 X26 Medium . . 23 XI81 Columbier . . 34^X231 Royal . . . 25 X 20 Double Elephant 40 X26f Crown . . . 21 X 16J Antiquarian . 53 X31 Double Crown 30 X20 It must be understood that these measurements are those of single sheets of paper of different sizes as they lie flat upon the table, and that they give their names to the books made from them. Thus it 19 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS follows that a foolscap 8vo book is made^from sheets of Foolscap paper (17 x i^^ inches), folded a certain number of times; a post 8vo book is made in the same way from sheets of Post (ig^x 1 5f inches), folded as before ; a demy 8vo is made from sheets of Demy; a royal 8vo from sheets of Royal; an imperial 8vo from sheets of Imperial. In the same way a demy 4to book is made from sheets of Demy folded in a certain other way, an imperial 4to from sheets of Imperial folded in the same way, and so on. Speaking generally, Ele- phant, Atlas, Double Elephant, and Antiquarian papers are only used for folios, but one often has a columbier 8vo or 4to. To turn this to practical account let us take a sheet of Demy (225^ x I7f inches). Thus: Demy Folio Demy 4to Demy 8vo D Demy l6mo Demy H 32mo Demy 64mo 128 mo A 20 SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS Fold the paper across at A A, and we have a demy folio; then fold it again at BB, and a demy 4to is obtained ; again at CC, and we have a demy 8vo ; and if again at DD, a sixteenmo, or i6mo as it is written; if again at EE, a 32mo; and if, finally, at HH, a 64mo. Further than this it is not neces- sary to go, though tiny books in i28mo are not unknown. The 1 2mos and i8mos, though common enough, are really "out" sizes. If a sheet be tri- sected, and the remaining superficies bisected, and then bisected again, as in the diagram, it gives twenty-four pages, and is called a i2mo, or duo- decimo. The I Smo is formed on a similar principle, and consists of thirty-six pages. i2mo l2mo l2mo i2mo i2mo i2mo l2mo i2mo i2mo i2mo l2mo l2mo Naturally, the greater number of times the sheet is folded, the smaller the size of the pages becomes. A sheet of Imperial paper might be folded in pre- cisely the same way, producing imperial folios, 4tos, Svos, and so on. A sheet of Royal would produce royal folios, 4tos, and Svos, etc., and it will now be readily understood that there is a natural difference in size between, say, a foolscap 21 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS 8vo and an imperial 8vo, the latter being con- siderably larger, simply because it is made from paper of larger size. This system of folding, if practically carried out with a sheet of paper cut to the required size, will demonstrate thatthere must necessarily be between each "signature" (a term nextexplained)twoleaves (or, if numbered, 4 pages) in every folio, while a 4to will have between each " signature " 4 leaves or 8 pages; an 8vo, 8 leaves or 16 pages; a duo- decimo (i2mo), 12 leaves or 24 pages; a sixteen- mo (i6mo), 16 leaves or 32 pages; an i8mo, 18 leaves or 36 pages; a thirty-twomo (32mo), 32 leaves or 64 pages; and a sixty-fourmo (64mo), 64 leaves or 128 pages. For a great number of years past, printers have been in the habit of placing a " signature " on each whole sheet of paper in such a position that, when folded, such signature will appear at the foot of the first and some other pages. Signatures, to follow the definition given by Mr. Blades, " are the sign or mark which Printers place beneath certain pages for the convenience of the Binder, and to distinguish the sequence of the sections (sometimes styled quires or gatherings), which they print." These signatures consist of capital letters, or per- haps numbers, and are said to have been first used in printed books by Antonio Zorat of Milan, about the year 1470, though others attribute the invention to John Koelhoff of Cologne, who uses them in Nider's " Expositio Decalogi," printed by him in 1472 (the date is, however, questioned). They are not, however, peculiar to printed books, nor were they invented by the early printers as so many writers have asserted. Many manuscripts 22 SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS written before the invention of printing possess signatures at the extreme right edge of the sheet. Even the early Hebrew manuscripts often have them. Sometimes they were placed at the left, and in that case became invisible when the sheets were gathered together and bound, so that it must not be assumed that they do not exist merely because they are not seen. The "signatures," whether they occur in printed books or in manu- scripts, are only intended as guides to the binder, though they may be made useful in another way, as from them the size of a book may sometimes, though not always, be determined. The signature A, or perhaps the number i, will not need to be used at all, but if used, it would, or might, be de- voted to the title-page, preface, table of contents, and other preliminary matter. As we turn over the pages we shall presently come to a signature b or 2, and then to a third signature, c or 3, and so on to the end of the volume. By counting the leaves between signature and signature, the size of the book may, in a large number of cases (some biblio- graphers say " always "), be determined. As there are, as we have seen, eight leaves or sixteen pages in every 8vo made from a whole sheet, the signa- tures (assuming that the alphabet were employed, and A had been used for the preliminary matter), might run as follows : Page i, b, page 3, B2; page 17, c, page 19, C2; page 33, d, page 35, D2; page 49, E, page 51, E2; page 65, f, page 67, F2; and so on to the end of the volume. We should know at once that this was an 8vo of some kind, because there are eight leaves {i.e., sixteen pages) from each chief signature to the next. Had there been four leaves from signature to signature it would 23 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS have been a 4to, and if twelve, a i2mo. This will be apparent if the method of folding has been thoroughly mastered. A rather perplexing element often arises from the fact that many works are now printed on half sheets of paper, so that if a book is judged as to its size by the number of leaves from one signature to another, a demy 8vo printed on half sheets, would have to be called a 4to, it having only four leaves. A 1 2mo, half sheet, would have to be called a "six- mo," it only having six leaves. To put the matter in as succinct a form as possible, if an 8vo be made from a whole sheet, it will have a signature at the foot of page 1 7 ; if from a half sheet, at the foot of page 9. In the case of a i2mo made from a half sheet, a signature would be at the foot of page 13. In the smaller sizes there are, as a rule, only eight leaves from signature to signature, and that although the printer's term for the size may be 32mo, 64mo, or i28mo. Strictly speaking, there- fore, these small sizes might be correctly described as Svos, though they would not be so called in practice. Another method of ascertaining the size of an old book is as follows : Open it between pages 48 and 49 ; if the catchword is at the foot of page 48, and the signature at the bottom of page 49, it is 24mo size. If the catchword is on page 64, and the signature at the bottom of page 65, it is 32mo size. As these two sizes are frequently confounded, the distinction is useful. Sometimes the size of a book may be ascertained by reference to the water- mark. In folios, the watermark is in the middle; in 4tos it is folded in half in the back of the book midway between top and bottom. In Svos, 24 SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS the watermark is in the back and at the top of the page, and in i2mos and i6mos it is seen on the fore-edges. Books of the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries can often be accurately named by observing the position of the watermarks. 1 1 is also frequently helpful to note the position of the water lines. If these are perpendicular, the book is either an 8vo of some kind, an i8mo, or a folio. If the lines are horizontal, the book is a i2mo or a 4to. Books in 24mo have the lines sometimes perpen- dicular, and sometimes horizontal. It will be readily understood that the orthodox methods of judging the size of a book have at times given rise to much impatience. Small foolscap 8vos have been mistaken for i2mos and vice versa, and many arguments have arisen in particular cases to prove that what passes for an imperial Svo, is, in reality, a crown 4to, or the reverse. These dif- ferences of opinion have not been advanced and insisted upon for the mere love of disputation, as might perhaps be supposed. 1 1 is sometimes neces- sary to arrive at a definite conclusion in these matters, as important errors have before now arisen in creating editions that never existed, solely be- cause the size of some book of more than ordinary importance has been mistaken. For ordinary purposes, however, a table of ap- proximate sizes will answer all requirements, and the following has been drawn up with the object of presenting, at a glance, the differences that exist in size between books that are met with in everyday life. Even here, however, some confusion may exist un- less it is remembered that binders have even now a habit of cutting down books intrusted to them, and that in the past the practice was all but universal. 25 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS This, of course, reduces the height of any book that is subjected to the process, and must be taken into account when necessary. If, for example, we should see a book, the leaves of which measure 7f X 5 inches, we may, with tolerable certainty, arrive at the conclusion that it is a large post 8vo cut down a quarter of an inch at the top or bot- tom, and a third of an inch at the side. The measurements given below are those of the page (not of the binding) in inches, and it must be remembered that they are only approximate. Columbier 4to i8 X 12 Medium 8vo 9|x6 Super imperial 4to iStX 13 Demy 8vo 9 X sf Imperial 4to 15 X ul Crown 8vo 7^x s Royal 4to I2|. X 10 Large post 8vo 8X5^ Demy 4to II X 9 Post 8vo 6f X4l Crown 4to II X 8 Foolscap 8vo 7 X4i Small 4to 7lx Si i2mo 7x4 Columbier 8vo II X 7i i6mo 6^ X 4 Imperial 8vo Io| X 7l Royal 24mo S^x 3i Royal 8vo 10 X 6^ 48mo 3x2 In the case of folios, it is sufficient to describe them as being large and small. A medium folio measures about 12x8 inches, and like all Svo books, may roughly be described as upright- oblong in shape, while 4tos approach nearer a square. The collector should, of course, either carefully examine a book before he buys it, or have it for- warded to him on approval, and for collation. The art of collation consists in the critical examination of a book, leaf by leaf, and a comparison of it with another copy known to be perfect, or by reference to the description given of it in one or more of the text books. The first step in the practice of collation is to count the leaves in order to make sure that none are missing. If the pages are numbered, or 26 SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS in the case of very old books, the folios, there will be no difficulty about this. Some books, however, are found without any distinguishing marks of that character. It is said that the first book hav- ing numbered leaves was printed by Arnold ther Hoernen at Cologne, in 1470, under the title " Sermo ad Populum predicabilis in festo presen- tacionis beatissime Marie" a small 4to, with 27 lines to the page. The same printer is also said to have been the first to use headlines. In the case of unpaged books the catchwords should be consulted throughout, and also the " signatures," if any; and in those rare instances where the leaves are un- numbered, and there are neither signatures nor catchwords, the context must be followed from the foot of one page to the commencement of the next. It is, of course, necessary to make sure that an illustrated book contains all the plates it ought to have, and that they are inserted in their proper places, and that one plate is not substituted for another nor duplicated to hide some mistake or carelessness on the part of the printer or binder. As an instance of what is meant in this latter re- spect, reference may conveniently be made to a work described by Brunet on p. 435 of the first volume of his " Manuel du Libraire." It is a copy of Ariosto's " Orlando Furioso," printed at Venice in 1584, large 4to. Brunet says that this is an incorrect edition, sought for chiefly on account of the plates that embellish it, and from the fact that it is difficult to find complete; that is to say, with the plate to the 34th canto (p. 382), which, not having been ready in time, is usually represented by the plate to the 33rd canto, which thus makes 27 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS its appearance twice. In the case of one of the British Museum copies (79 K 12), plate 34 has been pasted over the duplicate plate 33 at page 382, and this affords an instance of a copy which has been "made up," or completed to a material extent. Furthermore, any one who happens to see this particular copy will notice that it is otherwise defective, for the portrait facing the title-page has been cut close and " laid down " or mounted. Much has been written from time to time on the custody and preservation of books, as also upon the various methods of restoring imperfect, dirty, or defective copies that happen to come to hand as they are sure to do occasionally. Mr. Zaehnsdorf, the well-known bookbinder, issued a tasteful little pamphlet, some years ago, in which he lays down a number of useful rules for the preservation of books. Damp is their great enemy, but so long as the library is dry and well ventilated, the most costly volumes are safe from this and most other ills, the ravages of the bookworm excepted. This pest has a pedigree, being mentioned by Lucian, by Evenus the grammarian, and by many other old time writers, but it is very rarely ever seen, and, for some reason or other, seldom attacks modern books. There is no real protection against book- worms if they once obtain what may be called a " footing." But to prevent them doing so, snuff may be sprinkled over the shelves with advantage. If a room be slightly, or not very, damp, all the ornaments in it should be filled with unslacked lime, the object being to absorb the moisture in the air. Where, however, the walls of the room are them- selves damp, practically nothing can be done but to remove the books. The use of unslacked lime is, 28 SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS when everything is said, more valuable as a test than a remedy. The collector cannot expect to find all the volumes he may buy in the pink of condition. Some of them may stand in need of restoration, and though it is always better to have this done by an expert, this chapter would not be complete without an explanation of some of the methods by which a book out of condition may be restored to something approaching its original state. When a book has been " cut down " by the binder it is irretrievably damaged, for the paper cut away can never be replaced. Hence the saying that it is better to have a begrimed book with its margins intact, than one that is clean but has been cropped. The former may be materially improved if a few simple recipes be carefully followed, and as there are plenty of very dirty, and in themselves worth- less, books to be got for a trifle, there is never any lack of material on which to experiment. Should a book, among its other imperfections, show traces of grease marks, it will be necessary to remove these before anything else is attempted. The book may have to be taken to pieces, and should this be necessary the covers must be de- tached, the stitching cut away, and the sheets separated. Then examine each leaf by holding it up to the light, and having found one stained with grease or fat of any kind, place it carefully beneath a sheet of clean white blotting-paper, and pass a hot iron over the surface. The blotting-paper will then absorb the grease either wholly or partially according to the extent of its hold. The damaged parts should finally be touched with turpentine that has been gently heated, and should this discolour 29 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS the paper, as it may do, a slight wash of spirits of wine, also gently heated, will be found beneficial. The leaf should then be allowed to dry naturally under pressure. Another and far safer method of removing grease spots is to cover them with powdered chalk. A protecting sheet of paper should then be placed over the part affected, and pressed with a hot iron. This, which may be de- scribed as the " dry process " is very efficacious in simple cases, and even should it fail, no harm will be done to the leaf operated upon provided the iron is not too hot. When all the grease marks are removed from the volume, the following recipes may be tried. Should any of the leaves be stained with writing ink, the marks should be touched with a strong solution of oxalic acid, and then with a solution of hydrochloric acid in the proportion of one part of the latter chemical to seven of water. The part should then be washed with clear water and allowed to dry naturally. In all these experiments there must be no artificial drying. Paper that has been damped will turn yellow if dried in the sun or before a fire. Oxalic acid is, of course, a danger- ous chemical, and must be used with the utmost caution. It is, however, almost indispensable in certain operations, as, in common with citric and tartaric acid, it does not affect printer's ink. A page may therefore be cleaned by its aid, and that without "wiping out" the printed matter. When ink marks are found on the leaves of a book they generally take the form of written sig- natures and annotations, and sometimes these are of the highest interest and value. Discrimination must therefore be used in all cases, but assuming 30 SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS that it is advisable to obliterate any of these memoranda, another and far less dangerous recipe may be tried. Put into an 8 oz. bottle 5J oz. of bicarbonate of soda, and fill up with water. This solution, having been well shaken, should be allowed to stand over night. Into a 2 oz. bottle put a teaspoonful of chloride of lime, and fill with some of the liquid from the other bottle. This, too, should be well shaken, and then allowed to stand till the chloride of lime has sunk to the bottom. The liquid, if prepared according to the directions, will then be of a pale pink colour, and if the ink marks be painted over with it, they should disappear in about two hours' time. All that then remains to be done is to wash the part with cold water, and when dry, to brush over it a solution of isinglass to restore the gloss. Chloride of lime is a useful agent in some re- spects, and is often recommended though it has manifest disadvantages, the chief being that it is almost certain to rot the paper to which it is ap- plied. This effect will not be noticed at the time, but its ultimate action is certain to a greater or lesser extent, according to the strength of the solution or the quality of the paper operated upon, or both. The best way of cleaning paper and obliterating ordinary surface stains is by means of a solution of chlorinated soda {liquor sodce chlorinates) which can be got from any chemist. The solution should consist of about one part of the chemical to twenty of water. The leaves should be damped with this solution, and when the stains have partly disappeared, should be washed with cold water, and dried between sheets of blotting-paper under pressure. 31 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Many useful recipes are given in John Hannett's " Bibliopegia," a sixth edition of which was pub- lished in 1865. The author says that spirits of salts, diluted with five or six times its bulk of water, will remove stains caused by writing ink. Iron mould yields to a solution of sulphurate of potash, followed by a touch of oxalic acid, and grease or wax spots may be removed by washing the part with ether, chloroform, or benzine, the leaf being then placed between white blotting-paper and ironed. Pencil marks may, of course, be rubbed out with bread, or by a washing of thin paste. Lead stains yield to peroxide of hydrogen. Some useful recipes will also be found in Bonnardot's " Essai sur I'art de Restaurer les Estampes et les Livres," a work published at Paris in 1858. In " Notes and Queries" for December 19, 1863 (p. 495), a correspondent states that the remedy for oil stains is sulphuric ether. If the stains are very pronounced, he was in the habit of rolling up each leaf and inserting it in a wide-mouthed bottle, half full of that chemi- cal, shaking it gently up and down for a minute. A single washing in cold water is described as all that is afterwards necessary. Old leather bindings may be very materially improved by the application of caoutchouc varnish, which can be got from any colour shop. The leather must be quite dry before it is applied, and it will be advisable to fill up any cracks or holes with paste. When the varnish is nearly dry it is polished with a ball, formed of fine white cotton filled with wool, on which has been rubbed a little olive oil. Vellum covers are cleaned with soap and water, or, in extreme cases, with a weak solution of salts of lemon. Modern cloth covers, when spotted or faded, 32 SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS may very often be improved if they are washed with glaire. To make this, break a number of eggs, carefully removing the yolks. The white is then beaten up into a foam and placed aside for a time till it subsides, when it should be poured into an- other vessel. This is glaire, and differs from the ordinary white of egg in this, that it is as limpid as water, and can be evenly spread on anything. The glaire should not, however, be allowed to touch the gilding, as its tendency is to dim still further what- ever brightness may be left to it. 33 D CHAPTER III MANUSCRIPTS Manuscripts necessarily unique — Their importance and rarity — The earliest existing manuscripts — The fate of ancient libraries — Some early classical manuscripts — Lost classics — Corrupt texts — Two main classes of manuscripts — Monastic manuscripts — Judging the age of a manuscript — Books to consult — Characteristics of the earliest manuscripts — Psalters, bibles, and devotional books — Chronicles, romances, and other works — The collation of manuscripts — Different classes of de- votional books — The public libraries. COLLECTORS have always manifested great interest in manuscripts. There are many reasons why a manuscript of any degree of an- tiquity or importance should be regarded as some- thing altogether distinct and apart from a printed book, no matter how scarce or valuable the latter may be, and perhaps the chief of these reasons is that a manuscript is necessarily unique. Copies of it may certainly have been made; it may have been reproduced in facsimile by mechanical pro- cess, and that so closely that it would be difficult to distinguish the reproduction from the original ; it may even bear little resemblance from a textual point of view to the more elaborate and finished work which the author ultimately put forward to the world. Nevertheless, it is unique ; there is nothing else exactly like it to be had. It is different with the printed book, which, though 34 MANUSCRIPTS perhaps scarce enough, is always in danger of becoming less so. Other copies may be unearthed at any moment; it is impossible to say with cer- tainty that any printed book is the only one of its kind. The recent discovery of a copy of the original edition of " Titus Andronicus " is a case in point. The very existence of this quarto was doubted at one time. It is impossible to say definitely that none other exists. All we can venture to affirm is that, so far as is known, no other copy, or only a very few copies, are in existence. The extrinsic quality of being unique is therefore one cardinal point in favour of the manuscript. But the intrinsic qualities possessed by all manuscripts, according to their several degrees of importance, are more noticeable than any question of scarcity. These, if of modern date, frequently — indeed we might say invariably, dis- close the changes of the author's mind, and show by what process of reasoning the finished work was gradually evolved. Verbal corrections show the polishing process, for few authors write like Shakespeare, whose "mind and hand went together"; extensive alterations or additions are the embodiments of important thoughts, and not infrequently prove to be of the highest degree of literary importance when read with critical judgement side by side with the printed books that are, after all, only their representatives. So far as the older manuscripts are concerned we can, in many cases, derive from their illustrations a very good idea of the art of the period, its social conditions, manners, and costumes, and its style of architecture. Sometimes the illuminator will have been a portrait painter, and we may in that case be 35 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS indebted to him for the likeness of some celebrated person, otherwise unobtainable. The portrait of Chaucer, often seen, and traditionally authentic, first appeared as a painted illustration in a manuscript, and may be the only contemporary portrait of the poet extant. These old illuminated manuscripts are often very curious. What some French writers style " L'art de Babouinet " is frequently exemplified in them to a remarkable degree. In manuscripts of this kind, the principal figure is sometimes a baboon, at others a strange beast, such, for example, as a rat with the head of a crow, accompanied by gro- tesque animals, birds, freaks, and monstrosities. The late Rev. Walter Sneyd of Keele Hall, Staf- fordshire, had an exceedingly interesting and valuable manuscript of this character, which real- ized no less than ;^2,500 at his sale in December, 1903. Though the importance of a manuscript does not depend upon its size, it may be men- tioned incidentally that this one measured but 4f X 3 inches. Unfortunately it is not now within any one's power to obtain more than a representative selection of important manuscripts. To form a library is out of the question, for the public institu- tions of the world have absorbed the vast majority, and those that remain in private collections are known and ear-marked, rarely change hands, and when they do, bring prices that are almost pro- hibitive. Still it is necessary to know something about the history of manuscripts in general, and their various kinds and degrees of importance, for some are, naturally, of much greater interest than others, or being of less interest, are much more readily acquired. The world is not yet swept clean 36 MANUSCRIPTS of even mediaeval manuscripts. It will be before long, but as yet there is a little time left. From an historical aspect it is interesting to note that the earliest Latin document known to exist is a wax tablet inscribed with a stilus — a document of no importance, except from an archaeological standpoint — found some years ago (1875) among the d^dris of Pompeii. It dates no further back than the year a.d. 55. On the other hand the oldest Greek document dates from about 300 B.C., and was written at Vienna on a sheet of papyrus. That, too, is of no literary interest. It is merely a curse called down from heaven by one Artemisia on the head of a man who had deserted her, and left her, as we should say, " penniless," to face the world. It is a document of human interest, a curiosity, and nothing more. We can hardly bring the clay tablets of the Assyrians within the scope of these remarks, and the same may be said of the papyrus documents of the Egyptians, unquestionably the oldest manuscripts now existing — one of them, known as the " Papyrus Prisse," now in the Louvre, being assigned, though the date is uncertain, to the year 2500 b.c. We are entitled, however, to ask what has become of the countless classical manu- scripts of Greek and Roman days, some of them decorated with pictures, as Pliny relates. The answer is that every one of them has vanished. When Ochus, the Persian general, swept through Phoenicia and Egypt, 350 years before our era, carrying fire and ruin in his train, he destroyed the temples and colleges, burning everything. Caesar's troops utterly destroyed the greatest library of all antiquity, that at Alexandria; the Pythagorean Schools in Italy were destroyed in their turn, 37 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS and the Christians ravaged the heathen Temples everywhere, as Gibbon asserts in the twenty- eighth chapter of the " Decline and Fall." Later on the Goths, Vandals, and other barbarians of the North ravaged Italy from end to end, and the libraries of Cicero, Lucullus, Trajan, and Gordian, perished utterly. The Alexandrian Li- brary was destroyed a second time in a.d. 390, and yet a third time in the seventh century, and in later days Christian monks "wiped out" parchment writings of antiquity to make way for more im- portant truths, as they thought. The damage done by the Reformers is historical, though probably the classical manuscripts had entirely disappeared by their day. Even Sir Thomas Browne, the author of the celebrated " Religio Medici," advo- cates a wholesale destruction of books. He would preserve the best, and as to the " swarms and millions of rhapsodies, begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgment," the fire is ready. The barbarity and ignorance of every age of which any remembrance remains, combined to efface the classic manuscripts of antiquity, while even printed books have not infrequently shared the same fate. Andrew Maunsell, a London bookseller, issued a price list so long ago as 1595, and many books mentioned in it which he then had, and was ready to sell, are now entirely lost. What are termed " Illuminated Manuscripts " of Virgil and Terence are preserved in the Vatican, and there is also the illustrated " Iliad " in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. These date not later than the fourth century a.d., and as the pictures are based on classical models, we may judge from their appearance what the older manuscripts were 38 MANUSCRIPTS perhaps like. They have colour, but little shad- ing. The faces are those seen on coins and monu- ments ; the carriage of the figures is also similar. These are the only examples of early classical manuscripts left to us. So thoroughly was the work of destruction carried out, that in the ninth century the Library belonging to the Cathedral Church of S. Martino at Lucca contained but nineteen volumes. The Library once preserved in St. Paul's was catalogued in 1458, and Dugdale, in his history of the Cathedral, fills nearly eight folio pages with a list of the books contained in it. One, and one only, yet remains at St. Paul's, and but two or three others can be traced. In 1212 the Cathedral of Novara had what was at that time a rich library, consisting of the works of Boethius and Priscianus, the Institutes of Justinian, the Decre- tals, a Bible, the "Etymologia" of Isidorus, and some devotional treatises, twelve or fifteen books all told. In A.D. 690 the King of Northumbria gave 800 acres of land for one book containing a history of the world. A countess of Anjou gave 200 sheep and a large number of rich furs for a volume of Homilies, 120 crowns were paid for a single book of Livy, and 100 crowns of gold for a Concordance. In 1420 a Latin Bible was valued at £2iO, at a time when two arches of London Bridge could have been built for less. It is no doubt true that more of the books of the Ancients have perished than have reached us in any form. Plutarch quotes 251 distinct works, about a third of which are unknown to us, except by the titles he gives, and he himself wrote four- teen biographies of which not a trace remains. We know merely by name the " History of the Etrus- 39 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS cans," which the Emperor Claudius is said to have written. The " Anti-Cato," written by J ulius Caesar, the published letters of Augustus and Tiberius, and the " Memoii"s," more or less complete, which some of the twelve Caesars had written, have all van- ished, as also have most of the plays of Menander, most of the Odes of Sappho, and many of the works of E nnius, Strabo, and Livy. The list of lost Classics might be extended almost indefinitely, if it would serve any useful purpose, but it is sufficient for us to know that such of the treatises as survived in the form of copies from older manuscripts were often so corrupt that no reliance could be placed on the text. Petrarch relates that in his day the copyists were ignorant and incompetent, falling naturally, it would seem, into all sorts of tran- scriptional errors, and Aldus Manutius was not only a printer, but an editor, making it the business of his life to correct the mistakes of generations of transcribers. The classical manuscripts of the Mid- dle Ages were corrected and re-written by a few enthusiasticscholarswho obtained little or noassist- ance from the monks, wholly given over to Anti- phonaries and Homilies, Breviaries, and the like. Their primary object was to restore the actual text as it was originally written, evolving order from the chaos of faulty transcripts by means of a patient comparison of available documents. All this, though interesting enough, and indeed necessary as an introduction to the subject, is of no practical importance to the collector. What he searches for are not relics altogether beyond reach ; shadows, in fact, that elude the grasp. He needs to know something about those manuscripts which, although for the most part scarce enough, are not 40 MANUSCRIPTS altogether impossible of attainment, and these naturally divide themselves into two classes. First in point of date, come what we will call monastic manuscripts on vellum, illuminated or otherwise, and secondly, those productions consisting prin- cipally, though not entirely, of original manu- scripts on paper of celebrated literary works well known to the world. Of the latter class it is only necessary to say that they are for the most part comparatively modern, indeed often contemporary, and that their importance is commensurate with the estimation in which the writer is held. Original manuscripts of the works of Dickens, of which nine yet remain in private hands, of Thackeray, Scott, and Burns, are representative of many more of our own age which the collector is con- tinually on the look-out for with some hope of success. These serve to illustrate the modern phase of the subject, but by no means exhaust it in its entirety. As we go further back we see immense possibilities, for the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps is now to a great extent avail- able, and many of the Ashburnham manuscripts have so far escaped the public libraries. SirThomas Phillipps dominated the London market for nearly half a century from 1823 onward, and accumulated some 30,000 manuscripts, many of great interest and value. This immense collection is being sold by auction at Sotheby's, and some time yet will elapse before it is entirely dispersed. From a popular point of view, the highest type of manuscript is that embraced by the first class of which we have spoken, monastic manuscripts on vellum, especially if illuminated and embellished with miniatures, being regarded as altogether 41 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS superior to any of those more modern productions which derive their importance from considerations of literary excellence or historic interest. The truth, however, is that it is not possible to compare two totally dissimilar classes, and that each has an equal share of merit, artistic or literary, as the case may be, for few single volumes belonging to either class will be found to possess a dual excellence. With respect to what we have agreed to call monastic manuscripts, it will be noticed by any one who cares to examine the specimens in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, or else- where, that the earlier the writing the plainer and neater it is. The oldest manuscripts of this class are also the least decorated, and are invari- ably written in uncial or capital letters. Uncial writing is formed of large round characters (not capitals), though it is also described as a compound between the capital and smaller characters, some of the letters resembling the former, and others the latter. This particular style is supposed to have been employed in Latin manuscripts as early as the fourth century, and was seldom used after the tenth. The Benedictines of the eighth century brought it to its greatest perfection. These uncial letters denote antiquity, and so also do capitals, the latter especially. Dibdin speaks in glowing terms of the " Iliad " in the Ambrosian Library at Milan as a " Greek Capital-letter Classic," and sings its praises in the " Decameron " on that ac- count, observing en parenthese "the earlier manu- scripts (i.e., those from the fourth to the ninth century inclusive) are usually written in uncial or capital letters." 42 MANUSCRIPTS The age of a manuscript of the class we are considering has everything to do with its importance and consequent value, and unless the collector can tell this approximately from the general ap- pearance of the example before him, he has much to learn. He cannot by any means take the auc- tioneers' catalogues, excellently and learnedly com- piled though they often are, as conclusive evidence of the statements made inthem in this respect. They say " Saec XIII," or " Saec XIV," or as the case may be, but the fact may be otherwise. The manu- script may be a century earlier or later in date, and this may add very greatly to its importance on the one hand, or materially detract from it on the other. No amount of reading will enable any one to judge the age of a manuscript within narrow limits ; nothing but practice can do that, and the only way to obtain a sound judgement is to com- pare one manuscript with another. To this end the great public libraries are the only available schools. Nevertheless, a great deal of general information may be obtained from books, and in this connection we may refer to H. N. Humphrey's " The Illumin- ated Books of the Middle Ages," 1844-9, folio, a work giving an account of the development and progress of the art of illumination as a distinct branch of pictorial ornamentation from the fourth century to the seventeenth. It describes the various styles in vogue at different periods from the first glimmering traces of illumination in its true mean- ing, observable in the early Byzantine manuscripts onward. Thomas Astle's " Origin and Progress of Writing," 1803, folio, is another excellent and most useful treatise, containing the history of 43 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS writing in different ages and countries, proved from ancient inscriptions, manuscripts, and other authen- tic documents, of which engraved specimens are given. Rules are also laid down to enable readers to judge of the age and authenticity of almost any manuscript with which they may happen to be confronted. The history of writing in England from the time the Romans left it is, in this book, very full and complete. Reference should also be made to Mr. Falconer Madan's " Books in Manu- script," an easily accessible work, published in 1893, abounding in useful and interesting informa- tion. The first day of Dibdin's " Bibliographical Decameron" is also devoted to the progress of art as seen in some of the more celebrated manu- scripts of our own country and elsewhere, but the account there given assumes the existence of a knowledge which is not likely to be at the fingers' ends of the majority of those who may chance to read it. Other books there also are, but these will suffice for the present. Beyond saying that the earliest manuscripts of the class we are considering are written in either uncial or capital letters; that gold, red, and blue colours are noticeable before green, purple, or yellow were generally employed; that red rubrics with alternate red and blue capitals are common in headlines in the fourteenth century, and that the illuminations, whether consisting of floriated letters, leaf and scroll-work in the margins, or miniatures, became more numerous and elaborate as time went on, it is hardly possible to enter into detail. It is well to notice, however, that the best later period of the illuminator's art extends approximately from 1250 to 1550, and that it was 44 MANUSCRIPTS at its zenith about the year 1480. From that time it begins to decline. It is also noticeable that the style of decoration remains substantially the same for long periods. A certain design of, say, scroll- work will be copied, with variations, over and over again ; even the scene disclosed by some miniature will at last become familiar in altered forms. In order to appreciate this somewhat curious fact, it is, however, necessary to compare many manuscripts arranged chronologically, and the opportunity of doing that is but seldom avail- able. The annexed illustration is from a French illuminated manuscript Hour Book, of the latter part of the fifteenth century {cir. 1480). The exe- cution is good and typical of the style of the period. Speaking broadly, any stray monastic manu- script the collector may come across in the course of his wanderings is almost sure to be of a de- votional or religious or semi-religious character, though it may perhaps consist of moral allegories. Furthermore, it is almost certain to be written in Latin; English books of this class, though not un- known, being excessively rare. The earliest books are generally Psalters (in effect, early " Books of Hours") of the thirteenth century, and after them come the Bibles. These are very numerous, and were followed by many Horae, Sermons Homilies, and Breviaries. On the other hand Chronicles and Romances, Poems and Herbals, though not of the highest degree of rarity, are yet scarce enough, and when in English are very scarce. On the whole it may be said with con- siderable confidence that a stray manuscript of the twelfth to the fifteenth century will be found to 45 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS be either a Bible, a Psalter, or a Book of Hours. In rare cases it proves to be a Missal, In all these instances the material used is always parchment or vellum, the latter being, in effect, parchment of a finer variety, prepared with the greatest care, and naturally very expensive. Paper does not seem to have been used for books till the invention of printing, at any rate not to any material extent; but as few changes take place suddenly, so there was a period, viz., the latter part of the fifteenth century and nearly the whole of the sixteenth when sometimes parchment or vellum was used, and sometimes paper. This we may call the transition period, and it is worthy of note that manuscripts on parchment of this era are, under similar con- ditions, more highly appreciated than those on paper. It will readily be conceded that it is necessary to be as sure as possible that any manuscript offered for sale is perfect. It is seldom possible to be quite sure, and occasionally there is no certainty about the matter at all. These old manuscripts have not, of course, a title-page, and may appar- ently commence in set phrase, and to all appear- ance at the beginning. Nevertheless, they may want one or more preliminary leaves. So also they may terminate apparently in proper form and yet be imperfect at the end. This brings us to the intricate subject of the collation of manuscripts, about which much has been written, though ap- parently with little result. Mr. Lang cites a number of rules in " The Library," and these are perhaps the most clear and concise that the reader is likely to meet with. Briefly it may be said that if the manuscript is furnished with 46 MANUSCRIPTS catchwords at the foot of the pages, it will be necessary to see that they are duly repeated at the top of the pages following. If there are any signa- tures they should be followed just as they would be in the case of a printed book. If there are neither catchwords nor signatures, then it becomes necessary to know what the manuscript ought to contain, and to judge accordingly. If that is un- known, then it is practically impossible to say whether it is perfect or not. Should it appear to be perfect, that must perforce suffice, and in practice it is assumed to be so. It is worthy of note that should a manuscript be genuine throughout so far as it exists, it is then considered to be in a better position even though incomplete, than it would have been had it been restored, i.e., made perfect by the addition of leaves in imitation. The closer and more natural the imitation the worse the position of the manuscript, for it casts suspicion on leaves which may be perfectly genuine. A bad imita- tion is therefore to be preferred to a skilful one, for the latter is regarded as nothing more nor less than a forgery, casting discredit upon the entire volume. Breviaries, which are always very voluminous, are not often illuminated, and are never textually the same. They must therefore, like Chronicles, Poems, Romances, and Herbals, be followed from page to page. Missals are collated in the same way. All contain the Canon of the Mass faced, when illuminated, by a full-page figure of the Crucifixion. Books of Hours begin, as a rule, with the Calendar, and always contain the Horae, from which they take their name. They generally, but not always, 47 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS contain the Litany. In fact, there is no certainty about the " make up " of books of this kind, and all that can be done is to carefully examine them leaf by leaf, seeing that the text follows on, and that the signatures, if any, are succeeded by the correspond- ing blank (as to the signature) leaf or leaves. Before the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer by Edward VI, a variety of service books were used in the English Church, many of them peculiar to certain Sees and localities, and it is these that invariably give the greatest amount of trouble. Breviaries, Missals, Antiphonaria, Horae, and other special texts jostle one another in apparently in- extricable confusion, and, indeed, it requires con- siderable knowledge to distinguish one from the other, or to say for what service any particular book was intended. There has recently (August, 1904) been published a work by Messrs. C. Words- worth and H. Littlehales on "The Old Service Books of the English Church," which gives a clear description of the plan, range, and contents of all such books before the Reformation, and to this the reader can be referred with every confidence. It contains many reproductions of pages of manu- scripts, some of them embellished with decorations and miniatures. Bibles are the easiest to collate of all old manu- scripts. There is, of course, no title. The Epistle of St. Jerome to the Reader invariably commences on the first page, and, after that, the books of the Old Testament follow each other, though not al- ways in the same order. The apocryphal books are, however, invariably included. The New Tes- tament follows the Old without a break, and is usually, but not always, followed by a colophon, 48 MANUSCRIPTS after which comes an index of Hebrew names and a statement of their significance in Latin. Such is Mr. Lang's collation of an ordinary Monkish Bible in manuscript, and it is undoubtedly accurate so far as accuracy is at all possible in matters of the kind. The truth is, that although a certain sameness is observable in all these old devotional and religious books, the " use " or community in which they were read was responsible for many variations. The Bible, being of one " use " only, that is to say the same in whatever Christian community it happened to be met with, was naturally subject to the least variation, though there are differences, technical rather than substantial, and these are none the less difficult to reduce to order. In conclusion it may be stated that the number of manuscripts of all kinds stored in the chief Li- braries of the world are, according to Mr. Madan (who, it will be remembered, wrote in 1893), about as follows: (i) The British Museum, 52,000 and 1 62,000 charters; (2) The Bibliotheque Nationale, 80,000; (3) The Biblioteca Vaticana, 25,600; (4) The Bodleian, 3 1 ,000; (5) The India Office, 1 3, 700; and (6) Cambridge University, 5,723. 49 CHAPTER IV PAPER AND PAPER MARKS "Water marks" defined — Useful sometimes in detecting fabrications — The Ireland forgeries — Unauthorized issues of books — Byron's ".English Bards and Scotch Reviewers " — The Papyrus — Leaves of palm, olive, and poplar — Parchment — In- troduction of paper into Europe and England — The first Eng- lish paper mill — India and Japan papers — Laid and wove papers — Water or paper marks — The oldest form of the " water mark " — Various examples — Books of reference. PAPER marks or "water marks," as they are popularly called, have been described as " Ornamental figures in wire or thin brass, sewn upon the wires of the mould which, like those wires, leave an impression by rendering the paper, when itlies on them, thinner and more translucent." This definition is as accurate as any, and would have been more so had a few words been added to explain that in popular acceptation, at any rate, a paper mark or water mark is the figure or device often seen on paper when it is held up to the light, as a result of the process mentioned. This, how- ever, is merely explanatory of a definition which is satisfactory enough so far as it goes, and in any case need not be enlarged upon further. The reason why paper and its various qualities and kinds and the water marks upon it are regarded with interest, is because it is possible in many cases to detect imitations by reference to the 50 PAPER AND PAPER MARKS peculiarities observable in them. It has been said that the water mark is a terror to the forger, though this view is perhaps too sanguine, for only in some cases can a limit of time be fixed by its use. Paper made in one generation may be kept back till the next, or for even longer periods still ; in fact, old paper, either in sheets or made up into book form, and in each instance unwritten upon, is not infre- quently met with . It is, however, an undoubted fact that old papers cannot be imitated with sufficient closeness to deceive the experienced eye, and knowing that, forgers of literary relics have at all times obtained, wherever possible, genuine material upon which to write or to print. It will be remem- bered that W. H. Ireland very clearly describes his fabrication of the Shakespeare manuscripts in his " Confessions," and that his great difficulty was to obtain the paper. He selected half sheets from books in which accounts had been kept in the reign of Charles I, and, being ignorant of water marks, took care to select half sheets having no mark whatever. Old and genuine paper was an absolute necessity, and pursuing his operations further, he made friends with a book- seller in St. Martin's Lane, who, for five shillings, allowed him to take the fly leaves from all the folios and quartos in his shop. At first he used sheets without marks, as before, but afterwards, finding that a jug was a prevalent water mark in the reign of Elizabeth, he selected paper from his stock ac- cordingly, using many blank leaves to allay sus- picion. We may be quite sure that any unprincipled person, anxious to fabricate a book or a document for purposes of sale, would proceed in some such 51 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS way as this, and that to him, at any rate, neither paper nor water mark would prove an obstacle, though the appropriate and necessary sheets would certainly be more or less difficult to obtain. The utmost we can venture to say is that a study of paper and the marks upon it is important, as it may afford information as to where and when a book, without place or date, was printed, and may also prove useful in the detection of ignorant forgeries or unauthorized issues. In illustration of this last phase of the question, reference may be made to Byron's " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," originally published by Cawthorne, without date (but 1809). There are several spurious, that is to say, unauthorized edi- tions of this work, and the best way of identifying the genuine first issue is by referring to the water mark on the paper, which consists of the date "1805." The"Athenaeum"of May 5th, 19th, 26th, and June 2nd, 1894, contains a series of articles on these spurious issues, that of June 2nd being a summary of the whole position. From these it will be seen that the subject of water marks, incidental though it may appear at first sight to be, may be of primary importance on occasion. As we have seen, the Papyrus, a reed with thick triangular stem, apparently extinct, since the plant known to modern botanists by that name is quite dissimilar, furnished the first paper known to us. It seems to be referred to in Isaiah (xix, v. 7), who flourished seven hundred years before the Christian Era, and was used by the Egyptians in times much further remote still. Down to the ninth century a.d., the Papyrus was exported to Greece and Italy, and Papal documents were 52 PAPER AND PAPER MARKS written upon it as late as the eleventh century. Leaves of palm, olive, poplar, and other trees were also used, all alike being written upon with a reed, split and cut like a quill pen. Parchments, i.e., the skins of animals, properly prepared, were also employed in very early days, though this material seems to have been always very ex- pensive. Diodorus Siculus says that the ancient Persians used it, and, according to Herodotus, the lonians did the same 440 b.c. In later days the material became so scarce and expensive, that the writing on old manuscripts of this character was frequently erased, and the parchment used again. Writings of this class are known as " Palimpsests." The scarcity of parchment in the twelfth century is indicated by the fact that in 1 120, when Martin Hugh, a monk, was commissioned by the Convent of St. Edmund's Bury, to write and illuminate a grand copy of the Bible for the library there, he was unable to proceed with the work, it being im- possible to obtain the necessary parchment except at a ruinous cost. In the library of Ptolemy Phila- delphus, there was a copy of the works of Homer written in golden letters on the skins of serpents. Eustathius, who Hved about a.d. 1180, states that the Papyrus had fallen into disuse a little before his time, having been probably superseded by Arabic paper manufactured according to Chinese methods from hemp and linen as early as the eighth century. The period when paper was introduced into Europe is uncertain. All that is known is that there were mills in Tuscany as early as the com- mencement of the fourteenth century, and that Ulman Stromer started a mill at Nuremberg in 53 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS 1390, afterwards writing the first book ever pub- lished on the art of paper making. So also the period when paper was first introduced into Eng- land is equally uncertain. There is aletter addressed to Henry HI, prior to 1222, in the Record Office, on a strong paper of mixed materials, but it is the general opinion that paper suitable for the purpose of printing was only made shortly before the dis- covery of the art. It may be mentioned that the first English paper mill was, at one time, identified with that established by Sir John Spielman at Dartford, in 1588, though this is an obvious error, as John Tate had a mill near Stevenage as early as 1490. It is referred to by Caxton in one of his books printed in that year, and Caxton himself used native paper for some of his works. Tate's device or water mark was a star within a double circle, and that of his son, who carried on the business, and made paper for Wynkyn de Worde>i a wheel. The " De Proprietatibus Rerum" printed by Wynkyn de Worde about the year 1495, is on paper made near Hertford by John Tate. In Scot- land a company was formed for making paper in 1695, but none of the native papers attained any degree of perfection till James Whatman estab- lished a well-deserved reputation — still surviving — at Maidstone in 1 760-1 765. An illustration of a paper mill of the sixteenth century, which we reproduce, appears in Jost Amman's " Panoplia," a book printed at Frankfort in 1 564. The history of the invention of paper has yet to be written, though there are several works which treat the subject, as, for example. Dr. Joseph Karabacek's Essay, and the books of M. Briquet. Referring to quite modern paper, the terms 54 A PAPER MILL OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY \_To face p. 54 PAPER AND PAPER MARKS " India paper" and "Japan paper" so frequently met with, need a few words. India paper is used for taking impressions from fine engravings on steel or copper, its peculiar softness of texture taking a mark upon the slightest pressure. It is made in different qualities from the inner fibre of the bamboo, and is generally of a buff colour. India proof engravings are taken off on paper of this kind, and appear sometimes in books, at others as independent prints. India paper is the thinnest of opaque papers, specially adapted for very fine and important work. Japan paper is made, when genuine, at Opi in Japan, and is of many different kinds, including the silkiest tissue paper, thick parchment, Bristol board, and artists' papers. It is usually manufactured from the fibre of the paper mulberry. Many books have recently been printed on Japan paper. Machine-made paper, which was introduced into England in 1 80 1, is more uniform in thickness than the old papers, and quite smooth. The rough coarse texture always observable in the handmade papers is not noticeable except in the "imitation handmade" variety. "Laid paper" shows all the marks of the wire-frame mould, and has the appearance of being ribbed. In the case of " wove paper," these marks are not observable. We now come to the rather more important subject of water marks, popularly so called, though the expression is not strictly accurate. The defini- tion of a paper mark has already been given, but the reason of its use needs some explanation. In early days, when few people were able to read, pictures or symbols ordinarily took the place of words, and though paper marks were probably used with the same object at first, there is no 55 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS doubt that they eventually became trade marks. Just as printers employed devices which they put on the title-pages or the final leaves of the books they printed, so paper makers used these devices, to ear-mark as it were, the different kinds or sizes of the material they manufactured, or to advertise some individual business. The former was the more usual object ; indeed, it was so general that the names of the different sorts and sizes of paper may frequently be explained by reference to the various marks which were adopted at different periods. Thus Foolscap paper takes its name from the common device of the fool's cap. Post paper from the post-horn. Pott paper from the pot or jug, one of the commonest of all marks, and so on. Jansen, in his " Essai sur I'origine de la gravure en Bois," says that the oldest mark known to exist is to be found on the paper of an account book dated 1301 — a circle or globe surmounted by a double cross, of which an illustration is given in the annexed plate. Fig. i shows this design, and Fig. 2 a variation of it, found in an account book at the Hague, dated 1356. Although the same figures or designs are found at widely different periods, they invariably show variations, and this is so in the case of all old water marks without exception. Another very old and widely diffused mark is the jug or pot. This was used as early as 1352 in Holland, and is met with during the whole of the fifteenth century. In England its chief period is embraced by the years 1540-1560 (see fig. 3). The open hand surmounted by a star (fig. 4) was in use probably as early as 1530, but specimens of the plain open hand are a century older at least, being noticeable in the account books at the Hague, 56 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS dated 1432 (fig. 5). The hand holding a key, or surmounted by a crescent instead of a star, or by a fleur-de-lis, or with a Maltese cross beneath, are all variations of the same device. The open hand is found on a copy of the " Speculum Christ- iani," printed by Machlinia at London, n.d., 4to. The authorship of this book is assigned to John Watton or Wotton, who was living in 1 490. About the same period the plain open hand was quite common in the Netherlands, where much of the paper of that period was manufactured. Caxton bought most of his paper from the Low Countries, and the late Mr. Blades, on going through a copy of the first edition of the " Canterbury Tales," printed about the year 1478, discovered fifteen distinct water marks. As these comprise a very good col- lection of the marks of the period we give a list of eight of them. They are as follows : (a) The Bull's Head (fig. 6); (d) The Arms of John the Fearless, son of Philip the Hardy; (c) The Letter P, also used in Caxton's " Game and Playe of ye Chesse " (fig. 7); {d) The Letter Y, the initial of Ysabel, daughter of John, King of Portugal; (e) The Uni- corn, often found in books printed by Wynkyn de Worde (fig. 8); (/) The Arms of France; (g) The Arms of Champagne; (k) The Open Hand, over which is a fleur-de-lis. The anchor is a very old mark found in some of the very earliest block books. Many of the works printed by Aldus Manutius are also water marked with this device. The horn (fig. 9) dates as far back as 1370, as evidenced by books of account at the Hague bearing that date; it is also found on a letter dated from Dover in 142 1 addressed to the Bishop of Durham, and was in 58 PAPER AND PAPER MARKS constant use on paper made in Holland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is con- sequently not true that the horn was first <|S used as a water mark on paper in 1670, when the General Post Office was estab- lished in England, and the reference to the post-horn, 1 usually blown i 11 \ ^y ^^^ early let- ' ' ter carriers, has no connection with the mark. A variation of ^^ y the horn is giv- en in fig. 10. So also the story of the fool's cap being intro- duced by Cromwell in substitution for the crown is certainly not correct, for the mark appears on the "Golden Legende" printed by Caxton in 1483 (fig. 1 1 ), though it is probable that after the Restoration it was supplanted by a figure of Britan- nia, and al- so by that of a lion rampant supporting the cap of liberty on ^'-?J a pole. The form of the fool's cap, as it was com- monly met with during the Commonwealth period, is shown in fig. 12. A cap, very like a jockey's cap 59 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS oif the present day, was in frequent use during the seventeenth century. It appears frequently in the first Folio of Shakespeare's Plays, printed in ^3 // 1623. The cardinal's hat (fig. 13) was also a very common seventeenth century device, so common, in fact, that there was a class of paper then called " Cardinal." It is probable that nearly all the marks named were used in connection with paper of a cer- tain class, to distinguish it from otherkinds, ^_ ^ ^ — ^_ and yet ^ * — ^ there can be no reason- able doubt that some water marks were used out of compliment to patrons and others, or had refer- ence to some distinguishing feature belonging to the book itself For instance, where the mark of a pelican is found on paper, the volume is sure 60 PAPER AND PAPER MARKS to have some connection with Aeneas Silvius (Piccolomini), who became Pope Pius II in 1458. The pelican was his private device or crest before he became Pontiff. In Eggesteyn's Latin Bible, printed at Strasburg, in two vols., folio, 41 lines to the page, no name of printer or place, nor date being given, the paper on which the Book of the Kings is printed bears the water mark of a crown. This mark appears nowhere else, the bull's head and the letter P being invariably used in all other parts of the book. This can hardly have been an accidental circumstance. At the present day the paper or water mark not infrequently distinguishes the size of the sheet. A shield surmounted by a crown shows that the paper is Pott size, while the figure of Britannia is confined to Foolscap ; the post-horn within an ornamental shield, surmounted by a coronet, is assigned to Post ; a large fleur-de-lis within an ornamental shield, to Demy ; and a transverse bar within an ornamented shield, surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, to Royal. Pot, or Pott, is a French paper, other- wise known as Papier Ecolier. The subject of paper and paper marks, though of importance for reasons already mentioned, is yet not sufficiently interesting to justify any ex- tended explanation. Further information can be got, if required, from Samuel Leigh Sotheby's " Typography of the Fifteenth Century," from the same author's " Principia Typographica," where several hundred marks are reproduced, and also in simpler form from Herring's " Paper and Paper Making," a new edition of which appeared in 1863. 61 CHAPTER V THE TITLE-PAGE AND THE COLOPHON The earliest books were modelled on manuscripts — The "Mazarin Bible" — The rubricators — Colophons — The evolu- tion of the title-page — " Label " title-pages — Half-titles — The first English title-pages — The merits of the old title-pages — John Bagford's collection — The "Paradise Lost" titles — List of Latinized place-names — Roman numerals. THE earliest printers, taking manuscripts as their models, cast their types in close imita- tion of the writing of their day. There seems to be little doubt that printed books were at first mis- taken for manuscripts, for just as the scribes sup- plied the text only, leaving the decorations to be added by " rubricators," so the first printers con- fined their attention to " type-work " only, any em- bellishments there might be being drawn on the page by hand. The rubricators occupation, though practically ruined by the invention of printing, was not killed outright. Thus the " Mazarin Bible," a page of which is here reproduced, is supposed to be the first book printed from movable types. It is ornamented by hand; indeed the practice, as that of leaving blank spaces to be afterwards filled up by the rubricator, was continued for many years after the invention of printing. The second Aldine edition of the work by lamblichus, entitled " De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum," has spaces containing 62 f.si hi «u paflntrjii; StmtftlmsDumirW" tojtilibjis- Caiiuidiimpstrtui:--- . "ant nrobtoTiuB maraictjimunurm laptcfrcma-Drtulit firatifuaiiinimaB ritttrasTqurapmv piDflniinnaqfiK arc inm f(DiT rt Dttctio aminnt pfmbant. tH fta mi ilia iittrintuDn f ■ n fpi {ttunno opulata: qua im iinlu taorafamillans-nDiipfrnnatantii cQtp}q'na rubiola ipjlpas aDiilam: friJBfinmqitr BminacurmpmcatS ftuDia tonali0tu.trgira'mnttEnto biftonjo-quatba lufttaUtjiuinnaB- uDuoo iiutfit iptos ■ nianattafiffc lit EBB qiiDO rf litinq nouEtacracam if, uiDrmit . S>it pitagoraa rannplj^< ncoB naire^Dt plotD tgiptum-i attt)i' tani tammmi • tamqi nta rtalit-qut qimiiDa magna ptcria Dinrtat: labD< cmfiffimt prtaguinct ut qui attjrnia mirt ct(it^ potnis-ruiurqi Wrtrinao artiaBfinic ffignaria pfonaliat-fitttt pntgniiuQ atq; Oirnpulusrroalrae a lima utrccuiiDc Difatt:it> fua impu« Dmm inftttttt . ftmiq-, mm Itttnaa qunfi mm D!(it fugiratij! pnftquinit- raptuD a pivaris ct untuDatuB-ctran no miBtliHtmo pamit- nuihiorapti uuoain#'ttrrtuuB:tammquia phi- \ lorop,t}u8:roaia!traratcrt&iit-aB tr« tuniliiim-latarioqumtit&ntEnm* nanccm-li ulnraia tjirpomr (jalliaiM qi fimbua quotBam ntuiffruobilro jsg lrginiuB:Et quaaaBmmHplaninmil^?: fuiramanDnitafrrar.-unniBtjoraia^"' "' niB famaptrOusit. Ijabunilla ttaa inauBimni oranibuB ftculiB- tritbta^ Duraqt miKtrulutn:ut urban tatara,^; ■»: mgtefli ; aliuB tftta Bttjtra quEttttm. Inftllom'fiut illr raatf' ut milgua Inquitur-fiaf rtuB utpnagonntta* Bunt • I'ttauit pfaBpitpfmit taiimtu- albAnofl-rnrtjao- matfagttaa'Opu- Imnffima iiiBit rtgna prniiMuit : tt antitmmiiniatiffimDpbHnnarant ttafmitfo gutmt aD btatjinanas : ut brattara m ttjtono fttnitc autto-i ce tantali Caincpmaimm-inttt paucoB Birnpfoa-Bt naiura^Bt raonto at Bt lurfu Birrii 1 jiBttu auBirtt Bnimmn. (nut p tlanntae-babiloniae-itialtc oe-n|tBo%anmDe-panQae ■ T^a- pbtnnta-arabrs- paltSinoe -1X0(1: lua ab alEianDria -iltiatit an tttpn tiiencut ^igaofotffiSa^ t Eanmlifli^ moi^i Ibto mmram niDECtt i (abulo. InumniUt nttnbiiBquoliBdaitt:) umo {nafinna • liiqiR Ct mdiat &t at. lutipfiffitpwliicplmiflmg nito Ijumnibtra-plirlautamewXE— ' Uninarbcfiaililionnmbs: K apofloltte prndim-iuB b inio • tt tnapffiR omnunt-qtu B( inrtumia taim hvlt ^qipitie laqut< [bamc-BiccnB.|lni|pcnmnnumqut> liaa (ius qui m mt loquttuc toBua- boSBaraarium aiabiaq; lufltatam- [alttntmt ibcmroliroa ut mBetit pitiu raarttitapuBtumBirtma quinttn ;' oc tnira millmo itBomaBia tt n godaBiB :fumt' gmnuip prtfliiai inRiutnBuB^tat . Kinfuniq; ps& etu noe quamoTBtcun aOumpio barna- ba tt tnu ■ tfporuit turn apoftoUe tu -;; an gtliiim : nr font i oatuum nmitrt^ ;siaur lutuctiflrt . I| abit uEfiuj quia ta« ■'tttnia ciTttgir omtuoaaataBrtr in autco Biftipuli Bt auttoi^B on ttant &ira:fani?Ionat.tlnBt ttffibipro tu toBi tpUant-ttlrgttn Hla KmriBmiD ■»:: ;i A PAGE FROM THE SO-CALLED " .MAZARLV EIHLE" (Aclual size, 151 ins. by ii ins.) Vrofaccp. 62 THE TITLE-PAGE AND COLOPHON the small initial letters of each paragraph, and yet this book was printed as late as 1 5 1 6, more than fifty years after the Mazarin Bible issued from the press of Gutenberg and Fust. We may take it that all the earliest printed books had spaces pur- posely left for ornamentation, which was then re- garded as a distinct art, exactly as it had always been in the case of manuscripts. The subject of the decoration of books is referred to more minutely elsewhere, and it is only necessary to say that from about the year 1480 onward the help of the rubricator was less and less relied upon, until at last it ceased to be sought at all, though so great is the force of precedent that spaces continued to be left as heretofore, even though it had become practically certain that they would never be filled up. Sometimes, however, even this pretence was abandoned, and the printers, no longer careful of the powerful guilds which watched over the in- terests of the rubricators, boldly printed their own ornaments, as may be seen by referring to the Latin exposition of the " Lamentations of Jeremiah," printed at Oxford in 1482. The front page of this book has an ornamental border, printed from a block. A colophon, from the Greek KoXo(j>oiv, meaning the finishing stroke, is an inscription on the last page of a book, used before title-pages were intro- duced, and in many cases afterwards, containing the place or year, or both, of its publication, the printer's name, and other details necessary for its identification. The accompanying illustration, re- producing the final page of Higden's " Polychroni- con," printed by Caxton in 1482, shows the colo- phon commencing " And here I make an Ende of 63 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS this lytel worke." Some colophons are more ex- plicit than others, and it may be said that, gener- ally speaking, the older the book the more detailed are the concluding words. In the earliest printed Bibles there is no colophon, nor was its use uni- versal at any time. Many of the oldest books have colophons, but many have not, and the omission is not surprising, for to say the very utmost in favour of this old method of affording information, the inconvenience of the colophon was very great. A book which plunges in medias res on its first page, without any introduction or preliminary mat- ter whatever would not strike anyone as possessing much of that severe and practical method to which we have long been accustomed. The colophon, though of the greatest interest to bibliographers, would probably be entirely overlooked by the majority of readers, and that it should frequently have been omitted need occasion no surprise. The first instance of the appearance of a colo- phon in a printed book occurs in the well-known Psalter of 1457, printed at Mentz, now Mayence, a work of supreme importance as it is, so far as is known, the earliest printed book having a date. The colophon gives the date and also the names of Fust and Schoeffer, the printers. It commences " Pre- sens spalmorum \sic\ codex venustate capitalium decoratus Rubricationibusque sufficienter distinct- us," etc. The colophon held its place at the end of the book till about the year 1520, when title-pages, in the form we now see them, began to become com- mon and there was consequently less need of a final word to the reader. It was perhaps directly suggestive of the printer's marks so often seen 64 cn&r^femnce 6g ^ono: f^c fce/2t'fi0 ^af ^ mag tcgnc in fScm fc t^c pCapfgtc of aEmjjg^tg got>/0jtt§c of ^ie ro%ife;^noute ona? «ojf5iH3c nj tjieptclmtt O^f / on&? tScfe aiib? ptouffgfe of oeee $t6 fii63«fti6/onti t^at t^ctv mog Be a ftrag f^naE pjc6 rti ae «»> ffcjj (}?o^amc6 t§at t^c 3nf jJOeCfcp out mpfacounfte mo^ Be ®tt§^ fianottj Ano sefttogcO/ anX) out fc^^ m6auno:&?/tgOicee t»j f^pfe {ttgeeiefotc mynupff^a? 6p <^e pngffauno? of t^e ^m^isan^ ^t§w) mcw/TtnO? t^ot of&v if^ic pi»f«n ^JCotie me of mp fgitipfc /anO^tutc ^tS ttScgnc/ Jpnpff?ej>2 pjt Cflgfor) COLOPHON TO HIGDEN .S POTA'CHRONICON PRINTED BY CAXTON IN 1 48 2 THE TITLE-PAGE AND COLOPHON at the end of old books, especially those of French extraction. These will be referred to again in their place. Practically everything to be learned about colophons may be gathered from Mr. A. W. Pollard's " Last Words on the Title- Page," an extensively illustrated and very useful book, published in 189 1. Mr. Pollard points out that although colophons were, as a rule, printed in the ordinary type used for the book itself, some examples are much more elaborate. Peter Schoeffer and others often used red ink, and printers' marks are frequently found in conjunction with them. Many colophons were also far more than mere memoranda ; they were literary compositions, fre- quently in verse, John of Speyer, the first Venice printer, and his brother Vindelinus, being cele- brated for this class of ambitious work. The " Epistolse Familiares " of Cicero, printed by the first-named in 1469, has this colophon: Primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis Urbe libros Spira genitus de stirpe Johannes In reliquis sit quanta vides spes lector habenda Quom labor hie primus c superaverit artem We now come to the invention of the title-page, adding a few words on the history of its evolution. It may be thought that a preliminary page de- voted to the title of the work in which it appears, giving perhaps a short summary of its contents, would have been recognized as useful from the first, but it was not until 1470 that Arnold ther Hoernen of Cologne, awoke to its many advan- tages. In that year he printed his " Sermo ad populum predicabilis," which contains the first title-page known to exist, and no colophon. A reproduction, though not in facsimile, is given in 65 F HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Dibdin's "Bibliotheca Spenceriana," 1814, vol. iii, p. 507. It is lengthy, consisting of nine lines, and descriptive, far more so than the so-called "label " title-pages that afterwards came into use. This, however, was an experiment and nothing more. Not for f many years afterwards did the title-page come into ordinary use. Caxton followed the old practice, or rather one of his own, for he gives the titles of his books in any part of the text that suits his convenience ; sometimes at the commencement of the prologue, sometimes at the end, or even in the table of contents. After 1480 the " label " title- page is often seen. This consists usually of a few words printed at the top of a preliminary blank leaf. Full title-pages were not used to any extent till the last years of the century, nor were they commonly met with till 1520, as previously stated, when they superseded the old "label" form, re- vived and made popular yet once again by the Kelmscott books. The modern "half-title" is in effect a "label" title, the only difference being that it is invariably printed in the centre of the page preceding the title proper instead of at the top of it. It consists of a few words only, the fewer the better, giving the short title of the work, which the general title expands. Where a book contains several distinct portions, a half-title may precede some or all of them. Thus, Browning's " La Saisiaz," published in 1878, has a half-title not only before the full title-page, but before each of the two poems contained in the volume. Other countries, Germany and Italy especially, adopted the title-page earlier than we did. Indeed, an artistic title is found to a calendar printed by Bernardus " pictor," Erhardus Ratdolt, and Petrus 66 " divp:s et pauper " earliest english illustratel* tlfle-page, t496 (Size of original. 10^ ins. Ly 7^ ins.) [ To face p. 66 THE TITLE-PAGE AND COLOPHON Loslein at Venice in 1476. It is the first artistic title-page known, and very suggestive of Italian influence. In this instance a combination is observ- able, but speaking generally it may be said with confidence that woodcut embellishments appeared in books before the title-page was apparently thought of. The first English printed book to boast of a title-page is entitled "A passing gode lityll boke necessarye and behoveful agenst the Pestilens." This is not dated, but has been assigned to the press of Machlinia, who is supposed to have printed it about the year i486. About the year 1491 Wynkyn de Worde printed a book with a title and colophon. The former is nearly in the centre of an otherwise blank page and reads " The prouffyt- able boke for manes soule and right comfortable to the body and specyally in adversitee and tribu- lacyon — which boke is called the Chastysing of goddes chyldern." A good copy of this scarce work can be seen in the King's Library at the British Museum. The title-page is without ornament, and if we seek for one of the earliest, perhaps the earliest, example of an English t^/usirahd title-page it will be necessary to turn to the " Dives et Pauper," printed by Wynkyn de Worde at Westminster in 1496, of which a reproduction is here given. The merits of the old title-pages are often very pronounced ; in fact many authorities consider that, all things considered, they are superior in what may be called their design to the vast majority produced at the present day. Mr. Pollard sums up the points in which they excel as follows: i. The quaintness and beauty of the printers' emblems. 2. The limited number of the types used, rarely 67 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS more than two. Many of our modern titles are crowded with five or six varieties of type, and sometimes even more. 3. The graceful arrange- ment of the types in geometrical forms. 4. The judicious use of red ink. The various forms of the title-page as it has existed from the earliest period, could perhaps best be shown by any one possessing the time and in- clination to do so, by analyzing the contents of the large collection formed by John Bagford, now in the British Museum Library. Bagford, who was born in 1650, managed to accumulate some 25,000 "items" extracted from books. These consist mainly of title-pages which this prince of biblio- clasts tore out and trimmed close to the edge of the text. His methods were barbarous, the damage he must have done almost incalculable, and yet his collection has its merits, for it is pos- sible to obtain from it a bird's-eye view, so to speak, of the many varieties of title-pages in use at different times, and to trace their distinctive features from one period to another. Bagford's collection, though a pitiable example of misplaced energy, is as useful in its way as the Thomason collection of Civil War Tracts, also in the British Museum Library, which consists of some 23,000 pamphlets bound up in very nearly 2,000 volumes. The enterprise of the two men was unbounded, but the methods of Thomason were fortunately more in accord with precedent. The study of title-pages is, however, not wholly of antiquarian interest. It is occasionally a neces- sary part of the knowledge which the book-lover must possess himself of if he would keep himself abreast of the times. It is not necessary to do 68 THE TITLE-PAGE AND COLOPHON more than merely refer to Milton's " Paradise Lost" in support of this remark. The first edition of this immortal poem is distinguished by no fewer than eight different title-pages, according to Lowndes, and even his list is not quite complete. The publisher being unable to sell the whole edition at once, proceeded to issue a small number of copies at a time, during the years 1667- 1669, furnishing each batch with a distinct title-page specially printed for the occasion. A knowledge of the variations that exist in these titles is neces- sary, as a very great deal depends upon the form they assume. Two are dated 1667, four 1668, and two 1669. The commercial value of a copy of the original edition of the " Paradise Lost " depends inter alia upon the issue to which it belongs, and there are, as we have seen, eight issues at least, each distinguishable by its title-page, and prac- tically in no other way; the slight alterations observable here and there in the text and the peculiar "make up" of one or two of the issues being adjuncts rather than distinguishing fea- tures. We now come to a part of the title-page of very considerable importance, namely, the foot, in which is usually given the place where the book was printed or published and its date, these details being at one time supplied by the colophon. In all instances in which a book is printed in Latin the name of the place where it was printed or published will be given in the Latin form, which is frequently quite different from the name of the place as we know it to-day. Some are the same, as, for ex- ample, Mantua, Verona, Parma, Murcia,andGouda, and with them no difficulty will occur, but in other 69 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS instances the names as given in their Latin form will not always be familiar. Dr. Cotton's " Typo- graphical Gazetteer " contains thousands of these Latinized place-names. Some are frequently met with, others very occasionally, and in making the following selection from the book in question we have confined ourselves to places of typographical importance, most likely to be met with. The list, though it might be greatly extended, will be found useful so far as it goes. Dr. Cotton, in addition to a considerable amount of information relative to the towns themselves, gives dates when printing was first carried on in each instance. We have thought it better to omit these dates, as many of them have been shown to be unreliable in the light of more modern research. Abbatis Villa. Abredonia. Alba. Albani Villa. Aldenarda. Alostum. Alta Villa. Amsteloedamu m . Andegavum. Andreapolis. Aneda. Angolismum. Antverpia. Arelatum. Argentina. \ Argentoratum.J Arnhemia. Asculum. Abbeville. Aberdeen. Acqui. St. Albans. Oudenarde. Alost. Elfeld or Eltville. Amsterdam. Angers. St. Andrews. Edinburgh. Angouleme. Antwerp!. Aries. Strasburg. Arnheim. Ascoli. 70 THE TITLE-PAGE AND COLOPHON Athenae Rauracae. Basle. Atrebatum. Arras. Augusta Vindelicorum. Augsburg. Augusta Trinobantum. London. Auracum, Urach. Aurelia. Orleans. Aurelia Allobrogum. Geneva. Aureliacum. Orleans. Austriae Civitatis. Cividad di Friuli Avenio. Avignon. Bamberga. Bamberg. Barchino. Barcelona. Barcum. Barco. Basilea. Basle. Bergomum. Bergamo. Bisuntia. Besan^on. Bononia. Bologna. Braclara. Braga. Brixia. Breschia. B rugae. Bruges. Brunna. Brunn. Bruxellae. Brussels. Bucharestium. Bucharest. Burgi. Burgos. Buscum-Ducis. Bois-le-Duc. Cabelia. Chablies. Cadomum. Caen. Caesar Augusta. Saragossa. Caesarodunum Turon- Tours. um. Cantabrigia. Cambridge. Carnutum. Chartres. Chamberium. Chambery, Cluniacum. Cluni. Coburgum. Coburg. 71 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Colonia. Colonia Agrippina. Colonia Claudia. Cologne. Colonia Ubiorum. , Colonia Allobrogum. Geneva. Colonia Munatiana. Basle. Comum. Como. Corcagia. Cork. Cracovia. Cracow. Culemburgum. Culembourg. Cusentia. Cosenza. Daventria. Deventer. Delphi. Delft. Divio. Dijon. Dola. Dol. Dresda. Dresden. Duacum. Douay. Eblana. Dublin. Eboracum. York. Edinburgum. Edinburgh. Elvetiorum Argentina. Strasburg. Engolismum. Angouleme. Erfordia. Erfurt. Esslinga. Esslingen. Eustadium. Eichstadt. Ferraria. Ferrara. Firenze. (Italian form.) Florence. Florentia. Florence. Forum Livii. Forli. Francofurtum ad M oen- Frankfort on the Maine um. Francofurtum ad Oder- Frankfort on the Oder. am. Frisinga. Freysingen. Fulgineum. Foligno. 72 THE TITLE-PAGE AND COLOPHON Gaietta. Gaeta. Ganabum. Orleans. Gand (avum). Ghent. Gauda. Gouda. Gehenna. Geneva. Genua. Genoa. Gerunda. Gerona. Glascua. Glasgow. Granata. Granada. GratianopoHs. Grenoble. Hafuia. Copenhagen. Haga Comitum. The Hague. Hala Saxonum. Halle. Hamburgum. Hammona. Hamburg. Harlemum. Haarlem. Heidelberga. Heidelberg. Helenopolis. Frankfort on the Maine Herbipolis. Wiirtzburg. Hispalis. Seville. Holmia. Stockholm. Ingolstadium. Ingolstadt. Koburgum. Coburg. Lavinga. Lauingen. Leida. Leyden. Lemovicense Castrum. Limoges. Leodium. Liege. Leucorea. Wittemburg. Lignicium. Lignitz. Lipsia. Leipzig. Lisboa. Lisbon. Londinum. London. Lovanium. Louvain. Lubeca. Lubeck. Luca. Lucca. 72, HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Lugdunum. Lyons. Lugd(unum) Bat(avor- Leyden. um). Lutetia. Pans. Madritum. Madrid. Magdeburgum. Mancunium. Magdeburg. Manchester. Marsipolis. Matisco. Mediolanum. Mersburg. Ma9on. Milan. Memminga. Messana. Memmingen. Messina. Moguntia. Monachium. Mayence or Mentz, Munich. Monasterium. Munster. Mons Regalis. Mondovi (?). Moscua. Moscow. Mutina. Modena. Nanceium. Nannetes. Nancy. Nantes. Neapolis. Neocomum. Naples. Neuchatel. Nordovicum. Norwich. Norimberga. Nova Pelsna. Nuremberg. Pilsen. Noviomagium. Olomutium. Nimeguen. Olmutz. Oppenhemium. Oxonia. Oppenheim. Oxford. Panormum. Palermo. Papia. Parisii. Pavia. Paris. Patavia. Passau. Patavium. Padua. Perpinianum. Perpignan. 74 THE TITLE-PAGE AND COLOPHON Perusia. Pictavium. Praga. Ratiastum Lemovicum. Ratisbona. Regium. Reutlinga. Rhedones. Ripa. Roma. Rostochium. Roterodamum. Rothomagum, Ssena. Salmantica. Schedamum. Senae. Spira. Sublacense Monasteri- um. Sylva Ducrs. Taraco. Tarvisium. Taurinum. Theatrum Sheldonian- um, Ticinum. Tigurum. Tholosa. Toletum. Trajectum ad Rhenum. Trajectum ad Viadrum. Trajectum Inferius. Trebia. Trecae. Perugia. Poitiers. Prague. Limoges. Ratisbon. Reggio. Reutlingen. Rennes. Ripon. Rome. Rostock. Rotterdam. Rouen. Siena. Salamanca. Schiedam. Siena. Spires. Subiaco. Bois-le-Duc. Tarragona. Treviso. Turin. Oxford. (The Sheldon- ian.) Pavia. Zurich. Toulouse. Toledo. Utrecht. Frankfort on the Oder. Utrecht. Trevi. Troyes. 75 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Treviri. Treves. Tribboccorum. Strasburg. Tricasses. Troyes. Tridentum. Trent. Tubinga. Tubingen. Turigum. Zurich. Turones. Tours. Ulma. Ulm. Ultrajectum. Utrecht. Ulyssipo. Lisbon. Urbinum. Urbino. Utinum. Udina. Vallisoletum. Valladolid. Venetise. Venice. Vercellae. Vercelli. Vesontio. Besangon. Vicentia. Vicenza. Vilna. Wilna. Vindobona. Vienna. Vitemberga. Wittemburg. Viterbium. Viterbo. Vlma. Ulm. Vlyssipo. Lisbon. Vratislavia. Breslau. Westmonasterium. Westminster. Wirceburgum. Wiirtzburg. Zwollse. Zwoll. The use of Roman numerals was widespread before Arabic characters were introduced. Gener- ally speaking, there is no difficulty in understand- ing the Roman method of printing dates on the title-pages of books, though during the seven- teenth century a peculiar form, known as the in- verted " C," gives rise to some trouble on occa- 76 THE TITLE-PAGE AND COLOPHON sion. As all know, D stands for 500, but so also does 13; M stands for 1,000, and so also does CI3, The following date, occurring on a book printed by Daniel Elzevir — Cl3l3CLVni — affords a very good example of a variation com- monly met with, but if the equivalent forms given above are understood, it need occasion no diffi- culty. It is only necessary to remember that in the example given CIq = 1,000, and I3, 500; then follows C, or 100, L, or 50, and the equally familiar VIII, making the date 1658, in which year the book in question was printed. The new year did not, however, always commence on the same day in all countries. In many it began on the 25th of March, and it is quite possible, therefore, for a book described as being printed on, say the loth of February, 1490, to be later in date than one printed on the loth or any other day of December in the same year. This is, of course, obvious. Sometimes, though rarely, strange methods of dating books were employed, as for instance in the case of the " Epigrammata " of Ausonius, printed at Venice in 1472, in which the date is computed by reference to Olympiads (periods of four years reckoning from 776 b.c). Fanciful variations of this kind are not, however, sufficiently numerous to render an account of them necessary. n CHAPTER VI INCUNABULA AND THE EARLY PRINTERS Incunabula — Xylography — Block books — Wooden types — Donatuses — Catho — Early progress of the printers' art — The claims of Gutenberg and Coster — The " Indulgence " of Ni- cholas V— The " Mazarin " Bible— Pfister's Bible— The Psalter of 1457 — Gutenberg and Fust — -Fust and Schoeffer — Early presses in Germany — in the Netherlands — in Italy — in France — in England — William Caxton — The Oxford Press — Lettou and Machlinia — The " Schoolmaster " of St. Albans — Printing in Scotland, Ireland, and America — Characteristics of early printed books. INCUNABULA, a word derived from the Latin Cunae, a cradle, are books printed during the early years of the art, a period fixed by com- mon agreement as being prior to the year 1 500. Although by that time the art of typography, as we know it, had only been practised for about half a century, the number of books which had already issued from the different presses established all over Europe was very considerable. It is not pos- sible to estimate the output with any degree of accuracy, but Brunet's opinion was, that the total number of works printed prior to the year in question cannot be far short of 20,000, an estimate which covers several million individual books, or as we should say, "copies." In all probability this calculation is approximately correct, for Hain gives a list of no fewer than 16,299 books printed during the fifteenth century in his " Repertorium Biblio- 7^ EARLY PRINTED BOOKS graphicum," and Dr. Copinger has added con- siderably to the number. Many of these works are in existence now, and some are so scarce as to be practically beyond the reach of any private col- lector. Others, on the contrary, are comparatively common, and often met with in the auction rooms and elsewhere, notwithstanding the fact that edi- tions of these old books rarely exceeded 300 copies, so that at present, at any rate, representative ex- amples from many of the early presses can be pro- cured with little trouble and at small cost. Some of them, indeed, are less costly now than they were when first printed, though, of course, this is by no means the rule, for rarity and price depend very much on one another, where incunabula are con- cerned. Hallam asserts that the cost of books decreased about four-fifths with the invention of printing, and we know from a letter of Andreas, Bishop of Aleria, to the Pope, that although 100 crowns had to be paid for a finely-written and illuminated manuscript in his day, printed books could be got for about four crowns the volume. No such pro- portionate value can be relied upon now. Every old printed book and every old manuscript must be judged on its merits, and the collector must remember that there is little to be gained by the possession of a miscellaneous assortment of fifteenth century printed books. His object should be to classify them, as, for example, in such a way as to show the progress of the art of printing as carried on by some particular printer or in some particular place. If that be done, his collection, even though small in extent, will possess an educational value that may be looked for in vain under other con- 79 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS ditions. If he would reap the fullest possible benefit of his research and enterprise, he will necessarily have to become a specialist, and con- fine his operations within narrow limits. The taste for incunabula is by no means modern. It may be distinctly traced to the year 1740, when the third centenary of printing was celebrated, as many now think, without much justification. Since then the taste has become more and more refined till the specialist has usurped the place formerly held by the general lover. Typography is generally regarded as the art of printing by means of a press from movable types, whether of wood or metal. Xylography is the art of printing by means of a press from engraved blocks. The early printing presses were, of course, worked by hand, and it is curious to reflect that it is only in comparatively recent times that any im- provement is noticeable in their construction. An illustration of the sixteenth-century hand-press of Badius Ascensius, the celebrated scholar and printer of Lyons, is given in one of his books. It is almost exactly similar in appearance to that used by Benjamin Franklin when he worked in London in 1 724. The identical press used by Franklin is now at Washington, but a facsimile of it may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the case of xylographic books, the matter to appear on each page was engraved as a whole upon a single block of wood, from which an impression was taken, just as a print is produced at the present day. This process is undoubtedly very ancient, ex- amples of printing from engraved blocks of wood or soft metal, dating from the fourteenth century, being well known. Playing-cards were common 80 ^ouuftfiab ])laliB^ p^^imtioTiP IrtlioiinBVdiarniitiir Lliojiauiiecbaptifaa ^iiiKrjpioio['|Jvio.ftr&iTRauS PAGE FROM A BLOCK liOOK, COLOURED IN BROWN AND RED [ To/ace p. Zo EARLY PRINTED BOOKS during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and these were produced from blocks, as also were the so-called " block-books," consisting at first of rude woodcuts the size of the page, usually printed in brown ink. These block-books deal with a variety of subjects, such as the Apocalypse of St. John, the " Biblia Pauperum" (so called by Heinecken) used perhaps by poor friars, many of whom could scarcely even read, the " Ars Moriendi," " Cantica Canticorum," and "Liber Regum." A considerable number of block-books arranged in order of their presumed date are to be seen in the show cases of the Grenville Library at the British Museum. We see that the earlier specimens consist merelyof rude woodcuts without text, and that afterwards en- graved sentences or even half pages of explanation are added. Xylography did not become extinct for more than sixty years after the invention of printing from movable metal types, and in this connection it may be mentioned that the latest book of this character of any size was printed at Venice by Andrea Vavassore in 1510 under the title "Figure del Testamento Vecchio." It is not necessary to say more on the subject of block-books, as few examples have survived to us, and the whole subject would be far beyond the scope of a treatise such as this. Sotheby's " Principia Typographica," an exhaust- ive work in three large volumes, treating of the block-books of Holland, Flanders, and Germany, produced during the fifteenth century, is the great authority on the subject, and should be referred to in case the necessity arises. We give a reproduction of the first page of a block-book of S. Johannis Apocalypsis, consisting of forty-eight engraved 81 G HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS pages, small folio, formerly in the possession of Earl Spencer. It is coloured in brown and red. Many colleges and schools were founded during the fifteenth century, and the demand for educa- tional books became so great that some inexpensive and quick method of producing them became a ne- cessity. There are some who think that movable types cut inwood were employed before metal types came into general use, and Mr. Bradshaw points (" Memoranda," No. 3, pp. 5-6) to an instance where a block-book edition of the " Biblia Pauperum," printed at ZwoUe, was cut up and the pieces of wood used again in different combinations. So also it would seem that the blocks of a " Speculum Humanse Salvationis " were also cut up and the pieces or types used again for an edition printed at Utrecht in 1481. This is, however, a different thing from separate wooden types being specially cut and used systematically. The probability is that in the early days illustrations were frequently cut out for use again, and that the letterpress, if any, was printed from movable metal types. There is no known instance of wooden types being used, and it is significant that the first author to refer to them was Bibliander, who wrote so late as 1548 (see his "In Commentatione de ratione communi omnium linguarum et literarum," p. 80). Hadrian Junius, another old writer, whose " Nomenclator" was translated into English by John Higins and printed at London in 1583, supports Bibliander, pointing to the " Speculum " which he ascribes to Laurenz Coster. He says that wooden types were used to print the four known editions of this book (two in Latin and two in Dutch), whereas 82 mpotP6 (Quot motiiB iwla rnpouunf qualuoz quili? eKbuobuointtgri6BD(uI)urfannu6i'|buobu6rmnip hsDt fffiraj lauiutrps rainicgro f cmrupfo ulimrp tus itil'u[hr6 cjE TOiuptn a; ntttrfroutiiagigfmlusati qnfigjpJuribiisDimpfiiuffnaljilis imjiiprritiu) £I^a l"u6 uoimnfl quot fuu: Tq qui- nominafs gcmt© Bts amiCcus UDrat§ alilate jiSitt Jjos Pirim mCus ammu_ , ptrtma Ouot raobis «o\a 6pon(ff rjwoi quibuS , bnob? inttfirie tit fiibutbonue cii bitobtis ramtp Dt. fRirat raunitrpsTi Ittgto jicoirupttttit frp . Miltiis CE toimpto ittrgro at nntjijrrruluo olt f jcpplunb? «f. furppugtmbilifi imgtfvnnis <£n nouiiufl nuot futit bt qui uoiniiint& ttvuire at6 , rntS BOGViS ablat^ |)tt'hOBrnfmm[ufioiuMifi IS ai tilip tnritt gt mr' t^tipt^m » ti()t Ja nt! t ftitj nro Uflli tree mtm timirn ig; in-tum ri FE wrcs litumijt aipiuo © ucoJ qiitCui qucfitxi ttbir fuprao a ft« ffipnfim toll fajflgj trim gj tifccn Gt fotinntf a «Itm »ta) fitii »« ifeit frco fo/mairitpiis s fnifil eutpltramt ^ Cm Cttiffi eanfi C* bmit atpcEa an id Umif'mdi dt m(o Cr^ taaGo |tf info ji ptitfi B tii fmrnHio m tf iftimi aijto c Bcmca in f i w inutatl :» in gfi ja fltig gui pfttfl ptttt; gt Ut qtp iictra •-tr » — ^S -w !l|^^.!!s' >e§1: ^a-fS-i 5-i «S gSs^ ".OS'S s g.g a aSt l'S~ia'^~cro' g « .= 5 fe B ^.tH^^^'^^< ^^^®>^ ^^^'^^ XXIV. v.. ;«ri- NO. I SHOVS'S SEVEN LINES OF A DONATUS SUPPOSED BY DR. KLOSS TO BE THE EDITIO PRIMA. PROBABLY FROM TYPES CAST PRIOR TO I450 [Tf/aci-^. 32 EARLY PRINTED BOOKS other authorities are of opinion that three of them are wholly printed from movable metal types, and the fourth partly so, the remaining portion being xylographic. Whether it would be practically im- possible to print from wooden types as some authors have asserted, is extremely doubtful, to say the least. Mr. T. E. Hodgkin, who recently wrote an article to Engineering upon the subject, has tried the experiment with satisfactory results. We may, however, dismiss the " wooden types " theory as being incapable of actual proof, though it is im- portant as being a possible step in the progress of the art of printing from metal types. The Dona- tuses, or school grammars of the fifteenth century, may certainly have been printed from wooden types, as may also " Catho," a delectus in Latin, which had an almost equally wide circulation, but the probability is that they were prepared from xylo- graphic blocks or even from metal types before the period usually assigned to the invention of printing. Some authorities hold to one opinion, some to another, and it is quite impossible to say which theory is correct. The accompanying illus- tration shows seven lines of a Donatus consisting of eight pages, now in the Bodleian Library. Dr. Kloss of Frankfort, in whose possession it once was, considered it to be the Editio Prima, and was of opinion that it was printed from cast types. The particular copy sold at Sotheby's in 1835 for £2 i2s. 6d., an amount that would be greatly ex- ceeded at the present day. It is necessary to observe that the Donatus derives its name from Aelius Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the fourth century, celebrated as being one of the in- structors of St. Jerome. The Donatuses were, in 83 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS fact, school books, and it is perhaps not surprising that so few of them have survived. The early progress of the art of printing is almost entirely clouded from observation, and when we come to the parting of the ways, to the period when metal types superseded the older forms, the gloom deepens. Who invented the art of print- ing as we know it ? Since 1868 more than a dozen books have been written upon this riddle, and no entirely satisfactory answer has ever been given. The man who invented typography is the same who invented movable types, whether of wood or metal. Ulric Zell, whose testimony is quoted in the "Cologne Chronicle" of 1499, says that "the first inventor of printing was a citizen of Mentz, born in Strasburg, and called John Gutenberg." He further states that the origin of the art was derived from the Donatuses, of which we have spoken. This is probable enough, but on the other hand the credit of the invention of printing from cast types has been ascribed to Laurenz Coster of Haarlem, the respective claims of the two printers having been urged at times with surprising bitter- ness. The accounts of the origin of printing are con- tradictory and cannot be reconciled (see " The Haarlem Legend," from the Dutch, by J. H. Hessels, London, 1871, 8vo). The whole subject involves an intimate knowledge of type founding or casting, and opens up a profitless inquiry. At present we must be prepared to accept the propo- sition that Gutenberg made the art of printing perfect from the first ; that this was no gradual development, but a sudden illumination. Many refuse to believe this. They say it is contrary to 84 EARLY PRINTED BOOKS everything that is known of the progress of all other arts and sciences. The merits of the case, Gutenberg v. Coster, are cleverly summed up by Mr. Blades in the second part of his " Books in Chains," pp. 125-200. The earliest example of printing from movable metal type is supposed to be the thirty-one line "Indulgence" of Nicholas V, granted through Paulinus Chappe, Proctor-General of the King of Cyprus, a copy of which, preserved at the Hague, bears date 15th November, 1454, though that in the British Museum is dated the year following (see Illustration). The rubricator of the copy of the forty-two line Bible (the " Mazarin Bible," so called because it was found by De Bure in the Library of Cardinal Mazarin), in the National Library at Paris tells us that he finished his work on 15th August, 1456, and as this Bible must have been printed a year or two before, it is usually stated to be the oldest book in existence printed from movablemetal types. It is generallyattributed to the press of Gutenberg, though it may have been printed by Fust and Schoeffer. The probability of its being the earliest printed book has, however, been strenuously denied by certain authorities who uphold the claims of the thirty-six line Bible, known as Pfister's or the Bamberg Bible, so called because the type is known to have been in the possession of Albrecht Pfister, a printer, of Bamberg in Bavaria. This Bamberg Bible is printed in the larger of the two types used in the " Indulgence," previously mentioned, and with the exception of the first few pages follows the text of the forty-two line Bible, the errors in which are reproduced. Neither of these Bibles bears any date, indeed the 85 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS first printed book having a printed date is, as al- ready stated, the Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, issued at Mentz or Mayence in 1457, and found in 1665 in the Castle of Ambras, near Innsbruck, where the Archduke Francis Sigismund had col- lected a quantity of manuscripts and printed books. The Mazarin Bible, Pfister's Bible, and this Psalter of Mentz, as also the later edition of 1459, a copy of which sold last year for ;^4,ooo (Sir John Thorold's copy realized ;^4,950 in 1884), are all so beautifully printed that the fact of their repre- senting the first productions of the press has very naturally been doubted. The Mazarin Bible con- tains 1,282 pages, necessitating an enormous fount of letters, unless indeed Gutenberg printed a few leaves at a time, and then distributed the type to use again in different combinations. This Bible has about 2,700 types to the page. The annexed illustration gives a page from Fust and Schoeffer's Psalter of 1457, above referred to as being the first printed book with a printed date. It is also the first book having a colophon. It may be con- veniently mentioned here that the first dated edition of the Bible was printed by Fust and Schoeffer in 1462. This work is also remarkable in another way ; it affords the first instance of a book being formally divided into two volumes. So much has been written at times about Gutenberg and his press that we need only give one or two episodes in his early career. In 1450 he entered into a five years' partnership with John Fust at Mentz. At the expiration of the partner- ship in 1455, Fust sued Gutenberg and became possessed of all the printing plant, afterwards taking into partnership his son-in-law, Schoeffer. 86 Mim DiiiR poft ftftu mniraris •|niiitato:iiini, Jflrgf mag-nu Dnmnmitr aDccrmuB^pa "^mitr Mi dB 0irb$ piS feflii qi6ie|nuirato:ru- pmtm^ Birni qm fetit noe,p^1mlr^auj^cmltt^♦ nonaljijtin jEnoisac- confilifl impio2U rtin Rii0 mrOifaWf bir m ^lipfiqfiplammiBr feriftjfirmbut; I^o fir iinuij no fir Ito ^ mnl^pulwis que j^itimms a fmt tim, 3[pc0 nonrtfurgi|liii|iij in mtiiflorm^ prco^ea in rSfilio iii|oi| Q|i nomt Doe m A PAGE FROM FUST AND SCHOEFFER S PSALTER OF I4S7 [Ttt/acL- j>. 86 EARLY PRINTED BOOKS These two were printing at Mentz in 1462. Guten- berg perhaps also continued to print there on his own account, though his types were finally removed to Eltville. Mentz was sacked, and its trade de- stroyed in 1462, and according to Ulric Zell the art of Printing was then taken to Cologne, thence to Strasburg, and thence to Venice. No doubt it became more general at that time. The earliest presses known to us are therefore those of Guten- berg and Fust at Mentz, Laurenz Coster at Haarlem, Fust and Schoeffer at Mentz, possibly Gutenberg at Mentz, Pfister at Bamberg, and Mentelin and Eggestein at Strasburg. All these presses were existing before 1462. Immediately after the sack of Mentz in that year, Ulric Zell, who had been one of Schoeffer's workmen, established a press at Cologne, and the art gradually spread throughout Europe. His first dated book appears to have been printed in 1466, but most of the works issued by him are not dated, and it may be considered that he com- menced business in or about 1463. In or before 1468 Berthold Rodt of Hanau, one of Gutenberg's workmen, established a press at Basle, and in the same year Giinther Zainer commenced business at Augsburg. In 1469, or the year following, Keffer and Sensenschmidt joined in partnership at Nurem- berg, though the best known fifteenth-century printer of that city was Anthony Coburger. A press was established at Spire in 147 1. Thierry Martens had a press at Alost in 1473, and the same year saw Nicholas Ketelaer and Gerard de Leempt at Utrecht and John Veldener at Louvain. The last-named perhaps supplied our own printer Caxton with his types and material. 87 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Colard Mansion was working at Bruges in 1473, though his earliest dated book was issued two years later. Caxton was virtually in partnership with this printer in 1475-7, ^^'^ the two printed three books, viz., " The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye," " The Game and Playe of the Chesse," and " Les quatre derrenieres Choses." Other towns in the Low Countries had presses at a very early date; the "Brothers of the Common Life" printed at Brussels between 1476 and 1487, and Gerard Leeu at Gouda from 1477 onward. Ant- werp had its first press in 1482, and Leyden and Ghent had theirs in 1483. Printing was introduced into Italy by Con- \rad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz in 1465. They first worked at Subiaco, commencing with a Donatus which figures in their catalogue printed some years afterwards, but is otherwise unknown. Two years later these printers removed to Rome where they appear to have been well employed, though apparently at a loss to themselves. In 147 1 they petitioned the Pope for assistance, in- forming him that the number of books they had printed amounted to 12,475. ]^^^ de Spire intro- duced the art into Venice in 1469, though his position was soon eclipsed by two more celebrated typographers, Nicholas Jenson and Christopher Valdarfer. In 1470 Martin Cranz, Ulrich Gering, and Michael Friburger, all of Basle, set up the first press on French soil within the precincts of the Sorbonne at Paris, printing in that year the "Gas- parini Pergamensis Epistolae." Between 1470-2 they appear to have printed some thirty books, all being now very scarce and valuable. The first 88 EARLY PRINTED BOOKS work printed in France is consequently the "Epistolae" referred to, but the first book printed in the French language is " Le Recueil des His- toires de Troye," issued from the Bruges Press by Colard Mansion about 1474. Lyons was the next French City to have a press. Guillaume le Roy commenced work there soon after 1470; his first dated book is the " Compendium " of Pope Inno- cent III, printed in September, 1473. Although no block book of English workman- ship is known, a few single sheets called " Images of Piety " had been printed before Caxton took up his residence at Westminster in 1477, and printed his " Dictes and Sayengis of the Philosophres." This is commonly supposed to be the first book printed in England, though it is not the first in the English language. That, as we have seen, was the work of Colard Mansion of Bruges, about the year 1475. As " Le Recueil des Histoires de Troye " was the first book printed in the French language, so the translation from it made by Cax- ton was the first book ever printed in the English language. Very probably Caxton printed earlier books at Westminster than the " Dictes or Say- engis," but nothing is known of them, and the date 1477 was accordingly fixed upon as justifying the festival held in honour of the printer four centuries later. It is worthy of note that the first illustrated book printed in England was Caxton's " Myrrour of the World," which saw the light in 1480 or 148 1. It might be thought that if one thing were more certain than another in the history of typography it would be that Caxton was the first of English printers, and yet a doubt has been cast even upon this seemingly elementary proposition. There is 89 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS a great question whether a press was not estab- lished at Oxford in 1468. In the colophon to the "ExposiciosanctiJeronimi/'byTyranniusRufinus, printed in that city, the date is given as 17th De- cember, 1468. For various reasons this is supposed to be a misprint for 1478, but the grounds for this belief are not wholly satisfactory. Rood and Hunte are stated to have been the first Oxford printers, and if so they probably printed this book which has been the subject of much bibliographical controversy. The first London printer was John Lettou, who in 1480 printed an " Indulgence." About 1482 he was joined by William de Machlinia, one of Caxton's assistants. At St. Albans the unknown " School- master" (so styled by Wynkyn de Worde) estab- lished a press in 1479, and seven years later printed that celebrated work by Dame Juliana Berners, known as the " Bokys of Haukyng and Huntyng and also of Cootarmuris." The first book printed by the Schoolmaster seems to have been the "Augustini Dathi Elegancie," issued in 1479, 4to; though his first dated book, printed in St. Alban's Abbey, is the " Nova Rhetorica" of Laurentius de Saona, 1480. This is an important work, for, apart altogether from its extreme rarity, the type appears to be identical with Caxton's No. 2, used in the earliest books he printed in England. We reproduce a page from the " Nova Rhetorica," showing the quaint type of the period. The next two places in England to become centres of printing are York, 1 509, and Cambridge, 1 52 1. In 1508 Andro Myllar printed nine poetical pamphlets at Edinburgh, copies of which are in the Advocates' Library. These are supposed to be 90 q fAcili9 9qr6iont qmout ipffif t^ (ode 9mumb5 cff ic« opoifebt^ 5 q0 fd*^5 ai0 1 oc0 (X i^n)) m l»dlXi6x0 OM"):' : (3l«a 020c hltn c^vumi ^ piofc mf vjemitti' alue ^in) :^ cS mia5 9pa* ♦ ^r>) atimo «iato fua iftcmift^tS 9fiO2mbit0^ffc au ^ mie ^ni9 loc$ .g que qb9 nj borne futnm^ : d m: qb^ J matte fim9 o)iS>it%(Stuo uti' l)krxm) ae nao Um^wo>m fuatg ^tcce : <^uo (c^t fota cifee ptcnct :}f)to *fcft c qi iii^ua ^na csecm ipn; ccp0 3P««cia^^ fc(t c fub tbi{65 Cf^cu^f) c q i ^a ^tffdbiu' £ que qb^ i matte (tm9 ^cn9 (i /ii dia ftm9 ^cmjat' : J^oc (ecu** toco J 9Mt uti^c Otcce ibi^ . 5)ito4Se plot^oi^ i notfe ♦ (i Ucrimc ci9 i mjottt ci9 : Qlo e q 9ro(c* ea ^ otb^ We c 19 : ^20 amid ei9 ff «wcmt cS : g farti (C ei mi ^ttid : >^ei; fpc ci qi>2 ui6ima62 cSjja' ^35 5? no (:£ fpce ^ fu^ro ^au^to ut (ctida ^ :Tt n^ mozfefiljjifwcadc tctcefado qn; ciffc*)x rct5 a )no2 fft0 fokidu e^ucado ix ft q n} fimitt gnc ^ quo mo5o 02 icomo^te g 9qucf^tom 5>i poj&^mnf ^^ fpc confcquewcct ^ti&ic ^tane : JWtS^wf Ju^ proptec aff ttcttonc g mCtitntitc^ fwmtutte A PAGE FROM THE " NOVA RHETORICA " OF LAURENTIUS DE SAONA. PKIXTED 1!Y THE "SCHOOLMASTER" OF ST. ATBANS IN I480 [ To face fi. 90 EARLY PRINTED BOOKS the earliest productions of the first Scottish press, though Thomas Davidson did more to perfect the art. He introduced Roman type into Scotland, printing with it the title-page of a book, "Ad Serenissimum Scotorum regem Jacobum quintum de suscepto regni,"etc., Edinburgh, 1528, of which but a single copy is known to exist. Davidson's magnum opus was "The Hystory and Croniklis of Scotland," printed in 1536. Ireland is represented by Humphrey Powell, who printed a Prayer Book there in 1551. The first press of the New World was established in the City of Mexico by Cromberger in 1540. What are now the United States lagged much behind, for it was not till 1638 that Stephen Daye commenced business at Cambridge, Massachu- setts; he printed the "Bay Psalm Book" there in 1640. It was there also in 1661-2 that John Eliot's translation of the Bible into the language of the Massachusetts Indians first saw the light — the first Bible printed in America. The first book printed in Australia seems to have been Barron Field's " First Fruits of Australian Poetry," 1819, 4to ; the first book printed in Tasmania, " Michael Howe, the Last and Worst of the Bushrangers," Hobart Town, 1818, 8vo. To pursue the subject we find the first book printed in South Africa to be G. F. Grand's " Narrative of the Life of a Gentleman long resident in India," Cape of Good Hope, 1 8 14, 4to; and the first book printed at Quebec, a Prayer Book and Catechism compiled by J. B. de la Brosse for the use of the Montagnais Indians, 1767, Points like these are interesting, and may, on occasion, prove useful. In a short survey it is not possible to do more 91 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS than refer to a number of heads connected with the art of typography, almost any one of which would afford material for a large treatise. Few statements could be made without fear of contra- diction, and fewer still would be proof against some measure of correction. Nothing can be said to be so absolutely and definitely settled as to be secure from controversy. In this dilemma we must be prepared to accept the opinion of those who, having devoted special study to different phases of an extensive subject, are most likely to approach nearest to the truth. More, perhaps, in accord with the very limited point of view from which we are able to survey the subject are the distinguish- ing marks which, broadly speaking, marshal and arrange very old books into something like order of date. Many of these old time volumes do not bear any date, or other particulars, and have only been assigned to some particular period by refer- ence to the types with which they are printed, and the history of the press from which they are ad- judged to have proceeded. This, again, is an obscure branch of the subject, rendered less diffi- cult, no doubt, by the labours of the late Mr. Proctor and other bibliographers of our own day, but still surrounded on every side with a great deal of obscurity. The age of a book may, however, be told, within limits, by its appearance and general " make up," as explained in Samuel Palmer's " General His- tory of Printing." Should it contain a colophon, we may assign it with some degree of certainty to a period prior to 1520. If the title-page is of the " label " variety, we may say with some con- fidence that the book was printed after 1480 and 92 EARLY PRINTED BOOKS before 1520; should the title-page be more de- scriptive, the book cannot have been printed be- fore 1470. The absence of capital letters at the beginning of divisions, the spaces being left blank for the rubricator to fill up, argues that the book is older than one in which the open spaces are occupied by small printed letters as a guide to the rubricator. The absence of figures at the top of the pages and of signatures at the foot, an abund- ance of abbreviations, oblique strokes used in places where we should use stops, as in Caxton's books, irregularity and rudeness of type, are all distinguishing features more or less significant of antiquity, while a combination of these features, taken in conjunction with the kind of type used, will go a long way to fix a probable date. In this connection it is to be observed that the earliest system of numbering was applied not to pages but to leaves, the recto of each leaf having a Roman figure placed in the middle of the page, at the side, and that catchwords, first used by Vindelin de Spira or Speyer at Venice, preceded the numbering of leaves ; that types were uniformly Gothic till 1465, when thej' were to some extent supplanted by Roman founts, so called because they were introduced about that year at Rome. Roman type was first used in England by Pynson in 1 518. There is, however, not much necessity for detective work of this character nowadays, ex- cept for the purpose of remedying mistakes which the bibliographers may have unwittingly made. It is rare to meet with a book that is not catalogued or referred to somewhere, and the older the book the more likely is it to be known and to have been described. 93 CHAPTER VII ILLUSTRATED BOOKS Printed initial letters — The first illustrated books — "Thymage or Myrrour of the World " — " Game and Playe of the Chesse" — The "Hypnerotomachia" of 1499 — Book illustration in England — Hans Holbein — Halle's Chronicle — Illustrations from copper — The earliest English examples — Aims of the collector — The Bewicks — Blake's works — The Earl of Crewe's collection — Muir's facsimiles — Bartolozzi and other Illustrators — Rogers's "Italy" and "Poems"— The Liber Studiorum— The Liber Veritatis — Rowlandson, the Cruikshanks, and others — Kinds of illustrated books chiefly in demand — The " Drawing-room books " — " Grangerizing " — Nicolas Ferrar — Examples of " Ex- tra-Illustrated " books — Printers' marks. IT has already been pointed out that the efiforts of the earhest printers were directed towards the production of books which should resemble manuscripts, and that for some time spaces were purposely left for the rubricator to fill in by hand. Nevertheless, the advantage of dispensing with the rubricator altogether speedily became apparent and, as we have also seen, the Mentz Psalter of 1457, the first printed book having a printed date, has its initial letters printed and not drawn. The art of illustrating printed books by means of wood blocks ^id not become perfect all at once, as we are assured the art of printing did; it evolved by slow stages, for the Mentz Psalter must not be taken to be representative of the artistic skill of the period as exemplified by typography. That is 94 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS an altogether exceptional book, showing certainly what could be done when no question of expense was involved, but by no means proving that this method of ornamentation was usual, or likely to become so. Hand-painted initials were common for a long time. These were sometimes wholly drawn and coloured; at others the initials were printed in outline and ornamented by hand, as in the case of several of Giinther Zainer's early books printed at Augsburg about the year 1471. The use of woodcut illustrations, an immense step in the art of decoration, is first noticeable in several books printed by Albrecht Pfister at Bam- berg, two of which are dated respectively 1461 and 1462. From that time onward woodcut illustra- tions in books became more and more frequent, till, by the close of the fifteenth century, they were common. The accompanying illustrations, seen in the " Compilatio de Astrorum Scientia," printed by Ratdolt in 1489, are reproduced to show one of the uniformly primitive styles of the period. To marshal the different styles of decoration into some- thing like order would involve a treatise in itself, nor is there any necessity to attempt the impossible task of doing so within the compass of a short chapter, since Mr. A. W. Pollard's " Early Illus- trated Books," a history of the decoration and illustration of books in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, is easily procurable, and should be in the hands of all collectors who wish to obtain a general idea of the special branch of bibliography to which it relates. Mr. Pollard assigns the first German illustrated books to the Augsburg Press of Giin- ther ZaineF previously referred to. The edition of Cardinal Turrecremata's ' ' Meditationes," printed 95 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS by Ulrich Hahn at Rome in 1467, ranks as being the first Italian work in which woodcut illustrations are found, while the Lyons edition of" Le Miroir de la Redemption Humaine," 1478, occupies the same position so far as France is concerned. In Holland CUT FROM THE "COMPILATIO DE ASTRORUM SCIENTIA," PRINTED BY ERHARD RATDOLT IN I489 an edition of Rolewinck's " Fasciculus Temporum," containing nine illustrations, appeared in 1475, and in 1480 or the year following, Caxton's " Thymage or Myrrour of the World" was partly printed, partly written, with two series of cuts, one consist- ing of diagrams, and the other of school scenes. 96 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS The illustrations to the second edition of Caxton's " Game and Playe of the Chesse," supposed to have been printed in 1481, are, however, better known, and as they seem to have been designed CUT FROM THE 'COMPILATIO DE ASTRORUM SCIENTIA," PRINTED BY ERHARD RATDOLT IN 1489 and cut in England, we give a reproduction of one of them. It has been justly observed that the illustrations to this book are so primitive in design, and so badly cut that any one who could hold a knife would have been capable of producing them. Under these circumstances there was obviously 97 H HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS no occasion to have the work done abroad, as some authorities believe it to have been, Caxton's use of illustrations seems to have begun with two small woodcuts of a master and scholars in the third edition of the " Parvus Catho." These cuts were used again, with many others, in the " Myr- rour of the World." Almost all authors who have written on the early illustration of books, refer in glowing terms to the " Hypnerotomachia," printed by Aldus Manutius at Venice in 1499, remarkable alike no less for its 168 illustrations than for its fine types and initial let- ters. The woodcuts have, at times, been attributed to Giovanni Bellini, a Venetian artist, who died in 1 5 1 6 at a very advanced age, to Carpaccio, and also to Botticelli and other artists, though apparently on no grounds that can be considered entirely satisfac- tory. Indeed, very little is known of the "Hypnero- tomachia," most people being content to regard it as a notable product of the Aldine Press and a masterpiece of book illustration. Even its author- ship was for a long time a matter of doubt, and was only discovered as the result of a happy in- spiration. The book is divided into thirty-eight chapters, and when the initial letters of each are tabulated in order, they are found to give the legend, " Poliam frater Franciscvs Colvmna per- amavit." Hence it was assumed, and is now gener- ally believed, that Francisco Colonna or Columna, a Dominican Friar, who died at Venice in 1527, was the author of this celebrated book, an account of which is given in Fontanini's " Biblioteca dell' Eloquenza Italiana," ed, 1803, with notes and cor- rections by Zeno, A second Aldine edition, having an Italian in substitution for the original Latin title, 98 t wa» warned «:(caj?ec^g«^(5 or »>grcficp6»^« JuffyK &» feucr ftjc / <^a«)6) f^c fbnejj an* fc a fApe fGifewe K %f «f ^ %ts *(^«^ ^«t MO mai) ^utpl BRiwc 6p9 '*^^^'' PAGE FROM CAXTON'h " (iAME AND PLAYE OF THE CHESSE ' circa 1481 \To/a,c f.. c ILLUSTRATED BOOKS was published in 1545. The original edition of the " Hypnerotomachia," though rarely met with in thoroughly sound condition, is not so scarce as might be supposed, taking into consideration its undoubted importance. In 1592 Simon Waterson printed a version of it in quarto, under the title of " Polyphili Hypnerotomachia; the Strife of Loue in a Dreame," consisting of 104 leaves, with copies of some of the original Venetian woodcuts. This book is, however, just as hard to procure as the original; indeed, the collector will, no doubt, understand that all old illustrated books of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are, from their very nature, more or less difficult to meet with. A facsimile of the first or 1499 edition has recently been published. It is in every respect but one a capital substitute for the original. The history of book illustration in England is ancient, though by no means glorious. It is prob- able that many of the wood blocks used by Wynkyn de Worde, Richard Pynson, and other early printers were prepared abroad from foreign designs ; indeed, it seems to have become a tradition that our English woodcuts of the period can be recognized at a glance by its inferiority. If so, and we do not assert this pessimistic idea to be justified by the facts, what was bad to begin with became much worse as time went on. De Worde died in 1 534-5, and his books, nearly all of a popular character, lending themselves admirably to illus- tration, lost their vogue. His blocks were sold to other printers, and used again and again till they were worn out. Holbein did much to stay the depreciation which had set in, and many of the illustrated books printed in England during his 99 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS residence here are undoubtedly of good artistic quality. Holbein was employed in England as a portrait-painter in 1526, and remained here till 1528. He returned again from Basle in 1532, and this time remained six years. Finally he returned to the Continent, but only for a short period, and died in London in 1543. Roughly speaking, his influence in this country extended from 1526 to 1543, and during that period he and also other artists, who necessarily had to work their best in order to compete with him, illustrated a large number of books in a style altogether superior to that hitherto seen. An example of Holbein's work will be found in Edward Halle's " Union of the two noble and illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke," printed by Grafton in 1548, in which the King is represented sitting in Parliament. It has been stated, though erroneously, that the earliest examples of copperplate engraving executed in England are to be found in Hugh Broughton's " A Concent of Scripture," first printed in 1596. This contains an engraved frontispiece, a map of the world, and four full page allegorical plates, the latter by William Rogers. All these are doubtless from metal plates, but they cannot rank as the first produced in that style in this country. For instance, " The Byrth of Mankynde," by Eucharius Rhodion, or, as he is more commonly called, Thomas Raynald, 1540, 4to, contains four copperplate engravings, apparently of home pro- duction, and the illustrations to Holinshed's "Chronicles of England," 2 vols., folio, 1577, are probably not from wood, as Lowndes describes them to be, but from copper. The collector will, should he follow the rule 100 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS generally observed, endeavour to discriminate be- tween woodcuts and engravings from metal, and arrange his books in order of date in two divisions, thus showing the rise and progress of each branch of the art. He will then find that, subject to occa- sional revivals more or less prolonged in their duration, the general tendency of the art of en- graving on wood in this country was downward until it was revived by Bewick. Metal engraving, on the contrary, followed an upward course, till it practically died out with the " Drawing Room Scrap Books," and other annuals of sixty or seventy years of ago. The revival of wood en- graving injured it severely, and in later days etched illustrations have been generally preferred, to say nothing of the far more numerous class of mechanical productions owing their existence to photography. Perhaps the most advantageous if not the most interesting period for the collector to study would, so far as engravings from wood are concerned, be that between 1700 and 1779, the year in which the Bewicks illustrated an edition of Gay's " Fables." A regular succession of cuts can be traced in English as also in foreign books published be- tween the years in question, and they are generally bad enough to invest the study with a certain de- gree of amusement. The art of wood engraving had indeed fallen into utter disrepute at that period. Design and execution alike were, with very few ex- ceptions, in the lowest style of art. Thus it has even been said that it is not necessary to trace the history of wood engraving in England further back than the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The col- lector must, however, take this statement cumgrano lOI HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS salts, as the earliest books are extremely important, while even those of the degenerate age have their merits as links in a long chain, which would be no chain at all unless kept intact. There is some satis- faction in looking over the pages of a succession of wretchedly illustrated volumes, and finding the monotony relieved occasionally by such superior work as that observable in Howell's " Medulla His- toriae Anglicanae," 171 2, Maittaire's Latin Classics, 1713, and the " Fables of ^sop," printed in 1722, all of which contain cuts, probably by Kirkall, of a quality far superior to any found in works of the same kind printed either in England or France for a period of nearly eighty years. From the time of the Bewicks to our own there is of course vast material to be noted and arranged. Thomas Bewick's woodcut illustrations to the " British Birds," the " Quadrupeds," and many other books described in Hugo's " Descriptive Catalogue," are, of course, of excellent quality and recognized as such all the world over. The same may be said of the cuts after Stothard and others to be found in the twenty-three volumes of the " Novelists' Magazine," published by Harrison between 1780 and 1788. The first edition of Butler's " Hudibras " having Hogarth's cuts, 1726, is also noticeable. The third edition by Jarvis, of " Don Quixote," 2 vols., 4to, with its 68 plates by Vander Gucht, the edition of Horace by John Pine, 2 vols., royal 8vo, 1733-7, remark- able for the beauty of its illustrations, especially in the first issue, which can be easily told by the mistake (" Post est" for " Potest"), on the medal of Caesar at page 108, vol. ii, and the Prayer Book of 1 7 17, engraved throughout, text and all, 102 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS by John Sturt, all contain excellent designs from metal plates, and will fall into line in the division to which they are assigned. Books illustrated by William Blake, as for ex- ample, " Silver Drops, or Serious Things " (about 1780), Blair's "The Grave," 1808, and Young's " Night Thoughts," 1797, are also most desirable additions to any library, though they are not to be compared in point of either interest or pecuniary value with those more weird productions that have invested the name of Blake with a strange glamour. The Earl of Crewe's fine collection of these wonderful books was sold at Sotheby's in March, 1903. The "Illustrations of the Book of Job," invented, engraved and published by Blake in 1 82 5, comprising twenty- two engravings, original proof impressions on India and large paper, to- gether with the original designs in colours, realized no less than ;^5,6oo. The original series of water colours or " Inventions" constituted the feature of this expensive volume, but all Blake's works of the particular kind under discussion are very ex- pensive, and recourse has generally to be had to the facsimiles so carefully prepared by Mr. Muir and others. Contemporary with Blake were a large number of artists and engravers whose plates are found in books, as for example Bartolozzi, Schiavonetti, Turner, and many more. Rogers's " Italy," 1830, and "Poems," 1834, each with fine illustrations after Turner, Stothard, and others, are said to have cost the Banker-Poet £y,ooo at least, and the seventy plates of the " Liber Studiorum," drawn and etched by Turner, and engraved by Charles Turner, F- C. Lewis and others, must 103 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS have been very costly to produce. The same may be said of Claude's " Liber Veritatis," with its 300 plates executed by Earlom and published 1 777-1804, and a great many other books issued during the eighteenth century, both in France and England, as described in Cohen's " Guide de I'Amateur," and in Lewine's " Bibliography of Eighteenth-century Art and Illustrated Books," published in 1898. Rowlandson is another artist of the same period, though books illustrated by him belong to a wholly different class, as also do those containing plates by Cruikshank, Leech, " Phiz," Onwhyn, and other more modern workers whose names are constantly met with. It is apparent that the collector of illustrated books must ex necessitate rei confine his attention to some particular class. The field is much too extensive to be approached in its entirety, while to traverse it would require not only a profound knowledge of its many intricacies, not likely to be in the possession of any single person, but a period of time far outside the compass of a single life. The cost, too, would be enormous, so that a limitation of some kind is essential. There are many kinds of illustrated books, but the ones in chief demand at the present time are as follows: i. Incunabula, that is to say, books printed prior to 1500. These are invariably most difficult to procure, and, of course, expen- sive. The illustrations are generally from wood blocks, though the early printers sometimes used metal plates, as did Bettini for his " Monte Santo di Dio," printed in 1477. The " Hypneroto- machia," printed by Aldus in 1499, would be the last book of the series comprising this division, 104 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS its excellence reaching the culminating point. 2. English and foreign books dating from 1500 to 1 700, arranged under the countries in which they were published. 3. English books of the eight- eenth century, including the works of Blake. 4. French books of the eighteenth century, illus- trated by the " little masters," among whom, as engravers, the names of Baquoy, Halbou, de Longueil, Ponce, and Massard are prominent, those of Cochin, Eisen, and Moreau being cele- brated among book-artists of the same period. 5. Books illustrated by the Cruikshanks, Leech, H. K. Browne, and other artists of the same school, including Rowlandson. 6. Books with coloured plates, comprising fancy subjects, scenes of a "racy" character, sporting views, and de- lineations of costume, battle and naval scenes, and the like. English books containing line engravings are rarely in request now. These consist chiefly of artistic annuals, known as " Drawing Room Books," published at a high price and in large numbers during the years 1 830-40, and even later. Many of the very artistic and fine plates in these books were engraved by the Findens, but so far as can be seen there is very little chance of their coming into favour again. They are, and have been for many years, utterly discarded by collectors, though without much reason ; for, at any rate, they show the art of line engraving at its best, and are worthy of a place on the shelf for that reason alone. From a literary point of view they are, perhaps, not so noticeable. An " extra illustrated " book is one that is "crammed, like a candidate for honours, with all 105 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS that relates to all that the book contains," and the process of extra illustrating is known as " Gran- gerizing," by reason of the fact that Granger's " Biographical History of England " was at one time most frequently selected for embellishment in this particular way. Still, any book might be chosen, and the object was, and indeed is, for extra illustrating is not by any means extinct, to procure views of the places mentioned in the text, portraits of the persons referred to, or failing any of these, original drawings. When the collection becomes as complete as circumstances permit of, the book is taken to pieces, the illustrations in- serted in their proper places, and the whole bound up, after possibly being " inlaid " on leaves of a larger size. The first " Grangerizer," though he would then be called by a different name, seems to have been Nicholas Ferrar, of " John Inglesant " fame, who lived in the reign of Charles L His "Concordance of the Four Evangelists," now in the British Museum Library, is profusely illustrated " with a very great number of prints engraved by the best masters of that time, all relative to histori- cal passages of the Old and New Testaments." Mention has to be made of books of this char- acter because, although they are not illustrated in the popular sense of the word, they yet contain illustrations, added though they be. A whole life- time might he spent in extra illustrating a book of moderate size. Pennant's " History of London," bequeathed to the British Museum by Mr. Crowle, cost that gentleman years of labour and about ;^7,ooo. Mr. Sutherland's illustrated " Clarendon and Burnet," now in the Bodleian, is enlarged to sixty-seven folio volumes, and is said to have 1 06 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS swallowed up ^12,000. This system of " illustra- tion " is not generally popular, because the demand made upon the patience and money of the operator THE DEVICE OR PRINTER'S MARK OF ANDRO MYLLAR has no finality. Furthermore, it requires a con- siderable amount of knowledge and skill if it is to be carried out with satisfactory results. Nor is it popular with collectors as a whole, for it involves 107 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS the mutilation or even destruction of the books drawn upon to furnish the necessary material. It is not popular with bibliographers, for they are apt to become exasperated when they find some volume, which they have perhaps long sought for, denuded of its frontispiece, portrait, or even title- page, to make what they call a Vandal's Library. It comes to pass, therefore, that " Grangerizers " are stigmatized by almost everybody, except those of their own class, as objectionable persons, re- probates with disgusting tastes, and even ghouls in that they prey upon the dead. No one has a good word to say for them ; they are the pariahs of bookish society. The subject of printers' marks must just be re- ferred to since they are illustrations in a sense. Many of them are indeed extremely quaint, while others have every claim to be called artistic. Our illustration gives a reproduction of the device of Andro Myllar, referred to in the last chapter as having printed some poetical pamphlets at Edin- burgh in 1 508. The marks or devices used by the printers were in reality trade-marks, designed to protect the books in which they appeared from piracy, or to afford indication of the printer's name and place of printing, where those details were omitted, as they often were. They were used from the very earliest times, as witness the red-coupled shield of Fust and Schoeffer seen on their Bible of 1462, and are frequently used now by publishers though they may no longer themselves print the works they issue. Later on we shall reproduce the marks of the Aldine and Elzevir Presses, as being perhaps the most noticeable of these ancient sym- bols. 108 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the subject of printers' marks is itself a very large one. Numerous books have been devoted to it and, like most branches of bibliography, it is so inti- mately connected with other divisions that it can- not be ignored. These symbols or devices were often placed with the colophon on the concluding leaf of the book, or on a separate leaf, or on the index at the commencement, or, in later days, on the title-page, or on the half title. Sometimes they occupy a whole leaf, at others only part of it. THE RED COUPLED SHIELD OF FUST AND SCHOEFFER There is no rule. The printer's device appears always to have been a law unto itself; it is so now and probably ever will be. As we have said, there are many books devoted to the subject. The most convenient, as it is one of the most useful, is that by Mr. W. Roberts, published in 1893, under the title " Printers' Marks," and reference should be made to that for further information. The biblio- graphy at the end of the volume mentions seven- teen treatises of a general character, which it would perhaps be necessary to consult were a thorough knowledge of the subject important. 109 CHAPTER VIII SOME CELEBRATED PRESSES Specialist collectors — The Aldine Press — The Elzevir Press — The Estiennes — The Plantin Press — Erhard Ratdolt— Jen- son — The Junta — Geoffrey Tory — Etienne Dolet and Bodoni — English printers — John Daye — Baskerville — The Strawberry Hill and other Presses — The Kelmscott, Vale, Doves, Essex House, and Walpole Presses — Privately printed books — The importance of a collection considered apart from the individual books contained in it. MOST libraries of recent formation will be found, as suggested on a prior page, to possess a distinctive character showing that the owner has, during the process of formation, been dominated by some special desire to possess books of a certain definite class. In other words, most modern collectors are specialists to at least some extent, and they are indeed practically compelled to be so. Very often the specialist directs his at- tention to some particular subject, seeking to ac- quire a representative selection of books relating to it. This is now the usual, though by no means exclusive practice, and many fine libraries formed on this principle are in private hands. This, how- ever, is only one of the schemes formulated by the modern collector, who will sometimes confine his attention to books printed at certain presses, selecting, as a rule, one or two of the more cele- brated, and endeavouring, as far as possible, to no CELEBRATED PRESSES make up a series of works printed during the period of their existence. Every press, new or old, has its history, and it is frequently interest- ing to trace it by reference to the books printed there from time to time, but in order to do that the books must, of course, first be procured. This is by no means an easy matter in any case ; some- times it is quite impracticable, and consequently the collector should fix his attention upon those presses which afford the greatest probability of yielding a satisfactory result. For example, it would be no use endeavouring to form a collection of books printed by Caxton, even though expense should be no object. One or two might be pro- cured, for books from Caxton's Press certainly do appear in the auction rooms and elsewhere on occasion. But they take their place merely as witnesses to the history of early English printing as a whole, and are not available in sufficient numbers to justify any one, however rich he may be, in making a speciality of them. In a minor degree the same may be said of the works of all the earliest English printers, and when we look at those of the foreign schools we find that the very same principles are involved. The great public libraries of the world have absorbed most of these books, and those which remain in private hands are not available in sufficient numbers to make what may fairly be termed a collection possible. Some old presses and many new ones can, how- ever, be readily drawn upon, and the purpose of this chapter is to point out a few of those which have either in times past or are now in favour. Some years ago the Venetian Press of Aldus Manutius and his successors afforded a great field III HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS for the specialist, many of the books from this source selling frequently for large sums in conse- quence. Of late, however, they have been com- paratively neglected, though some of them are even yet of sufficient importance and interest to make one think that some day, perhaps not so far distant as we may suppose, they will come into universal favour again. And they deserve to do so, for the books printed by Aldus are of the very greatest importance, as they are from the best texts this indefatigable scholar could procure, and printed from specially cast and fine types, which, in the case of the Greek characters modelled on the ordinary script of his day, are altogether superior to the small and crabbed specimens which had hitherto done duty at Venice and elsewhere. Aldus printed the editiones principes of the works of Aristophanes, Demosthenes, Euripides, Hero- dotus, Pindar, Sophocles, and other classical authors of world wide repute, his most notable production being the Aristotle of 1495-8, a splen- did monument to his scholarly research, in five folio volumes. He is also entitled to the credit of having made several improvements connected with the production of books. He introduced an artistic style of binding (as explained in the next chapter), added the semicolon — the only punctua- tions used before his day being the colon and full stop — and first used italic letters said to have been suggested to him by the writing of Petrarch. The first book printed in italics was perhaps the Aldine Virgil of 1 501. The copy from which the accom- panying illustration is taken is printed on vellum, and contains 228 unnumbered leaves. It is printed with the italic types invented by Francesco da 112 P-V.M-MA-Nrv AN! B V / COLICORVM > T ITT R.V ;. tAtlilxHi-Yityrus- Ityre lu fktuU rembas fib ttgmi ncfig Mf. Sylueflran temu rmfam medita.: r« ci'Mna ■ t< OS f'-itria fines ^Tt dulcid Unqui nmi drua, . OS pitriam jy^inus , tu Tityre lentus m mbra orrmfamrefonarsdoas KmaryU'ida fyiuds ■ ) Melibxe^ deui nobis hue oaa feat. ri • [ rf«^; mf iHe ntihi jern^''CY dfus . ilim dram iC^e tener nojlris db oudibm hnbuet dgnus ■ He mcM errdyc boues , ut cernis^ et ippim udere ^qute uellem ,caLi>m perntifit agrejh ■ on equidcm mnideo,miYor mams, midiqi tons Me . fqueddeoturbdittr dgris ■ cnipfe capelldi rodtms iSi^Y dg}-hdncchdm u'lx rityrc dttco ■ : ic inter denfts corylos rrwdonancnmmtUos , pan gregif^dh [diceinnudd connixdrdiquit ■ » Bt i uiiiunu w u»Mi i m» gTr A PAGE FROM THE FIRST )!00K PRINTED IN ITALICS (VIRCIl.II OPERA. ALDUS, 1501) {To face f: II CELEBRATED PRESSES Bologna, as disclosed by the inscription on the reverse of the title : Qui gratiis dedit Aldus en [sic] Latinis Dat nunc grammata sculpta daedaleis Francisci manibus Bononiensis. The reproduction discloses the first page of this fine copy, which formerly belonged to the Gonzaga family, and it must be stated that the designs in the margins are worked and coloured by hand. Aldus was not, however, the earliest printer in Greek type, though he was the first to make a prac- tice of printing in that character. The first work entirely printed with Greek types was the " Gram- matica Graeca," of Lascaris, printed by Zaroto at Milan in 1476, and the earliest Greek Classic the " Batrachomyomachia " of Homer. Dibdin's " In- troduction to the knowledge of rare and valuable editions of the Classics," and Dr. Harwood's " View of the various editions of the Greek and Roman Classics," are the books usually consulted, so far as works of the kind are concerned. The Greek and Latin Classics have, however, fallen upon evil days, and for that reason, no doubt, the volumes printed by Aldus are not now sought for to anything like the extent they once were. If the collector should make up his mind to ignore market prices, and to fix his attention solely upon good sterling work, which must some day receive its due reward, in spite of any change in senti- ment, he will find much to interest him in the productions of the Aldine Press, as did the great Grolier four centuries ago. We do not propose to give a history of this Press, as minute details are given in Renouard's " Annales de I'lmprimerie des Aide," a work pub- 113 I HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS lished in 1 834. It will be sufficient to say that Aldus commenced his career at Venice in 1495 with an edition of the " Grammatica Graeca" of Lascaris (see Illustration), himself printing altogether 126 editions known to Renouard. He died in 1 5 1 5, and as his son Paulus, or Paolo, was at that time but three years of age, Andrea Torresano, of Asola, and his sons carried on the business under a trust. In 1540 Paulus Manutius took exclusive possession of his father's business and died in 1574. His son. MARKS OF ANDREA TORRESANO OF ASOLA AND HIS SONS known as Aldus the Younger, continued to print till 1597, when the Aldine Press finally ceased to exist. During the period of rather more than a century 823 works had been printed, not to men- tion about fifty others, which, though sometimes attributed to this Press, cannot be assigned to it with certainty, and a number of undoubtedly spurious volumes. The well-known mark of Aldus Manutius, the Anchor entwined by a Dolphin, was first used on the 1 502 edition of Dante's " Le Terze Rime," and was continued not only till the death of Aldus in 114 ^ H Cu S n on c D o 5 WJ'C Cu P « = O 3 GO g o EL, >« -T3 3 -a '3 d o go 44 o "go o «.0 C c b '-ii 5i o o S - 3-c'~'-a"C o-aTi S 3 Ci.,2 cy; 1 ^^ o - ^, o jwi S lT "D u >^ o ~- »• ;i ^ TF *3 2 ■^ g:^b ^ ^J'- ^ ^ .':i ^v^. u* f 3 < g ^ ^ I til t- ^ 3 ; ■3 3 -3 3 (a H t a! ^ ??• '^ - ':3 '^ H rf <+, H K -\^ >;^ H 3 «-; fK fe ^^ ^ fc i 2. - ^- 5. s ^ ^ ? ^ =- ^ ^ 'i s ** >; ^ . -a =>- 5 ■3 ^ b 1. V Q " a CD , <>"3 ^ « ^ S^ l== ^" P 1- 3^ > o> b t* E^;l 3 t -« ^- a- :i K.2 < 3 ° < •K 0-. ■?. H ca. :i CELEBRATED PRESSES 15 15, but for more than a year afterwards. It is THE SECOND ALDINE ANCHOR 1519-1524 THE FIRST ALDINE ANCHOR 1502-1515 1524-1540 THE ALDINE ANCHOR AS USED FROM 1546 TO 1554 found for instance on the second edition of the "De Mysteriis" of lamblichus, which bears the 115 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS imprint "Venetiis in Aedibus Aldi, et Andreae Soceri mense Novembri MDXVL" Torresano, however, usually used his mark of a Tower ; and then the Anchor, with various modifications, came into use again. Our illustrations of the marks used at various periods are taken from Mr. Roberts's " Printers' Marks," Others were in use, but these comprise the principal varieties. One word to the col- lector who makes up his mind to study the pro- ductions of the Aldine Press, and with that ob- ject to procure as many examples as possible. It is in his favour that he can obtain them for, very much less than he would have had to pay about fifty years ago. As a rule the value of these books has declined since then by about sixty per cent. One of the largest collec- tions of books from the Aldine Press sold during recent years was that formed by Sir Edward Sullivan, at one time Lord Chancellor of Ireland. They were sold by auction at Sotheby's in May, 1 890, and realized what would have been thought ridiculous prices at the beginning of the last century. The "Opera Omnia" of Xenophon, 1525, folio, went for 38^., of Thucydides, 1502, folio, for ;jf 5 5^., the " Graecise Descriptio " of Pausanias, editio princeps, 15 16, folio, for 335'., and 116 THE ALDINE ANCHOR OF 1555-1574 CELEBRATED PRESSES a large copy of Caesar's " Commentarii," bound in morocco extra, 15 13, folio, for a guinea. These were not exceptionally low prices ; they furnish fair evidence of the great depreciation which has taken place in the value of most classical works during recent years. The late Lady Dilke had a good collection of Aldines, which will eventually come into the posses- sion of the Nation. Another old Press, also greatly favour- ed by Lady Dilke, which was at one time in even greater favour than the Al- dine, is that of the Elzevirs, carried on at Leyden, Amster- dam, and Utrecht by a succession of prin- ters, the first of whom was Louis Elzevir, who began work at Leydenin 1583. The a later form of the anchor reader will find the 1575-1581 productions of these presses catalogued with great fidelity by M. Wil- lems in his " Les Elzevier," published at Brussels in 1880. Although they are not to be compared in point of textual accuracy with the books of Aldus they have until comparatively recent times been in much greater request. At one period there was a rage for the books of the Elzevirs, and col- lectors distinguished between those belonging to " right " and " wrong " editions. For example, the 117 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS beautifully printed little Caesar of 1635 may be right or wrong, according to circumstances. The "right" issue (there are three issues) of that date has a scroll disclosing a buffalo's head at the top of the dedication leaf, and there are thirty-five lines to the page. The numbering of certain pages (149, 335, and 475) is incorrect. The other two issues do not disclose these peculiarities, and are of no account. Then again there is the celebrated Virgil of 1636, edited by Heinsius and full of mis- takes, which Charles Nodier sought for in vain in its uncut state with the two passages in red. There are many similar instances : that certain words should be printed in red instead of in black in certain volumes is essential, and it is customary to measure the height of all books from the Elzevir presses in millimetres, 25.4 of which goto the inch. The loss of a millimetre or two in height meant a great diminution not only in interest but in market- able value. The "right" dates begin in 1625 and end in 1655, but not all books printed by the Elzevirs between those dates are important. It depends entirely upon the edition or, where there are several editions of the same date, upon the issue. The tests by which one issue can be distinguished from another are all given in the work by Willems, and he has also added particulars of measurements, market prices based upon those measurements, and other details which the collector will find absolutely necessary for his purpose. According to this author the books printed by the Elzevirs number 1,608, the majority being in Latin and one only in English. This last is entitled " Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Cathechisme," etc., 118 CELEBRATED PRESSES and was printed by Louis Elzevir at Amsterdam in 1649 for Andrew Wilson of Edinburgh. Although " Elzevirs," as they are popularly called, have fallen away in price to comparatively nothing, this book will sometimes realize as much as ^25 or _^30 (the Scott copy sold for ^^36 in April last), while the " Pastissier Fran9ois," printed by Louis and Daniel Elzevir at Amsterdam in 1655, recently (i8th April, 1904) realized as much as ;^5o, that, however, being but half as much as the Earl of Orford's copy brought in 1895. The value of these books depends, as stated, on their measurement to a very great extent; and an uncut " Pastissier" has sold for as much as ;^400 before now. The truth is, however, that the glamour once surrounding the works of the Elzevirs has almost entirely disappeared, and that very few of them are now worth troubling about. Cropped examples are to be frequently met with for a mere trifle in spite of the eulogies of modern writers, poets and novelists chiefly, who do not seem to understand that the once consuming passion felt by multitudes of collectors for these works has practically ceased to exist. In memory of old times, rather than for present use, we give illustrations of two of the marks used by this family of printers. They are known respectively as "The Old Sage" and "The Sphere." The last named is the better known, as it was inconstant use from 1626, when it first ap- peared on the " Sphaera Mundi " of Johannis de Sacrobosco, to 1 680. The spurious Sphere, which is also displayed, is not Elzevirian; it was used by many other booksellers and printers of the seventeenth centry in imitation of the original, and though very much like it at first sight will be seen 119 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS on closer investigation to be comparatively ill drawn and crude. The Sphere of the Elzevirs indeed attained such wide popularity that the word was often used as an address. In 1684 there was, for instance, a press at Cologne whence issued the "Recueil deQuelques Pieces Nouvelles et Gal- antes"; the imprint to this work is "Cologne, a la Sphere," in obvious allusion to the celebrated device of the Elzevirs. The last Elzevir Press THE SAGE ceased to exist in 1712, its total period being measured from 1583 to that date. It may be said of the Elzevirs, as a family of printers, that their productions were beautiful ; their classical attain- THE ELZEVIR SPHERE THE SPURIOUS SPHERE THE GENUINE SPHERE ments small. Some of their books are brimful of textual errors. Of all the great printers that France has pro- duced, the family of the Estiennes, who flourished from 1502 to 1664, is the most noticeable. A col- 120 CELEBRATED PRESSES lection of works by these printers, such as is often met with in France, would be most interesting, nor would it be particularly difficult to form. The " right" period of this Press extends from 1502 to 1570, when the second Henri became insolvent. Renouard, who in 1837 wrote and published the history of the family and Press under the title of " Annales del'Imprimeriedes Estienne," mentions thirteen printers, and gives lists of the works they produced. Robert, who in 1526 succeeded his father Henri, the founder of the family, was the most celebrated, for he was author, corrector, printer, and publisher in one, producing volumes which for accuracy and beauty of workmanship are inferior not even to those of Aldus. For many years he carried on business at Paris, but in 1552 was driven from there to Geneva by the malevol- ence of the priests, who bitterly resented the publication of his three-column Polyglot Bible. They stigmatized it as " Christ between two thieves," and openly threatened to burn both it and its printer in a common fire. Books from the Plantin Press of Antwerp might be collected with every confidence in their excel- lence and taste. The work of M. Max Rooses, entitled " Christophe Plantin, Imprimeur Anver- sois," is the best guide to the works from this Press. The last descendant of the family, M. Moretus, disposed of the old house and all its contents to the town of Antwerp, and it is now open to the public as a museum. The choice of a Press to which the collector may specially devote himself is, of course, a matter of individual taste. Some may prefer the works of Erhard Ratdolt, of Venice, cele- 121 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS John Baskerville, who was born at Wolverley in 1706, found the condition of printing in this country in a very unsatisfactory state, and set to work to improve it. He is said to have spent six years and considerably more than ;^6oo in the effort to produce a type sufficiently perfect to satisfy his fastidious taste. That he succeeded is evidenced by his celebrated Virgil of 1757 and the " Paradise Lost " of the following year, both being works of singular merit and beauty. In Roman and Italic letters he excelled all other printers of his day, though curiously enough he is charged with having failed in his Greek types. Dibdin says they are "like no Greek characters I have ever seen," and other authorities speak of them as " execrable." Nevertheless, the Greek types used in England at the present day are said by other authorities to be based upon those of Baskerville, modified to some extent by Porson in the direc- tion of simplicity. A page from his Greek Tes- tament of 1763 (see illustration) will enable the reader to judge of these matters for himself. This Testament was printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, from new types supplied by Baskerville. The magnum opus of this great printer is, how- ever, the foHo Bible of 1763. After his death on 8th January, 1775, his widow seems to have printed two books, and four years later his foundry and its contents were bought by Beaumarchais for the Soci^te Litteraire-Typographique and trans- ferred to Kehl in France, where the types were used for printing an edition of Voltaire in 70 volumes, 1 784-9, well known to bookmen. Some very useful information respecting Baskerville and the works printed by him and from his types, 124 sgs - n A Y A r T r A n 2 T A r H npo s r A A A T A 2 E n I 2 T A H. KE<1> A AA 10 N K. I. 1 1 A TA S dirigokor, in dr. diSpcoTiav, ioe Si -*■ -*■ Xpir^, xai Ois ampo!, ri iyjpatro'^ ainm h dvSpdcn, ojXd Old 'hio'i i VcHpat, Kal o! u'jv epLoi 2 advTei, a&A(poi, Toi;, cKxliio'iai!, ii\i, Ta).aTia.!; Xdpit, uwiv xai Eipijv); a'ro ©is 3 ■Harlot,, xo.i Kvpin rijiav TijffS Xpiqe- TJ Ijonot, cajjrm us-io raJi' duaprtm if^fijv, 4 6ra<, iiihiTcu t/jj-dc, U rs Eve^uro; oJami, sroijioj, koj d rti Sc-A lUO; TX 6£5 Kai xarpd(, I'tp-cov Ti, ;; SoEa t)(, rif, ft/ava^ rav a'mwv. ylu)(v. aujxaCa on ha 5 , 6 Tay^iai, inTaTidiSn dso n KaXisn-fioi, vpid(, cv x4"'' '^ Dic;'^, ci', c -£^oov tmf)tKm' *0 tx c'riv cDAo- c! fitj Tivir, chiv oi Ta^dojovTEC, Vfidr^ Koi SiXrjns', fizrarpi-^ai 7 rii £Cal)iXioy n Xpi-i. 'A)Xd y.ai idv >;/<&{ jj ajTek 0; £i iioavs i-jayfeXZvjo.1 8 \)\m A pagp: from baskerville's greek testament of 1763 iTofaCL- p. 124 CELEBRATED PRESSES will be found in Reed's " History of the old English Letter Foundries," 1887, p. 268, et seq. The celebrated Glasgow printers, Robert and Andrew Foulis, produced some excellent work to which special attention might be directed. Robert printed his first book in 1 740, and in conjunction with his brother speedily became noted for his elegant and correct editions of the Classics. I f ever the Classics should come into popular favour again, books from this press will occupy a very high position, as indeed they did formerly. During the latter part of the eighteenth century, and at different periods during the nineteenth, large numbers of books were produced at private or semi-private presses, and these also afford ample scope for the collector. The celebrated Strawberry Hill Press at Twickenham, the seat of Horace Walpole, commenced operations in 1757, " Two Odes by Mr. Gray " being printed there in that year ; the Auchinleck Press was established in 18 15 at Auchinleck House, near Cumnock, Dumfriesshire, the seat of the late Sir Alexander Boswell, son of James Boswell, biographer of Dr. Johnson and the Darlington Press about 1770, at the Grange, in that town. The private press of Thomas Johnes was established at Hafod in Cardiganshire. He printed there Froissart's "Chronicles" in four vols., 4to, 1803- 1805, and subsequently many other chronicles which he translated himself and distributed among private friends. Then come the Lee Priory Press, founded in 18 1 3, at Ickham, near Canterbury, Lee Priory being the seat of Sir Egerton Brydges ; the Middle Hill Press, Worcestershire, established in 181 9, under the control of Sir Thomas Phillipps and the 125 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS private presses of Mr. H. Daniel at Oxford, and of Mr. G. Polidori at 15, Park Village East, Regent's Park, where Dante Rossetti's school- boy poem "Sir Hugh the Heron" was printed in 1843. Better known than any of these, however, is the celebrated Kelmscott Press, founded in 1891 by the late Mr. William Morris, at the Upper Mall, Hammersmith, and closed in April 1898. Books from this source reached high prices during the years 1899- 1900, but they have since very greatly declined, and can now be procured at a reasonable rate. We have it from Mr. Morris himself that he commenced printing in the hope of producing something which would have a definite claim to beauty, while being at the same time easy to read. With this object he applied himself to a close study of the caligraphy of the Middle Ages and the types of the earlier printers that took its place, eliminating, as far as possible, those which dazzled the eye, or troubled the intellect of the reader by their eccentricity. His well-known " Golden Type " was founded on, or evolved from, the general appearance of the letters in the fif- teenth-century folio containing the twelve books of the " Historia del Popolo Fiorentina," which Leonardus of Arezzo caused to be printed in 1476. Everything connected with the productions of this Press was the result of careful study for effect, and the same may be said of some of the other presses of modern date, such as the Vale Press, the Doves Press, the Essex House Press, the Walpole Press, and the Ashendene Press of Mr. St. Jolan Hornby at Shelley House, Chelsea. Books from these sources can also be obtained much more readily, 126 CELEBRATED PRESSES and at considerably less cost than was at one time possible, and as all alike are distinguished for their quaintness and the beauty of the types used, the money expended upon them will probably not be regretted. Examples printed upon vellum are, of course, the most highly prized. The subject of " Privately Printed Books " is intimately connected with that under discussion, for many presses have been and are essentially private in the sense that none of the books issued from them were for sale to the public. The public may, of course, acquire them, but only at second hand, and this circumstance should add very ap- preciably to the interest with which they are regarded. On the whole, we are disposed to think that a small library of books from the Baskerville Press would best repay formation, and that from every point of view, by the collector who makes up his mind to discard very old printers and presses and to confine his attention to more modern productions. Books from that Press are inexpensive as a rule, though it is highly probable that they will not always remain so. As already stated, individual choice is a matter of taste, in- fluenced very largely by the question of cost, and in connection with this phase of the question there are one or two matters which it is neces- sary to refer to very briefly. One is that the value — intrinsic and pecuniary alike — of a collection of books depends chiefly upon its completeness, and the other, that even common books are not always so easy to hunt down as might be supposed. To form a complete and perfect collection of anything is perhaps impossible ; the utmost that 127 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS can be done is to approach perfection. The im- portance of a collection as a whole cannot be ar- rived at by calculating that of the units which compose it. Its interest and value is enhanced in proportion to its extent, and the more complete it becomes, the more useful and valuable it will be found to be. It is conceivable, and indeed argu- able, that a large assortment of very inferior books might be of great importance if they related to an identical subject or were intimately connected by a common thread showing that they had been collected in pursuance of some definite principle and not at random. Mr. Waterton's collection of editions of the " Imitatio Christi" affords a very good example of what is meant to be conveyed. That gentleman spent a lifetime in accumulating as many different editions as possible of the im- mortal work attributed to Thomas a Kempis. He had acquired more than eight hundred different issues and versions in nearly every European language and dialect, and when his collection was sold by auction after his death it excited wide at- tention and realized a very considerable amount, though nothing like so much as it ought to have done. The point is that very many of these books were, individually, of no importance whatever, and must have been picked up from time to time for a mere trifle — a few pence perhaps. But their place in the collection was of great importance. They added to it and became part of it, and in their way were just as interesting as the other books which kept them company. 128 CHAPTER IX ON BOOKBINDING Binding a protection — Rebinding books — Cloth bindings of the present day — Buckram — Vellum — Boards — Half bound books — -Monastic bindings — The Byzantine style — Dagaeus the Monk — The Saracenic style — Early binding in Germany and the Netherlands — Early binding in Italy and France — The Fanfare and Pointille styles — Binding in England — ^The Win- chester School — The cottage and Etruscan styles — The Harleian and Roxburghe styles — Eighteenth and nineteenth century binders — Roger Payne — Embroidered bindings — Decorated edges — Edwards of Halifax — Armorial bindings. THERE can be no doubt that the practice of binding books had its origin in the desire to protect them, and that what was once regarded as a work of necessity has in many cases come to be looked upon as an art. From very early periods, in England as well as in other countries, though perhaps not at first to the same extent, utility gave way to considerations of refinement, and it is not too much to say that many of the old bindings now in existence demand far more precautions for their safety than the books they cover. That they are actual, indeed very powerful protectors cannot be doubted, for in preserving them one necessarily preserves the books also, and in that way these memorials of past days answer a very useful pur- pose, apart altogether from any question of historic or personal interest. 129 K HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS It must be understood that the question of bind- ing is at all times and under all circumstances a most important factor, for a book may be very seriously injured by being rebound, no matter in what style or at what cost. This question of re- binding is one of the most weighty to face the collector at the outset of his career ; later on he discovers for himself that it is never wise to rebind a book so long as the original covers are capable of being repaired, though at first he is apt to re- bind any book showing signs of wear and tear. We are not, of course, speaking now of books of utility, such as works of every day reference. These are best in a good strong binding, suitable to their condition, and the work expected from them. They are not collectors' books in the strict acceptation of that term, nor are they subject in any way to the ordinary rules which collectors have laid down. This is a matter of common sense and needs no elaboration. It will also be under- stood instinctively that to strip off an old and choice binding would be not only an act of van- dalism, but of extreme folly from a commercial point of view. Such bookish depravity, though it may exist, must be so extremely rare that it would not be worth while to refer to it, were it not that the principle involved is the same whenever the question of rebinding comes to the front. Should rebinding be a necessity, specific in- structions should be given to the binder, that on no account are the edges of the leaves to be trimmed. As before stated, books of pure refer- ence or for every day use are not included in these observations, but they constitute practically the only exceptions to the rule which is applicable to 130 BOOKBINDING modern as well as to old books, unless indeed it is necessary to mention the modern Continental volumes which are issued almost invariably in paper wrappers. These are published in that way so that they can be bound to any pattern with facility, for the Continental collector appears to be more solicitous of the appearance of his library than we are in England. He likes to have his new books bound uniformly. The practice is, however, dangerous, and has been productive of great loss before now. As is well known, modern books published in England are usually in a cloth binding, often stamped with some artistic device or embellish- ment, and now always lettered with the title. Bindings of this kind were first introduced in 1822 by Archibald Leighton, who issued a volume (not the first), of Pickering's Diamond Classics in that form. Gilt stamping upon the cloth which had, at first, a smooth, washed surface did not come into fashion till ten years later, when the second volume of Lord Byron's " Poetical Works," 17 vols., 8vo, 1832-3, was published by Murray in that style. In original sets the first volume certainly has the title printed in gilt, but it is upon a paper label, whereas in the case of the second and succeeding volumes the title is stamped upon the cloth itself It may be taken for granted that any volume earlier in date than 1822 must have been rebound subsequently if it is found in cloth. Prior to that date two styles of binding were in common use in England, the more expensive consisting of leather, and the cheaper of mill- board, though, as we have already pointed out 131 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS in the first chapter, not all copies of the same edition are invariably bound alike. Though the edition as a whole may have been issued in leather, a few trial copies may exist in boards or vice versa, and it is the possible existence of these exceptional copies which often induces the ardent collector to go to great trouble and expense in order to procure them. This in itself is sufficient to show that original bindings should be left intact, and though paper wrappers can hardly be called a " binding," the rule is applicable in their case also. Only the other day a copy of Apperley's " Life of a Sportsman," first edition, 1842, containing thirty-six coloured plates by Aiken, sold by auction for £\2s- It had been rebound in morocco extra, with gilt edges, in a very expensive style, but had it been in its original blue cloth covers, and clean, it ought to have brought £yi at least. The ori- ginal edition of Fielding's "Tom Jones," consisting of six volumes, was published in 1 749 in a leather binding, though a few sets appear to have been bound up in boards, probably for some experimental purpose. The six volumes in leather can often be met with for a few pounds, while a set in boards, if it could be procured, might cost ;^ioo. Yet another instance. The first edition of Sterne's " Sentimental Journey," two vols., 1 768, was issued in calf, and is worth in that style some £^ or £6. It seems, however, that a few copies were inclosed in wrappers, and one of these, excessively dirty, and not even perfect, but " uncut," sold by auction in November 1903 for as much as £2%. These enormous variations in the prices paid for two different copies of the very same work emphasize 132 BOOKBINDING the twofold position advanced more than once in these pages, that an " uncut " copy is, as a rule, of much greater interest than one having its edges trimmed or smoothed, and that it is most unwise to rebind any volume merely because it looks as though it needed binding, without, at any rate, very careful consideration. And if this is so in the case of comparatively modern books, clothed in covers of no interest as bindings, it is not necessary to provide any argu- ment to prove that old and distinctive bindings should in no case be interfered with. There are collectors of bindings, just as there are of books, and every collector likes to have, and endeavours to procure, books in their original, or failing that, contemporary covers; or, better than all, except in a very few cases, in bindings having about them something of the glamour of history or romance. One of the finest and most extensive collections of old bindings was formed by the late Pro- fessor Corfield, of Savile Row, with the object of exemplifying in some way or another the art, workmanship, or development of bookbinding. A considerable number of these books, all of which were on view at Sotheby's in November last year, were selected for exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club. The English portion was particularly fine. The early London stamped-panel binders were represented by three different examples; by John Reynes, by the binders H. R., A. H., G. C, and the very rare M. D. There were two specimens of the Wotton binder, one each by Berthelet and Garret Godfrey of Cambridge, and upwards of fifty specimens by the royal binders, Samuel and Charles Mearne. French and other foreign bindings found ^33 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS their place in this library in large numbers, and formed an extensive history of the art. Before proceeding to consider the subject of bookbinding from an historical standpoint, mention must be made of some of the ordinary styles in common use at the present day. Cloth binding has already been mentioned, and there is no need to refer to it further, as examples may be seen in any bookseller's window. "Buckram" is a species of coarse linen cloth stiffened with glue, stronger than the ordinary cloth covers so often seen, but not differing much in appearance at first sight. When looked at closer, the " web " of the cloth is seen more distinctly, and the whole appearance is more suggestive of durability. Of late, many new books have been published in vellum covers in imitation of the old-style patterns, or with no pat- tern, and sometimes tied with silk ribbon. In a few cases metal clasps are substituted for the ties, as, for instance, in the case of " The Legendary His- tory of the Cross," comprising a series of sixty-four woodcuts reprinted by Mr. Fisher Unwin in 1887 from a Dutch book published by Veldener in 1483. Boards, i.e., covers of cardboard, are sometimes used, and leatherbindings.such as calf and morocco, often. A book is said to be half bound when it has the sides of cloth or boards, and the corners and face or back of leather, vellum, or some other material different from the sides. This makes an ideally cheap and durable binding, showing a face of leather, often ornamental, when placed upon the shelf, and for this reason is in much request. These half bindings, especially those in half calf, have, however, been productive of much mutilation in the past, it being rare to see a book bound in 134 BINDIN(;. THE I;^•ZANTINE STVr.E [/W'.i.vA 134 BOOKBINDING half calf which has not also been cut down by the binder. " Leatherette" bindings are a cheap sub- stitute for morocco or roan. They are not inartistic, but neither are they durable, being very apt to crack at the joints. Vegetable parchment is some- times used to slip over the paper wrappers in which nearly all French books are published, and the practice has been introduced into this country, so that this style of binding, if such it can be called, is met with occasionally. We now come to the historic aspect of the sub- ject, though it will not be necessary to refer to it at any great length. M. Paul Lacroix expresses the opinion that " as soon as the Ancients had made square books, more convenient to read than the rolls, bookbinding was invented," and this carries us back to a rather remote period, for it is clear that the Greeks and Romans were perfectly well acquainted with books prepared in the manner in which we now see them. Literary treatises were perhaps generally written on rolls, but books of accounts and others which were useful only to the degree in which they could be readily consulted appear to have been made up into pages exactly as our ledgers and day books are made up now. In later days the monks usually prepared their Bibles and books of devotion — writing, illuminat- ing, and binding them, and it is worthy of note that the earliest works from the printing press were bound in imitation of these manuscript volumes. Many of the early monastic bindings were very elaborate and costly. The monks prepared them up to a certain point, and then sent the covers to the jeweller and goldsmith for ornamentation in what has now come to be known as the " Byzan- 135 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS tine style." Our illustration shows a binding of this kind, supposed to have been executed in the twelfth century; it is formed of wooden boards, padded with cloth, upon which are nailed thin plates of silver gilt with figures in relief. These Byzantine coatings are often formed of gold and silver, sometimes studded with jewels, and carved ivory and enamel were afterwards used for the same purpose. Relics of this kind are exceedingly scarce, especially in this country, where the rav- ages attending the Reformation were widespread and most destructive. In February last Messrs. Sotheby sold by private contract five volumes of this class which had formerly been in the Libri Collection, for the enormous sum of;^2o,ooo. They were ancient manuscripts, important in themselves no doubt, though the attraction really centred in the bindings of silver gilt ornamented with pearls, pre- cious stones, and enamels. Dibdin describes many of the ornamental and jewelled bindings found in Continental libraries in the third volume of his " Bibliographical Tour," and the whole subject is exhaustively dealt with by Mr. W. Salt Brassing- ton, in his " History of the Art of Bookbinding." The first binder known to history appears to have been Dagaeus, an Irish monk, who lived about the year 550. Bilfrid, a monk of Durham {c. 720), is mentioned in Simon of Durham's " Historia Ecclesiae Dunelmensis," in connection with a book known as the " Textus Sanctus Cuth- berti," now preserved in the British Museum, though shorn of its adornment of gold and silver plates once set with "precious gems and gold." This is the book incautiously dropped into the sea by the monks of Lindisfarn in their haste to 136 SECTIONS OF EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY BINDINGS OF ITALIAN DESIGN SHOWING THE " PERIOD [To/aCf: /'. 136 BOOKBINDING escape the Danes, but which was nevertheless miraculously restored to them uninjured through the merits of the saint whose name it bears. Monastic bindings of this costly character were of course exceptional. More often books were bound in vellum, calf, or pigskin, protected with metal bosses and corner plates, and sometimes stamped in blind tool {i.e., without gilt adornment). Sometimes they were bound in rough covers of skin, from which the hair was only removed suf- ficiently to permit of the title being inscribed. These were the ordinary styles of binding in use in Germany and the Netherlands, though in these countries, as elsewhere, velvet, figured silk, and brocade came into use with the Renaissance. In- deed, the age which witnessed the invention of printing also saw the art of bookbinding advanced to great perfection, though it was not till the end of the fifteenth century that it began to rank as an art in itself What is known as " Saracenic " binding was practised in the East, in the Levant especially, and was contemporary with the stamped work of West- ern Europe. Its distinguishing feature is plainly apparent, for the ornaments invariably consist of rope twists arranged in geometrical designs. The " rope " design is essentially Saracenic. During the first half of the sixteenth century Italian and French gold tooling chiefly assumed the forms of inter- lacings suggestive of " strap- work," frequently re- lieved with foliated ornamentation, as shown in the illustration. These four designs belong to the earlier portion of the sixteenth century, and are of Italian origin. There can be no doubt that the early printers 137 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS were frequently their own binders. In our own country Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Lettou and Machlinia, the first London printers, Richard Pyn- son, Berthelet, and many other English craftsmen themselves bound the books they printed. About this time blind tooling came into vogue in this country, though it had been employed elsewhere long before, and shortly after gilt tooling, also, of course, by hand. The art of applying gold orna- ment to leather is, however, of unknown antiquity. It was practised in ancient Egypt, though in modern times Aldus Manutius, the celebrated Venetian printer was probably the first to employ decorative art of the highest character. Some of the designs on his bindings are imitations of those seen on the walls of Eastern mosques. He has been styled the reformer of European binding. He employed vellum and leather, usually plain but sometimes gilt-tooled to an arabesque or other design, the edges of the leaves being occasionally gauffered and coloured. His example in the matter of neat and effective bindings was speedily followed in all the Italian centres. From there the art spread to France, for the dictum " La reliure est un art tout frangais" is not based upon any substratum of fact ; the Italians were the first to use calf and morocco in substitution for the old bindings of pig- skin and leather laid down on oaken boards. So far as France is concerned two particular styles of binding, often referred to and sometimes imitated at the present day, claim attention. The first of these, known as the Fanfare style, was in- troduced by Nicolas and Clovis Eve, two cele- brated binders of the age of Henri III (1574-89). The Fanfare design consists of geometrical pat- 138 SECTION OF BINDING TOOLED A LA FANFARE IToJacc p. 138 lUNDING SHOWINC THE POINTILLK STYLE. THE CENTRE-PIECE IS OF POINTILLE SCROLLS [To face f. 138 BOOKBINDING terns, with sprays of palm branches, leaves, and foliated forms, deftly introduced, the whole being tooled in gold. These decorations assumed differ- ent forms and designs, though a pronounced style is common to all of them, and was probably a reac- tion against the gloomy bindings in which Henri III took such great delight. The precise meaning of the word Fanfare, as here used, is not very clear. Colloquially it means a "flourish of trumpets," which by a stretch of imagination may be regarded as the antithesis of something staid, solid, and morose. On the other hand Fanfare is said by some authorities to be merely the name of a book which a collector had bound in imitation of one of the bindings of De Thou. The illustration dis- closes a fine example of a Fanfare design. The other distinctive style of binding, known as Pointill6 was introduced by Florimond Badier, in the middle of the seventeenth century. Badier, who may have been identical with Le Gascon, was probably a workman in the employ of the Eves. Like those binders, he first designed geometrical outlines, but filled them in, not with branches and leaves as they usually did, but with innumerable gold dots, each dot separately tooled, and the whole forming a brilliant series of fine stars falling in pat- terns on a ground of scarlet morocco. The repro- duction we give is of a binding decorated by Le Gascon in the PointilU style. This style, though luxurious, was too laborious and expensive to re- main in fashion for long. It practically died out in France about the year 1660, though traces of it were found for many years afterwards in the bindings of Duseuil, Padeloup, Derdme, and other celebrated workrnen. 139 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS The history of the art in England is obscure. We know that, as already asserted, the early printers bound their own books, that Julian Notary was a celebrated binder in the reign of Henry VII, John Reynes and Berthelet in that of H enry V 1 1 1 , J ohn Gibson in that of J ames V I (of Scotland) and Samuel and Charles Mearne in the reign of Charles II, but, unfortunately, it is impos- sible to connect many existing bindings with any of these names and to say with certainty that they are the work of such and such a craftsman. Long before their time, however, a school of binding flourished at Winchester and spread afterwards to London, Durham, and Oxford. It existed from the twelfth century, or perhaps earlier, to the end of the fif- teenth, when the large panel stamps were imported from France. The Winchester bindings are usually covered with small stamps an inch or less in size, of a square or circular shape, containing figures of saints, grotesque or nondescript subjects. The Cathedral Libraries of Durham and Hereford have many examples of this style of binding, and a fairly well preserved specimen, belonging to the late Mr. William Morris, realized ;^i8o at his sale in December, 1 898. It was in oaken boards covered with leather, stamped with circular, oval, and square dies of fabulous animals and birds. Two large centre circulars inclosing similar dies were on the upper cover, while the under cover was entirely comprised of square dies representing gladiators, Una and the Lion, and other devices. As a rule, the later English bindings are imita- tive and have few original features, though there are exceptions, one of which is disclosed by what is known as the "Cottage" style (see illustration). 140 A "COTTAGE BINDING [r,i/,i.v/. 140 BOOKBINDING This style was common in France about the year 1630, though it is purely English in conception and origin. It discloses an arrangement of closely confined but not formal lines at the top, bottom, and sides, the spaces being filled in sometimes with sprays and leaves d, la Fanfare, in combina- tion with lace-work, at others, with small rings and scales. The University presses of Oxford and Cambridge adopted the Cottage style extensively, and it is often seen. The Harleian style of binding was designed by the son of Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, who had his father's books expensively bound to a pattern by two craftsmen named Elliot and Chapman. The Roxburghe binding, now often seen, was used by the Roxburghe Club, founded in 181 2, immediately after the great sale held in that year. Another essentially English binding is known as the Etruscan. It is not necessary to de- scribe it further than to say that it shows a decora- tion of Etruscan vases sometimes copied in colours by means of acids. This is severe, not very artistic, and cannot be described as original. It was initiated by John Whitaker, and for a time enjoyed a fair measure of success. Strictly speaking, there would not appear to have been any purely English style of binding, the Cottage pattern excepted, since the old Winchester days. Berthelet was a clever crafts- man, but without originality, for his work is based on French and Italian models. The art of tooling in gold was not practised here till about 1 540, and in searching for a " School," we are driven to fall back upon the printer, John Daye, who certainly did turn out some tasteful, and not altogether con- ventional, designs, composed chiefly of a large 141 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS centre ornament and corner decorations, some- times inlaid with white leather upon brown. Still, not even Daye's designs were entirely original. It is impossible to speak too highly of the cele- brated English binders of the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The names of Baumgarten, Kalthoeber, and Stag- gemeier, are a sufficient guarantee of the excel- lence of any binding attributed to them. These craftsmen were succeeded by Hering, Lewis, Hayday, Riviere, Bedford, and Zaehnsdorf, while among living artists, for such they really are, the names of Mr. Zaehnsdorf (son of the preceding), Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, and Mr. Douglas Cock- erell will be familiar. The guild of women-binders and the Hampstead bindery have also turned out some good work, much of which has been sold by auction during the last two or three years. Hering followed, to a great extent, the style of Roger Payne, while the bindings of Kalthoeber nearly always disclose a circular ornament or star on the back. Roger Payne (1739-97), one of whose bind- ings in scored Russia we reproduce, was the first modern native binder of any real talent, for the French emigrants, who made their home in this country towards the end of the eighteenth century, merely imported a foreign reputation. Payne is described as being dissolute and dirty in his habits. He lived in a garret, by all accounts, and littered it with odds and ends, stale bread and scraps of food, grease from guttering candles, worn- out shoes, which he was too indolent to throw away, and refuse of all kinds. Probably this picture of his domestic life is 142 SECTION OF A BINDING iJV KOl^ER PAYNE {To/a^c f. 142 BOOKBINDING greatly exaggerated, but however that may be, Roger Payne, as a binder, displayed very opposite qualities. Negligent he was not, for his work shows every trace of extreme care and laborious accuracy of detail. His designs, though simple for the most part, are elegant and refined, while his taste, ex- emplified in his choice of ornament and general appropriateness of design, has never been sur- passed, and very rarely equalled in this country. As to this and much more the reader should refer to " Roger Payne and his Art," by W. L. Andrews, an excellent book published at New York in 1892. A few words are necessary on the subject of embroidered bindings, which came into early use in England. In the British Museum there is a thirteenth-century Psalter bound in a cover worked with gold thread, and this is probably the earliest example of an embroidered binding in existence. It is in a very bad state of repair, but enough of the original cover remains to show that the work was well done. The " Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul," a manuscript in the hand of the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen, is preserved in the Bodleian. She translated it from the French rhyme into English prose in the year 1544, and embroidered the binding probably with her own hands. Mr. Cyril Davenport gives illustrations of both these bindings ("English Embroidered Book- bindings," 1899), as well as of many others, dis- closing heraldic, floral, and other designs, some of which were exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1 89 1. Nicholas Ferrar's "Protestant Nunnery" at Little Gidding is often credited with having pro- 143 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS duced embroidered bindings, though apparently without any warrant. Auctioneers and booksellers' catalogues nevertheless frequently contain the entry, " Embroidered by the Nuns of Little Gid- ding." Ferrar's niece, Mary Collet, and the other ladies of the nunnery, undoubtedly used their needles, but probably only to sew the leaves of books to the bands, an important step certainly, but not one from which much credit is usually ob- tained. Rightly or wrongly, it is said that there is no embroidered binding known which can be safely attributed to Nicholas Ferrar's ascetic es- tablishment. Closely connected with the art of bookbinding, though not actually forming part of it, is the decora- tion of the fore edges of books, a practice brought to a great state of perfection by Edwards of Hali- fax. The oldest form of edge decoration is that known as gauffering, or gilding a l' antique. The process came into use in France in the reign of Louis Xn, and consisted in first covering the edges of the book to be treated with a thin layer of gold, which was then sized. When dry another and thicker layer of gold was painted over the first, and then the workman proceeded to prick a pattern on the surface. Sometimes the design shows dull on a bright ground and sometimes the reverse, but in either case a distinctive pattern is produced. Books with gauffered edges are more often met with than those which show gilding on edges which have been merely marbled or coloured, and are certainly more pleasing. Sometimes both processes are used in combination. A third form of edge decoration is that revived by Kalthoeber. In this the edges of the leaves are painted with a 144 BOOKBINDING landscape, or some other design, and afterwards gilded. Books so treated sometimes show the design when they are closed, but the practice of Edwards, who took out a patent for the process in 1785, was to " fan " the leaves, so to speak, and then to paint upon them. The leaves are spread or fanned out, and fixed firmly in that position. The surface, having been rendered perfectly smooth, is then painted upon with water colours, and, when dry, gilded, so that on the book being restored to its normal position the design entirely disappears, and can only be seen when the leaves are again spread out. Edwards worked in this style upon vellum as well as upon paper. The practice is not much resorted to nowadays, as the paper upon which books are printed is usually too thick to admit of a successful design being worked upon the edges. The various methods of colouring and gilding the edges of books are treated by Mr. W. J. E. Crane in his " Bookbinding for Amateurs," an excellent and practical work, giving particulars of every process and detail connected with the art. One point remains to be mentioned before this chapter is brought to a close. It will be noticed that many old leather bindings have stamped upon them, usually in gilt, the armorial bearings of their former owners. This affords a clue to the library from which they came, and it is therefore necessary to be able to trace the arms to show the source. Like almost all phases of bibliography this is, in itself, a distant branch of the science, and as armorial leather bindings are comparatively com- mon, though probably destined to become scarcer in course of time, there is no lack of material upon H5 L HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS which to draw. One of the books usually consulted whenever it is wished to trace armorials of this kind is Guigard's " Armorial du Bibliophile," published in 1870. It is profusely illustrated with many coats of arms copied from old bindings which came, from time to time, under the notice of the author. 146 CHAPTER X GREAT COLLECTORS Associations with the past — Binding as evidence of former ownership — La Bruyere's " Fool " — Lorenzo the Magnificent — "Tho Maioli et Amicorum" — Other Itahan collectors — Antonio Magliabecchi — Jean Grolier — The Golden Age of French col- lectors — Henri II and Diane de Poictiers — De Thou — Gabriel Naud^ — Cardinals RicheHeu and Mazarin — Moliere — ' ' Graille, " " Coche," and "Loque" — Marguerite d'Angouleme — Nodier and the later French School — L'Abbd Deseuil — -The English collectors — Richard de Bury — The Royal Libraries — The Earls of Arundel and Leicester — Later and modern collectors. ONE of the chapters in Mr. J. Rogers Rees's " Diversions of a Book- Worm," treats of " The Loved Books of some other Folks." It is written in so simple and natural a manner that the reader cannot help feeling that the heart of the writer was in his work, and that books may on occasion possess a special charm by reason of their having belonged to illustrious persons or to cele- brated collectors of the past. The far-off contact with the hands of people whose names yet live in the annals of history or romance still clings to many a book that perhaps would otherwise be of no account. Collectors appreciate such volumes, and cherish them with especial care by reason of their associations. It is just this feeling that invests early editions of books with a prominence often denied the later ones, for the collector likes to 147 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS think that the author of the book he holds in his hand has looked upon its counterpart, or perhaps even upon that very copy itself. Every old book has an extrinsic as well as intrinsic value. In the vast majority of cases we may not be able to trace its pedigree, or to say from whose library it came, or who has turned over its leaves, but in others we can do so with certainty, for the binding may be of a distinctive kind or show some special device or emblem identifying it with a former owner who may also, though this is not often the case, have written his name or motto within. " The Loved Books of some other Folks" are of exceptional in- terest to us, even though they should have been roughly handled, as many of the books once be- longing to Charles Lamb evidently have been. In fact, if they can be associated with any celebrated person by reason of the character of the binding, the manuscript notes or signatures they contain, or in any other way, they at once become objects of unique interest ; the collector recognizes that he holds in his hand something which has not its fellow in the world. The feeling may be purely sentimental, but it is a very real one notwith- standing. It has often been said that France is the mother of bibliography, and therefore of book collectors, and that is to a certain extent true, for the French converted into a science what the Italians had previously regarded in the light of a pastime. We in England were, and perhaps still are, much behind the French in most branches of biblio- graphical knowledge. Richard de Bury was a great collector, but he was not a scientist ; indeed Blount's " Censura c^lebrium Authorum," a work ' 148 COVKR ClF A HOOK FROM THE LIIIRAR^'OF THO\F-\SSO .\F\IOLI WITH HIS MONOGRAM \_ToJacc p. 14S GREAT COLLECTORS printed in 1690, must be regarded as the first regular treatise on bibliography ever issued in this country, while the " British Librarian " of William Oldys, an unfinished work, published in 1737-8, is our first work devoted to old books in contradistinction to new. About this time, too, Michael Maittaire had completed his "Annales Typographici," a monument of industry and re- search which first put the study of bibliography in England on a solid basis. Blount, Oldys, and Maittaire may, therefore, be regarded as the builders of an edifice which succeeding genera- tions have enlarged and beautified. In this chapter we propose to mention the names of some great collectors of the past whose books can be identified by their bindings, for at one time it was the usual practice of those whose absorbing passion centred in the library to have their books bound to some particular pattern or in some special style. This was sometimes carried to very great lengths, as we shall presently have occasion to see. Jean de la Bruyere, the cele- brated French writer, who died in 1696, complains very bitterly of the prevailing fashion of his day for expensive morocco bindings, and narrates how rich fools were wont to shout in his ear that the volumes in what he calls their " tanners' shops " had " gilt edges," and were " elegantly tooled " to a pattern. These same fools, he declares, never read the books they owned. They were book col- lectors in name only; mere imitators of those true collectors who had preceded them ; they lacked the spirit, possessing only the substance, and no- thing is known of them now. The names of many great collectors of this and 149 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS other countries who were saturated with the spirit of all true book-men, have, however, come down to us, and volumes they once owned are often regarded with the greatest interest. There would, for instance, be a notable competition for any book from the library of Lorenzo the Magnifi- cent, stamped with the Medici arms, the laurel branch, and the family motto "Semper." Every one, of course, knows of the great collection of Thomasso Maioli (1500-49), who adopted for his book-covers a style of tooling prevalent in the East, modified, however, by Italian influence, dis- closing scroll-work and foliage, often in white, edged with gold, and laid down upon a dark back- ground, beautiful, no doubt, to behold when clean and fresh {see illustration). It was this Maioli, one of the family of collectors, who adopted the motto, afterwards imitated by Grolier — "Tho Maioli et Amicorum," Pope Leo X (1513-21) was another collector who had a fine library, and Cardinal Bonelli (1541-98) was celebrated for the costly bindings with which his books were clothed. Demetrio Canevari, the physician to Pope Urban VIII, perhaps inherited his books, but whatever the truth in that respect, there is no mistaking them. They invariably disclose an oval medallion with his device, the figure of a charioteer driving towards Pegasus, who stands on a precipitous rock. The chariot, in blue or perhaps red, travels over a silver sea, and around is the motto, 0P9X22 KAI MH AOHIX22. Canevari's library remained intact at Genoa till 1823, when it was dispersed. Other celebrated Italian libraries, yet remembered, are those of Alemanni, the poet, and Pasqual Cicogna, the Doge of Venice. Books from any 150 A IJIXDING KRO.M THE LUIRARV OF LiE:\IETRJO CAXE\'ARI {To face p. 150 GREAT COLLECTORS of these sources are of great interest to the modern collector, and correspondingly expensive. One of Canevari's bindings covering a copy of Ariosto was in the collection of the late Professor Corfield, and is displayed in the illustrated edition of the catalogue issued by Messrs. Sotheby just prior to the sale. We reproduce this by the kind permission of the firm. Perhaps the last Italian collector of world-wide renown was Antonio Magliabecchi, who lived all his life at Florence and died there in 1714. He commenced his career as a shop boy, and even in those early days used to haunt the street stalls, buying any book his means permitted. In after years he became celebrated not only for his large collection of books, but for his extraordinary memory. It is said of him that he never forgot anything that he once read; that having looked over a library, he obtained a perfect map of it in his mind, being able to say, years after, where such and such a book stood upon the shelf; that he would often quote not merely some book as an authority in support of an argument, but the page or pages where the necessary passages were to be found. Magliabecchi left the 30,000 volumes he had succeeded in collecting to his native city of Florence, where they are still to be seen, in com- pany with many others added since his day. His books were catalogued and described by Follini in 1793-5- Though there can be no question that the Italians were the first to be distinguished as col- lectors, the example set by them speedily travelled to France, where all that had hitherto been ac- complished was soon put into the shade. In 151 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS France, books are and always have been re- garded as necessities. Nearly all the greatest writers have been collectors, as well as all the aristocracy. At the time of the Revolution in- numerable volumes gathered from the libraries of the nobles were scattered about the streets, their armorial covers defaced or mutilated. One patriot of the time expressed his conviction that a well- bound book was an enemy in itself, and to give point to this contention, bought up books in order to deface their covers. But there was probably a great deal of method in the savagery of the Re- volution. It was sometimes advisable to express loudly one's patriotism in order to banish the shadow of the guillotine, and the hand which openly mutilated a book because it disclosed the symbols of an aristocrat, may not infrequently have pre- served its fellow in secret. The French have in- deed at all times been great readers and collectors. The literature of France is saturated with anec- dotes of books, and many more books about books have been published there than elsewhere. It is not possible to look at the " Melanges," printed for the Societd des Bibliophiles Frangais, in six volumes, 1820-9, without arriving at this con- clusion. The same spirit exists now as always, as witness M. Janin's " L' Amour des Livres," pub- lished in Paris so recently as 1866. The well remembered Jean Grolier de Servin, Vicomte d'Aiguise (1479- 1565), was a disciple and contemporary of Maioli. He might almost be regarded as an Italian collector, but for the fact that he is identified with the history of France. His family came from Verona and he was for some time Ambassador at Rome ; his bindings are very 152 A GROLIER WINDING {To face p. 152 GREAT COLLECTORS similar to those of Maioli, many of them were executed in Italy, especially those disclosing polychromatic designs, and he was dominated by the spirit of Maioli, even to the extent of adopt- ing a variation of his virtual invitation to borrow — " lo Grolierii et Amicorum." Furthermore, Grolier, like Francis I, was a great collector of books printed by the Venetian printer, Aldus, whom he accounted his friend. He had a complete collection of Aldines, many of them in covers de- signed by Geoffroy Tory, who was also a book lover, others by Aldus himself, and others again by Italian binders, whose names are unknown. Grolier's bindings, one of which we reproduce, were gilt with a " delicacy unknown before his time." He collected some 8,000 volumes bound in half a dozen different styles, geometrical orna- ments in compartments, gilt, with scroll-work, pre- dominating. At first he used a simple combination of various line patterns, afterwards introducing into the design decorative ornaments, such as flowers, wreaths, and so on. This fine library was sold in 1676. Books from the library of Louis de Sainte Maure are, however, scarcer than those of his contemporary, Grolier. They can be recognized by their bindings, which are mostly tooled with geo- metrical figures, and bear in the centre, on the side, the motto, "In via virtuti nulla est via." Such is the account given of them by Mr. Brassington, and most people will have to be content with the description, for it is practically impossible to obtain a book from this collection. During the reign of Francis I (1515-47), the French to some extent abandoned the Italian de- signs and struck out a line for themselves. From 153 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS this point the Italian influence became less and less marked till it finally ceased almost entirely. Francis was an admirer of Grolier and a great collector. His Latin, Italian, and French books were bound in dark leather ; the Greek in morocco of various colours, often in the Oriental style. When Dauphin, Francis used the device of a dolphin, probably suggested by the mark of Aldus, and the motto, " Nutrio et exstinguo." When he became King the dolphin made way for the arms of France, a Salamander attached to the collar of St. Michael and the crowned " F." The large paper copy of Homer which Aldus had presented to the King was found in the library of the Mar- quis of Hastings after his death. It seems to have been carried there at the time of the Revolution. The Golden Age of French book-collecting is associated with the period of Henri II and Diane de Poitiers, extending from about 1547 to 1566. Catherine de Medicis, the wife of the King and Marguerite de Valois, his daughter, were both noted collectors, the former especially, as also was Marie de Medicis. A specimen of her binding is shown in the annexed illustration. Marguerite de tValois, whose binder seems to have been Clovis Eve, used a design of daisies and other flowers, gracefully entwined. Catherine had about 4,000 volumes, exclusive of manuscripts, the greater part of which are now in the Bibliotheque Nationale. Many of them had belonged to the Mardchal de Strozzi, which the Queen seized upon when he died, and promised to pay for but did not. As to the King himself, he had four monograms, one for himself and Queen, and the other three for himself and Diane de Poitiers. The fair Diane 154 mMmmMimjmmMmjm aj HOOK FRONr THE IJBRARY OF MARIE DE MEDICIS [7'<,>«/.i54 GREAT COLLECTORS was also a most fastidious collector. After the death of her husband her bindings show an arrow issuing from a tomb and the motto, " Sola vivit in illo." When she became the mistress of the Due d'Orleans, the tomb disappeared, and the motto was changed to "Sola vivat in ilia." Many of the books in her Chiteau d'Anet are said to have been bound by Le Petit Bernard. They often dis- close her own and the King's initials, the " H " and " D " interlaced {see illustration), the Lily of France twined round the crescent of Diana, the quiver, the arrow and bow of the chase. Her library remained intact in the Chateau d'Anet till the death of the Princesse de Cond6 in 1723, when it was dispersed. Some of the books were bound by Nicholas Eve in morocco of various colours, and closed with silver clasps. The historian Thuanus or De Thou (1553- 161 7), friend of Grolier and president of the Paris Parliament, had a magnificent Library, which re- remained intact till 1789, when it was sold by the heirs of Cardinal de Rohan, into whose possession it had come. The books in this library were bound in morocco or calf to a pattern varying with the circumstances of the life of its founder. When Thuanus was a bachelor, his arms appear in silver, beneath two laurel branches, and his name is given below. When he married Marie Bar- ban9on in 1587, he discarded this design, and placed his wife's escutcheon alongside his own, with the initials J. A. M. After the death of his wife, her and his own initials are interlaced, and we see a wreath of twining stems tipped with red berries . After 1 603 , when he married Gasparde de la Chastre, his new wife's escutcheon is seen in 155 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS conjunction with his own, and the initials appear as J. A. G. Thuanus employed the Eves to bind for him, and must have spent a fortune on de- corative effect. His library was catalogued from an existing manuscript, and edited by Quesnel in 1679. The celebrated family of the Eves came into prominence during the reign of Charles IX (1560-74), of St. Bartholomew notoriety, and may have bound for Henri HI, the debased and worth- less king who is referred to by Dumas as a learned monarch. His bindings were of the gloomiest. A Death's Head with the motto, " Memento Mori" or " Spes mea Deus " was a favourite device, though on the death of the Princesse de Condd, to whom he was greatly attached, he had her initials stamped on his book covers, with a chaplet of laurel. On one cover is seen a skull and cross- bones, and on the other the legend " Mort m'est vie." The long reign of Louis XIV witnessed the formation of many notable collections. The king, who himself had a liking for books, powdered his covers with Fleurs de Lys, the royal crown appear- ing at each corner, back and front alike. He had several binders, among them La Tour and Levas- seur, and his librarian, Gabriel Naud6, who also hunted for Cardinal Mazarin, was himself a col- lector. Naudd would buy up a whole library to procure perhaps half a dozen volumes which either he or his patrons happened to want. According to Rossi, who knew him well, he would buy books by the ell. Cardinal Mazarin had a library, but it was confiscated by the Parliament in 1652. On his return to power he began to collect again, and it 156 SHIELD AND CROWN OF HENRI II, WITH THE TRIPLE CRESCENT OF IJIANE IJE POITIERS, AND THE " H " AND " D " INTERLACED [ To face /. 156 GREAT COLLECTORS is this second collection which formed the germ of the existing Bibliotheque Mazarine. Many of the books are bound by Le Gascon, and disclose the Cardinal's hat, glittering on red or olive morocco. Cardinal Richelieu, the predecessor of Mazarin,was also a noted collector, as was Jean Baptiste Colbert, the oppressive minister of the king in later days. His bindings disclose the emblem of an adder on a shield surmounted by a crown. It is said that Colbert did not read his books. Perhaps he col- lected with the intention of reading them some day when the cares of State should become less onerous. Be that as it may, he had one of the finest private libraries in Europe. All the ambas- sadors of France looked out for him. Of the books in the library of Moliere, a mighty hunter who searched the bookstalls at first hand, but a single example is said to remain, the " De Imperio Magni Mogolis," printed by the Elzevirs in 1631. This is one of the set known as " The Republics," and from a pencilled note seems to have cost Moliere " i livre 10 sols." Moliere's library con- sisted of about 350 volumes, as the catalogue formed by M. Souli6 discloses. The Abbd Cotin, who figures in one of Moliere's plays, was like- wise a collector, though of a different stamp. His books are decorated with the interlaced C's. The three forsaken daughters of Louis XV, poor " Graille," " Coche," and " Loque," had their favourite books bound in citron, red and olive moroccos, each her own colour, while the bindings of Madame de Pompadour show her arms with the three castles repeated in each of the corners, or on a silver shield. All these ladies were collectors of repute, as also was the Comtesse de Verrue, 157 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS daughter of Charles de Luynes, who had a library of 18,000 volumes, bound by the greatest binders of the day, placed carefully in velvet-lined, ebony bookcases. The books of Marguerite d'Angoul^me, covered with golden daises, and those of Marie Antoinette, showing her cipher, are sometimes to be met with, as also are those of Nicholas and Charles Louis Fouquet, showing a squirrel and the motto " Quo non Ascendam." Every one of course knows Charles Nodier, who, though by no means a rich man, would pay, or owe, anything for a book, and recoup himself, when compelled to do so, by selling other books from his store. He had three libraries, but not a copy of Virgil in any of them. Like Earl Spencer, who is credited with having bought the famous library of the Duke of Cassano with the primary object of acquiring an edition of Horace printed in 1474, which he could not meet with elsewhere, Nodier was, as we have already mentioned, haunted by a book which continually eluded his grasp. He would have given anything in exchange, or paid anything, for a clean, uncut copy of the " right " Virgil with the misprint and two passages in red, but it is said that he could not obtain it, and so preferred to do without a Virgil at all. The particular edition he wanted, and perhaps never got, was printed at Leyden by Abraham Elzevir in 1636. There is more than one issue of that date, but the scarce one has a misprint on page 41 1, and part of the letter to Augustus, before the Bucolics — " Ego vero frequentes a te literas ac- cipio," etc., is not in black, but in red. The second indispensable red passage occurs on page 92 — " Si mihi susceptum," etc. A copy of the " right " 158 GREAT COLLECTORS issue could be got now with comparatively little difficulty. A tall copy sold by auction in April 1 902 for £11, and another copy, less "tall," for ;£^ a little time before. French collectors of later times were, indeed, so numerous, that it is impracticable to do more than just mention a few of the most prominent among them. Longepierre, who stamped his covers with a golden fleece, is as well known as, but perhaps, on the whole, more highly esteemed than Guilbert de Pix6r6court, the book-lover and playwright, who founded the Socidtd des Bibliophiles Fran9ais. He was a great Elzevir collector, and when the Theatre de Gaietd was burned down in 1835, and he found himself ruined, his first thought was to pack up his books and remove them from the reach of his creditors. M. Paul Lacroix kept them safely for him till the arrival of happier days. Napoleon I was the last Imperial collector of France. Barbier, his librarian, used to keep him supplied with books in whatever part of the world he might be, and even his travelling carriage was fitted up with shelves. Napoleon was a great reader, and no book failing to stand the test of his critical judgement ever saw Paris again; he would unceremoniously throw it out of the window as his carriage rumbled along the road. Junot, one of his most trusted generals, was also a book- lover; he is said to have confined his attention to books printed on vellum, and even to have had books specially printed for him on that material. Mr. Salt Brassington mentions a French col- lector, I'Abb^ Deseuil or Du Seuil, who is sup- posed to have been his own binder, though he does not appear to put much faith in his existence. 159 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Deseuil lived, if indeed he lived at all, during the last years of the seventeenth century and the be- ginning of the eighteenth, and, according to the popular belief, bound his books in red morocco with the figure of a vase in each angle. Pope mentions him in his " Moral Essays": "These Aldus printed; those Duseuil has bound." and his name frequently appears in the catalogue of the Comte de Brienne's sale (1724). In the Beckford catalogue (1882) there was a copy of Macrobius, printed at Leyden in 1670, said to have been bound by Deseuil ; it brought ;^39, though another copy in its original vellum realized less than 20s. In the library of the late Professor Corfield, a work by Mercerius, quoted as " De Conscribendo Epigrammate," Parisiis, 1653, was described as being bound by Deseuil. It disclosed a fine tooling of arabesques within a large panel, the outer compartment being similarly decorated. Whether such a collector and binder lived or not, the books he is supposed to have accumulated can be identified by the device on their covers and are very expensive. English collectors, though numerous enough in the aggregate, do not seem to have been moved by the same force of enthusiasm as the French, and with but comparatively few exceptions did nothing to ear-mark, so to speak, the books they acquired. The England of the twelfth century is described as being a paradise of scholars, but the first English book-hunter of eminence seems to have been the Richard de Bury, of whom we have spoken on several occasions. He had more books than all the other Bishops in England 160 GREAT COLLECTORS put together ; the floors of his house at Auckland were strewn with them so that visitors had to take care lest they should trip and fall. The great English book-collectors of the earliest times were, however, monarchs for the most part. The books of Edward IV were bound in silk and velvet, as were those of Henry VII; some from the library of the latter king are in the British Museum, but they have been rebound. Henry VIII added to his father's library, being assisted by his librarian, the celebrated antiquary John Leland, who rescued at least some books from the tender mercies of the Reformers. Queen Catherine Parr was a collector, and a few of her books in embroidered bindings still exist. Edward VI had a good library, now in the British Museum for the most part, and in his time the Earl of Arundel acquired many books, binding them in fine leathers, disclosing a white horse on a centre medallion. Queen Mary too had her library ; she had her books bound in velvet of various colours, gorgeous in the extreme. The use of velvet for purposes of binding books continued till about the end of the sixteenth century, when other material gradu- ally supplanted it. Many of the volumes collected by Elizabeth were bound in velvet. Elizabeth was a great lover of books, and frequently employed her needle to embroider the covers. The mention of this Queen conjures up the memory of Robert Dudley, the great Earl of Leicester, who had a collection of books showing his initials on the covers and his device, the bear and the ragged staff. Needless to say, James I was a great book- man ; he was fond of velvet bindings, but also used morocco, as did his son, Prince Henry, who i6i M HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS acquired a part of Cranmer's library. Charles I was not much of a collector ; when Prince of Wales he seems to have had some of his books bound with his arms and initials " C. P." The books of Charles II are all in solid, ornamented bindings, disclosing two Cs, crowned, within a wreath of laurel. Books from his library, as from those of James II, William of Orange, and Mary his Queen, are in the National Collection. The ac- companying illustration discloses a binding of Italian calf with the arms of the Old Pretender who was also a collector. This book was at one time in the Library of the Cardinal of York. Books that once belonged to English royal collectors are very seldom met with in private hands. The late Mr. Henry White, of Queen's Gate, had several. A Common Prayer Book, 1636, folio, from the library of Charles I, beautifully bound by S. Mearne, with the Royal Arms in the centre, realized ^61 at his sale in 1902. King James I's copy of the " Tragoediae" of Aeschylus, printed by Stephanus in 1557, small 4to, perhaps bound by John Gibson of Edinburgh, brought ;^I3, and Queen Elizabeth's copy of Peter Viret's " De Origine Verbi Dei," also printed by Stephanus, 1554, folio, ;^i5 10^. The late Professor Corfield had many books from the libraries of Edward VI, James I, Charles II, Queen Anne, and other monarchs. In a later chapter we give a list of all the more important sales by auction that have been held in England during the last hundred years, and the names of many noted book-collectors whose libraries have been dispersed are disclosed in it. Some col- lections are, however, still intact, as that of Bishop 162 EIN|)IN(i OF ITAI.IAX CALF, WFIH THK ARMS OF THf: OLD PRETKXDER circa 1724 Vrofcuc />. 162 GREAT COLLECTORS Moore, who has been called the " father of black- letter collectors." The Bishop accumulated some 30,000 volumes, which were secured by George I, and are now in the library of Cambridge Uni- versity. Harley bought the manuscripts collected by Sir Symonds d'Ewes; and the whole collec- tion, comprising some 7,600 volumes, exclusive of legal documents, is in the British Museum. The library of the Duke of Bridgewater, now in the possession of the Earl of EUesmere, the fine library at Chatsworth, the Spencer collection now at Manchester, the Huth Library, and a number of other collections have so far remained intact. Elias Ashmole's Library, which includes the col- lections of William Lilly and John Booker, the astrologers, is in the Ashmolean Library at Oxford. The Bodleian was founded in 1445 by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV, and Regent of England during the minority of Henry VI, but its real founder, by the great bequest he made to it, and after whom it is named, was Thomas Bodley, who was born at Exeter in 1545. Sir Robert Cotton's library also exists, though many of his books were badly damaged in the fire at Ashburnham House in 1727. The Hbrary of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, bound princi- pally in red morocco, showing the device of a pineapple, still exists in part, though Osborne, the bookseller, bought the printed books for ;^ 1 3,000 and sold them for small sums. His cata- logue, known as the " Bibliotheca Harleiana," was prepared by Dr. Johnson and Oldys in collabora- tion. Dibdin gives a summary of the collection in the " Bibliomania," and remarks that many of the 163 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS books were priced at as many shillings as would have realized pounds in his day. Osborne once made a bargain with a collector, David Papillon, who died about 1 763, that he would supply him with 8,000 different books, all perfect, at a uniform price of 2,d. each. At first he had no difficulty, but after- wards he was glad to have the agreement cancelled, for he had perforce been delivering books worth much more than 2,d. each. Sir Kenelm Digby's fine library was dispersed in 1680, though he gave one of his collections to the Bodleian. The library of the Earl of Sunderland, one of the most noted collectors of the eighteenth century, was sold by auction in 1 88 1-2 ; in fact, most of the old collections, the royal libraries excepted, found their way, sooner or later, to the auction rooms. That seems indeed to be the certain fate of almost every English library, and it must be remembered that when once these collections are dispersed, it is often a very difficult matter to identify the books again. It is not, and never has been, the practice in this country for private collectors to bind their books in the distinctive style of a Grolier or a De Thou, or in any special manner. The most they have ever done is to write their names on the fly leaves or title-pages, as did Bradshaw, the regi- cide, or in later days to paste bookplates within the covers. To this rule there have, of course, been exceptions. The Earl of Leicester used his badge, and so also did the Earl of Arundel, as we have seen, and Thomas Hollis, the antiquary, employed many different devices. The last-named seems to have been imbued with the spirit of the French collector, as he existed in the days of Diane de Poitiers. His method only varied. He had his 164 GREAT COLLECTORS books bound in calf of various colours, and upon each placed an emblem suitable to the character of the work. Did it treat of philosophy, he would enlist the owl ; of medicine, the wand of yEscula- pius ; of eloquence, the Caduceus of Mercury. That book, treating of gladiatorial combats, has the short Roman stabbing-sword or the net of the Retiarius ; and this history of the Egyptian mys- teries, the lotus, or sacred grasshopper. Mollis died in 1774, and it is curious that from that time the love of books in England seemed to wane, till Dibdin and the Roxburghe sale spurred it into full vigour once more. 165 CHAPTER XI AUCTION SALES AND CATALOGUES The first book auctions — Prices of books — Knowledge of their value essential — Books of reference — Auction statistics and catalogues — Alphabetical list of the principal book sales held from 1800 to date — Fluctuation in prices — The extent of the demand rules the price — Booksellers' catalogues — The principles of valuation — Books as an investment. BOOK auctions, though now of everyday occurrence, were until comparatively recent times quite unknown. In the early days most private collections appear to have been sold en bloc. What seems to us an obvious method of disposing of books where a speedy settlement is desired, the alternative being, of course, a private sale of a few books at a time, or more commonly of the entire collection, was not thought of before the Elzevirs sold by auction, in their house at Leyden, the libraries of the learned George and John Dousa. This was in 1604, and the success of the ex- periment led the same printers to conduct other notable sales in the same way, that of the library of John Rutgers in 1633 among the number. In England, book auctions were commenced in October, 1676, by William Cooper, a bookseller, carrying on business at the sign of the " Pelican " in Little Britain, who in that month dispersed the library of Dr. Lazarus Seaman. The catalogue of this first sale of books ever held by auction in this 166 AUCTION SALES country is extant, and the prices of the books reaUzed then, when contrasted with what would be obtained for them now, are calculated to make the enthusiastic book-hunter wish he could set back the clock so as to be able to secure, for example, Eliot's Indian Bible for 19^., and the E ditto Princeps of Homer for 8j., to say nothing of numerous American books and tracts, now worth more than their weight in gold, for the price of an old song. It must be remembered, however, that the difference in the purchasing power of money being taken into consideration, the value of books as a whole is not increasing, but rather the reverse ; indeed some classes of books, notably ordinary editions of the Greek and Latin Classics and of Theological Treatises, can now be got for a fourth or fifth of the amount they would have realized a hundred years ago. Modern editions of ordinary standard works are also cheap enough, but there are, on the other hand, some books which are in- creasing in value with each succeeding year. These are, for the most part, first or very early editions of celebrated works, and books produced by the early printers of our own and other countries, especially those which contain illustrations, or are bound by celebrated binders. This reference to prices was, as stated in the first chapter, extremely distasteful to collectors of the old school — those sober-minded, earnest, and for the most part well-endowed bookmen of a century ago, or even less, of whom John Hill Burton was a type. They were saturated with the idea that the book-lover had no concern with the cost of his treasures, and that money and all considerations relating thereto were distinctly subordinate to the 167 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS main principle to which they devoted their time and energy. Those days have, however, almost gone, and although no book-lover worthy of the name buys a book simply because he thinks it cheap at the price, and hopes to make a profit upon it in the future, he is compelled, in most cases at any rate, to adapt himself to the circumstances in which he is placed and to do as others do. To pay too much for what, after all, is but a temporary possession, and to leave those who follow us in the race of life the worse off for our indifference or negligence, has come to be regarded as an exhibition of selfishness, far outweighing that " gentility of tradition " which was at one time the guiding principle in matters of the kind. It is no small satisfaction to know, therefore, that books which are necessary to possess have never been cheaper than they are now, and that the more celebrated the work the less it costs to procure. A good and useful library may be formed for a comparatively small sum ; for vastly less than a good collection of pictures, prints, or coins. But the book-lover to whom money is of some account, and who regards literature as the primary object of his desires, must make up his mind to do with- out such rarities as the quartos of Elizabethan dramatists, and to read what they have written in another and more modern form. Part of the " stock in trade," so to speak, of every collector of the present day, is an intimate knowledge of the value of books, apart altogether from any considerations of intrinsic merit, so that he will be able to follow the fluctuations which are continually taking place, and make sure that those he buys are acquired at a reasonable cost. Of course a knowledge of the details of old 1 68 AUCTION SALES sales, like those of the seventeenth century of which we have spoken, will be of no assistance to him, but rather the reverse. He needs something precise, accurate, and up-to-date — for the difference in the value of a book at various periods is often immense. We reproduce a page from the Cata- logue of the Duke of Roxburghe's sale in 1812, with the prices marked. Such sums for such books would now be regarded as ridiculously small. Should the collector think therefore of buying any particular volume he should be in a position to ascertain what a similar copy has sold for by auction during the last twelve months or at some earlier, yet near period, so as to be not altogether at the mercy of those who are ready to sell it to him. This information can be got from " Book Prices Current," an annual record of the prices at which books have been sold, founded in 1887 by the writer of this short treatise, and still in pro- gress. Every book of importance which has been sold by auction in London and the provinces from 1887 to the present time will be found duly recorded in this work, year by year, with a state- ment of its condition and binding and the name of the person who bought it. In America a similar publication has been issued annually for about ten years under the title of " American Book Prices Current." It deals with American sales only, just as " Book Prices Current " proper, deals with English sales, and the two works together cover such a wide field that there is no longer any excuse for serious mistakes such as were at one time a fre- quent source of annoyance and loss to the col- lector. Quite recently a risumi of these two works, together with reports of earlier sales than 169 3843 3844 3845 Load. l600 — i.^'7* Dratndtic Poetry7~ TTS*" 3809 Shakspeare's Much a-doe about Nothing,' 1st. £d. 4to. Load. 3810 ■ — — by Kemble, 8vo. ^ ib. 1799 /* ^811 Midgommer Night's Dreame, 1st. Ed. 4to. « . ib. l600 — J: 3- ^» 3812 by Colman, 8vo. / / , ib.\76a ^"•'"^ 3813 ■ ■ . Merchant of Venice, 1st. Ed. 4td. ^ ib. T. Heyet, ^600 Jc^O 3814 ■ 4to. ib. J. Roberts, l600 ^A. Itf. 3815 ' — ^ew of Venice, by Ld. Landsdowne, 4to. ib. I7OI J s 38 16 Merchant of Venice, by Kerable, 8vo. ib. 1797 ^^ 3817 altered, 8yo. Read. l&Oi Is 3818 All's Well that Ends Well, by Kemble, 8«o. Lond.l7Q3 's. 3819 Catherine and Petruchio, by Garrick, 8vo. «, . ib. 1756 /^ *•"*• 3820 Florizel and Perdittarby Garrick, 8vo. ib. 1758 Yi 3821 Sheep Shearing, 8vo. - ib. \777 Lt (.JL 3822 Winter's Tale, by Kemble,' 8vo. ib. 1 802 5 5. 3823 Comedy of Errors, Cy Thos. Hull, 8vo. «i. 1793 /s 3824 Macbeth, by Sir W. D'Avenant, 4to. ih. 1674. -is 3825 '■ by Kemble, 8vo. - ih. J+i U4- 3826 by H. Rowe, 8vo. - ib. 1799 fiLJ- 3827 King John 4ro. - - ii. 161I Jj- ^^ 3828- by Kemble, 8vo. - tfi. 1800 &s UcC 3829 Richard II. 4to. - - tfi. 1 59» £.7 • 75 3830 • -4to. - - ii. I6i5i:/ "- U 3831 by Goodhall, 8vo. 16. 1772 3-*^^ 3832 Henrie IV. 4to. - - ib. 1599 S^ ^» 3833 4to. - - ib. 16O8 i^a • ^ 3834. 4to. -■ - i*. i613JE./ // ^ 3835 2nd part, 4lo. 1st. Ed. ib. 16OO S.^ ■ h^ 3836 Sequel to Henry IV. by Betterton, 8 vo. ii. 1719 2.* 3837 Henry IV. 2ndpait, by Dr. Valpey, 8»o. / ^1 ib. 1801 3838 • ^ by J. P, Kerable, Svo. , , ib. 1 804 '* • 'r* 3839 . Henry V. 4to. - - ' ib. 16O8 £S- • Bs 3840 — altersd, 8vo. - ' 16.1789 /i 3841 — by J. P. Kemble, 8vo. • - ib. 1801 ys 3^42 " Contention between Lancaster and York, 4to. r-/^ ib.N.D. ^^ Henry VI. by Theo. Cibber, Svo, " 16. N.D. 8a altered, Svo. - , »/>. 1795 ^* Richard III. 4to. - " ii. l6l2 £2- Sj 3846 — Troylus and Cresseida. 4to. 1st. Ed. i*. l609 ^ S . 5j PAGE FROM THE CATALOGUE OF THE DUKE OF ROXBURGHE'S SALE (1812) SHOWING THE PRICES REALIZED AUCTION SALES are noticed in either, has been published by Messrs. Dodd, Mead and Co., of New York. There is, however, an historical side to this question of money value, and k is more often in evidence than might be supposed even in matters of practical application. It is quite a common practice, for example, for the cataloguer of some contemporary sale to refer to another sale long past as evidence of the value of some book he enters on his list. He will very frequently say: "A fine copy of this scarce book realized ;^i50 at the Daniel sale," or " the only other copy on vellum known was sold at the Perkins' sale for £60," and so on and so on. Both these sales and many others of first class importance were held before " Book Prices Current " was estabhshed, and in this dilemma no other course is open, if it is wished to check the statement, but to consult the catalogues of the sales themselves. The cataloguer has them in his working library, all priced, and not infrequently indexed, and knows exactly where to put his finger upon any entry he may require. The ordinary collector has no such facilities ; he may not even know when such and such a sale took place, or indeed anything about it. He will, of course, turn up the volume he wishes to know something about in Lowndes' " Bibliographer's Manual," and may find there a reference to one or more prices that have been realized for it in times past, or if it is a foreign printed book he may turn to Brunet's " Manuel du Libraire " with the same object, though neither one book nor the other supplies him with the same details as to condition and binding which are confidently expected from a properly drawn catalogue, and which frequently 171 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS make an immense difference in the market value of two copies of the same work. The catalogues of nearly all important book sales held during the last fifty years or more can be seen at the British Museum Library, but in order to procure them without unnecessary delay the dates when the sales were held, and the names of the auctioneers, should be known, and it is just this information which is most troublesome to acquire. It is not of much use knowing that a certain book was in the Sunderland collection, and that it realized a certain sum when that fine collection was disposed of, without at the same time being able to say in what year the sale took place. A great deal depends upon that. Books rise and fall in the market, not with the spasmodic energy of stocks and shares, but still they fluctuate, and the same book which realized ;(^i forty years ago, might bring much more or much less to-day. In practice, sales held prior to that of the Duke of Roxburghe in 1812 are not quoted by the cata- loguers, indeed they do not as a rule go so far back as that. Still, for purposes of ready refer- ence we give a list comprising the principal sales by auction held since the commencement of the nineteenth century to the present time, with the year of sale, and the name of the auctioneer; the approximate sum realized in each instance is also given. The names within brackets are those of the auctioneers. Ashburnham (Earl of), Part I 1897 (Sotheby) 30,rso Ashburnham (Earl of). Part II 1897 (Sotheby) 18,650 Ashburnham (Earl of), Part III 1898 (Sotheby) 13,900 Ashburton (Lord) 1900 (Sotheby) 6,200 Astle (Edward) 181 6 (Evans) 2,360 172 AUCTION SALES Auchinleck Library, The Aylesford (Earl of) Bateman (W. & T.) Beckford (William) Beckford (William), Parts I & II Beckford (William), Parts III & IV Berri (Duchesse de) Berwick (Lord) Bindley (Jas.), Part I Bindley (Jas.), Parts II & III Bindley (Jas.), Part IV Blake (William), Works by. See Crewe, Earl of Blenheim Library, The. See Sunderland Library, The £ 1893 (Sotheby) 2,500 1888 (Christie) 10,500 1893 (Sotheby) 7.300 1823 (Phillips) 15.500 1882 (Sotheby) 54.000 1883 (Sotheby) 19,700 I83I (Evans) 5,100 1843 (Sotheby) 6,700 I8I8 (Evans) 3,000 I8I9 (Evans) 8,100 1820 (Evans) 2,200 Brand (Rev. J.), Part I 1807 (Stewart) 4,300 Brand (Rev. J.), Part II 1808 (Stewart) 1,850 Bright (B. H.) 1845 (Sotheby) 9,000 Broadley (John), Part I 1832 (Evans) 2,000 Broadley (John), Part II 1833 (Evans) 3.700 Brodie (Sir T. D.) 1904 (Sotheby) 3.290 Buckingham (Duke of). See Stowe Library, The Buckley (Rev. W. E.), Part I 1893 (Sotheby) 4,670 Buckley (Rev. W. E.), Part II 1894 (Sotheby) 4.750 Burra (J. S.) 1897 (Sotheby) (Sotheby) 5.290 Cambridge (Duke of) 1904 1.725 Carmichael (Sir T. D. G.) 1903 (Sotheby) 9,640 Chalmers (Geo.), Part I 1841 (Evans) 2,100 Chalmers (Geo.), Parts II & III 1842 (Evans) 4,000 Comerford (James) 1881 (Sotheby) 8,300 Corfield(Dr.W.H.). Consisted almost exclusively of rare bindings 1904 (Sotheby) 5,000 Corser (Rev. T.), Parts I- VIII 1868 (Sotheby) 20,000 Crawford (Earl of) 1887 (Sotheby) 19,000 Crawford (W. H.). See Lake- land's Library Crewe (Earl of) 1903 (Sotheby) 9,700 Crossley (James), Parts I & II 1884-5 (F.Thompson & Sotheby) 4,100 Currer (Miss R.) 1862 (Sotheby) 6,000 173 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS £ Daniel (George) 1864 (Sotheby) 15,800 Dent (John) 1827 (Evans) 15,000 Dillon (John) 1869 (Sotheby) 8,700 Edwardes (Sir H. H.) 1901 (Christie) 11,000 Edwards (Jas.), Part I 1804 (Christie) 4,600 Edwards (Jas.), Part II 1815 (Sotheby) 8,400 Ellis (G. Ifold) 1902 (Sotheby) (Sotheby) 8,000 Fielding (General) 1900 6,700 Fonthill Library. See Beckford (W.) Fountaine (Sir A.) 1902 (Sotheby) 10,700 Fraser (Sir W. A.) 1901 (Sotheby) 20,300 Gaisford (Thos.) 1890 (Sotheby) 9,200 Gardner (C. Dunn) 1880 (Sotheby) 4,700 Gennadius (Jno.) 189s (Sotheby) 5.500 Gibson (Craig), Parts I-III 1887-8 (Sotheby) 15.500 Gosford (Earl of) 1884 (Puttick) 11,300 Gough (Richard) 1810 (Sotheby) 3.550 Guilford (Earl of). Parts I-VI 1828-31 (Evans) 10,320 Hailstone (Edw.), Part I 1891 (Sotheby) 4,700 Hailstone (Edw.), Part II 1891 (Sotheby) 4,250 Halliwell-Phillipps (J. 0.) 1889 (Sotheby) 2,300 Hamilton (Duke of) 1884 (Sotheby) 12,900 Hanrott (P. A.) 1833-4 (Evans) 22,400 Hardwicke (Lord Chancellor) 1888 (Christie) 3,200 Hartley (L. L.), Parts I-III 1885-7 (Puttick) 16,500 Haslewood (Joseph) 1833 (Evans) 2,400 Heber (Richard), Parts I-XIII 1834-7 (Evans, So- theby) 57.500 Hibbert (Lieut. -Col.) 1902 (Sotheby) 12,100 Hibbert (Geo.) 1829 (Evans) 6,800 Hoare (Sir R. Colt) 1883 (Sotheby) 10,000 Hope (Adrian) 1896 (Sotheby) 3.500 Hopetoun (Earl of) 1889 (Sotheby) 6,100 Hurd (Philip) 1832 (Evans) 5.500 Inghs (J. B.) 1900 (Sotheby) 7.500 Jersey (Earl of). See Osterley Park Library, The Laing (Dr. D.), Parts I-IV 1879-81 (Sotheby) 16,600 Lakeland's Library, The 1891 (Sotheby) 21,200 Lansdowne (Marquis of) 1806 (Sotheby) 6,700 Larpent (Baron) 1903 (Sotheby) (Sotheby) 8,500 Libri (Gulielmo) 1859-64 28,000 174 AUCTION SALES Mackenzie (J. M.) 1889 Macready (W. C.) 1868 Makellar (Rev. W.) 1898 Malone (Edw.) 1818 Merly Library, The. See Willett. Mexborough (Earl of) Morris (Wm.) Nicholl (J. B.), Parts I & II North (John), Parts I-III Osterley Park Library, The Ouvry (Jas.) Perkins (F.) Perkins (Henry) Pickering (William) Porson (Richard) Reed (Isaac) Roscoe (Wm.) Roxburghe (Duke of) Scott (John) Seilliere (Baron) Sneyd (Rev. Walter) Stanley (E. J.) Steevens (George) Stourhead Library, The. See Hoare (Sir R. Colt) Stowe Library, The Strawberry Hill Library, The Sullivan (Sir E.), Parts I & II Sunderland Library, The, Part I Sunderland Library, The, Part II Sunderland Library, The, Parts III-IV Sunderland Library, The, Part V Sussex (Duke of) Sykes (Sir Mark) Syston Park Library, The Talleyrand (Prince) Taylor (Geo. W.), Parts I & II Thorold (Sir J. H.). See Syston Park Library, The Thorold (Sir J. H.) 1849 1842 1890 1881 1882 1882 1883 1844- 1824 1884 1816 1823 (Sotheby) (Sotheby) (Sotheby) (Sotheby) 1902 (Sotheby) 1898 (Sotheby) 1865 (Sotheby) I8I9 (Evans) 1885 (Sotheby) 1882 (Sotheby) 1889 (Sotheby) 1873 (Gadsden) 1853 (Sotheby) 1809 (Sotheby) 1807 (King) I8I6 (Winstanley) I8I2 (Evans) 1905 (Sotheby) 1887 (Sotheby) 1903 (Sotheby) I90I (Sotheby) 1800 (King) £ 7,000 1,216 11,000 1,650 14,500 11,000 6,100 12,800 13,000 6,200 8,200 26,000 10,500 1,250 4,380 5.150 23,400 18,259 15,000 13.500 6,300 2,700 (Sotheby) (Robins) (Sotheby) (Puttick) 14,000 3.900 11,000 19,000 (Puttick) 9,000 (Puttick) 18,000 (Puttick) (Evans) (Evans) (Sotheby) (Sotheby) (Evans) 10,000 19,000 18,700 28,000 8,400 8,700 1899 (Sotheby) 8,960 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Tite (Sir W.) 1874 (Sotheby^ (Evans) 20,000 Towneley (John), Part I 1814 S,8oo Towneley (John), Part II 1815 (Evans) 2,700 Towneley Hall Library, The 1883 (Sotheby) 8,700 Townshend (Marquis) 1812 (Sotheby^ (Sotheby) (Sotheby) S.700 Turner (Dawson) 1853 4>Soo Turner (R. S.), Parts I & II 1888 16,200 Utterson (E. V.) 1851 (Sotheby) 5,S°o Walpole (Horace). See Straw- berry Hill. Walton Hall Library. See Hail- stone (Edward) Weaver (H. B.), Part I 1897 (Sotheby) 1,050 Weaver (H. B.), Part II 1898 (Christie) S.Soo White (Henry) 1902 (Sotheby) 18,100 Wilbraham (R. W.) 1898 (Sotheby) 3,200 WiUett (Ralph) 1813 (Sotheby) i3.S°o Wodhull (M.) 1886 (Sotheby) 11,900 Wright (William) 1899 (Sotheby) 8,700 York (Duke of) 1827 (Sotheby) S.700 Young (Arthur) 1896 (Sotheby) 4,800 That this list will be found useful on occasion there can be no doubt. As to the sales held during the seventeenth century reference should be made to "Book Auctions in England" (1676-1700), by Mr. John Lawler, Sotheby's chief cataloguer, while a great deal of information can be gathered from Mr. H. B. Wheatley's " Prices of Books," published in 1898. This last-named work, which like Mr. Lawler's book is practically indispensable, con- tains a short chapter on auction sales of the eigh- teenth century, a period generally neglected. Some of the more important sales named in the above list have also been dealt with in detail by Dibdin in his " Bibliomania." It must not be supposed, however, that old book sales afford any practical evidence of the present value of any of the works disposed of They are 176 AUCTION SALES useful to consult from an historical standpoint but answer no other purpose, for the catalogues are not, as a rule, drawn in the elaborate manner now usual, while the market value of the books them- selves has long since changed. Books are valued with reference to the demand there is for them, and that demand varies, as we have seen, from time to time. Fluctuations are frequent and always have been. So long ago as 1465 a vellum copy of the " Catholicon," printed, probably by Gutenberg, in 1460, was priced at forty silver crowns. By 1475 the value had fallen to thirteen silver crowns. This is, of course, ancient history, but the very same forces are in operation now. The extent of the demand rules the price, and in order to ascertain what that demand is, the records of recent auction sales must be searched and, if necessary, tabulated. The amateur book-hunter will, after a time, learn to value any volume he may see with at least some accuracy by assigning it to a particular class, which is precisely the method adopted by the booksellers themselves. There are millions of different books in the world, and it is impossible for any one to be acquainted with more than a small proportion of them. It would seem, therefore, that from a practical standpoint the extent of any one's knowledge of the value of books would be confined to those which, during the course of a life more or less prolonged, he had happened to fall across and could remem- ber. The greater his experience the less likely he would be to make a mistake, and experience is, therefore, a very great factor in these matters. It enables one to speak off-hand and with certainty in very many cases, but not in all, and so we come 177 N HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS back to the main principle which underlies every estimate of the market value of a book, viz., that a man must, unless he happen to know by recent experience, assign it to some particular class he has mapped out in his mind, and judge from that and from the general circumstances of condition, binding, and so forth, whether it is likely to be of importance, or can safely be relegated to that im- mense variety which is of no special interest or value. This is the first step and the greatest. The second is concerned with degrees of rarity, im- portance, and value, and a knowledge of that can only be obtained from a close study of catalogues and sales by auction. To this there is no royal road. It must also be remembered that the prices of the earliest editions of books, though consti- tuting a very small part of a great subject, are valuable as a test of intrinsic merit in many cases, though, of course, other factors, as that of rarity, have to be taken into consideration as well. The celebrity of an author materially affects the value of the book he has written, but nevertheless such book must be difficult to acquire or that value will be small. One other point remains to be men- tioned. The beginner must not think that because a given book is sold for a certain sum at a par- ticular sale that it will necessarily bring the same amount, or even near it, at another sale in which it may happen to appear immediately afterwards. We put an extreme case of the same copy being sold on two separate occasions at an interval of only a month or two. A book is apt to realize more if it is sold in company with other books of good quality. When first-rate libraries are dis- 178 AUCTION SALES persed prices generally rule high, and the reason is not far to seek; we must not conclude, there- fore, that a book which realized say ;^50 at the Sunderland sale would bring as much if it were sold again to-morrow. That sale attracted buyers from all over Europe, and enthusiasm was as keen as the competition. Cautious buyers avoid such sales. They prefer to angle in less troubled waters, and are wise. It may be mentioned that to buy books and keep them as an investment is seldom or never profitable, for the interest on the money expended, which is as effectually sunk as the principal, has of necessity to be taken into the calculation. If money be the primary consideration, to buy any- thing which cannot be sold within a reasonable time at a profit, or which does not return an annual income, is to court a loss which becomes greater day by day. 179 CHAPTER XII EARLY EDITIONS AND STRANGE BOOKS Why early editions are preferred — The quality of illustrations — Author's personal supervision — Classes of books — Tiny volumes — Examples — Books printed from engraved plates — On coloured papers — Books cut from paper — Books on lead and palm leaves — Chained books — Condemned books — Curi- ously written books— Lord Baxter's masterpiece — Macaronic poetry — Books bound in human skin — Twin bindings — First books on given subjects. IT has been mentioned, though only incidentally, that collectors of books devote much of their attention to early or special editions of the works of those authors in whom they are interested. That is emphatically the case; and one of the reasons is, that some editions, or even issues of the same edition, furnish grounds of preference in respect of the paper upon which they are printed, the printing itself, or the size. The first edition exhibits the original thoughts of the author ; later ones the maturity of those thoughts, the difference in language being often most marked. Should a book be illustrated, the plates in the earliest issue will be found sharper and altogether superior to those which appear in subsequent editions. Thus, the fine edition of the works of Moliere, printed at Paris, in six vols, 1773, is accounted all the better if Vol. I has the star (double) leaves of pages Ixvi, Ixvii, and Ixxxi. In many copies of 180 EARLY EDITIONS Hakluyt's " Principal Navigations," 1 598-1600, the Voyage to Cadiz, forming pp. 607-6 1 9 of the first volume is supplied by a reprint. The original has eight paragraphs on page 607 and ends on page 619, whereas the reprint has seven paragraphs on page 607 and ends on page 620. Copies contain- ing the original " Voyage " are, of course, much superior. Many of the novels of Ainsworth were illustrated by George Cruikshank, H. K. Browne, John Franklin, and Gilbert, while those of Dickens, Thackeray, Lever, and many more also contain illustrations by the same or other artists of great eminence in their profession. Plates which are continually being printed from naturally become worn in process of time, or at least that was the case before the comparatively modern process of " steeling " was invented, and there is frequently no comparison between the quality of the illustra- tions in the first edition of a book and those which do duty in subsequent ones. All alike may be from the same plates, but the latter have be- come worn, and are, in that case, no longer cap- able of giving off impressions of the same sharp- ness and quality. This, in itself, is a very good reason why early editions of illustrated books are usually preferred to later ones, and it should be observed that in this connection the age of the book does not affect the matter at all. Should it be three or four centuries old instead of com- paratively modern, the same principle applies. Some copies must have been printed before others, and it is from the earliest that the best results are expected. The reasons obtaining, in these in- stances, are eminently practical, but there is an- other side to the question, even more powerful in 181 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS its operation. It may be assumed that the author has in the vast majority of cases seen and handled the book for which he was himself responsible; the very copy we hold in our hand may have be- longed to him, and this personal connection invests it with a great deal of sentimental interest, alto- gether apart from any practical question of excel- lence of production. Five editions of " The Com- pleat Angler" were published in Walton's life- time ; Milton supervised two editions of " Paradise Lost," and Bunyan ten if not eleven editions of " The Pilgrim's Progress." All these are of in- finitely more importance than the numerous later editions, for they contain alterations in the text made by the authors themselves, and are, there- fore, of great literary value. It is possible to trace, to some extent, the working of the author's mind by a comparison of the wording of one edi- tion with that of another, to understand why he made the alterations, to enter into his thoughts, and perhaps to appreciate his feelings. To sum up the position it may be said that a reference to first editions is often necessary for the purpose of restoring an incorrect reading, and that later editions, provided they appeared during the lifetime of the author, are frequently as im- portant as the first, for they may contain correc- tions and additions of the greatest interest and value. This is particularly the case with Tenny- son's" Poems," which indeed illustrates thequestion very forcibly. The edition of 1842 contains a number of selections from his " Poems, chiefly Lyrical," of 1830 and the "Poems" of 1833, the latter very much altered from their original form. The second edition of the issue of 1842, published 182 EARLY EDITIONS in 1843, contains further alterations, and the third edition, which appeared in 1845, many other emend- ations, so that each of these books is of the greatest importance. It is hardly necessary to enlarge upon so ob- vious a position, and the collector may be sure that when he acquires a first or indeed an early edition of the work of some celebrated author, he is not following a mere fashion. The thing may, of course, be overdone, like everything else, but that will depend entirely upon the position held by the author in the literary world, and in the esteem of those who read his books. It depends only incidentally upon the number of copies that were issued, for many a book which is very scarce indeed, in the sense that it would be most difficult to meet with were it for any purpose particularly wanted, may nevertheless be worth- less, or only of slight value from any standpoint. The collector will, therefore, exercise his dis- cretion in these matters. He should pin his faith to the author even more than to the book, and when he has done that, seek for the best editions procurable, namely, those which the author has himself sanctioned, or which, though published after his death, are annotated, or otherwise com- mented upon by some other author who was in touch with him, or by reason of close study has rendered himself competent to explain his meaning. Collectors have at all times preferred early editions of books, and their choice has to a very great extent been dominated by fashion. The English Classics ; those books which time has sanc- tified and placed upon the topmost pinnacle of 183 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS literary excellence, have always been favourites. Their cost has certainly fluctuated, but no question has ever been raised as to their importance; their position is assured, and they form the backbone, so to speak, of every good general library. The same remarks apply to the earliest editions of the foreign Classics, even to those in Greek and Latin, for though these two languages seem to have lost much of their former hold, the editiones principes have not done so, except as to their price in the market, as Mr. Ruskin might say, which is less than it used to be. These classes of books are secure enough. So firmly are they established that the principle of selection has been extended to other books modelled upon them, and it is with regard to these that so much uncertainty prevails. It is not necessary to say much of those modern books which for a time realize high prices, and then, when fashion changes, fall away till they can be got for a fraction of their former cost. They have not, as a rule, sufficient intrinsic merit to invest them with permanent value. Books ex- tensively advertised as being issued in limited editions should be avoided, for no publisher would appeal to a small audience if he were sure of a large one. Enough has been said to show the paramount importance of early editions of really good books, and we now proceed to point to some others of a very special kind that not infrequently attract the attention of collectors — those strange books satir- ized by Brandt in the " Ship of Fools," which, though often of little importance in themselves, attract by reason of their peculiarities. These are for the most part curiosities, and as such may be 184 STRANGE BOOKS thought unworthy of the sober bookman's fancy, though some of them have been written about before now, as for instance by Hallervord. Many of them possess other features of more sterhng merit, and as this branch of bibHography, for such it really is, is not often alluded to, it will be as well perhaps to treat it rather at length. Discussions have arisen from time to time as to which is the smallest sized book in the world. There are collectors of tiny books, some of them the size of a postage stamp or less, but the most their owners have so far been able to say about them is that such and such a book is the smallest they have seen. This, of course, proves nothing, for they might at any moment be confronted with something smaller still. Even M. Salomon of Paris, who has or had more than 200 examples of these microscopical curiosities, might find that he had one too little, as indeed he did on one occasion. It is, in fact, impossible to say with certainty which is the smallest book, and it must be remembered that any argument would involve a close distinc- tion between books of the kind printed from type in the ordinary way and those printed from engraved plates, or produced by photographic process. The art of the minute has attained such perfec- tion in all ages that a written copy of the Iliad has been inclosed before now in a nutshell as Pliny relates, and a Mr. Toppan of New York engraved 12,000 letters on a plate one-eighth of an inch square. To cast type of sufficiently small size to achieve the same results is however another and a very different matter. Thus, the well known diminutive volumes of Schloss's " English Bijou 185 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Almanac" were printed from engraved plates. These small books measure about three-quarters of an inch in height by half an inch in width (fig. i), and consist of some thirty-seven leaves, inclusive of several pages of music and some portraits, one of James Fenimore Cooper the novelist. The earlier almanacs of the series were produced under the direction of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, a forgotten poetess, whose sad marriage and untimely death are known to only a few students of Victorian literature. Some of her poems were printed in the " Bijou Almanac " for the first and only time, so that these tiny volumes are of some literary importance. " The Mite " is, on the contrary, printed from movable type and measures f in. by f in. (fig. 2). The " Alarm Almanac" which appeared at Paris in 1 78 1 is also from type and measures 18 by 14 millimetres, 25-4 of which go to the inch (fig. 3), and then there is the " Bloem Hofje door," or " The Court of Flowers," by C. van L., printed by B, Schmidt in Holland in 1674, which contains 49 pages, and is just one-fourth the size of an English penny postage stamp (fig. 4). In 1850 the historian Cesare Cantu in conjunc- tion with the publisher Gnocchi of Milan undertook to issue an edition of the " Divina Commedia" of Dante, in the smallest known characters, but they were unsuccessful. In 1870 Salmin of Padua took over the work and produced a book of 500 pages, measuring 37 by 22 millimetres (fig. 5), a perfect giant compared with the others we have mentioned, but still less in size than the celebrated edition of the " Officiolum," printed at Venice in 15 10, which measures 49 by 33 millimetres, or the " De Tran- 186 ACTUAL SIZES OF SOME OF THE SMALLEST BOOKS WITHIN A i6M0 BORDER HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS quillitate" of Seneca, printed at Leyden in 1601, 42 millimetres by 32. M. Salomon was of opinion that he had the smallest book in the worid, " The Court of Flowers " aforesaid, but he was wrong, for there is one of 208 pages, each page with nine lines and about a hundred letters, which is 9^ millimetres by 6, and therefore much smaller (fig. 6). This book was printed by Salmin about eight years ago, and contains an unpublished letter of Galileo to Madame Cristine of Lorraine. The very smallest Bible is, so far as we know, that printed by Messrs. David Bryce and Son of Glasgow in 1896. It is a reduced facsimile of the Oxford Nonpareil, i6mo edition, and contains 28 illustrations. It has 936 pages printed on the thinnest India paper, and measures if by i^ in. Their Midget New Testament measures very much less, namely f in. by J in. Among the many other small books which might be mentioned are Daniel's " Confession and Prayer," Bristol, n.d., " Le Petit Bijou des Dames," printed at Paris about 1760 (fig. 7), and Vind6's " La Morale de I'Enfance," Schmidt's " Quelques Contes," and Fdnelon's " Fables et Allegories," all published at Paris in 1896. We also have " Small Rain upon the Ten- der Herb," by R. T. S. (about 1850), and "Bijou illustrations of Christ Life," both i^in. by i in. Tilt's " Miniature Almanacs," the " London Alma- nack " for 1838, and the "Victoria Miniature Alma- nack," all 2^ in. by i^ in., Leigh ton's " Rules for a Holy Life," 1833, and "The Pilgrim's Progress," published by Frowde in 1896, of about the same size. Many books, large and small alike, have been engraved throughout, instead of being set from 188 STRANGE BOOKS type, as, for instance, Justice's rendering of the works of Virgil, printed at Brussels in 1757, 8vo, Sturt's Common Prayer Book of 1 7 1 7, often met with ; " Calliope, or English Harmony," published in 1739, 2 vols., 8vo; " Clio and Euterpe," 3 vols., 8vo, 1762; and "Chants et Chansons Populaires de la France," 3 vols., 1843. Books of this class are curious, as also are those printed on different coloured papers, or which have whole pages blacked out, like the Dublin edition of " Tristram Shandy," 3 vols., 1761, which has pages 32 and 33 completely obliterated, and a curious coloured device on page 203. The great Aldus sometimes used azure paper for his books, and other instances are also known, as, for example, Sterne's " Senti- mental Journey," printed at Paris in 1802, several copies of which were struck off on rose-coloured paper, and Voltaire's works, printed at Kehl in 1784-9. Twenty-five sets of the 70 volumes which comprise this edition were printed on blue paper. Home mentions many similar books in his " Introduction to Bibliography," but this is, of course, a different thing from using paper of various colours in the same volume, as seen in Tregear's edition of " Seymour's Sketches." Joshua Sylvester's " Lachrymae Lachrymarum" of 1 61 2, the Spirit of Teares distilled for the un- timely death of the incomparable Prince Panaretus (Henry, son of James I), is printed on one side of the leaf only, the reverse being black. A book printed at Paris in 1665, under the title " Nouvelle Methode pour apprendre avec facility les principes de la langue Latine," is printed in black, red, green, and brown, and Caraccioli's " Le Livre a la mode," a small 8vo book, dated 1 759, is printed in green. 189 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Another, more curious still, was in the Sneyd Library. That singular volume was neither written nor printed. Each letter had been cut out separately from a leaf of white paper in lines, but not detached from the leaf, and laid on marble paper, thus ren- dering each letter distinctly legible. The spaces and margins were crowded with ornamental de- signs, all produced in the same way. The book was known as the " Passio Jesu Christi," and con- tained thirty-one leaves, bound in morocco with clasps of gold. It realized £"] ys., a poor recom- pense for so much labour, but perhaps this was a labour of love. Of course every book which does not conform in appearance to the ordinary rules of book-making is peculiar to the extent of its departure from them. We should hesitate, however, to place vellum printed books in this category, for that material has been used for hundreds of years. The first book ever printed — the so-called Mazarin Bible — is found on vellum as well as on paper, and the Duke of Marlborough's library had many books printed on vellum, all of them earlier in date than 1496. Vellum is, if anything, a more legitimate material than paper, for it was used for manuscripts long before paper, of the kind we now employ, was thought of. Between 1550 and the close of the eighteenth century very few books were printed on vellum. The practice was revived in France by Didot, who printed some copies of his celebrated folio Horace of 1799 on vellum, and the vellum copies of the Aldine, Verard, and Giunta presses, as well as those of the early English craftsmen, are well known. One book in the British Museum Library is printed on leaden leaves, and has hinges 190 STRANGE BOOKS and a clasp. That certainly is a curiosity, as also are some other works in existence there and else- where, printed on palm and other leaves, and even upon oyster shells. An exhibition of books of this class is on view at the time of writing in the King's Library at the British Museum. Books fitted with staples and chains, though once commonly met with, are now looked upon as "strange." The chained library in Hereford Cathe- dral is one of the most extensive and interesting in England. It is a genuine monastic library of some 2,000 volumes, of which about 1,500 are in fetters. There is another chained library at All Saints' Parish Church, Hereford, and yet another at Wimborne Minster in Dorsetshire. Isolated specimens of books with chains attached are some- times met with, and many exist in the parish churches throughout England. Mr. William Blades made and published a list of all he could meet with in his well-known work, " Books in Chains," pub- lished in 1892, and other discoveries have been made since his day, as, for instance, in the vestry of Sleaford Church, where a small library of this kind was unearthed a few years ago. At one time it was the custom to suppress and even destroy books which for any reason proved distasteful to the authorities, and more or less ex- tensive collections of these have been made be- fore now. No matter what precautions were taken to prevent works of this class from reaching the people, a few copies invariably did so, and as Mr. J. A. Farrer observes in the introduction to his " Books condemned to be Burnt," there is a sort of attraction that belongs to all forbidden fruit in books which some public authority has condemned 191 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS to the flames. A collection of works which had met that fate, or rather, of copies which had escaped the common disaster, or of books written in prison would be of very considerable interest and importance, for the reasons of their condem- nation are not infrequently intimately connected with the history of the country. This will be apparent after only a superficial study of such books as Peignot's " Dictionnaire Critique . . . des principaux Livres condamn^s au feu," Paris, 1806, and Hart's " Index Expurgatorius Anglic- anus," printed at London in 1872 and later. The latter book deals only with English literature, and it was on the Continent that the greatest energy was displayed in the prohibition and frequent de- struction of books. A list of prohibited books is found in a decree of the Council of Rome promul- gated so far back as a.d. 494. The first Index of the Court of Rome did not appear till 1558, and the first regular Index, the foundation of the ones now existing, not till 1564. In that year the " Index Tridentinus " of Pius IV appeared, as to which see the " De Papistarum Indicibus," printed at Leipzig in 1684, where the whole matter is fully explained. The papal Indices have at one time or another contained the names of almost every author and scientist who has risen above the common level. Fire has been spoken of as the blue ribbon of literature ; at one time no author who had not had at least one of his books burned by the hangman was quite satisfied with the suc- cess he had achieved. To be ignored was and is worse than to be condemned. The first occasion on which books were burned in this country is said to have been in response to the Pope's sen- 192 STRANGE BOOKS tence against Luther, when Wolsey went in state to St. Paul's and witnessed the destruction of many copies of works written by the rebelHous friar. That, however, was a holocaust carried out upon general principles rather than a distinct act of destruction such as befell " A Supplicacyon for the Beggars," by Simon Fyshe, condemned by a proclamation of June, 1530. An account of the author, and the uneasiness he caused to Cardinal Wolsey, will be found in Wood's " Athenae Ox- onienses." This seems to have been the first book burned in this country on its merits, as Provost Hely Hutchinson's " Commercial Re- straints of Ireland," published in 1779, was prob- ably the last. Between these two extremes lies an immense field, which many book collectors have in their time successfully explored, though, per- haps, never completely traversed. Some books are also very remarkable, not only from the circumstances surrounding them, but from the peculiar way in which they are written. One of the most extraordinary works ever pub- lished in the English, or indeed in any other language, is referred to in " Book Lore " for October, 1886, under the title "Lord Dexter's Masterpiece." Timothy Dexter, its author, was born in 1743. Having amassed great wealth, he filled his gardens with wooden statues, dressed him- self like a Roman senator, and wrote several books in defiance of every law of etymology and syntax. One of these is known as "A Pickle for the knowing ones, or Plain Truths in a homespun dress." The first edition of this book is not punctuated ; the second has some scores of lines consisting of nothing but rows of commas, semi- 193 o HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS colons, colons, and notes of interrogation to be used by those readers who wish to "peper and solt" the text for themselves. Timothy Dexter called himself Lord Dexter, for, as he observes, " Ime the first Lord in the younited States of A mercary Now of Newbury port it is the voise of the peopel and I can't Help it and so Let it gone." This quotation gives a good idea of the author's method of spelling and his disregard of grammar. The book may have been published as a diversion, but it is curious, nevertheless, as also are works containing macaronic poetry, a kind of burlesque composition in which the vernacular words of a modern language are mixed with genuine Latin words or with hybrids formed by adding Latin terminations. The word " macaronic" is probably derived from the Italian macckerone, meaning a blockhead. A number of works of this character are catalogued in De Bure's " Belles Lettres," and partly reproduced by Home in his " Introduction to Bibliography." There are not many English macaronic works. Examples are found in the " Bardomachia " and in the " Epis- tola Macaronica," both by Mr. Geddes. Mr. Andrew Lang mentions in " The Library," a book in the possession of the celebrated astronomer, M. Flammarion, which is bound in human skin, and this brings us to a phase of the subject which, though perhaps not of widespread interest, is yet of sufficient importance to warrant a passing notice. Books bound in human skin are not so scarce as might be supposed, though they are naturally by no means easy to acquire. Furthermore, a great deal of discretion has to be exercised before a binding of this kind can be accepted for what it 194 STRANGE BOOKS purports to be, as there is very little difference between human skin and calf skin, when both are tanned. No doubt many of the books said to be bound in human skin are really in calf, and would prove to be so if examined under the microscope. Still, some are genuine, as, for instance, that volume in the Athenaeum Library, Bury St. Edmunds, bound in the skin of Corder, the Red Barn mur- derer, and the two volumes at Marlborough House bound in leather prepared from the skin of Mary Patman, a Yorkshire witch, who was hanged for murder many years ago, and the volume bound in the skin of George Cudmore, who was hanged in 1830. M. Flammarion's book is also genuine ; he had admired the skin of a beautiful countess, who bequeathed it to him when she died. This he used for binding a copy of his own work, the " Ciel et Terre," according to the directions accompanying the gift. A curious legacy this. It is also narrated that Dr. Askew caused a book to be bound in human skin for the payment of which he was sued at law. There are indeed many curious books which are attractive by reason of their peculiarities, and these are perhaps more properly regarded as " freak " books, than as volumes of literary interest. Many of them, however, possess literary value also, and a great deal of discrimination has to be exer- cised in any case, since many excessively scarce works are also curious in no small degree — curi- ous in themselves, in the way they are bound, or in some other respect. Some of the copies of Fox's " History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second " were sold by Jeffrey the book- seller in covers made of fox-skin, while the 161 1 195 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS edition of George Turbervile's " Booke of Faul- conrie or Hawking" was bound, in part at least, in the skin of the deer. Books purporting to be bound in wood, cut from the timber of celebrated ships, e.g., the Royal George, or the produce of some tree famous in history, come within the same category, and sometimes the form 'of the binding, apart altogether from the material used, is calcu- lated to arrest attention. Only the other day we saw a Testament and Prayer Book bound together A TWIN BINDING, OR BINDING DOS A DOS with their positions reversed, showing what the owner termed a "twin binding"; a style difficult to describe, and not very usual. A sketch of the binding is here given, and will afford a clearer idea of what is meant than any explanation in words can possibly do. It must not be supposed that we have exhausted what may be called the vagaries of collectors, or pointed to more than a small number of the direc- tions in which they may choose to take their steps. Many others lie open or await discovery. There 196 STRANGE BOOKS are, as we all know, many collectors of editions of some particular work, while those who have accu- mulated "first books" on given subjects, or of a certain class, are not by any means few in number. The latter affect such works as Butler's " Feminine Monarchie," disclosing, so far as is known, the earliest attempt to introduce phonetic spelling, the " Polygraphia" of Trithemius, 1518, the first work on secret writing; Christopher Saxton's "Maps of England and Wales," 1579, our earliest collection of maps; Sir Thomas Elyot's " Dictionary," 1538, distinguished as being the first Latin and English dictionary published in England; Jonathan Hulls' " Description and Draught of a new invented machine for carrying vessels out of or into Har- bour," 1737, containing the first practical suggestion for a steamboat which ever appeared in print, and the " Belli Catilinarii et Jugurthini Historiae" of Sal- lust, printed at Edinburgh in 1739 by William Ged, a goldsmith of that city, celebrated as the inventor of stereotype printing which he here employed for the first time. To pursue the subject, it may be mentioned that the first book containing a preface is supposed to be the " Aulus Gellius " printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1469, the same year in which their " Apuleius" appeared — the earliest book containing marginal notes. Hebrew char- acters were first used at Soncino in 1482 and at Naples five years later. Titles to chapters were first used in Cicero's " Epistolae ad Familiares," printed by Valdarfer at Venice in 1470, and in the same year Arnold ther Hoernen awoke, as we have seen, to the advantage of numbering the leaves of the books he printed, and in the year following began to use headlines. To form a 197 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS collection of books of this class, or having such peculiarities, would be no light task, while the knowledge necessary for the purpose would be of a most varied and unusual character. There are many, no doubt, who will think that it might be employed to better advantage, but that is not a question either for them or for us. The collector of books who prefers to stray from the ordinary and beaten tracks and to wander where he will, led by his own fancy and unfettered by rule, must of necessity be possessed of originality and self- confidence not likely to desert him in whatever direction his steps may turn. 198 INDEX The entries in italics relate to books of reference mentioned in the text. AcHARD,C. F., Cours Element- aire de Bibliographie, 4. Aldus Manutius, ui, 138. American Book Prices Current, 169. Ames, J., Typographical An- tiquities, 123. Andrews, W. L., Roger Payne and his Art, 143. Ariosto, L., The " Orlando Furioso" of 1584, 27. Arundel, The Earl of, 161,164. Ashendene Press, The, 126. Ashmole's Library, 163. Astle, Thos., Origin and Pro- gress of Writing, 43. Auchinleck Press, The, 125. Auction sales, 166, 172. Australia, first book printed in, 91. Badier, Florimond, 139. Bagford, John, collection of title-pages, etc., 68. Bamberg Bible, The, 85. Baskerville, John, 124. "Bay Psalm Book," The, 91. Bercula, Thomas, 122. Berthelet, Printer and Binder, 140, 141. Bewick, Thomas, loi, 102. Bible: Collation of MS., 48; the first dated, 86. Bibliography, two main branches, 2. Bilfred of Durham, a Binder, 136. Binders: Early English, 138, 140; modern English, 142. Binding: boards, 131, 134; buckram, 134; Byzantine style, 136; cloth, 131; Cot- tagestyle, 140; embroidered, 143; Etruscan style, 141; Fanfare style, 138; Greek and Roman methods, 135; half-calf, 134; Harleian and Roxburghe styles, 141; hu- man skin, 194; leather, 131, 134; leatherette, 135; mon- astic, 137; original, 9; parts or numbers, 10; PointiWe style, 139; Saracenic style, 137; strap design, 137; "Trial" bindings, 10, 132; velvet, silk, and brocade, 137, 161; Winchester, 140. Bindings : Armorial, 145; Cor- field Collection, 133; re- storation of, 32 ; strange, 194, 195- Blades, y^ .: Biography of Cax- ton, 123; Books in Chains, 85, 191. Blake, William, 103. Block Books, 81. 199 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS Blount, T. P., Censura cele- briu m Authorum 148. Bodleian Library, The, 163. Bonelli, Cardinal, 150. Bonnardot, Essai sur I' art de Restaur er, 32. Bookbinding, on, 129. Book : earliest dated, 86; earli- est printed, 85; illustration in England, 89, 99; judging the age of a, 92. Book Prices Current, 169. Books and Manuscripts, relat- ive cost of, 79. Books: chained, 191; "cut" and "uncut," 8, 29; dealing in, 13, 167; defective, 15; degrees of rarity of, 8; di- vision into volumes, 86; different kinds of collections of, 3; extra illustrated, 105; first illustrated, 95; first on given subjects, 197; from engraved plates, 189; Greek and Roman, 135; headlines to, 27; illustrated, chiefly in demand, 104; imperfect copies and sets of, 14; in- scriptions in, 13; large and small paper copies, 11; modern illustrated, 105; number of, printed prior to 1500 A.D., 78; different coloured papers, 189; lead, wood, etc., 191 ; painting the fore-edges, 144; pedigree of, 12, 148; preservation of, 28; prices of, 6 ; printed on vel- lum, 190; privately printed, 127; rebound, lo^ 130, 132; restoration of, 29; sizes of, 17, 26; smallest, 185; strange, 180, 189, 193; sup- pressed, 191; value of, 167, 168, 178. Borders, Ornamental, 63. Bradshaw, Henry, 12. Brassington, W. S., Art of Bookbinding, 136. "Brothers of the Common Life," Printers at Brussels, 88. Broughton, Hugh, "A Con- cent of Scripture," 100. Brunet, J. C., Manuel du Libraire, 4, 27, 171. Burton, J. H., The Book- hunter, 13. Bury, Richard de, 160; Philo- biblon, 13. Byron, Lord, "EngUsh Bards and Scotch Reviewers," 52. Cambridge, printing at, 90. Canevari, Demetrio, 150. Cape of Good Hope, first book printed at, 91. Cards, playing, 80. Cassano Library, The, 158. Catalogues, book, 166. Catchwords first used, 93. Catho, 83. Caxton, William, 88, 89. Civil War Tracts, The Thoma- son collection of, 68. Classics : Greek and Latin, 5, 184; lost, 40. Classification, Systems of, 4. Clement, David, Bibliotheque Curieuse, 8. Coburger, Anthony, printer at Nuremberg, 87. Colbert, Jean Baptiste, 157. Collation, method of, 26, 46. Collections of books, different kinds of, 3. 200 INDEX Collector, the modern, i. Collectors : specialist, no; the English kings, i6r, 162. Colophon: definition of, 63; the earliest, 63, 86. Columna, F., " Hypneroto- machia," 98, 104. Copinger, Dr., Suppkment to Hain, 79, 122. Copperplate Illustrations, the earliest, 100, 104. Coster, Laurenz, the In- ventor (?) of Printing, 84. Cotin, L'Abbd, 157. Cotton, Dr., Typographical Gazetteer, 70. Crane, W. J. E., Bookbinding for Amateurs, 145. Cranmer's Library, 162. Cranz, Gering, and Friburger, printers at Paris, 88. Cruikshanks, The, 105. Dagaeus, a Binder, 136. Damp stains, 28. Daniel Press, The, 126. Darlington Press, The, 125. Dates, Roman letters, 76. Davenport, Cyril, English Embroidered Bookbindings, 143- Davidson, Thomas, Printer at Edinburgh, 91. Daye, John, 123, 141. Defective books, 15. De Medicis: Catherine, 154; Marie, 154. De Thou, styles of his bind- ings, 155. Deseuil, L'Abbd, 159. De Valois, Marguerite, 154. Diane de Poitiers, 154. Dibdin, T. F.: Bibliotheca Spenceriana,66; The Biblio- graphical Decameron, 44 ; Greek and Latin Classics, "3- Dickson and Edmunds, An- nals of Scottish Printing, 123. Digby, Sir Kenelm, library of, 164. Donatus, what is a, 83. Doves Press, The, 126. " Drawing Room Books," 105. Duseuil, L'Abb^, 159. Early editions, 180. Editions de Luxe, 1 1. Edwards, E., Memoirs of Li- braries, 8. Edwards of Halifax, 144. Eliot's Bible, 91. Elzevir Presses, The, 117. England, book illustration in, 99. English Language, first book in the, 89. Essex House Press, The, 126. Estiennes, The, 120. Eve, Nicolas and Clovis, 138, 156- Extra Illustrated Books, 105. Fanfare Style, The, 138. Farrer, J. A., Books Condemned to be Burnt, 191. Fashion, changes in, 4, 5. Ferrar, Nicholas, 106. Forgeries, detection of by reference to the paper SI- Foulis, Robert and Andrew, 125. Fouquet, Charles Louis, 158. Francis I, 153. 201 HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS French Language, first book printed in the, 89. "Game and Playe of the Chesse," 97. Gauffering, 144. Gesner, Conrad, Bibliotheca Universalis, 4. " Glaire," what is, 33. Gothic Type, 93. Grangerizing, 106. Grease marks, 29. Greek Type, 113. Grolier, Jean, 152. Guigard, J., Armorial du Bibliophile, 146. Gutenberg, John, inventor (?) of Printing, 84, 86. Hafod Press, The, 125. Hain, H., Repertorium Biblio- graphicum, 79, 122. Half-binding, 134. Half-tides, 66. Hannett, Jno., Bibliopegia, 32. Harley Collection, The, 163. Hart, W. H., Index Expurga- torius Anglicanus, 192. Harwood, Dr., Greek and Roman Classics, 113. Headlines, use of, 27. Henri II, 154. Henri III, 156. Herring, C, Faper and Paper Making, 61. Hessels, J. H., The Haarlem Legend, 84. Hoernen, Arnold ther, 27. Holbein, Hans, 100. Hollis, Thomas, his library, 164. Home, T. H., Introduction to Bibliography, 4, 189. Humphreys, H. N., Illumin- ated Books of the Middle Ages, 43. " Hyperotomachia," The, 98, 104. Illustrations: early impressions, 181; woodcut, 95, 96. "Images of Piety," single printed sheets, 89. Imitatio Christi, The, 128. Imperfect Books, 14. Incunabula, 78, 80, 104. Initials, hand painted, 95. Ink, removing stains, 30, 32. Ireland, printing in, 91. Ireland, W. H., Shakespeare forgeries, 51. Ironmould, removal of, 32. Italic type, 112. Janin, M.., L' amour des Livres, 152. Jensen, Nicholas, printer at Venice, 88. Junot, General, 159. Keffer and Sensenschmidt, printers at Nuremberg, 87. Kelmscott Press, The, 126. Ketelaer, Nicholas, printer at Utrecht, 87. " Label " title-pages, 66. Lang, Andrew, The Libraty, 46. Large and small paper copies, II. Latinized place-names, 70. Lawler, John, Book Auctions in England, 176. Lead stains, removal of, 32. Leaves, numbering of, 27, 93. 202 INDEX Leempt, Gerard de, printer at Utrecht, 87. Lee Priory Press, The, 125. Leeu, Gerard, printerat Gouda, 88. Le Gascon, 139. Leicester, The Earl of, 161, 164. Leo X, Pope, 150. Le Roy, Guillaume, printer at Lyons, 89. Lettou and Machlinia, printers at London, 90. Lewine, J., Eighteenth Century Illustrated Books, 104. " Liber Studiorum," The, 103. " Liber Veritatis," The, 104. Libraries: destruction of, 37, 39; some ancient, 39. Line engravings, 105. Literary value, 182. Little Gidding, nuns of, 144. Longepierre and the Golden Fleece, 159. Lorenzo the Magnificent, 150. Louis XIV, 156. Louis XV, daughters of, 157. Lowndes, W. T., Biblio- grapher's Manual, 123, 171. Macaronic Poetry, 194. Madan, F., Books in Manu- script, 44. Magliabecchi, Antonio, 151. Maioli, Thomasso, 150. Maittaire, M., Annates Typo- gr aphid, 149. Mansion, Colard, printer at Bruges, 88. Manuscripts, 34; collation of, 46; collections of, in libraries, 49 j imitation of, 47; judg- ing the age of, 43, 44; modern literary, 41; Latin and Greek, 37; monastic, 41, 45; oldest illuminated, 38. Martens, Thierry, printer at Alost, 87. Maunsell, Andrew, Catalogue of Books, 38. Mazarin, Cardinal, 156. Mazarin Bible, The, 62, 85, 86. Mentz Psalter, The, 64, 86, 94. Mexico, Printing in, 91. Middle Hill Press, The, 125. Moliere, Jean Bapt., 157. Myllar, Andro, printer at Edinburgh, 90, 108. Napoleon I, 159. Naud6, Gabriel, 156. Nicholas V, The "Indulgence" of, 85. Nichols, John, Literary Anec- dotes, 123. Nodier, Charles, 158. Numbers or Parts, Binding of, 10. Numerals, Roman, 76. Oil stains, removal of, 32. Oldys, W., British Librarian, 149. Olympiads, dates calculated by, 77- Oxford Press, The, 90. Pages, numbering of, 27, 93, 197- Palmer, S., General History of Printing, 92. Panzer, G. W., Annates Typo- gr aphid, 122. Paper: books printed on half- 20- HOW TO COLLECT BOOKS sheets, 24; early use of, 53; India and Japan, 55; laid and wove, 55 ; machine made, 55; marks, 50, 56; sizes of sheets of, 19. Papyrus, use of, 52. Papyrus Prisse, The, 37. Parchment, use of, 52. Parts or numbers, binding of, 10. " Parvus Catho," 98. Payne, Roger, 142. Pfister's Bible, 85. Pix^rdcourt, Guilbert de, 159. Places, Latin names of, 70. Plantin Press, The, 121. Playing Cards, 80. Polidori Private Press, The, 126. Pollard, A. W.: Early Illus- trated Books, 95 ; Last Words on the Title Page, 6S- Pomtille style. The, 139. Pompadour, Madame de, 157. Presses: celebrated, no; the earliest, 87. Printers' marks, 108, 114-7. Printing, the inventor of, 84. Privately printed books, 127. Private Presses, 125. Proctor, R. G. C, Index to Early Printed Books, 122. Punctuation, The semicolon, Quebec, first book printed in, 91. Ratdolt, Erhard, 121. Raynald, Thomas, " Byrth of Mankynde," 100. Rebinding books, 10, 130, 132. Redgrave, G. R., Ratdolt and his Work at Venice, 122. Reed, T. B., English Letter Foundries, 125. Rees, J. Rogers, Diversions of a Book- Worm, 147. Renouard, A. A. : Annates de P Imprimerie des Aide, 113; Annates de V Imprimerie des Estienne, 121. Richelieu, Cardinal, 157. Roberts, W., Printer^ Marks, 109. Rodt, Berthold, printer at Basle, 87. Rogers's " Italy "and "Poems," 103. Roman type : introduction of, 93; introduction into Scot- land, 91. Rood and Hunte, printers at Oxford, 90. Rooses, Max, Christophe Plan- tin, 121. Royal collectors, 161, 162. Roxburghe library. The, 3, 169. Rubricators, The, 62, 94. St. Albans, printing at, 90. Sainte Maure, Louis de, 153. Sales by auction, list of, 172. " Schoolmaster of St. Albans," The, 90. Seaman, Dr. Lazarus, sale of his books, 166. "Signatures," what are, 22. Sizes of books, table of, 26. Sneyd, Rev. Walter, his collec- tion of MSB., 36. Sotheby, S. "L.: Principia Typo- graphica, 81 ; Typography of the Fifteenth Century, 61. 204 INDEX Sphere, The Elzevir, 119. Spire, Jean de, printer at Venice, 88. Stereotype printing, inventor of, 197. Strawberry Hill Press, The, 125- Sunderland Library, The, 164. Surface stains, removing, 31. Sweynheym and Pannartz, printers at Rome, 88. Tasmania, first book printed in, 91. Thuanus. See De Thou. " Thymage or Myrrour of the World," 96, 98. Title-page, the first, 65. Title-pages : early English, 67 ; Milton's "Paradise Lost," 69; merits of the old, 67. " Titus Andronicus," recent discovery, 35. Tooling: blind, 137, 138; gold, 138, 141. Towns, Latin names of, 70. " Trial " bindings, 10. Type: Greek, 113; Hebrew, 197; Italic, 112; wooden, 82. Uncial writing, 42. " Uncut," meaning of the ex- pression, 8. United States, first printer in the, 91. Valdarfer, Christopher, printer at Venice, 88. Veldener, John, printer at Lou vain, 87. Vale Press, The, 126. Valuation, principles of, 178. Vellum printed books, 190. Verrue, Comtesse de, 157. Virgil of 1636, The, 158. Walpole Press, The, 126. Water marks on paper, 50, 56. Wheatley, H. B., Prices of Books, 176. Willems, M., Les Elzevier, \i'i. Wood engraving, loi. Wooden type, 82. Worde, Wynkyn de, 99. Wordsworth, C., and Little- hales, H., Old Service Books, 48. Xylography, what is, 80. York, printing at, 90. Zainer, Giinther, printer at Augsburg, 87, 95. Zell, Ulric, printer at Cologne, 84, 87. 205 CHISVVICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LAKE, LONDON. Bell's Handbooks of the Great Masters IN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE Edited by G. C. WILLIAMSON,' Litt.D. Post %vo. With 40 Illustrations and a Photogravure Frontispiece. Priie 5j. net each. The following Volumes have been issued : BOTTICELLI. By A. Streeter. BRUNELLESCHI. By Leader Scott. CORREGGIO. By Selwyn Brinton, M.A. CRIVELLI. By G. McNeil Rushforth, M.A. DELLA ROBBIA. By the Marchesa Burlamacchi. ANDREA DEL SARTO. By H. Guinness. DONATELLO. By Hope Rea. GERARD DOU. By W. Martin, Ph.D. GAUDENZIO FERRARI. By ETHEL Halsey. FRANCIA. By George C. Williamson, Litt.D. GIORGIONE. By Herbert Cook, M.A. GIOTTO. By F. Mason Perkins. FRANS HALS. By G. S. Da vies, M.A. LUINI. By George C. Williamson, Litt.D. MANTEGNA. By MAUD Cruttwell. MEMLINC. By W. H. JAMES Weale. MICHAEL ANGELO. By Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, M.A. PERUGINO. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. By W. G. WATERS, M.A. PINTORICCHIO. By E. March Phillipps. RAPHAEL. By H. Strachey. REMBRANDT. By Malcolm Bell. LUCA SIGNORELLI. By Maud Cruttwell. SODOMA. By the CoNTESSA Lorenzo Priuli-Bon. TINTORETTO. By J. B. Stoughton Holborn, M.A. VELASQUEZ. By R. A. M. Stevenson. LEONARDO DA VINCI. By Edward M'Curdy, M.A. WATTEAU. By Edgcumbe Staley, B.A. WILKIE. By Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, M.A., F.S.A. Others to follow. LONDON : GEORGE BELL AND SONS. Bell's Miniature Series of Painters. THIS Series is designed mainly to help those who, without ti'. ■ tunity of going deeply into the study of art, yet wish to b; take an intelligent interest in the works of Great Masters. Ear' contains a short sketch of the artist's life, an essay on his art, a 1 chief pictures, etc. Pott 8v0, dainty Cloth ewers, with 8 Illustrations, is. neteach limp leather, with Photogravure Frontispiece, 2S. net. NOW READY. ALMA TADEMA. By Helen Zimmern. ROSA BONHEUR. By Frank Hird. BURNE-JONES. By Malcolm Bell. CONSTABLE. By Arthur B. Chamberlain. CORREGGIO. By Leader Scott. FRA ANGELICO. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. GAINSBOROUGH. By Mrs. A. G. Bbll. A GREUZE. By Harold Aemitage. t»? ' HOGARTH. By G. Elliot Anstruther. HOLBEIN. By A. B. Chamberlain. HOLMAN HUNT. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. LANDSEER. By W. McDougall Scott. LEIGHTON. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. MICHAEL ANGELO. By Edward C. Strutt. MILLAIS. By A. L. Baldry. MILLET. By Edgcumbe Staley, B.A. MURILLO. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. RAPHAEL. By W. McDougall Scott. REMBRANDT. By Hope Rea. REYNOLDS. By Rowley Cleeve. ROMNEY. By Rowley Cleeve. TURNER. By Albinia Wherry. VELAZQUEZ. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. WATTEAU. By Edgcumbe Staley, B.A. WATTS. By C. T. Bateman. WHISTLER. By Mrs. A. G. Bell. opinions of the press. " Highly satisfactory from every point of view." — Wesimifister Budget. " Tliese dainty little volumes are beautifully illustrated and produced at a price which will place them within the means of all." — Ladies^^ Field, " AH lovers of art will revel in these delightful little books." — Churchwottian. * ' Each volume is delightfully written and got up, a wonderful shilling's worth." — Irish Times, " The illustrations are uniformly excellent. If art is to be made popular, this assuredly is the way to do it."— Pall Mall Gazette. "Exceedingly handy and ^ratxy."— Outlook.^ " Written by acknowledged authorities, and illustrated with reproductions of the great painters' works, they should prove widely useful as well as interesting introductions to any study of the respective artists' vtor)t5,"~Obse-rver. "They are exquisite little volumes, artistically bound, and each containing repro- ductions of eight of the most representative works of the artist written of. How the publisher can produce the works at a shilling each will puzzle most book-buyers. They are marvels of cheapness, the binding, letterpress, illustrations, and general get-up being beyond praise." — Black and White, Nothing could be better in its way than the arrangement of these booklets, of which the letterpress is brief without boldness, and concise without obscurity. ^ They are small yet comprehensive. They put everything into a nutshell, and the illustrations are judiciously selected. The general get-up is eminently tasteful." — Globe, London : GEORGE BELL & SONS, York House, Portugal Street, W.C.