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THE 
 
 BOOK-COLLECTOR 
 
 A General Survey of the Pursuit and of those who 
 
 have engaged in it at Home and Abroad from 
 
 the Earliest Period to the Present Time 
 
 WITH AN ACCOUNT OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES 
 
 AND ANECDOTES OF THEIR FOUNDERS OR OWNERS 
 
 AND REMARKS ON BOOKBINDING AND ON 
 
 SPECIAL COPIES OF BOOKS 
 
 BY 
 
 W. CAREW HAZLITT 
 
 JOHN GRANT 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1904 
 
 s 
 
M-73713 
 
PRJEFACE 
 
 Several monographs by contemporary scholars on the 
 inexhaustible theme of Book-Collecting have made their 
 appearance during the last twenty years. All such under- 
 takings have more or less their independent value and 
 merit from the fact that each is apt to reflect and pre- 
 serve the special experiences and predilections of the 
 immediate author ; and so it happens in the present case. 
 A succession of Essays on the same subject is bound to 
 traverse the same ground, yet no two of them, perhaps, 
 work from the same seeing point, and there may be 
 beyond the topic substantially little in common between 
 them and the rest of the literature, which has steadily 
 accumulated round this attractive and fruitful subject for 
 bookman and artist. 
 
 During a very long course of years I have had occa- 
 sion to study books in all their branches, in almost all 
 tongues, of almost all periods, personally and closely. 
 No early English volumes, while I have been on the 
 track, have, if I could help it, escaped my scrutiny; 
 and I have not let them pass from my hands without 
 noting every particular which seemed to me important 
 and interesting in a historical, literary, biographical, and 
 bibliographical respect. The result of these protracted 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 and laborious investigations is partly manifest in my 
 Bibliographical Collections, 1867-1903, extending to eight 
 octavo volumes; but a good deal of matter remained, 
 which could not be utilised in that series or in my other 
 miscellaneous contributions to belles lettres. 
 
 So it happened that I found myself the possessor of 
 a considerable body of information, covering the entire 
 field of Book-Collecting in Great Britain and Ireland 
 and on the European continent, and incidentally illus- 
 trating such cognate features as Printing Materials, 
 Binding, and Inscriptions or Autographs, some enhanc- 
 ing the interest of an already interesting item, others 
 conferring on an otherwise valueless one a peculiar 
 claim to notice. 
 
 My collections insensibly assumed the proportions of 
 the volume now submitted to the public; and in the 
 process of seeing the sheets through the press certain 
 supplementary Notes suggested themselves, and form 
 an Appendix. It has been my endeavour to render 
 the Index as complete a clue as possible to the whole 
 of the matter within the covers. 
 
 As my thoughts carry me back to the time — it is 
 fifty years — when I commenced my inquiries into literary 
 antiquities, I see that I have lived to witness a new 
 Hegira: New Ideas, New Tastes, New Authors. The 
 American Market and the Shakespear movement 1 have 
 
 1 See the writer's Skakespear, Himself and his Work : A Study from 
 New Points of View, second edition, revised, with important addi- 
 tions, and several facsimiles, 8vo, 1903. 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 turned everything and everybody upside down. But 
 Time will prove the friend of some of us. 
 
 In the following pages I have avoided the repetition 
 of particulars to be found in my Four Generations of 
 a Literary Family, 1897, and in my Confessions of a 
 Collector, 1897, so far as they concern the immediate 
 subject-matter. 
 
 W. C. H. 
 
 Barnes Common-, Surrey, 
 October 1904. * 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The plan — The writer's practical career — Deficiency of a general 
 knowledge of the subject — The Printed Book and the Manu- 
 script independent branches of study — The rich and the poor 
 collector — Their relative systems and advantages — Great re- 
 sults achieved by persons of moderate fortune — The Rev. 
 Thomas Corser — Lamb and Coleridge — Human interest resi- 
 dent in collections formed by such men, and the genuine 
 pleasure experienced by the owners — A case or two stated — 
 The Chevalier D'Eon — The contrary practice — Comparatively 
 early culture in the provinces and interchange of books — Lady 
 collectors — Rarity of hereditary libraries — The alterations in 
 the aspect of books — The Mill a fellow-labourer with the 
 Press — A word about values and prices — Our social institu- 
 tions answerable for the difference of feeling about book- 
 collecting — Districts formerly rich in libraries — Distributing 
 centres — Possibility of yet unexplored ground — The Universities 
 and Inns of Court — Successful book-hunting in Scotland and 
 Ireland — Present gravitation of all valuable books to London. 
 
 A Manual for the more immediate and especial use of 
 English-speaking inquirers is bound to limit itself, in 
 the first place, mainly to the literary products of the 
 three kingdoms and the colonies; and, secondly, to a 
 broad and general indication of the various paths which 
 it is open to any one to pursue according to his tastes 
 
2 HISTORY OF 
 
 or possibilities, with clues to the best sources of in- 
 telligence and guidance. The English collector, where 
 he crosses the border, as it were, and admits works of 
 foreign origin into his bookcase, does not often do so 
 on a large scale; but he may be naturally tempted to 
 make exceptions in favour of certain chefs-d'oeuvre irre- 
 spective of nationality. There are books and tracts 
 which commend themselves by their typographical im- 
 portance, by their direct bearing on maritime discovery, 
 by their momentous relation to the fine arts, or by their 
 link with some great personality. These stand out in 
 relief from the normal category of foreign literature; 
 they speak a language which should be intelligible to all. 
 
 It must be obvious that in a restricted space a 
 writer has no scope for anecdote and gossip, if they 
 are not actually out of place in a technical undertaking. 
 Yet we have endeavoured to lay before our readers, in 
 as legible a form as possible, a view of the subject and 
 counsel as to the various methods and lines of Collecting. 
 
 Such an enterprise as we offer, in the face of several 
 which have already appeared under various titles and 
 auspices, may at first sight seem redundant ; but per- 
 haps it is not really the case. A book of this class is, 
 as a rule, written by a scholar for scholars; that is all 
 very well, and very charming the result is capable of 
 proving. Or, again, the book is addressed by a biblio- 
 grapher to bibliographers ; and here there may be, with 
 a vast deal that is highly instructive, a tendency to bare 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 4 3 
 
 technique, which does not commend itself to many out- 
 side the professional or special lines. It was thought, 
 under these circumstances, that a new volume, combining 
 readability and a fair proportion of general interest with 
 practical information and advice, was entitled to favour- 
 able consideration; and the peculiar training of the 
 present writer during his whole life, at once as a litteratewr 
 and a practical bookman, encouraged the idea on his 
 part that it might well be feasible for him to carry the 
 plan into execution, and produce a view of a permanently 
 interesting and important subject in all its branches and 
 aspects, appealing not only to actual book-collectors, 
 but to those who may naturally desire to learn to what 
 the science and pursuit amount. 
 
 One of the best apologies for book-collecting, and 
 even for the accumulation of fine books, is that offered 
 by McCulloch in the preface to his own catalogue. The 
 writer takes occasion to observe, among other points 
 and arguments : " It is no doubt very easy to ridicule 
 the taste for fine books and their accumulation in ex- 
 tensive libraries. But it is not more easy than to ridicule 
 the taste for whatever is most desirable, as superior 
 clothes, houses, furniture, and accommodation of every 
 sort. A taste for improved or fine books is one of the 
 least equivocal marks of the progress of civilisation, 
 and it is as much to be preferred to a taste for those 
 that are coarse and ill got up, as a taste for the pictures 
 of Reynolds or Turner is to be preferred to a taste for 
 
4 HISTORY OF 
 
 the daubs that satisfy the vulgar. A man acts foolishly, 
 if he spend more money on books or anything else 
 than he can afford ; but the folly will be increased, not 
 diminished, by his spending it on mean and common 
 rather than on fine and uncommon works. The latter 
 when sold invariably bring a good price, more perhaps 
 than was paid for them, whereas the former either bring 
 nothing or next to nothing." 
 
 McCulloch's maternal grandfather was possibly the 
 book-lover from whom the eminent political economist 
 inherited his taste. 
 
 In common with the Manuscript Document and the 
 Autograph Letter, the Written Book forms such a vast 
 department of inquiry and study, that it would be un- 
 desirable, and indeed almost impracticable, in a volume 
 of limited extent on book-collecting, to include the con- 
 sideration of any collateral subject. 
 
 The broad facts regarding our national collections 
 of MSS. are sufficiently well known, no less than the 
 principal repositories in which they are to be found 
 and consulted, and the individuals who have signalised 
 themselves from time to time as owners of this class 
 of property on various scales or on various principles. 
 Nearly everybody with any claim to culture is familiar 
 with the names of Cotton, Arundel, Harley, Lansdowne, 
 Birch, Burney, Egerton, Hardwicke, and Stowe, in con- 
 nection with precious assemblages of monuments in 
 the National Library; Parker, Tanner, Fairfax, Ash- 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 5 
 
 mole and others at Oxford or Cambridge ; Carew at 
 Lambeth, and a succession of private enthusiasts in this 
 direction, either independently or in conjunction with 
 the printed side — Dering of Surrenden, Le Neve, Martin 
 of Palgrave, Duke of Buckingham, Sir Thomas Phillipps, 
 Libri, Lord Ashburnham, Heber, and Bright. 
 
 In the case of MSS. it is equally true with printed 
 literature that the interest and value depends on cir- 
 cumstances, and are liable to changes and vicissitudes. 
 They may be classified into countries, periods, and sub- 
 jects, and their appreciation depends on their character 
 even more than on their mere rarity. An unique MS. 
 may possibly be quite worthless. A comparatively com- 
 mon one may command a good price. How numerous 
 soever the ancient copies of Chaucer's Ccmterbuiry Tales 
 might be, another coming into the open market would still 
 be an object of keen competition ; and where importance 
 is coupled with scarcity or uniqueness, of course the latter 
 feature lends a high additional weight to the matter, and 
 multiplies inquirers. 
 
 We must, however, in justice to this branch of the 
 topic and to our readers, refrain from further pursuit 
 of the discussion of it, as its adequate treatment would 
 absorb a monograph to the full extent as ample as the 
 present, and such a Manual is in point of fact a de- 
 sideratum — one, too, which the improved state of biblio- 
 graphical knowledge would assist in rendering much 
 more satisfactory than was formerly possible; 
 
6 HISTORY OF 
 
 The Rolls of Collectors by the present writer afford 
 a convenient view of the different classes of society in 
 the now United Kingdom, which from the outset to 
 the present day have created, during unequal periods of 
 duration, more or less noteworthy centres of literary 
 or bibliographical gatherings, from the Harley, Rox- 
 burghe, Heber, or Huth level to that of the owner — often 
 not less to be admired or commended — of the humble 
 shelf-ful of volumes. Here names occur associated with 
 the most widely varied aims in respect to scope and 
 compass, yet all in a certain measure participating in 
 the credit of admitting to their homes products of in- 
 tellectual industry and ingenuity beyond such matter 
 as Family Bibles, Directories, Railway Guides, Charles 
 Lamb's Biblia-a-Biblia, and sixpenny or threepenny edi- 
 tions of popular authors, which constitute the staple 
 decorations of the average British middle-class household 
 in this nonagenarian nineteenth century. 
 
 So early as the time of the later Stuarts, a movement 
 seems to have commenced both in England and Scotland, 
 not only in the chief centres, but in provincial towns, for 
 the education of the middle class, and even of the higher 
 grade of agriculturists, who sent their children to schools, 
 and at the same time, in the absence of circulating 
 libraries, improved their own minds by the exchange of 
 books, as we perceive in contemporary diaries and corre- 
 spondence ; and Macaulay doubtless overcolours the ignor- 
 ance and debasement of the bulk of society about the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 7 
 
 period of the Revolution of 1688, apparently in order to 
 maintain a cue with which he had started. The Diary 
 of John Richards, a farmer at Warm Well in Dorsetshire, 
 1697-1702, is an unimpeachable witness on the other 
 side; it is printed in the Retrospective Review, 1853. 
 
 It was about the same date that we find even in 
 Scotland a project for establishing throughout the coun- 
 try, in every parish, Reference or Lending Libraries, 
 and some pamphlets on the subject have come down to 
 us; but we hear nothing more about it. This was in 
 1699-1702, just when the indefatigable John Dunton was 
 sending from the press his multifarious periodical news- 
 books for the benefit of the more literary sort in South 
 Britain. 
 
 The Circulating Libraiy in the United Kingdom in 
 its inception was intended more particularly for the better- 
 to-do class, and even to-day its tariff is hardly compatible 
 with very narrow resources. Perhaps the earliest effort 
 to bring literature within the reach of the working-man 
 was Charles Knight's scheme of "Book-Clubs for all 
 Readers," mentioned in a letter to him of 1844) from 
 Dickens. 
 
 A remarkable change in the fortunes and tactics of 
 the collector has arisen from one in our social institutions. 
 The book-hunter of times past, if he was a resident in 
 the provinces, and worked on a more or less systematic 
 and ambitious scale — nay, if he merely picked up articles 
 from year to year which struck his fancy, relied, as he 
 
8 HISTORY OF 
 
 was able to do, on his country town. Thither gravitated, 
 as a rule, the products of public and private sales from 
 the surrounding neighbourhood within a fairly wide 
 radius. If a library was placed in the market, the sale 
 took place on the premises or at the nearest centre ; there 
 was no thought of sending anything short of a known 
 collection up to London. The transit in the absence of 
 railways was too inconvenient and costly. These conditions, 
 which long survived better possibilities, naturally made 
 certain headquarters throughout the kingdom a perfect 
 Eldorado and Elysium, first of all for local enthusiasts 
 miles round, and later on for metropolitan bargain- 
 seekers, who made periodical tours in certain localities 
 at present as barren as Arabia Petrasa. 
 
 The principal points appear, so far as existing in- 
 formation goes, to have been in the North : Newcastle, 
 York, Sheffield, Leeds ; in the Midlands : Birmingham and 
 Manchester ; in the West : Plymouth, Exeter, and Bristol ; 
 in the South: Chichester; in the East: Norwich, Yarmouth, 
 Colchester, Bury, and Ipswich. It was at Chichester that 
 the poet Collins brought together a certain number of 
 early books, some of the first rarity ; his name is found, 
 too, in the sale catalogues of the last century as a buyer 
 of such ; and the strange and regrettable fact is, that two 
 or three items, which Thomas Warton actually saw in his 
 hands, and of which there are no known duplicates, have 
 not so far been recovered. 
 
 East Anglia during a prolonged period was peculiarly 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 9 
 
 rich in holders and seekers of the Old Book, both manu- 
 script and printed. It formerly abounded in monastic 
 institutions, affluent county families, and literary archaeo- 
 logists. We may mention Lord Petre, the Hanmers of 
 Mildenhall, the Herveys of Ickworth, the Bunburys of 
 Bury, the Tollemaches, the Freres, the Fountaines, Sir 
 John Fenn, Martin of Palgrave, Dawson Turner, and the 
 Rev. John Mitford. It was the same, as we take else- 
 where occasion to show, in the West of England, in the 
 Midlands, in the Northern counties, and in the South of 
 Scotland. The absence of ready communication with the 
 metropolis and the relative insignificance of provincial 
 centres kept libraries together. Their owners, while the 
 agricultural interest was flourishing, had no motive for 
 sale, and the inducement to part with such property 
 was far less powerful, while the competition remained 
 limited. 
 
 In Kent : Canterbury and Maidstone ; in Surrey : 
 Guildford, Croydon, Kingston, and even Richmond, may 
 have helped to supply local requirements to a certain 
 extent. But the Sydneys of Penshurst, the Oxendens 
 of Barham, the Lee-Warlys, the Barretts of Lee, the 
 Evelyns of Sayes-Court and Wootton, and others among 
 the gentry of these and the adjacent shires, probably 
 filled their shelves in principal measure from the London 
 shops during their periodical visits to the metropolis for 
 various purposes. 
 
 Even in later times the suburbs of London, and now 
 
10 HISTORY OF 
 
 and then such localities as Woolwich, Reading, Man- 
 chester, Shrewsbury, Salisbury, Wrexham, Conway, Kes- 
 wick, and Dublin have yielded a prize or so, owing to 
 the dispersion of some small library in the neighbourhood 
 on the premises. Otherwise one may prospect the country 
 towns all over the three kingdoms nowadays, and not see 
 anything save new stock and penny-box ware. Even the 
 provincial centres are, in general, sterile enough ; but the 
 rural districts are dried up. Every species of property 
 seems to drift to London. 
 
 The Bristol houses, Kerslake, Jefferies, George, Las- 
 bury, often came across rarities ; but it is so no longer. 
 The West has been threaded through. If there is a 
 section of England where some good things may yet 
 linger, it is, we should say, in Staffordshire, Lancashire, 
 and Shropshire, to which might perhaps be added 
 Worcestershire. 
 
 The seats of our two ancient Universities, and cathe- 
 dral cities generally, have not yielded such ample fruit 
 to the explorer, perhaps because there has always been 
 a species of magnetic attraction, by which any spoils of 
 the kind are drawn into the local libraries and museums. 
 A graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, a canon of this 
 or that church, a loyal dweller in Winchester or Lincoln, 
 possesses or discovers a rare volume, and his impulse, 
 if he does not keep it himself, is to bestow it on his 
 place of residence or education. Whatever happens, 
 the stranger coming to hunt in these preserves arrives 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 11 
 
 only in time to learn that the stall or the shop has 
 given up some unique desideratum a day or two before, 
 and is referred to the librarian of the college, or to 
 the buyer at such an address, if he desires to inspect 
 it, which, if his aims are simply commercial, be sure 
 he does not. The aggravation is already sufficient! 
 
 At the same time, the Universities and Inns of 
 Court have been from time to time the homes of many 
 famous book - collections. Robert Burton,! Anthony 
 Wood, John Selden, Sir David Dundas, Mr. Dyce, 
 Dr. Bliss, Dr. Bandinel, Dr. Coxe, Mr. Bradshaw, are 
 only a few select names. 
 
 In the same way there was a time, and not so dis- 
 tant, when Edinburgh, and even Dublin, yielded their 
 proportion of finds, and the Duke of Roxburghe and 
 General Swinton, David Laing and James Maidment, 
 obtained no insignificant share of their extremely curious 
 and valuable stores from their own ground. Now the 
 Scotish amateur and bookseller equally look to the 
 great metropolis for the supply of their wants, and 
 the North Country libraries are sent up to London 
 for sale. The capital of Scotland has lost its ancient 
 prestige as a cover for this sort of sport, and is as 
 unproductive as an ordinary English provincial town. 
 
 From an acquisitive standpoint the locality signifies 
 no longer. The game is up. The three kingdoms have 
 been well-nigh ransacked and exhausted. The country 
 town is as bare as a bird's tail of anything but common- 
 
12 HISTORY OF 
 
 place stuff, bought in the London market, and (if any 
 dweller in a distant city is simple enough to order it 
 from the unsophisticated vendor) charged with a good 
 profit and the freight up. Naturally the provincial 
 dealer, if he stumbles on a gem or two in an accidental 
 way, takes care that it is sold in no corner, unless it be 
 at the corner of Wellington Street in the Strand. He 
 considers that the value may be a matter of doubt, and 
 he leaves it to gentlemen to decide between them how 
 much it is worth. Do you blame him ? 
 
 It is a frequently debated point whether at home in 
 Great Britain the feeling for books, in the collector's 
 sense, is not on the decline; and, indeed, the causes of 
 such a change are not far to seek. The acute pressure 
 of business among the wealthy mercantile class, which 
 principally contributes to the ranks of book-buyers, and 
 the decrease of resources for such luxuries among the 
 nobility and clergy, might be sufficient to explain a 
 shrinkage in the demand for the older and rarer litera- 
 ture in our own and other languages ; but there is 
 another and even more powerful agency at work which 
 operates in the same direction, and is adverse to the 
 investment of money in objects which do not appeal 
 directly to the eye. The bibliophile discovers, when he 
 has expended a small fortune (or perhaps a large one) 
 in the formation of a library, that his friends evince 
 no interest in it, have no desire to enter the room 
 where the cases are kept, do not understand what they 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 13 
 
 are told about this or that precious acquisition, and 
 turn on their heel to look at the pictures, the antique 
 furniture, or the china. This undoubtedly wide-spread 
 sentiment strikes a very serious blow at a pursuit in 
 which the enthusiast meets with slight sympathy or 
 encouragement, unless it is at the hands of the dealers, 
 naturally bound for their own sakes to keep him in 
 heart by sympathy and flattery. Doubtless the present 
 aspect of the question might have become ere now 
 more serious, had it not been for the American market 
 and the extension of the system of. public and free 
 libraries. 
 
 But, on the other hand, while enormous numbers of 
 books are sold under the hammer year by year, there 
 must be an approximately proportionate demand and 
 an inexhaustible market, or the book trade could not 
 keep pace with the auctioneers ; and, moreover, we may 
 be in a transitional state in some respects, and may be 
 succeeded by those whose appetite for the older litera- 
 ture willl)e keener than it ever was. 
 
 The complaint of a superabundance of books of all 
 kinds is not a new one. It goes back at least to the 
 reign of Elizabeth and the age of Shakespeare, for in 1594, 
 in a sermon preached at Paul's Cross, a divine says : — 
 
 " There is no ende of making Bookes, and much reading 
 is a wearinesse to the flesh, and in our carelesse daies bookes 
 may rather seeme to want readers, than readers to want 
 bookes." 
 
14 HISTORY OF 
 
 No one should be too positive whether it is to the 
 rich or to the poor book-collector that the romantic 
 element chiefly or more powerfully attaches itself. It 
 has been our lot to enjoy the acquaintance of both 
 classes, and we hesitate to pronounce any decided opinion. 
 There is the unquestionable triumph of the man with a 
 full purse or an inexhaustible banking account, who has 
 merely to resolve upon a purchase or a series of purchases, 
 and to write a cheque for the sum total. He is no sooner 
 recognised by the members of the trade as a zealous 
 enthusiast and a liberal paymaster, than offers arrive, and 
 continue to arrive, from all sides. He is not asked to 
 take any trouble ; his library is an object of solicitude to 
 everybody who has anything to sell ; the order on his 
 bankers is all that his humble servants desire. He finds 
 himself, after the lapse of a decade or so, the master of a 
 splendid collection, without having once known what it 
 was to get disagreeably warm or anxious in the pursuit 
 of a volume, to deliberate whether he could afford to buy 
 it, or to submit to the ordeal of attending an auction, one 
 of a motley throng in a fetid atmosphere. All these trials 
 he has been spared ; he has collected with kid gloves. 
 
 On the contrary, a good deal may be said in favour 
 of the amateur of moderate fortune, who by personal 
 judgment slowly accumulates an important and enviable 
 assemblage of literary monuments, like the Rev. Thomas 
 Corser, who spent ,£9000 during a lifetime on books, 
 which realised £20,000, and would now bring thrice as 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 15 
 
 much, and perhaps even more ; and in that of men such 
 as Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had 
 to pause before they laid out a few shillings in this 
 way. The history of Lamb's books is more humanly 
 interesting than the history of the Huth or Grenville 
 library; as chattels or furniture they were worthless; 
 they were generally the poorest copies imaginable ; but if 
 they did not cost money, they often cost thought ; they 
 sometimes involved a sacrifice, if the price was in the high 
 altitude of a sovereign. In the case of Lamb, the sister's 
 opinion was sought, and the matter lay ever so long in 
 abeyance before the final decision was taken, and Lamb 
 hastened to the shop, uncertain if he might not be too 
 late, if the person whom he saw emerging as he entered 
 might not have his book in his pocket. Here was pay- 
 ment in full for the prize ; the coin handed to the vendor 
 was nothing to it; Lamb had laid out more than the 
 value in many a sleepless night and many an anxious cal- 
 culation. Lamb, although he probably never bound a 
 volume of his own in his life, or purchased one for the 
 sake of its cover, could grow enthusiastic over his favourite 
 Duchess of Newcastle, and declare that no casket was 
 rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and 
 keep safe such a jewel. 
 
 Collectors of the abstract type looked, and still look, 
 at the essence or soul — at the object pure and simple. 
 A book is a book for a' that. It may be imperfect, 
 soiled, wormed, cropped, shabbily bound — all those things 
 
16 HISTORY OF 
 
 belong to its years; let it suffice that there is just enough 
 of the author to be got in glimpses here and there to 
 enable the proprietor of him in type to judge his quality 
 and power. That is what such men as Lamb wanted — 
 all they wanted. A copy of Burton's Anatomy, of 
 Wither's Emblems, or Browne's Urn-Burial, in the best 
 and newest morocco, was apt to be a hinderance to 
 their enjoyment of the beauties of the text, was almost 
 bound to strike them as an intrusion and an imper- 
 tinence — perchance as a sort of sacrilege — as though 
 the maker of the cover was seeking to place himself 
 on a level with the maker of the book. Nor are 
 there wanting successive renewers of this school of 
 collector — of men who have bought books and other 
 literary property for their own sake, for their intrinsic 
 worth, irrespectively of rarity and price. A relative 
 of the writer devoted a long life — a very long one — to 
 the acquisition of what struck him as being curious 
 and interesting in its way and fell within his resources, 
 which were never too ample; and in the end he suc- 
 ceeded in gathering together, without much technical 
 knowledge of the subject, a fairly large assortment of 
 volumes, not appealing fc^r the most part to the severer 
 taste of the more fastidious and wealthier amateur, but 
 endeared to him at least, as Lamb's were, by the circum- 
 stances under which they came to his hands. Each one 
 had its Mstoriette. This gentleman represented, as I say, 
 a type, and a very genuine and laudable one, too. I 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 17 
 
 admired, almost envied him, not in his possession, but in 
 his enjoyment of these treasures ; they were to him as the 
 apple of his eye. When I speak of him as a type, I mean 
 that the same phenomenon still exists. In a letter of 
 1898 from the extreme North of England there is the 
 ensuing passage, which strongly impressed my fancy : 
 "Ever since I had a house 'of my own — nearly twenty 
 years — I have been a collector of books on a humble 
 scale. . . . Still, by being continually on the look-out for 
 ' bargains,' I have managed to gather between three and 
 four thousand volumes " together, chiefly of a poetical 
 nature." Now, to my apprehension, the present aspect 
 of the matter touches a higher or deeper chord than that 
 reached by the owner of the most splendid library in the 
 universe; for all this Heliconian harvest signified per- 
 sonal search and personal sacrifice. 
 
 We do not always bear in mind that the rare books 
 of to-day were the current literature not merely of, but 
 long posterior to, the period of their appearance. They 
 suffered two kinds and stages of deterioration and waste. 
 While they remained in vogue among readers and 
 students, they necessarily submitted to a succession of 
 more or less indifferent owners, who regarded without 
 much concern objects which it was in their power to 
 replace without much difficulty. The worst day dawned, 
 however, for our ancient literature, especially that of a 
 fugitive or sentimental class, when it had ceased to be 
 in demand for practical purposes, and was not yet ripe 
 
18 HISTORY OF 
 
 for the men, in whose eyes it could only possess archaeo- 
 logical attractions. Independently of destruction by 
 accidental fires, a century or two of neglect proved fatal 
 to millions of volumes or other literary records in pam- 
 phlet or broadsheet form ; and as tastes changed, the 
 mill and the fire successively consumed the discarded 
 favourites of bygone generations, just as at the present 
 moment we pulp or burn from day to day cartloads of 
 old science, and theology, and law, and fiction, and ever 
 so much more, preparing to grow unique. 
 
 The Mill has been as busy as the Press all these cen- 
 turies on which we look back. It has neither eyes nor 
 ears, nor has it compassion ; it unrelentingly grinds and 
 consumes all that comes in its way ; age after age it has 
 reduced to dust what the men of the time refuse in the 
 presence of something newer, and, as they hold, better. 
 The printers of each generation, from those of Mainz down- 
 ward, lent themselves, not unnaturally, not unwisely, to 
 subjects in the first place (by way of experiment) which 
 were not costly, and secondly to such as appealed to con- 
 temporary* taste and patronage. We find under the 
 former head Indulgences, Proclamations, Broadsides, Bal- 
 lads; under the second, Church Service Books of all 
 kinds, succeeded after a while by certain of the Classics. 
 The impressions long remained limited ; and continual 
 use and subsequent neglect accomplished between them 
 the task of creating the modern bibliographical and 
 bibliomaniacal schools. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 19 
 
 Even in Anglo-Saxon times the ferocity of warfare 
 and the ravages of invasion on invasion, coupled with the 
 scanty diffusion of literary taste, destroyed many of the 
 monastic libraries. But, which is stranger and less ex- 
 cusable, even down to the second half of the seventeenth 
 century, down to Aubrey's day, the greatest havoc con- 
 tinued to be made in this way alike among printed books 
 and MSS., the latter being used for all sorts of utilitarian 
 purposes — even as bungs for beer-barrels. In our own 
 period it is immeasurably sadder and more astonishing 
 to learn that, besides the losses arising from casual con- 
 flagrations to public and private libraries, the old van- 
 dalism is not extinct, and that nothing is sacred in its 
 eyes, not even the priceless muniments of a cathedral 
 church. 
 
 What must the aggregate have become, if such a pro- 
 cess had not been steadily in operation all these centuries ! 
 And, even as it is, the dispersion of old libraries, like 
 those of Johnson of Spalding and Skene of Skene, en- 
 courages the waste-paper dealer to believe that the end 
 is not yet reached. The frequenter of the auction-rooms 
 of London alone has perpetually under his eyes a moun- 
 tain of illegible printed matter sufficient to overload the 
 shoulders of Atlas; 
 
 Bibliomania has as many heads as the famed Briareus ; 
 but it seldom lifts more than two or three at once. 
 Perhaps it would be impossible to name any variety of 
 fancy which has not at some time entered into the pur- 
 
20 HISTORY OF 
 
 suit which we are just now attempting to illustrate. 
 The love of the book without regard to the binding, or 
 of the binding irrespectively of the book ; the fashion for 
 works with woodcuts, of certain printers, of certain places, 
 of certain dates ; the establishment of a fixed rule as to a 
 subject or a group of subjects, taken up collectively or in 
 succession ; a limitation as to price or as to size, for a 
 candidate for admittance to some cabinets may not exceed 
 so many inches in altitude ; it must go back to the cen- 
 tury which produced it, to be rewritten or reprinted, ere 
 it may have a place. 
 
 It is said of the elder Wertheimer that, when some 
 one expressed his astonishment at the price which he had 
 given for an item, and even insinuated his want of wis- 
 dom, he retorted pleasantly that he might be a fool, but 
 he thought that he knew greater ones than himself. 
 
 Do we not under existing conditions view with too 
 uncharitable sentiments the marvellous good fortune of 
 the book-hunters of the last century, at the very outset 
 of a revival of the taste for our own vernacular litera- 
 ture ? Does it not seem tantalising to hear that Warton 
 the historian could pick up for sixpence a volume con- 
 taining Venus and Adonis, 1596, and seven other precious 
 morgeaux, off a broker's counter in Salisbury, when the 
 British Museum gave at the Daniel sale £336 for the 
 Shakespeare alone? What a thrill passes through the 
 veins, as we read of Rodd the bookseller meeting at a 
 marine store-shop on Saffron Hill, somewhere about the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 21 
 
 thirties, with a volume of Elizabethan tracts, and having 
 it weighed out to him at threepence three-farthings ! 
 Our space is far more limited than such anecdotes; but 
 they all strike us as pointing the same moral. If one 
 happens on a Caxton or a quarto Shakespeare to-day for 
 a trifle, it is the isolated ignorance of the possessor which 
 befriends one. But till the market came for these things, 
 the price for what very few wanted was naturally low ; 
 and an acquirer like George Steevens, Edward Capell, or 
 Edmond Malone was scarcely apt to feel the keen grati- 
 fication on meeting with some unique find that a man 
 would now do, seeing that its rarity was yet unascer- 
 tained, and even had it been so, was not likely to awaken 
 much sensation. 
 
 Low prices do not alone establish cheapness. Cheap 
 books are those which are obtained by accident under , 
 the current value. In the time of the later Stuarts, 
 Narcissus Luttrell found from one penny to sixpence 
 sufficient to satisfy the shopkeepers with whom he dealt 
 for some of the most precious volumes in our language ; 
 and a shilling commanded a Caxton. The Huths of those 
 days could not lay out their money in these things ; they 
 had to take up the ancient typography in the form of the 
 classics, or large-paper copies of contemporary historians, 
 or the publications of Hearne. 
 
 We do not know that the celebrated Chevalier D'Eon 
 was singular in his views as a collector in the last century. 
 He bought in chief measure, if we may judge from a 
 
22 HISTORY OF 
 
 document before us, what we should now term nonde- 
 scripts, and in the aggregate gave a very handsome 
 price at a London auction in 1771 for an assemblage 
 of items at present procurable, if any one wanted them, 
 at a far lower rate. There is not a lot throughout 
 which would recommend itself to modern taste, save the 
 Cuisimier Francois, and perhaps that was not in the 
 old morocco livery considered by judges as de rigueur. 
 We append the auctioneer's account entire, because it 
 exhibits a fair example of the class of book which not 
 only Frenchmen, but ourselves, sought at that time more 
 than those for which we have long learned to compete, 
 and which were then offered under the hammer by the 
 bundle, if not by the basketful. For £8, 4s., a hundred 
 and twenty-five years ago, how many quarto Shakespears 
 could one, have acquired ? 
 
 The Chevalier D'Eon, 
 
 Bought of Baker <Sf Leigh. 
 
 & s. d. 
 Catalogus Librorum MSS. Angl. et Hibern. . . .076 
 Index Librorum Bibliothecae Barberinse, 2 vols. . . 10 6 
 Reading Catal. Lib. in Collegio Sionensi . . . .040 
 Le Long, Bibliotheque Hist, de la France . . .090 
 Voyage Literaire de deux Religieux Benedictins . .050 
 Histoire de Demelez de la Cour de France . . .026 
 Memoires sur le Rang entre les Souv. de l'Europe, &c. .026 
 Discours Politiques sur Tacite, par Josseval . . .020 
 Dictionnaire Mathematique, par Ozanam . . .050 
 Practique du Bon Menager de Campagne, 
 
 par Liger, 2 vols 6 
 
 Leland agt. Bolingbroke's Study of History . . .020 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 23 
 
 Mutel's Causes of the Corruption of Christians 
 
 Bindoh on Commerce 
 
 Essay on Money, Trade, War, Banks, &c 
 
 England's Gazetteer, 3 vols 
 
 Halifax's Advice to a Daughter 
 
 Tresor de la Pratique de Medecine, 3 vols. 
 
 Seneque de la Consolation de la Mort .... 
 
 Tacite (la Morale de) par Houssaie 
 
 Tite Live reduit en Maximes 
 
 Gracien l'Homme Universel . . . . • . 
 
 L'Ecole de l'Homme 
 
 Memoire pour diminuer le nombre de Preces . 
 
 Receuil des Edits . . • 
 
 Le Secret des Cours, par Walsingham . . . . 
 Receuil de Maximes pour Institut. du Roy 
 
 Callieres de la Science du Monde 
 
 Traite's des Interests des Princes' & Souverains de l'Europe 
 
 Sciences des Princes, par Naude, 3 vols 
 
 Etat present du Royaume de Danemarc .... 
 
 Memoires de l'Empire Russien 
 
 & Negociations Secrettes de diverses Cours de 
 
 l'Europe par M. la Torre, 5 vols. 
 
 pour Servir a l'Histoire de Corse 
 
 Militaires sur les Anciens, 2 vols. 
 
 Histoire Generate de Suisse 
 Memoire du Card. Richelieu, 5 vols, 
 La Vie du Card. Richelieu, 2 vols. 
 de Mons. Colbert . 
 
 Voyage de Grece, Egypte, &c. 
 Voyage du Mont du Levant 
 Lettres du Card. Richelieu 
 
 d'un Turque a Paris 
 
 Persanes, par Montesquieu 
 
 Le Passe Tems Agreable . 
 Essai Politique sur le Commerce 
 Theorie de l'lmpot . 
 
 £ 
 
 8. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 l 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
24 HISTORY OF 
 
 £ «. d. 
 
 Histoire du Systeme des Finances, 1719 & 1720, 6 vols.. 6 
 
 Commerce, par Huet 2 
 
 Le Vrai Cuisinier Francois 16 
 
 Dictionnaire Neologique . . . • • .020 
 
 Relations de quelques Religieux, 6 vols 10 6 
 
 Reflexions sur l'Edit 10 
 
 Several lots of Pamphlets, Is. each 4 
 
 Five Pamphlets, at 6d. each 2 6 
 
 £8 4 
 
 Jan. 12th, 1771. 
 
 Reed, the contents 
 
 For Baker and Self, 
 
 Geo. Leigh. 
 
 The neglect of our early literature continued, as we 
 have said, down to the second half of the eighteenth 
 century. Prior to that time, all the information at 
 our command tends to show that collectors almost 
 uniformly restricted themselves to the books current 
 in or about their own time, as we find even Pepys 
 asking Bagford to secure for him, not Caxtons or 
 Elizabethan books, but items which we should now 
 regard with comparative or absolute indifference. While 
 some insignificant trifle, which had happened to go out 
 of print, was sought with avidity, while editions of the 
 classics and Continental writers, long since converted 
 to waste paper, were objects of keen rivalry, the most 
 precious examples of ancient English and Scotish typo- 
 graphy and poetry were obtainable for pence. 
 
 A very interesting side to the subject before us is 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 25 
 
 the share claimable in it by the fair sex. In our two 
 Rolls of Boole -Collectors we have included the names 
 of several ladies, who in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, as well as in the earlier part of the present, 
 established a title to rank among possessors of libraries 
 in a larger or smaller measure. Two of the most promi- 
 nent names are probably those of Miss Richardson Currer, 
 of Eshton Hall, Yorkshire, and Mrs. Bylands of Man- 
 chester, the latter not only the acquirer of the Althorp 
 treasures, but of a most valuable body of books, ancient 
 and modern, in augmentation of them. This feature in 
 the annals of collecting is the more to be borne in mind, 
 in that it has in recent days declined almost to disappear- 
 ance, and may be said to be limited to a few gentlewomen, 
 who pursue special studies, like the Hon. Alicia Amherst 
 and Mrs. Earle, and bring together for use or reference 
 the works illustrative of them. 
 
 A study of the writer's Rolls of Booh -Collectors, 
 which embrace over two thousand names, will satisfy 
 any one that the hereditary oy transmitted collections 
 in this country are very few, if we limit ourselves to 
 libraries of note, and do not compensate for the long 
 catalogue of old libraries which have been dispersed even 
 in our own time. Are there really more than the Miller 
 and the Huth, unless we add the Spencer or Althorp^ 
 kept intact and amplified, yet in the hands of a stranger ? 
 Book-collecting by individuals is, then, mainly a personal 
 affair, which begins and ends with a life. The con- 
 
26 HISTORY OF 
 
 tinuance even of the two libraries above mentioned in 
 private hands cannot be regarded as otherwise than 
 precarious and terminable ; the fourth succession of 
 Miller has just expired in an unexpected manner, and 
 the destiny of the Britwell treasures is problematical. 
 Rumour has long since pointed to the Advocates' Library 
 at Edinburgh as the ultimate reversioner. 
 
 In a volume of moderate compass, professedly address- 
 ing itself in a special manner to English collectors, the 
 consideration of foreign literature must of necessity be a 
 secondary and incidental feature and element, although it 
 may be quite true that our countrymen and countrywomen 
 look so frequently aside, as it were, from the literary 
 productions of their own soil to study those of other 
 lands. In Great Britain we may be said to be much 
 more cosmopolitan in our book-collecting tastes than 
 many of our contemporaries on the Continent of Europe, 
 Germany perhaps excepted. In France, Spain, Portugal, 
 Italy, and elsewhere, the demand is almost exclusively 
 for native authors; but the Germans, Americans, and 
 ourselves take a pride, and a just one, in being more 
 catholic and broad : we see the advantage, no doubt, 
 and no doubt we reap the fruit, of such a policy. At 
 the same time, in a monograph of limited scope it is 
 obviously impossible to embrace even a general view of 
 the enormously wide range which is before any one who 
 crosses over from his own country to add to his English 
 possessions even a select collection of books in foreign 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 27 
 
 languages ; and we have confined our efforts in this direc- 
 tion to an indication of such typical or special works 
 (principally French) as are usually sought by people 
 in these islands, who resort more or less to the Continental 
 market. Even prominent Anglo-French amateurs like 
 Mr. R. S. Turner and Lord Ashburton are found keeping 
 within certain classes of literature, and certain copies 
 recommendable by their provenance, binding, or graphic 
 peculiarities. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Spoliation of public libraries in past times — Denouncers of the 
 robbers of books— Schedule of public libraries in the United 
 Kingdom — View of the chief features of some of these — Cathe- 
 dral libraries — Public libraries on the Continent and in America 
 — Early English books in foreign collections — Difference in the 
 constitution of public collections — Private libraries — Their 
 classification — The writer's Bolls of Collectors — The Harleian 
 Library — The idea borrowed from abroad — Formation of a new 
 English School of Collecting — The Roxburghe sale in 1812 — 
 Richard Heber and his vast library — His services to literature 
 — His scholarship — The Britwell Library. 
 
 It hardly falls within the province of a manual for the 
 book-collector to dwell on the character and relative 
 merits of the purely public libraries at home and abroad, 
 or even on the bibliographical possessions of private 
 personages which are not available for purchase. Recent 
 experience, however, teaches us that we are not entitled 
 to count any longer on the intact preservation of the 
 books of any individual or family, as the sale by auction 
 has almost become fashionable. At any rate, there can 
 be no harm in introducing a few remarks on this aspect 
 and branch of our subject, particularly seeing that the 
 effect of throwing on the market thousands of rare books, 
 which were once thought to be hopelessly unattainable, 
 has contributed to improve the prospects and oppor- 
 tunities of purchasers. 
 
HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 29 
 
 The spoliation of public libraries at home and abroad 
 is an aspect of the question or subject , neither very 
 agreeable nor very flattering. In England and other 
 parts of the Empire, within the last century, numerous 
 examples have occurred where valuable or unique books 
 have been stolen or mutilated. The national collection 
 in Great Russell Street has perhaps suffered the least, 
 and whatever may be said about the system on which 
 it was formerly conducted and managed, sufficient care 
 seems always to have been exercised to guard against 
 depredators of various* kinds. So far as is publicly 
 known, petty thefts of articles more or less easily re- 
 placeable are all that we have to regret. It is notorious 
 that the Bodleian has lost several important volumes, 
 and no one will probably ever arrive at any definite 
 information of the extent to which the libraries at Cam- 
 bridge and the other minor collections at the sister 
 Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, and Dublin have 
 been pillaged and impoverished. 
 
 It has been the same all over the Continent. The 
 Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, and many of the lead- 
 ing provincial libraries of France, have been robbed 
 wholesale in former times, and in some cases annihilated. 
 One has only to read the observations and evidence of 
 M. Achille Jubinal accompanying a (then) inedited 
 letter of Montaigne (8vo, Paris, 1850), to form an idea 
 of the ravages which have been made through neglect 
 of officials and dishonesty of visitors; and what must 
 
30 HISTORY OF 
 
 the fact be in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere? 
 The denunciations against robbers of books and 
 libraries date, however, from the remotest period, and 
 were at first highly necessary as a means of safeguard- 
 ing the treasures of monasteries and churches. Isaac 
 Taylor, in his History of the Transmission of Ancient 
 Boohs to Modern Times, 1875, p. 246, prints an ana- 
 thema of this kind : " Whosoever removeth this volume 
 from this same mentioned convent, may the anger of 
 the Lord overtake him in this world, and in the next 
 to all eternity. Amen." Let the energetic explorers 
 who have transferred so many hundreds of such MSS. 
 to the Vatican and the British Museum look to it ; and 
 what are His Holiness and the Trustees in Great Russell 
 Street but palpable accessories after, if not before, the 
 fact ! A common peril hangs over them all. 
 
 A visit to a library such as the British Museum or 
 the Bodleian, or even to those of some of the Colleges 
 at Oxford and Cambridge, is apt to instil a feeling of 
 reverential affection for the founders and benefactors 
 of such institutions; the existing functionaries seem to 
 withdraw into middle distance, and one enters into com- 
 munion with the spirits of the departed. 
 
 From the private collector's point of view these great 
 public libraries are mainly serviceable for purposes of 
 reference and comparative study. These storehouses of 
 bibliographical and literary wealth may be classified 
 into — 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 (i) National or quasi-National Collections : — 
 
 31 
 
 The British Museum 
 
 Guildhall Library 
 
 South Kensington Museum 
 
 (Dyce and Forster and Gene- 
 ral Fine Art Collections) 
 Society of Antiquaries 
 William's Library, Red Cross 
 
 Street 
 Chetham Library, Manchester 
 
 Spencer-Rylands Library, Man- 
 chester 
 Bodleian 
 
 University Library, Cambridge 
 University Library, Edinburgh 
 Advocates' Library, Edinburgh 
 Signet Library, Edinburgh 
 Hunterian Library, Glasgow 
 Trinity College, Dublin 
 
 The British Museum readily divides itself, of course 
 very unequally, into the Printed Book and Manuscript 
 Departments, and each of these has been periodically 
 enriched by large donations or purchases en bloc, the 
 former more especially by the gift of the Grenville books, 
 and the latter by the Cottonian, Harleian, Lansdowne, 
 Stowe, and Hardwicke MSS. The Bodleian would fall 
 far short of what it is, had it not been for the bequests 
 of Tanner, Selden, Burton, Crynes, Gough, Malone, and 
 Douce, and so with the University Library at Cam- 
 bridge, which owes so much to Bishop Moore's books, 
 and Trinity, Dublin, to Archbishop Marsh's. 
 
 (ii) College Libraries . — 
 
 Sion College 
 Dulwich College 
 Eton College 
 Winchester College 
 
 Stonyhurst College 
 St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw 
 Cambridge Colleges 
 Oxford Colleges 
 
82 HISTORY OF 
 
 Sion College preserves a few items of the rarest and 
 most precious class — Shakespeare's Lucrece, 1594, Barn- 
 field's Affectionate Shepherd, 1594, the Phoenix Nest, 
 1593, Drayton's Matilda, 1594, and others; but a few 
 specified in the old catalogue have disappeared. Many 
 of the most valuable volumes bequeathed by Edward 
 Alleyn to Dulwich are now among Gamck's books in the 
 British Museum, or among Malone's at Oxford, by con- 
 veyance ; but a few yet remain. Eton College Library 
 contains a small number of early printed books (including 
 Caxton's Booh of Good Manners) and the unique copy, of 
 Udall's Ralph Roister Doister. At Winchester they have 
 a volume or two of very rare poetical tracts of Elizabeth's 
 and James I.'s time. Stonyhurst is solely remarkable for 
 MSS. and printed works of Robert Southwell and other 
 Romish writers. 
 
 Of the subordinate libraries at Oxford and Cambridge 
 the treasures are innumerable. Those which belong to 
 the printed department are very fully registered in special 
 catalogues and by Hazlitt, except, perhaps, the very 
 recent legacy to Trinity College, Cambridge, of the library 
 of the late Mr. Samuel Sandars, rich in early English 
 typography, and the result of life-long researches. 
 
 Outside these fall the Royal Library at Windsor, 
 which includes the unique perfect ^Esop, and one of the 
 two books on vellum (the Doctrinal of Sapience) printed 
 by Caxton ; the Archiepiscopal one at Lambeth, rich in 
 rare early printed books and MSS., and the Chetham 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 33 
 
 and Rylands foundations at Manchester, the latter com- 
 prehending the Althorp treasures en bloc. Humphrey 
 Chetham also established the Church Libraries at Turton 
 and Gorton, bibliographical notices of which have been 
 printed by Mr. Gilbert French, 4to, 1856; and a few 
 strays from the Chetham collection will be incidentally 
 mentioned hereafter. 
 
 A reference to the writer's Collections, where such facts 
 are not matters of familiar knowledge, will show that the 
 majority of this section is more remarkableibr the possession 
 of a few rarities, or even unique items, than for a systematic 
 representation of classes and periods. Yet some are very 
 strong in specialities : Christ Church, Oxford, in music ; 
 Magdalen, Cambridge, in early English books (Pepys's) ; 
 Corpus, Cambridge, in MSS. (Archbishop Parker's) ; ;the 
 Bodleian, in Shakespeariana, early popular books, Eliza- 
 bethan poetry, &c. (Malone's, Douce's, Selden's, Burton's), 
 and so forth. 
 
 (iii) Cathedral Libraries : — 
 
 St. Paul's, London 
 Canterbury (Christ Church) 
 York Minster and Chapter 
 Peterborough 
 
 Lichfield 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 Hereford 
 
 At Lincoln there was formerly the precious Honeywood 
 bequest, improperly sold to Dibdin for 500 guineas ; but 
 the library still contains about 5000 volumes, to which 
 the Dean and Chapter make additions from time to time ; 
 and there is a paid custodian, who is one of the minor 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 canons. York Minster and Chapter are rich in early 
 typography and Yorkshire books. The Cathedral library 
 is under the charge of a canon as librarian and a vicar- 
 choral as sub-librarian, who receive no salary. It is open 
 to the public on three days in summer and on two days 
 in winter in each week. There is no fund for the support 
 or improvement of the library, except the interest of ^400 
 and a few voluntary subscriptions. Hereford possesses a 
 remarkable assemblage of chained volumes. To the pre- 
 sent group most properly appertains the library at West- 
 minster Abbey, founded by Lord-Keeper Williams, while 
 he was Dean of Westminster. 
 
 (iv) Public Libraries on the Continent or in Ame- 
 rica: — 
 
 Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris 
 French Institute (the gift of the 
 
 late Due d'Aumale), Chantilly 
 Vatican Library, Rome 
 Royal Library, Naples 
 Medicean Library, Florence 
 St. Mark's Library, Venice 
 Royal Library, Turin 
 Imperial Library, Vienna 
 Imperial Library, St. Petersburg 
 Royal Library, Berlin 
 Library of Electors and Kings of 
 
 Bavaria, Munich 
 Library of the Dukes and Kings 
 
 of Saxony, Wolfenbuttel 
 
 Landerbibliothek, Cassel 
 Public Library, Hamburg 
 Public Library, Gottingen 
 Public Library, Zurich 
 Archiepiscopal Library, Eich- 
 
 stadt 
 Archiepiscopal Library, Salz- 
 burg 
 Archiepiscopal Library, 
 
 Worms, &c. 
 Plantin Museum, Antwerp 
 University Library, Upsala 
 Royal Library, Copenhagen 
 Lenox and Carter Brown Libra- 
 ries, New York 
 
 The two last named, as it may be at once concluded, 
 are principally English and Anglo-American in their 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 35 
 
 character. Our collectors do not, as we are aware, by 
 any means restrict themselves to the literature of the 
 mother country so exclusively as their Transatlantic con- 
 temporaries; and for them therefore it becomes of im- 
 portance and interest to acquire through catalogues a 
 familiarity with the contents of the leading assemblages 
 of foreign and classical literature in Continental hands. 
 But there are very few of the great public libraries abroad 
 which have not casually or otherwise acquired English 
 books, and those of the" rarest description. At Gottingen 
 they have, from an auction at Liineburg in 1767, the 
 C. Merry Tales of 1526 ; at Cassel, Marlowe's Edward II, 
 1594 ; and at Hamburg the Elizabethan edition of Blam- 
 chardine and Eglantine, 1597, all unique or most rare; 
 and this is only by way of instance or sample. The Huth 
 copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 1609, was obtained from 
 Zurich. 
 
 The private amateur does well if he keeps before him 
 the salient features connected with his pursuit from this 
 point of view. It is to be deeply regretted that the 
 Government of the Netherlands did not take steps to 
 preserve intact the Enscheden collection at Haarlem, in 
 the same manner that that of Belgium did the Plantin 
 heirlooms. 
 
 Mr. Quaritch narrates an amusing and characteristic 
 anecdote, commemorative of his participation in the 
 Enscheden sale, where the agent of the British Museum 
 waited till the morning to bid at the table for the Troy- 
 
36 HISTORY OF 
 
 Book, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1502, and he 
 bought it privately over-night of the auctioneer. 
 
 There is, it must be noted, a fundamental difference 
 in the constitution of public libraries in Great Britain 
 and America as compared with those on the Continent. 
 The latter, if they do not restrict themselves, in principal 
 measure, to the literature of their own country, or at least 
 tongue, very seldom go far outside those limits otherwise 
 than by accident or for works of reference. On the 
 contrary, the English and American collections are cos- 
 mopolitan, like those who have formed them. At the 
 British Museum a volume in Icelandic, Chinese, Hawaian, 
 or any other character is welcomed nearly as much as one 
 in the vernacular. In Germany, at all events at Berlin 
 and Vienna, English books of importance are recognised. 
 But at the Bibliotheque in Paris it is not so. The French 
 collect only the classics and their own literature, just as 
 they ignore in coins all but the Greek and Roman and 
 national series. 
 
 Within their own lines, however, it is wonderful, 
 looking at all the political convulsions which the country 
 and capital have undergone, what vast treasures remain 
 in France — treasures of all epochs and in every class, 
 from the rise to the fall of the monarchy, from volumes 
 written for the Carolingian, if not Merovingian kings, 
 to volumes bound for Marie Antoinette. 
 
 Some interesting and instructive notices of our own 
 public libraries, and of a few private collections of former 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 37 
 
 times, may be found in the later volumes of the Retro- 
 spective Review. 
 
 The two Rolls of Collectors before mentioned are 
 capable of making a not inconsiderable volume; but 
 they are classifiable in groups and periods, and certain 
 individuals may be taken as the central figures in the 
 successive onward movements. Our immediate concern is 
 with printed monuments, and consequently we do not 
 hearken back beyond the men who witnessed the intro- 
 duction of typography. Nor does there appear, while 
 the purchasing power of money for literary possessions 
 or the book-closet was high, to have been any esprit de 
 corps or emulation tending to constitute schools or 
 cdteries, and to raise certain books or series to an arti- 
 ficial standard. Men at first acquired at random what 
 happened to fall in their way; booksellers there were 
 few or (except at London or in the Universities) next 
 to none; and auctions were long unknown. Except for 
 topography and the classics, there was, down to the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, no active competition. 
 The bulk of the Harleian Library was probably obtained 
 without extravagant outlay, though not without labour 
 and time ; not those divisions which we should now prize 
 would be the most expensive, unless we include the 
 manuscripts for which Lord Oxford had even then to 
 pay a price. 
 
 We have drawn the line where it appears that the 
 principle of forming libraries, in the modern sense 
 
38 HISTORY OF 
 
 of the word, commenced in this country. Down to 
 the Harleian epoch, when the Continental system began 
 to influence us, the shelf of books which we observe in 
 many old prints was the limit of nearly all collectors : 
 not necessarily of their resources, but of their views and 
 of the feeling of the time. Men acquired a handful or 
 so of volumes, which came into their hands by gift or 
 otherwise; from the absence or paucity of public in- 
 stitutions there were few individuals of any culture 
 whatever without a few books besides the family Bible 
 and Pilgrim's Progress ; but such a colossal accumulation 
 as was formed under the auspices of the second Lord 
 Oxford, and still more that of Richard Heber, was as 
 undreamt of as the vast and multifarious contents of 
 the building in Great Russell Street as it now exists. 
 A study of early correspondence and other sources of 
 original information on the present point will be found 
 to corroborate such a view of the average private col- 
 lection in these islands anterior to the last century. 
 
 It was not till many years after the dispersion of 
 that noble Harleian memorial of generous ardour among 
 the public and private collections of England and the 
 Continent (Dr. Johnson in his letter to Sir F. Barnard, 
 1768, says that many books passed direct into the 
 Bibliotheqtte du Roi at Paris), that the Shakespeare re- 
 vival led to an inquiry, on the one hand, into the 
 literature connected with the Elizabethan period, and on 
 the other to a partial discovery of how much of it had' 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 39 
 
 perished. That epoch may be regarded as the true 
 Hegira from which we have to date the modern annals 
 of collecting; the antecedent time was in a sense pre- 
 historic, for the most precious remains of our national 
 literature were unheeded and uncalendared ; the means of 
 forming a comprehensive estimate of the printed stores in 
 actual existence were yet latent or unknown, and the 
 almost undivided attention of students and purchasers 
 was directed to the ancient classics and foreign typo- 
 graphy. It must be conceded, we think, that whatever 
 the importance of those branches of inquiry may be, the 
 cause of British letters is more closely and permanently 
 bound up with our own classics and the products of our 
 own soil; and we repeat that the movement which first 
 gave a stimulus to a sort of revolt from the Continental 
 school and to the formation of a native one was the 
 persuasion, on the part of a few scholars, that something 
 more was to be done towards popularising the plays of 
 Shakespeare and his more eminent contemporaries, and 
 elucidating their writings by the help of those who lived 
 amid the same scenes and habits of thought and under 
 the same institutions. 
 
 Leigh Hunt used -to speak to me of having attended 
 the great Roxburghe sale in 1812 just for the sake of 
 gaining an idea of what such an affair was. It was, no 
 doubt, a fine collection which the noble owner and his 
 predecessors (particularly John, Earl of Roxburghe in the 
 time of Queen Anne) had acquired, mainly in the pre- 
 
40 HISTORY OF 
 
 ceding century, at very moderate prices; and the result 
 must have been highly satisfactory to the estate. But 
 many things have happened since then; the Heber 
 Library, the most extensive, most valuable, and most 
 ill-fated in its realisation: the grandest and proudest 
 bibliographical monument of the nineteenth or any other 
 century, has been completed and scattered ; and yet 
 to-day, if the general reader were asked, he would pro- 
 bably be of the belief that the first rank was due to the 
 earlier personage and collection. There is somehow a 
 prestige about the Roxburghe sale which time seems 
 incapable of weakening ; yet in comparison with its suc- 
 cessor it was a mere handful ; and in fact the accumula^ 
 tions even of Harley, Earl of Oxford, vast and precious as 
 they may have been, were not equal in magnitude or 
 in value to those of Heber, of whom the most surprising 
 and most interesting trait is his conversance with the 
 interiors of so many of his treasures; nor should we 
 ever forget his generosity in lending them to literary 
 workers. The Rev. Alexander Dyce, who so ably edited 
 our elder dramatists and poets, could never have accom- 
 plished his projects, if Heber had not come to his assist- 
 ance with the rare, or even unique, original editions. 
 
 We have taken elsewhere an opportunity of recording 
 the probable obligation under which we all lie to Heber 
 for his offices in prevailing on the Government under 
 the Regency to ai-range the so-called gift to the country 
 of the library of George III. What an inestimable boon 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 41 
 
 and advantage it would have been, had he left us his 
 • own magnificent gatherings, with the liberty of exchang- 
 ing duplicates !' To how many a subsequent collection 
 would such a step have been the deathblow or rather 
 an insuperable bar ! The Britwell and Huth libraries 
 would have been robbed of half their gems, and the 
 Daniel sale could not have proved the singular coup 
 and sensation which it was, had the Heber element 
 been absent. 
 
 The flyleaves' of an enormous proportion of Heber's 
 books are found enriched by his scholarly and often 
 very interesting memoranda ; they usually bear a stamp 
 
 with 
 
 BIBLIOTHECA 
 HEBEBIANA 
 
 , but never an ex libris. That distinc- 
 
 tion the accomplished owner resigned to minor luminaries. 
 The notes are always pertinent and occasionally numerous; 
 and the pages of the sale catalogue, of which we have no 
 fewer than thirteen parts, are lifted above mechanical 
 common-place by the curious and varied matter inter- 
 spersed from this source, as well as to a certain extent 
 from the pen of John , Payne Collier, who edited the 
 early poetical and dramatic portions, and attended the 
 auction to secure some of the rarest old plays for his 
 friend the Duke of Devonshire. 
 
 Heber had, in the course of a not very prolonged life 
 (he died at sixty), absorbed by degrees mainly all that 
 fell within his reach, both at home and abroad; and 
 he acquired much which never came to England, but 
 
42 HISTORY OF 
 
 was warehoused at Antwerp or elsewhere on the Continent, 
 pending future arrangements, which he did not live to 
 make. The library is said to have cost i?150,000, and 
 to have fetched about a third of that sum. As the 
 owner had built it up from the ruins of others, so 
 some more recent collectors found there their oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 A good deal of interesting information about this 
 once conspicuous figure in book-collecting circles may 
 be found in Dibdin's Reminiscences. Heber seems to 
 have inherited some shares in Elliott's brewery at Pimlico, 
 and a residence within the precincts. How far this fortune 
 contributed to enable him to devote so large an amount 
 to the purchase of books and MSS., we hardly know ; it 
 was said that he derived advantage from the slave trade, 
 but perhaps this was a calumny. At any rate, there was 
 trouble which saddened his later years. 
 
 Mr. William Henry Miller of Craigentinny bought 
 nearly the whole of the early English poetry, and made the 
 Britwell Library what it was and is ; and George Daniel 
 of Canonbury earned off, at what might have then seemed 
 exorbitant prices, the Shakespeare quartos, to have the 
 enjoyment of them for thirty years, and then leave them 
 as a valuable inheritance to his family ; for his death 
 just occurred, when Henry Huth had begun to compete 
 more courageously for this class of books, and when the 
 National Library was in a better position to offer tall 
 figures for really vital acquisitions. It was in 1864, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 43 
 
 and the struggle for the quartos and a few other prizes 
 was principally between the British Museum, Mr. Huth, 
 and Sir William Tite. 
 
 At the present moment the Britwell collection is 
 probably, on the whole, the finest private library in 
 the kingdom ; the founder of it was a solicitor in Edin- 
 burgh,, whose name already meets the eye as a purchaser 
 in 1819, when the Marquis of Blandford's books were 
 sold at White-Knight's, and it passed by bequest to 
 the Christy family, in whose hands it now remains. 
 
 Had it not been for Heber and for the bibliophobia 
 which prevailed, when his possessions came to the hammer 
 in 1834, it is doubtful whether Miller of Craigentinny 
 could have achieved the extraordinary coup, which he 
 did by transferring to his own shelves at one swoop the 
 harvest of a lifetime — a lifetime almost dedicated to 
 a single object. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Huth Library — Special familiarity of the writer with it — Seven 
 influential collectors of our time— The great dispersions of old- 
 established libraries — Althorp — Ashburnham — Johnson of 
 Spalding — List of the other leading collections, which no 
 longer exist. 
 
 During a long series of years it was my special good 
 fortune to see nearly every week the late Mr. Henry Huth, 
 and to learn from him many particulars of the sources 
 from which he had derived some of his fine and rare 
 books. We made Mr. Huth's acquaintance not long 
 after the enrichment of his library by the sale of George 
 Daniel's collection in 1864 ; and that, with his very im- 
 portant acquisitions when Mr. Corser died, and his early 
 English poetry came into the market soon after, con- 
 stituted the backbone or stamina of the new-comer. Mr. 
 Huth did not collect on a large scale during a great 
 length of time ; he made his library, or had it made for 
 him, chiefly between 1854, when he bought his first folio 
 Shakespeare at Dunn-Gardner's auction, and 1870. Once 
 or twice his health and spirits failed, and he was always 
 more or less desultory and capricious. We saw him one 
 afternoon, when he shyly mentioned that he had at last 
 taken courage to order home the Mazarin Bible, which 
 
 44 
 
HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 45 
 
 Mr. Quaritch had kept two years after giving ,£ J 2625 
 for it at the Perkins sale, and then sold to Mr. Huth 
 for £25 profit. He did not show the book to us, for 
 he had not opened the parcel, and confessed that he 
 was rather ashamed of himself. A very curious circum- 
 stance was that one of the Rothschilds, who had been 
 nibbling at the copy, called at Quaritch's a day or so 
 later, and was of course vexed to find that he had been 
 anticipated. Huth necessarily bought in every case, like 
 Addington and Locker, at the top of the market, for 
 he waited till the books were shown or sent to him ; he 
 never searched for them. Condition governed his choice 
 a good deal ; he was fond of Spanish books, his mother 
 having been a Spaniard, and of early German ones, being 
 a German on his father's side. He took the classics and 
 Americana rather hesitatingly, and there is no doubt that 
 the old English literature interested him most powerfully, 
 as it was most fully represented on his shelves. The folio 
 volume of black-letter ballads, knocked down to his agent 
 at the Daniel sale for JP750, was regarded by him with 
 special tenderness ; but we think that its real history was 
 unknown to him. He was not aware that it was only 
 a selection by Daniel from a much larger number obtained 
 by Thorpe the bookseller from a private source, suspected 
 to have been a person in the employment of the Tolle- 
 maches of Helmingham Hall, near Ipswich. Thorpe 
 parted with the bulk to Mr. Heber for ,£200, and the 
 latter, in sending the vendor the money, declared how 
 
46 HISTORY OF 
 
 conscious he was of his extravagance, and asked whether 
 he had been so fortunate as to secure "the inheritance 
 of the Stationers' Company ! " 
 
 A far more extensive collection, though of later date, 
 came some years afterward into Mr. Huth's possession; 
 it consisted of three hundred and thirty-four sheet ballads 
 of the Stuart period, which had formed part of a larger 
 lot bought at a house-sale in the West of England for 
 fifty shillings. Some went to the British Museum, some 
 elsewhere ; Mr. Huth's share cost him ,£500 ! 
 
 The Huth catalogue is a disappointing production, 
 owing to the circumstance that a good deal of useful 
 information was suppressed, and the opportunity was not 
 taken, where expense was the least object, to furnish an 
 exhaustive account of the books. It is singular that the 
 Grenville and Chatsworth catalogues were spoiled much 
 in the same way, and that Lord Ashburnham's own 
 privately printed account of his books is a thousandfold 
 inferior to the auctioneer's one. 
 
 The Duke of Roxburghe, Mr. Heber, Mr. Grenville, 
 Mr. Daniel, Lord Spencer, Mr. Miller and Mr. Huth 
 were seven personages who exercised on the printed book- 
 market in their time (to say nothing , of MSS.) a very 
 notable influence, particularly Heber. One might add 
 the names of Mr. Jolley, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Corser, who 
 severally between 1810 and 1870 made their competition 
 sensible and raised the standard of prices for many classes 
 of old English books. It was said in 1845, when the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 47 
 
 Bright Library was dispersed, that the advance in realised 
 values led some collectors to relinquish the pursuit. The 
 formation, not only of such a library as that of Heber or 
 Harley^ but that of Corser or Daniel or Bright, will be in 
 the future a sheer impossibility from the absence of the 
 means of acquiring in many branches so large a propor- 
 tion of the rarer desiderata. To gather together a 
 collection of books on an extensive scale may always 
 remain feasible; but the probability seems to be that 
 assemblages of literary property outside mere works of 
 reference will show a tendency to distribute themselves 
 over a more numerous body of owners, including the 
 public repository, which year by year removes a certain 
 body of rare books of all kinds beyond the reach of com- 
 petition. The Bright episode was to a considerable ex- 
 tent a duel between Mr. Corser and the British Museum. 
 But Mr. Miller and Lord Ashburnham, and (it may 
 be added) Mr. Henry CunlifFe of the Albany, were also 
 in the field ; and two years prior, Maitland in his 
 Accotmt of the Early Printed Books at Lambeth, 1843, 
 already takes occasion to animadvert on what he terms 
 the puerile competition for rarities, which had then 
 set in. 
 
 Miss Richardson Currer, of Eshton Hall, Craven, 
 Yorkshire, whose extensive and valuable library came to 
 the hammer in 1864, was one of the most distinguished 
 lady-collectors of the century. There is a privately printed 
 catalogue of the books, of which two editions appeared in 
 
48 HISTORY OF 
 
 1820 and 1833. Miss Currer was a competitor side by 
 side with those already named for a certain proportion 
 of the literary treasures which were in the market in her 
 time. The late Lady Charlotte Schreiber confined herself 
 to a few subjects, of which playing-cards were one ; but 
 both these personages have been eclipsed in our immediate 
 day by Mrs. Bylands, who conceived, as a tribute to the 
 memory of a deceased husband, the princely design of 
 founding on the theatre of his commercial success a grand 
 literary monument, of which the Spencer books should be 
 the nucleus and central feature. 
 
 One of the greatest surprises of our time in a bookish 
 way was not the sale of the library at Althorp, which 
 had been rumoured as a contingency many years before it 
 occurred, but its transfer by the purchaser to Manchester. 
 We were all rather sorry to learn that the climax had 
 at length been reached; the sacrifice was doubtless a 
 painful one on more than one account ; but it was pre- 
 sumably unavoidable, and the noble owner was encouraged 
 by numerous precedents : the fashion for selling had quite 
 set in then. I visited Althorp in 1868 for the purpose 
 of examining some of its treasures. I remember the room, 
 and the corner of it where the largest private collection 
 of Caxtons in the world was kept, and the glass case 
 which enshrined quite a number of Elizabethan rarities. 
 His Lordship mounted a ladder to get me one or two of 
 his Aldines printed on vellum. He showed me a delight- 
 ful old volume of tracts, bound in a vellum wrapper, some 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 49 
 
 absolutely unique, which his grandfather had bought, and 
 a copy of the romance of Richard Ccewr de Lion, 1509, 
 which came out of a poor cottage in Lincolnshire. That 
 former Lord Spencer once did a gentlemanly act in hand- 
 ing Payne the bookseller a bonus of i?50, on finding that 
 a volume he had had from him was a Caxton. Alas ! 
 the spell is broken. Althorp was its library, and that 
 has left it for ever ! Sic transit gloria. 
 
 In the wake of the Spencer books have followed those 
 of the late Earl of Ashburnham, whose representative 
 had previously disposed of his father's coins and of some 
 of the MSS. The remainder of the latter still await 
 dispersion or a purchaser en bloc. 
 
 The Ashburnham printed books included a consider- 
 able number of Caxtons and Wynkyn de Wordes, the 
 St. Albans Chronicle and Book of Hunting, &c, printed 
 at the same place, and many distinguished rarities in 
 the foreign series of ancient typography; but first and 
 foremost the Perkins copy of the Gutenberg or Mazarin 
 Bible on vellum, which realised i?4000, being i?600 in 
 excess of the figure given by the buyer. There was also 
 the Bible of 1462 on vellum, which fetched ,£1500. 
 
 But the prevalent characteristic of the collection was 
 an ostensible indifference on the part of the nobleman 
 who formed it to condition. There were several fine 
 books and interesting examples of binding; but the 
 absence of any definite plan and of judgment was con- 
 spicuous throughout. Circumstances aided the immediate 
 
50 HISTORY OF 
 
 proprietor in his project for converting the property into 
 cash, and the prices reached were, in the cases of the 
 early printed volumes by Caxton and others, simply 
 unprecedented, looking at the sorry state of the copies 
 offered. The catalogue (sooth to speak) was not very 
 carefully or scientifically prepared, and when the impor- 
 tant lots were put on the table, the company had, as a 
 rule, some serious deduction to make from the account 
 printed by the auctioneers. The noble vendor did not 
 see anything unbecoming in attendance to note the prices 
 of lots during the earlier stages, and did not disguise his 
 gratification when a book brought a heavy profit. Yet 
 twenty years ago it was almost accounted a disgrace for 
 an ancient family even to part with its heirlooms. In 
 those cases, when want of the money cannot and is not 
 pleaded, the proceeding seems all the stranger and the 
 more discreditable. The late Lord bought at the right 
 time, and his son sold at the right time. The prices 
 realised were not merely high, but outrageous. Yet, after 
 all, prices are a figure of speech and a relative term. To 
 a wealthy Manchester manufacturer a thousand pounds 
 are nothing more than four figures on a piece of paper 
 instead of one or two, and the sole difference between 
 ,£1000 and ,£2000 is the substitution of one numeral 
 for another. 
 
 It was known, in a few cases, what the noble owner 
 had given for the articles. His Jason, printed by Caxton, 
 cost £87 plus commission, and produced £2100. The 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 51 
 
 Merlm of 1498 was bought for 30 guineas, and realised 
 =£760. A little French volume by Jean Maugin, Les 
 Amours de Cwpndon et de Psiche, 1546, was carried to 
 £60, having been acquired for half-a-crown. Certain 
 other antecedent' quotations were left far behind, as in 
 the Canterbury Tales of 1498, which at Dunn-Gardner's 
 sale in 1854 brought ,£245, and now went up to £1000, 
 and in the Antonius Andreas of 1486, which was thought 
 worth £231, as probably the earliest volume issued in the 
 City of London. 
 
 There was a notable drop in the biddings for the 
 imperfect copies of Chaucer from Caxton's press, and a 
 host of items went for next to nothing, which in an 
 inferior sale would have realised far more. It is ever 
 so ; and of course there was half a century's interest on 
 the outlay. Still what an intense pleasure beyond money 
 it had afforded the nobleman who formed it! And let 
 us think, again, to how long a succession of holders the 
 same beautiful or rare book has been a friend and a 
 companion, a source of delight and pride ! 
 
 It was remarked in the room that the present Earl 
 had enlarged his father's possessions only to the extent 
 of one volume (No. 2748), for which he gave £4, and 
 which yielded him £7. . He had no right to complain 
 so far. 
 
 Concurrently with the Ashburnham episode in 1897, 
 there came upon us all, like a shell, the extraordinary 
 report, which proved too true, not only that the repre- 
 
52 HISTORY OF 
 
 sentative of Johnson of Spalding had determined to part 
 with the valuable library preserved in the house since at 
 least the time of the Stuarts, if not of the Tudors, but that 
 Mrs. Johnson had actually called in a local clergyman 
 to select what books he deemed worthy of being sent up 
 to London for sale, and had committed the residue to 
 a local auctioneer. The catalogues were partly distributed 
 before the books were added, and very few booksellers were 
 even aware of the matter, till the sale was over. Not 
 more than three or so, and a few private persons, were 
 present; the volumes were made up in parcels and only 
 one mentioned, and the bidding did not exceed two or 
 three shillings a lot. Supposing 2000 items, comprised 
 in 100 bundles at 8s. each; the grand total would be 
 J?15 ! Blades quotes the library as containing seven 
 Caxtons, and the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw thought it 
 worth while to pay a visit to Spalding to make notes, 
 which he very kindly communicated to us. One of the 
 purchasers at the sale offered me two of his minor 
 acquisitions for ^30. Although the library included a 
 proportion of desirable articles, many of the books were 
 esteemed so worthless that the acquirers removed the 
 ex libris, and left the rest behind them ! 
 
 Some of the Caxtons in the public library at Cam- 
 bridge have belonged to the Johnson family, and are 
 supposed to have been formerly presented to it by those 
 of Spalding. They were acquired in the earlier half of 
 the reign of Henry VIII. by Martin Johnson at the then 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 53 
 
 current prices — from sixpence to a shilling or so ; and a 
 stray or two from the same collection, long prior to the 
 dispersion of 1897, has occurred in the auction-rooms. 
 I have to mention in particular the Spaldmg Chartulary, 
 sold in 1871. But a few still remained on the old ground, 
 and fortunately five were bound up together in one 
 volume, which was not comprised in the wretched fiasco 
 and anti-climax. This precious collection was offered to 
 Mr. Jacobus Weale, while he was still curator at South 
 Kensington, for £20, and declined, because, as an officer 
 of a public institution, he could not accept it at that 
 price, and was unable to pay the real value. Two, Curia 
 Sapiential, by Lydgate, and Parvus et Magnus Cato, have 
 since been acquired by the British Museum, with five 
 excessively rare specimens of the press of Wynkyn de 
 Wofde. The National Library did not require the Rey- 
 nard the Fox or the Game of the Chess. 
 
 The Spalding case was as unique as some of the books 
 themselves. The owner seems to have been grossly igno- 
 rant of their value, as well as wholly indifferent to the 
 property as heirlooms. 
 
 Except as a matter of record and history, the collec- 
 tor need not so greatly concern himself with all those 
 libraries which have been scattered, and yet he finds 
 it desirable to refer to the catalogues, if they were 
 publicly sold, in order to trace books from one hand 
 to another, till they return into the market and find 
 a new owner — perhaps himself. One might fill a volume 
 
54 
 
 HISTORY OF 
 
 with a list of all the sales, which the last forty years 
 have witnessed; but, taking the principal names, let us 
 enumerate : — 
 
 Addington 
 
 Ashburnham 
 
 Auchinleck-Boswell 
 
 Bandinel 
 
 Beckford 
 
 Blew 
 
 Bliss 
 
 Bolton Corney 
 
 Collier 
 
 Cprser 
 
 Cosens 
 
 Crossley 
 
 Dunn-Gardner 
 
 Fountaine 
 
 Fraser of Lovat 
 
 Frere 
 
 Fry 
 
 Gibson-Craig 
 
 Halliwell-Phillipps 
 
 Hamilton Palace 
 
 Hartley 
 
 Henry Cunliffe 
 
 Inglis 
 
 Ireland 
 
 Johnson of Spalding 
 
 Laing 
 
 Maidment 
 
 Makellar of Edinburgh 
 
 Middle Hill 
 
 Mitford 
 
 Offor 
 
 Osterley Park 
 
 Ouvry 
 
 Rimbault 
 
 Sir David Dundas 
 
 Sir John Fenn 
 
 Sir John Simeon 
 
 Singer 
 
 Stourhead 
 
 Sunderland 
 
 Surrenden 
 
 Syston Park 
 
 Way 
 
 William Morris (residue after 
 
 private sale) 
 Wolfreston 
 
 Within these broad lines, which do not include libraries 
 privately acquired by institutions, such as the Rev. W. Dyce, 
 Forster, and Sandars, or by the trade, which is an almost 
 daily incidence, are comprehended a preponderant share 
 of all the important books which have come to the front 
 since the earliest period, of which there is an authentic 
 register. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 55 
 
 For we have to recollect that many of the persons 
 whose possessions were "dispersed only in our time were 
 buyers a century or more ago, and had from Osborne, at 
 what still appear to our weak minds provokingly low 
 prices, his Harleian bargains. By the way, he kept 
 them a tolerably long time. Did some one help him 
 to find the money, or did he pay it by instalments? 
 Seriously speaking, it was rather a white elephant. 
 One of the most notorious private transactions in the 
 way of sales of books en bloc was that by the Royal 
 Society in 1873 of the 'printed portion of the Pirk- 
 heimer Library, presented to it by Henry Howard, Duke 
 of Norfolk, the first president, and originally purchased 
 by his ancestor, the celebrated Earl of Arundel, in 
 1636. 
 
 The dispersion of the Harleian Library doubtless gave 
 an impetus to the revival in the eighteenth century of a 
 taste for book-collecting; but of course a large propor- 
 tion of the purchases from Osborne himself was on the 
 part of buyers who parted with their acquisitions, and 
 of whom we have no further record. But the Osterley 
 Park and Ham House collections, the latter still intact, 
 owed many indeed of their greatest treasures to this source. 
 In 1768 Dr. Johnson, who had had a leading hand in the 
 compilation of the Harleian Catalogue, and had so gained 
 a considerable experience of the bearings of the matter, 
 as they were then understood, addressed a long and in- 
 teresting letter to the King's Librarian -on the subject of 
 
56 • HISTORY OF 
 
 the public collections of Europe and other bibliographical 
 particulars. 
 
 Of the libraries above mentioned, the Sunderland, 
 Syston Park (Sir John Thorold), and Hamilton-Beckford 
 collections owed their chief importance to early typo- 
 graphy, editiones princvpes of the classics, and bindings. 
 Among the Blenheim books were a few miscellaneous 
 rarities in the English class. Of Beckford's volumes many 
 contained his MSS. notes. 
 
 The Surrenden (Dering family), Stourhead (Sir Richard 
 Colt-Hoare), and Hartley libraries were historical and 
 topographical. In the Inglis, Dunn-Gardner, and Oster- 
 ley Park (Earl of Jersey) catalogues we encounter, among 
 a good deal that is more or less commonplace, the rarest 
 ancient typography, poetry, and romances. 
 
 We next approach the larger and more important 
 Private Collections of books, which are more or less of 
 a permanent and hereditary character, and which we have 
 to content ourselves with admiring at a distance or other- 
 wise according to circumstances. We cannot enumerate 
 the holders of a few volumes or so up and down the 
 country. The names of which we think are Devonshire, 
 Bute, Bath, Dysart, Bridgewater (Earl of Ellesmere), 
 Britwell, Huth, Aldenham (H. H. Gibbs), and Acton 
 (or Carnegie). The Duke of Fife is believed to possess 
 some curious books inherited from Skene of Skene. The 
 Duke of Northumberland owns a few, and a few are in the 
 possession of Lord Robartes at Llanhydrock, near Bodmin, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 57 
 
 Lord Aldenham, and Mr. Wynn of Peniarth. All these 
 centres affect the book-collector in one of two ways : in 
 showing him what, exists, and in showing him now and 
 then what he is never likely to obtain. For in these 
 repositories there are actually certain things which have 
 never been offered for sale, and of which the most inde- 
 fatigable research has failed to bring to light other 
 examples. Such is not the case, however, with Lord 
 Acton's library at Aldenham Park, near Bridgnorth. 
 That is a collection made by a scholar for scholars; it 
 is wonderfully extensive* and complete in its way, and 
 it were much to be desired that it should be preserved 
 intact. It commercial value is, relatively to its extent, 
 inconsiderable. 
 
 The collections at Chatsworth and Devonshire House 
 (including the books of Henry Cavendish and many of 
 those of Thomas Hobbes) principally consist of early 
 printed literature, English and foreign, and old plays; 
 of the latter the Kemble dramatic library formed the 
 nucleus, Payne Collier filling up at the Heber and other 
 sales many important lacimce. The late Duke ill-advisedly 
 engaged a foreign gentleman to compile his catalogue, 
 and the result is most" unfortunate. Besides the Henry 
 Cavendish and Hobbes elements, a few very valuable 
 items came from the old library at Bolton Abbey, York- 
 shire. 
 
 The Althorp heirlooms, now removed to Manchester, 
 have been familiarised by the catalogues of them printed 
 
58 HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 by Dibdin ; but there are hundreds of precious volumes 
 which he has overlooked, and *of which some account is 
 given in the present writer's Collections from the books 
 themselves. An idea of the Dysart and Britwell libraries 
 is to be gathered from Blades's Caxton, Dibdin s Ames, 
 and Hazlitt's Collections. Of the possessions in this way 
 of the Marquises of Bath and Bute we gain only casual 
 glimpses from the same sources. Payne Collier and 
 Hazlitt have made the Bridgewater House library fairly 
 well known. The Huth one is elsewhere referred to, and 
 of Lord Acton's a sale catalogue of a portion was pre- 
 pared some years since, as well as a bibliographical 
 account; but the former was suppressed, and the latter 
 remains incomplete and in MS. 
 
 Of Lord Aldenham's collection (Early English Litera- 
 ture, Bibles, Classics, MSS., &c.) there is a privately 
 printed catalogue, 1888, and there is also one of the late 
 Mr. Locker-Lampson's literary treasures. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Classification of collections — Origin of the taste for books — 
 Schedule of topics or branches of inquiry — Each separately 
 considered and the authorities cited — Ancient typography — 
 British history and topography— Liturgies — Books of Hours — 
 The Imitatio Ohristi — Pilgrim's Progress — Books of Emblems — 
 Books of Characters — Books printed before the Great Fire, at 
 Oxford, during the Civil War and Interregnum, &c. — Mon- 
 astic and patristic writers — English devotional and other books 
 printed abroad — Froschover's Zurich Bible of 1550 — Other 
 Bibles— The French Bible of 1523-28 — Minor specialisms. 
 
 As books, in a manuscript or printed shape, are far 
 more numerous and varied than any other species of pro- 
 perty, and are also more largely sought for purposes of 
 direct study and instruction, there exists the greater 
 difficulty in attempting to advise collectors as to the line 
 which it is best, wisest, or safest to embrace. 
 
 The class of persons who engage in this attractive 
 pursuit are : — 
 
 i 
 
 (i) Pure amateurs, without any eye to the financial question. 
 
 (ii) Specialists of more than a single kind, 
 (iii) Students, 
 (iv) Speculators. 
 
 (v) Miscellaneous or casual buyers. 
 
 The normal amateur starts, in general, without any 
 well-defined scheme before him. He has seen in the 
 
60 HISTORY OF 
 
 hands of a friend, perhaps, a curious book; and the 
 notion takes possession of him, rather stealthily, yet 
 rather languidly too, that it might be a " nice " thing 
 to have oneself — that or such another. The spirit of 
 collecting, like a delicate germ, is at first easily extin- 
 guished ; but an incident as trivial and fortuitous as the 
 one just suggested has ere now constituted the nucleus 
 and starting-point of a large library. It may, indeed, 
 be a favourable symptom and augury when a man begins 
 circumspectly and deliberately; he is more apt, bther 
 circumstances favouring, to prosecute his scheme to the 
 end, and to prove a valuable friend to the trade. 
 
 We have mentioned that the Specialist may be of 
 more than one sort. He may, in short, be of ten 
 thousand sorts ; and the Student, after all, may be 
 bracketed with him ; for both equally devote their 
 exclusive attention to a prescribed class of works or 
 branch of inquiry for a more or less definite term. 
 
 The subjects which principally engage the notice of 
 specialists are : — 
 
 Ancient Typography (including 
 Xylographic works). 
 
 English, Scotish, and Irish His- 
 tory. 
 
 English Topography. 
 
 English Genealogy and Family 
 History. 
 
 Liturgies and Prayer-Books. 
 
 Books of Hours. •' 
 
 Bibles. 
 
 Roman Catholic books. 
 English books printed abroad. 
 Voyages and Travels. 
 Irish Literature. 
 Scotish Literature. 
 Early illustrated books. 
 Modern illustrated books. 
 French illustrated books. 
 Books of Emblems. 
 Books of Engravings. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 61 
 
 Early English Poetry. 
 
 Early Romances. 
 
 Early Music. 
 
 Spanish Romances. 
 
 Italian Romances. 
 
 Dantesque Literature. 
 
 Cromwell Literature. 
 
 Civil War and Commonwealth 
 
 tracts. 
 Editions of the Imitatio Christi. 
 
 Editions of the Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress. 
 Occult Literature. 
 Folk-lore. 
 Tobacco. 
 
 Educational books. 
 Caricatures in book form. 
 Miracles and phenomena. 
 Broadsides. 
 Chap-books. 
 
 There is probably not much of consequence to be 
 suggested outside this calendar from which an intending 
 collector may make his choice. Each of the topics 
 indicated is, for the most part, susceptible of being 
 subdivided and subdivided again. 
 
 Ancient Typography is not only a large, but a difficult 
 and costly field. It is, notwithstanding, a not unusual 
 circumstance for a beginner, and not a rich one, to start 
 by making himself master of a few examples of our first 
 printers; and this arises from the fact that among the 
 remains in such a line of collecting are pieces of no high 
 interest or character, and copies whose condition does 
 not attract the riper connoisseur. At the same time it 
 arises from the feeling of the period which witnessed the 
 dawn of the art, that a heavy percentage of the output 
 of the printers of all countries amounts tq little more 
 than typographical curiosities, which may be substantially 
 possessed in the form of an example of moderate cost. 
 The novice generally selects books and tracts of foreign 
 origin, and of a theological or technical complexion. 
 
62 HISTORY OF 
 
 Perhaps he goes further — even so far as to discard his 
 earlier purchases ; perhaps he does not. It is a matter of 
 taste and money. If he does not seek the finest and 
 rarest specimens, especially in the English series, it is not 
 too much to say that i?500 spread over a career would 
 suffice to procure one a fair representation in which 
 Fust and Schoeffer, Gutenberg, Mentelin, and Caxton 
 might appear in the form of a leaf — possibly a damaged 
 one. Yet there would be a chronological view in 
 actual originals of the art of printing from the com- 
 mencement in all countries. We go for our facts on 
 this subject to Panzer, Hain, Brunet, the British Museum 
 Catalogue, &c. 
 
 British History and Topography are alike depart- 
 ments which can scarcely be regarded as specialities 
 without questionable fitness. For when we survey the 
 catalogues of those who have professedly restricted their 
 aim to these two ranges, and reflect that all such col- 
 lections are, by the light of bibliographical authorities, 
 more or less tentative and imperfect, we are brought 
 to the conclusion that there would be, in a thoroughly 
 exhaustive treatment of the matter, less left outside than 
 could be found within. Of the divisions which present 
 themselves above so much is capable of being drawn 
 into the two other series. Numerically an assemblage 
 of ancient and modern books in these classes would be 
 by possibility immense. But the attendant outlay, unless 
 certain signal rarities were included, or it was deemed 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 63 
 
 necessary to comprise all the poetical relics with a 
 historical or a topographical side, ought not to be 
 relatively so high as that on the preceding category, 
 particularly if the acquirer were satisfied here and 
 there with trustworthy reproductions of three-and-four- 
 figure items. From .£1000 to ,£1500 will go a long 
 way in supplying a collection with that qualifying 
 proviso ; without it, four . times the amount would 
 barely cover you. The Hartley and Phillipps catalogues 
 should be consulted, as well as Upcott and other older 
 authorities. 
 
 Liturgies form one of the tastes and objects of pursuit 
 of persons who have left behind them the fancies of their 
 novitiate, and possess the means of purchasing a descrip- 
 tion of literature which is abnormally costly, and might 
 prove more so, were the buyers more numerous. The 
 editions of the Prayer-Book fall under this section, and 
 are almost innumerable, being tantamount to Annuals, 
 and of many years we possess more than one issue. 
 
 The printed Boohs of Hours might, from their extent, 
 as regards subordinate variations arising from the dif- 
 ferent uses and occasional changes in portions of the 
 ritual, constitute in themselves a life's study and absorb 
 a fortune. There is great disparity in their typographi- 
 cal and artistic execution, no less than in their com- 
 mercial value. A tolerably full description of the 
 series occurs in Brunet, Lowndes, Maskell, the British 
 Museum Catalogue, and in those of the principal 
 
64 HISTORY OF 
 
 collectors on these lines. Of those adapted to English or 
 Scotish uses there is an account in Hazlitt's Collections; 
 but we may look in the early future for an exhaustive 
 monograph from the pen of Mr. Jacobus Weale. 
 
 The British Museum is singularly rich in editions 
 in all languages of the Imitatio Christi, having enjoyed 
 the recent opportunity of supplying wants from an 
 enormous collection sold by public auction en bloc. The 
 Offor Catalogue is considered an authority on the Pil- 
 grim's Progress and other works of Bunyan; but the 
 National Library contains a large proportion of these 
 books, and the Huth Catalogue and Hazlitt's Collections 
 must not be overlooked. 
 
 The authorities just cited, the Corser Catalogue, and 
 the publications of the Holbein Society, will prove useful 
 guides to any one desirous of studying the Emblem 
 Series, which was some time since in marked request, 
 but has sustained the customary relapse, and is what 
 booksellers term rather slow just now. Our own litera- 
 ture is not particularly wealthy in these productions ; 
 there is nothing of consequence beyond Whitney, Peacham, 
 The Mirror of Majesty, 1618, Wither, Quarles, and 
 Harvey {School of the Heart). But if the collector goes 
 outside the national frontier, he mee^s with works of 
 this class in even bewildering abundance in regard to 
 number, variety of type and treatment, and degree of 
 artistic and literary merit. Moreover, among the works 
 of this species just enumerated as of national origin, four 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 65 
 
 of the six were more or less heavily indebted to the Conti- 
 nent ; the Whitney was printed at Leyden, and Wither, 
 Quarles, and Harvey did little more than write English 
 letterpress to sets of foreign plates. 
 
 Books of Characters, of which perhaps Earle's Micro- 
 cosmography, 1628, is the most familiar, have attracted 
 attention from more than one of our book-fanciers ; they 
 constitute a somewhat extensive seiiS, and we gain a fair 
 aperfu of it in the catalogue of the library of Dr. Bliss, 
 of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, 1858. It was Bliss who 
 reprinted Earle in 1811, and inserted a bibliography of 
 publications on similar lines. 
 
 The above-mentioned gentleman also lent himself to 
 two other paths of collecting: one suggested by local 
 associations, and consisting of works printed at Oxford, 
 the second dealing with those which appeared just prior 
 to the Great Fire of London in 1666. 
 
 One of Bliss's Oxford friends, Dr. Bandinel, Bodley's 
 librarian, made it his speciality to bring together as 
 many of the fugitive publications as possible relative to 
 the Civil War Period and the Commonwealth, and Mr. 
 John Forster did the same. The Bandinel Catalogue, 
 1861, is an excellent guide on this ground, although it 
 is almost unnecessary to state that it is very incomplete. 
 The best and most exhaustive assemblage of the literature 
 of the Troubles and Interregnum (1640-59) is the de- 
 scriptive list of the King's pamphlets in the British 
 Museum formed by Thomason the stationer. 
 
66 HISTORY OF 
 
 The interest and profit attendant on the study of the 
 monastic and patristic writers, who may be said to be less 
 strictly national and more cosmopolitan than those of 
 later schools, are, as a rule, casual and slender for the 
 merely literary consulter or peruser, supposing the rather 
 extreme case, where such a person is sufficiently courageous 
 and robust to engage in anything approaching a serious 
 examination of these families of books. The authors were 
 true enthusiasts, labouring to their lives' last thread in 
 some obscure cell or dim closet, where pride of author- 
 ship, as we may feel and enjoy it, there was none, when 
 beyond the walls of a convent or those of a native town 
 their names were unknown, their personality unrecognised. 
 Except to the theologian or ritualist how repellent and 
 illegible this mass of printed and manuscript matter 
 must ever seem ! How deficient in human sympathy 
 and pertinence! These treatises, so erudite, so prolix, 
 and so multifarious, were composed by men (Universal, 
 Irrefragable, or Seraphic Doctors), and after a certain 
 date by women too (Angelical Sisters), who had no know- 
 ledge of the world, of society, of human nature, or of 
 real philosophy. Yet they were, and long remained, the 
 class of literature most cultivated, most studied, and 
 most multiplied; and to this hour, notwithstanding the 
 destruction of millions of them, they abound in our 
 national, cathedral, and college libraries, and in private 
 collections dedicated to that particular side of inquiry 
 and learning. In the booksellers 1 catalogues we some- 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 67 
 
 times meet with examples, which are recommended to 
 the curious buyer by their illustrations of conventual 
 life, and their exposure of those vices which a state of 
 celibacy is calculated to promote in both sexes. The 
 chained book is not an uncommon feature in the ancient 
 ecclesiastical repositories, and even in certain churches; 
 and apart from the Scriptures, it almost invariably enters 
 into the department of early divinity or polemics. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of this branch of the 
 theological library, there is an undoubted market for it, 
 or some portions of it, as stocks are kept both here and 
 abroad, although on a more restricted scale, perhaps, 
 than formerly. It is extremely probable that, if any 
 one who was learned enough and dexterous enough should 
 make a decoction of all the uncountable folios which 
 exist up and down the globe, the result might be a single 
 volume of not very ample dimensions, affording its share 
 of insight and edification. 
 
 The call on the part of a narrow coterie of churchmen 
 for the Catholic literature of the sixteenth and succeeding 
 centuries, more especially the books produced at Conti- 
 nental presses, necessarily resulted in the rapid inflation 
 of the value, while it brought to light from numberless 
 recesses a vast assemblage of works previously undescribed 
 and unknown. Many of these works were produced at 
 obscure localities in France and the Netherlands; but 
 Paris, Douay, Brussels, Antwerp, Mecklin, Tournai, 
 Bruges, Ghent, Breda, are responsible for a majority. 
 
68 HISTORY OF 
 
 Besides the purely religious publications, quite a large 
 number of secular books, and those of permanent and 
 striking interest, owed their origin to the same region, 
 particularly to Amsterdam, the Hague, Middelburg, 
 Dort. The source of all this foreign production was 
 mainly either the employment of Englishmen and Scots 
 abroad on military service, or their residence there in 
 exile or for other purposes. Italy, Switzerland, Germany, 
 and even Poland, lent their presses to the British author ; 
 the scarce tracts by James Crichton (the Admirable) pro- 
 ceeded from Milan or Venice. We know what important 
 centres for English controversial divinity and political 
 pamphleteering were Geneva, Basle, and Zurich, and the 
 last-named place is particularly associated with the name 
 of Christopher Frbschover, printer of the Bible of 1550. 
 A distinct feature in this vast body of Continental typo- 
 graphy connected with us is the curious and often unique 
 light which it incidentally throws on the lives of our 
 countrymen and countrywomen, segregated by their 
 employments or opinions from their compatriots at 
 home, and obliged to resort to printers ignorant of the 
 language which they committed to type. A tolerably 
 exhaustive estimate may be found of this branch of the 
 subject by a reference to the General Index of Hazlitfs 
 Collections (1867-91). 
 
 To the Duke of Sussex's Catalogue, and those of 
 Lea Wilson, George Offor, Francis Fry, William Maskell, 
 W. J. Loftie, W. J. Blew, Farmer - Atkinson, Lord 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 69 
 
 Ashburnham, and the Rev. W. Makellar of Edinburgh, 
 we must go for the means of bibliographically estimating 
 the editions of the Scriptures and the Prayer-Book ; and 
 the Huth and Caxton Exhibition Catalogues should 
 be consulted. The ordinary English and American col- 
 lector seldom goes beyond English, French, German, 
 and Latin Bibles. Of all these, not even excepting the 
 Fust and Gutenberg or Mazarin, the original impression 
 of the Scriptures in French, published at Paris and 
 Antwerp in six volumes between 1523 and 1528, is by 
 far the rarest; and the next place or rank is perhaps 
 due to the German one, printed at Zurich in the same 
 number of volumes, 1527-29, of which an imperfect copy 
 is in the Huth Library. The Mazarin Bible has grown 
 rather commoner of late years. It is certainly much 
 more so than Coverdale's English one of 1535 in a 
 perfect state, or Tyndale's New Testament of 1526. It 
 is a point about it not generally known, that the extant 
 copies on vellum and on paper differ. 
 
 For History, Genealogy, Topography, and well-nigh 
 all other branches of human science, the student finds 
 himself referred to the Middle-Hill Library, now in 
 course of gradual dispersion; but this is far richer in 
 the manuscript than in the printed book department. 
 He may also profitably consult the catalogues of Mr. 
 Hartley and Mr. Tyrrell (City Remembrancer), of whom 
 the second collected largely on London. 
 
 Mr. Bolton Corney, Mr. Grenville, and Mr. Jadis 
 
70 HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 made voyages and travels, books relating to America, 
 and the first-named literary adversaria, distinct features 
 in their enormous aggregate of volumes. 
 
 Information on early English poetry and the drama 
 may be sought in the catalogues of Sykes, Perry, Calde- 
 cott, Heber, Chalmers, Jolley, Wolfreston, Way, Daniel, 
 Cprser, Collier, Frere, Bliss, Bright, Mitford, Ouvry, 
 Bandinel, Halliwell-Phillipps, and of course Huth. 
 
 Mr. Brook Pulham concentrated his attention on the 
 writings of George Wither, Mr. Bragge on works illus- 
 trative of Smokers and Tobacco, and Major Irwin on 
 the occult and supernatural. 
 
 Mr. Henry Pyne during a long series of years made 
 an extensive collection, restricted to English books dated 
 prior to the year 1600, and as a rule, it must be added, 
 to the commoner class of publications. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Voyages and travels — Their strong American interest — Maryland 
 and Pennsylvania — New Plymouth — Sir John Mandeville — 
 Columbus and Vespucci — Early medical literature — Harvey 
 and the circulation of the blood — Occult literature — Phenomena 
 — Technical works — The paddle-wheel — Books printed in a 
 special manner — Chapbooks — Garlands — Ballads — Broadsides 
 — Street advertisements— General or miscellaneous collections 
 — Omnivorous buyers — Richard Heber, Sir Thomas Phillipps, 
 James Crossley — A moral deduced — Most interesting types 
 of collector — Advantages connected with restriction to per- 
 sonal tastes or wants — Dangers of emulation and servility — 
 Mr. Quaritch's Dictionary of Collectors — Various sorts of genuine 
 collector. 
 
 * 
 
 Voyages and Travels have always engaged a large share 
 of attention and study, and comprise the central and 
 very interesting feature of almost the entire body of 
 early Americana, dealing with the discovery and colonisa- 
 tion of that continent. This part of the subject before 
 us has received, owing to recent political occurrences, a 
 further development in the direction of Africa. To the 
 purely American collector, who of course takes in Canada, 
 his own literary heirlooms are unexceptionally material ; 
 and if' he works on a comprehensive principle, he admits 
 every item relevant to the series, however costly and 
 however individually trivial. An Englishman, as a rule, 
 is content with typical or representative examples. The 
 
72 HISTORY OF 
 
 late Mr. Huth long remained unpersuaded that books 
 of this character were desiderata. 
 
 There can be no doubt, however — and Mr. Huth 
 concurred so far from the outset — that there are certain 
 Anglo-American works which are, so to speak, indispens- 
 able to a library of any pretensions. For instance, it 
 must not be without such capital productions as those 
 written or published in elucidation of the history of the 
 New World by Drake, Cavendish, Hakluyt, and Purchas ; 
 or such, again, as contribute to throw light on the settle- 
 ment of New England and the progress of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers. This group of literature has grown within the 
 last twenty years almost unattainable by the less opulent 
 bibliophile ; its commercial value has risen to four times 
 that to which the previous generation was accustomed. 
 The most signal feature in the whole series is, however, 
 out of the pale of commerce. The precious manuscript 
 found at Fulham Palace in 1896, giving a detailed account 
 of the settlement of New Plymouth, has by a graceful 
 international act been restored, as it were, to its fittest 
 home, although many of us in Old England would have, 
 no doubt, preferred to see it deposited in Great Russell 
 Street. 
 
 There is another source of association with the mother 
 country which commends to the notice of many, not 
 exclusively American in their tastes or objects, the literary 
 memorials of Maryland and Pennsylvania, so intimately 
 associated with the English families of Calvert and Penn. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 73 
 
 There is no rarer volume among the first Anglo-American 
 monuments than Hariot's Virginia, 1588, which is worth 
 from =£100 to .£120. 
 
 Among the favourite books ■ of travel are Sir John 
 Mandeville's Voyages, of which there are ancient editions 
 in English, French, Italian, and German, and which is 
 being constantly reproduced with the quaint illustrations. 
 The narratives of Pinto, " prince of liars," and Bruce are 
 gaining increased credit and confidence. Leo's Description 
 of Africa, in the English version of 1600, has a map 
 already showing the source of the Nile in an inland lake. 
 The labours of the Hakluyt and Geographical Societies 
 have conferred respectively .great benefits on the cause of 
 discovery and verification. 
 
 In the famous Letter of Colwmbus, 1493, in its 
 various forms, the Mtmdus Novus and Paesi Retrovate 
 (1507) of Vespucci, and a few other leading publications, 
 there is a recognised interest regardless of the countries 
 of origin. 
 
 We owe to the entrance into the lists of sundry 
 members of the medical profession a temporary emergence 
 from oblivion and respite from the waste-basket of what 
 the booksellers describe in their catalogues as "Rare 
 Early Medical.'" There is no doubt that among these 
 obsolete publications may be detected many curious points 
 and many evidences of former acquaintance with supposed 
 latter-day inventions or ideas. A prominent feature in 
 the series is Harvey's Latin treatise on the circulation of 
 
74 HISTORY OF 
 
 the blood, of which he was the (rather late British) dis- 
 coverer. But, on the whole, the group of early works 
 dealing with medicine and surgery is of questionable 
 interest outside the purely practical range as a com- 
 parative study, and those which treat of anatomy and 
 other cognate topics are in the last degree gruesome. 
 They are the antipodes to the belles lettres. 
 
 Occult Literature is susceptible of a division into 
 several classes or sections : Religious Cults, Necromancy, 
 Magic, Second Sight, Divination, Astrology, Palmistry, 
 of which all have their special literatures and biblio- 
 graphies. Major Irwin recently sold an extensive series 
 of works on these and kindred topics. Cornelius Agrippa, 
 Ashmole, Bulwer, Lilly, Partridge, Gadbury are among 
 the foremost names of older writers in the present cate- 
 gories. But for the faiths and worships of antiquity 
 which may be ranked in the first order of importance 
 and solid interest, we chiefly depend on modern books, 
 such as Payne, Knight, Inman, Davies, Forlong; and 
 there is quite a small library on that branch which 
 touches on theosophy and similar speculations — all having 
 a common source in the grand principle of Agnosticism. 
 Further information will be found collected on this and 
 the topics which we notice below in Hazlitt's Popular 
 Antiquities, 1870. 
 
 For those who are interested in Portents, Phenomena, 
 Lusus Natural, Murders, Earthquakes, Fires, there is the 
 catalogue of Mb. Nassau, 1824. The British Museum 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 75 
 
 has in recent times grown more complete in the same 
 direction. The founders and earlier curators of the 
 institution appear to have regarded such nugas as beneath 
 the dignity of a national library ; but in fact the 
 information which they, and possibly they alone, convey, 
 is frequently of historical, biographical, or topographical 
 relevance. 
 
 There has been a rather marked tendency to a rise 
 in the value of a section of technical publications which 
 deals with the earliest notices in English literature of 
 such subjects as Electricity, the Microscope, the Steam- 
 Engine, the Paddle- Wheel, and the Telephone, and the 
 books identified with these subjects are now commanding 
 very high prices. An uncut copy of Thomas Savery's 
 Navigation Improved, 1698, where the principle of the 
 paddle-wheel is discussed, fetched at Sotheby's in June 
 1896, £16, 15s. 
 
 This is a somewhat fresh departure, but it is not an 
 unsound or unreasonable one, and the series is limited. 
 An almost invariable incidence of these artificial figures 
 is to draw out other copies, and then the barometer 
 falls. 
 
 The name of Me. Eyton is identified with copies of 
 books printed on vellum or on some special paper, not 
 unfrequently for his own use or pleasure ; and this gentle- 
 man's catalogue is serviceable to such as desire to follow 
 his precedent, of which the modern Edition de Luxe is 
 an outgrowth. Eytop would have proved an invaluable 
 
76 HISTORY OF 
 
 friend to Japanese vellum, had he belonged to a later 
 decade of the century. 
 
 The Chap-Book, which dates from the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, and was sold for a silver penny of her Highness, 
 becomes less rare under the Stuarts, and common to 
 excess at a later period down to our own days. A large 
 proportion of this species of literature consists of abridg- 
 ments of larger works or of new versions on a scale suited 
 to the penny History and Garland. Pepys was rather 
 smitten with those which appeared in and about his 
 own time, and at Magdalen, Cambridge, with the rest 
 of his library, a considerable number of them is bound 
 up in volumes, lettered Penny Merriments and Penny 
 Godlinesses respectively. The Huth Collection possesses 
 many which were formerly in the Heber and Daniel 
 libraries. All these productions share bhe common attri- 
 butes of very coarse paper, very rough cuts, and very 
 poor type. They are interesting as • eminently jbTk-bodks 
 — books printed for the multitude, and now, especially 
 when the article happens to be of unusual importance 
 and rarity, worth several times their weight in gold. 
 Two catalogues of Chap-Books and Popular Histories 
 were edited by Mr. Halliwell for the Percy Society in 
 1848-49. 
 
 In the present writer's bibliographical works, to which 
 there is a General Index, will be found an account of all 
 that have come into the market between 1866 and 1892. 
 Thousands upon thousands have unquestionably perished. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 77 
 
 The most fascinating member of the Chap-Book series 
 is undoubtedly the Garland — not so much a volume by 
 a given author, such as the Court of Venus (1558) and 
 Deloney's Garland of Good Will, 1596, as a miscellany 
 by sundry hands. The next earliest of these collec- 
 tions known to us at present are the Muses' Garland, 
 1608, and Love's Garland, 1624. Those in Pepys's 
 library at Cambridge are of much later date, yet of some 
 no duplicates can be quoted, so vast has been the de- 
 struction of these ephemerides. Of the Pepysian Garlands 
 a certain proportion are reprints of older editions or 
 repositories of songs and ballads belonging to an anterior 
 date, and here and there we meet with lyrics extracted 
 from contemporary dramatic performances. 
 
 Besides Pepys, Narcissus Luttrell the Diarist displayed 
 b. taste for fugitive and popular publications, and the 
 copies acquired by him eventually found their way, for the 
 most -part, into Heber's hands, whence they have drifted 
 in large measure either into the British Museum or the 
 Miller and Huth collections. Numerous unique examples 
 of the popular literature of his own day, again, are pre- 
 served among Robert Burton's books in the Bodleian. 
 
 Allied to the chap-book are the broadsides of various 
 classes, including the Ballad, popular and political, the 
 Advertisement and the Proclamation. So far as we know, 
 the second division exhibits the most ancient specimen 
 in our own literature, and is a notification on a single 
 leaf by Caxton respecting Picas of Salisbury use. This 
 
78 HISTORY OF 
 
 precious relic, of which only two copies are recorded, 
 appeared about 1480. It must have been soon after the 
 introduction of printing into London and Westminster 
 that resort was had to the press for making public at 
 all events matters of leading importance ; but we do not 
 seem to possess any actual evidence of the issue of such 
 documents save in isolated instances till toward the end 
 of the century, and they are chiefly in the shape of 
 indulgences and other ecclesiastical manifestos, circulated 
 in all probability in the most limited numbers and pecu- 
 liarly liable to disappearance. 
 
 The Ballad proper cannot be said to be anterior to 
 the closing years of Henry VIII., subsequently to the fall 
 of Cromwell, Earl of Essex, when the composition relative 
 to that incident printed in the collections appeared, and 
 was followed by the series preserved in the library of the 
 Society of Antiquaries of London, and reprinted in the 
 writers Fugitive Tracts, 1875. From the time of Eliza- 
 beth onward the broadside in its varied aspects grew 
 abundant, and served as a substitute for newspaper 
 notices, so long as the press remained an insufficient 
 medium. The British Museum and Society of Anti- 
 quaries possess large collections of this kind. Lord Craw- 
 ford has printed a catalogue of his Proclamations, and 
 in the writer's Collections, 1867-92, occur thousands of 
 these ephemerides arranged under what appeared to be 
 their appropriate heads. 
 
 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 79 
 
 sheet format lent itself largely and conveniently to 
 teachers, quack doctors, astrologers, announcing their 
 addresses, qualifications, and terms, no less than to the 
 official, municipal, or parochial authorities, and to private 
 persons who desired to give publicity to some current 
 matter by the exhibition of the placard on a wall or a 
 church door. There was yet another purpose which the 
 broadside was made to serve : prospectuses of schemes 
 and reports of companies' or societies' proceedings. The 
 purely temporary interest of such publications accounts 
 for their survival in unique examples and even fragments. 
 
 There is a general notion that the Harleian Miscellany 
 and the Somers Tracts represent between them a very 
 large proportion of the extant pamphlets and broadsheets 
 published during the sixteenth. and seventeenth centuries. 
 But, as a matter of fact, they do nothing of the sort. 
 Even in or about 1695 William Lay cock of the Inner 
 Temple drew attention to the unsuspected importance 
 of these fugitive publications in his printed proposal for 
 buying them up by a public subscription; but even in 
 the National Library, with all its immense accumulations, 
 and in Hazlitt's Collections, many thousands of items are 
 probably deficient; while the two sets of books above 
 mentioned contain a very slender percentage of the whole 
 — in fact, mere representative selections. 
 
 There have been men who coupled with a general 
 plan a speciality or two. For instance, Dyce, who laid a 
 collateral stress on Shdkespeariana ; Ireland, who made 
 
80 HISTORY OF 
 
 himself strong in Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt ; Crossley, who 
 had a peculiar affection for Defoe; Bliss, who collected 
 books of characters and books printed at Oxford or 
 just before the Great Fire of 1666; Bandinel, who was 
 smitten by the charms of the Civil War literature; 
 Corser, whose bibliographical sweethearts were Nicholas 
 Breton and Richard Brathwaite; and Rimbault, who 
 had two, Old Music and Old Plays. Mr. G. L. Gomme 
 is similarly situated : anthropology and folklore are his 
 foibles. It goes without saying that the Shakespearian 
 and dramatic student, from Sir Thomas Hanmer down- 
 ward, has usually made a stand on the literary remains 
 and works tending to illustrate their own labours; but 
 of course the relevance may be direct or indirect, and in 
 the latter case the specialist is found to cast his net 
 surprisingly wide. - - 
 
 Specialism, whether on the principle of personal taste 
 or of particular studies, has manifest advantages in an 
 age where the multitude and choice of books are so 
 bewildering, where of every work of any sort of value 
 or interest a man may have, not a single edition — all 
 that in a majority of instances was once available — but 
 a hundred or a thousand in all sorts of sizes and at all 
 sorts of prices. With the discontinuance of the older 
 paucity of literature, the facilities for lodging within a 
 modest bookcase a coterie of literary favourites have 
 sorrowfully decreased, and a collector finds it imperative 
 to draw the line more and more rigidly, if he does not 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 81 
 
 care to fall into one of two perils — excessive outlay or 
 excessive bulk. For we have not, as regards the former, 
 to go very far before we incur a serious expense, if it 
 happens that the run is on the rarer English section or 
 on what constitutes a picked library of the French type. 
 
 Of the miscellaneous group there are graduated and 
 varying types. The omnivorous accumulator, especially 
 where he does not insist on condition or binding, is the 
 dealer's idol. In the forefront of this class stand facile 
 prmcvpes Richard Heber and Sir Thomas Phillipps, for 
 the reason that they bought everything — whole libraries 
 and catalogues at a swoop. Yet both these distinguished 
 men have to be placed on a distinct footing from the 
 normal promiscuous buyer, such as Thomas Jolley, Joseph 
 Tasker, Edward Hailstone, Edward Solly, and a legion 
 of others, to whom anything in the guise of a book was 
 a sure bait, and who spurned Evelyn's motto : " Meliora 
 retmete."" Ascending a step or two higher, we come to 
 the men who repudiate specialism as narrowing and 
 troublesome, and who impose on themselves no restraint 
 save perchance in the direction of theology, science, and 
 arcana. They stop peremptorily at the belles lettres. 
 Singer, Mitford, Bliss, Bandinel, Forster, Cosens, Ireland, 
 Crossley, Sir John Simeon, were more or less of this 
 school. At a still greater altitude we meet with a yet 
 stronger tendency to draw the line at character or 
 condition, and there occur to us the names, under the 
 former head, of Capell, Malone, Douce, Bright, Chalmers, 
 
82 HISTORY .OF 
 
 Collier, Ouvry, Bolton Corney, David Laing, E. F. Rim- 
 bault, Halliwell-Phillipps, Frederick Locker, W. H. 
 Miller, Henry Cunliffe, R. S. Turner, and Henry Huth. 
 From the same point of view, nearly in the clouds are 
 discovered a small knot of fastidious dilettanti, who 
 purchase a volume in the same spirit as they might do 
 a picture or a piece of majolica ; and of this minority 
 Sir Andrew Fountaine, Sir David Dundas, and Samuel 
 Addington may perhaps be accepted as types. 
 
 The most interesting, and it may with permission be 
 added, intelligent type of book-collector, however, seems 
 to be that where, after a certain measure of preparatory 
 thought and training, one confines acquisitions for per- 
 manent ownership to volumes for which the acquirer has 
 a genuine personal relish. In general, the principle of 
 forming a library on this wholesome basis would be found 
 not only more useful, but more economical, since the 
 rarest and costliest articles are by no means, on the 
 whole, the most interesting or the most instructive. 
 In any case, the inconsiderate emulation by one collector 
 of others, who may have different objects and perhaps 
 ampler resources, is a course to be avoided. Even here 
 there is more than a single source or ground of induce- 
 ment to purchase. Setting aside the mere book of 
 reference, which has to be multiplied to suit various 
 exigencies, there may be said to be three classes of 
 literary propex-ty which rationally appeal to our sym- 
 pathy: (i) the volume which commends itself by its 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 83 
 
 intrinsic value and charm; (ii) that which has grown 
 dear from lengthened companionship and possibly heredi- 
 tary link ; (iii) and that which, unimportant so far as 
 its internal claims and merits are concerned, bears on its 
 face the evidence of having once belonged to a favourite 
 of our own or a world's hero. 
 
 One persuasive argument in favour of adopting the 
 miscellaneous or typical course in the choice of a library 
 is the rapid growth of the difficulty of meeting with the 
 rarer items in all important specialities. It is the general 
 plan on the part of every follower of particular lines to 
 commence, very often casually, by bringing home from 
 time to time a few volumes on a certain topic, or in a 
 given class of literature, or by one or two of a school 
 of writers ; and such a proceeding succeeds tolerably well, 
 till the owner makes discovery of volumes positively 
 essential to his object, and unattainable save by a heavy 
 outlay — perchance not even to be had at any price. It 
 is nearly always the lacimae for which we yearn; one or 
 two of our richer friends have them, and we have not. 
 What we possess anybody can get in a morning's walk ; 
 we find that we have travelled a long distance, and have 
 come to an impasse. It is very seldom indeed that a 
 man is satisfied with the cheaper and commoner articles 
 in a series, if he is aware of the existence of those which 
 just constitute the corner-stones of such a collection as 
 his. 
 
 On the contrary, by the process of sampling or picking 
 
84 HISTORY OF 
 
 out here and there, now and again, a book or a set of 
 books which chance or circumstances may throw in our 
 path, we may gradually acquire a easeful of most desir- 
 able specimens, against which it is out of the question 
 to raise any charge of incompleteness, where incomplete- 
 ness is the governing aim. Book-buying under these 
 conditions is a humour. We are at liberty to take or 
 leave. Because we conceive a fancy for a work by this 
 or that author, we feel under no obligation to accom- 
 modate every scrap which he has printed, or which his 
 friends or followers have penned. The object of our 
 personal selection suffices us ; and there perhaps we begin 
 and we end. It is our humour. 
 
 The auctioneers' and booksellers' catalogues of the 
 present day supply an instructive demonstration of the 
 gradual withdrawal from the market of many thousands 
 of articles, in Early English literature more particularly, 
 which at one time seemed to be of fairly frequent recur- 
 rence. They have been taken up into public collections 
 all over the world ; and the very few copies, not to speak 
 of unique examples, which time had spared, are beyond 
 the reach of the private purchaser of to-day. We have 
 only to study with attention the Heber and other leading 
 records of former libraries existing in this and other 
 countries to become convinced that the facilities for 
 acquiring an approximately complete library of the rarer 
 books grow narrower year by year. 
 
 There is, I submit, far too prevalent a tendency in 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 85 
 
 collectors to follow suit, to attach themselves to leaders 
 of temporary fashions. I plead for a greater indepen- 
 dence of opinion, where the taste is in any reasonable 
 measure cultivated and developed, or, again, where an 
 individual knows what pleases himself. By all means, 
 if it happens that he does not admire Shakespeare and 
 Bacon, Sydney and Jonson, Dryden and Pope, Byron 
 and Shelley, Scott's novels or Lamb's Elia, let him leave 
 them alone, and make his own free choice, even if it be 
 to go in for John Bunch, the Adventures of a Guinea, or 
 Luttrell's Letters to Julia. There is always the room for 
 hope that he may quit those pastures after a time and 
 seek more fruitful ones. What is important and desir- 
 able, . however, is that each person should be his own . 
 caterer. Schools are only useful where some writer of 
 real genius has been neglected or overlooked, or been 
 boycotted by the press, and attention to his works is only 
 a fair service to him, or a becoming, if tardy, tribute to 
 his memory. 
 
 Apropos of the increasing difficulty of obtaining 
 ■ certain old books noted above, the extensive scale on 
 which reproductions of original editions of Early English 
 literature have of recent years been made is certainly a 
 boon to literary inquirers, since the presence of such 
 reissues in our circulating libraries, if we do not choose 
 to buy them, tends at every step in many branches of 
 work to help us, and to render our undertakings more 
 complete. It frequently occurs that volumes and tracts, 
 
86 HISTORY OF 
 
 which are of very slight literary or intrinsic value, contain 
 valuable allusions and illustrations, which we might miss 
 in the absence of available copies. It is worth while to 
 take in one's hand even some puerile trifle by the author 
 of Adonais, if one is not obliged to buy it or asked to 
 become the possessor. One feels a curiosity to glance 
 for a moment at a volume which, we are constantly 
 assured in the catalogue, the writer did his utmost to 
 obliterate; and we sometimes wish that he had fully 
 succeeded. 
 
 Any of us, taking in his hands the series of English 
 Book-Collectors in course of issue by Mr. Quaritch 
 (Nos. 1-12), wilj. perceive without difficulty, if he go 
 no farther, the two distinct camps, so to speak, into 
 which the collecting fraternity may be, and is, broadly 
 divided and classifiable. You have, on the one hand, 
 the men who followed their personal taste, and amused 
 their leisure in late years after a busy life by purchasing 
 such works or such descriptions of literature as appealed 
 to them and fell within their resources; again, the 
 scholar or investigator who assembled round him what 
 illustrated his studies, not merely with an aim at 
 emulating others; or, once more, the gentleman of 
 fortune, who- evolved from his school-day acquisitions 
 a feeling or a passion for higher things, and made it 
 the business of his maturer time — even made it his 
 career — to carry out on a scale and on lines dictated 
 and governed by circumstances the predilection formed 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 87 
 
 in boyhood. On the contrary, there are for our con- 
 sideration and instruction the libraries which owed their 
 existence to less interesting motives, to the vague and 
 untrained pursuit of rare and expensive books and MSS., 
 on the judgment of others in rivalry of others, and the 
 enterers into the field of competition with a practical eye 
 and a financial side-look. Of all these great divisions 
 there are varieties naturally arising from personal char- 
 acter ; but of the collector pure and simple of the older 
 school, that type, we avow, most warmly and potently 
 attracts us which limited itself to the small and un- 
 pretentious book-closet, with just those things which the 
 master loved for their own sakes or for the sakes of the 
 donors — where the commercial element was wanting, and 
 where the library was not viewed in the same light as 
 railway or mining stock. It is a famous principle to 
 invest money prudently and well; but happy is he who 
 is wise enough to keep his library within narrow limits, 
 and rich enough to leave it, such as it may be, out of the 
 category of realisable assets. 
 
 Mr. Quaritch's project possesses in our eyes the 
 incidental merit of providing us with personal accounts 
 in a succinct form of many of the past proprietors of 
 English and American libraries, and enables us to see 
 at once how varied and fortuitous were ,the conditions 
 under which the task was begun and accomplished, with 
 what different measures of success and financial means; 
 and in what a preponderance , of instances it was an 
 
88 HISTORY OF 
 
 individual rather than an hereditary trait. Broadly 
 speaking, we recognise two varieties of collector from 
 all time: the one who confers his name on a library, 
 and the other whose library confers a name on him. 
 
 Even the family of genuine book-lovers — neither 
 virtuosos nor speculators — presents more than a single 
 type to our notice. We have the student who takes 
 a subject for treatment, and forms a small gathering 
 of the literary material necessary for his purpose, shoot- 
 ing it back perchance into the market, his immediate 
 task accomplished. There is the man like Coleridge, 
 who regarded the volumes which fell in his way as 
 casual and welcome visitors, of whom he asked questions, 
 or who answered his, and whose margins gave themselves 
 up to his untiring habit of registering whatever occurred 
 to him, before the passing — possibly borrowed — volume 
 went on its way again. There is Lamb, who was less 
 addicted to annotating his acquisitions, but who gave 
 them a permanent home, if they had come to him jure 
 emptionis, and were of the elect — not presentation — 
 copies, cold and crude, thrust into his hand by some 
 well-meaning acquaintance. There is Edward Fitzgerald, 
 dissimilar from all these, yet so far cognate that he 
 bought only the books which struck him as worth 
 reading, if not turning to some practical account. Nor 
 should we in strict fairness refuse admittance within this 
 highest circle even to such as Selden, Burton, Pepys, 
 and others who might be easily enumerated, who may 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 89 
 
 have been little more than curiosity-hunters', but who 
 had a genuine relish for pieces of old popular literature, 
 the greatest rarities in the language inclusive, when 
 there was barely any competition for them. The man 
 of the old school, who ransacked the shops and the 
 stalls, and even attended the auction, may have been 
 a faddist and a superficial student ; but his was an 
 honest sort of zeal and affection; there was no vanity 
 or jealousy ; and we meet with cases where one collector 
 would surrender to another an acquisition which the 
 latter happened to have missed, and to want very badly 
 indeed. So Isaac Reed gave up to George Steevens 
 Marlowe's Dido, and so George III. enjoined his agent 
 not to bid for him against a student or a scholar. 
 
 I have not yet quite done with this aspect of the 
 matter. I have to speak of the personages who have 
 thought fit to impose on themselves a chronological or 
 a financial limit, who drew the line at a given year, or 
 would not go beyond a certain figure. Mr. Henry Pyne 
 laid down 1600 as the latest date which he would admit, 
 and rarely exceeded a sovereign or two for a single 
 article (Dr. Doran gave me to understand that four- 
 pence was his maximum). It may appear strange to 
 suggest that the higher the sum paid for a book (assuming 
 it to be worth the money), the slighter the risk grows of 
 the purchase proving pecuniarily unprofitable. Yet at the 
 same time outlay on a library is a relative term, and 
 one individual may account himself as frugal in expend- 
 
90 HISTORY OF 
 
 ing i?30,000 in the course of a lifetime, as another may 
 do in expending i?300. The late Earl of Ashburnham 
 bought in chief measure during the forties and fifties, 
 when the reaction from the bibliomania still more or 
 less sensibly prevailed, and considering his Lordship's 
 position and resources, he was not much more lavish 
 than the above-mentioned Mr. Pyne, or indeed any other 
 amateur of average calibre, while he was to the full 
 extent as -genuine a follower of the pursuit for its mere 
 sake as anybody whom we could name — as the Duke of 
 Roxburghe, Mr. Heber, Mr. Corser, or Mr. Crossley. 
 
 In my Rolls of Collectors I specify a type under the 
 designation of Book-Recipients, and I instance such cases 
 as Dickens and Thackeray; but in fact there are many 
 who would never go in pursuit of anything of the kind 
 beyond a work of reference, and whose utmost exploit 
 is the payment of a friendly subscription. The only 
 title to admittance into my category of such doubtful 
 enthusiasts is the sentimental enhancement of value 
 arising from the transformation of the margins of a 
 common-place volume into a repository for manuscript 
 remarks or graphic embellishments, which may send it 
 back into the market some day a three-figure item in a 
 catalogue. 
 
 In attempting to indicate in a sort of tentative 
 manner the publications to which a private collection 
 might be advantageously and comfortably limited, one 
 does not contemplate the shelf or so of mere works of 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 91 
 
 reference, which have to be obtained even by such as 
 are not amateurs in this direction, and, moreover, there 
 is an obvious difficulty in prescribing for persons of 
 infinitely varied ideas and prepossessions. Now, as to 
 volumes for reference, the class and extent of course 
 depend on individual requirements, and the books 
 outside this radius are apt to be subject in their selection 
 to local circumstances, since a man associated with a 
 district or county naturally contracts a sympathy with 
 its special history or its archaeological transactions, as 
 well as any miscellaneous monographs relating to par- 
 ticular places or celebrated persons. With such spe- 
 cialities and preferences we cannot presume to inter- 
 fere; but, as a rule, the aggregate body comprised in 
 them need not be large or very expensive, and in catholic 
 or general literature it becomes almost surprising when 
 we have taken the pains to winnow from literary remains 
 of real and permanent interest the preponderant mass, 
 of which the facilities for occasional examination at a 
 public library ought to suffice, how comparatively slender 
 the residuum is. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The safest course — Consideration of the relative value and interest 
 of books in libraries — The intrinsic and extrinsic aspects — 
 Consolation for the less wealthy buyer — The best books 
 among- the cheapest — A few examples — Abundance of printed 
 matter in book-form — Schedule of Books which are Books — 
 Remarks on English translations of foreign literature. 
 
 When we inspect a great library, filling three or four 
 apartments lined with cases, the first impression is that 
 the possession of such an assemblage of literary monu- 
 ments is a privilege reserved for the very wealthy; and 
 to some extent so it is. But certain elements enter into 
 the constitution of all extensive accumulations of property 
 of any kind, whether it be books, prints, medals, or coins, 
 which inevitably swell the bulk and the cost without 
 augmenting in anything approaching an equal ratio the 
 solid value. Not to wander from our immediate field 
 of inquiry and argument, the literax-y connoisseur, start- 
 ing perhaps with a fairly modest programme, acquires 
 almost insensibly an inclination to expand and diverge, 
 until he becomes, instead of the owner of a taste, the 
 victim of an insatiable passion. He not merely admits 
 innumerable authors and works of whom or which he 
 originally knew nothing, but there are variant im- 
 pressions, copies with special readings or an unique 
 
HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 93 
 
 provenance, bindings curious or splendid ; and nothing 
 at last comes amiss, the means of purchase presumed. 
 
 Yet, at the same time, he does not substantially 
 possess, perhaps, much more than the master of a petite 
 bibliotheque, on which the outlay has not been a hundredth 
 part of his own. A considerable proportion of his shelf- 
 furniture are distant acquaintances, as it were, and those 
 acquisitions with which he is intimate are not unlikely 
 to prove less numerous than the belongings of his 
 humbler and less voracious contemporary. 
 
 Even where the object and ruling law are strict 
 practical selections of what pleases the buyer, the range 
 of difference is very wide. One man prefers the modern 
 novelists, prose essayists, or verse writers ; a second, collec- 
 tions of caricatures and prints in book-form; a third, 
 topography ; a fourth, the occult sciences, and so forth. 
 I offer no objection to these partialities; but I entertain 
 an individual preference for volumes chosen from nearly 
 all branches of the belles lettres, each for its own sake. 
 I do not vote of necessity in all cases for a book because 
 it is rare, or because it is old, or because it is the best 
 edition ; but I do not think that I should like any scholar 
 my friend to have the opportunity of pointing out to 
 me (as he would, wouldn't he?) that I lacked any real 
 essential, as the child tried to satisfy Longfellow that 
 his shelves were not complete without a copy of the 
 undying romance of Jack the Giant-killer. 
 
 It cannot fail to strike any one opening such books as 
 
94 HISTORY OF 
 
 Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum or Markham's Way to Get Wealth, 
 for how comparatively, indeed absolutely, small a con- 
 sideration it is possible to obtain two works so brimful of 
 interest and curiosity on all subjects connected with garden- 
 ing, agriculture, and rural pursuits or amusements. But 
 both these works long remained — the Bacon yet does so — 
 outside the collector's pale' and cognisance, and the real 
 cause was that- they were alike common ; they had been the 
 favourites of successive generations ; edition upon edition 
 had been demanded ; and the survival of copies was too 
 great to suit the book-hunter, who aims at shyer quarry. 
 
 Take again, as a sample, a noble old work like the 
 English Bayle, five substantial folios; it was a question 
 of more than a five-pound note to become the master of a 
 good, well-bound copy ; one in morocco or russia by Roger 
 Payne twice that amount could once scarcely have brought 
 down ; and now it is articulo mortis. The connoisseur 
 finds it too bulky, and he hears that its matter has been 
 superseded. At any rate, it is no longer the mode, and 
 the mill begins to acquire familiarity with it. Let the 
 taste return for such big game, and copies will be as Cax- 
 tons are. Most part of the editions will ere then have 
 been served up again in the form of cheap book-drapery. 
 
 The ne plus ultra of interest and respect seems to us 
 to centre in such collections of books as those of Samuel 
 Pepys, Narcissus Luttrell, the Rev. Henry White of Lich- 
 field, and Charles Lamb, where the volumes reflect the 
 personal tastes of their owners, and are, or have been, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 95 
 
 objects to them of personal regard. What is to be 
 thought or said of the man who simply buys works which 
 happen to be in the fashion for the moment, and for 
 which he competes with others as wise as himself, till the 
 prices become ridiculous? English and American mil- 
 lionaires acquire specimens of early typography, poetry, 
 binding, or what not, because they hear that it is the 
 thing to do. One gentleman will give i?100 more for a 
 copy, because he is credibly informed that it is three- 
 eighths of an inch taller than any other known ; and a 
 second will take something from the vendor on the 
 assurance that no library of any pretensions is complete 
 without it. This sort of child's-play is not Book-Collect- 
 ing. The true book-closet and its master have to be kins- 
 folk, not acquaintances introduced by some bookseller 
 in waiting. Humanly speaking, the poor little catalogue 
 made by Hearne of his own books and MSS. comes 
 nearer home to our affections than those of Grenville 
 and Huth. 
 
 In speaking and thinking of real books, it is necessary 
 again to distinguish between articulate productions of 
 two classes — between such a work, for example, as Defoe's 
 Robmson Crusoe and such an one as Thoreau's Walden, 
 or between Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire and Sir Thomas Browne's Urn-Burial. The pre- 
 sent is an enterprise directed toward the indication to 
 collectors of different views and tastes of the volumes 
 which they should respectively select for study or pur- 
 
96 HISTORY OF 
 
 chase. There are millions who have passed through life 
 unconsciously without having read a book, although they 
 may have seen, nay, possessed thousands. Those which 
 might have been recommended to them with advantage, 
 and perused with advantage, were too obscure, too dull, 
 too cheap, too unfashionable. It is of no use to read 
 publications with which your acquaintances have no 
 familiarity, and to the merits of which it might be a 
 hard task to convert them. But, as we have said, we 
 want space to enter into these details, and we can only 
 generalise bibliographically, repeating . that literature is 
 broadly classifiable into Books and Things in Book-Form 
 — Specimens of Paper, Typography and Binding, or 
 counterfeit illusory distributions of printer's letter into 
 words and sentences and volumes by the passing favourites 
 of each succeeding age — what Thoreau call its " tit-men." 
 We might readily instance masterpieces of erudition 
 or industry which leave nothing to be desired in the way 
 of information and safe guidance, and which, at the same 
 time, do not distantly realise our conception of Books— - 
 real bond fide Books. They may be the best editions by 
 the best binders, or they may be antiquarian periodicals 
 or sets of Learned Transactions, reducing much of the 
 elder lore cherished and credited by our ancestors to waste- 
 paper ; we feel that it is a sort of superstition which in- 
 fluences us in regarding them ; but we fail to shake off the 
 prejudice, or whatever it may be, and we hold up, on the 
 contrary, to the gaze of some sceptical acquaintance a 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 97 
 
 humble little volume in plain mellow sheep— say, a first 
 Walton, or Bunyan, or Carew, nay, by possibility a Caxton 
 or Wynkyn de Worde — which a roomful of perfectly gentle- 
 manly books should not buy from us. It may strike the 
 reader as a heresy in taste and judgment to pronounce 
 the four Shakespeare folios of secondary interest from the 
 highest point of view, as being posthumous and edited 
 productions. But so it is ; yet Caxton's first impression of 
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, if we were to happen upon 
 it by accident, is a possession which we should not be 
 easily persuaded to* coin into sovereigns, and such a prize 
 as the Evelyn copy of Spenser's Faery Queen, 1590, 
 with the Diarist's cypher down the back and his note of 
 ownership inside the bid calf cover, is worth a library of 
 inarticulate printed matter. So, again, Aubrey, in his 
 Miscellanies, Remains of Gentilism and Judaism, History 
 of Surrey, and Natural History of Wiltshire, presents us 
 with works very imperfect and empirical in their char- 
 acter — even foolish and irritating here and there; but 
 between those undertakings and such as Manning and 
 Bray's or Brayley and Britton's Surrey there is the dif- 
 ference that the latter are literary compilations, and the 
 former personal relics inalienably identified with an indi- 
 vidual and an epoch. 
 
 It is the same with certain others, ancient as well as 
 modern writers. Take Herodotus, Athenaeus, and Aulus 
 Gellius on the one hand, and Bishop Kennett's Paro- 
 chial Antiquities, White's Selborne, Knox's Ornithological 
 
98 HISTORY OF 
 
 Rambles m Sussex, or Lucas's Studies m Nidderdale on 
 the other. All these equally tell you, not what some 
 one else saw or thought, but what they saw or thought 
 themselves, and in a manner which will never cease to 
 charm. 
 
 There are works, again, which, without professing to 
 entertain for the authors any strong personal regard, we 
 read and re-peruse, as we admire a fine piece of sculpture 
 or procelain, an antique bronze or cameo, as masterpieces 
 of art or models of style. We are perfectly conscious, as 
 we proceed, that they are not to be trusted as authorities, 
 and perhaps it is so on the very account which renders 
 them irresistibly attractive. Some of the most celebrated 
 literary compositions in our language are more or less 
 strongly imbued with the spirit of partisanship or a 
 leaven of constitutional bias ; yet we like to have them 
 by us to steal half-an-hour's delight, just as we resort 
 sometimes to alluring but dangerous stimulants. We 
 have in our mind, not volumes of fiction, not even the 
 historical novel, but serious narratives purporting to 
 describe the annals of our country and the lives of our 
 countrymen and countrywomen. We take them up and 
 we lay them down with pleasure, and it is agreeable to 
 feel that they are not far away ; and they will not do 
 us greater harm, if we combine an acquaintance with 
 their deficiencies and faults as well as with their beauties, 
 than the fascinating associates with whom we exchange 
 civilities in the drawing-room or at the club, and with 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 99 
 
 whose haunts and opinions we are alike unconcerned. Of 
 the romances under the soberer names of history, bio- 
 graphy, and criticism, which abound in all the literatures 
 of nearly all times, we are at liberty to credit as much 
 or as little as we choose ; but in how many instances we 
 should regret to lose, or not to have inherited, these; 
 and the personal partiality which constitutes the blemish ' 
 here and there equally constitutes the merit. 
 
 What makes us return again and again to certain 
 books in all literatures, forgetful of chronology and bio- 
 graphical dictionaries? What draws us irresistibly for 
 the twentieth time to works of such different origin and 
 character as Herodotus, Caesar, Aulus Gellius, Browne's 
 Urn-Burial and Religio Medici, Pepys's Diary, Defoe's 
 Robinson Crusoe, Bos well's Life qf Johnson, and a handful 
 of authors nearer to our own day ? Is it not their breadth, 
 Catholicism, and sincerity? Is it not precisely those 
 qualities which no sublunar systems of computing time 
 can affect or delimit? If we take successively in hand 
 the Odyssey, the Arabian Nights, the Canterbury Tales, 
 Don Quixote, Gil Bias de Santillane, and Robinson Crusoe, 
 do we without some reflection realise that between the 
 first and the last in order of production thousands of years 
 intervened? Most of the romances of chivalry and the 
 Faery Queen strike us as more antiquated than Homer, 
 assuredly more so than Chaucer. The secret and the 
 charm seems to lie in the fact that all great books are 
 pictures of human nature, which is and has been always 
 
100 HISTORY OF 
 
 the same; and we are able to account in a similar 
 manner for the stupendous popularity of such works as 
 the Imibatio Christi and the Pilgrim's Progress. Above 
 all things, they are strictly bond fide: They are no catch- 
 pennies. 
 
 We find ourselves with hundreds, nay, thousands of 
 other books at our elbow or at our command, living in 
 communion with half-a-dozen minds. We read our 
 favourite books, and when we have reached the end of our 
 tether, we recommence as if we were in the Scilly Islands, 
 and there were no more obtainable or permissible. We 
 never wax tired of conning over Bayle St. John's Mon- 
 taigne the Essayist, Thoreau's Walden, Howell's Venetian 
 Life and Italian Journeys. Cuique suwm. We have 
 known those who never let the sun set without dipping 
 into Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, or who have some 
 pet volume with which they renew their intimacy every 
 year, as Francis Douce did with Reynard the Fox. There 
 must usually be an unconscious sympathy in these cases, 
 a pleasing revelation of extended identity, as if these 
 other productions were what we should have liked to 
 claim as our own, and as if we felt we should have said 
 the same things and thought the same thoughts, if they 
 had been ours. 
 
 It is the same with some parts of some writers' 
 labours, to be had separately, as Hamlet, As, You Like 
 It, A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor, Macbeth, and the Merchant of Venice; and 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 101 
 
 with a few detached or select compositions to which 
 one has to thread one's way in a larger volume : a 
 few songs scattered through the early dramatists and 
 lyrists; Gray's Elegy; Tennyson's May Queen (without 
 the sequel), and Locksley Hall and In Memoriam (missing 
 the tags). 
 
 In the present aspect of our inquiry, Famous Books 
 and the Best are by no means convertible terms. There 
 are such, it is true, as fall under both categories: the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, Homej, Herodotus, Arabian Nights, 
 Canterbury Tales, Montaigne's Essays, Shakespeare, Gib- 
 bon. Famous literary compositions at different levels or in 
 their various classes are Boccaccio's Decameron, Ariosto's 
 Orlando Furioso, Aretino, Spenser's Faery Queen, Rabe- 
 lais, PilgrimCs Progress, La Fontaine's Tales, Rousseau's 
 Confessions, Tristram Shandy, Candide, Don Juan; and 
 even among these how fair a proportion depends for 
 its value and fruitfulness on the student ? And, again, 
 on his training. For we are aware of readers who prefer 
 Bunyan to Spenser, others who place Sterne, Voltaire, 
 and Byron before both, and not a few who have emerged 
 with profit and without pollution from the perusal of 
 the labours of Rabelais and Aretino. There is a literal 
 deluge of moral and colourless works, on the contrary, 
 from which even the average modern reader comes away 
 only with an uncomfortable sense of waste of time and 
 eyesight. 
 
 Of printed matter in book-shape there is no end. 
 
102 HISTORY OF 
 
 The mass grows day by day, almost hour by hour- Yet 
 the successful candidates for admission to our inner circle 
 of publications of all ages and countries, which so far 
 meet on common ground in being provided with a pass- 
 port to succeeding times requiring and recognising no 
 critical we, increase in numbers slowly, O so slowly ! 
 It would be presumptuous and unsafe to attempt to 
 discount the ultimate verdict on many now popular 
 names ; but it is to be apprehended that, looking at the 
 much more numerous body of writers, the calls to immor- 
 tality will hereafter be in a relatively diminishing ratio. 
 The influences and agencies by which Certain schools of 
 thought and work are artificially forced to the front 
 are too often temporary, and their life is apt to be, 
 Hamadryad-like, conterminous with that of their foster- 
 parents. It has been my lot to witness the rise, decline, 
 and evanescence of groups of authors and artists, whom 
 it was almost sacrilegious to mention even with qualifica- 
 tion. Adverse criticism was out of the question for any 
 one valuing his own repute. 
 
 How various all the afore-mentioned standard or 
 permanent books are, and still in one respect how similar ! 
 Similar, inasmuch as they or their subject-matter are 
 surrounded by an atmosphere which preserves them as 
 in embalmed cerements. In strict truth, there may be 
 some among the number which are far indeed from being 
 individually important or costly, while others in a critical 
 sense have long been entirely obsolete, or perhaps never 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 108 
 
 possessed any critical rank. It does not signify. Their 
 testimonials are independent of such considerations. 
 Many, most of them, are on ever-living topics; many, 
 again, in their essence and material properties are sancti- 
 fied and odorous. 
 
 I find myself possessed by a theory, possibly a weak 
 and erroneous one, in favour of such a book, for instance, 
 as Johnson's Lives of the Poets, as Johnson published it, 
 with all its imperfections, with the full consciousness that 
 improved editions exist. For the original output repre- 
 sents a genuine aspect of the author's mind, prejudices 
 inclusive ; and I am not sure that, had he lived to bring 
 out a revised and enlarged impression, I should have 
 looked upon it as so characteristic and spontaneous ; and 
 the same criticism applies to a number of other pro- 
 ductions, dependent for their appreciation by us not upon 
 their substantial, so much as on their sentimental, value. 
 
 What is not unapt to strike an average mind is that, 
 with such a easeful of volumes as my cursory and incom- 
 plete inventory represents and enumerates, how much, 
 or perhaps rather how little, remains behind of solid, 
 intrinsic worth, and what a preponderance of the unnamed 
 printed matter resolves itself into bric-a-brac, unless it 
 amounts to such publications, past and present, as one 
 is content to procure on loan from the circulating library 
 or inspect in the show-cases of our museums. 
 
 Happy the men who lived before literary societies, 
 book-clubs, and cheap editions, which have between them 
 
104 
 
 HISTORY OF 
 
 so multiplied the aggregate stock or material from which 
 the collector has to make his choice! There are occa- 
 sional instances where co-operation is useful, and even 
 necessary; but the movement has perhaps been carried 
 too far, as such movements usually are. Our forefathers 
 could not have divined what an unknown future was to 
 yield to us in the form of printed matter of all sorts 
 and degrees. But they already had their great authors, 
 their favourite books, their rarities, in sufficient abund- 
 ance. It was a narrower field, but a less perplexing one ; 
 and from the seeing-point of the amateur, pure and 
 simple, our gain is not unequivocal. 
 
 I shall now proceed to draw up an experimental 
 catalogue of works which appear to possess a solid and 
 permanent claim to respect and attention for their own 
 sakes, apart from any critical, textual, or other secondary 
 elements. Others without number might be added as 
 examples of learning, utility, and curiosity; but they 
 do not fall within this exceedingly select category : — 
 
 iEsop's Fables. 
 
 .: In a form as near as may be 
 to the original work. 
 
 Antoninus, Itinerary. 
 Arabian Nights. 
 Arthur of Little Britain. 
 Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum. 
 Athenaeus. 
 Aulas Gellius. 
 Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum. 
 Essays. 
 
 Bayle's Dictionary, in English. 
 Bidpai or Pilpay [so called], 
 
 Fables of. 
 
 . '. A genuine English text. 
 Boccaccio's Decameron. 
 Boswell's Life of Johnson and 
 
 Tour in the Hebrides. 
 Bradbury's Nature-printed Ferns 
 
 and Seaweeds. 
 Brand's Popular Antiquities. 
 
 .'. Latest recension, not Ellis's. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 105 
 
 Browne's Religio Medici. 
 
 Urn-Burial. 
 
 .'. The latter reminds us of 
 Lamb's style, allowing for differ- 
 ence of time. 
 
 Vulgar Errors. 
 
 Browning's Early Poems. 
 
 .'. A moderate volume would 
 hold all worth perpetuation. 
 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
 Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 
 . '. A book of academical cast, 
 abounding in quaint conceits and 
 curious extracts ; full of false 
 philosophy and morality. 
 
 Butler's Hudibras. 
 Byron's Scotish Bards. 
 
 Ghilde Harold. 
 
 Bon Juan. 
 
 Csesaris Oommentarii. 
 Carew, Thomas, Poems. 
 Cervantes' Don Quixote, by Jer- 
 
 vis, 2 vols. 4to. 
 Chappell's Popular Music. 
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. 
 Chronicles (English) Series of. 
 
 .'. Including Froissart and 
 Monstrelet, with the original illu- 
 minated illustrations to former. 
 
 Cicero, Be Senectute et Be Ami- 
 
 citia. 
 
 . : In the original Latin. 
 Cobbett's Rural Rides. 
 Coleridge's Table-Talk. 
 Cotgrave's French Bictionary. 
 Couch's British Fishes. 
 Coventry, Chester, Towneley, 
 
 and York Mysteries. 
 
 Cunningham's London, by H. B. 
 Wheatley. 
 
 Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 Delany, Biary and Correspond- 
 ence. 
 
 Diogenes Laertius. 
 
 Dodsley's Old Plays. 
 
 Douce's Illustrations of Shake- 
 speare, 2 vols. 
 
 Dunlop's History of Fiction. 
 
 Sir H. Ellis's Original Letters, 
 three series. 
 
 George Ellis's Specimens of Early 
 English Romances. 
 
 Elton's Specimens of the Classic 
 Poets, 3 vols. 1814. 
 
 .*. Elton's versions of portions 
 of Homer appear to be. superior to 
 Chapman, and to make it re- 
 grettable that he did not complete 
 the work. 
 
 Epinal Glossary, by Sweet. 
 
 . '. For the earliest English extant. 
 Evelyn's Biary. 
 
 Sylva. 
 
 Fairholt's Costume, 1860. 
 Fielding's Tom Jones. 
 Fox's Book of Martyrs. 
 Fournier's Vieux-Neuf, 1877. 
 Gayton's Festivous Notes on Bon 
 
 Quixote. 
 Cesta Romanorum, in English. 
 Gilchrist's Blake. 
 Gilpin's Forest Scenery. 
 Golden Legend, in English. 
 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. 
 Citizen of the World. 
 
106 
 
 HISTORY OF 
 
 Grimm's Popular Stories. 
 Hakluyt's Voyages. 
 Harleian Miscellany. 
 Hearne's Diary, 2nd edition. 
 Rawlinson's Herodotus. 
 Herrick's Eesperides. 
 Holland's Heroologia, 1620. 
 Homer, by Chapman. 
 
 . '. But better in the original. 
 Hone's Popular Works. 
 . •. An original copy. 
 
 Horace, Satires and Epistles, by 
 
 Keightley. 
 Horee Beatee Maria Virginis. 
 
 . : A printed edition for the en- 
 gravings. 
 
 James Howell's Letters. 
 Howells' Italian Journeys. 
 
 Venetian Life. 
 
 Hundred Merry Tales, 1526. 
 Hunter's New Illustrations of 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Historical Tracts. 
 
 Account of New Plymouth, 
 
 2nd edition. 
 Irving's Scotish Poetry. 
 Johnson's Lives of the Poets. 
 
 Basselas. 
 
 .*. For the sake of its story, 
 
 not of the book. 
 
 Junius, Letters of. 
 Keightley's Mythology of Greece 
 and Italy. 
 
 .*. Some of the matter antici- 
 pated by Sir T. Browne in his 
 Vulgar Errors. 
 
 Keightley's Histories of Greece, 
 Rome, and England (last 
 editions). 
 
 Knox's Ornithological Rambles in 
 
 Lamb's Elia. 
 
 Letters. 
 
 Adventures of Ulysses: 
 
 Rosamund Gray. 
 
 Langland's Piers Ploughman. 
 
 Latimer's Sermons. 
 
 Lazarillo de Tormes, in English. 
 
 Le Houx, Vauac de Vire, in 
 French. 
 
 Leland's Itinerary and Collec- 
 tanea, 1770. 
 
 Le Sage|s Gil Bias, in French. 
 
 Lord Lindsay's Lives of the Lind- 
 
 . : See that passage where the 
 opinion of James, Earl of Bal- 
 oarres, is quoted in regard to the 
 duty of men to leave behind them 
 some trace or record of their 
 mind. Edit. 1849. 
 
 Lockhart's Life of Scott. 
 Lodge's Portraits. 
 
 . '. An early edition. 
 Lovelace's Poems. 
 Lucas, Studies in Nidderdale. 
 Lysons, Magna Britannia, 6 
 
 vols. 
 Environs of London, 2nd 
 
 edition. 
 Malory's Morte Arthur. 
 Montaigne's Essays, in French. 
 Morris's Works on Birds, Birds' 
 
 Eggs, &c. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 107 
 
 Niirnberg Chronicle, 1493. 
 
 . \ The Latin text. As a very 
 early picture-book. 
 
 Olaus Magnus. 
 
 .'. Original Latin, with the 
 woodcuts. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 . '. Partly as in all appearance 
 a favourite in some shape with our 
 
 Paston Letters. 
 
 Pennant's Tours in Wales and 
 Scotland, and Journey to London. 
 
 . '. On account of their person- 
 ality. You know that much is 
 obsolete, and other men have im- 
 proved on them ; but there is some- 
 how the same charm. 
 
 Pepys's Diary, by Wheatley. 
 Percy's Reliques. 
 Phillips's English Dictionary. 
 Photii Bibliotheca. 
 Plato's Dialogues. 
 
 . : Perhaps the French version 
 by Cousin is preferable. 
 
 Plinii Epistolte. 
 
 Plutarch's Lives. 
 
 Popular (Early) Poetry of Eng- 
 land, 4 vols. 
 
 Scotland and the Border, 2 
 
 vols. 
 
 Poets. Select British Poets, 1824. 
 
 .'. Includes ample selections 
 from writers hardly worth pos- 
 sessing in » separate shape, in- 
 cluding many even great and dis- 
 tinguished names. 
 
 Poets. Corpus. Poetdrum Latin- 
 orum et Grcecorum. 
 . \ The same remark applies. 
 Rabelais. 
 
 Randolph's Plays and Poems. 
 Retrospective Review. 
 Reynard the Fox, in English. 
 Richardson's Clarissa. 
 Robin Hood Ballads. 
 Scot's Discovery. of Witchcraft. 
 Selden's Table-Talk. 
 Shakespeare's Works. 
 
 Library, 6 vols. 
 
 Songs of the Dramatists. 
 Southey's Commonplace Book. 
 Select Letters. 
 
 . : More especially for his de- 
 lightful letters to children. 
 
 Spence's Anecdotes. 
 Spenser's Works. 
 Sterne's Tristram Shandy. 
 St. John's Manners and Customs 
 of Ancient Greece, 1842. 
 
 . '. A lifelong labour, and most 
 delightful and instructive work. 
 
 Montaigne the Essayist. 
 
 English version of Saint 
 
 Simon. 
 Stow's Annals. 
 
 Survey of London, 1720. 
 
 Strutt's Costume, by Planche. 
 Suckling's Works. 
 Swift's Gujliver. 
 Sydney's Arcadia j 
 Tennyson's Lyrical Poems. 
 
 .; A judicious one -volume 
 selection preferable. • 
 
108 HISTORY OF 
 
 Thoreau's Walden, 1854. 
 fhorne's Environs of London. 
 Tottell's Miscellany. 
 Virgil, Bucolics and Georgics, 
 
 by Keightley. 
 Voltaire's Candide, in French. 
 
 Philosophical Dictionary. 
 
 Walton's Angler. 
 
 Warton's English Poetry, 1871. 
 Walpole's Letters. 
 Wise's New Forest. 
 
 . : Best edition for engravings. 
 
 White's Selborne, 1st edition. 
 Wodroephe's Spare Hours of a 
 
 Soldier, 1623. 
 Yarrell's British Birds. 
 
 How passing rich one would be with all these, and no 
 more — rich beyond the greatest bibliomaniacs, and beyond 
 the possessors of the rarest and costliest treasures in 
 book-form ! Turn over the pages of the most splendid 
 catalogues, and how few one would ' find to add ! Nor 
 would all the before-recited productions appeal to all 
 book-lovers. There are many who would excuse them- 
 selves from admitting Rabelais. Some might not particu- 
 larly care for the works of foreign origin. Some might be 
 courageous enough to avow an indifference to Milton and 
 Spenser, and even a dislike to Bunyan. Still the rule 
 holds good, we think, that all our chosen authors or 
 books have more or less powerful credentials. There 
 remain to be added Books of Reference, as we have 
 pointed out, curiosities, and this or that person's spe- 
 cialisms. 
 
 From a strictly practical point of view, the language 
 and sense of any great writer, ancient or modern, may 
 be as well, nay, better, appreciated in a volume bought 
 for a trifle than in a rare and luxurious edition, where 
 the place and time of origin, the type, the paper, and 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 109 
 
 the binding are adventitious accessories — almost impedi- 
 menta — and the book itself a work of art like a picture 
 or a coin. But with either of the letter it is different, 
 for there the canvas or the metal is an integral portion 
 of the object. For instance, take the better parts of 
 Tennyson. Is it not sufficient to read them in a modest 
 foolscap octavo? Do we require external aids? The 
 poet is his own best illustrator, and if we purchase a 
 pictorial edition, we are apt to find that the author and 
 the artist are at variance in their interpretations. 
 
 Translations are always to be carefully avoided by 
 all who can more or less confidently read the author 
 in the original language. We have yet to meet with a 
 version, whether of an ancient or of a modern classic, 
 which is thoroughly appreciative and satisfactory. The 
 majority, are utterly disappointing and deceptive. It 
 is in the transfer of the idiom and costume that the 
 difficulty and consequent failure lie. No one who merely 
 knows at second hand Homer, Herodotus, Plautus, Ter- 
 ence, Horace, Virgil, Montaigne, Le Sage (a metonym 
 for Gil Bias), Cervantes, La Fontaine, Dumas, Mau- 
 passant, Balzac, can have had an opportunity of form- 
 ing an adequate and just estimate of those authors. 
 You might nearly as soon expect a Frenchman to relish 
 Butler or Dickens in their Parisian habiliments. 
 
 Such a fact — for a fact it undoubtedly is— opens to 
 our consideration a very large and a very grave problem, 
 since the very limited extent to which the English public, 
 
110 HISTORY OF 
 
 is conversant with Greek and Latin, and with even the 
 Latin family of modern languages, makes the admission 
 that so many works of the highest importance and in- 
 terest are only properly and truly readable in their own 
 tongues tantamount to one that they are not properly 
 and truly readable at all. 
 
 Of all forms of translation, the paraphrase is perhaps 
 the worst, so far as an interpretation of the original 
 sense goes, but not the most dangerous if we know it 
 to be what it is, and do not look for more than a general 
 idea of the meaning and plan of the author. To be 
 practically serviceable, an English version of any classical 
 or foreign work should be literal, and with the literalness 
 as idiomatic as may be ; and if the text to be rendered 
 is in verse, the English equivalent should preferably be 
 in verse without rhyme or in prose. The object to be 
 attained in these cases is a transfer of the conceptions, 
 notions, or theories of writers from languages which we 
 do not understand to one which we do; and therefore 
 the best translator is he who has absolutely no higher 
 aim than this, and does not aspire to make his task a 
 stalking-horse for his own literary ambition. 
 
 There is scarcely an end of the various schemes adopted 
 to convey to us intelligibly and successfully the senti- 
 ments and conceits of ancient authors as well as of those 
 of other countries, and, all things considered, a literal 
 version in prose appears to present the fewest , disadvan- 
 tages, for it disarms the translator of the temptation 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 111 
 
 to poetical flights and metrical ingenuity, and brings us 
 nearer to the man and the age to be immediately and 
 primarily studied. 
 
 At best, a translation is an indifferent substitute for 
 the book itself, as it was delivered to the world by some 
 renowned hand, or even by some personage whose in- 
 dividuality is stamped, as in the case of the Imitatio 
 Christi or the Essays of Montaigne, on every sentence 
 indelibly and untransferably, and seems part of the very 
 Latin or French type. An amusing instance occurred 
 in which a gentleman, having heard of the fine style of 
 A Kempis, bought as a present to a friend a copy of the 
 latest English translation! And it is equally futile to 
 look for the essence and spirit of the great Gascon 
 writer in the pages of Florio or Cotton, both of whom, 
 though in unequal measure, to the exigencies of diction or 
 an imperfect conversance with the dialect in which Mon- 
 taigne wrote sacrificed precious personal idiosyncrasies. 
 
 The majority of the popular and current versions of 
 the classics are unsatisfying and treacherous, because they 
 have been executed either by under-paid scholars, like 
 Bonn's Series, or by persons who have had a tendency to 
 put themselves in the place of their author. 
 
 We may not be very willing to part with our old 
 favourites, such as Chapman's Homer, Florio's Montaigne, 
 North's Plutarch, Shelton's Don Quixote, Urquhart's 
 Rabelais, and Smollett's Gil Bias ; but it is to be feared 
 that they must be prized as curiosities and rarities rather 
 
112 HISTORY OF 
 
 than as interpreters and guides. If a thoroughly reliable 
 library of classical translations, on as literal a plan as 
 possible, could be formed, it would be a real boon to the 
 public — it would be what Bonn's Series ought to have 
 been. Of course, in the department of translation there 
 are two leading divisions — the ancient and the modern 
 classics ; and for much the same reason that a story or 
 a jeu cTesprit seldom bears transplanting from one soil to 
 another, both these branches of literature are apt to 
 suffer when they change their garb. Almost every man 
 who writes is influenced by dominant environments, 
 whether he be Greek or Roman, or Oriental, or modern 
 European of whatever nationality ; and his mere expres- 
 sions or sense rendered into a foreign tongue are usually 
 like a painting without a background or an atmosphere. 
 We may range over the whole field from the most ancient 
 times to the most modern, and the same thing mani- 
 fests itself. Open before me is an illustration which 
 will answer the purpose as wqll as any other, in the 
 shape of Muirhead's version of the Vaux de Vvre of 
 Jean le Houx. At page 105 we have the following 
 stanza : — 
 
 " Lorsque me presse l'heure, 
 
 Je retourne au logis ; 
 
 Ma femme est la qui pleure, 
 
 Ainsi qu'il m'est aduis, 
 
 Et me diet en cholere : 
 
 ' Que fay ie seule au lict ? 
 
 Est il seant de boire 
 
 Ainsi jusqu'a minuict ? ' " 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 113 
 
 Mr. Muirhead translates thus — 
 
 " When late the hour appears, 
 
 Returning to my home, 
 My wife is there in tears, 
 
 As I hear when I come. 
 She greets me testily : 
 
 ' I lie a-bed alone : 
 Do you thus shamelessly 
 
 Carouse till midnight's gone ? ' " 
 
 The same kind of paraphrastic dilution runs through 
 the volume ; nor is Mr. Muirhead wholly to blame. The 
 original is idiomatic and terse, and he could not find 
 exact equivalents in numerous cases. Ah uno disce armies. 
 But what a privilege it becomes to be able to dis- 
 pense with interpreters ! My admiration of these festive 
 chansons arises from my appreciation of them in their 
 native costume and diction. The Knight of La Mancha 
 was of my opinion herein, for he likened a translation 
 to a piece of Flemish tapestry seen on the wrong side. 
 
 A corollary which naturally suggests itself to my 
 mind is that if a familiarity — say, even with Latin and 
 French alone — is expedient on no other account, it is 
 eminently so on this one ; and the mastery of the inner 
 sense of a great and famous writer constitutes an ample 
 reward for any expenditure of labour and time in ac- 
 quiring the language in which he wrote, in making 
 yourself as nearly his countryman as you can. I remember 
 a saying, which may have been a wicked epigram, that 
 the only book in Bonn's Classical Library worthy of 
 
 H 
 
114 HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 purchase or perusal was a version of one of Aristotle's 
 works which a gentleman had executed con amove and 
 presented to the publisher. 
 
 A voluminous and not very well known body of 
 literary material consists of foreign translations of con- 
 temporary English pamphlets of a historical or religious 
 character, from the time of Henry VIII. to the Revolution 
 of 1688, covering the entire Stuart period. They cannot 
 be said to be of primary consequence beyond the proof 
 which they furnish of the interest felt abroad in passing 
 transactions in this country, even in such incidents of 
 minor moment as the trial of Elizabeth Cellier in 1680 
 for an obscure political libel, and the occasional value 
 which they have acquired through the apparent loss 
 of the English originals. We have, for example, a 
 French account of a London ferryman, who, under pre- 
 tence of conveying passengers across the river, strangled 
 them (1586); a second, of the misdoings of a minister 
 at Maldon in Essex (1588) ; and a third, of the execution 
 of two priests and two laymen at Oxford in 1590, the 
 last existing also in Italian, but none of them known 
 in English. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Transmission of ancient remains — The unique fragment and 
 unique book — Importance of the former — The St. Alban's 
 Grammar-School find — A more recent one or two — Mr. Neal's 
 volume — A tantalising entry in a country catalogue — The 
 Hundred Merry Tales — Large volumes only known from' small 
 fragments -r- Blind Harry\ Wallace — Aberdeen and other 
 Breviaries — The Oxenden Collection of Old English Plays — 
 The idyll of Adam Bell, 1536 — John Bagford : his unsuspected 
 services to us — Ought we to destroy the old theology? — 
 Other causes of the disappearance of books — Unique books 
 which still preserve their reputation — Rare books which are 
 not rare — Books which are rare and not valuable — Ratcliff, 
 the waste-paper dealer, who had a collection of Caxtons — The 
 bystander's manifold experiences — Narrowness of the circle 
 of first-class buyers — The old collector and the new one — 
 Speculative investors. 
 
 Looking at the imperfect and unconsecutive condition 
 in which much of our most precious early literature has 
 been received by us, we are apt to reflect to how narrow 
 and close an accident we owe two classes of existing 
 remains : the unique book and the unique fragment. 
 Of course to term a volume or production unique is a 
 perilous business ; the bookseller and the auctioneer may 
 do so ex officio; an inexperienced amateur may resort 
 to the term as a pleasant and harmless self-deception ; 
 but no responsible writer or critic dares to pronounce 
 anything whatever unique without an emphatic caveat. 
 
116 HISTORY OF 
 
 We have personally known cases where a publication 
 by one of the early printers was first introduced to notice, 
 and created a sort of sensation, as a mutilated fragment 
 rescued from the binding of another work ; this revelation 
 brought to light, after an interval, a second of a different 
 issue; anon at some auction occurred a perfect copy; 
 and now the poor damaged worm-eaten leaves^ once so 
 reverently and so tenderly regarded, awake no further 
 interest ; the mystery and romance have vanished ; and 
 when we examine the book as a whole, we do not find 
 its merits so striking as when we strained our eyes to 
 decipher the old binder's pasteboard. 
 
 The Feagment is really an unusually and more than 
 at first credibly important feature in the elder literature. 
 It may be taken, after all deductions for occasional dis- 
 coveries of the entire work, to be the sole existing voucher 
 for a terribly large section of the more popular books of 
 our forefathers, just as the Stationers 1 Register is for 
 another. But it is far more than one degree trust- 
 worthier and more palpable; for it is, like the torso of 
 an ancient statue, a veritable part of the printed integer 
 and a certificate of its publication and former existence. 
 Many years ago there was a great stir in consequence 
 of the detachment from the binding of another book — 
 Caxton's Boethws — in the St. Alban's Grammar-School 
 of a parcel of fragments belonging to books by Caxton ; 
 these are now in the British Museum. In the Huth 
 Catalogue are noticed several relics of <a similar kind ; 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 117 
 
 and indeed scarcely any great library, public or private, 
 is without them. They may be accepted as provisional 
 evidences. A rather curious circumstance seems to be 
 associated with one of the Huth fragments — three leaves 
 of Thomas Howell's New Sarmets and Pretty Pamphlets. 
 The relic once belonged to Thomas Martin of Palgrave, 
 and includes two leaves of signature D, which are deficient 
 in the Capell copy of this work at Cambridge. The latter 
 is described as a quarto ; but it would be interesting to 
 discover that from the fragment the text could be com- 
 pleted. The inconvenience attending the examination of 
 rare books in provincial libraries is very great and serious. 
 
 A copy of Statham's Abridgement of the Statutes, 
 printed at Rouen about 1491, and bound in England, 
 had as flyleaves two sheets of Caxton's Chronicles of 
 England, possibly some of the waste found in Caxton's 
 warehouse after his death. 
 
 There is a weird fascination about a newly found 
 fragment of some lost literary composition. Only a few 
 months since, in a copy of Cicero's Rhetorka, printed 
 by Aldus Manutius in 1546, in the possession of Mr. 
 Neal, quite a number of pieces of wastrel were disclosed 
 on the removal of the cpvers, and among them portions 
 of English metrical effusions of the period (for the volume 
 must have been bound here). We view this treasure trove 
 wistfully and indulgently; there it is; no mortal eye 
 had fallen on it in the course of three and a half 
 centuries; and how can we be expected to judge its 
 
118 HISTORY OF 
 
 value or quality by the ordinary standard — on an 
 ordinary critical principle? It has come to us like an 
 unlooked-for testamentary windfall. We are not to look 
 at it in the mouth too curiously or fastidiously, or we 
 deserve to have lost it; and it is the very same thing 
 with scores of remains of the kind, brought to light in 
 various directions and ways from season to season, and 
 (to the utmost extent of my power and opportunity) 
 chronicled by me on my accustomed principle. 
 
 When I was younger by some thirty years, I received 
 the catalogue of a provincial bookseller, and was sanguine 
 enough to suppose that I should become the happy 
 master at the marked price (7s. 6d.) of No. 2084, which 
 ran as follows : — 
 
 " Pynson and others — Specimens of Early Printing, comprising 
 Twenty Leaves of the Ballad of Robin Hood, <5fc. fyc, taken from the 
 cover of an old Missal." 
 
 No time was lost in giving the order; but the lot was 
 sold, and the proprietors did not even know who had bought 
 it. I comforted myself as the fox did. Yet such is the 
 frailty of one's nature, that one cannot refrain,- after long, 
 long years, from sentimentalising over it. There is some- 
 thing so taking in the notion of a tattered, semi-illegible, 
 unappropriated fractional relic, not a trunk even ; it 
 fascinates us like a coin of which the legend is almost 
 beyond identification; there is mystery behind it; we 
 may be on the track of a discovery which will help to 
 make us famous. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 119 
 
 We have all heard of the Hundred Merry Tales, 
 rescued by Mr. Conybeare in the early years of the 
 century from another book, of which the fragments 
 assisted to form the covers, and how the treasure was 
 prized till a complete copy occurred in a Continental 
 library and dispelled the charm. It was pointed out many 
 years ago by the present writer {Old English Jest-Books, 
 1864, i., Additional Notes) that Scot, in his Discovery of 
 Witchcraft, 1584, quotes the story from this miscellany of 
 the miller's eels, and enabled us, before the Gottingen copy 
 was brought under notice, to complete the text, which is 
 almost undecipherable in the Conybeare (now Huth) one. 
 
 The fragmentary state by no means restricts itself to 
 literary items of insignificant bulk. For, as we see, a 
 potential factor in the creation of rare books has been a 
 vast temporary popularity, succeeded by a prolonged 
 period of neglect. The result is before us in the almost 
 total evanescence of thousands of books extending to 
 hundreds of pages. Look at Blind Harry's Wallace, a 
 large volume, first printed in folio about 1520; a few 
 leaves are all that remain of the editio primceps; and 
 others have totally vanished. Many of us are familiar 
 with the tolerably ample dimensions of the service-books 
 of various uses in the English Church ; and yet those of 
 Aberdeen, Hereford, and York survive only in fragments 
 or torsi ; and the modern reprint of the first was formed 
 from a combination of several imperfect originals. A similar 
 fate has all but overtaken such excessively popular works as 
 
120 HISTORY OF 
 
 Coverdale's Bible, 1535, and Fox's Martyrs, 1563, an abso- 
 lutely perfect copy of either of which I have never beheld. 
 
 Henry Oxenden, of Barham in Kent, was the earliest 
 recorded collector of old English plays, and bound up his 
 122 dramatic possessions in six volumes before 1647. He 
 has left a list of them in his manuscript commonplace 
 book. Tears almost steal into our eyes as we read the 
 titles : the Hamlet of 1603, the Tammg of the Shrew, 
 1594, Ralph Roister Doister. Of the first we know well 
 enough the history to date: two copies, both imperfect. 
 The second exists in the unique Inglis, Heber, and Devon- 
 shire example ; it is mentioned in Longman's Catalogue 
 for 1817, from which it was purchased by Rodd, and sold 
 to Mr. Inglis; it is reputed to have once belonged to 
 Pope. The remaining item survives in the titleless copy 
 at present in the library of Eton College, to which Mr. 
 Bfiggs presented it in 1818, not on account of the associa- 
 tion of Udall the author with that seminary of learning, 
 but, curiously enough, by mere accident. 
 
 Among Bagford's collections there is a single leaf of 
 an otherwise unknown impression of Clement Robinson's 
 Handfkl qf Pleasant Delights, a 1565 book only hitherto 
 extant in a 1584 reprint. This precious little- morfeau 
 altogether differs, so far as it goes, from the correspond- 
 ing portion of the volume now preserved in the National 
 Library. 
 
 Let me insist a little on the instructive progress of 
 knowledge in one or two cases. A fragment of a small 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 121 
 
 tract in verse by Lydgate, from the prolific press of 
 Wynkyn de Worde, was proclaimed as an extraordinary 
 and unique accession to our literary stores some eighty 
 years since ; it was called The Treatise of a Gallant, and 
 had been taken from the covers of a volume of statutes 
 in the library at Nash Court. Some time after, a 
 complete copy of another impression turned up, and 
 ultimately a third, quite distinct from either of the 
 previous two, was discovered in a volume of marvellously 
 rare pieces sold by a Bristol bookseller to the late Mr. 
 Maskell for JP300, and by him to the British Museum. 
 Take another case connected with the same press. A 
 piece entitled The Remorse of Conscience, by William 
 Lichfield, parson of All Hallows, Thames Street, who 
 died in 1447, leaving a larger number of MSS. behind 
 him than Lamb once humorously made Coleridge do, 
 long enjoyed the reputation of being a solitary survivor; 
 but at present the world holds four, two recovered from 
 bindings, and a third titleless, and all, in fact, more or 
 less dilapidated by unappreciative or over-appreciative 
 handlers. Last, not least, the delightful idyll of Adam 
 Bell, of which we were so glad on a time to follow the 
 Garrick exemplar, is now proved to have been in type in 
 the reign of Henry VIII. ; and a piece of a pre-Heforma- 
 tion issue luckily preserves enough to show how, even in 
 a production probably sold at a penny, it was thought 
 worth while to alter a passage where the, Pope was 
 originally alluded to. 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 There are instances where we are deprived of the 
 gratification of beholding so much as a morsel of a 
 book sufficient to establish its former existence in hun- 
 dreds, if not thousands, of copies. Of the Four Sons of 
 Aymon, from the press of Wynkyn de Worde, 1504, 
 not a vestige has so far accrued; yet it once existed,' 
 as it is expressly cited in a later issue. So it is, 
 again, with Skelton's Nigramansir, printed by De 
 Worde in 1504, which was actually seen by Weston 
 the historian in the hands of Collins the poet, and 
 with Peter FabyVs Ghost (the Merry Devil of Edmon- 
 ton) from the same press. 
 
 We are accustomed to associate with the black- 
 letter fragment the name of John Bagford, who, in the 
 closing years of the seventeenth and beginning of the 
 next century, distinguished himself by the zeal with which 
 he collected typographical specimens and memorials. In 
 Bagford's day, the relative value of old books was scarcely 
 at all understood ; there was no adequate discrimination 
 between the productions of Caxton and his immediate 
 successors and those of living or recent printers; and, 
 again, which was more excusable, volumes by early divines 
 or by writers of established repute were more generally 
 sought than those by schools of poetry and fiction, which 
 at present command chief attention and respeet. If we 
 turn over the pages of an auctioneer's catalogue belonging 
 to that era, we perceive, side by side, items estimated at 
 about the same figure, of which many have become worth 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 123 
 
 perhaps even less, while a few have left their former com- 
 panions immeasurably behind, and one or two rank among 
 the livres imtrmivables. Those were the days when the 
 classics were preserved with the most jealous care, and 
 acquired at extravagant prices, and when our vernacular 
 literature, from the introduction of typography down to the 
 Restoration, was an object of attention to an extremely 
 limited constituency, and could be obtained for a song. 
 
 The Bagford collection of title-pages and fragments 
 formerly constituted part "of the Harleian manuscripts in 
 the British Museum, but has been chiefly transferred to 
 the printed book department of recent years. It resembles 
 a Typographical Cemetery, a charnel-house of books 
 crowded together without respect to their subject-matter 
 or their literary rank : the leaf of a Caxton, another of 
 a valueless legal treatise, the title-page of Romeus and 
 Julietta, on which Shakespeare founded, as the phrase goes, 
 his own play, and a broadsheet preserved entire, there being 
 no more of it. But Bagford, who helped Dr. Moore, 
 Bishop of Ely, and perchance Lord Oxford, to some of 
 their rarities, does not stand alone. He had many 
 followers; but the scale of operations diminished as the 
 orthodox collector multiplied and prices rose. Sir John 
 Fenn, editor of the Paston Letters, whom we have named 
 above, was a disciple, however, and Martin of Palgrave was 
 another. Many years since, for a proposed new Bwgraphia 
 Britarmica by Murray of Albemarle Street, the present 
 writer collected all the known particulars of Bagford him- 
 
124 HISTORY OF 
 
 self, who spent his last days in the Charterhouse. His 
 episcopal client or patron died in 1714. 
 
 Before we condemn these biblioclasts, let us recollect 
 one thing. It is not so much that they have rendered 
 books imperfect by the abstraction of leaves or title-pages, 
 as that they have actually preserved the sole testimony 
 for the existence of hundreds of books, tracts, and broad- 
 sheets of which we should have otherwise known nothing, 
 amid the wholesale destruction of early literature, which 
 was not arrested till the close of the last century, and 
 still proceeds in a modified form and degree. Not many 
 years since the Troy-Book printed by Caxton was dis- 
 covered hanging up in a water-closet at Harrogate; a 
 portion had disappeared, but the remainder was secured, 
 and was sold to a dealer in Manchester for thirty guineas. 
 It must be, and is, Bagford's apology that he sacrificed 
 to his typographical scheme material which was almost 
 universally neglected, and for which there might seem, 
 two hundred years ago, scarcely any prospect of a future 
 call. Yet, oddly enough, this very person was one of the 
 pioneers, by his labours and example, in bringing back a 
 taste for the older English school; he appeared at a 
 juncture when sufficient time had elapsed for the de- 
 struction by various agencies of a vast proportion of the 
 products of the press ; but until the fashion, which he and 
 others set, had begun to spread, it remained unknown 
 how much was reduced from its original volume, and how 
 much had perished. We have the less pretence for 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 125 
 
 censuring the biblioclasts of the past, who could only use 
 the eyes and experience of their own epoch, when instances 
 are reported from time to time of the same ruthless 
 practices even by those who might have been expected to 
 know better ; and there is more than one way of viewing 
 the present notorious tendency to exterminate the old 
 theology on the plea that it is worthless, since a generation 
 may arise which will upbraid us for having converted to 
 pulp this part of our inheritance, till it comes at last to 
 survive in a stray leaf here or a mangled fragment there. 
 An altogether different quarter from which a result con- 
 ducive to the shrinkage or disappearance of copies of 
 early works has arisen is the print-collecting movement, 
 involving the devastation of the innumerable volumes 
 which contain portraits, frontispieces, and other engravings, 
 and the more than incidental risk of the consignment of 
 the unvalued residue to the waste-basket ; and it may be 
 mentioned that within our personal knowledge hundreds 
 upon hundreds of scarce old books have been destroyed by 
 editors, lexicographers, and other literary workers, to save 
 the trouble of transcribing extracts. It might be impossible 
 to exhaust the variety of ways in which an extraordinarily 
 large body of publications of former days has been reduced 
 or raised to the position of rarities of graduated rank. 
 
 After all these ages, all the indefatigable researches 
 which have been undertaken for profit or for pleasure, all 
 the libraries which have been formed and dispersed, true 
 it is that the Unique volume, which of course enjoys its 
 
126 HISTORY OF 
 
 designation only till a second copy is producible, still 
 survives in such abundance, that one, if it were otherwise 
 feasible, might form a library composed of nothing else. 
 Does it not become curious to consider to what lottery, as 
 it were, we owe them — owe their arrest just at the dividing 
 line between living and lost literature ? Whatever may be 
 the cause, we have hitherto failed to trace duplicates of the 
 metrical Ship of Fools, 1509, Queen Elizabeth's Prayer- 
 Book, 1569, Watson's Teares of Fancie, 1593, Venus and 
 Adonis, 1593, 1599, and 1617, and of Lucrece, 1598. 
 Copies of these later productions must have found their 
 way to Shakespeare's country at the time. Malone met 
 with the Venus and Adonis of 1593 at Manchester in 1805, 
 and another collector with that of 1594 in the same shire ; 
 and the Florio's Montaigne of 1603, the only volume with 
 the poet's autograph yet seen, was long preserved at 
 Smethwick, near Birmingham. It was at Manchester, too, 
 that the copy of the Tragedy of Richard III., 1594, 
 came to light as recently as 1881. Several of the works 
 of Nicholas Breton and Samuel Rowlands survive in iso- 
 lated copies. Upwards of a century has elapsed since a 
 medical man picked up in Ayrshire in 1788 an assemblage 
 of quarto tracts belonging to the ancient vernacular 
 literature of Scotland and to the parent press of Edin- 
 burgh; and not a whisper has been raised to suggest the 
 existence of a second copy of any of them, which is to be 
 regretted so far, as some are imperfect. During years 
 on years, the authorities at the Advocates' Library, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 127 
 
 Edinburgh, kept this inestimable relic in a cupboard 
 under the stairs. In the find at Lamport Hall, 
 Northamptonshire, thirty or forty years since, there were 
 items upon items utterly unknown. It was the same at 
 the Wolfreston sale in 1856. It goes without saying that 
 among the Heber stores the uniques were barely numerable; 
 and many yet preserve their reputation as such. Mr. 
 Caldecott, Mr. Jolley, and Mr. Corser were lucky in 
 falling in with scores of tracts of the first order of 
 rarity. No one has beheld the double of the Jests of the 
 Widow Edith, purchased by Lord Fitzwilliam for £3 10s. 
 at West's sale in 1773, and formerly Lord Oxford's ; and 
 the citation of the last name prompts the remark that 
 many a book in the Harleian Library still awaits re- 
 covery, assuming the description in the catalogue to be 
 correct. On the contrary, there are serious warnings to 
 enthusiasts not to rely too implicitly on the reputation of 
 a volume for uniqueness or high rarity in view of such 
 phenomena as the occurrence within a short period of 
 each other at the same mart in 1896 of two copies of the 
 first edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, printed by 
 Caxton. Here was a case where the publicity afforded 
 to these matters brought out a second example, which 
 " the owner found to be worth a small estate. 
 
 The writer's publication, Fugitive Tracts, 1493-1700, 
 2 vols., 1875, very aptly and powerfully illustrates the 
 present bearings of our subject. Of the sixty pieces there 
 reproduced, two-thirds appear to be unique, and only four 
 
128 HISTORY OF 
 
 are traceable in the Heber Catalogue. Yet many of the 
 items are of historical or biographical importance, and 
 were, in fact, selected from a much larger number with 
 that view ; which seems to be tantamount to a recognition 
 of the truth, that, enormous as is the total surviving body 
 of early English and Scotish Literature, it represents in 
 some sections or classes only a salvage of what was once in 
 type, or, to speak more by the card, of what we have so 
 far been able to recover. 
 
 There are rare books which, paradoxical as it may 
 seem, are not rare. Take, for example, Burton's Anatomy 
 of Melancholy, 1621 ; the first folio Shakespeare, 1623 ; 
 Milton's Lycidas, Poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, 
 in the editiones prmevpes ; the works of the minor poets, 
 Suckling, Carew, Shirley, Davenant; Walton's Angler, 
 1653 ; Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 1678 ; the Kilmarnock 
 Burns, 1786; and many first editions of Wordsworth, 
 Lamb, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson. Every season swells 
 the roll of existing copies. On the contrary, Spenser's 
 Faery Queen, Books i.-iii., 1590, and Milton's Comus, 
 1634, are authentically scarce, the former especially so 
 in fine state ; and the same may be predicated of Lovelace's 
 Lwcasta (the two parts complete). But the real meaning of 
 the rarity of the other books above specified — and the list 
 might be readily enlarged — is that, although the copies are 
 numerous enough, the taste for capital productions has 
 increased within a few years out "of proportion to the 
 recovery of new or unknown examples. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 129 
 
 We are finding frequent occasion to cite works of 
 foreign origin, which are more or less habitually taken 
 up into our own collections by miscellaneous or general 
 buyers; and there is among these one which forms a 
 signal illustration of the fallacy of uniqueness. It is the 
 Gutenberg or Mazarin Bible. Scarcely a library of the 
 first rank occurs here or elsewhere without offering a 
 copy; and we are persuaded that at least forty must 
 exist, either on paper or on vellum, throughout the world. 
 The book occupies the same bibliographical position as 
 the first folio Shakespeare, the first .edition of Walton's 
 Angler, and the first Burns ; it tends to grow commoner, 
 yet, so far, not cheaper. 
 
 There are other books which, as it may be more readily 
 understood, are rare without being valuable, and of which 
 such of the commercial world as has it not in its power 
 to expend large amounts on individual purchases, naturally 
 seeks to make the most. It was almost amusing, some 
 time since, to note the entries in some of the booksellers' 
 lists under " Black Letter," " Gothic Letter," " Rare Law," 
 " Curious Early English," and so forth ; and the names 
 of Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and other ancient printers 
 were freely introduced to help off a rather lame foreigner, 
 who was alleged to have been professionally associated 
 with one or the other of them. If the bookseller knows 
 the book-buyer, it is highly requisite that the latter 
 should study what he is going to buy. 
 
 Illustrations are not wanting of the loss of untold 
 
130 HISTORY OF 
 
 treasure through a medium more fatal than any other 
 — through exhaustive popular demand. Entire and large 
 impressions of books, pamphlets, and broadsides have 
 succumbed, not to the sacrilegious hand of the spoiler, 
 but to the too affectionate, and not too cleanly, 
 fingering of the multitude of men and women who read 
 and then cast the sources of entertainment away. If we 
 remember that certain of the Bibles ordered to be 
 kept in churches for general use chiefly survive in crum- 
 bling fragments, or at best woefully dilapidated copies, 
 we cease to be surprised at the easy prey which more 
 fugitive compositions have formed to a succession of care- 
 less and indifferent owners. The illiterate inscriptions 
 on many books, which have thus become valuable, point 
 to the hands through which they have passed, and tell 
 a story of prolonged neglect, too often culminating in 
 appropriation to domestic requirements. 
 
 It is, anyhow, perfectly undeniable that of the mis- 
 cellaneous early literature of all countries, the proportion 
 which exists is in very numerous instances no more than 
 a simple voucher for the work having passed the press. 
 A single copy has formerly occurred or occurs fortuitously, 
 and no duplicate can be cited. This is the position of 
 thousands of volumes, and of many it is the chief merit. 
 
 Infinitely numerous are the strange tales, sometimes 
 drawing up the moisture into the mouth, sometimes 
 sufficient to make one's hair rigid, of books of price hung 
 up for use at country railway stations, or employed by a 
 
< BOOK-COLLECTING 131 
 
 tobacconist to wrap up his pennyworths of snuff, or 
 converted by a lady of quality into curl-papers. What 
 has become of the Caxtons sent over to the Netherlands 
 in the last century by a confiding English gentleman 
 their owner, for the inspection of a nameless Mynheer his 
 friend, who, when he was invited to restore them, lamented 
 their disappearance in a fire ? 
 
 There was beyond a question an epoch, and a pro- 
 longed one, when the mill shared with household demands 
 an immense quota of the cast-off literature of these 
 islands. One of our early collectors of Caxtons, Ratcliff, 
 whose books were sold in 1776, acquired his taste (one 
 in a thousand) through his vocation as a chandler or 
 storekeeper in the Borough. We may surmise how his 
 Caxtons came to him, and at what rates ! 
 
 These episodes appertain to the romantic and specu- 
 lative aspect of book-collecting; but they really have 
 another side. Here, at a time when the first-fruits of 
 the English press were unregarded, we find a man of 
 RatclifTs status acquiring thirty Caxtons. He lived just 
 to see a rise in their value, yet a very slight and 
 fluctuating one ; for at last he went into the open market 
 and purchased a few lots at West's auction in 1773, and 
 the Caxtons thus obtained re-sold after BatclhTs death 
 in one or two cases at a lower rate. He had inflated 
 the market; the competitors were not more than two 
 or three. But the time was soon to come when such 
 persons could no longer afford to hold this kind of 
 
132 HISTORY OF 
 
 property — when it became fashionable for dukes and earls 
 and men of large property to make our early typography 
 an object of research ; and so it continued down to the 
 present time, till the agricultural depression arrived to 
 create another organic change, and to direct these, as 
 well as other costly luxuries, into new channels. Not the 
 chandler, or the Government official, or the private gentle- 
 man of modest means, but the great manufacturer or the 
 merchant-prince entered on the scene, and wrested from 
 the landowner his long-cherished possessions. The West 
 and Ratclift' sales (1773-76) were the two golden oppor- 
 tunities, however, of which the advisers of George III. 
 wisely availed themselves to purchase volumes at what 
 we have been taught to consider nominal prices; and 
 there they are in the British Museum to-day, a recollec- 
 tion of one of the better traits in the character of that 
 prince. When we say that the market for Caxtons in 
 1776 was beginning to expand, we mean that the day 
 for getting such things for a few pence or a shilling or 
 two had gone by. Here, for example, are some of the 
 quotations from the Ratcliff auction : — 
 
 Chronicles of Englande, fine copy, 1480 
 Doctrinal of Sapyence, 1489 . 
 The Boke called Cathon, 1483 
 Tullius de Senectute, in Euglyshe, 1481 
 The Game and Playe of Chesse 
 
 The Boke of Jason 
 
 Legends Aurea ; or, the Golden Legend, 1483 
 
 These figures make even some of those in the West 
 
 £ s. 
 5 5 
 
 d. 
 
 
 8 8 
 
 
 
 5 5 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 6 10 
 
 
 
 9 15 
 
 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 133 
 
 auction, 1773, appear by comparison rather extravagant. 
 For his Majesty's agent at the latter gave as much as 
 .£14 for the romance of Paris and Vierme, from the 
 Caxton press, 1485. True, it seems to be unique, and 
 might to-day require its purchaser, if it were for sale, to 
 have ^500 in his pocket or at his bank to secure it. 
 Yet strange events still continue to happen from time 
 to time. Not Caxtons nor Shakespeares, but excellent 
 books which command prices in the open market, are 
 yet occasionally given away. 
 
 A case occurred in Lincolnshire about a year ago, 
 when a library of some 2500 volumes was sold by an 
 intelligent provincial auctioneer alfresco in the dogdays, 
 and put up in bundles, nearly all of which were knocked 
 down at the first bid — threepence. Say, 150 lots at 3d. 
 per lot = <£l 17s. 6d. for the whole. There must have 
 been an entente cordiale among those in attendance, the 
 gentleman in the rostrum inclusive. 
 
 These instances of misdirection, which have been in 
 times past more numerous than now, although two of 
 the most recent and most signal have occurred in the 
 same county (Lincolnshire), inevitably tend to the de- 
 struction of copies, and so far illustrate our remarks on 
 the causes of the gradual disappearance of books during 
 former periods. 
 
 There are, however, circumstances under which prices 
 are depressed by collusion, as where a first folio Shake- 
 speare was knocked done for £9,0 in an auction-room 
 
134 HISTORY OF 
 
 not five hundred niiles from Fleet Street ; or by an acci- 
 dent, as when the original Somers Tracts, in thirty folio 
 volumes, comprising unique Americana, fetched bond fide 
 under the hammer only £61. A single item was re-sold 
 for sixty guineas, and would now bring thrice that 
 amount. What a game of chance this book traffic is ! 
 
 Imperfect Books, as distinguished from Fragments, 
 constitute a rather complex and troublesome portion 
 and aspect of collecting. They are susceptible of classi- 
 fication into books — (J) Of which no perfect copy is 
 known ; (J8) Of which none is known outside one or two 
 great libraries; (3) Of which even imperfect examples, 
 as of a specimen of early typography or of engraving, 
 are valuable and interesting; (4) Of which copies are 
 more or less easily procurable. It is only the last division 
 at which an amateur of any pretensions and resources 
 draws the line. With the other contingencies our keenest 
 and richest book-hunters and our most important public 
 collections have been and are obliged to be satisfied. 
 When it is a question of a unique, or almost unique, 
 Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, or Pynson, or quite as 
 much of a volume from the London, St. Albans, Tavis- 
 tock, York, or Edinburgh presses, what is to be done ? 
 The object, no doubt, laisse a desvrer ; but where is 
 another? This sentiment and spirit operated twice, as 
 we have elsewhere noted, within three months in 1896 
 in the case of two incomplete copies of the first edition 
 by Caxton of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. But for the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 135 
 
 defective copy of a common book some find an apology 
 and a home : they cannot afford a better, or they require 
 it for a special purpose. The upshot is, that for every 
 old volume there is a customer, who is pleased with his 
 acquisition according to his light ; and we have met with 
 such as seemed disposed to view the missing or damaged 
 leaves as negative evidence of antiquity and genuineness. 
 
 The bystander who has had the benefit of as long 
 an innings as the present writer, witnesses perpetual 
 changes and vicissitudes of sentiment; and from one 
 point of view, at all events, the minute details, into 
 which the too generally despised bibliographer enters, 
 are valuable, because they present to us, in lists of 
 editions of authors and books published from age to age, 
 the astonishing evidence of mutable popularity or accept- 
 ability. There is a feature, which is almost amusing, in 
 the ideas and estimates expressed of many works by our 
 earlier antiquaries, when we look to-day at their position 
 and rank. If we turn over the pages of Hearne's Diary, 
 for instance, we constantly meet with accounts of literary 
 curiosities and rarities, which we regard with different 
 eyes by virtue of our enlarged information, while thousands 
 of really valuable items — valuable on some score or other 
 — go there unnoted, although copies of them must have 
 passed through the sales, even more frequently than at 
 present. The close of the nineteenth century has brought 
 these matters to a truer level. We are better able to 
 gauge the survival of books and editions. 
 
136 HISTORY OF 
 
 Even in the sometimes tedious enumeration of editions 
 of early books bibliography confers a sort of benefit, for 
 it demonstrates the longevity in public estimation and 
 demand of a host of books now neglected, yet objects of 
 interest and utility to many successive ages. 
 
 We have seen so many cranks and fancies successively 
 take possession of the public. Early typography ; early 
 poetry and romances ; books of hours ; books of emblems ; 
 Roman Catholic literature ; .liturgies ; Bewick ; Barto- 
 lozzi ; the first edition (which was sometimes equally the 
 last); books on vellum, on India-paper, or on yellow 
 or some other bizarre colour or material, debarring per- 
 usal of the publication ; copies with remarkable blunders 
 or with some of the text inadvertently omitted — all these 
 and a legion of others have had their day ; and to some 
 of them it happens that they drop out of view for a 
 season, and then reappear for a second or third brief 
 term of life and favour ; and therefore, it being so, who 
 can have the heart to blame the parties that in the 
 exercise of their vocation make hay while the sun shines ? 
 There is one personage, and one alone, who makes it 
 whether or no, summer and winter, to wit, the auctioneer ; 
 his commission is assured ; on what or from whom he gets 
 it he cares not. He cheerfully leaves the adjustment of 
 accounts to gentlemen outside. 
 
 The circumstances under which a new departure takes 
 place, often without much previous warning, in the book- 
 market, and disturbs the calculations of holders of certain 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 137 
 
 classes of stock, are infinitely varied. The bibliographi- 
 cal barometer is surprisingly sensitive, and the slightest 
 change of fashion in the older literature, and even in 
 those sections of the more recent which embrace acknow- 
 ledged rarities, is instantaneously felt. In some branches 
 of collecting, and where the prices of commodities are 
 such as to exclude all but a knot of wealthy amateurs, the 
 entrance of a new-comer on the ground makes a vital 
 difference, especially if the market is in need of support 
 from existing wants having been supplied ; and if one 
 goes about a little, one hears men whispering in corners 
 and questioning who the stranger is, anoS for what he 
 is likely to prove good. Should he be a strong man, 
 that is, in purse, you will soon perceive, if you keep your 
 eye on the auction-room, another strong man buying at 
 all costs against all comers just the articles which com- 
 mend themselves to the first dramatis persona. He buys 
 nearly ^everything ; they are for him alone, unless there 
 are two in the field concurrently, and then one may be 
 conveniently played off against the other. A small field 
 it is! 
 
 And this interesting commercial strategy is always 
 going on, while the objects of pursuit continually vary. 
 The dealer looks after, not his own desiderata — for he 
 has none — but those of his immediate clients. In a 
 large business a man is likely to have many; but the 
 class which repays study, which turns sovereigns into 
 bank-notes for him, is not a numerous one. Half-a- 
 
138 HISTORY OF 
 
 dozen first-rate customers keep a shop open even in the 
 most fashionable and expensive thoroughfare. The late 
 Joseph Lilly leant during his last years mainly on one. 
 A collector of the stamp of Mr. Hartley was almost 
 sufficient to support such an establishment as Newman's 
 in Holborn or Tdovey's in Piccadilly. You might pass the 
 latter, or both, day after day and week after week, and not 
 see a soul enter or leave the premises ; all was done by 
 correspondence and flukes and a few real good buyers in 
 the background. Mr. Quaritch in London or M. Fontaine 
 in Paris will clear more in an afternoon by the change of 
 hands of two or three heavy items than a small dealer, 
 even if "he is unusually lucky, will do in a twelvemonth 
 out of thousands of petty and troublesome transactions. 
 It is not particularly unusual for a big firm to sell at 
 one sitting four or five thousand pounds worth of pro- 
 perty. There are others which have not sold as much 
 during the entire term of their career, and never will. 
 
 The works which enjoy their turn of public favour are 
 generally recognisable in the catalogues by the type in 
 which they are set forth; and any one who has stood 
 by and witnessed all the changes of the last thirty or 
 forty years observes periodical phenomena in the transfer 
 of typographical honours from one school of authors, or 
 one group of subjects, to another. The most recent 
 auctioneers' catalogues reflect the sentiment of the day 
 in lavishing capitals on trifles from the pens of more or 
 less ephemeral modern writers, and registering with corre- 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 139 
 
 sponding brevity much of the old English literature, which 
 a few years since was in the ascendant. A rare volume 
 of Elizabethan verse or prose halts after an insignificant 
 brochure by Lamb, Dickens, or Thackeray, which the 
 respective authors would have judged scarcely worth pre- 
 serving, to which their indifference, in point of fact, con- 
 stitutes the cause of scarcity and consequent appreciation. 
 
 So it was once upon a time, to be sure, with the 
 Caxton, the quarto Shakespeare, the ballad, the penny 
 black-letter garland, and many another article which 
 we now hold so precious. The man who could secure 
 Caxtons and Shakespeares for pence, was he happier? 
 Why, no ; for he simply followed the market and nobody 
 was envious. He lifted his acquisition off the counter or 
 stall for the best of all reasons — because he fancied it — nay, 
 because he intended to read it when he reached home. 
 
 A plea from the absolute collector's point of view — 
 I fear, a weak and false one — is occasionally advanced 
 for books which were formerly in fashion and favour; 
 for example, Sylvester's Du Bartas, the Platonic romances, 
 Townley's French Hudibras, and a hundred — a thousand 
 — ten thousand more. It is thought to be worth while 
 to have a few of these deposed idols to show to your 
 friends when they visit you, that they may join in a 
 homily on changes of taste. Perhaps it would suffice 
 to compare notes through the medium of some Censura 
 Literaria, or Beloe, or Collier. With most people space 
 is a consideration, with a few, money ; and an incidental 
 
140 HISTORY OF 
 
 and passing reflection need not be so costly in either way. 
 For that reason such works as I have indicated, and a 
 few others similar to them, are apt to prove serviceable 
 and economical. 
 
 The periodical reinforcement of the ranks of the 
 book-collecting world, in the higher latitudes at least, 
 is obviously imperative, as individuals do not usually 
 commence investments of such a kind till they are 
 well on in life and have put by a fortune, or at all 
 events retired from business. Some purely accidental 
 matter directs attention to a line of bibliography which 
 appears attractive and important; the money is there, 
 and the expert will undertake the rest. It is not the 
 interest of those engaged in the business to be critical ; 
 they are merely executive agents. But the demand for" 
 the costlier rarities and curiosities is so narrow, that the 
 fresh aspirant is soon the central object of attention to 
 the few who can provide him with what he imagines he 
 wants. As a rule, where a man has no personal know- 
 ledge, and finds that he is gradually becoming a milch-cow 
 for the trade, the hobby is not of long duration ; it is 
 only where the buyer can control and check the vendor 
 that satisfactory relations are likely to continue, perhaps 
 for years, perhaps for a lifetime. There is ever a 
 tendency, on the part of the bookish commissariat, to 
 strike the iron too hard. 
 
 It does happen here and there that collectors are 
 enabled to make their own prices for their acquisitions 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 141 
 
 either by extraordinary reputation for judgment and by 
 virtue of a well-known name, or by the fact of being 
 earned by our common lot beyond earshot of their good 
 fortune,- or, once more, by the force of peculiar circum- 
 stances. As an almost inexorable rule, the stocks of 
 dealers are coldly regarded, and even those of William 
 Pickering and Joseph Lilly were allowed to drop, so 
 that, in the latter instance more particularly, some 
 real bargains were obtained. Yet, on the contrary, 
 the books thrown on the market after the retirement of 
 F. S. Ellis and the death of James Toovey went capitally, 
 partly because they were supported by Mr. Quaritch 
 (rather glad perhaps to get rid of his two confreres). 
 Then, more recently, the collection formed by Mr. 
 Warton brought quite unexpected figures, and we feel 
 justified in adding, figures sometimes scarcely warranted 
 by the property. These instances, and this other aspect 
 of the subject, strengthen our contention that the whole 
 affair from beginning to end is a sort of lottery, a type of 
 gambling. If those who enter into the fray do so with 
 their eyes open, and do not object, who should ? 
 
 But assuredly the most' egregious case in modern 
 times of the absolute despotism of name and ownership 
 over all other considerations was that of the portion of 
 William Morris's library submitted to public sale in 
 December 1898. The books themselves were, as a rule, 
 below mediocrity in state, and could not have well 
 possessed for the new acquirers even that special interest 
 
142 HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 and value which Morris recognised in them as aids to 
 his artistic and literary labours. Yet the prices realised 
 were beyond anything on record, and were simply absurd. 
 There seemed to be a violent struggle on the part of three 
 or four competitors to secure these treasures at any cost, 
 and they did so. Let the very same copies recur, and 
 in the hands of a person of inferior celebrity, and the 
 shrinkage will probably be serious. The direct associa- 
 tion was dissolved when the lots were adjudged to the 
 highest bidders, and here the highest bidders were high 
 indeed. 
 
 To the speculative investor in literary property what 
 can we have to say? He works with his eyes opened 
 to their widest possibility of expansion, and carries his 
 fortune or success in his hands. No doubt there are 
 occasional nukes for him; but, generally speaking, the 
 greatest have been for collections formed and dispersed 
 without any view to profit, where the state of the market 
 has accidentally favoured the owner, or there was some 
 nimbus round the name. 
 
 Before you set about forming a library, you should 
 consider in what sort of atmosphere, of your own or your 
 friends' creation, it is likely to be sold hereafter. You 
 ought almost to be able to calculate how celebrated you 
 will die, 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Early English literature — Absorption of the rarer items by public 
 libraries or by America — Future of collecting — Poetical writers 
 of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — Fruits of a long 
 neglect — Want of discrimination among private buyers — Neces- 
 sity for a better training or sounder advice — Remarks on 
 our early literature — Small proportion of high-class authors — 
 Safe and unsafe investments — Condition of copies — Writers 
 whose works are of mysterious rarity — Nicholas Breton — 
 "Three-halfpenny ware "—Paucity of great names in the post- 
 Restoration period down to our own — Foreign works belonging 
 to the English series : their chief places of origin — English 
 presses — Typographical vicissitudes of London — The Scotish 
 Series — Scotish presses — The Irish Series — Irish presses — The 
 Irish Stock — The List of Claims, 1701 — Anglo-American 
 literature and early American editions of English Classics — 
 The American Colonial group of books — The Bay Psalm^Book, 
 1640 — The volumes of Statutes printed at Boston, Philadelphia, 
 and New York — Sources of information on Anglo-American 
 bibliography — Caution against impatience and enthusiasm. 
 
 The entire range of the earlier English and Scotish 
 romantic, poetical, and even historical literature embraces 
 so many items, which are either unattainable from their 
 rarity or their cost, if they happen once in a lifetime to 
 occur, that it may be said to be ground almost closed 
 against the ordinary private buyer. Articles which are 
 to be seen by the hundred in the priced catalogues of 
 libraries dispersed twenty or thirty years since with fairly 
 
144 HISTORY OF 
 
 moderate figures attached to them, have, owing to 
 severer competition from America as well as at home, 
 either for public or private purchasers, trebled or quad- 
 rupled in value. With the more modern literature, of 
 which the positive scarcity does not warrant this great 
 inflation, we may reasonably look for a fall ; but in the 
 case of volumes which are really rare, it is hard to see 
 how the chances of collectors can be improved in the 
 future. The upshot will be, that they must be satisfied 
 with smaller fish or modify their lines; for of old and 
 elderly books of intrinsic value and interest there is a 
 plentiful choice. With regard to a considerable body of 
 Early English volumes, which formerly appeared in the 
 catalogues of Thorpe, liodd, the elder Pickering, and 
 others, it is to be said that the fewness of survivors 
 was not appreciated, and half-a-dozen public or closed 
 libraries have absorbed them all. 
 
 It exemplifies the remarkable revolution in feeling 
 and taste when we turn over the pages of one of William 
 Pickering's catalogues — that for 1827 — and observe a per- 
 fect set of the four folio Shakespeares, 1623-85, marked 
 £105, while a large-paper series of Hearne's books, or 
 of some standard edition of the classics in morocco, 
 cost more ; whereas at present the Hearnes and the 
 classics are barely saleable at any price, and the dramatic 
 volumes might be worth twenty times more than they 
 brought seventy years since. 
 
 The poetical writers of the Tudor, Elizabethan, and 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 145 
 
 Stuart eras have had, in a commercial sense, two or three 
 reverses of fortune. From the period of publication down 
 to the last quarter of the last century they were to be 
 bought at prices little beyond waste paper, so soon as the 
 original interest in them had subsided. The editors of 
 Shakespeare — Pope, Hanmer,Theobald,Warburton, Capell, 
 Steevens, Malone, Farmer, and Reed — awakened a sort of 
 new interest in the subject, just in time to save the 
 slender salvage of a century and a half s neglect or in- 
 difference from the mill and the kitchen-fire ; and their 
 example led to others coming upon the ground, such 
 as West, Major Pearson, the Duke of Roxburghe, Lord 
 Blandford, Lord Spencer, Bindley, and Heber, whose 
 motives were primarily acquisitive. In or about 1833 a 
 strong reaction set in, and prices fell till 1842-45, when 
 the Bright and Chalmers sales, and the more sensible 
 competition of the British Museum, again restored confi- 
 dence and strength to the market. Since that time, our 
 old poets have not, on the whole, suffered any marked 
 decline, and the most recent revival is in their favour. 
 
 The Americans, it seems, call for first editions, and 
 they have not to call twice, though they may be required 
 to pay smartly. This new ticket owes its origin to the 
 usual' agency. One or two Transatlantic book-lovers gain 
 the information from some source that this is the real 
 article, that if you want fine poetry you must go to these 
 fellows — not exactly Shakespeare and Spenser, for they 
 had heard of them before — but to Gascoigne, Sydney, 
 
146 HISTORY OF 
 
 Herrick, Carew, Suckling, Lovelace, and the rest of the 
 company; and above all, if you desire to enjoy their 
 beauties and appreciate their genius fully and absolutely, 
 you are referred to the editio prmceps — not that which 
 the author corrected and preferred, but the one in 
 morocco extra, which your bookseller recommends to you. 
 It is by no means that we seek to ridicule or discourage 
 the pursuit, but we want and wish to see a more healthy 
 and discriminating spirit among buyers. Let intending 
 collectors devote a reasonable time to a preparatory study 
 of the subject and survey of the field and then they will 
 perhaps accomplish better results at a lower cost. Let 
 them, once more, not be in too violent a hurry. The 
 abundance of transmitted writings in a metrical shape 
 only proves more conclusively the familiar fact that it 
 is as easy to compose verses as it is difficult to compose 
 poetry. The long succession of authors who fall within 
 the category of poets has received an extent of editorial 
 care and illustration in the course of the century, however, 
 which argues the prevalence of a more favourable opinion 
 of their merits. The names which are at present com- 
 manding chief notice are those which have always been 
 esteemed : Shakespeare, Fletcher, Beaumont, Jonson, 
 Daniel, Drayton, Wither, Sir John Davis, Herrick, Carew, 
 Lovelace, and Suckling ; and among the Scotish bards 
 Drummond takes the lead. The most singular feature 
 about the matter is that, in the presence of all kinds of 
 critical editions, the demand is not for them, but for the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 147 
 
 originals. The mission of the modern recensor comes to 
 an end when, by a stupendous amount of research and 
 erudition, he has emphasised the characteristics and gifts 
 of a writer. Then the amateur steps forward, and ex- 
 presses his readiness to give any price for the good old 
 book, undisfigured by notes and emendations ! 
 
 It is perhaps fruitless to attempt to turn the tide of 
 common sentiment, and gentlemen must be permitted to 
 choose their own money's worth. They may think and 
 say that' they want the volume as it left the author's 
 hands, not diluted and overlaid by commentators. 
 Granted, it is a product of the time, even though the 
 author did not see the proofs, and the printer could not 
 always decipher the MS. But then comes the larger and 
 more general question : How much of the better class of 
 early verse- writers are worth reading? The present de- 
 ponent, without . being conscious that he is very hyper- 
 critical, states the deliberate result of actual examination 
 and perusal when he affirms that of the minor poets of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, save perhaps Ran- 
 dolph, the productions of enduring value and interest could 
 be brought within the compass of a moderate volume. 
 
 It would be eminently unwise for any one who treats 
 his library as an investment to yield to the existing 
 tendency to exorbitant prices for the later poets and 
 playwrights, as the rise is due to ephemeral causes, and 
 the demand, for the most part, is not likely to exhaust 
 the supply. 
 
148 HISTORY OF 
 
 If the truth may be told, the literature of past ages 
 in all countries, and nowhere more so than in England, is, 
 in proportion to its immense extent, excessively barren of 
 high-class writers or written matter. Each generation of 
 collectors discovers this fact at last; but it discovers it 
 for itself, We disdain to profit by the experience of our 
 precursors, just as the little girl insisted on learning at 
 her own cost how foolish it was to do a certain thing. 
 Because there are a few highly interesting catholic pub- 
 lications, your amateur must be absolutely complete in 
 the series. If it seems expedient to possess an example 
 or two of ancient typography, he ends by doing his best 
 to accumulate every example in the market. There is 
 more than a probability that the service-books of the 
 Romish Church have their archaeological and literary value : 
 ergo, he orders every one which he sees advertised, albeit 
 the differences are substantially far from momentous. 
 He understands that some very curious volumes illustrative 
 of ritualism and the various holy orders were printed here 
 or abroad, and he proceeds to drain the booksellers' 
 shelves throughout the universe of every bit of sorry stuff 
 answering to this description. There are a dozen or so of 
 Collections of Emblems, English or foreign, which are 
 supposed to throw light on passages in Shakespeare and 
 other authors ; this is sufficient leverage for the concen- 
 tration under the unfortunate gentleman's roof of a closely 
 packed cartload. 
 
 Seriously and bibliographically speaking, there is a 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 149 
 
 fairly wide difference and disparity among the old editions 
 of the poets and romancists ; and there are, and always 
 will be, a distinguished minority, of which the selling 
 prices may be expected to remain firm. Such men as 
 Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Chapman, 
 Massinger, and among the lyric group Barnfield, Watson, 
 Constable, Wither (earlier works and Hallelujah), Carew, 
 Herrick, Suckling, and Lovelace, are to be viewed as 
 standard and stable. 
 
 Then in the Scotish series there is permanence in 
 Lyndsay, Drummond, and Burns. But, on the contrary, 
 the minor, more obscure, or commoner productions must 
 be carefully distinguished and circumspectly handled by 
 those who do not desire or cannot afford to throw away 
 their money. The names above cited are themselves very 
 unequal-; some, like Breton, Churchyard, Whetstone, 
 Barnfield, Watson, and Constable, are sought, and will 
 ever be sought, by reason of their peculiar rarity; and, 
 save in a sentimental way, no one would probably dream of 
 placing Beaumont, Chapman, Wither, and some of the rest 
 on a par with Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Massinger. There 
 has been, however, a tendency to force on the notice of book- 
 buyers, faute de mieux, many writers whose productions 
 are neither rare nor of the first class — Heywood, Dekker, 
 Webster, Ford, and Shirley — and to bracket them com- 
 mercially with authentic desiderata either on the score 
 of merit or of scarcity. Of the three former, the most 
 difficult pieces to procure are the Civic Pageants. Nearly 
 
150 HISTORY OF 
 
 all Ford's and Shirley's works, except the Echo of the 
 latter, 1618, are classable among common books even in 
 the first editions. 
 
 Again, condition is a postulate which begins to assert 
 itself in the book-market. Poor and bad copies are 
 eschewed by many or most of those who are willing to 
 pay handsomely for fine specimens; and the worst type 
 of indifferent exemplars is the sophisticated volume, 
 which can be manipulated by experts to such an ex- 
 tent that even a person of considerable experience will 
 now and then be at fault. The American collector 
 grows more fastidious every day, and discovers blemishes 
 which we on this side of the water try to tolerate, if 
 the article is rare or we badly want it. Our Trans- 
 atlantic friends, however, are more inexorable, and go 
 so far as to return purchases not answering the descrip- 
 tion in the auctioneer's catalogue to their English com- 
 mission-agents. 
 
 We have instanced above two or three writers whose 
 works command excessive prices mainly by virtue of the 
 paucity of surviving copies, seconded by a faint and 
 indirect literary interest ; but we see that the list is open 
 to extension. During the last half-century and upward 
 the publications of Nicholas Breton have fetched sums, 
 when they have occurred, totally incompatible with any in- 
 trinsic value ; with some few exceptions they belong to the 
 category of " three-halfpenny ware," as Chamberlain the 
 letter-writer styles such things in his correspondence with 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 151 
 
 Sir Dudley Carleton ; half-a-dozen or so out of forty and 
 more are undoubtedly curious and illustrative; but Mr. 
 Corser and one or two other collectors made a speciality 
 of the author. It is only the other day that Sir John 
 Fenn's copy of Breton's Works of a Young Wit, 1577, 
 recorded by Herbert in his Typographical Antiquities, 
 and the only perfect one known, occurred at an auction 
 and fetched J?81 ! A fine book it was, too, with the 
 blank leaf at end. Doubtless, the reason for the evanes- 
 cence of Breton's literary labours is to be sought in 
 their estimation by many, besides the letter-writer above 
 quoted, as barely more than waste paper. Verily, their 
 substantial worth is barely tangible. 
 
 Speaking from a connoisseur's rather than from a 
 reader's point of view, when we leave behind us the pre- 
 Restoration writers of Great Britain and Ireland, we do 
 not encounter much difficulty in a commercial sense, if 
 we consider the length of time and the almost innumer- 
 able names, excepting Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Swift's 
 Gulliver, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Goldsmith's Vicar of 
 Wakefield, and a few early Byrons and Shelleys, unless 
 the buyer schedules among his desiderata the earlier 
 Anglo-American literature. For as we draw nearer to 
 our own day, items which were thought to be superla- 
 tively uncommon, including sundry pieces by Tennyson 
 and Browning, have failed to maintain their reputation 
 for scarcity, as any one might have foreseen that they 
 would do. The preposterous prices paid for some copies 
 
152 HISTORY OF 
 
 have brought out others, and the ultimate supply will 
 probably exceed the demand. 
 
 Even where an English collection may not enter the 
 Continental lines, but preserves its national character, 
 there are numerous classes of books of foreign origin and 
 from foreign presses, which are fairly entitled to considera- 
 tion and admittance. These publications embrace not 
 merely religious and controversial literature, but a large 
 and important body of material for English and Scotish 
 biography and history, and for the elucidation of Irish 
 affairs. Every season brings to light some new features 
 in this immense series, which is, of course, susceptible of 
 a classifying process, and may be ranged under such 
 sections as we have above indicated, besides a consider- 
 able residue which fall under the head of poetry and 
 typography, the latter constituting a branch of the 
 History of English Printing, and the former being worthy 
 of notice as embracing some of the rarest metrical pro- 
 ductions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which 
 owed their' issue from presses in Germany and the Low 
 Countries to various agencies, but chiefly to the exigencies 
 of foreign military service by English and Scotish officers 
 during the English operations in the Netherlands under 
 Elizabeth and during the Thirty Years 1 War. 
 
 The foreign sources of English books, or books 
 written by or about English, Scotish, and Irish folk, 
 have been — 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 153 
 
 Aire 
 
 Leyden 
 
 Amsterdam 
 
 Lyons 
 
 Antwerp 
 
 M alines 
 
 Arras 
 
 Middelburg 
 
 Augsburg 
 
 Milan 
 
 Basle 
 
 Munich 
 
 Bologna 
 
 Munster 
 
 Boulogne 
 
 Paris 
 
 Breda 
 
 Parma 
 
 Bruges 
 
 Pisa ' 
 
 Brussels 
 
 Rome 
 
 Constantinople 
 
 Rotterdam 
 
 Dort 
 
 t Strasburg-in-Elsass 
 
 Florence 
 
 The Hague 
 
 Flushing 
 
 Tournai 
 
 Geneva 
 
 Utrecht 
 
 Ghent 
 
 Venice 
 
 Gouda 
 
 Vevey 
 
 Haarlem 
 
 Wesel 
 
 Leipsic 
 
 Zurich 
 
 It is always to be borne in mind that these adjuncts at 
 the foot of title-pages in troubled periods are not un- 
 frequently fictitious ; and we have elsewhere equally shown 
 that Greenwich and Waterford are names appended to 
 early controversial works of which the writers desired to 
 conceal the real parentage. 
 
 Of English presses it might seem almost superfluous 
 to speak ; but in fact the typographical fortunes of London 
 have experienced their flux and reflux. At first we find 
 the City itself in sole possession of the industry and 
 privilege ; then Westminster came ; thirdly, Southwark. 
 Of the provincial places of origin, Oxford appears to have 
 
154 HISTORY OF 
 
 been the foremost, and was followed at intervals by 
 York, Cambridge, Canterbury, Ipswich, Worcester, and 
 other centres, of which some preserved their reputation 
 down to comparatively recent times, while Oxford and 
 Cambridge of course remain important and busy seats 
 of printing. Beverley, Nottingham, Derby, Northampton, 
 Bristol, Birmingham, Gateshead, and Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 have never been more than occasional sources of literary 
 production, and certain towns, such as Lincoln and Gains- 
 borough, are only known from local or small popular 
 efforts; there is an edition of Robin Hood's Garland 
 with the Gainsborough imprint. One or two publica- 
 tions purporting to have been executed at Sherborne in 
 Dorsetshire belong to the firm of William Bowyer of 
 London. 
 
 There was a distinct centralising tendency at a later 
 period, by which the English metropolis absorbed the 
 principal share of work, and it was followed, owing to 
 economical causes, by a reaction which we know to be at 
 present in full force, and which has restored to the pro- 
 vinces, but to new localities, Bungay, Guildford, Bristol, 
 no less than Edinburgh and Aberdeen, an appreciable 
 proportion of the custom of the London publishing houses ; 
 nor is it unusual to send MSS. abroad for the sake of the 
 advantage accruing from cheaper labour. We not long 
 since secured this boon in Scotland ; but Scotland has 
 grown as dear as London. 
 
 The Scotish Series is a difficult and costly one to. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 155 
 
 handle. The early vernacular literature of that country 
 has suffered from two classes of destructive agency, neglect 
 and fanaticism, to a greater extent than England, and the 
 disappearance of the more popular books and tracts has 
 been wholesale. The attempt on the part of a collector, 
 however rich and persevering he might be, to form a 
 complete series of original editions of the poetical and 
 romantic writers of North Britain, could only be made in 
 ignorance of the utter impossibility of success. The late 
 David Laing abundantly illustrated this fact in his 
 numerous publications, and further evidence of it may be 
 found throughout the bibliographical works of the present 
 writer. 
 
 The old Scotish presses were Edinburgh, Leith, St. 
 Andrew's, Glasgow, Stirling, and Aberdeen; but a large 
 proportion of the literary productions of Scotish authors, 
 including much of the historical group relative to Mary 
 Queen of Scots, proceeded from foreign places of origin, 
 where the writers had settled or were temporarily resi- 
 dent. 
 
 The principal channels through which we have in 
 modern times augmented our informabion of their pro- 
 ducts are the catalogues of Fraser of Lovat, Boswell of 
 Auchinleck, the Duke of Roxburghe, Pitcairn, Constable, 
 Chalmers, Maidment, Gibson-Craig, David Laing, and 
 the Rev. William Mackellar, the last a cousin of Sir 
 William Stirling Maxwell of Keir, and a collector from 
 1838 to 1898. 
 
156 HISTORY OF 
 
 A purely Irish Library would inherently differ both 
 from one limited to English or to Scotish books. There 
 is no early typography or poetry, no works printed on 
 vellum, no masterpieces of binding. The collectors in 
 that part of the empire have always been few in number, 
 and in fact Irish books have been chiefly collected by 
 persons who were not Irishmen, nor even residents in that 
 country. It used to be the case that, where a book was 
 remarkably successful in England, the Dublin booksellers 
 reprinted it, and, as these reproductions are generally 
 scarcer than the originals, doubtless in limited numbers. 
 
 The series consists of a handful of books and tracts of 
 the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods (1570-1625); of 
 publications relative to the Civil War (1644-48); of 
 others relative to the Commonwealth and Jacobite troubles 
 (1650-90) ; of literary illustrations of the state of Ireland 
 under the Houses of Orange, Stuart, and Brunswick or 
 Hanover, and of modern days. The bibliographical writ- 
 ings of Sir James Ware are usually quoted and consulted 
 for the literature within his time, but they have become 
 almost obsolete. The two other works of reference for 
 amateurs and students are those by Charles Vallancey 
 (Collectanea de Rebus Hibemicis, 1786-1807, 7 vols.) and 
 Charles O'Conor {Rerwm Hibernkarum Scriptores Vete- 
 res, 1814-26, 4 vols.). 
 
 But we have to go to more recent authorities to discover 
 that the typographical productions of Ireland in the first 
 decade of the seventeenth century comprise a few books 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 157 
 
 of the greatest rarity and one or two of which no copies 
 are at present known. On the other hand, certain Eliza- 
 bethan volumes, purporting to have proceeded from Irish 
 presses, are generally believed to have an English origin, 
 while others with German imprints of a later date (second 
 half of the seventeenth century) are absolutely proved to 
 have been clandestinely executed at home. 
 
 A very fair and comprehensive idea of the salient 
 features in the present series may be gained from the 
 Grenville and Huth catalogues and from Hazlitfs Col- 
 lections (General Index). Considerable stress is laid by 
 collectors on a large-paper copy with the Decisions 
 filled in in MS., the Memorandum, &c, of the List of 
 Claims, 1701, in connection with the Irish forfeitures. 
 But in fact a copy of this work is always available, when 
 any one wants it, which is seldom enough. 
 
 There was no regular printing here till the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century, although one or two Marian 
 tracts falsely purport to have come from the Waterford 
 press. Dublin had a printer, John Frankton, who worked 
 from 1601 to 1620 or thereabout, and produced many 
 books, tracts, and broadsheets, some not yet recovered ; 
 the city also boasted a Society of Stationers in 1608, and 
 many volumes appeared at London " Printed for the 
 Partners of the Irish Stock,'" referring to the Plantation of 
 Ulster. The places in Ireland itself, where the art of 
 typography was pursued, were Dublin, Cork, Waterford, 
 Drogheda, Kilkenny, and Belfast (as in the section just 
 
158 HISTORY OF 
 
 dismissed). But the rarest articles in the earlier series 
 emanated from London or from Continental presses, the 
 writings of Nicholas French and Cranford's Tears of Ire- 
 land, 1642, taking a prominent rank in the latter category. 
 
 The leading collectors on Irish lines have been Sir 
 Robert Peel, Mr. Grenville, Mr. Huth, Mr. Bradshaw, 
 Canon Tierney, Mr. Shirley, and Bishop Daly. 
 
 In the English series I have supposed the admission 
 of a certain number or proportion of foreign books, which 
 are of catholic interest, and have acquired a standing 
 among many classes of collectors whose bias is principally 
 national. But there are two other series of very unequal 
 extent, importance, and costliness, which more directly 
 appeal to the buyers of these islands, namely, the earlier 
 Anglo - American literature belonging to the Colonial 
 period, and the American reproductions of the favourite 
 books of Lamb, Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Thackeray, and 
 others in the present century. The latter category enters 
 into the department of curiosities, and has yet to acquire 
 bibliographical importance. In one or two cases, works 
 issued at home in numbers have been published in 
 the States in book-form prior to their appearance 
 here. This happened with the Yellow-Plush Correspon- 
 dence, reprinted direct from Fraser's Magazine at Phila- 
 delphia in 1838, and curious as the writer's earliest 
 separate publication. These papers were not collected in 
 England till 1841. 
 
 The products of the Colonial period include all the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 159 
 
 books emanating from American presses between 1640, the 
 date of the Bay Psahi-Book at Cambridge, N.E., from 
 the press of Stephen Day, and the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. There has been a disposition to treat the whole 
 of this output of printed matter with a special tenderness 
 and reverence on political grounds ; but it obviously is of 
 a very mixed and unequal character, and. as time goes 
 on, there must be a continuous winnowing process, and 
 a consignment to oblivion of a vast assortment of the 
 dullest theology and of political epkemer'v&es. There will 
 always remain a rich heirloom to our American kins- 
 folk and ourselves of historical nuggets in the shape of 
 narratives of the fortunes and careers of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers, their experiments in statecraft, their religious 
 trials, their early superstitions and strange intolerance 
 of personal liberty in a land chosen by its settlers for 
 liberty's sake ; and of course there is a section of literary 
 products appertaining to the New World, namely, ritua- 
 listic ordinances, liturgical manuals, and collections of sta- 
 tutes, which derive what one is bound to term an artificial 
 interest from the local circumstances, or, in other words, 
 from the place of origin. A theological treatise, a Bible, 
 a volume of prayers, or a law-book, published in England 
 in the. second half of the seventeenth century, may be 
 worth from sixpence to a sovereign ; if it bears the 
 imprint of Boston, Cambridge (N.E.), New York, Phila- 
 delphia, or New London, its value may be computed in 
 bank-notes. The Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, was lately 
 
160 HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 sold for £109, and the Papers Relating to Massachusetts 
 Bay, 1769, for £8, the latter in boards. The reason (so 
 far as there is any) for this inflation is twofold : the 
 patriotic sentiment which leads American amateurs to 
 desire the oldest and most precious typographical and 
 historical monuments of their country, and, secondly, the 
 perhaps less justifiable enthusiasm of some Englishmen 
 for books which, as they may plead, are the offspring 
 of the States while they were still English settlements. 
 A copious and fairly contemporary view of the extensive 
 family of works belonging to the earlier Anglo-American 
 library may be found in the bibliographies of Steevens, 
 Sabin, and Harrisse, and in the Grenville, Huth, Lenex, 
 and Tower catalogues. There is not only no line of 
 collecting which is more difficult and more costly than 
 the present, but none which, within the last twenty years, 
 has, so far as first-rate rarities are concerned, more 
 seriously advanced, even inferior copies of certain books 
 fetching at times five times as much as good ones did in 
 the seventies. Just lately the call appears to come from 
 the other side of the Atlantic. There are two or three 
 new bidders. That is sufficient. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Modern Side — Words of advice — The place and functions of 
 Free Libraries — Coleridge and Byron period — Unhealthy state 
 of the market — The Dickens and Thackeray movement — 
 Fashions 'in books — A valuable suggestion — Slight actual de- 
 mand for costly modern productions — Two often make a market 
 — Effect of time in settling value — Forecast of the durability of a 
 few names — A large-paper copy of Byron's poems, 1807 — Cheap 
 literature not a modern invention — The published price noted 
 on the face of early volumes — An episode — Practical buyers 
 not to be considered collectors — The first edition considered 
 from editorial and other points of view. 
 
 In the acquisition of modern books, far greater caution is 
 requisite than in that of the older literature, since the 
 output is so enormous, and the changes in taste and 
 depreciation in value so rapid and so capricious. The 
 Free and other Circulating or Reference Libraries through- 
 out the country must prove of immense service in super- 
 seding the necessity of purchasing volumes of temporary 
 interest or of expensive character; and the average col- 
 lector will, and does, find that a certain number of 
 dictionaries of various kinds, and of works which happen 
 to be favourites, suffice to exhaust his space and resourpes. 
 The Free Library is an undoubted boon in two ways: 
 in enabling us to read or consult books which we do 
 not care to buy; and again, in affording us an oppor- 
 
 161 L 
 
162 HISTORY OF 
 
 tunity at leisure of judging whether such and such a 
 volume merits more than a passing notice and perusal. 
 The sole method of arriving at this information is to 
 take the publication home. Even where shelf-room and 
 i funds are forthcoming, there is slight danger of any large 
 percentage of recent literature being added to the stores 
 of a judicious householder. To read, perhaps only to 
 skim, and return, will be the general rule. 
 
 It is inexpedient to lend oneself too exclusively to a 
 period or a school ; for even where one has to study for 
 a purpose a particular class of authors, or a particular 
 subject or group of subjects, the local institution is at 
 hand to help one; and the cheap reproductions of the 
 writings of the earlier centuries, erring, as they do, on 
 the side of indulgence, place it in the power of individuals 
 of modest means to have at their elbows a representative 
 assemblage, not necessarily a cumbrous one, of the litera- 
 ture from Chaucer to the present day, so that they may 
 form a comparative estimate of the intellectual activity 
 and wealth of successive ages, while, at the same time, 
 the Greek and Latin authors are procurable in a collec- 
 tive shape, if they desire to compare notes and satisfy 
 themselves on the obligations of the moderns to the 
 ancients. 
 
 It amounts to this, that the Free Library is an agency 
 which should save us to a very material extent from 
 actually acquiring books which are not worth holding; 
 it is not only a medium for reference, but for testing 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 163 
 
 and winnowing. But for the select private bookcase it 
 is not, or ought not to be, a substitute. 
 
 The Free Library is in its infancy and on its trial. 
 In course of time the spread of education and the force 
 of experience will confer on it better governing bodies, 
 and better governing bodies will guarantee better curators. 
 The actual generation of librarians, or so-called librarians, 
 is the product of inefficient committees of control and 
 selection ; and the worst part is that some of these gen- 
 tlemen receive salaries which would almost enable their 
 employers to secure the services of qualified officers. 
 
 I am not personally of the opinion that those institu- 
 tions are an unmixed blessing. For already there was a 
 marked tendency to a decline in the taste for collect- 
 ing among the middle classes in the United Kingdom, 
 available resources being devoted to other outlets more 
 generally acceptable to families ; and the facilities afforded 
 by the Free Library virtually amount to each individual 
 parishioner being enabled, without appreciable cost, to 
 possess books on a far larger scale than if he had a 
 collection actually his own. The unfavourable operation 
 of this state of affairs is twofold : it injures the literary 
 market, and it promotes superficiality of study in the 
 case of books which should be owned, not borrowed, to 
 be thoroughly mastered and understood. 
 
 The range of choice, which embraces the writers of 
 the modern school in prose and verse, is both wide 
 and difficult. During many years past the number of 
 
164 HISTORY OF 
 
 authors within these lines has been continually on the 
 increase, yet, while merit and value may be questions 
 of opinion, there can be no serious or legitimate doubt 
 that the output of literary work of high character is 
 not greater than it was, if indeed as great. In the 
 course of a quarter of a century many popular names 
 have either fallen or faded out of remembrance, alike 
 of authors who belonged to antecedent generations, and 
 of those who have enjoyed a transient and artificial 
 celebrity, and have come and gone, as it were, under 
 the eyes of their immediate contemporaries. With the 
 advantages offered by lending libraries, it appears to be 
 imprudent on the part of any one who cannot conveniently 
 form an extensive collection of modern books to buy on 
 the recommendation of the press or the trade new favour- 
 ites; for literary acquisitions are unfortunately apt to 
 occupy space, and, save in very exceptional cases, to 
 deteriorate in value. Even the original editions of the 
 later works of Tennyson are not in great demand, and 
 the high figures realised by one or two of his early 
 productions are explainable in the same way as those 
 given for Byrons and Shelleys. 
 
 The Modern Side of collecting is classifiable into 
 numerous branches, according to the point of departure, 
 as some differ in their view of what is modern from 
 others. If we have to lay down a dividing line, how- 
 ever, we should make it comprehend the last decade of 
 the eighteenth century, when many of the writers who 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 165 
 
 were the contemporaries of our immediate foregoers 
 began their literary careers. 
 
 Then, again, there are two branches of the later 
 literature: the more recent writers themselves, and the 
 reproductions, as I have noted, of the writers of former 
 periods; and the extent to which the edited collections 
 have been carried places it within the power of many 
 who so desire to specialise on a certain line, and to deal 
 representatively with the rest. 
 
 The specialist who proposes to himself as a field for 
 his activity the Coleridge and Byron period, or who, 
 again, confines his efforts to the writings of one or two 
 of that set, has his work before him. Generally speaking, 
 the first editions, which are those usually desired, are not 
 uncommon ; but there is almost always a crux, an in- 
 trouvable, for which the not altogether blameable dealer 
 puts on the screw, and charges more than for all the 
 remaining items. Bonn's Lowndes yields a fair account 
 of this family of literature; a*nd Alexander Ireland, 
 Richard Heme Shepherd, and others have bestowed vast 
 pains on drawing up monographs on Coleridge, Hazlitt, 
 Hunt, Shelley, Lamb, Keats, Browning, Tennyson, and 
 the rest. It is difficult to foresee what the final upshot 
 may be ; probably, when fabulous prices have drawn forth 
 from their hiding-places additional copies of many of 
 these latter-day objects of keen pursuit, the market will 
 fall and the craze will subside. It is a purely artificial 
 and spurious one. 
 
166 HISTORY OF 
 
 A second group, to whose books a collector may 
 reasonably and conveniently confine his attention, con- 
 sists of the poets and prose-writers who are still, or 
 who were till lately, among us; and a fairly numerous 
 body of matter falls within this class, as we may judge 
 from a glance at the names which present themselves in 
 the publishers' and booksellers' lists. In selecting the 
 contemporary school, there is the undoubted advantage 
 that you can institute a comparison between the book 
 and its author, and that you may fall in with him at 
 dinner, in a drawing-room or in a shop, and congratu- 
 late him or solicit an explanation of some fine but 
 obscure passage; and should you also be literary, he 
 has the opportunity of exchanging compliments with 
 you. The old dead writers receive praise and offer no 
 equivalent. 
 
 During a series of years there was a notorious run, 
 which, as usual, became indiscriminate, on first editions 
 of the writings of Dickens, Thackeray, and other foremost 
 men of the period, eclipsing, as it seemed, even the 
 demand for the earlier English classics, till the auctioneers 
 and booksellers in their catalogues underlined at a 
 venture every editio princeps, though it might be the 
 last as well as the first, and, whether or no, a book of 
 no mark. But the enthusiasm has at last contracted 
 itself within narrower and more intelligent limits, and is 
 restricted to productions which rank as masterpieces or 
 are special favourites, and then all postulates have to be 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 167 
 
 satisfied, all bibliographical minutiae have to be studied. 
 It is impossible to foresee how far this latest compromise 
 may last ; but whatever it is, there must always be some 
 novelty to keep the market going, and bring grist to the 
 mill. The world of fashion comprehends books as well 
 as bonnets and dresses; but the literary section is a 
 humble one by comparison, and is in few hands. Every 
 fresh mode has somewhere its starter, and it usually pre- 
 vails long enough to suit the purposes of the trade, 
 when it makes way for its successor. 
 
 If one had the ordering of these strategical devices, 
 one would imagine that the true policy was to buy up 
 a given class of books, procure the insertion of a clever 
 article or two in the press, extolling their merits and 
 lamenting the public ignorance and neglect, and then 
 launch a Jesuitically constructed catalogue 'devoted to 
 such undeservedly disregarded treasures. But we may 
 have been forestalled. Who knows ? 
 
 The less current and every-day literary ware appeals 
 to a more or less narrow constituency. There is a 
 proverb, "The wool-seller knows the wool-buyer;" and 
 it has to be so in books. There are volumes which, if 
 they do not from their character or price suit one of a 
 circle of half-a-dozen collectors, with whose means and 
 wants the whole trade is generally familiar, are exceed- 
 ingly likely to suit nobody outside the public libraries 
 at public library prices. So much is this the case, that 
 many booksellers do not think it worth their while to 
 
168 HISTORY OF 
 
 publish catalogues, and content themselves with reporting 
 to the most probable purchaser fresh acquisitions. With 
 certain very special and costly rarities two often make 
 a market. 
 
 Time will perform its habitual office or function for 
 us and our successors of separating from the multitudi- 
 nous accumulation of modern published or printed matter 
 such portion as, on deliberate inquiry and scrutiny, appears 
 to be of permanent value. There is no doubt that much 
 will be thrown aside; but the residuum which will bear 
 the test of dispassionate judgment must prove consider- 
 able in itself, and also when taken into account as an 
 appendix to the record left by preceding generations of 
 writers. There may be certain authors and authoresses 
 whom our descendants will like to have by them, even 
 though they may no longer exert a sensible influence on 
 literature and thought, just as we prize many of the older 
 schools and types for characteristics and allusions which 
 strike us as curious or entertaining ; and soon, as decade 
 follows decade, and the twentieth century impends, men 
 and women, who were our grandsires 1 contemporaries, will 
 seem through the lengthening vista almost as remote as 
 they were from the Stuart epoch with its Elizabethan and 
 Shakespearian traditions. 
 
 It is useless and invidious to particularise, and, 
 besides, when one has drawn up a list of names, which 
 are more or less obviously ephemeral, one cannot be 
 certain as to the rest. Some must live ; some may. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 169 
 
 The astonishing demand for the first editions of our 
 modern poets and novelists has, as was generally an- 
 ticipated, subsided, and in some cases almost ceased ; and 
 it is extremely doubtful whether the taste will ever assume 
 again the same unhealthy proportions. For one result of 
 the matter has been to make it perfectly clear that copies 
 of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Lamb, Dickens, 
 Thackeray, Tennyson, and so forth, exist in much greater 
 plenty than was at first supposed, though very little reflec- 
 tion should have sufficed to establish the fact as an eminent 
 probability ; and all that was needed to draw them from 
 their resting-places was the series of paragraphs in the 
 press conveying to holders how valuable their property 
 had unexpectedly become. Shall we not have more copies 
 of Shelley's poor little brochure of 1810 offered for sale 
 ere long, as well as of Thackeray's Exquisites and King 
 Glwmpus ? 
 
 At the same time, while we insist that the survival of 
 means of supply is too large, and the market too limited, 
 to sustain the extravagant quotations of recent years, 
 there will ever remain persons prepared to give generous 
 prices for absolutely first-class examples of the best mo- 
 dern authors. There must be no qualification, nothing 
 secondary, nothing dubious; and with these provisos, 
 we do not venture to predict that the competition might 
 not become keener than ever. The same experience will 
 result here and there, whenever a book forming a deside- 
 ratum in more than one cabinet occurs for sale, and is 
 
170 HISTORY OF 
 
 perhaps the first copy which has been offered. At Sotheby's 
 in June 1896, Shelley's (Edipus Tyrammus, 1820, it is 
 said, was carried under these circumstances to ,£130. 
 It was, we believe, one of two copies, picked up by a 
 well-known amateur for fourpence each. On another 
 account — its perfectly immaculate state in boards — a 
 large-paper copy of Byron's poems, 1807, was thought 
 by Mr. Edward Huth not too dear at £105. It had been 
 acquired by a London bookseller in exchange for one in 
 morocco from- a correspondent in Yorkshire, the latter 
 receiving the bound book (which cost the vendor £27) and 
 £18 difference, so that there was a profit on the transac- 
 tion of £60. Seriously speaking, the purchase was ex- 
 travagantly dear, for the book on large paper is at all 
 events not scarcer than on small. One of the most signal 
 incidents, however, in modern auctioneering annals was 
 the sale of MSS. copies of the Endymion and Lamia of 
 Keats in the poet's handwriting for £1000, and the 
 subsequent offer to the purchasers at that figure of a large 
 advance for their bargain. These two items are printed, 
 and the written cqpies were those employed by the printer, 
 as upon the first leaf of each MS. were the directions as to 
 size. They were in the familiar round schoolboy hand, 
 and presented occasional corrections. We heard a sug- 
 gestion that there might have once, at all events, been 
 a duplicate copy in existence. If the lots were worth the 
 money, what would the manuscript of Venus and Adonis 
 or Hamlet fetch ? 
 
T 
 
 BOOK-COLLECTING 171 
 
 The mischief which proceeds from the advertisements 
 through the press of sensational sale prices is not one for 
 which either the buyers or the sellers are responsible. It 
 is due to the notorious circumstance that very few persons 
 are able to discriminate accurately between an important 
 item in an auction or elsewhere, and another submitted 
 to their approval, ostensibly and professedly identical, 
 but actually very different. A certain familiar type of 
 bookseller will tell you that a copy of such or such a 
 
 work fetched £50 under the hammer last week, but that 
 
 * 
 
 he can let you have his — same edition, same date, same 
 nearly everything — for fifty shillings. Of course it is no 
 such matter; yet the bait is often swallowed, and the 
 poor (or possibly rich) fish caught. 
 
 The relatively cheap literature of the present day has 
 been thought to be a revival rather than an invention. 
 We meet with tracts published in the reign of Elizabeth 
 with the express notation of the price of issue, namely, 
 one penny. The Book of' Common Prayer, 1549, was to 
 be sold at 2s. 2d. unbound, and 4s. in paste or boards. 
 The ordinary amount charged for a tract extending to 
 thirty or forty pages, and for a quarto play, was 4d. or a 
 groat. The first folio Shakespeare, 1623, cost the origi- 
 nal purchaser 20s.; Percivars Spanish Dictionary, 1599, 
 appears to have come out at 12s. There are lists of 
 advertisements attached to publications of the later Stuart 
 era showing that a large variety of popular productions 
 brought the printer or stationer twopence or a penny. 
 
172 HISTORY OF 
 
 A curious little edition of Cqfee-House Jests, 1760, bears 
 the imprint : — 
 
 " Progheda. Printed for the sake of a Penny : 
 Sold in Waterford, Cork, and Kilkenny." 
 
 But throughout these statistics, which are capable, of 
 course, of infinite augmentation, we have to keep before us 
 the difference in the value of money, and the purchasing 
 power of the same amount in other and more practical 
 directions ; and it follows that the printed matter offered 
 to-day for threepence or sixpence had no real parallel 
 in former times, and that the absolutely cheap book is a 
 product of modern facilities for manufacture. 
 
 The published price not unfrequently presents itself 
 at the foot of the title on books of the late seventeenth 
 and earlier eighteenth centuries. The simplicity of some 
 individuals who are ranked among occasional or casual 
 buyers was illustrated many years since by a man going 
 into a shop in Fleet Street and putting down eighteen- 
 pence in payment of Hubert's Edward II., 1721, in the 
 window. The bookseller explained to him that his price 
 was 5s. " But," insisted the customer, " look at the title- 
 page ; it was published at Is. 6d." " Then you had better go 
 to the publisher," observed the other, replacing the volume. 
 
 Book- collecting seems scarcely to concern very closely 
 those who regard the pursuit from a severely practical 
 point of view, or in the aspect of absolute intrinsic 
 importance. It is true enough that one may form, not 
 only a library, but a remarkably extensive one, of books 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 173 
 
 of reference and study ; but this does not quite answer to 
 the idea of a bibliophile — in fact, it is little more than the 
 digestion into book-form of a mass of learning and useful 
 information. Again, if, without embracing such classes 
 of volumes, we limit ourselves to those which, as we 
 express the matter above, are positively important, we of 
 course find on our shelves all the capital authors, ancient 
 and modern; yet how many we should have to reject 
 which are accounted indispensable to a choice cabinet! 
 And such is apt to be more peculiarly the case in a selection 
 formed on Anglo-French lines, as anybody may readily 
 judge by examining a catalogue of this kind, where pages 
 and pages are occupied by irritating trifles of no solid pre- 
 tensions whatever, not even those evident in personal or 
 heraldic accessories. 
 
 The general rule may be applied to our modern books, 
 that, whatever they may be for purposes of instruction or 
 entertainment, they seldom represent the outlay, and still 
 more rarely a profit upon it when the day arrives for realis- 
 ing. During some time past we have witnessed the rise and 
 fall, or at least disappearance from the front rank, of 
 individuals and schools of individuals whose writings no 
 amount of friendly support in the press was capable of 
 propping up beyond three or four seasons. It is not that 
 some of them may not hereafter, like our older authors, 
 return to notice and currency ; but they will suffer that 
 intermediate period of neglect which has been experienced 
 by well-nigh all our greatest names in letters. There is for 
 
174 HISTORY OF 
 
 literature, in common with its buyers, an earth, a purgatory, 
 and a heaven — or something else. The public cannot 
 keep pace with the vast and unbroken succession of literary 
 produce, and the favourites of the day pass over to neutral 
 ground, with very few exceptions, when their honeymoon 
 has expired, to await the deliberate verdict of posterity 
 on their merit and their station. To the investor for 
 a more or less immediate return, however, they are pre- 
 carious possessions, unless the market be carefully watched. 
 The wealthy and absolutely uncommercial amateur dis- 
 regards these risks and these counsels ; and he is in a sense 
 to be envied. 
 
 The question of the First Edition is not limited to 
 any era of literary history and production, and the call 
 for this class of book, at first (as usual) rather un- 
 reasoning, begins to be more critical and narrow. The 
 author to be thus honoured by his posterity must have a 
 certain bouquet and vogue. He must be a Shakespeare, 
 a Jonson, a Herrick, a Burton, a Defoe, a Bunyan, a 
 Burns, or (if we cross the sea) a Moliere, a Montaigne, or 
 a Cervantes. 
 
 With the first edition in some bibliographical schemes 
 is associated the Best One. The possessor of both may 
 pride himself on being able to show the earliest and latest 
 state of the writer's mind, what he originally conceived, and 
 what he decided to leave behind him as his ultvrmm vale. 
 For the most part, however, first thoughts are treated as 
 better than second, and it may actually be the case that, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 175 
 
 alike in ancient and modern books, the too fastidious and 
 wavering ancient poet, or playwright, or essayist has 
 done himself in maturer years an injustice by blotting 
 the fresh impulses of his noviciate. It is a case, perhaps, 
 where the public is entitled to intervene, and taking the 
 two readings, deliver its award — always supposing that 
 the text is that of a man worth the pains, and, again, 
 that both versions are the language of the author, not 
 that of the editor. It is obvious that, as a matter of 
 literary and scientific or technical completeness, the last 
 edition of a work is the most desirable ; but it is particu- 
 larly the case with volumes endeared by personal associa- 
 tions, such as Gilbert White's Selbome, that one prefers 
 the text as the author left it, even if one has to be at 
 the pains -to consult a second publication for up-to-date 
 knowledge. The present point is one to which I have 
 adverted in an earlier place. 
 
 Apart from the collector, the first and the best im- 
 pressions of writers of importance, whose texts underwent 
 at their own hands more or less material changes, are 
 necessarily an object of research to the editor or specialist 
 who has dedicated his attention to such or such a study ; 
 and he is apt to pursue the matter still further than the 
 amateur, who does not, as a rule, esteem the intermediate 
 issues. It is this feeling and need which have led, since 
 critical and comparative editions came into, fashion, to 
 the accumulation by their superintendents of an exhaustive 
 array of titles and dates, with hints of the most remark- 
 
176 HISTORY OF 
 
 able various readings ; and the cause of bibliography has 
 gained, whether, in drawing together the series, the book- 
 hunter or the literary worker be the pioneer. From the 
 editorial and bibliographical points of view a complete 
 sequence of the writings of our more distinguished and 
 durable authors is generally practicable ; but of excessively 
 popular or favourite books, even of the Elizabethan era, 
 it is imperfect. We refer to such cases as the so far 
 unseen second impression of Shakespeare's Passionate 
 Pilgrim and the ostensible disappearance of the original 
 quarto of Love's Labor's Lost. 
 
 Two questions connected with the present part of the 
 subject before us, now better understood and managed, 
 were under the old system, so far as we can ascertain or 
 judge, permitted to remain in a very loose and vague 
 state. We allude to the law of copyright and the revision 
 for the press. Prior to the institution of the Stationers 1 
 Company and the existence of a Register, the sole pro- 
 tection for authors and publishers was by the grant of a 
 privilege or a monopoly for a term of years ; yet even 
 when registration had become compulsory, and was 
 supposed to be effectual, spurious editions constantly 
 found their way into the market, while books of which 
 the writers might desire, on various grounds, to keep the 
 MSS. in their own hands, found their way into print 
 through some irregular channel. Such was the case with 
 Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1603, and (in a somewhat different 
 way) with the third edition of his Passionate Pilgrim, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 177 
 
 1612; and we perceive that of Bacon's Essays during 
 some years two parallel impressions were current without 
 ostensible interference or warrant. There are frequent 
 instances in which authors state that their motive in 
 hastening into type was the rumour that a surreptitious 
 and inaccurate text was threatened, as if there was no 
 legal power to prevent such a class of piracy. 
 
 The correction of proofs by early writers, if we except 
 books of reference, and those not without qualification, 
 was evidently very lax and precarious. The entire body 
 of popular literature, the drama included, offers the 
 appearance, when we investigate examples, of having been 
 left to the mercy of the typographers, and the faulty 
 readings of old plays are more readily susceptible of 
 explanation from the fact that we owe their survival in 
 a printed form as often as not to the clandestine sale of 
 the prompters' copies to the stationer. The editors of our 
 dramatists have consequently found it an extremely 
 laborious task to restore the sense of corrupt passages, 
 and have sometimes abandoned the attempt in despair. 
 Not a few of the pieces in the last edition of Dodsley 
 come within this category; and we may signalise the 
 unique tragedy of Appius and Virginia, 1575, as a 
 prodigy of negligent and ignorant execution on the part 
 of the original compositor. But to the same cause is 
 due our still remaining uncertainty as to the true read- 
 ing of numerous places in Shakespeare himself. 
 
 Our collectors, however, are not particularly solicitous 
 
 M 
 
178 HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 to study the present aspect of the matter, and the hunter 
 for First Editions is by no means likely to care an iota 
 about the purity of the text, but may be more apt to 
 congratulate himself on the ownership of the genuine old 
 copy with all the errors of the press as vouchers for its 
 character. Who would exchange a second Hamlet of 
 1604 for a first one of 1603, simply because the former 
 happens to contain as much more, and the latter is little 
 better than a torso ? 
 
 The long uncertainty and insecurity of authors' rights, 
 whatever may be thought of the present position of the 
 matter, led at a very early date to the adoption of such 
 safeguards against plagiarism as it was in the power of 
 specialists, at all events, to impose. Some time after its 
 original publication in 1530, we find John Palsgrave, 
 compiler of the Edavrcisseinent de la Langue Franpoise, 
 prohibiting the printer from giving or selling copies to 
 any one without his leave, lest his profits as a teacher 
 of the language should be prejudicially affected ; and so 
 it was that preceptors often reserved the right of sale, 
 and dealt direct with buyers, and in one case (only a 
 sample) a treatise on Shorthand by Richard Weston 
 (1770) is delivered to purchasers at eighteenpence on the 
 express condition that they shall not allow the book to 
 leave their own hands or premises. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Our failure to realise the requirements of Illustrated Books — The 
 French School — La Fontaine's Conteset Nouvelles, 1762 — Imper- 
 fect conception of what constitutes a thoroughly complete copy — 
 The Crawford copy — Comparative selling values of copies — The 
 Fables of the same author — Dorat — La Borde — Beaumarchais — 
 Contrast between the English and French Schools— Process- 
 printing — The Edition de 'Luxe — Its proper destination and 
 limit — The Illustrated Copy — Increasing difficulty in forming 
 it — Unsatisfactory character of the majority of specimens- 
 Analogy .between the French taste in books and in vertu — 
 Temper of the foreign markets — The Anglo-American collec- 
 tor — The Parisian go&t — The famous mud-stained volume of 
 tracts in the British Museum — Foreign translations of early 
 English tracts. 
 
 Of the Illustrated Book, the Illustrated Copy, and the 
 Edition de Luxe we have spoken a few words elsewhere. 1 
 These are three forms of competition, which represent 
 as many sources of danger and disappointment to the 
 inexperienced. When we refer to illustrated books we of 
 course signify books with woodcuts and other graphic em- 
 bellishments from the earliest period, such as the Block 
 Books, the Game and Play of the Chess, the Caxton JEsop, 
 the Nurnberg Chronicle, 1493, the Poliphilo, 1499, the 
 Ship of Fools, 1497, and the Dance of Death ; collections 
 of Portraits and Views; down to the productions of 
 
 1 Four Generations of a Literary Family, 1897, ii. 371. 
 179 
 
180 HISTORY OF 
 
 the modern school, and comprising the popular abridg- 
 ments of Crouch or Burton, of which an idea may be 
 gained from the list printed at the end of Bliss's ReMgwce 
 Hearnianae, 1857, and the cheap editions of romances and 
 story-books brought out by sundry stationers at prices 
 ranging from threepence to a penny ifa the closing years 
 of the seventeenth century. In the English series, inde- 
 pendently of the woodcuts which incidentally occur in 
 the books printed by Caxton and his immediate suc- 
 cessors and the Emblem series, there are Roeslin's Birth 
 of Mankind, by Raynald, 1540, Braun's Civitates Orbis 
 Terrarum, Gemini's Anatomy, 1545, Godet's Genealogy 
 of all the Kings of England, 1563, Saxton's Maps, 
 Holinshed's Chronicles, 1577, Harington's Ariosto, 1591, 
 Holland's Baziohgia, 1618, and Heroohgia, 1620, the 
 various works illustrated by Pass, Elstracke, Hollar, 
 Barlow, and others, Vicars's England's Worthies, 1645, 
 Ricraft's Survey of England's Champions, 1647, and 
 other publications by Ricraft with engravings, till we 
 come down to the pictorial histories of England by 
 Bishop White, Kennett, and Rapin and Tindal, Pine's 
 Horace, and Buck's Views. No doubt among these there 
 are interesting specimens for the respective periods. It 
 is noticeable that in the Holinshed of 1577 the illustra- 
 tions are frequently repeated without regard to the con- 
 text. The engravings by Hollar and Barlow are the 
 most pleasing. But the Baziohgia, 1618, is the rarest 
 book in the whole range of this class of literature. Pine's 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 181 
 
 Horace, even in the first edition, 1783, with the Post 
 Est reading, is common enough ; and it has been found 
 uncut. So far as we are concerned, we should prefer it 
 in the original morocco. As a text it is of no account. 
 
 Coming lower down, we may specify or emphasise a 
 few chefs cTceuvre, such as Hogarth's Prints in the first 
 or best states, Turner's Liber Studiorum, Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds' Graphic Works, and Lodge's Portraits. But 
 we are neither so wealthy nor so advanced as our French 
 and German neighbours in this direction, and the former 
 may be affirmed to stand alone in the possession of a 
 class of books with engravings germane to the national 
 genius and to the feeling and spirit of the time which 
 produced such masterpieces in their way. Of works illus- 
 trated by copper-plates, that by Roeslin on Midwifery, 
 1540, above-named, seems to be the first in chronological 
 order; but both this and the Gemini of 1545 probably 
 owed their embellishments to foreign sources. 
 
 Our own country is probably weakest in this depart- 
 ment ; many of the engravings in our early literature are 
 direct copies from the German, Dutch, or French masters ; 
 the names of some of our leading artists are those of 
 foreigners ; and we have comparatively little to show of 
 strictly original work till the last quarter of the eighteenth 
 century, when we place our national efforts side by side 
 with uninterrupted Continental series from the middle 
 of the fifteenth. We are also poorly provided with books 
 of reference enabling amateurs to form an idea of the 
 
182 HISTORY OF 
 
 extent of the field and of the relative practicability and 
 costliness of given classes or lines, whereas the foreign 
 collector enjoys the advantage of many excellent and 
 fairly trustworthy manuals. We want a General Guide 
 to English Illustrated Literature, which should exhibit its 
 sources and inspiration, and the epochs and schools into 
 which it is divisible. 
 
 Of course, it* stands with the present description of 
 literary monuments as it does with the normal book. An 
 enterprise which should aim at being exhaustive would 
 prove excessively serious in point of outlay, and would 
 hardly be so satisfactory as one either on a miscellaneous 
 or a special principle. 
 
 Meanwhile, it is desirable that statements offered in 
 catalogues of various kinds should aim at accuracy as 
 far as possible. It is singular what a vitality resides in 
 errors when they have been pointed out by experts, and 
 ought to be recognised. The auctioneers seem to keep 
 the type of certain notes standing, as they are repeated 
 in catalogue after catalogue without any other gain than 
 that of misleading such as know no better. One familiar 
 acquaintance of this class is the dictum that the copper- 
 plates in Hugh Broughton's Concent of Scripture, 1596, 
 are the earliest of the kind executed in England, although 
 they had not only been preceded by the prints in Har- 
 ington's Ariosto, 1591, but by those accompanying the 
 Birth of Mankind by Roeslin, 1540, and the Anatomie 
 Delineatio of Thomas Gemini, 1545. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 188 
 
 The average collector, who possesses tolerable judg- 
 ment, and has the authorities at his elbow, cannot go far 
 astray if he buys what pleases him among the ordinary 
 books of medium price, and may acquire examples of every 
 period and place of origin, as opportunities arise. Or he may 
 limit himself to early German, Dutch, Italian, or French 
 books with woodcuts, to the French illustrated literature 
 of the eighteenth century, to volumes with engravings by 
 Bewick, Stothard, or Bartolozzi, or to modern works with 
 proof-plates, etchings, an£ other choice varieties. It is 
 literally impossible to fix any maximum or minimum of 
 cost in this case ; so much depends in graphic publications 
 on niceties of difference ; and a law prevails here analo- 
 gous to that which governs the Print, that is to say, that 
 a more or less slight point of detail vitally affects values. 
 Let us take such a familiar instance as Lodge's Portraits 
 of Illustrious Personages. One may have a copy in Bonn's 
 Libraries for a dozen shillings ; and one may give seventy 
 or eighty sovereigns for a large-paper copy with india 
 proofs of the four- volume folio edition of 1821. On the 
 whole, the twelve-volume quarto book is almost preferable, 
 as in the folio there is the disadvantage of three volumes 
 having copper-plates and one (the fourth) steel engravings, \ 
 
 and the quarto is obtainable for £20 or £25 in morocco. 
 
 Very few of the English portraits in the engraved 
 series antecedent to Lodge are trustworthy, as this branch 
 of specialism was not properly studied and understood 
 down to the present century, and even the heads executed 
 
184 HISTORY OF 
 
 by Houbraken are not unfrequently apocryphal. Such 
 a criticism applies less to royal personages than to private 
 individuals, of whom the painted likenesses were apt, after 
 the lapse of years, to be not so easily identifiable. 
 
 We have excellent monographs on Bewick and Barto- 
 lozzi by Mr. Hugo and Mr. Tuer respectively ; and there 
 is the delightful biography of Stothard by Mrs. Bray, 1851, 
 with profuse illustrations of his various artistic produc- 
 tions and progressive style. Many of the scarcer examples 
 of Bartolozzi have been imitated. To the collector who 
 limits his interest to artists in book-shape, the first editions 
 on large or largest paper of the Birds, Quadrupeds, and 
 Select Fables of Bewick are most familiar and most de- 
 sirable. Stothard is seen to advantage in the engravings 
 to Ritson's English Songs, 1783. Much of his work lies 
 outside the mere library. For a general view of that 
 branch of the subject, Jackson and Chatto's Treatise on 
 Wood Engraving, 1839, may be recommended, so far as 
 the printed book is concerned. 
 
 We do not dwell on the modern illustrated literature, 
 which demands less study, and offers few features of 
 interest, especially that produced at home. Too large 
 a proportion of it, however, whatever may be the origin, 
 is indifferent in quality and permanent worth. Publica- 
 tions are at present, like other commodities, prepared 
 with a main eye to sale ; the sense of pride and honour 
 on the part of the producer is dulled; he manufactures 
 in gross. There are the showy volumes of Yriate on 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 185 
 
 Venice, Florence, and other subjects, with letterpress 
 written, apparently to accompany blocks and plates in 
 the publisher's warehouse. 
 
 Perhaps, if we seek something more elevated and 
 creditable, it will be in certain periodicals conducted on 
 higher lines than those to which the ordinary publisher 
 has from financial exigencies to be bound ; and of these 
 there are several both in France and England — nay, in 
 Italy, in Australia. 
 
 The Illustrated Book, as we are familiar with it here, 
 affords innumerable examples of varied treatment, as the 
 school of design and the public taste differ or fluctuate 
 from century to century, from age to age, and even from 
 season to season. We do not speak of the cheaper literature 
 in this class, accompanied by engravings so intolerably 
 poor as to disarm criticism, but to the higher efforts of 
 the artist to respond to the author, and to appeal more 
 directly to the eye. In this country, however, we have 
 not so far been so fortunate, or otherwise, as to attain 
 the Continental ideal of what the graphic portion of a 
 literary performance should be; and the question is in- 
 timately associated, particularly in France and among 
 foreign buyers of the French school, who are numerous 
 in all parts of the world, with that of binding, inasmuch 
 as a volume possessing pictorial embellishments of what- 
 ever kind must fulfil all requirements in that respect 
 no less than in the outward vesture, and what may be 
 termed the complemehtal book-plate. 
 
186 HISTORY OF 
 
 One of the eighteenth-century French productions 
 which answers most thoroughly to the just foregoing 
 description, is the "Fermiers Generaux" edition of the 
 Contes et Nouvelks of La Fontaine, 2 vols. 8vo, 1762. 
 The ordinary copies of this work, of which the whole 
 charm lies in the meretricious plates by Eisen (for the text 
 is inoffensive enough), are distinguished by the presence 
 or otherwise of two or three plates in a particular state, 
 those left as originally printed being preferred, because 
 they offer certain unconventional details subsequently 
 modified. But, in fact, to make a perfect exemplar of 
 the work, to satisfy the demand of a rigid connoisseur, 
 you have to combine features in the shape of proofs 
 before letters and vignettes taken off separately, besides 
 extra engravings by other artists not strictly belonging 
 to the edition, until you have a complete album of bijoux' 
 indiscrets, and in the old French morocco by Derome or 
 Bozerian a .£200 lot. The Earl of Crawford's copy, 
 which was to have been sold at Sotheby's in July 1896 
 (No. 493 of catalogue), was a masterpiece of this descrip- 
 tion; but it was withdrawn. It has since been sold to 
 another noble lord — the Earl of Carnarvon. 
 
 A copy of the normal decouvert type of the Contes et 
 Nouvelks, 1762, may be had, according to condition and 
 binding, for between =£10 and <£50. It has been said of 
 the extra plates to the Contes et Nouvelks of La Fon- 
 taine that their rejection as part of the published work 
 ought to be a matter neither of surprise nor of regret, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 187 
 
 for they are not only flagrantly indecent, but are poor 
 and unsatisfying from an artistic point of view. Another 
 favourite edition of the Tales is that with the plates by 
 Romeyn de Hooge, 1685, 2 vols. 8vo; but you must 
 have it on fine paper in old morocco. 
 
 Looking at the illustrated editions of the Tales 
 generally, the plates, except the charming head and tail 
 pieces, do great injustice to the text, which the author 
 can hardly have foreseen the possibility of being de- 
 formed and discredited by such forced and exaggerated 
 constructions of his meaning. 
 
 The edition of La Fontaine's Fables by Oudry, 4 
 vols, folio, 1755-59, is almost equally sought by con- 
 noisseurs, though on somewhat different grounds. Some 
 copies in one of the plates, where there is a tavern sign, 
 have on the board a lion rampant. In the Bibliotheque 
 at Paris is a copy on largest paper bound for Marie 
 Antoinette with original decorations by Oudry himself 
 on the covers ; it is only a single book out of thousands 
 which they have there, yet it might make a day's sale, 
 and a remunerative one, in Wellington Street in the 
 Strand! Boccaccio, 5 vols. 8vo, 1757, with plates by 
 Eisen, Gravelot, and others, enters into this series ; it is 
 not an uncommon book, and is found with a French and 
 an Italian text, of which the former is generally preferred. 
 It is necessary to secure a copy in all respects faultless. 
 But far more important and relatively costly are the 
 Baisers of Dorat, 1770, printed on grand papier de 
 
188 HISTORY OF 
 
 Hollamde, with the title in red and black, and, above 
 all, Laborde's Choice de Chansons, 1773, always a dear 
 publication when the state is right, and excessively 
 difficult to obtain with proof plates ; the Magniac copy 
 was bought by Mr. Quaritch at Phillips's a few years 
 since for upwards of ^200, and sold by him, we believe, 
 to Lord Carnarvon. Another copy, with the plates in 
 unlettered proof state, is marked i?250 in Pearson & Co.'s 
 Catalogue, 1897-98. La Folk Jawrnke, by Beaumarchais, 
 with engravings of the same period and character, is 
 also a charming production, and commands a good 
 price. 
 
 The minutiae into which the enthusiasts for the 
 graphic French literature produced in the closing years 
 of the ancient regime permit themselves to enter is rather 
 bewildering to a novice or an outsider, and certainly asks 
 as much study as it can well be worth. The cultivation 
 of the pursuit has naturally brought into existence a 
 small library of monographs, of which that by Cohen is 
 one of the best known and the most frequently quoted. 
 There is an equal degree of difference between the pic- 
 torial features of books produced in England and on 
 the Continent during the past and the present centuries. 
 In France there still reigns the spirit of enterprise con- 
 ducive to the execution of high-class work; but among 
 ourselves it is painful to contemplate the decline, not of 
 power, but of encouragement, and the unhealthy tendency 
 to a style of illustration which will not probably be very 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 189 
 
 creditable to the country in retrospect. A collection 
 of modern illustrated works of mixed origin may well 
 dispense, except by way of sample and contrast, with 
 much of the fantastic and preposterous creations of some 
 of the latter-day masters. 
 
 The Edition de Luxe, the Large, Larger, and Largest 
 Paper, the copy on yellow paper, blue paper, writing 
 paper, on papier de HoUande, de Chine, or cTInde, or on 
 Japanese vellum, the very limited impression, are among 
 the fancies and demands of the omnivorous past. A 
 short study of the supplement to Bohn's Lowndes and of 
 Martin's Privately Printed Books will suffice to show that 
 not only a library, but a tolerably extended one, might 
 be formed of these classes of literature exclusively ; and 
 indeed the thing has been more than once actually done. 
 Utterson, Halliwell, Laing, Maidment, Eyton, Turnbull, 
 and others have contributed to leave to us a voluminous 
 inheritance of now rather neglected and undervalued curio- 
 sities of this kind. But even here the discriminating 
 collector may still advantageously pick out items worth 
 buying and holding, for in the case of every artificial 
 Airore the good, bad, and indifferent are apt to rise and 
 to fall together, while it is reserved only for the first to 
 experience a revival — the Revival of the Fittest. 
 
 The Illustrated Copy is an indefinite quantity as to 
 character and importance or estimation, since no two 
 correspond. Nearly all those which have been formed 
 are more or less unequal, even where there has been no 
 
190 HISTORY OF 
 
 regard to cost, and every care has been exercised in the 
 selection of objects; for there is a chronic tendency to 
 become complete. But so far as the normal undertaking 
 of this class is concerned, we usually perceive a few 
 desirable and appropriate prints or drawings as a sort 
 of piece de resistance, and the remainder is made up 
 anyhow. Even such a book as the Pennant's London in 
 the Huth Collection strikes us as unsatisfactory on the 
 ground stated ; there is a share of merit in the choice of 
 embellishments ; there is also too considerable a residuum 
 of comparative rubbish; and if it is so here, the reader 
 may judge how the matter stands with illustrated books 
 of the ordinary stamp made up for sale. There is one 
 remark to be offered. The really fine prints and other 
 similar productions are too valuable to treat in this way, 
 as they would necessarily render the work^ when it was 
 ready for the client, too expensive. A Pennant, for 
 example, exclusively composed of first-rate material, 
 and tolerably representative in regard to names and 
 localities, would be worth thousands of pounds. The 
 time for securing prizes for this purpose at a moderate 
 figure has gone by. The catalogues advertise copies 
 " extensively and tastefully " illustrated with hundreds or 
 thousands of portraits and views; and the bidding or 
 demand, as the case may be, is carried to £2,0, ^O, or 
 J100. Our advice is, Not to touch. It is preferable to 
 have a few chosen examples in a portfolio. 
 
 It is not always that the Illustrated Copy is restricted 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 191 
 
 to engravings and other works of art. Autograph letters 
 enter into the plan, and facsimiles of title-pages or other 
 cognate and more or less relevant objects. One of the 
 most recent enterprises of this nature — a Boswell's Johnson 
 —cost the actual possessor about £10,000; it was ex- 
 tended to forty-two volumes, and aimed at having a token 
 of some kind of every one mentioned in the text. So we 
 ■advance. It was deemed a piece of extravagance when, 
 forty or fifty years ago, the late Sir William Stirling- 
 Maxwell expended about £1000 in forming an illustrated 
 copy of his own Cloister Life of Charles V. 
 
 The Nature-printing, Autotype, Photogravure, Collo- 
 type, and other processes strike us as hardly falling 
 within the category here contemplated, although that 
 they are material accessions to our resources is undoubted. 
 They are the fruit of a combination between nature and 
 mechanical science; their fidelity for portraiture and 
 technical purposes may be granted; but they do not 
 realise the notion of artistic embellishment or interpreta- 
 tion, nor are they capable of rendering with anything 
 approaching truth the more delicate and subtle touches 
 of the miniaturist. 
 
 The Edition de Luxe is dilettantism in extremis. It 
 is a movement which seems to rest on a false theory and 
 basis. It should have limited itself to nugce literarice, to 
 bagatelles, which no mortal sought to read, and which 
 might be harmlessly printed on any material, of any 
 latitude and longitude, in any type, or else to graphic 
 
192 HISTORY OF 
 
 works where the luxury would more comfortably and 
 more suitably make itself manifest in illustrations varied 
 and duplicated to whatever extent it pleased the issuer, 
 or was calculated to gratify his clients. But to apply 
 the principle to books so essentially appealing to 
 practical readers as Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, and 
 others, was an unfortunate step and precedent, which 
 has thrown on the market a large amount of stock not 
 easily moved even at a heavy discount on the published 
 price. 
 
 Merely looking at the bibliophile pure and simple, and 
 shutting our eyes to those phases of book-collecting, 
 where the principle or sole aim is educational or religious, 
 we incline to the Conclusion that foreigners, and above 
 all the French, are less practical than ourselves, and lay 
 far greater stress on sentiment. 
 
 The French, and we may perhaps add the Anglo- 
 French school of book-collecting, works on lines which 
 to a normal lover of books must at first appear rather 
 mysterious and strange, if not absolutely irrational. The 
 closest analogy which it is in our power to suggest is the 
 almost parallel sentiment and policy in regard to other 
 branches of inquiry — china, furniture, numismatics. The 
 Frenchman and his English disciple have no respect what- 
 ever as colkc&mmeurs for substantial value, and agree in 
 ignoring everything, good, bad, indifferent, outside a 
 prescribed limit. 
 
 The temper of the foreign markets, especially the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 193 
 
 French one, is so essentially different from that of 
 England, that it demands an almost life-long study of 
 the subject to comprehend the true principles by which 
 they are guided and influenced. In what we are just now 
 urging, we must of course be understood to allude to the 
 amateur pure and simple, — in fact, if it may be said with- 
 out offence, to the virtuoso. There are foreign book- 
 collectors, as there are English, who seek copies of works 
 within their lines, whatever those lines may be, for the 
 sake of information and reference. The collector has no 
 such aim. He aspires to make himself master of so many 
 items answering to certain inexorable postulates laid 
 down by the experts in such matters. His taste has 
 happened to take a bibliographical direction and shape; 
 it is hardly a literary one ; and the objects of his pursuit, 
 instead of being pictures, prints, antiquities, gems, or 
 coins, are things in book-form. 
 
 Monsieur and his British satellite cultivate exclusively 
 what is French, just as in the numismatic department 
 Monsieur will only buy French coins or Franco-Italian 
 ones, or the money of Monsieur's direct ancestors, the 
 Greeks and Romans. It is the same principle throughout ; 
 and the undoubted fact is before us that, if the article 
 to be sold is right in all respects, the price is marvellous. 
 One can understand a high appreciation of some superb 
 or unique example of ancient typography, of a book which 
 has belonged to a famous person, or of a manuscript like 
 the Bedford Missal or the Hours of Anne of Brittany. 
 
194 HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 One can understand, again, the enthusiasm for an un- 
 recorded old poem, romance, or play, for a production 
 by an eminent author supposed to have perished, or for 
 a precious relic such as the Manesse MS., presented 
 by the German Emperor Frederic to the library at 
 Heidelberg, from which it had been taken by the French 
 during the wars of the Revolution. But the Parisian 
 goid is less intent on such matters than on flimsy 
 and effeminate specialities. A copy of a book, it does 
 not signify how valuable intrinsically it may be, is 
 worth nothing in the eyes of Monsieur and Marmew 
 dPAnghterre son ami, unless it is in a particular vesture, 
 with a particular ex libris, and of a particular measure- 
 ment in millesvmes. MM. les amateurs reject not merely 
 calf, but that vellum wrapper and that stitched paper 
 envelope so dear to us English — so dear that when one 
 of us has given hundreds of pounds for a book thus 
 clothed, rather than commit it to a binder, we employ 
 him to make us a case for the gem. The volume of 
 tracts which Charles I. borrowed of Thomason the 
 stationer, and let fall in the mud, what could Mon- 
 sieur do with it ? Absolutely nothing. But the British 
 Museum cherishes the relic, and would not on ariy 
 account, we solemnly believe, suffer the stains to be 
 removed. They are the credentials, the link between 
 the king and ourselves. 
 
 On the subject of French books in regard tojjtheir 
 bindings we shall have more to say below. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The extrinsic features in books — Autographs — Inscriptions — 
 Various classes of them and of interest in their subject-matter 
 — The Henry VIII. Prayer-Bpok of 1544— Some account of 
 it — Gabriel Harvey — Spenser — Evelyn — Milton — Hypothetical 
 grands prix — Classification of inscriptions — Examples — 
 Dramatists — Poets — Jonsou, Massinger, Drayton, Wycherleyj 
 Killigrew — Mere signatures — Shakespeare's copy of Florio's 
 Montaigne, 1603 — The Earl of Essex's copy of Drayton's 
 Eclogues, 1593 — Humphrey Chetham — Strays from his library 
 — Beau Nash as a collector — Sir Joshua Reynolds — William 
 Beckford and his Vathek — Foreign autographs and memoranda 
 — A whimsical note in a copy of Shakespeare's Passionate 
 Pilgrim, 1599 — Interesting MS. matter in a copy of Stow's 
 Survey, 1633 — Pepys's binder — Dr. Burney and his verses in 
 Sandford and Merton — Napoleon and Josephine — The Luthe- 
 ran Testament given by the latter to General Buonaparte 
 — A charming presentation copy from Josephine of Voltaire's 
 Henriade — What makes the interest in autographs — Inepti- 
 tudes — The reviewer's copy — Latter-day vandalism — Arms on 
 books — Prefaces and Dedications — Imprimaturs. 
 
 What may be treated as the casual accessories of books 
 of nearly all periods and countries — the autograph inscrip- 
 tion testifying to the ownership or signalising a gift from 
 one possessor to another — have manifold and diversified 
 elements of interest and attraction. These features offer 
 a graduated scale of importance, just as it happens. The 
 question depends on the donor, or the recipient, or the 
 article given and received; and where all these combine 
 
 196 
 
196 HISTORY OF 
 
 to augment the charm and to complete the spell, the issue 
 is electrifying. No more impressive corroboration of this 
 truth could well be desired or produced than the Henry 
 VIII. Prayer-Book of 1544 on vellum, from the Fountaine 
 Collection, with the MSS. notes and autographs of the King, 
 the Princess Mary, Prince Edward, and Queen Catherine 
 Parr. It fetched about 600 guineas at Christie's in 1894. 
 In the Bibliographer, Bookworm, and his own Collec- 
 tions, the writer has formerly assembled together notices 
 of. all the most remarkable examples of English books, 
 both printed and in MS., with inscriptions, marginalia, 
 and other records of prior and successive possession, 
 brought within his reach during more than thirty years 
 past. There are not unreasonably people who may not 
 see in an ordinary copy of a volume much tangible 
 interest, yet who are prepared to recognise the value, and 
 even importance, of one with the autograph and memo- 
 randa of some illustrious personage, of some great warrior 
 or statesman, or of a famous man of letters, artist, or 
 sculptor. The accidental and secondary feature in the 
 work takes precedence of the rest ; he pays for the senti- 
 ment and association. The direct human interest resident 
 in such a relic is apt, in the opinion of many, to surpass 
 that of the finest binding; for one has here the very 
 characters traced long ago by the holder; one can 
 imagine him (or her) seated at the table engaged in the 
 task of leaving to the times to come this memento. The 
 book is the casual receptacle ; perchance in itself it is of 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 197 
 
 inconsiderable worth ; but the manuscript accessions are 
 as an embalmment and a sanctification. The copy is not 
 as others ; it has descended to us as a part of a precious 
 inheritance, of which the mere paper and print are the 
 least significant ; we are to approach and touch it rever- 
 ently, as if the individual to whom it appertained were 
 standing by, to reprove an ungentle hand and take back 
 the legacy. 
 
 It would be barely possible, were it of essential use, 
 to schedule all the existing presentation or annotated 
 copies of books in our own and other literatures, but we 
 shall here make an effort to offer a general view of what 
 is intended, and what may in some instances become 
 attainable by watching opportunities : — 
 
 Monastic or collegiate litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Editions of the Bible. 
 
 Editions of the New Testament. 
 
 Editions of the Prayer-Book. 
 
 Royal Books : — 
 
 (i). With autograph notes by 
 
 the owner, 
 (ii) With inscription by the 
 
 giver, 
 (iii) With both, 
 (iv) In binding identifiable 
 with a royal personage. 
 
 Books which possess the signa- 
 tures of noble or illustrious 
 individuals, politicians, states- 
 men, soldiers. 
 
 The same categories apply. 
 
 Books with literary inscrip- 
 tions : — 
 (i) Presentation copies with 
 
 author's inscription, 
 (ii) With his inscription and 
 additional matter by 
 him. 
 (iii) With inscription by' re- 
 cipient, 
 (iv) With autographs and 
 MSS. notes by both. 
 Foreign books : — 
 
 Monastic and mediaeval. 
 With MS. matter of historical 
 
 or genealogical interest. 
 Books from royal or noble 
 
 libraries. 
 Books of literary interest. 
 
198 HISTORY OF 
 
 Monastic inscriptions are generally limited in their 
 interest to casual light shed by them on personages 
 connected with the institution or on some local circum- 
 stance. 
 
 Of royal books, genuine and otherwise, the number 
 has had a tendency to increase through the successive 
 dispersion of old libraries everywhere, combined with the 
 additional facilities for gaining access to those which still 
 remain intact. The Henry VIII. Prayer^Book on vellum 
 is the only copy known in any state of the edition of 
 1544, and may not have been publicly issued with this 
 date. 
 
 Some of the royal memoranda are of signal interest 
 and curiosity. On the back of the title, under the royal 
 arms, the king himself says : " Remember thys wrighter 
 wen you doo pray for he ys yours noon can saye naye. 
 Henry R." At the passage : " I have not done penance 
 for my malice," the same hand inserts in the margin: 
 " trewe repentance is the best penance ; " and farther 
 on he makes a second marginal note on the sentence : 
 "thou hast promysed forgyveness," . . . "repentance 
 beste penance." This was a sort of family commonplace 
 book. Inside the cover Prince Edward (afterward 
 Edward VI.) writes : " I will yf you will." The volume, 
 which contains other matter of great historical value, 
 appears to have been given by Henry VIII. shortly before 
 his,, death to his daughter Mary ; for on a small piece of 
 vellum inside the cover he has written : " Myne owne 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 199 
 
 good daughter I pray you remember me most hartely 
 when you in your prayere do shew for grace to be attayned 
 assurydly to yr lovyng fader Henry R." The Princess 
 subsequently gave it to her stepmother, Catherine Parr, 
 and it has a motto and signature of that lady's second 
 husband, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the Admiral. 
 
 The old king, we observe, grew rather nervous about 
 the future just at the last, and he at all events admitted 
 that there was room for contrition. 
 
 A companion volume and monument was the copy of 
 the Sarum Horce of 1520, printed on vellum, in the second 
 portion of the Ashburnham sale. This precious book 
 belonged to the Parr family, including the mother of 
 Queen Katherine Parr, and at any rate contained an 
 inscription in the hand of the Queen's brother, and of 
 those of members of the Carew, Vaux, Tailboys, Nevill, 
 and other families, besides being in beautiful condition; 
 and the same library yielded a second copy of Hours, 
 1512, which had passed through the hands of Henry 
 VIII. himself, as attested in one place by his autograph 
 memorandum : " Pray yow pray for me your loving 
 cousin Henry Rex." Such relics appear to bring back 
 before us the dead players on the human stage, divested 
 of all but their more redeeming characteristics. 
 
 In the British Museum we have the Great Bible of 
 1540 on vellum, which enters into the present category by 
 reason of its association with the same prince, though in 
 a different way. On the reverse of the fly-leaf occurs : 
 
200 HISTORY OF 
 
 " This Booke is presented vnto your most excellent high- 
 nesse by youre loving, faithfull, and obedient subiect and 
 daylye Oratour, Anthonye Marler, of London, Haberdas- 
 sher." Truly a gift worthy of a king ; and there it remains, 
 a precious link with the past and a splendid memorial of 
 the citizen of London who laid it at his sovereign's feet. 
 
 Propriety and sympathy of costume go very far in- 
 xdeed to establish and augment the estimation of printed 
 volumes with manuscript tokens of former proprietor- 
 ship. The collector who chooses this field of activity has 
 to weigh the correlation and harmony between the vol- 
 ume itself and the individual or individuals to whom 
 it once appertained. We have usually to content our- 
 selves with the interest resident in an autograph, with 
 or without further particulars; it is a book, perhaps, 
 which formed part of the library of a distinguished 
 Elizabethan or Jacobean writer or public character ; but, 
 if it were not, its worth might be nominal. Again, 
 the book is possibly one of great value, and exhibits an 
 early autograph and MSS. notes ; it would be better with- 
 out them. Find the copy of Venus and Adonis, 1593, 
 given by Shakespeare to Lord Southampton, the poet's 
 copy of the Faery Queen, 1590-96, Sir Fulke Greville's 
 copy of Sydney's, Arcadia, 1590, or a book of Voyages 
 belonging to Drake or Raleigh, and it is worth a library, 
 and a good one too. The nearest approach we have yet 
 made to this kind of combination is the first folio Mon- 
 taigne and the original edition of Lord Brooke's works, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 201 
 
 1683, with the signature of Jonson, and the Spenser of 
 1679 with the notes of Dryden, unless the Paradise 
 Lost, 1667, with Milton's presentation to a bookbinder 
 at Worcester be authentic. 
 
 We must not omit in the present connection the copy 
 of the prose story-book of Howleglas, given in 1578 with 
 .others byEdmund Spenser to Gabriel Harvey. But an 
 almost equally covetable possession was the copy just 
 referred to of Milton's Paradise Lost, 1667, which occurred 
 only the other day at a sale, where it was, as too often 
 happens, mis-described, and brought ,£70. It bore on a 
 small slip inlaid in a fly-leaf: "For my loving fFreind, Mr. 
 Francis Rea, Booke binder in Worcester these," and on 
 another piece of paper : " Presented me by the Author to 
 whom I gave two doubl sovereigns" = £&, nearly as much 
 as the poet had for the copyright. The story of the 
 book is unknown to us ; it seems eminently likely that the 
 first memorandum was written by Milton ; but whether it 
 belonged to a wrapper forwarding the gift, or to a letter 
 accompanying it, is problematical. 
 
 Rea of Worcester must be the same individual who is 
 described as haying re-bound in June 1660 the Jolley 
 and Ashburnham copy of Higden's Polychronicon, printed 
 by Caxton, 1482 ; but there an earlier owner, Richard 
 Furney, calls him " one Rede of Worcester." 
 
 At Trinity, Cambridge, there is the edition of 
 Spenser, 1679, with a memorandum on the fly-leaf by Jacob 
 Tonson, testifying to the MSS. notes in the book being 
 
202 HISTORY OF 
 
 by Dryden, and at Wootton formerly was the Faery 
 Queen, 1596, John Evelyn's cypher in gold down the back 
 of the cover and seventeen lines in his autograph on the 
 fly-leaf. 
 
 Among our dramatists, Ben Jonson is conspicuous by 
 the number of copies of his own performances which 
 he presented to royal and noble personages or to pri- 
 vate friends. Of three gift-copies of his Volpone, 1607, 
 one has an inscription to John Florio, the other to 
 Henry Lambton of Lambton. The almost unique large- 
 paper one of Sejanus, 1605, in the Huth Collection, was 
 given to the poet's "perfect friend," Francis Crane. In 
 the Museum are the Masque of Queens and the Masque 
 of Blackness and Beauty offered to the queen of James I. 
 But of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and many 
 others, we have not a single memorial of this kind. Of 
 Massinger there is one : the copy of his Duke of Milan, 
 1623, received from him by Sir F. Foljambe. In the case 
 of Taylor the water-poet, the nearest approach to any- 
 thing of the sort is the MS. note of the recipient of a copy 
 of his Works, 1630. 
 
 Of two equally prominent poets of the same epoch, 
 Daniel and Drayton, the latter seems to have had a 
 partiality for inscribing his autograph in presentation 
 copies of his books, while of Daniel in this way we do not 
 recollect to have met with a single example. 
 
 Very engaging, on account of its manly and cordial 
 tone, is the autograph epistle by Sir Richard Fanshawe 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 accompanying an extant copy of his translation of 
 Guarini's Faithful Shepherd, 1648. The whole production 
 may be seen in the Huth Catalogue (p. 633), where we 
 inserted it as a favourable sample of this kind of poetry 
 or verse. The lines are headed : " To my deare friend 
 Mr. Tho. Brooke with Pastor Fido before an entended 
 voyage," and commence : — 
 
 " This to the man I most affect I send. 
 The faithfull Shepherd to as true a friend. 
 There on each page thou'lt tenderest passion see, 
 But none more tender than my own for thee." 
 
 The volume belongs to the series of memorials, which we 
 possess in not too ample abundance, of the regard enter- 
 tained by men of letters of former days' for each other, or 
 for their intimates, and ranks with the priceless copies of 
 his own books presented by Jonson to some of his dis- 
 tinguished contemporaries. If he, or any one else, made 
 gifts of such things to the greatest of them all, every trace 
 of such an incident has apparently disappeared. 
 
 Barity of occurrence is not by any means an impera- 
 tive feature in influencing or determining the value of 
 inscriptions. No examples are probably more abundant 
 than the books of Izaak Walton, either with an ordinary 
 note of presentation, or with MSS. notes in the writer's 
 hand, if not with both ; yet they invariably command a 
 liberal price from the admission of Walton by common 
 acknowledgment into the select circle of literary men, 
 whose works we love for the sake of the author. 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 The following inscription in contemporary MS. occurs 
 on the reverse of the Old Testament title to a Cranmer's 
 Bible of 1540 : " Thys byble ys John Crogdens, Cytyzen 
 and merchant taylorof London, dwellynge in Wattlynge 
 Street at y e syne of Y e Whyte Horse, 1550." 
 
 Occasionally more or less curious personal traits or 
 family clues are yielded by the memoranda on fly-leaves. 
 A Latin Testament of 1563 bears: "e libris Thomae 
 Northcote e dono Joh. Rolle Armig. de Stephenstone in 
 agro Devoniensi ; " a copy of Jewell's Sermons, 1583, has 
 "John Willoughby, 1591, 11 and "Amor vincit omnia." 
 In the Savile copy of Sir Thomas More's Works, 1557, 
 we read : " de dono H. Savile anno 1600 ; found by Mary 
 Savile, Dec. 12, 1635, amongst other books at Metheby : 
 for my daughter Mary Savile." 
 
 If the reader will cross over with us into Scotland for 
 a moment or so, we will introduce him to a very interesting 
 relic in the shape of a Latin Aristotle of 1526, in which 
 a Cistercian monk of Kinloss Abbey, Andrew Langland, 
 has enshrined two metrical compositions from his own 
 pen ; an epitaph on the Regent Murray, and an epistle 
 to Joannes Ferrerius, Professor at Kinloss, 1542, and 
 continuator of Hector Boece. The epitaph is dialogue- 
 wise between the Bishop of Orkney, who was absent from 
 the funeral, and Ferrerius, who attended it. 
 
 At the sale of the library of the Duke of Leeds, a large- 
 paper copy of Wycherley's Miscellany Poems, 1704, ap- 
 parently given by the poet to Lord Treasurer Danby, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 205 
 
 produced the outrageous price of i?46. A far more 
 interesting example was that which he presented to 
 Mistress Mary Twysden, as noticed in the Bibliographer. 
 A more important souvenir was the Latin Testament 
 given by Pope to JBolingbroke in 1728 (Christie's, April 3, 
 1895, No. 339); and a yet stronger sympathy must be 
 felt with the Juvenal and Persius, 8vo, Amsterdam, 1684, 
 which once belonged to T. Killigrew, and subsequently to 
 Pope, whose English version occupies the interleaves, if 
 the description given by Wake of Derby be correct, as the 
 book itself we have not seen. 
 
 We approach a different class of consideration when we 
 leave behind us the more or less factitious and artificial 
 attractions of early bindings and autograph memoranda, 
 and pass to books which owe their extrinsic interest to 
 a mere signature, as in the case of the copy of Florio's 
 Montaigne, 1603, which belonged to Shakespeare, and 
 possesses his autograph on the fly-leaf, and of which the 
 provenance, as stated by Madden in his pamphlet, 1838, 
 favours the authenticity ; and again, in that of Mr. Collier's 
 copy of Drayton's Shepheard"s Garland, 1593, which bears 
 on the title-page the signature of Robert, Earl of Essex. 
 
 There quite casually fell into our own hands a copy 
 of one of Archbishop Usher's books, a stray from Man- 
 chester, with "Humfrey Chetham's Booke, 1644," on 
 fly-leaf, and with it came a MS. on vellum, also formerly 
 Chetham's, of the Stimulus Conscientiae in English verse. 
 They long lay in a garret at Pennington Hall, Leigh, 
 
206 HISTORY OF 
 
 Lancashire,, the seat of the Hiltons, with whom Chetham 
 was intimate, if not connected. 
 
 We meet with a surprise now and then, as when such 
 a work as the English Reynard the Fox of 1681-84 carries 
 on its face a proof of the prior ownership of Beau Nash : 
 " Rich. Nash Arm. Bathonias, 1761,'" but it is quite natural 
 to find the autograph of Sir Joshua Reynolds accompanying 
 a series of French plates illustrative of the Odyssey, 1639. 
 
 In old books, and in new ones too, there are inscriptions 
 and inscriptions. We are all familiar with the scrawl of 
 the clown, who has handed down to us his unconsecrated 
 name on the title-page or fly-leaf of some volume of ours 
 otherwise irreproachable. Just a step above him is your 
 fellow who writes some objurgatory caveat against the 
 malappropriator, and brings the Almighty without scruple 
 into the witness-box, in case any varlet should make free 
 with his property : — 
 
 " Hie liber est meus, 
 Testis est Deus ; 
 Si quis me quaerit, 
 Hie nomen erit" 
 
 " Will. Morsse, 1678." 
 
 Of the whimsical entries in old English books the 
 diversity is endless. On the fly-leaf of a copy of Roger 
 Edgworth's Sermons, 4to, 1557, occurs : "Bryen O'rourke 
 his hand and writting by fore God and man." A sin- 
 gular application of the Holy Scriptures presents itself 
 in a couple of 10 Ws written by James Haig of Prettisides 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 207 
 
 in Longwood, co. Wilts, on the back of the title to a 
 New Testament of 1584. There is a curious, almost 
 pathetic form of this habit of writing in books, practised 
 from very early days down to our own, when we may 
 easily remember how Lamb and Coleridge used to fill the 
 blank leaves of a work of common interest, as it kept 
 passing to and fro like a messenger, till the worth of the 
 manuscript matter left that of the printed far behind 
 indeed. In a mild kind of way this sort of thing was 
 already going on in the sixteenth century. A copy of the 
 English version of the Paraphrase of Erasmus on the New 
 Testament, 1548, passes similarly between two Tudor- 
 period intimates, and there is this : " Mr. Dunes, I woulde 
 wish you to peruse V. chapter of Marke, and there you 
 shall finde great comforte to your soules health. Thus 
 fare you well in the Lorde. Wyllyam Byrde." 
 
 In the copy of Shakespeare's Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, 
 bound up with an early edition of Venus and Adonis, a 
 former owner represents with perfect justice, that although 
 he gave three-halfpence for the two volumes in one, a 
 corner of a leaf was defective ; and there has been further- 
 more a profound arithmetical computation that if this 
 gentleman and his heirs or assigns had invested the 
 amount in good securities, the capital at this moment 
 would have reached the vicinity of =£1000. In a copy of 
 Stow's Survey, 1633, which once belonged to Sir Thomas 
 Da vies, Lord Mayor of London in 1676, we encounter a 
 memorandum on the fly-leaf: "I pray, put in the loose 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 leaues Carefully. John Meriton. For Mr. Richardson, 
 bookbinder in Scalding Alley." Richardson bound for 
 Pepys. In an odd volume of Sandford and Merton, 
 which fell in Dr. Burney's way, and which he gave to his 
 daughter — Johnson's " little Burney " — he wrote : — 
 
 " See, see, my dear Fan, 
 Here comes, spick and span, 
 Little Sandford and Merton, 
 Without stain or dirt on ; 
 'Tis volume the second, 
 Than the first better reckoned ; 
 Pray read it with glee, 
 And remember C. B. 
 
 " April 18, 1786." 
 
 Beauty has been said to depend on Variety, and so we 
 ought not to object to examples selected from widely 
 different sources. 
 
 Horace's multa renascentur comes into our mind 
 when we stumble on a remark by Wodhull the collector 
 in an Acta Apostohrwm printed at Oxford in 1715 : 
 " In May, 1810, Mr. Leigh, auctioneer, told me that a 
 copy of this edition had lately sold for £2,0, observing, 
 ' these are the times to sell books, not to buy them.' " . 
 A more notable man, William Beckford, appears in a 
 copy of the original French Vaihek, 1787, as the second 
 person of the drama by reason of the written matter 
 referring to him, and being in the hand of M. Chavannes 
 of Lausanne. The note occupies the whole of the 
 available space on the title, and is as follows: — "A la 
 
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BOOK-COLLECTING 209 
 
 demande de M. Beckford je me suis charg6 de corriger 
 son Manuscrit et de le faire imprimer a Lausanne. M. 
 Beckford en quittant Lausanne se hata de le faire imprimer 
 a Paris au Prejudice de Tlmprimeur de Lausanne, et je 
 dus menacer M. Beckford de mettre dans les papiers son 
 infidelite . . . et M. B. se hata de dedomager Tlmprimeur 
 pour eviter la publieite." 
 
 So far as books with the autographs and MSS. notes 
 of men of the modern school, such as Byron, Coleridge, 
 Lamb, and Shelley, are concerned, the opportunities for 
 securing specimens have certainly grown more numerous. 
 We have already in the places specified above furnished 
 many illustrations of this section, and they might be 
 readily extended. 
 
 In the foreign department there is a perfectly inex- 
 haustible store of material under a variety of heads: 
 evidences of ownership and descent, biographical sugges- 
 tions, historical links and side-lights, dated armorial esc 
 libris. In 1869 the author met with a thipk 4to volume, 
 including the Cologne edition of the Legenda S&ncti Albani 
 Martyris, printed about 1475, on the fly-leaf or cover 
 of which was a list of contents made in 1475 ; and 
 in the Hopetoun copy of the Eihka of Aristotle the 
 original owner had established the place of printing, other- 
 wise unspecified, by a MS. note, dated 1469, in which he 
 stated that the book was presented to him by its typo- 
 grapher, " Johannes Mentelin Argentin." 
 
 In a copy of the works of Petrarch in Latin, folio, 
 
210 HISTORY OF 
 
 1501, occurs on the title : " Liber Antonij kressen juris 
 vtriusq. doctoris emptus venecijs ligatus nurenberge 
 Mcccccv ; " and the noble old volume (now in the British 
 Museum) is accompanied by a memoir of Kressen, printed 
 about 1600, of uniform size, with a splendid portrait of 
 the interesting Nuremberger. 
 
 A copy of the Vulgate of 1484 commands attention 
 from the presence of a coeval MS. note pasted on the 
 first leaf : " Hec Biblia est Petri Dominici Bonin- 
 segnis qui a fratre Cosmo empta fuit Anno mcccclxxxu. 
 xviii. die Februarii. 1 ' A Latin Horce of the fifteenth 
 century contains on a fly-leaf the ensuing little family 
 story : " Ces Heures apartiennent a Damoyselle Michelle 
 Du Dere Femme de M. Loys Dorleans Advocat en la 
 Court du Parlement et lesquelles luy sont echeues par la 
 succession de feu son pere M. Jehan Dudere Conseiller 
 du Roy & Auditeur en sa chambre des comptes 1577. 
 Amour & Humilite sont les deux liens de nostre 
 mariage. 11 A St. Jerome's Epistolce, printed at Mainz 
 about 1470, is accompanied by the dated book-plate, 
 1595, of Christophorus Baro a Wolckhenstain. 
 
 In the French series the number of interesting items 
 from a personal or historical point of view, if not both, is 
 of course great, although, as a rule, French collectors 
 have been rather sparing as annotators of their literary 
 possessions. In a copy of De Bure's Sale Catalogue, 1786, 
 now in the Huth Library, occurs a peculiarly striking 
 exception, however, in the shape of a MS. note in the 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 211 
 
 handwriting of Louis XVI., only three years prior to the 
 fall of the Bastille, " Marquer les livres que je desire pour 
 moi. 11 
 
 In the Duke of Sussex's Library was a New Testa- 
 ment in French presented by Josephine before her second 
 marriage to Napoleon. She had inscribed on the spare 
 leaf preceding title : " Au General Bonaparte ce Testa- 
 ment Lutherain est presente de part la veuve Beau- 
 harnois," and below occurs in the illustrious recipient's 
 hand, Buonaparte. An association fully as historically 
 and personally significant appertains to the Voltaire's Hen- 
 riade, 1770, in one of the volumes of which the to-be 
 Empress writes : " Donne part Madame la Viscontesse de 
 Beauharnois : pensez a elle, aimez-la, n'oubliez jamais qu'elle 
 est votre amie la plus attachee." Was this an oblation 
 at the same shrine ? But this is a slight digression, war- 
 ranted by the twofold circumstance that all these examples 
 have belonged to English collectors, and are of a class 
 quite as interesting to us as to those with whom they 
 are more immediately associated by origin. The same 
 may perhaps be said of the MS. sold in London in 1899, 
 formerly belonging to two persons so widely different as 
 Marie Antoinette and Robespierre, of the latter of whom 
 it possessed the autograph. The interest seemed to centre 
 in the signature of the Revolutionary leader. 
 
 The interest and respect with which the presence of 
 handwriting in books is regarded are indefinitely varied. 
 But the preponderance of worshippers is no doubt on 
 
212 HISTORY OF 
 
 the side of those who have shone in the belles lettres and 
 in society. Sovereigns, unless it be Frederic the Great or 
 Napoleon, Mary of Scotland or Marie Antoinette, generals, 
 politicians, professional men, do not go for much. The 
 competition is for the poet, the novelist, the newsmonger, 
 or some enfant terrible, whose autograph is rare to excess. 
 To be on thoroughly good posthumous terms with collec- 
 tors, one has no need to have been respectable, sober, bene- 
 volent, or pious ; these are rather in the nature of draw- 
 backs ; but one must have possessed a strong personality. 
 That is/the secret. Personality. Schedule the illustrious 
 of the past on this guiding principle, and you cannot err. 
 Men and women without infirmities, without vices, why, 
 ask any dealer of repute and experience, and he will tell 
 you that there is no call for their signatures or for their 
 correspondence. They have too much character in one 
 sense and too little in another. An autograph of Dick 
 Turpin or Claud Du Val would be worth a dozen of 
 Archdeacon Paley or even of Archbishop Tillotson. 
 
 The autograph collector certainly forms a separate 
 genus. He does not buy books. He does not affect MSS. 
 where they exceed the limits of a fly-leaf or title-page 
 entry. We are accustomed to criticise Master John 
 Bagford unkindly because he stripped the volumes of 
 their titles and then cast them away. But he lived a 
 long while ago, when the value and rarity of many of 
 these things were not so generally understood, and there 
 were not customers all over the Old and New Worlds as 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 213 
 
 many as one can tell on one's fingers to take an early book, 
 if it was offered to them. Even now it not seldom happens 
 that an exceedingly interesting signature or note accom- 
 panies an item worth only so much per lb., and your 
 connoisseur in the autograph surrenders all but his 
 portion to its destiny. Who can gainsay him? He 
 shrugs his shoulders ; he is no bookworm ; he wants 
 autographs alone. 
 
 Exceptions to the governing principle arise, how- 
 ever, and sometimes they are recognised, sometimes not. 
 The most beautiful examples for internal condition, 
 binding, even intrinsic interest, are occasionally sacrificed 
 to this Procrustes — this case-hardened Bagford of our 
 own day. Not so long since we remarked as a treasure 
 beyond our purse a copy of Donne's Sermons, with a 
 brilliant portrait of the author, and a long inscription 
 by Izaak Walton presenting the volume to his aunt. It 
 was in the pristine English calf binding, as clean as when 
 it left Walton's hands en route for his kinswoman, and 
 such a delightful signature. What has become of it? 
 It is sad even to commit to paper the story — one among 
 many. An American gentleman acquired it, tore the 
 portrait and leaf of inscription out, and threw the rest 
 away ! Why, forsooth, should he keep a folio volume 
 against his inclination? He left that to whomsoever it 
 might chance to fall — a mangled corpse ! 
 
 It is not peremptorily necessary, however, that there 
 should be witness in black on white to the prior holder 
 
214 HISTORY OF 
 
 of a literary bijou ; for the external evidence may prove 
 abundantly adequate to the satisfaction of the most 
 sceptical. A binding is quite capable of serving as a 
 voucher and guarantee for the provenance of a printed 
 book or manuscript, provided that all the links in the 
 chain are sound. The Prayer-Book of Queen Henrietta 
 Maria, the Fables of La Fontaine with the arms of 
 Marie Antoinette as Dauphine, an unquestioned Grolier 
 or Maioli, and still more such a bibliographical phoenix 
 as that volume bound in gold of Lady Elizabeth 
 Tyrrwhit's Prayers, formerly belonging to Queen Eliza- 
 beth, which the late Sir Wollaston Franks purchased 
 at an incredible price and presented to the British 
 Museum — these, and many more, speak for themselves. 
 Yet where, a royal or noble personage is not in the case, 
 when it is only some Shakespeare or some Milton who 
 is concerned, let us preferably have the written internal 
 passport. We would barter all the books which we have 
 indicated for the Florio's Montaigne with the poet's 
 signature on the fly-leaf, albeit it is in no better a 
 covering than its Shakespearian jacket of shabby old 
 calf. 
 
 More than one volume in the earlier range depends 
 very disproportionately for its interest on the preliminary 
 matter in the form of a Preface or Dedication. In 
 Prefaces, Dedications, Epistles, 1874, the writer drew 
 attention to this point, and furnished a considerable 
 series of such prolegomena in illustration of the fact. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 215 
 
 But there are cases, of course, where the inscription is 
 of a piece with the book, as in Davenanfs Madagascar, 
 1638, where the poet wrote and printed on the leaf 
 following the title: "If these Poems live, may their 
 Memories, by whom they were cherish'd, End. Porter, 
 H. Jarmyn, live with them. 1 ' 
 
 The Imprimatur, or License to the Printer, occasion- 
 ally supplies a curious literary or biographicjal side-light. 
 That to Davenanfs play of the Witts, 1636, runs: "This 
 Play, called the Witts, as it was Acted without offence, 
 may be Printed, not otherwise. 19 Ianuary, 1635. Henry 
 Herbert ; " and before Blount's Jocular Tenures, 1679, we 
 find : " I well knowing the Learning and industry of the 
 Author, do allow the Printing of this Book. Fra. North." 
 Once more there is Sir Isaac Newton's Principia, 1687, 
 with " Imprimatur. S. Pepys." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Materials on which books are printed— Early popular works printed 
 on vellum — The edition de luxe agaiil— Binding of books — 
 Earliest method and style — Printers who were also binders — 
 Superiority of morocco to russia and calf — Influence of climate 
 and atmosphere on bindings— Character of old English bindings 
 — Charm of a C'axton or other precious volume in the original 
 covers — A first folio Shakespeare in old calf — Our latter-day 
 literature compared with the old — Splendour of the liveries 
 of books in the libraries of France under the ancient regime 
 — Disappointment at the interiors of well-bound volumes ex- 
 plained — The author plays a subordinate part — The Parisian 
 book-binding Code — The difference between the French and 
 ourselves — The original publisher's boards — The Frenchman's 
 maroquin rouge — A Suggestion to collectors — Bibliographical 
 simulacra — Do not touch ! — Sentiment finds a place in England 
 in regard to the treatment of old books — Thoughts which a 
 book may awaken. 
 
 It may be necessary to introduce a few words about the 
 material on which the Printed Book has at various times 
 been brought before its readers, or at least its purchasers. 
 The oldest European fabrics employed for books of this 
 class (not MSS.) were paper and parchment, the latter 
 very often prepared with very slight care, but the former 
 of remarkable strength and durability. The cost must 
 have been at first very onerous; but impressions of 
 ancient volumes were usually limited. By degrees, fine 
 vellum, alike conspicuous for its delicacy of quality and 
 
 216 
 
HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 217 
 
 beauty of tone, was introduced, and became fashionable 
 among the patrons of literature in Italy and elsewhere 
 during the Renaissance. No such luxurious mode of 
 presenting the type and giving full effect to the work of 
 the illuminator, which so constantly formed a feature 
 and a charm in the productions of the presses of the 
 Continent of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
 turies has ever since been found possible. It is rather 
 singular that not merely classical authors and other 
 editiones principes received this sumptuous treatment, 
 but even such books as grammars and theological treatises. 
 A copy of the Grammatica of Alexander Gallus (or De 
 Villa Dei) was lately offered for sale by auction, and 
 realised £23 ; it was printed on vellum of excellent char- 
 acter and colour about 1480. 
 
 A visit to the galleries where the show-cases are 
 ranged at the British Museum in intelligible order, is 
 by no means the worst method, of arriving at an intro- 
 ductory or general acquaintance with this aspect of the 
 matter. For there examples of printing on parchment 
 or vellum in all countries from the earliest period are 
 conveniently grouped together. The National Library is 
 fairly rich in treasures of the present class, partly owing 
 to the two facts, that it has inherited a good deal from 
 the old royal collections and the Grenville one, and that 
 it was already in the field when prices were more con- 
 sistent with the financial resources of the institution. 
 Among the productions on vellum here to be found are 
 
218 HISTORY OF 
 
 the Gutenberg, and Fust and Schoeffer, Bibles (1455-62) ; 
 the Psalters of 1457 and 1459 ; the Cicero of 1465 ; the 
 Livy of 1469 ; the Book of St. Albans, 1486 ; one of the 
 two known Caxtons on vellum (the Speculum Vitce Christi, 
 bought of Mr. Maskell in 1864); the Sarum Missals of 
 1492 and 1497 ; the Great Bible of 1540 ; and the Works 
 of Aquinas, in seventeen folio volumes, formerly belonging 
 to Pope Pius V. and Philip III. of Spain. A curious 
 episode is connected with the last item. In the time 
 of Panizzi the copy was offered for sale, and the Museum 
 commission (£300, we believe) was topped ; but the book 
 occurred again, and was acquired by Coventry Patmore, 
 who presented it to the establishment, where he had for 
 many years been an officer. 
 
 On the whole, there is no doubt that the English, and 
 much more the Scotish, printers employed this costly and 
 durable substance far more sparingly than those of the 
 Continent. Of many no specimens whatever have de- 
 scended to us; and the circumstances render it improbable 
 that we shall hereafter add sensibly to our stores in this 
 direction. In the case even of the Romish service-books, 
 printed on paper, it is a matter of common knowledge 
 among book-lovers that the Canon Missce, which was 
 subject to exceptional wear and tear, is usually on vellum. 
 
 In our own language, works which we are accustomed 
 to view as essentially popular were occasionally struck off 
 (in a few copies, no doubt) on parchment. There is the 
 edition of Helyas, Knight of the Swan, printed by Wynkyn 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 219 
 
 de Worde, 1512, of which only one copy remains, and the 
 metrical version of the Ship of Fools, from the same press, 
 1509, of which an unique copy is in the National French 
 library. Let us recollect, too, the Scotish Boece of 1536, 
 the Great Bible of 1539, and the Tudor Prayer-Book bf 
 1544. 
 
 Except paper, parchment (called in some old docu- 
 ments parthemen), and vellum, there are no substances 
 which can be said to boast any degree of antiquity, so 
 far as European literature is concerned. We have, as is 
 sufficiently well known, many others of comparatively 
 modern introduction, which tend to impart to the editions 
 or specimens for which they are employed a special value 
 and curiosity. Such are : (1) Whatman's hand-made 
 paper; (2) Dutch paper (papier de Hollande), of which 
 there are cheap and worthless imitations; (3) China 
 paper ; (4) India paper ; (5) Japanese (so-called) vellum ; 
 (6) tinted paper ; (7) writing paper ; (8) motley paper or 
 paper of different colours ; (9) silk ; (10) satin. 
 
 The edition de luxe has consumed in its time an 
 enormous total of some of these descriptions of recep- 
 tacle for literary products. The lovers of the Select in 
 Books, who more commonly regard their possessions as 
 vertu rather than as vehicles of instruction or amuse- 
 ment, not unnaturally prefer something which the 
 ordinary purchaser cannot procure, or at any rate does 
 not seek. The fancy appears to be, for the most partj 
 worse than futile, unless it is that books with engravings 
 
220 HISTORY OF 
 
 sometimes gain by being taken oft' on one or another of 
 these materials; although in practice illustrations are 
 found to be just as apt to come out well on ordinary 
 paper of good quality as on spurious vellum. It was 
 not unusual in the last century, in Mexico and in South 
 America, to print on silk even ordinary works; it may 
 have been possibly found cheaper than paper. Satin is 
 purely ceremonial. 
 
 Certain books occur of various dates, such as the 
 Livre de Quatre Coutewrs, printed on paper of various 
 shades or colours, either for some passing reason or as 
 a mere matter of fancy. A modern jest-book appeared 
 not long since, harmoniously executed on motley paper 
 in a motley binding — a humorous conceit ! 
 
 It is sufficiently remarkable that neither the Printing 
 nor the Book-binding industries ever erected themselves 
 into societies or guilds, as did the representatives of so 
 many trades far less important in the nature as well as 
 the influence of their products. All the early typo- 
 graphers, at all events from the sixteenth century, were 
 members of the Stationers 1 Company, and the investiture 
 of books in liveries of different kinds became the function 
 of an unprivileged and unchartered body, of which our 
 knowledge is on that account even more limited and 
 imperfect than it would otherwise have been. It is 
 only through occasional and casual notices in corre- 
 spondence or diaries that we hear of those who bound 
 volumes for the older collectors, and we have to wait 
 
BOGK-COCLECTING 221 
 
 till we come down to the Harleian era, before we find 
 artificers of this class in possession of a recognised calling 
 and competent staff. Three employments, which have 
 long been independent and distinct, those of the printer, 
 stationer, and binder, were therefore at first and during 
 a prolonged period in the same hands and under the 
 same roof. 
 
 Anterior to the introduction of printed books, the 
 literary product or record was either rolled up (volutus) or 
 stitched, with or without a wrapper ; and hence, when there 
 were no volumes in.the more modern acceptation in exist- 
 ence, there were rolls. We do not agree with the editor 
 of Aubrey's Letters, &c, 1813, where, in a note to a letter 
 from Thomas Baker to Hearne, he (the editor) remarks 
 that the term explicitus was applied to the completion of 
 the process of unfolding a roll : it always signified the 
 termination of the labour of the scribe, and even in early 
 printed books occurs in the form explicit to convey the 
 same idea on the part of the printer. 
 
 The most ancient binders were the monks, who stitched 
 together their own compositions or transcripts, or, when 
 the volume was more substantial, encased it in oaken 
 boards, which a subsequent hand often improved and 
 preserved by a coat of leather. But laymen were occa- 
 sionally their own bindens, as we perceive in the note to 
 Warton's Poetry, 1 where a "Life of Coxcubranus" in MS. 
 is said to have been bound by William Edis, afterward 
 
 1 Hazlitt's edition, 1871, iii. 193. 
 
HISTORY [OF 
 
 a monk at Burton-on-Trent, while he was a student at 
 Oxford in 1517. 
 
 At Durham and Winchester there were notable 
 schools of art of the present class in the Middle Ages, 
 and specimens occasionally occur, though rarely in good 
 state. A very fine Winchester piece of work was sold 
 in 1898 among William Morris's books (No. 580), and 
 all over the country and abroad, even down to the pre- 
 sent time, the inmates of religious institutions occupy 
 themselves with the same industry on a less ambitious scale, 
 and with infinitely less artistic and picturesque results. 
 
 When Barclay wrote his English paraphrase of 
 Brandt's StulUifera Navis about 1508, it almost seems 
 as if the type of connoisseur, who understood the out- 
 side better than the interior of a book, was already in 
 evidence, for the writer says : — 
 
 " Still am I busy bookes assembling, 
 For to have plentie it is a pleasaunt thing 
 In my concept, and to haue them ay in hand : 
 But what they meane do I not vnderstand. . . . 
 Lo in likewise of bookes I haue store, 
 But fewe I reade, and fewer vnderstande, 
 $ folowe not their doctrine nor their lore, 
 It is ynough to beare a booke in hande." 
 
 In Barclay's English Shvp of Fools, 1509, it is stated 
 that at that time damask, satin, and velvet were em- 
 ployed as luxurious materials for the covering of books, 
 and it seems to have been usual to draw a curtain before 
 the case in which they were preserved. Showy or gay 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 bindings were approved, especially where the owner was 
 not a reader, but, to quote the Latin text, was " Viridi 
 contentus tegmine libri." 
 
 The formation of Book-binding into a distinct em- 
 ployment and organisation must have preceded any 
 explicit evidence of the fact. The gradual increase in 
 the output of literature of all kinds from the days of 
 Elizabeth necessitated the surrender to an independent 
 craft of the envelopment of volumes in various liveries, 
 more especially when the French and Italians had set 
 the fashion of elaborate ornamental patterns and rich 
 gilding. Already in the time of Edward VI. the tariff' 
 chargeable for certain quasi-official publications, such as the 
 Bible and Book of Common Prayer, was fixed by Govern- 
 ment, and at a later date scales of prices for binding in 
 different styles or materials were periodically printed. That 
 of 1646 is reprinted entire in the Antiquary for 1886. 
 
 The most usual styles were plain brown sheep or calf 
 without any lettering, a publisher's label inside the volume 
 sometimes supplying the latter deficiency, and communi- 
 cating to a shelf of books an aspect far from picturesque ; 
 but vellum or parchment of varying consistence was also 
 a favourite and inexpensive mode of covering the contents 
 of a library. Morocco and russia were later innovations, 
 and the former is not unusually found altogether free 
 from decoration or gilding and with a lettering, probably 
 abbreviated and obscure, on the back. Very sumptuous 
 examples alike of calf and turkey leather binding fre- 
 
224 HISTORY OF 
 
 quently present themselves, either executed for ordinary 
 persons, or without any note of the original owner; 
 many are more or less successful copies of Continental 
 models, such as the Lyonnese calf, the Grolier and Maioli 
 pattern ; but in general our ancestors seem to have been 
 satisfied with the paned sides and floriate back, unless 
 heraldic accessories intervened to usurp the space occupied 
 by the lateral ornament or (as in some of John Evelyn's 
 or his sovereign's books) a gilt ornamental cypher formed 
 the dorsal embellishment. 
 
 A visit to some old church or parish, or even cathedral, 
 library nowadays may afford a notion of the external 
 aspect of the early book-closet of the English student 
 or amateur. The glass case is conspicuously absent ; the 
 shelf on which the volumes are ranged has to our eyes 
 a ragged, slatternly look ; and nothing can well be more 
 opposite to modern taste. Yet the feeling for the printed 
 matter between the two covers or behind the paper label 
 was more genuine, may be, and more practical when a 
 handful of volumes, reflecting the personal predilections 
 or requirements of the owner, gradually accumulated, 
 and the acquisition did not amount to a pursuit, much 
 less to a passion and a competitive race. 
 
 The professional binding of books in our country, 
 whether they had been actually produced here or had 
 been purchased abroad, was at the outset almost ex- 
 clusively executed by printers, who must have had a 
 special department to carry out this branch of work. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 225 
 
 We hear of the site of Dean Colet's original school 
 having been a bookbinder's, and of the teaching estab- 
 lishment occupying the upper part of the building. The 
 usual style of binding appears to have been the covering 
 of stamped leather, of which such a rich store of examples 
 still survives, and which was copied from the German 
 and Low-Country models. For weightier books oaken 
 boards frequently served as a foundation, on which the 
 leather was laid. Our sovereigns and nobility employed 
 Pynson, Berthelet, Raynes, and other typographers to 
 clothe the volumes which formed their libraries, before 
 the more luxurious and splendid fashion was introduced 
 of investing them in richly gilt calf bindings, with or 
 without armorial cognisances, and these were again super- 
 seded by the adoption of the Continental taste for Levant 
 morocco (maroguin de Constantinople). 
 
 Down to the time of the earlier Stuarts the binding 
 department more than probably remained part of the 
 printer's functions, and calf or sheep was the usual 
 material employed. Thomas Vautrollier, however, the 
 Elizabethan typographer, who carried on business in the 
 Black Friars, and who adopted the Anchora Spei as a 
 device on his title-pages, seems to have occasionally 
 bound copies of his own publications in morocco with 
 the same symbol on the covers in gold — perhaps to order ; 
 and Lyonnese calf was another . style in favour at the 
 same date. Some highly preserved specimens of the latter 
 
 have descended to us. 
 
 r 
 
226 HISTORY OF 
 
 Another of the earlier essays in England in the 
 direction of morocco bindings appears to have had in 
 view as a model the Grolieresque style of decoration. 
 A copy of a Latin Bible printed at Venice in 1587, 
 and presented in 1563 by the Earl of Arundel to Sir 
 William Petre, bears the crest of the Fitzalans, a white 
 horse, on sides enclosed in a painted design, the compart- 
 ments filled in with a dotted pattern. But examples of 
 the same or a similar class are by no means uncommon. 
 A copy of a very common volume, Knolles's History of the 
 Turks, 1638, was sold among the Morris books in 1898 
 at a high price on account of the very charming red 
 morocco binding, richly gilt, with the unusual feature of 
 side-panels filled in with dotted scrolls. 
 
 Early Continental collectors more usually than our 
 own registered not only 'the place and date of purchase 
 on the fly-leaf or title-page, but the circumstances atten- 
 dant on the binding, as we find in the volume of tracts 
 elsewhere mentioned, put into their existing covers in 
 1469, in the nearly coeval assemblage of tracts formed 
 and bound by Udalric Ellenbog in- 1476, and in the 
 Latin Petrarch of 1501, bound for Antonius Kressen of 
 Niirnberg in 1505, now in the British Museum. 
 
 The middle-period schools of collectors and binders, 
 who displayed a preference for morocco over russia and 
 calf, were assuredly wise in their generation. Much of 
 the russia has perished, or is perishing fast, under a 
 variety of deleterious agencies; and the more modern 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 calf, at least, does not bear its years well. But morocco, 
 at first more expensive, withstands infinitely better and 
 longer the incidence of social life. What noble sets of 
 books, as well as single volumes, have almost crumbled 
 away in damp country-houses, sometimes relegated to 
 the garret or the stable by the intelligent and highly- 
 educated proprietors, while others have fallen a prey to 
 gas and dust in town. These sources of injury and 
 natural ruin no material can of course long resist; and, 
 the foreigner often enjoying the advantage of a less 
 impure atmosphere, and not usually aiming at a larger 
 collection than may be necessary as chamber-furniture, 
 his acquisitions are apt to come down to us in a more ' 
 contemporary state, although we grant that, where certain 
 postulates have been fulfilled, we have shown our capa- 
 bility of presenting to a distant age an assemblage of the 
 ancient literature of our own and other countries as 
 immaculate as when it changed hands over the counter in 
 Tudor or in Stuart times. 
 
 Binding and Bibliography, no less than literature, are 
 in opposite lobbies as regards the character of the objects 
 which one sees submitted to periodical competition. The 
 taste in books has undergone revolutionary changes ; the 
 volumes on which early owners lavished extravagant 
 sums have too often become per se waste paper ; and it 
 consequently happens that a catalogue devoted to an 
 account of such relics of the past has to register titles 
 and names which play a subordinate part in the matter, 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 and are, as it were, merely useful as a means of identi- 
 fication. 
 
 While a large number of splendid examples of bind- 
 ing in russia and morocco have been produced in Great 
 Britain, there has scarcely been at any time a school of 
 binding analogous to those which France, and even Italy, 
 have known, each with its distinctive and recognisable 
 characteristics; nor have we attained in the liveries of 
 our books to the same splendour and beauty of decoration, 
 or to an equal degree of historical or personal interest. 
 
 A large number of fine examples present themselves 
 in our sale-rooms here, formerly ornaments of some of 
 the noble collections formed in different parts of Germany ; 
 too often they show traces of neglect, yet occasionally 
 they have preserved their pristine beauty and freshness 
 almost unimpaired. They are, for the most part, of the 
 very favourite class, where the oaken boards constitute 
 a receptacle or foundation for an encasement of leather 
 (frequently pigskin) stamped with some beautiful histo- 
 riette on either side, and carrying the date and other 
 particulars of origin and ownership. We meet with 
 numerous specimens from time to time of the libraries 
 of the Electors of Saxony and Bavaria in this picturesque 
 and becoming raiment. 
 
 There should be by right, and with advantage, as 
 distinct an intellectual spirit or element of thought in 
 the binding as in the writing and printing of a book. 
 A man who traces on the covers and back of a volume 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 lines, curves, circles, crescents, scrolls, and other figures 
 without harmony and without significance — in other 
 words, without mind or esprit — is no true artist, but 
 either an unskilful copyist or a rude beginner. Different 
 schools naturally adopted new ideas of the beautiful or 
 the elegant; some of our most ancient patterns were 
 scriptural or mathematical ; the age ruled the prevailing 
 taste and fashion, and everything in and out of Nature 
 has had its turn and its day. Then, again, nationality 
 goes for something: the Frenchman is fond of his Us 
 and the Scot of his thistle. 
 
 Artistic and historical book-covers have more than 
 a special and technical importance, inasmuch as they 
 contribute to enrich a pursuit which might otherwise 
 become more limited in its interest than it is. For gay 
 or splendid bindings assist in bringing the Book, manu- 
 script or printed, within the category of antiquities or 
 curiosities, where it awakens sentiments in the breasts 
 of persons, neither literary nor bibliographical in their 
 tastes., akin to those which they entertain for a specimen 
 of old furniture or old porcelain; and so indeed we see 
 entire libraries, which are little more than assemblages 
 of triumphs of the binder's art and agreeable memorials 
 of prior ownership. A once rather famous emporium in 
 Piccadilly was known as the Temple of Leather and 
 Literatures because the extrinsic was supposed to govern ; 
 and the same point is illustrated by the enormous 
 difference in pecuniary value between copies of many 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 old works in morocco and in more humble garb. Here 
 Dress makes the book no less than in the song it is said 
 to make the man. So it was with the three independent 
 libraries of Mesdames de France, daughters of Louis XV. 
 Each of these ladies had her favourite hue in morocco, 
 with the royal arms on the sides ; for Madame Adelaide 
 it was red, for Madame Sophie, citron, and for Madame 
 Victoire, green or olive. The ornamental details of early 
 bindings, especially those of Continental origin, embrace 
 nearly every section of natural history : beasts, birds, 
 fishes, insects, flowers, and fruit, and endless varieties of 
 geometrical lines and curves. A Spanish New Testament, 
 printed at Venice in 1556, even presented on its sides 
 what were described in the Ashburnham Catalogue as 
 "richly gilt raindrops.'" Among flowers we most fre- 
 quently meet with the rose, the daisy, the lily, and the tulip. 
 Many varieties of form in connection with the gift of 
 books to friends or patrons formerly subsisted, apart from 
 the autograph note inside the volume. We have adverted 
 to the Grolier group of bindings and certain other allied 
 types perhaps borrowed from Grolier, and the practice 
 was followed, though on a very limited scale, in England, 
 where the token in all cases was mainly confined to the 
 title or fly-leaf, and consequently enters into a distinct 
 category. A very unusual example of presentation occurs 
 in a copy printed on vellum of Voerthusius' Consecrationis 
 Augustas Liber Unas, printed at Antwerp in 1563, where 
 the centres of either side of the volume are occupied by 
 
/ / 
 
 BOOK-pOLLECTING 231 
 
 an inscription in gold letters to the Archbishop-Elector 
 of Cologne. 
 
 Of the Grolier examples which have descended to us 
 — and possibly the greater part has done so. — we possess 
 two or three types as regards the mode of registering 
 the proprietorship ; the books occur with and without the 
 autograph: "Jo. Grolierij Lugdunensis: et Amicorum," 
 which generally occurs at the end, and with variant 
 mottoes : " Portio mea Domine sit in Terra Viventium," 
 "Spes mea Dominus et yerbo ejus fidem habeo," and 
 " ^Eque difficilior." He was a noble patron of learning, 
 and on the title of a Volume on Music, printed in 
 1518, dedicated to him, appear his arms and the motto, 
 "Joannes Grolierius Musarum Cultor. 1 ' 
 
 To the same school belongs the equally well-known 
 Maioli, with the similar method of establishing his claim : 
 " Tho. Maioli et Amicorum ; " Cristoforo Beneo of Milan 
 ("Questo libro e de Christophore Beneo de Milano e 
 soi Amize 11 ); Antonio Maldonado, of whom a volume 
 of Petrarch has on the upper cover the name of the poet, 
 and on the reverse, "D. Antonio Maldonado," with a 
 shield enclosing five fleurs-de-Jis ; and Penelope Coleona, 
 with flowering vases heightened in silver, and her initials 
 at the foot of the book. 
 
 This is, of course, a most fascinating and covetable 
 class of possession, and the difficulty of procuring genuine 
 specimens of the Henry Deux and Diane de Poitiers 
 bindings, and of all the other sumptuous and artistic 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 productions of a like character belonging to the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, has naturally suggested to certain 
 ingenious persons the desirability of counterfeiting them. 
 The Maioli bindings have long been subject to this 
 treatment and abuse ; but at present almost every other 
 book which offers itself in a fine state of preservation is 
 suspicious from a wholesale system of forgery, which has 
 more or less recently been introduced with considerable 
 success, and culminated in an entire sale at a leading 
 auction-room of a library almost exclusively composed 
 of such fabrications. 
 
 Of the genuine old English bindings, the usual 
 materials are vellum or parchment and sheep or calf. 
 All these may be, and in general are, ostentatiously 
 plain ; but they are, on the contrary, susceptible of being 
 rendered in the highest degree ornamental. Nothing is 
 more agreeable to the eye, and even the touch, than an 
 old book in contemporary gilt calf, with arms on the 
 sides, or in the original vellum wrapper, or, again, in the 
 plebeian mutton. 
 
 The two former modes of treatment may, as we have 
 said, be developed to any extent in the direction of 
 tooling and gilding ; the sheep has to be left unadorned 
 — simplex munditiis. 
 
 What can we desire more characteristic and harmonious 
 than a Caxton, uncut and in oaken boards, or even in a 
 secondary vesture of vellum, like the Holford copy of 
 the Life of Godfrey of Bouillon ? Or than a volume of 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 233 
 
 Elizabethan poetry or a first Walton's Angler, in the 
 primitive sheep, as clean as a new penny, like the Huth 
 examples of Turbervile, 1570, and Walton ? The purest 
 copy of the first folio Shakespeare we ever saw was Miss 
 Napier's, in the original calf, but wanting the verses. 
 It sold at the sale for £\5\, and subsequently for over 
 £400. There exist such things as Laneham's Letter from 
 Kenilworth, 1575, Spenser's Faery Queen, 1590, Allot's 
 England's Parnassus, 1600, and Davison's Poetical 
 Rhapsody, 1611, in the pristine vellum wrappers; ahd 
 one of the Bodleian copies of Brathwaite's most rare Good 
 Wife, 1618, is just as it was received 280 years since from 
 the stationer who issued it. Would any one wish to see 
 these remains tricked out in the sprucest, or even the 
 richest, modern habiliments ? 
 
 Among ourselves in these islands we commonly prize 
 and preserve (even in a leathern case) a highly preserved 
 specimen of Tudor or Stuart binding; and there are 
 instances where to exchange the old coat for a new one, 
 however magnificent or (so to speak) appropriate, is not 
 merely sacrilege, but absolute surrender of value. A 
 copy of the first folio Shakespeare, of a Caxton, of 
 Spenser's Faery Queen, in unblemished primitive clothing, 
 could not be re-attired without making the party con- 
 victed of the act liable to capital punishment without 
 benefit of clergy. 
 
 Besides the methods and kinds of binding above 
 mentioned, there are others of a metallic and a textile 
 
234 HISTORY OF 
 
 character. We find volumes clothed in bronze, silver, 
 silver-gilt, gold, and embroidered silks, the last variety 
 usually associated with the Nunnery of Little Gidding, 
 without absolute certainty of correctness so far- as the 
 claim set up on behalf of that institution to be an 
 exclusive source of such products goes. Mr. Brassington 
 has furnished in his well-known work examples of all 
 these more or less exceptional and luxurious liveries. 
 In the most precious metal the most celebrated specimen 
 is the Book of Prayers of Lady Elizabeth Tirrwhyt, 
 1574, formerly belonging to Queen Elizabeth, and as- 
 cribed to the Edinburgh goldsmith, George Heriot. 
 Next in point of rarity to gold comes bronze ; silver and 
 silver-gilt are comparatively frequent; and the em- 
 broidered style is only uncommon where the execution 
 and condition are unimpeachable, as in the case of a 
 few in our public libraries. The most ordinary books 
 found within embroidered covers are small editions of 
 the Common Prayer and Psalms ; and they are almost 
 invariably in a dilapidated state. Gilding books was 
 usually considered at a later epoch, at all events in 
 France, part of the business of a binder, and so perhaps 
 it may have been in the case of Dubuisson, who flourished 
 about the middle of the last century at Paris; yet we 
 observe on his ticket attached to an exquisitely gilt copy 
 of an almanac for 1747, in red morocco of the period, 
 simply "Dore par Dubuisson," as if that portion or 
 branch of the work only had been his. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 235 
 
 Some curious episodes have ere now occurred in 
 connection with sets of books, or even works in two or 
 three volumes, in historical bindings, or with a remarkable 
 and interesting provenance of another kind. It was only 
 at the sale of the last portion of the Ashburnham 
 Library (1898), No. 3574, that the third and fourth 
 parts of Tasso, Rime e Prose, 1589, bound together by 
 Clovis Eve for Marie-Marguerite de Valois Saint-Remy, 
 was acquired by a French firm through Mr. Quaritch, the 
 purchaser having already secured at the Hamilton Palace 
 sale the first and second portions, also in one volume, in 
 the same binding, and the set still wants Parts v.-vi., so 
 that it will demand a small fortune to effect a perfect 
 reunion. 
 
 It is hazardous to discount the durability and per- 
 manence of our best modern bindings of English origin, 
 and to answer our own question, whether hereafter they 
 will be appreciated in the same way as those of the old 
 masters here and abroad. Yet we think that we can 
 offer a valid and persuasive reason why we shall fall 
 short of former ages in this handicraft. The feudal 
 conditions and atmosphere, which go far to win our 
 regard or arrest our attention in the case of the older 
 binders and their work, have vanished, and can never 
 revive. It is with the book from this point of view as 
 it is from that of the autograph inscription or signature ; 
 both are extensions of the owner's personality ; and what 
 a personality it was ! Those who follow us at a distance 
 
236 HISTORY OF 
 
 may find reason to think and speak differently ; but we 
 can at the present moment scarcely realise the possibility 
 of our latter-day literature acquiring a pedigree and an 
 incrusted fragrance such as belong to works, however 
 dull and worthless in themselves, from the libraries of 
 Grolier, Maioli, De Thou, Peiresc, or Pompadour. There 
 is a sort of sensation of awe in taking up these volumes, 
 as if they had passed through some holy ordeal, as if they 
 had been canonised. It is not the piece of dressed leather 
 with its decorative adjuncts which casts its spell over us : 
 it is the reputation of the courtly patron of learning and 
 art ; of the statesman and soldier who sought a diversion 
 in the formation of a library from severer employments ; of 
 the prince who loved to gather round him such evidences 
 of his taste, or to lay them' at the feet of a chere amie; of 
 the licentious but superb Lady Marquise, who vied with 
 her king in the magnificence of her books, as she did with 
 his consort in that of her toilette — it is this which exercises 
 upon our imagination its ridiculous yet unalterable sway. 
 It is impossible to avoid the discovery, if we take for 
 the first time a survey of a library chiefly conspicuous for 
 the splendour of its bindings, how almost invariably we 
 are disappointed by the contrast between the exterior and 
 the contents. It would probably be far from easy to fill a 
 small case with examples where a really valuable book 
 was enshrined in a covering of corresponding character. 
 It is our ordinary experience to meet with some obsolete 
 nondescript classic, or some defunct theological treatise of 
 
BOOK-CQLLECTING 
 
 alike infinitesimal worth, in a sumptuous morocco garb, 
 bestowed on it by the author as a compliment to his 
 sovereign, or by the sovereign as an oblation to his mistress. 
 In those princely establishments for which such things were 
 destined and reserved, it was necessary that all the con- 
 stituent features should correspond in external grandeur, 
 the costumes of the great folks themselves, the furniture, 
 the decorations, the equipages, the dependents, the book- 
 bindings 
 
 The remarkable changes of taste in books cannot be 
 more powerfully and decisively exemplified than by the 
 thousands of volumes which have descended to us in all 
 languages and many branches of literature in liveries once 
 only a subsidiary feature in the eyes of the possessors or 
 acquirers, and at present often the sole title to regard and 
 the sole object of competition. The work has become 
 mere printed paper ; but it is perhaps not less covetable 
 as a triumph of bibliopegistic art, than as a memorial of 
 the distinguished or interesting personages through whose 
 hands it has passed to our own. The book, alas! has 
 degenerated into a vehicle for external accessories. We 
 are asked to admire, not the quality of the text or the 
 style of the writer, but the beauty of the type, the 
 splendour of the ink, and the elegance of the initial letters, 
 on the one hand; on the other, the excellence of the 
 leather, the brilliance of the gilding, the ingenuity and 
 skill of the design, and the curiosity of the ex Ubris. 
 But this has to be kept well in mind. It is the binding 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 which constitutes the supreme feature of importance and 
 attraction. A second copy in shabby attire may plead in 
 vain its merits of production ; but it fares as ill as a person 
 of the highest respectability who labours under the mis- 
 fortune of being badly dressed. 
 
 There is no point of distinction on the part of our own 
 countrymen more marked and enduring than the very 
 qualified allegiance which they give to the Parisian book- 
 binding code. It is true enough that in England we 
 admire not merely the old French School, but the mo- 
 dern one; but our loyalty and liking are by no means 
 unreserved. A Frenchman, in nine cases out of ten, will 
 not, in the first place, buy any book that was bom out of 
 France, any more than he will buy an article of furniture 
 or china, or a coin, emanating from a less favoured soil ; 
 nor will he willingly acquire even a volume of native 
 origin in any state but the orthodox morocco ; but his first 
 impulse and act, if he does so under protest, is to strip and 
 re-clothe the disreputable article, and have it put into 
 habiliments worthy of the cabinet choisi of Monsieur. 
 
 Now, we have had, and no doubt have still, on this 
 side of the Channel certain heathens in the likeness of 
 collectors who, no matter how perfect and how fresh, and 
 how suitable, the original jacket, commit the heinous 
 offence of following the Continental mode, and in such a 
 way thousands of lovely examples, transmitted to us as 
 heirlooms from our ancient families, have been sacrificed. 
 But let us congratulate ourselves that we have among 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 us many who know better, who will not even let the 
 binder desecrate a faultless copy of Tennyson, Byron, 
 Shelley, or Keats in the publisher's boards. 
 
 This is, however, not exactly an analogy. The analogy 
 arises and grows possible when we compare such writers 
 as Montaigne, Moliere, Corneille, or again, certain of 
 the Elzevir series, with our corresponding foremost names. 
 If we meet with the latter in vellum or in sheep, we only 
 too gladly preserve them as we find them, provided that 
 the outward garb is irreproachable. Of how many gems 
 do we not know, in all the peerless glory of their pristine 
 life, tenderly ensconced in morocco envelopes. Let them 
 never be acquainted with another existence! Let no 
 binder's unholy hand come near them ! Let them be 
 exhibited as historical monuments. 
 
 On the other hand, if we could oblige Monsieur to 
 comply with this law, he would be desole ; for it is not the 
 matter which makes the book ; it is the maroqum rouge. 
 
 Even in England, where we are more robust in our 
 taste, the true collector is not a reader. He may buy a 
 cheap book now and then ; but he hands it to the cook 
 when he has perused it. Such things are outside his 
 category; they are for those interesting creatures the 
 toiling million. His possessions or desiderata are not 
 vehicles of instruction ; they are far too valuable ; they are 
 objects of ocular and sensuous indulgence equally with 
 china, paintings, sculpture, and coins. They are classable 
 with bric-a-brac. You have an opportunity of appreciating 
 
240 HISTORY OF 
 
 the quality of the paper or vellum, the type, and the 
 binding. The merits of the author are reserved. 
 
 It is better, if a gentleman leans a little to the practical 
 side, and chooses to admit literature for actual reading, to 
 have two cases, one for Books, the other for Bibliographical 
 Simulacra. For it is not for one till he has graduated to 
 lay his prentice fingers on a tome in the pristine mutton, or 
 to endanger the maidenhood of a Clovis Eve, a Padeloup, 
 or a Deroine, which you must handle as if it were the 
 choicest and daintiest proof medal or etching. Why, one 
 has to bear in mind that he is not dealing with a mere ordi- 
 nary source of intellectual gratification and improvement, 
 but with a mechanical product perfect in all its parts. Let 
 him come gloved, and his friend the owner will bless him. 
 
 Between a book bound in its original cloth or paper 
 boards, and one in its rich vesture of morocco or russia, 
 there is a contrast similar to that between a woodland 
 and a park. In the one case, at a distance, perhaps, of 
 fifty or even a hundred years from the period of pub- 
 lication, we hold in our hand a volume precisely in the state 
 in which it passed from that of the contemporary salesman 
 to the contemporary buyer ; and not a stain nor a finger- 
 mark save the mellowing touch of time is upon it anywhere. 
 Let us look at the description in a sale catalogue of such a 
 rarity as Lamb's Poetry for Children, 1807, " in the original 
 grey boards, with red labels," or a copy of the first edition 
 of Fielding's Tom Jones, absolutely uncut, and in the book- 
 seller's pristine covers, or, better still, of the first part of 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 241 
 
 the first edition of Spenser's Faery Queen, 1590, in the 
 Elizabethan wrapper ! It is not the mere circumstance, let 
 it be understood, of untrimmed edges which makes the 
 charm ; many a book or pamphlet occurs as innocent of 
 the binders knife as the lamb unborn, and highly desirable 
 it is too ; but to render an example of this class complete, 
 its authentic outward integument in blameless preser- 
 vation is as essential to its repute and its marketable worth 
 as the presence of the claws is held tp be in the original 
 valuation of a fur of fox or beaver. 
 
 No educated eye can regard with indifference a more 
 or less interesting volume clothed in a becoming livery by 
 an accomplished artist either of other times or of these. If 
 it is an ancient vesture, with the credentials in the form of 
 a coat of arms, an ex Ubris, or a signature, or all of these, 
 handed down with it to us, we appear to be able to dis- 
 regard time, and feel ourselves brought within touch of the 
 individual who owned it, of him who encased it in its 
 lavishly gilt leathern coat, and of the circle to which it 
 was long a familiar object, as it reposed unmolested in a 
 corner of some petite bibliotteque or study during genera- 
 tions — if the subject of which it treated had to be handled, 
 a vicarious copy in working raiment doing duty for it. 
 For it is not a book in the ordinary acceptation of the word; 
 it is a souvenir of the past, a message and a voice from re- 
 mote times, ever growing remoter, or an objet de luxe, a 
 piece of literary, or rather bibliographical, dandyism. In 
 any case, its identity is to be preserved and held sacred. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 English and other national binders — Anonymous bindings — List of 
 binders — The Scotish School — Mr. Quaritch out-bidden — The 
 vellum copy of Boece's Chronicles of Scotland — Most familiar 
 names in England — Embroidered bindings ascribed to the 
 Nuns of Little Gidding — Provincial binders — Edwards of Hali- 
 fax — Fashion of edge-painting — Amateur binding — Forwarding 
 and finishing — A Baronet-binder — French liveries for English 
 books — Bedford's French style — Incongruity of the Parisian 
 gout with our literature — List of French binders — Ancient 
 stamped leather bindings of Italy, Flanders, and Germany 
 copied in France — Ludovicus Bloc of Bruges — Judocus de Lede 
 —Rarity of early signed examples in France — Andre Boule 
 (1508) — Enhancement of the estimation of old books in France 
 by special bindings — The New Collector counselled and admon- 
 ished—What he is to do, and where he is to go. 
 
 The English School of Binding brings before us a roll 
 of names borne by artists of successive periods and of 
 varying merit, from the last quarter of the fifteenth 
 century to the present time. That it is by no means 
 exhaustive is due to the circumstance that in the case of 
 many of the older, and some of the more recent, masters, 
 there is no clue to the origin in the shape of an external 
 inscription on the cover, as we find on foreign works, or 
 in that of a ticket or a signature. As it so frequently 
 happens with old pictures, the style of a binder was 
 often, indeed generally, imitated by his pupils or sue- 
 
HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 243 
 
 cessors, and we are apt to mistake the original produc- 
 tions for the copies, unless we engage in a very close 
 study of minute details. 
 
 In the English, Scotish, and Irish series it is equally 
 true that the preponderance of bindings are unidentified. 
 The monastic liveries, in which so many venerable tomes 
 have come down to us, were executed within the walls of 
 the buildings which held the books, and had perhaps 
 produced them ; and analogously most of our early 
 printers were binders of their own stocks, as well as of 
 any other works brought to them. We may incidentally 
 remind the reader that one practice on their part was to 
 utilise waste as end-papers or pasteboard, and to that cir- 
 cumstance we are indebted for the recovery of numerou s 
 typographical fragments belonging to publications not 
 otherwise known. That Pynson, Julian Notary, John 
 Reynes, and others executed book-binding outside their 
 own productions seems to be proved by the existence of 
 much early literature of foreign origin with English end- 
 papers and covers. In fact, till the Stationers 1 Company 
 made the sale of books or printed matter a separate 
 industry, the typographer was his own binder and vendor. 
 
 The bibliopegist, as an independent artificer whom we 
 are able to identify, dates from the seventeenth century. 
 We have already mentioned Francis Rea or Read of 
 Worcester as flourishing in 1660. John Evelyn seems to 
 have employed some one who executed good work in 
 morocco, and in better taste than that done for royalty at 
 
244 
 
 HISTORY OF 
 
 the same period ; yet we cannot be sure that he did not 
 carry the books abroad for the purpose. Pepys had in 
 his service a binder named Richardson, whom he mentions 
 in the Diary, and who is otherwise known. A copy of 
 Stow's Survey, 1633, passed through his hands ; it is in 
 the original calf ; and he was merely engaged to repair it, 
 as appears from a memorandum inside the cover. 
 
 Of authentic names of later English binders, consider- 
 ing the incalculable amount of work done, the number is 
 extremely limited. If we tabulate, we find only : — 
 
 Samuel Mearne. 
 
 . '. Bookbinder to Charles II. 
 Elliot & Chapman. 
 . '. The Harleian binders. 
 Robert Black. 
 . : About 1760. 
 Edwards of Halifax. 
 Richard and Mrs. Wier. 
 Roger Payne. 
 
 and R. Wier. 
 
 Baumgarten. 
 Staggemeier. 
 .'. The binder of the Psalter 
 of 1459, formerly in the 
 Sykes collection, and 
 bought by Quaritch at the 
 Perkins sale for £4900. 
 
 Charles Hering. 
 
 Benedict. 
 
 H. Walther. 
 
 Fargher & Lindner. 
 
 H. Faulkner. 
 
 C. Kalthoeber. 
 
 Charles Lewis the Elder. 
 
 Charles the Younger. 
 
 J. Mackenzie. 
 
 C. Murton. 
 
 Charles Smith. 
 
 F. & T. Aitken. 
 
 Wickwar. 
 
 J. Wright. 
 
 Hayday. 
 
 Hayday & Co. 
 
 J. Clarke. 
 
 Clarke & Bedford. 
 
 Francis Bedford. 
 
 Roger De Coverly. 
 
 Grieve. 
 
 Henderson & Bissett. 
 
 McLehose of Glasgow. 
 
 Holloway. 
 
 Robert Riviere. 
 
 . '. The business is carried on by 
 
 grandsons. 
 Zaehnsdorf. 
 Cobden Sanderson. 
 R. Montague (1730-40). 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 245 
 
 This represents not only the entire assemblage and 
 succession, so far as England is concerned, but covers 
 Scotland and Ireland ; and several of the names are ob- 
 viously those of foreigners. The Scotish artists, if, as there 
 is no absolute reason to doubt, a large number of early 
 books were clothed on the spot, possessed much taste and 
 originality, and some of them have descended to us in a 
 pristine state of preservation with the lavish gilding as 
 fresh and brilliant as when they left the workshop. We may 
 fairly consider, looking at the intimate relationship be- 
 tween Scotland and France in former times, that a cer- 
 tain proportion of volumes of Scotish origin were bound 
 abroad, j ust as Americans at present send over their books 
 to England. Coming down to more recent days, the 
 two names chiefly associated with Scotland are C. Murton 
 and J. Mackenzie, neither of whom attained special 
 celebrity. 
 
 But it is to be more than suspected that all important 
 work in this direction was long executed out of Scotland 
 — either in London or in Paris. The time came, however, 
 when the Scots acquired a school and style of their own, 
 and all that can be pleaded for it is, that it is manneristic 
 and peculiar. Of recent years heavy prices have been 
 paid for first-class examples, which are of unusual rarity. 
 Messrs. Kerr & Richardson, of Glasgow, bought over 
 Mr. Quaritch at the Laing sale in London at a pre- 
 posterous figure (.£295) a copy of one of Sir George 
 Mackenzie's legal works simply for the covers ; it was 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 offered by the purchasers afterward to the underbidder, 
 who quietly informed them that he had come to his 
 senses again. 
 
 There is no reason why the magnificent copy on 
 vellum of Boece's Chronicles of Scotland (1536), which 
 occurred at the Hamilton sale in 1884, should not have 
 received its clothing of oaken boards covered with gilt 
 calf at home. 
 
 The most familiar names to English ears are perhaps 
 those of Roger Payne, Charles Hering, C. Kalthoeber, 
 Charles Lewis, Francis Bedford, Robert Riviere, and 
 Zaehnsdorf. The genuine Roger Paynes in good state are 
 very scarce and equally desirable. Hering excelled in 
 russia and half-binding. Lewis bound with equal excellence 
 in brown calf and Venetian morocco, and was largely 
 employed by Heber. Bedford had two or three periods, 
 of which the last was, on the whole, the best; he was 
 famous for his brown calf, but made it too dark at first, 
 instead of allowing it to deepen in colour with time. 
 Riviere could do good work when he took pains ; but he 
 was unequal and uncertain. 
 
 Charles Lewis had been preceded by another person of 
 his name, who is noticed in Nichols's Anecdotes (iii. 465) 
 as dying in 1783, and as of Chelsea. This personage was 
 held in high esteem by his clients, and was very intimate 
 with Smollett the novelisj;, who is said to have had Lewis 
 in his mind, when he drew the character of Strap in 
 Roderick Random, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 247 
 
 Fashions in binding, which occupy a distinct position, 
 are the embroidered covers in gold, silver, and variegated 
 threads, executed both abroad and in England, and of 
 which many examples are ascribed to the Nuns of Little 
 Gidding in Huntingdonshire ; and velvet, silk, and metal 
 bindings, which exist in sufficient abundance, and usually 
 occur with marks of original ownership, lending to them a 
 special value. Much depends in all these instances on the 
 character of the work and the preservation of the copy ; 
 and each book has to be. judged on its own merits. A 
 considerable proportion of indifferent specimens are con- 
 stantly in the market. 
 
 The Little Gidding bindings are made additionally 
 interesting by the apparent connection between them and 
 John Farrer of Little Gidding, who had a principal 
 hand in producing a volume on Virginia entitled Virgo 
 THwmphans, of which there were three issues, 1650-51, the 
 last of which has the map by Goddard in two states, one 
 bearing the inscription : John Farrer, Esq., Collegit. And 
 the other : Dumina Virginia Farrer Collegit. It is highly 
 probable that the material for the book-covers worked 
 by the Nunnery were obtained by the Farcers direct from 
 Virginia. But it may be well questioned whether the holy 
 ladies did move than the decorative and finishing stages. 
 
 The early provincial school of English binding is 
 chiefly remarkable for the productions of Edwards of 
 Halifax, who, with his two sons, James and Thomas, held 
 a prominent rank in the book- trade at Halifax and in 
 
248 HISTORY OF 
 
 London in the last and present, century, and whose name is 
 also recognised as that of an enthusiastic amateur. It was at 
 the sale of the private libraryof James Edwards in 18l5 that 
 the celebrated Bedford Missal occurred. The bindings of 
 Edwards present nothing very extraordinary ; but many 
 of them have painted edges or sides, sometimes executed 
 with great care and skill. A copy of the History qfHali- 
 ^aso, with a view of the place thus given on the leaves, is a 
 favourable illustration of a practice which was formerly 
 carried out on an extensive scale, and of course with very 
 unequal results. A brisk demand arose a short time since 
 for this branch of ingenuity ; but it has probably ere now 
 subsided, having been in response to a call for the artist 
 by one or two collectors. Of course, the prices advanced 
 instantaneously to high-water mark, from the certainty 
 that the craze was ephemeral. 
 
 But the school of Edwards of Halifax probably bor- 
 rowed the idea from earlier men, who had occasionally 
 decorated the edges of books in this way, and we may 
 instance Samuel Mearne, bookbinder to Charles II., by 
 whom a copy of North's Plutarch, 1657, was clothed in a 
 richly gilt morocco vesture, the leaves gilt and painted 
 with flowers. Mearne also introduced what is known as 
 the cottage-roof pattern. 
 
 There are two fashions in the costlier department of 
 binding which have recommended themselves to adoption 
 by some connoisseurs in this country, and to which we do 
 not find it easy to reconcile our taste : the investiture of 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 249 
 
 old English books in Parisian liveries and their treat- 
 ment by our own binders in the French style. Both 
 courses of proceeding strike us, we have to confess, as 
 equally unsatisfactory. There is an absence of harmony 
 and accord between the book and its cover, like dissonant 
 notes in music. At the same time, Bedford was fairly 
 successful in copying the French manner for foreign 
 works, and his productions of this class are very numerous. 
 
 The practice of clothing English volumes in foreign 
 liveries was occasionally followed in early times. Messrs. 
 Pearson & Co. bought at Paris some years ago a lovely 
 copy of Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-Book, 1590, in a richly 
 gilt contemporary French, perhaps Lyonnese, calf bind- 
 ing. The work was executed for an Englishman resident 
 abroad, more probably than for a local collector. But 
 these instances are rare. One of a different character 
 occurred to our notice in a copy of Whitney's Choice of 
 Emblems, printed at Leydeh in 1586, and still preserved 
 in the old Dutch boards — old, but not coeval. 
 
 Of amateur binding all countries have had their 
 examples to show, and here we do not intend the 
 limitation of the artist to a particular pattern and 
 material chosen by his employer, such as the Hollis 
 plain red morocco, or the Duke of Roxburghe's half- 
 morocco with marbled paper sides for his old plays, but 
 the conduct of the whole process under the owner's roof, 
 as in the case of Robert Southey, whose first wife attired 
 many of her husband's books in cotton raiment, and led 
 
250 HISTORY OF 
 
 him to speak of them as his Cottonian library ; or, nearer 
 to us, in that of Sir Edward Sullivan, who devotes him- 
 self to the finishing stages of any volumes belonging 
 to friends or otherwise, when the article has been "for- 
 warded" in an ordinary workshop. Sir Edward tools, 
 gilds, decorates, and letters, and subscribes or inscribes 
 himself E. S. Aurvfesc. Specimens of his handicraft occur 
 fairly often in the market; as to their merit, opinions 
 differ. But after all, there is a soupfon of gratification 
 in having a Baronet to your binder ; and we understand 
 that Sir Edward is complaisant enough to accept com- 
 missions outside his personal acquaintance. 
 
 A second essayist in the same way, who has become 
 almost a member of the vocation, is Cobden Sanderson, 
 who bound several books of ordinary character and 
 moderate value for William Morris, and whose merit, 
 if the prices realised for the lots in the auction be any 
 sort of a criterion, must be extremely high. The present 
 writer and many others carefully examined the volumes, 
 and failed to see any justification for the enthusiasm 
 awakened in at least two competitors. 
 
 Specimens occur also now and then in the market of 
 the beautiful morocco bindings executed by another and 
 (as some think) superior amateur, Mrs. Prideaux. A 
 copy of Arnold's edition of Wordsworth's Select Poems, 
 1893, bound by this lady in Levant morocco, with elaborate 
 gold tooling on back and sides — only one small octavo 
 volume — is priced in a catalogue of 1898 at £19,, 12s. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 251 
 
 The Parisian differs from us islanders in these parti- 
 culars toto caelo. There is an utter and hopeless incom- 
 patibility. His predilection is for morocco in genre; 
 he estimates it not only above russia {calf is hardly in his 
 dictionary), but above even the choicest vellum encase- 
 ment to be procured or conceived ; but on maroqum rouge 
 dentelU or aux petits firs from some pre-revolutionary 
 workshop he is hobbyhorsical to a pathetic extent. 
 
 The most celebrated French binders are carefully 
 enumerated by the latest .authorities in their chrono- 
 logical order, but there is a difficulty in respect to many 
 of them analogous to that encountered by the inquirer 
 on English ground, since the names of several even of 
 the best period are unknown, and the productions are 
 accordingly classable only under their styles or their 
 early owners. 
 
 A good deal of the finest French work is attributed 
 to the two Eves, whose chefs (Faeuvre must, and can 
 easily, be distinguished from the tolerably frequent 
 imitations put into the market from time bo time, some 
 probably nearly coeval with the original examples. 
 Prior to the Eves, however, France had more or less 
 skilful artists in this line of industry. In the Frere sale 
 at Sotheby's in 1896 occurred a copy of Philelphus De 
 Liberorum Educatione, printed by Gilles Gourmont in 
 1508, in the original stamped leather covers, with the 
 name of Andre Boule on the sides. Under Francis I. 
 we find the names of Estienne Roffet, dit le Faulcheur, 
 
252 HISTORY OF 
 
 as "Relieur du Roy," and also with that of Pignolet. 
 The initials G. G. occur on a volume of 1523 in Messrs. 
 Pearson & Co/a catalogue, 1897-98, No. 679; they are 
 probably those of Gilles Gourmont above mentioned. 
 In 1528, according to his edition of MeMadw de Leomwis, 
 Galliot du Pre was sworn binder to the University of Paris. 
 In the imprint of his edition of Lancelot du Lac, Paris, 
 1533, Philippe le Noir describes himself as one of the 
 two sworn binders of the same University ; and we gather 
 elsewhere that Francois Regnault was then the other. 
 
 When we reach the seventeenth century, greater 
 facilities naturally arise for identification of artists. 
 One of the earliest directly associated with, his own 
 labours was Le Gascon (1620-60), followed by the 
 Boyets (1650-1725), Louis de Bois (1725-28), Augustin 
 du Seuil, (1728-46), and Andreau (binder to the queen 
 of Louis XV.). From the commencing years of the 
 eighteenth century, in addition to the binders just 
 enumerated, there is a fairly consecutive series, who 
 worked for the court and the public: Padeloup, the 
 two Deromes, Douceur (who was much employed by 
 Madame de Pompadour), the two Bozerians, Le Monnier, 
 Tessier, Dubuisson (famous for his gilding), Simier, 
 Thompson of Paris, Cape, Duru, Chambolle, Lesne (who 
 printed in 1827 a didactic poem on his craft), Trautz, 
 Bauzonnet, Marius-Michel, and Lortic. 
 
 Agreeably to the experience in every other depart- 
 ment of skilled labour connected with book-production, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 258 
 
 the French obeyed here the early influence of Italian and 
 German taste, and the germ was Teutonic, as in Spain 
 it was Moorish. The stamped leather bindings, mainly 
 common to Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, &c, were 
 largely copied in England for the royal and noble libraries 
 of the Tudor era. In some of those executed abroad, the 
 artificer, as we have seen, was accustomed to place his 
 name or initials very conspicuously outside the cover. 
 Ludovicus or Lodewijk Bloc, for instance, who flourished 
 at Ghent or Bruges at the close of the fifteenth century, 
 usually signs and claims his work in an elaborate in- 
 scription. Two specimens bear : Ludovicus Bloc ob Arno- 
 rem Christi librum hunc recti ligavi. Jodocus de Lede 
 adopted a similar method of commemoration. 
 
 In the case of foreign books, especially those of 
 French origin, the presence of a pure and unblemished 
 morocco binding by a recognised artist, coupled with the 
 armorial cognisance or ex libris of some famous amateur 
 and the binder's ticket, which is equally de rigueur, 
 enhances the commercial importance of a volume or set 
 of volumes beyond calculation", and has its only analogue 
 in the stupendous figures paid for the Sevres soft paste 
 porcelain of the true epoch, when all the necessary condi- 
 tions are happily united and fulfilled. Nothing is more 
 striking than the immense disparity between a book in 
 the right sort of garniture and in the wrong one, or, 
 again, in the true covers with some ulterior sophistication 
 in the shape of added arms, restored joints, renovated 
 
254 HISTORY OF 
 
 gilding, and a hundred other subtleties difficult to detect. 
 The case is on all fours with a specimen of unimpeachable 
 Sevres contrasted with another of which the porcelain 
 dates back beyond the painting and the gold. A French 
 book in old morocco by Derome, Le Gascon, or some 
 other esteemed artist, with its credentials and pedigree 
 above suspicion, may fetch ^50 or double; the identical 
 production in old calf or in modern morocco or russia 
 will not bring the price of the binding ; all the magic is 
 in the leather and the ticket. It is not a literary object, 
 but an article of vertu. There is probably no description 
 of Continental books which has so greatly risen in value 
 during the last thirty years as the illustrated publications 
 of the last century, provided always that they conform to 
 the very exacting requirements of a Parisian exquisite. 
 Above all, they must be of the statutory tallness and 
 breadth, and in the livery by bibliographical injunction 
 and usage prescribed. 
 
 No more impressive exemplification of the difference 
 between a book or set of books in the French series, in 
 the right and in the wrong state, could be afforded or 
 desired than the edition of Moliere, 1773, which in 
 contemporary morocco may be worth iPlOO, and in calf 
 or any other ordinary dress a five-pound note. But 
 after all, a still more signal case is that of Laborde's 
 Chansons mises en Musiaue, published in the same year, 
 which, even in thoroughly preserved contemporary calf, 
 brings under the hammer in proof state nearly i?200, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 255 
 
 while in modern morocco it is rather dear at a quarter 
 of that amount. 
 
 The extreme rarity of pure and genuine specimens of 
 the work of the earliest foreign binders — nay, of our 
 own — has naturally produced a large inheritance of 
 imitations of varied character and degree. There is 
 nothing to save the amateur from deception but the 
 same kind of training which qualifies collectors in other 
 departments to distinguish what is true from what is false. 
 A man who proposes to himself to make Bindings a 
 speciality, cannot do better than graduate by studying 
 the most trustworthy and contemporary guides on the 
 subject in different literatures, and then we should send 
 him on a tour round the great public and private libraries 
 of Great Britain and the Continent. This, of course, 
 applies only where the undertaker is in thorough earnest, 
 and wishes to spare himself a good deal of expense and 
 a good deal of mortification. Illustrated catalogues are 
 of very indifferent value, especially those of auctioneers, 
 which too often offer the result of sophistication so 
 cleverly disguised that to an inexperienced eye the repair 
 is not palpable. If one goes in search of desiderata to 
 the trade, let it be to the dealer who knows his business 
 and charges his price, but who supplies the article, and 
 not to the empiric, who charges a price and does not 
 supply it, for the excellent reason (among others) that 
 this party does not know a fine binding when he sees it — 
 or a spurious one. 
 
256 HISTORY OF 
 
 In curiosities generally it is the safest plan for a 
 private collector to place himself more or less in the 
 hands of the highest firms in the particular line which 
 he selects, provided that he is not one of a hundred 
 thousand, and is a mile or two ahead even of pro- 
 fessional experts. Then, wherever he goes and whatever 
 he buys, he is always armed cap-d-pie. To him, to him 
 solely, are the lots almost as precious as the purse 
 of Fortunatus; he alone it is who may fall in with 
 Caxtons, Clovis Eves, Rembrandts, Syracusan medallions, 
 for a song, and cany them home without a qualm. 
 
 A curious case, unique in its way, of what may be 
 characterised as perverted ingenuity, occurred at a public 
 sale in November 1897 at Sotheby's rooms. It was, 
 in the words of the catalogue, " A Remarkable Collection 
 of Magnificent Modern Bindings, Formed by an Amateur ; " 
 but the salient feature was — in fact, the ruling one, with 
 one exception — that the whole of the specimens repre- 
 sented imitations of ancient work and of historical copies 
 of early books. The interiors were authentic ; they had 
 simply served as the medium for carrying out a rather 
 whimsical, not to say foolish, project, and the hundred 
 and ten lots, destitute of any conspicuous or genuine 
 interest, probably yielded very much less than the cost 
 of their counterfeit liveries. 
 
 The present volume is not a treatise on Binding, and 
 we can merely indicate the general bearings of this 
 branch and aspect of Book-Collecting, on which several 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 257 
 
 useful, and some very sumptuous and beautiful, mono- 
 graphs have appeared of recent years. An amateur 
 cannot do better, for purposes of reference, than secure 
 a copy of Mr. Quaritch's Catalogue of Bindings, 1888, 
 which includes particulars of all the principal works on 
 the subject, English and foreign, and one of Zaehnsdorf's 
 Short History of Bookbinding, 1895, with illustrations 
 of processes, and a glossary of styles and terms used in 
 the art. Mr. Wheatley and Mr. Brassington have also 
 produced monographs upon it. 
 
 In America, during many years past, there has been 
 a laudable effort to establish a national taste and feeling 
 in this direction; for collectors in the States formerly, 
 made a general rule of sending their books either to 
 London or to Paris for treatment. The institution of 
 the Grolier Club of New York nearly twenty years since 
 was a step in the direction of independence, and its 
 Transactions form an interesting and creditable series. 
 The Club printed a catalogue of its library of early 
 typographical examples in 1895, with facsimiles of 
 bindings. 
 
 The modern French school of literary architecture 
 unites in the type, the paper, the illustrations such a 
 remarkable degree of taste and feeling, combined with 
 economy of production, that in England there is no 
 present approach to what may be termed the ensemble 
 of a volume placed in the market by our neighbours. 
 This style of book-making asks of course age to mellow 
 
258 HISTORY OF BOOK-GOLLECTING 
 
 it, and perchance the materials employed may not bear 
 the test of time and manipulation by successive owners, 
 like the old eighteenth-century work. ,But as they 
 emerge from the workshop, and stand upon the shelves 
 or in the case, their aspect is decidedly agreeable, while 
 half a roomful of them are to be had for the price of a 
 Clovis Eve or even a first-rate Padeloup. Very much, 
 on the contrary, we are apt to conceive a dislike for that 
 unwieldy imperial format which some of the Parisian 
 Wyravres editeurs affect, and which perhaps occupy the 
 same place in French literature of the day as our detest- 
 able English editions de luxe. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Aids to the formation of a library : (i.) Personal observation ; (ii.) 
 Works of reference — Rarity of taste and judgment — Depen- 
 dence of some booksellers on want of knowledge in their clients 
 — Trade catalogues — Principal modern books of reference criti- 
 cised — Those for the (i.) Bibliography; (ii.) for the Prices — 
 Unsatisfactory execution of Book Prices Current, &c. — The 
 British Museum Catalogue of Early English books — Obsolete 
 authorities — Their unequal demerit — British Museum General 
 Catalogue and Mr. Quaritch's New General Catalogue — The for- 
 mer not implicitly trustworthy — Source of the value of the 
 latter — The labours of Sir Egerton Brydges, Joseph Haslewood, 
 and others — Tribute to their worth — Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica 
 — The Heber Catalogue — Its magnitude and immense value and 
 interest — Where Heber obtained his treasures — His library the 
 most splendid ever formed in any country — Its absorption of 
 all preceding collections — And the vital obligations of every 
 succeeding collection to it — The Grenville Catalogue — George 
 Daniel — His fly-leaf canards — Collier's Bibliographical Cata- 
 logue — Corser's Collectanea — Unequal value of the posthumous 
 parts^-The Huth Catalogue — Testimony to its character — 
 Several monographs — Lord Crawford's Broadsides— Lists of the 
 College libraries at Oxford and Cambridge — Catalogues of the 
 Dyce and Forster Bequests to South Kensington — Halliwell- 
 Phillipps's Shakespeariana — Blades's Caacton — Botfield's Cathe- 
 dral Libraries — A new catalogue of the Althorp-Rylands books in 
 preparation — Mr. Wheatley's scheme for cataloguing a library — 
 Redundant cataloguing exemplified — Differences in copies of 
 the same book and edition — French books of reference — Brunet, 
 Cohen, Gay — Special treatises on Playing-cards, Angling, 
 Tobacco : Bewick, Bartolozzi : Tokens, Coins and Medals, and 
 Americana — Tracts relating to Popery — The Printing Clubs 
 
260 HISTORY OF 
 
 and Societies — Errors in books of reference liable to perpetua- 
 tion — Heads of advice to collectors of books with supplements, 
 extra leaves, &c. 
 
 The two principal aids to the formation of a library, 
 great or small, general or special, are Personal Observation 
 and Works of Reference. The first is obviously an un- 
 certain quantity, and may be restricted to an ordinary 
 mechanical experience, or may comprise the finest com- 
 mercial and literary instinct. We have had among us 
 ere now amateurs who possessed the highest qualifications 
 for assembling round them gratifying and valuable monu- 
 ments of their taste and judgment, with the harmless 
 satisfaction of feeling tolerably sure that the investment, 
 if not a source of profit, would not form one of serious 
 loss. This is a fair and legitimate demand and expecta- 
 tion; but such characters are far rarer than the books 
 whicK they collect; and if it were otherwise, the large 
 industry which lies in the purchase and re-sale of literary 
 property could not exist. The buyer whose knowledge 
 is in advance of that of the salesman is a party whom 
 
 Mr. and Mr. and the remainder of the alphabet 
 
 pharisaically admire, while they privily harbour toward 
 him sadly unchristian feelings and views. 
 
 The second and remaining auxiliary, the Book of 
 Reference, has become a wide term, since it has so enor- 
 mously developed itself, and formed branches, so as to 
 constitute a library within a library, and to call for its 
 own bibliographer. So far as the current value and 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 261 
 
 general character of literary works are concerned, all the 
 older authorities are more or less untrustworthy, and 
 the same is to be predicated of a heavy proportion of 
 auctioneers' and booksellers' catalogues, where the first 
 and sole object is to realise the maximum price for an 
 article. The system pursued by the former class of 
 vendors of late years renders it far more hazardous to bid 
 on the faith of the printed descriptions, and there is, in 
 fact, greater danger for the novice in the elaborate re- 
 hearsal of the title and the accompanying fillip in the 
 shape of a note (usually erroneous) than the good old- 
 fashioned plan of setting out the particulars briefly — 
 even illiterately; for in the latter case the burden of 
 discovering the exact truth is thrown on the customer 
 or acquirer. We must say that few things are less 
 satisfactory than trade-catalogues with certain honour- 
 able exceptions, which it might be invidious to parti- 
 cularise ; and the book - buyer has to depend almost 
 exclusively on his own discernment and the bibliogra- 
 phers. Of what he reads in the catalogues he may 
 believe as much or as little as he likes. 
 
 Nothing could be more ungracious than to speak 
 disrespectfully of the publications of those laborious and 
 earnest workers who have preceded us, and who for that 
 very sufficient reason did not know quite so much as we 
 do. We admire their industry, on the contrary, their taste 
 and their devotion; we buy their volumes because it is 
 pleasant to have them at our side; and ever and anon 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 we dip into this one or that, and meet with something 
 which had escaped us. Seriously, however, they are, on 
 the whole, not merely of slight use, but of a mislead- 
 ing tendency. For the gods of our forefathers, Ware, 
 Tanner, Ames, Herbert, Oldys, Dibdin, Brydges, Watt, 
 Park, Haslewood, the compilers of the Bibliotheca Gren- 
 villana, Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica, and Biographia Dra- 
 rnaticq, and scores besides, before and even since, we have 
 substituted others, assuredly more complete, perhaps con- 
 structed on truer aud more lasting principles. We have 
 on our shelves (i) for the Bibliography, the Heber, Collier, 
 Corser, and Huth catalogues (1834-80), and the writer's 
 own Collections (1867-92), Bibliographiea and the Trans- 
 actions of the Bibliographical Society: (ii.) for the Prices, 
 Book Prices Current and Book Sales. Unfortunately the 
 two latter undertakings are little better than mechanical 
 transcripts from the auctioneers' extremely treacherous 
 catalogues by outsiders. The peculiar class of infor- 
 mation purporting to be supplied by such catalogues 
 is often in need of some qualifying criticism or admo- 
 nition, which it is not easy, if possible, for any one 
 not on the spot and behind the scenes to offer. No 
 mere reference to the catalogue after the event is capable 
 of initiating one into these arcana ; and the same has to 
 be said of the quotations in the ordinary periodicals. 
 This is a species of employment for which there must. 
 be either a long training or a unique instinct. 
 
 Book Prices Current and Book Sales cannot be trusted as 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 263 
 
 an authority or a guide by any person who does not ap- 
 proach them with a certain measure of experience. Where 
 an editor cites a common and comparatively worthless 
 volume as selling for a high sum, and omits to mention that 
 on the title there is a valuable autograph, the mischief 
 is obvious ; and this and allied forms of error are habitual. 
 Such empirical attempts do more harm than good. 
 
 The Account printed by the Trustees of the Early 
 English books in the British Museum is not without its 
 value, although it is almost everything that it ought not 
 to have been ; and there are several monographs of im- 
 portance dealing with special items in public or private 
 collections. It is to be hoped that in course of time we 
 may see a creditable catalogue of the Britwell Library, 
 and that the Spencer books at Manchester will be done 
 over again by a competent hand. If money is expended 
 on these objects, it is distressing to find that the task 
 has been confided to a gentleman whose best credentials 
 are his personal acquaintance with the owner. 
 
 We do not add to existing authorities: (i.) for the 
 printers, Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin, or (ii.) for general 
 information Lowndes's Manual by Bohn and his coadjutors, 
 because we are afraid that there is almost greater danger 
 of being misled by them than being helped or enlight- 
 ened. Both Ames and Herbert, however, we emphatically 
 pronounce conscientious, and accurate in the highest 
 degree in their respective days; but these days were 
 long ago, and the present state of knowledge has ren- 
 
264 HISTORY OF 
 
 dered a considerable proportion of their texts obsolete and 
 unreliable. Dibdin has certainly added to Herbert, but 
 he has not, on the contrary, in all cases faithfully re- 
 printed him ; if his book had been as great an advance 
 on his predecessor as Herbert's was on Ames, it would 
 have been a treasure indeed. A new Lowndes is said to 
 be in the hands of a syndicate. I know nothing about 
 it ; but I shall rejoice if it should prove worthy of the 
 subject, and as unlike Lowndes or Lowndes by Bohn as 
 possible. I labour, however, under the gravest appre- 
 hension that it will prove one of those undertakings 
 which will just be advanced enough to block the right 
 book without being relatively anything approaching even 
 to an English Brunet. At least five-and-twenty anno- 
 tated copies of Lowndes must exist. Will the promoters 
 deem it necessary to acquire or to borrow them ? Pro- 
 bably not. There must be thousands of additions and 
 corrections in the writer's alone. It is estimated that the 
 enlarged Lowndes contains about 10 per cent, of the 
 literature which ought to find a place, not reckoning the 
 earlier English books, tracts, or broadsides, and that of 
 that propoi'tion about 7£ per cent, are misdescribed. The 
 anecdote of Pope and the wag who retorted to his habitual 
 exclamation, " God mend me ! " " It would take less to make 
 a new one," appears to apply in the present case. 
 
 The original Lowndes in 1834 was a poor affair ; but 
 Bonn's recension twenty years or so later was by com- 
 parison a still poorer one, for there was the opportunity, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 265 
 
 in the presence of innumerable discoveries and a large 
 body of new bibliographical material in various shapes, 
 of rendering the new edition a really creditable perform- 
 ance. The name of the publisher, however, was a suffi- 
 cient guarantee for this not being the case, and where the 
 second impression is superior to the first, is where Bohn 
 happened to have an interest in mentioning certain works, 
 or information was communicated to him by others. 
 
 The sole comfort for us is, that Brunet has passed 
 through five editions, and ,yet remains deplorably imper- 
 fect and inaccurate. 
 
 There are three prominent publications, each in its 
 way of signal value and merit : the British Museum and 
 Bodleian Catalogues of Printed Books, and Mr. Quaritch's 
 New General Catalogue. The two former, of course 
 confine themselves to the contents of the respective 
 libraries; they are consequently far from exhaustive. 
 They have been compiled by human beings; they are 
 consequently far indeed from faultless. They express, 
 as a rule, no opinions, and of commercial estimation very 
 properly take no cognisance. But the Oxford collection 
 has always been differently situated from the National 
 Library in not having any adequate means of purchasing 
 deficiencies, while it is rich in its own very interesting 
 way by reason of bequests of unique value, making it the 
 possessor of numerous priceless volumes not to be found 
 in Great Russell Street or anywhere else. The Quaritch 
 Catalogue (includingthe Typographical Supplement, 1897), 
 
266 HISTORY OF 
 
 a noble monument to the energy and courage of the 
 grand marchand whose name it bears, is a good deal more 
 than even a bookseller's advertising medium on a large 
 or the largest scale. It is, in fact, a literary performance ; 
 and it is an open secret to whom we owe it. The collec- 
 tor, apart from the question of purchase, will find it 
 replete with useful, instructive, and trustworthy informa- 
 tion, so far as bibliography is concerned. 
 
 The highly honourable and equally laborious publi- 
 cations of Sir Egerton Brydges, Joseph Haslewood, 
 Thomas Park, E. V. Utterson, and others, if they are of 
 minor substantial value to us at present, demonstrate the 
 keen appetite for bibliographical information and anecdote 
 in the first quarter of this century. The Censura Lite- 
 raria, extending to ten octavo volumes, passed through 
 two editions, and, in common with other similar works, 
 till recently commanded a heavy price. That they have 
 fallen into neglect is due to the necessity, on the part of 
 buyers and sellers of early literature, of studying only the 
 latest authorities. 
 
 At the same time, from a literary point of view, 
 the Restituta and Censura Literarm (2nd edit. 1815) of 
 Brydges, and many members of the same group and 
 period, will always be worth consulting, and will be 
 found to yield a vast stare of interesting and instructive 
 matter. 
 
 Such works may at present be sterile enough, but 
 yet we are bound to recollect on their behalf that on 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 267 
 
 their first appearance they were revelations and pioneers. 
 It is where a book at the outset is behind the knowledge 
 of the day, or indeed rather not in advance of it, that 
 it seems to be disentitled to respect. 
 
 Not only have more modern labours superseded the 
 Brydges, Park, Haslewood, and other series, which till 
 of late years held the market firmly enough, but the 
 Rev. Dr. Dibdin, whose sumptuously printed and illus- 
 trated productions long remained such prime favourites 
 at heavy prices, both at home and in the United States, 
 has been overtaken by a general neglect, and the Ameri- 
 cans, who were once so enthusiastic and generous as 
 bidders for these books, will at present scarcely agree to 
 acquire them at a fifth of their appreciation, in the height 
 of the Dibdinomania. 
 
 Many of the gems which have passed through the 
 hands of successive owners are known to have once formed 
 part of the Bibliotheca Angh-Poetica, a famous:— almost 
 historical catalogue of old literature on sale in 1815 by 
 Longmans, when that firm dealt in such commodities, and 
 imported largely from the Continent in response to the 
 keen and hungry demand on the part of the school 
 created by the Roxburghe sale and the Roxburghe Club, 
 Heber its greatest disciple and ornament, Heber a colossus 
 in himself. Many are the traditional anecdotes of the 
 wonderful bargains which Longmans 1 agent secured for his 
 principals in all sorts of places, whither he resorted in quest 
 of prey — of the romances in folio in the virgin stamped 
 
268 HISTORY OF 
 
 Spanish bindings, which they might have worn since they 
 lay on the shelves of Don Quixote or the Licentiate, 
 brought for sale, as it were haphazard, to some market- 
 place in Seville or Valladolid in wine-skins. But the con- 
 tents of the above-mentioned Bibliotheca were purely 
 English. It was a small but choice assemblage of old 
 poetry formed by Mr. Thomas Hill, otherwise Tommy 
 Hill, otherwise Paul Pry, which he offered to Longmans 
 on the plea of failing health, and for which the purchasers 
 elected, looking prophetically at his moribund aspect, to 
 grant him an annuity in preference to a round sum. 
 Mr. Hill's apprehensions, however, were premature, as 
 the transaction had the effect of restoring his spirits ; 
 and the booksellers scored rather indifferently. How 
 pleased they must have been to see him coming for his 
 pension year after year ! 
 
 Even the outrageous prices asked for the articles, of 
 which the condition was ordinarily poor, could not have 
 brought Longmans anywhere near home ; and the cata- 
 logue was expensively printed. Yet one would like, very 
 much indeed like, to put down thirty golden sovereigns 
 for Shakespeare's Sonnets never before imprinted, 1609, and 
 fifty for Anthony Munday's Banquet of Dainty Conceits, 
 1588. The Rev. J. M. Rice obtained the latter in 1815 ; 
 it was sold at his auction in 1834 for eighteen guineas, 
 and when it next occurred among George Daniel's books 
 in 1864, was bought by Mr. Huth against Sir William 
 Tite for £225. The Sonnets of 1609 would at present be 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 269 
 
 worth i?250. As regards the bulk of the lots, however, 
 one might almost read shillings for pounds. Sir Francis 
 Freeling had an interleaved copy, in which he entered 
 acquisitions. Through his official connection with the 
 Post -Office he procured many prizes from the country 
 districts. Dick of Bury St. Edmunds stood him in good 
 stead. What Dibdin euphemistically christened the Lin- 
 coln Nosegay was a second pair of bellows applied about 
 the same date to the reddening flame of bibliographical 
 ardour. It was a descriptive list of certain books which 
 the Doctor had prevailed on the Dean and Chapter of the 
 Cathedral to sell to him for five hundred guineas, and 
 which he divided between Mr. Heber and Lord Spencer. 
 The collection was part of the benefaction of Dean 
 Honeywood, and it was a shameful betrayal of trust. 
 Our cathedral libraries still retain a host of treasures, not- 
 withstanding all this sort of pillage ; and the dim reli- 
 gious light which is shed around lends an air of sanctity 
 to the spot sufficient, one might have thought, to arrest 
 the hand of the marauder. 
 
 This was the height of the Bibliomania. Dibdin had 
 in 1811 brought out his work so called. Perhaps it was 
 hardly wise so to accentuate the passion on paper. He 
 lived to publish the Bibliophobia. 
 
 The Bibliotheca Heberiana, in thirteen parts, 1834-36, 
 which in its realisation showed a strong revulsion, or at 
 least a marked decline, from the cometary period, 1812-25, 
 is the most stupendous assemblage of literary treasures 
 
270 HISTORY OF 
 
 and curiosities ever brought together by an individual in 
 this country. Heber was a scholar and a reader of his 
 books; he has made memoranda on a large number of 
 the fly-leaves ; and these have been occasionally transferred 
 to the catalogue, of which \he Early English poetical 
 portion, a singularly rich one, was edited and annotated 
 by John Payne Collier. In using the Heber Catalogue, 
 its mere extent and diversity ought to suffice as a warn- 
 ing that the prices are not in the least degree trustworthy ; 
 the classics and some of the early typography went pretty 
 high ; and the Early English books were only saved from 
 being given away by the active competition of Mr W. H. 
 Miller, who secured nearly everything of account at very 
 moderate figures, and by the commissions held by Collier 
 for the Duke of Devonshire, who bought the rarest of 
 the old plays. The British Museum was scarcely in 
 evidence there. It was enjoying one of its periodical 
 slumbers. 
 
 The poetical section of the library embraced not only 
 the lion's share of all the rarest books of the class offered 
 for public sale in Heber's time, but an immense assort- 
 ment of articles which he acquired privately from Thorpe, 
 Rodd, and others, of whom he was the infallible resource 
 whenever they fell in with books or tracts or broadsides 
 which he did not possess, or of which he perhaps possessed 
 only one copy. 
 
 It was not merely that Heber distanced all that went 
 before him or have succeeded him, so far as the ex- 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 271 
 
 tent and variety of his collections go, but that with his 
 insatiable acquisitiveness he combined so much of the 
 bibliographer and litterateur. It was fairly easy for cer- 
 tain men with more limited means and views, such as 
 Malone, Steevens, Douce, Brand, Chalmers, Bright, Bliss, 
 Laing, Bandinel, Turner, Locker, Corser, and a legion 
 more, to pose as judges of the merits of their possessions ; 
 but how comparatively little was theirs to grasp ! In the 
 case of Heber the range of knowledge was immense ; and 
 he was equally at home wijh all departments and all 
 periods. He had his modern side and his interest in 
 current affairs, and a scholarly insight into the vast literary 
 and bibliographical accumulations which it was his bent 
 and pride to form, beyond any one whom we can call to 
 mind. We do not include in this sort of category the 
 Harley, Roxburgh^, Grenville, Spencer, Blandford, Ash- 
 burnham, and Huth libraries, whose owners were collectors 
 pure and simple. 
 
 Of the Grenville Catalogue, as an independent work, it 
 is less usual to think and speak, because the library which 
 it describes has long formed part of the British Museum, 
 and very few are now living who can remember it under 
 the roof of its excellent founder in Hamilton Place. The 
 books have now during some years constituted an integral 
 part of the New General Museum Catalogue ; there is 
 scarcely any department of literature in which they 
 did not contribute importantly to enrich and complete 
 the national stores. But Mr. Grenville was particularly 
 
272 HISTORY OF 
 
 strong in early typography and Irish and English 
 history. 
 
 The catalogue of Mr. George Daniel's singular and 
 precious collection, disposed of in 1864, was an ordinary 
 auctioneer's compilation ; except that many of the owner's 
 MSS. notes written on the fly-leaves were introduced by 
 way of whetting the appetites of competitors ; and to say 
 that a vein of hyperbole pervaded these remarks is a mild 
 expression ; they emanated, we have to remember, from 
 an accountant. The books, however, spoke forthemselves. 
 The printed account of them, viewed as a work of 
 reference, must be read cum grano salts — cum multis 
 grcmis. The sale was the starting-point of a new epoch 
 and school hi prices. Nothing of the kind on so exten- 
 ded a scale in that particular way had so far been seen 
 before. 
 
 Collier's Bibliographical Catalogue, 1865, is an enlarge- 
 ment of his Bridgewater House Catalogue, 1837, with- 
 out the illustrations. The two volumes are full of curious 
 and readable matter, and as they usually deal with the 
 libri rarissimi, we have to accept the accounts and extracts 
 in the absence of the originals. To many this may be 
 indifferent ; to a few it may be a serious drawback, since, 
 rightly or wrongly, the fidelity and accuracy of the editor 
 have been more than once called in question. Mr 
 Collier's book, however, is merely serviceable as a guide to 
 the character of the works described ; he does not offer 
 an opinion on the selling values, nor does he always 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 273 
 
 render the titles correctly. One signal fault distinguishes 
 the undertaking from what may be regarded as a commer- 
 cial point of view ; and it is the refusal or failure to 
 recognise the momentous changes in the- bibliographical 
 rank of a number of books through the discovery between 
 1837 and 1865 of additional copies. Like most of us 
 when we are advanced in life, he thought more of what 
 was true when he was young, than of what was so at, the 
 time of writing. 
 
 The Collectanea Angio-Iioetica of the Rev. Thomas 
 Gorser, in eleven parts, of which some were posthumous, 
 constitutes a very proud monument to the; memory, of an 
 accomplished clergyman of limited resources, who during 
 the best part of his life devoted his thought and surplus, 
 money to the acquisition of one of the richest assemblages 
 of Early English Poetry ever formed by any one, as he 
 succeeded in obtaining many works in this extensive series 
 not comprised even in the Heber. Catalogue. Mr. Corser 
 bought much privately; but he was largely indebted for 
 his bibliographical good fortune to such sales as those of 
 Jolley, Chalmers, Bright, and Wolfreston (1844^56). Of 
 his catalogue as an authority and guide the value- is 
 unequal ; the portions edited by himself are excellent and 
 exhaustive, but it is not so with those which Mr. James 
 Crossley superintended. A complete copy of the sale, 
 catalogue is a desideratum for the follower in this, gentle- 
 man's footsteps; but he would have to spend more money 
 than Mr. Corser did by some thousands. 
 
274 HISTORY OF 
 
 Of the Huth Catalogue, 1880, we can only say that 
 it is a splendid gathering in a comparatively short period 
 of various classes of hooks obtained from the sales in 
 London and elsewhere, and from private sources, and 
 selected on account of condition and interest rather 
 than with a view to completeness. In its character it 
 is emphatically miscellaneous; but is very strong in 
 Early English literature, owing to the opportunities 
 which the founder enjoyed through the dispersion in 
 his time of so many fine libraries of that class, especially 
 those of Daniel and Corser, and perhaps we may add 
 of George Smith the distiller. But there was scarcely 
 any sale here or on the Continent from which Mr. Huth 
 was not enabled to add to his stores. He was a very rich 
 man; but he was not a book-hunter, and he was both 
 inconsistent and capricious. He had, in fact, no definite 
 plan, and took each purchase on its own merits. His 
 Catalogue, which he did not live to see completed, 
 is unusually free from errors, but not quite so much 
 so as he anticipated and desired. Nevertheless, it 
 will always be an useful guide and an honourable 
 memorial. 
 
 Several monographs, dealing in a brief or cursory way 
 with an entire library, or more fully with a section of it, 
 may be noticed. The Ashburnham hand-list, 1864, now 
 (1897-98) supplemented by the sale catalogue ; the Chats- 
 worth Catalogue, which does not include the books at 
 Devonshire House, and Lord Crawford's catalogue of his 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 275 
 
 Ballads and Broadsides. There are special accounts of 
 several of the College Libraries at Oxford and Cambridge, 
 as well as Hartshorne's Book Rarities, 1829, a disappoint- 
 ing yet suggestive volume. We ought to remind the 
 reader that the catalogue of Trinity, Cambridge, embraces 
 CapelPs Shdkesperiana, and that there are separate hand- 
 lists of Malone's and Douce's books at the Bodleian, of 
 the Dyce and Forster bequests at South Kensington, 
 of the Society of Antiquaries 1 Broadsides, and of the 
 Shakespearian treasures formerly at Hollingbury Copse. 
 We have two editions of Blades's book on Caxton's press, 
 Maitland's two Lambeth Catalogues, Botfield's Cathedral 
 Libraries, and Edmond's Lists of the Aberdeen printers, 
 1886. 
 
 It is eminently likely that of the Rylands-Spencer 
 library we shall have in the fulness of time a new 
 catalogue, superseding Dibdin's publications, and of 
 course embracing all the personal acquisitions of Mrs. 
 Rylands, apart from the grand Althorp lot. In the 
 capable hands of Mr. Duff it ought to turn out well. 
 
 In the Booh Lover's Library, Mr. H. B. Wheatley has 
 dedicated two or three volumes to the topic of forming 
 and cataloguing a library. The object of these techni- 
 cal undertakings is clearer, perhaps, than their general 
 utility; for, as a rule, a man likes to follow his own 
 plan, and scarcely two normal collections of the average 
 kind resemble one another, or are susceptible of similar 
 treatment. The idea broached by Mr. Wheatley was, 
 
276 HISTORY OF 
 
 of course, not a new one. Gabriel Naude, librarian to 
 Cardinal Mazarin, and subsequently keeper of the Royal 
 Collection, printed a sketch of what in his opinion was 
 necessary to constitute a library, and this our Evelyn 
 put into an English dress in 1661, and dedicated to 
 Lord Clarendon. The plan of Naude was naturally that 
 of a Frenchman accustomed to extensive assemblages of 
 literary monuments, and was not suited to the English 
 taste, unless it might be in the case of a rich nobleman, 
 to whom space and cost were alike indifferent. It was 
 not likely to meet with adoption even by Evelyn 
 himself, of whose acquisitions we know enough to judge 
 that he followed his own personal sentiments rather 
 than professional or technical advice. It rarely occurs 
 that in the less ambitious types of library there are any 
 bibliographical details likely to prove serviceable to the 
 public; and the extent af knowledge gained by the 
 owner in the course of his own experience should suffice 
 to qualify him to become, where time is presumably not 
 an object, his own cataloguer. For all that can be 
 required is a hand-list on the. scale of the Douce or 
 Malone separate catalogues, where a title seldom occupies 
 more than a single line. Plentiful illustrations of our 
 meaning will be found by any one who opens the Grenville 
 or Huth Catalogue, and perceives the wide discrepancy, 
 between the essential, information and the descriptive 
 and critical accounts. The primary motive in drawing 
 up a view of the content* of ninety-nine libraries out 
 
BOO'K-COLllECTING '277 
 
 of a hundred is the facilitation of reference, combined 
 with an excusable personal pride; but a great deal 
 of repetition and redundancy and useless expense are 
 incurred by the literal transcript of the titles of 
 books more or less familiar to all who are interested 
 in them. 
 
 A very heavy proportion of the Early English entries 
 in the Huth Catalogue are duplicates of those in the 
 writer's Collections, and the same would be the case if 
 the long-expected book on the Britwell heirlooms were 
 to make its appearance. It would be, to a large extent, 
 bis coda. 
 
 In a private catalogue detailed explanation is required 
 in the interest of bibliography, only where (i.) the owner 
 happens to possess an unrecorded book; or (ii.) an un- 
 known impression; or (iii.) a variant copy. Defects in 
 important items should be particularised; in others the 
 word imperfect is sufficient; and it is best to indicate 
 from what source they have come to the immediate 
 repository. Take a few instances : — 
 
 Reynard the Fox, 1st edit. The Inglis' copy. Folio, W. Caxton, 
 
 Westminster, 1481. 
 Hannay (Patrick), Poems. The Huth copy. 8vo, London, 1622. 
 Holinshed (Raphael) Chronicles, 2 vols. The Sunderland copy. 
 
 Wants the plan of Edinburgh Castle. Folio, London, 1577. 
 Shakespeare (W.), Plays, 1st edit. The Napier copy, wanting 
 
 the verses. Folio, London, 1623. 
 
 The notation of differences in copies of the same book, 
 even if it is not one of supreme value, is always apt to be 
 
278 HISTORY [OF 
 
 useful. Of literary comment the supply is discretionary, 
 so long as it is new, pertinent, and interesting. The 
 transfer to the catalogue of any inedited manuscript 
 matter on the fly-leaves or margins, or of any proprietary 
 marks, is eminently desirable. 
 
 For French literature, which is so largely collected in 
 England, the Manuel du Libraire, &c, of Brunet, 7 vols. 
 8vo, 1860-78, with the works of Cohen and Gay, is the 
 standard authority. The two latter, so far as they go, 
 are more exhaustive than the Manuel, which is nearly 
 as incomplete as our Lowndes, and not much more 
 accurate. A new edition has been mooted ; it is a clear 
 desideratum. For value Brunet is scarcely more service- 
 able than its English analogue, and the book is, curiously 
 enough, particularly unsafe in such a field as the French 
 books of former times, where so much depends on 
 factitious conditions barely intelligible to an ordinary 
 English or American consulter. 
 
 Two books which perhaps equally appeal to the 
 English and Continental collectors are those just men- 
 tioned : Cohen, Guide de V Amateur de Livres a. Gravures 
 du XVIII th siecle, 5™ e d. 8°, 1886-90, and Gay, Biblio- 
 graphie s des Ouvrages relatifs a V Amour, aux Femmes, au 
 Manage, et des Livres FacHieux, 3 me ed. 12°, 1871, 6 vols. 
 Both, but especially the first, are essential for guidance in 
 the choice of a class of publication of which the innumer- 
 able variations and the artificial prices necessitate the 
 utmost caution on the part of an intending buyer. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 279 
 
 There are, in fact, no topics to which an amateur or 
 student can direct his notice or limit himself where he 
 will not have been preceded, so to speak, by a path- 
 finder; nor does the narrowness of the range always 
 ensure brevity or compactness of treatment, since the 
 Schreiber Playing Cards of all Countries and Periods, 
 which to a certain extent enter into the literary category, 
 occupy in the Account by Sir A. W. Franks three folio 
 volumes ; but a satisfactory view of the subject is to be 
 gained from the works by Singer and Chatto, 1816-48. 
 As a rule, editors of this class of publication are more 
 modest and compressed. There are the bibliographies 
 on Angling by J. R. Smith and Westwood ; on Tobacco, 
 by Bragge (1880) ; on Dialect books, by J. R. Smith (at 
 present capable of great expansion); on Bewick, by Hugo; 
 on Bartolozzi, by Tuer ; on Tokens, by Williamson and 
 by Atkins; on Coins and Medals, by a numerous body 
 of gentlemen specified in a section of the writer's Com 
 Collector, 1896. In the English and American series 
 are the well-known volumes by Henry Stevens and by 
 Sabin, and the sumptuous catalogue of the early Laws 
 and Statutes by Mr. Charlemagne Tower. In the 
 Chetham * Society's series, Mr. Jones, late Chetham's 
 Librarian, printed an elaborate list of all the old English 
 books and tracts relating to Popery. 
 
 There are many ways in which compilers of works of 
 reference are in danger of perpetuating mistakes as to 
 books, where they rely on secondary authorities. No 
 
280 HISTORY OF 
 
 account of an old book is, in the first place, entitled to 
 credence unless it has been drawn up by the describer 
 with the >book itself before him ; and when it is considered 
 that not one individual in ten thousand can even then 
 be trusted to copy what is -under his eyes, and that 
 there are, and always have been, those who have thought 
 fit to exercise their ingenuity by falsifying dates 
 and other particulars, there cannot be much room for 
 surprise that our bibliographies, and those of every other 
 people, are partly made up of material which never 
 existed. Errors are heirlooms, of which it is hard to 
 get rid. 
 
 The extent to which rare books are multiplied, as 
 regards varieties of impression, by misdescriptions in 
 catalogues, is remarkable and serious, and the biblio- 
 grapher is not unfrequently confronted with statements 
 of his ignorance of copies in sales of which he has not 
 thought it worth while to indicate the true facts. But 
 it is our individual experience that it is impossible to be 
 too minute in pointing out snares for the unwary, and 
 indeed for all who work at second-hand. 
 
 The Club or Society for the communication to mem- 
 bers, and through them to the public generally, of lite- 
 rary and archaeological material previously existing only 
 in MS. or in unique printed copies, was at the outset very 
 restricted in its zone and its scope; but, in spite of the 
 circumscribed interest felt by general readers in the more 
 abstruse or obscure provinces of research, the movement, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 281 
 
 at first confined to scholars and patrons of literature, 
 at length became universal in its range and distribution. 
 There is no country pretending to culture without several 
 of these institutions. In Great Britain, France, Italy, 
 the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, they have 
 long abounded. They have rendered accessible an enor- 
 mous body of inedited or unknown material for history, 
 archaeology, and biography]; and after all deductions for 
 indiscretion and dilettantism, they may be pronounced 
 the medium for having shed new and precious light on 
 well-nigh all branches of human science. To the book- 
 collector they appeal less in a possessory sense than as 
 works of reference. Where they enter into his plan is 
 in the practice, which some of them have followed, of 
 striking off on vellum or other special substance half a 
 dozen copies, which from their presqui! uniquity (this is 
 as good a phrase as rarissime) have ere now bred unchris- 
 tian sentiments among competitors for the bijoux in the 
 belles lettres. The book-hunters motto is Pulchra quce 
 difficilia ; he reverses the common saying. 
 
 There is so far no exhaustive Guide to the Club 
 literature, but the supplementary volume to Bonn's 
 Lowndes contains a fairly complete view of it down to 
 1869. The additions since that date have been incessant ■ 
 and almost innumerable. The British Museum General 
 Catalogue registers them all under the mediaeval heading 
 of Academies. 
 
 It is right and necessary that the inexperienced 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 collector should be put on his guard against the repre- 
 hensible and dishonest practice of some professional 
 vendors in advertising or offering for disposal books 
 of which the leaves are not entirely genuine, which are 
 deficient in supplemental matter recognised as part of 
 the work, or whose bindings are sophisticated in a manner 
 only capable of detection by a connoisseur or a specialist. 
 There are wily persons who systematically and habitually 
 insert in their catalogues items which they have acquired 
 with the distinct proviso that they were defective, and 
 have naturally acquired at a proportionate price. The 
 forms of deception are infinitely various; but the lead- 
 ing points demanding attention and verification are apt 
 to be : — 
 
 Starred pages. 
 Extra sheets inserted. 
 Plates. 
 Extra Plates. 
 
 The Frontispiece. 
 
 The Portrait. 
 
 The Half-title. 
 
 The Errata. 
 
 Supplement or Postscript. 
 
 The intending purchaser must take care to satisfy 
 himself that there are no facsimile or reprinted leaves, 
 no catchword erased to cancel a deficiency, no mixture 
 of editions, and no wrong or re-engraved portrait or 
 frontispiece, or false date inserted or inconvenient one 
 erased ; and that the copy has not been unskilfully 
 cleaned. It is caveat emptor indeed. 
 
 The most surprising pains are undertaken by certain 
 persons to mislead the collector who is not very much 
 indeed on his guard, and who yearns for the possession 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 283 
 
 of some current prize. A case lately occurred in which 
 the well-known copy of the scarce portrait of Milton, 
 with the famous verses beneath it, attached to the first 
 edition of the Poems in 1645, had been actually split 
 and laid down on old paper to make it resemble the 
 original print, and in the same way a plate belonging to 
 Lovelace's Lucasta, 1649, representing Lucy Sacheverell, 
 being frequently deficient, and making a good deal of 
 the value of the book, has been ere this soaked off from 
 the modern reproduction in Singer's Select Poets, and 
 " lined " to communicate to it the aspect of a genuine 
 impression mounted. 
 
 Other forms of deception and danger lie in the exact 
 reproduction of ancient or early books, not always with 
 any mischievous or fraudulent intention. Such a piece 
 of swpercherie as the History of Prince Radamcmthus, 
 professedly re-printed from a unique copy by Wynkyn 
 de Worde, or the Life and Death of Mother Shipton, 
 dated 1687, and actually issued in the latter half of the 
 present century, are scarcely apt to impose on any but 
 the most unobservant. It stands differently, however, 
 with the Declaratioun of the Kings maiesties intention 
 and meaning toward the lait acts of parliament, 1585, 
 republished in 1646 in facsimile : with Marlowe's Ovid, 
 originally printed in 1596, and repeatedly brought but 
 withoub any change in the text down to 1630: with Sir 
 John Hayward's Life of Henry IV., 1599, similarly re- 
 produced, and (in French literature) with the eighteenth- 
 
284 HISTORY OF BOOK-GOLLECTING 
 
 century edition of the works of Rabelais, -purporting to 
 have come from the Lyons press in 1558. These diffi- 
 culties require on the part of buyers one of two things : 
 an experienced eye or a trustworthy counsellor. The 
 version of Ovid's Elegies by Marlowe in a re-issue of no 
 value is constantly sold for the right one, suppressed by 
 authority, although Dyce, in his edition of the poet, 1850, 
 points out the differences. One has to study not merely 
 the external characteristics of an old book, but the paper, 
 water-mark, type. It is scarcely conceivable that the 
 reprint by Pepys of the Order of the Hospital of St. 
 Bartholomew, 1557, could be mistaken for the genuine 
 impression ; the paper and type alike betray it. 
 
 A curious and long-lived misapprehension prevails 
 respecting certain works from the press of Thomas 
 Berthelet, at the foot of the title-pages of which we find 
 the date 1534 ; but the latter forms part of the wood- 
 cut in which the letterpress is enclosed, and was retained 
 in publications posterior to the year named, and the 
 same is, to a slighter extent, the case with Robinson's 
 Reward of Wickedness, where the figures 1573 occur at 
 the end within an engraved border employed for other 
 purposes, the particular production by one of the guards 
 set over Mary, Queen of Scots, having probably appeared 
 some years after. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Fluctuations in the value of books — The prices of books com- 
 parative — Low prices adverse to the sale of books in certain 
 cases — Great difficulty in arriving at the market-price of very 
 rare volumes — Influence of the atmosphere — Reflections on 
 the utility and prudence of collecting — The collector, as a 
 rule, pays for his amusement — The classes which chiefly buy 
 the dearer books— Bookselling a speculation — The question 
 of investment-^ltuns on particular kinds of books or particular 
 subjects — Quotations of prices realised to be read between the 
 lines — Careful consideration of certain problems essential to 
 security of buyers- — The bookseller's point of view — Books 
 which are wanted, and why — Capital publications and uni- 
 versally known authors — Tendency to estimate earlier and 
 middle period literature by its literary or artistic qualities^- 
 Collectors in the future — Interest in prices current— Some 
 notable figures — The most precious books of all countries — 
 Two imperfect copies of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales bring 
 £2900 — Henry VIII.'s own copy on vellum of a volume of 
 Prayers, 1544, with MSS. nates by him and his family — Lady 
 Elizabeth Tirrwhyt's Prayers, 1574, bound in gold — Book of 
 St. Alban's, 1486, and Chronicles of England, printed at St. 
 Alban's — The Lincoln Nosegay — American buyers and their 
 agents — Composition of an average auction-room — An early 
 example of a book-lottery. 
 
 TW, fluctuations and revolutions in the mercantile value 
 of old English books present phenomena to our con- 
 sideration of an instructive and occasionally of a tantalis- 
 ing character. No one has the power to foresee what 
 future changes time may bring forth. It is the fashion 
 
286 HISTORY OF 
 
 with the vendor to force a purchase on his client, because, 
 says he, this book cannot recur for sale, or this class of 
 books is rising ; but that is a jhgon de parler, nothing 
 more. We are apt to sigh over the times when unique 
 Caxtons could be had — ay, in our grandsires' time — for 
 less than £8,0. In the sixteenth century twenty pence 
 paid for them. But let us recollect that our estimation 
 of an article depends on its cost so largely. What we 
 acquire cheaply we hold cheaply. Should we have heard 
 of many of our great modern collectors had old quotations 
 survived ? We have known personally one or two who 
 would not dream of taking a volume at a low price ; you 
 had, as it were, to adjust it to their meridian. They 
 failed to perceive how anything could be worth having if 
 it was to be secured for a song. A hundred-dollar author 
 might be barely admissible; a dollar man would be a 
 disgrace to the collection. 
 
 As regards the strange vicissitudes of the tariff for 
 second-hand books prices, there is an illustrative note from 
 Robert Scott, the celebrated dealer, to Pepys, dated June 
 SO, 1688, where he offers his customer four books for 
 34s., namely : — 
 
 Campion and Others' " History of Ireland" 
 Harding's " Chronicle " . . 
 Sir John Pryce's " Defensio Hist. Brit." 
 Barclay's "Ship of Fools" [1570] 
 
 The value set on the second and fourth items would 
 now, if they were poor copies, be vastly in excess of 
 
 12 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 287 
 
 the figures named by Scott; but for the other two a 
 bookseller of the present day might not expect much 
 more than Pepys was asked more than two hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 The anecdotes of bargains picked up from day to day 
 at the present time are plentiful, and (except for the for- 
 tunate finder) exasperating enough. But if we go back 
 to a period when there were no auctions, no organised 
 book depots, no newspapers, no railways and other such 
 facilities, and men lived practically in separate communi- 
 ties, there can be no feeling of astonishment that our 
 own early literature, like that of all other countries, has 
 descended to us in an almost inconceivably shrunk volume. 
 Books, and more especially pamphlets and broadsheets, 
 were acquired, and, after perusal, flung away. There 
 were not only no booksellers, in our sense, but down to 
 the seventeenth century no systematic book-buyers. The 
 library, as we understand the term and the thing, is a 
 comparatively modern institution. Even the products 
 of the Caxton press, very early in the next century, had 
 sunk in commercial value to almost nothing; they were 
 procurable for pence, nor did they acquire any apprecia- 
 tion till the reign of George III. and the rise of a new 
 school of collectors, amongst whom we have to reckon the 
 King himself. 
 
 It is not unusual to hear cases of cheap books having 
 been acquired by the normal buyer in the open market. 
 A friend tells you that he has bought such or such a volume 
 
288 N HISTORY OF 
 
 of a dealer — perhaps a specialist in that line — a positive 
 bargain ; he was not very keen on purchases just at- the 
 moment, but he could not resist this: It may be so ; but 
 it is exceedingly problematical. If we were to inquire 
 into the facts, one might, nay; one would almost certainly, 
 find that the specialist had secured the item over all com- 
 petitors at a recent auction, and had added his own 
 profit. If he had not been present, the item would not 
 have brought half. He was deemed rash by his con- 
 freres for giving so much. Of course there were two in 
 it; but the under-bidder was, maybe, a second private 
 enthusiast, who had gone to the full extent of his ideas 
 or resources. Where, then, is the bargain ? 
 
 The more or less artificial quotations at first-class 
 auctions partly arise, no doubt, from the preference of cer- 
 tain private buyers for dispensing with the middle-man 
 in the person of the bookseller. They do not object to 
 employ him as an agent, and often enable him to secure 
 their desiderata against . all comers ; but they somehow 
 distrust him as an independent valuer of what he may 
 offer over the counter; and this is, we fear, usually 
 attributable to their diffidence of their own judgment 
 and experience. There is a prevailing idea — it may be 
 a prejudice — that in the salerooms an article fetches its 
 worth and no more, and that you save the relative profit. 
 You may or you may not. In the majority of cases, 
 where the actual purchaser has no practical knowledge, 
 and his resources are ample, the saleroom is a dearer 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 289 
 
 market than the shop, if the property offered is that of 
 an eminent person and is of high character ; and even in 
 obscurer sales bargains of any moment are only to those 
 who are experts and are on the spot. 
 
 The prices or market values of the older and rarer 
 books form a debateable ground, on which those interested 
 will probably never arrive at anything approaching unani- 
 mity; and the reason or part of the reason seems to be 
 that the actual realised figure depends on so many con- 
 siderations, of which the mere character of the article 
 put up for sale is not invariably the most influential, 
 There is no species of weather-glass more sensitive than 
 the bibliographical one; it responds to the slightest 
 change in the commercial ' temperature, and must be 
 carefully watched and studied by all who either seek to 
 sell at a profit or to buy without the risk of serious loss 
 on eventual realisation. Two books belonging to the 
 same edition, bound in the same style by ' the same 
 person, are they not one as good as the other ? By no 
 means necessarily so. Setting aside the extrinsic features 
 which confer arbitrary value on literary property, one 
 of the copies may have the start of the other, if it is 
 something then in active or general demand ; one may 
 occur when the trade has a glut of stock, or has ex- 
 hausted its credit at the auctioneer's; one may belong 
 to a " genuine " collection, while the other may labour 
 under the suspicion of being " rigged." Place them 
 side by side; there does not appear to be sixpence 
 
290 HISTORY OF 
 
 between them, yet under the hammer one lot may fetch 
 twice as much as the other. 
 
 This, it may be fairly argued, tells against the wisdom 
 and security of laying out money by collectors of mode- 
 rate resources on such doubtful investments; but look 
 in whatever direction you please, and you will encounter 
 similar phenomena. The buyer of coins, china, pictures, 
 or any other curiosities, meets with an identical experi- 
 ence. Immense sums are lost in these recreations by one 
 class to provide livelihoods, and very handsome liveli- 
 hoods, too, for thousands and tens of thousands year by 
 year. Sometimes the amount is not serious to the indi- 
 vidual, or he can afford it ; occasionally it is otherwise. 
 
 Prices fluctuate, and their fluctuation is apt to be 
 deceptive. It is not merely the article which has to be 
 considered, but the atmosphere in which it was sold. 
 No one can be sure that he has secured a bai'gain till 
 he sells it. At the Beckford sale the Thuanus copy of 
 Buchanan's Poemata, 1579, fetched <£ J 54; a year or two 
 later it was offered at i?18, and in 1897 it occurs in a 
 catalogue at £4>2. A rare theatrical item in the Mac- 
 kenzie sale produced £6%, 10s. In another in 1897 a 
 second copy formed part of a bundle which brought 14s. 
 At the Laing sale Beza's Confession of Christian Faith, 
 in Italian, 1560, said to have been the property of Mary 
 Queen of Scots, was carried to ,fl49. After being kept 
 by the purchaser many years, it realised during the cur- 
 . rent year £5%. The eclat which accompanied these books 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 291 
 
 on their original realisation was absent, or was no more 
 than a tradition. Some judged the Queen of Scots 
 volume very dear even at the lower quotation. We 
 saw it knocked down, and such was our own judgment. 
 
 These samples we adduce for the advantage of ordi- 
 nary purchasers of literary property, whose estimation 
 principally depends on its provenance. There is an in- 
 herent proneness to shrinkage of interest and value in the 
 hands of any one who is not equally celebrated, or is not 
 going to become so. 
 
 Even an approximately accurate appreciation in a 
 commercial sense of books of various classes can only 
 be reached by one who is behind the scenes, who can 
 feel the pulse of the market, and who follows the inces- 
 sant changes in its temperature and feeling. It is absurd 
 for a simple amateur, who passes his time in a study or 
 an office, to attempt or presume to instruct us on this 
 subject. He knows what he has given for his own 
 library, and what some of his friends have given for 
 theirs, and he reads the accounts in the papers of 
 periodical sales. But it is a widely different affair, when 
 one sets about the task, intrusted to this or that indi- 
 vidual by a friendlyj publisher or editor-general, in a 
 scientific manner; and it is only under such circum- 
 stances that one realises, or can render intelligible to 
 others, what prices actually mean and are, how much 
 they depend on perpetually modifying and varying in- 
 fluences, and how little the quotations found in works of 
 
292 HISTORY OF 
 
 reference are to be trusted. The turns of the book- 
 market are as sudden and strange, as delicate and mys- 
 terious, as those of a Bourse ; and the steadfast and keen 
 onlooker alone can keep pace with them — -not he always ; 
 the wire-pullers are so many. 
 
 How, then, shall collectors of books, for example, pro- 
 tect themselves? They cannot. It is their diversion, 
 their by-play ; their time and thought are engaged else- 
 where in business, where it is their turn to reap the fruit 
 of special study and experience, and they hand over a 
 percentage of this to the caterer for their pleasure. The 
 whole world is, in other words, perpetually intent on 
 gathering and distributing; we are, every one of us, 
 buyers and sellers, not of necessaries only, but of luxuries 
 and amusements. 
 
 Coming to the more immediate point, men nowadays, 
 in the presence of a severe and almost homicidal com- 
 petition for subsistence, have to devote their whole atten- 
 tion to their chosen employment, and have the most 
 limited opportunities of ascertaining or verifying values 
 as submitted to them by experts in the book-market; 
 they have Lowndes, which is almost worthless, and Book 
 Prices Current, which is, of course, more contemporary, 
 but must be read between the lines; and the extreme 
 difficulty of judging what is worth having, and how much 
 should be given for it, has led to that frequent habit of 
 collectors favouring a particular dealer, or, as an alternative, 
 pursuing a policy highly unpleasant to dealers by acquiring 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 direct from the salerooms. Fortunately for booksellers 
 the latter plan does not suit busy men, and it is just' 
 that class, especially the merchant and the stockbroker, 
 the solicitor and accountant, who are their best clients. 
 
 The trade has its sorrows and trials ; but it cannot be 
 a very bad one when we see how many live out of it, if 
 they do not often make fortunes. The fact is, that the 
 motives for buying books are almost as infinitely multi- 
 farious as the books themselves, and there exists not the 
 volume for which the customer will not arise, if the holder 
 can wait ; and this customary incidence accounts for the 
 familiar aphorism that booksellers accumulate stock, not 
 money — an aphorism to which the exceedingly rare excep- 
 tions prove the rule. 
 
 Putting it differently, bookselling outside the current 
 literature is a form of speculation which varies according 
 to the class of investment which the stockholder selects ; 
 and it is quite necessary to bear in mind the nature and 
 tendency of the business in order to more clearly 
 appreciate the uncertainty of prices, and how utterly 
 impossible it must ever be for any ordinary book-buyer 
 to rely on his purchases as a representation of value. If 
 he does not view the matter in that light, or chooses to 
 let the instruction or pleasure derived from his acquisitions 
 become a set-off against the outlay, it is very well ; what 
 he or his heirs get for the property is in that case all 
 profit. , 
 
 We dwell a little on this aspect of the matter, because 
 
294 HISTORY OF 
 
 we are quite aware that in purchasing books many persons 
 look at the ulterior question, and even demand of the 
 vendor how much the article is likely to bring when or if 
 re-sold. Such a contingency usually limits itself to cases 
 where a volume is secured for a special and temporary 
 object, or where funds are restricted and the fancy is 
 purely personal. 
 
 Apart from these considerations, there are other in- 
 fluences always at work to render the book-market uncer- 
 tain and insecure. Collectors who have no fixed plan 
 or aim are apt to follow the precedent set by such as 
 have, or are supposed to have, one, and this obviously 
 tends to create a run on particular subjects or authors, 
 till the call is satisfied, or the coterie grows sensible of the 
 inexpediency of proceeding any further. A revolt from a 
 fad naturally gluts the market with the discarded copies, 
 and the latest vendors have to bear the brunt. Such is not 
 an occasional incidence^ but one continually in progress 
 among a certain quota, and a large quota, too, of the book- 
 buying public, who let others judge for them, instead of 
 judging for themselves. 
 
 It cannot be treated as otherwise than an ordinary 
 and reasonable sequitur that prices which are purely 
 artificial are also arbitrary and precarious. The quota- 
 tions which are to be found in such a publication as Book 
 Prices Current are at best a bare record of facts ; but 
 with such a record at his elbow no man who does not 
 possess a fair amount of knowledge and judgment would 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 295 
 
 be safe in his figures. It would be little better than 
 plunging. Still less is it of any use to rely on the 
 reports in the press, which are frequently inaccurate, and 
 in nine cases out of ten are the work of inexperienced 
 persons. 
 
 The careful and discerning observer of these problems 
 (for such they indeed are) discovers that the high prices 
 for books, which the trade is never tired of citing as an 
 encouragement to its connections, are almost invariably 
 associated with conditions which are adventitious or 
 accidental, and which scarcely ever comprise benefit to a 
 living individual. A man must be truly exceptional, 
 phenomenally above suspicion, bedridden with an incurable 
 complaint, to disarm the scepticism of the wary buyer 
 under the hammer ; it is the property of the departed 
 which is preferred ; for the result cannot help him, and he 
 is not at hand to reserve lots. So recently as 1896, 
 there was an exception to the prevailing rule ; but it was 
 one rather in appearance than in reality. We allude to 
 the Frere sale at Sotheby's. Now, we repeat that this 
 was merely an ostensible departure from ordinary experi- 
 ence ; and what we mean is that the most valuable portion 
 of the library was that which once belonged to another 
 and antecedent person, Sir John Fenn, and that these 
 items had been long known to exist, and were desiderata 
 for which public and private collections had hitherto 
 thirsted in vain. No wonder, then, that there was a dead 
 set at them, the living owner maulgre. 
 
296 HISTORY OF 
 
 The booksellers are apt to complain nowadays of their 
 inability to move or place items with which they cannot 
 give a certificate of character. It will not always suffice 
 to allege that they have realised a great deal of money 
 heretofore, as vouched by Lowndes ; they must carry with 
 them some definite recommendation ; they must exhibit 
 remarkable allusions ; they may be written by an ancestor 
 or namesake of the buyer in view ; at all events, if they 
 are not by a good author, they must be on a good subject. 
 Their interest must be (1) personal ; (2) local ; or (3) 
 topical. There is a drift on the part of collectors of the 
 purer type toward accredited and certified securities — 
 toward recognised writers. Established character goes 
 for more than mere rarity. The trade can always place 
 fine copies of authors who have made their personality 
 standard : Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Sydney, Jonson, 
 Milton, Butler, Swift, Thomson, Goldsmith, Miss Burney, 
 Dr. Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, 
 Charles Lamb, Shelley, Keats, Thackeray, George Eliot. 
 If to the more fastidious or self-diffident amateur an 
 excessively rare item is introduced without credentials, it 
 is in danger of being rejected ; the same principle applies 
 to certain foreign writers, such as Cervantes, Montaigne, 
 Moliere, Corneille, La Fontaine. But in almost all these 
 cases the demand is not for collected or library editions, or 
 even for first copies of everything coming from the pens 
 of those writers. Chaucer has to be served up in the 
 types of Caxton or De Worde or Pynson ; Spenser is 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 297 
 
 only sought in quarto and octavo; Shakespeare means 
 the four folios and certain quartos, and the Poems in 
 octavo ; the leading aim in Sydney is the Arcadia of 
 1590 ; Jonson is just admissible in folio (the right 
 cut), but is preferred in quarto ; by Milton we mean 
 the Comus, Lycidas, Poems, Paradise Lost and Paradise 
 Regained in the original issues. Butler is only represen- 
 ted by his Hudibras ; Swift by his Gulliver ; Defoe by his 
 Crusoe (some must have all three volumes, although the 
 first is worth nearly all the money); Thomson by the 
 Seasons; Goldsmith by the Vicar of Wakefield; Miss 
 Burney by one or two of her Novels in boards; Dr. 
 Johnson by his Rasselas ; Scott by the Waverley series 
 with uncut edges, and so forth. 
 
 The actual current appreciation of old books seems to 
 be, to a large and increasing extent, in the ratio of their 
 literary or artistic attraction ; and under the second head 
 we comprise typography and wood-engraving ; and we 
 think that we could establish that, as a rule, the highest 
 bids in modern days are for something of which the 
 reputation or importance, or both, are a matter of 
 tacit acknowledgment and acceptance. A merely curious 
 volume may fetch money ; but it must be something 
 beyond that to make the pulse beat more quickly and 
 form a record. 
 
 Two considerations govern and recommend such a 
 course — those of commercial expediency and of space. 
 There is not much probability that in the time to come 
 
298 HISTORY OF 
 
 book-buyers will arise to renew the traditions of the 
 Harleian and Heber libraries, or even of such vast heteroge- 
 neous assemblages of literary monuments as those formed 
 by Sir Thomas Phillipps, James Crossley, Joseph Tasker, 
 Gibson-Craig, and a few others. The feeling is more in 
 favour of the French view — small and choice ; and there 
 is no doubt that, as a rule, the sale of a collection should 
 not occupy more than three days. Beyond that time the 
 interest flags and prices are apt to recede. 
 
 At the same time there has always been, and will be, 
 a powerful curiosity in the direction of knowing or hear- 
 ing what certain rare or superlatively important books 
 occasionally bring. The feeling is rather more general 
 than might be imagined, for it extends to those who are 
 not collectors, yet like to see how foolish other people are, 
 or, again, store up the information, in case they should 
 have the good fortune to meet with similar things in their 
 travels. When one thinks of the extraordinary casualities 
 which have brought to light undescribed works or editions, 
 and continue to do so year by year, there is no reason to 
 despair of completing ourselves in due course in many and 
 many a direction. The tendency in prices of late has 
 certainly been favourable to books which are at once 
 rare and admittedly important ; and we have said that 
 the latter feature and quality appear to be weightier 
 than mere unfrequency of occurrence. For instance, any 
 given number of copies of such comparatively common 
 volumes as the first folio Shakespeare, the first Faery 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 299 
 
 Queen, the first Paradise Lost, Herrick, Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, will present themselves in the market and com- 
 mand steadily advancing figures ; it is the same with Pope 
 and Dryden in a measure, and with some of the more 
 eminent moderns. The literary iclat stimulates the 
 biddings. 
 
 Those works which represent the maximum value 
 during recent years have been : — 
 
 (i.) The earliest examples of printing, at all events in 
 book-form ; Missce Speciales, , and other smaller books 
 executed by Gutenberg previous to 1455, or at all 
 events to the Bible ascribed to that date ; Gutenberg's 
 Bible, otherwise known as the Mazarin Bible, 1455, 
 re-issued by Fust and Schoeffer in 1456 ; the Psalters of 
 1457 and 1459, designed for the Cathedral and Benedic- 
 tine monastery of Mainz respectively ; the Chronicles of 
 Monstrelet on vellum ; Lancelot du Lac on vellum, 1488 ; 
 the Sarum Missal, 1492, 1497, 1504 ; Caxton's two Troy- 
 Boohs, two Jasons, Arthur, Speculum Vitce Christi and 
 Doctrinal of Sapience on vellum, Canterbury Tales and 
 other separate works of Chaucer, Paris and Vienne, &c. ; 
 Boole of St. Albans, 1486, and other works printed there, 
 1480-1534 ; Tyndale's New Testament, 1526 ; Coverdale's 
 Bible, 1535 ; Boece's Chronicles of Scotland on vellum, 1536 ; 
 the Huth Ballads ; Montaigne's JEssais, 1580 ; the same in 
 English, 1603, 1613 ; Spenser's Faery Queen, 1590-96; Con- 
 stable's Diana, 1592 ; Bacon's Essays, 1597, 1598 ; Shake- 
 speare's Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, 1st quartos, Sonnets, and 
 
300 HISTORY OF 
 
 the collected Plays, 1593-1623. (ii.) Shelton's Don 
 Quixote, 1612-20; first editions of Daniel, Drayton, Lodge, 
 Walton, Barnfield, Breton, &c; Milton's Comus, 1637, 
 Lycidas, 1638, Paradise Lost, 1667; Walton's Complete 
 Angler, 1653, Bunyan's PilgrimCs Progress, 1678, and 
 any other capital or standard authors of the seventeenth 
 century, particularly Lovelace, Carew, Suckling, down to 
 Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, which, though 
 a common book, has lately grown a dear one by sheer 
 force of companionship. 
 
 There seems a disposition to look more indifferently 
 on volumes which have no certificate or passport. Secon- 
 darily, as in the case of Florio's version of Montaigne, 
 items are admitted as hangers-on and interpreters of 
 great authors. 
 
 The last copy of the Faery Queen, 1590-96, offered for 
 sale, an extraordinarily fine one, brought £84, of Robin- 
 son Crusoe; £75. The British Museum paid for the Booh 
 of Common Prayer, 1603, a year earlier than any edition 
 so far described, £175. It was obtained by the vendor 
 from a sale at Sotheby's, where its liturgical interest was 
 overlooked. 
 
 The question of prices in all these cases is involved in 
 equal uncertainty and difficulty. The second Psalter of 
 1459 brought at the Syston Park sale £4950. Mr. 
 Quaritch still holds it (1897), and asks £5250. The 
 British Museum possesses both impressions. This was 
 the highest .figure ever reached by a single lot in this 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 301 
 
 country. Gutenberg's Bible follows, copies on vellum 
 and paper having produced from .£1500 to £4000; the 
 vellum copies are deemed more valuable, but of those 
 issued by Gutenberg himself we seem to have only 
 examples on paper. The Huth copy of the latter type, 
 from the Sykes and H. Perkins libraries cost its late 
 owner .£3650. Mr. Grenville for his gave £500. As we 
 have already remarked, the book has a tendency to 
 become commoner. The Ashburnham Fust and Schoeffer 
 Bible of 1462 brought £1500; at the Comte de 
 Brienne's sale in 1724, where Hearne refers to the " vast 
 prices,'" the Earl of Oxford gave for the same book 
 £112. 
 
 The History of King Arthur, printed by Caxton, \\ 
 1485, for which Lord Jersey's ancestor gave £2, 12s. 6d. 7 
 about 1750 to Osborne, was carried at the Osterley Park l - 
 sale in 1885 to £1950, the British Museum underbidding ; 
 while the Troy -Book in English from the same press 
 fetched £1820 ; and at the dispersion of a curious lot of 
 miscellanies, apparently derived from Darlaston Hall, near 
 Stone, Staffordshire, an imperfect, but very large and 
 clean, copy of the first edition of the Canterbury Tales, by 
 Caxton, was adjudged to Mr. Quaritch at £1020, a second 
 one, by an unparalleled coincidence presenting itself at 
 the same place of sale a few months later, only four leaves 
 wanting, but not so fine, and being knocked down at 
 £1800 to the same buyer. The Asburnham Chaucers 
 and other works from the same press were (with one or 
 
302 HISTORY OF 
 
 two exceptions) so poor, that it was surprising that they 
 sold even so well as they did. 
 
 We descend to relatively moderate quotations when we 
 come to the Daniel (now Huth) Ballads in 1864 (£750); 
 the ,£670 and £810 bidden for the CaxWs Gower at 
 the Selsey sale in 1871 and the Osterley Park sale in 1885 
 respectively; the £600 paid for the Book of St. Albans, 
 1486, wanting two leaves, in 1882; and the £420 at 
 which Mr. Quaritch estimated the Troy-Book of 1503. 
 The price asked for the original MS. of the Towneley 
 Mysteries in 1892, £820, strikes one as reasonable by 
 comparison. 
 
 But amounts which we venture to think unduly ex- 
 travagant have of late years been obtained at Christies's 
 rooms for certain books, such as Lady Elizabeth Tirr- 
 whyt's Prayers, 1574, bound in gold, and said to have 
 belonged to Queen Elizabeth (1220 guineas); 1 Henry 
 VIII.'s Prayers, 1544, printed on vellum, 2 and enriched 
 with notes by the King, the Queen, Prince Edward,- and 
 Princess Mary (610 guineas, as above mentioned) ; and a 
 third folio Shakespeare, 1663-64, with both titles, but 
 represented as being almost unique in that state, £435. 
 What, a contrast to the old prices ! Even in our time 
 and memory, the first folio could be had in fine state 
 for £50 or £60, the second for £5, 5s., the third for 
 £50, and the fourth for £5, 5s. George Daniel, we are 
 
 1 Now in the British Museum by the munificence of the late Sir 
 Wollaston Franks (Department of Antiquities). 
 
 2 Said to have been purchased for Lord Amherst. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 informed by his representatives, gave about £93,0 for his 
 first Shakespeare to William Pickering, and Mr. Corser 
 kept his 1632 book in his dining-room at Stand Rectory 
 among the commoner volumes, although it was a fine 
 copy. A middling set now fetches ,£600 or thereabout. 
 
 The earlier standard both for English and foreign 
 rarities was undoubtedly much lower. - In Osborne's 
 Catalogue for 1751, the Toledo Missal, described as the 
 scarcest volume in the world, was valued only at £35. 
 In the Heber, and even in the Bright sale, from £10 to 
 £95 secured some of the greatest gems in ancient English 
 literature. 
 
 At the Frere auction at Sotheby's, 1896, however, the 
 realisation of the Fenn books beat every record, consider- 
 ing that the copies were generally so poor; and it was 
 hard indeed to see where the value was in a Herbert's 
 Ames accompanied by an extra volume of typographical 
 fragments, of which many were mutilated and niany were 
 worthless (£255). 
 
 The Book of St. Albans, 1486, as it is usually desig- 
 nated, has descended little from its original rank as a first- 
 class rarity owing to the successive discovery of unknown 
 copies. The romance connected with the acquisition of the 
 Grenville one has been more than once printed ; but the 
 Chronicles of England, from the same press, especially on 
 vellum, maintains its reputation for the utmost rarity, 
 although there were two impressions ; and the same may 
 be said of the issues by William of Mecklin, Caxton, and 
 
304 HISTORY OF 
 
 Gerard de Leeu, all and any of which could not, if com- 
 plete, fail to command very high prices even on paper. 
 
 =£"4900 for the second edition of the Mainz Psalter, 
 1459, appears (as we have observed) to be the largest 
 sum ever paid in this country for a single work; and 
 the vellum copy of the Gutenberg Bible follows, i?900 
 behind; at least at the price of ^4000 it fell to Mr. 
 Quaritch at the Ashburnham sale in 1897. But for the 
 Manesse Liederbuch, a thirteenth-century MS. of national 
 ballads, carried away by the French from Heidelberg 
 in 1656, and found among the Ashburnham MSS., the 
 German Government practically paid in 1887 ,£18,000. 
 What may be termed a bad second was the Duke of 
 Hamilton's Missal, sold to the German Government in 
 1887 for =£"10,000; but that also belongs to the manu- 
 script class. ;/ 
 
 It must be an absolute truism to state that at the 
 present moment the American is a material factor in 
 influencing the book-market. He is less so, perhaps, in 
 the sort of way in which he assisted the booksellers of 
 a bygone generation in reducing or realising their stocks ; 
 but he has come to the front more than ever as a com- 
 petitor for the prizes. There was a day when countless 
 Transatlantic libraries were in course of formation ; but 
 they are now fairly complete, and, moreover, they have 
 the means at hand, not formerly available, of filling up 
 the gaps at home. 
 
 Our American kinsfolk have undoubtedly become 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 305 
 
 masters of an almost countless number of bibliographical 
 gems, and have been content to pay handsomely for them. 
 We do not hear of any sensible reflux of old books from 
 the States, but that might happen hereafter under the 
 influence of financial depression. At the same time, 
 there is perhaps nothing on the other side of the 
 Atlantic which is not represented in duplicate here, 
 unless it be in an instance or two, as, for example, the 
 perfect Caxton Morte Arthur, 1485; and even those 
 volumes, which are of signal rarity, are almost without 
 exception in repositories accessible to all. 
 
 Returning for a moment to the commercial aspect of 
 our present topic, the Transatlantic acquirer at any cost 
 makes the fixture of high, even ridiculous, prices for 
 certain books impossible. Beyond the maximum there is 
 a higher maximum still. Who would have dreamed of a 
 first edition of Burns, although uncut, bringing, as it did 
 just lately (February 1898) in an Edinburgh auction-room, 
 £37%, or a sixpenny volume on Ploughs by one Small, 
 ,£30, because it bore on the title, Rob'- Burns, Poet, in 
 the great man's own hand, as well as a holograph memo- 
 randum attached to flyleaf? In the case of the Kilmarnock 
 Burns of 1786 the sole excuse of the purchaser was its 
 uncut state, for it is a comparatively common book. It 
 was acquired by Mr. Lamb of Dundee, a hotel-keeper, of 
 one Mr. Braid wood for 1°60. A second copy in paper 
 covers, also uncut, exists; but the general condition is 
 not so good. 
 
306 HISTORY OF 
 
 There are in London and other English centres, 
 however, American export and commission agents, in- 
 dependently of those houses which make shipments to 
 the States a collateral branch of their business. It has 
 been the cry, ever since we can recollect, that our 
 cousins were draining the old country of its books, and 
 yet the movement continues — continues with this diffe- 
 rence, that the Americans have now plenty of ordinary 
 stock, and are more anxious to limit their acquisitions to 
 rarities. The number of public and private libraries has 
 become very considerable ; the most familiar names are 
 Lenox, Carter- Brown, Tower, and Pope, the last the 
 purchaser of the King Arthur printed by Caxton in 1485, 
 and formerly in the Harleian and Osterley Park collec- 
 tions. There is an occasional reflux of exportations, and 
 we should like to hear one day of the Arthur being among 
 them. 
 
 One not very pleasant aspect of American and other 
 plutocratic competition has been to convert most of the 
 capital old English books from literature into vertu. 
 What else is it, when two imperfect Chaucers bring 
 £2900, and a Walton's Angler, £415, and where for 
 the second and third folio Shakespeares persons are found 
 willing to give a profit on £500 or £600 ? 
 
 The Transatlantic buyer, or indeed the buyer at a 
 distance anywhere, has no option in employing an agent 
 on the spot to acquire his desiderata, and he is practi- 
 cally in his hands. So long as your representative is 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 307 
 
 competent it is well enough, and on the whole the 
 American agencies in London are, we think, both that 
 and conscientious. But the frequenter of the salerooms 
 cannot fail to note a very unsatisfactory aspect of this 
 business by proxy, where an inexperienced amateur with 
 a well-lined purse employs an almost equally inexperienced 
 person to act on his behalf — that is to say, one who is a 
 bookseller by vocation, but who enjoys no conversance 
 with bibliographical niceties. His principal consequently 
 scores very poorly by buying wrong things at the right 
 prices; but if he is satisfied, who need be otherwise? 
 And his error, if his property is not realised in his life- 
 time, never comes home to him ! Nevertheless, to buy 
 with other people's eyes and judgment is not, after all, 
 the best form ; all that can be pleaded for it is, that it 
 is the sole resource of the individual who has no time 
 to devote to the practical side, or who, if he has, dis- 
 trusts his own knowledge ; and as everything has its com- 
 pensation, such are the customers on whom the trade 
 mainly leans. If the amateur expert were to be too 
 much multiplied, the professional bookseller would in- 
 evitably be a grave sufferer. 
 
 Those are in the safest hands, perhaps, who are in 
 their own. But in the case of books, as of all analogous 
 property, the next best thing to acting for oneself is to 
 employ a high-class dealer, or, if the line is very special, 
 one who enjoys a reputation for conversance with the 
 particular branch of inquiry. Where a collector/ who 
 
808 HISTORY OF 
 
 does not possess personal knowledge, and takes into his 
 service a bookseller who is not much more informed, or 
 who has not studied certain classes of literature, it is 
 bound to be an exemplification of the blind leading the 
 blind, and one, at all events, unless he has a very long 
 purse, falling into the ditch. 
 
 Under any circumstances, it is unquestionably bene- 
 ficial to any private buyer to take some pains to arrive 
 at at least a general knowledge of values, as well as of 
 the bearings and extent of the field which he may choose. 
 He should not be a puppet in the hands of his repre- 
 sentative, if he can help it. Where he cannot, he is apt 
 to buy in one sort of market and to sell in another. 
 Not the worst policy is to hand a commission to one's 
 strongest opponent, if he will or can take it. It disarms 
 him. But some firms dislike agency, as the profit, 
 though sure, is often so narrow, particularly where the 
 person employed is a specialist in the line, and would 
 have given for purposes of re-sale in the ordinary way 
 twice or thrice as much as the item fetches, his personal 
 opposition withdrawn. Hence it is not unusual among 
 commission-agents at book-sales to charge, not on the 
 price realised, but on the figure given by the client. The 
 latter authorises his representative to bid up to i?10 for 
 this or that lot; it drops at £%\ the fee for buying it 
 is a percentage, not on the lower, but the higher amount. 
 A commission of £6 was given by the present writer for 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING , 309 
 
 a volume of John Leland's Tracts ; it dropped at 2s. ; 
 his agent charged him 10s. brokerage. 
 
 Some hand their orders direct, to the auctioneer, and 
 this may be done within certain limits; but if the 
 practice becomes too habitual, the dealers retaliate by 
 bidding against the rostrum. "All is fair in love and 
 war."' 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Foundations of bibliography — Commencement of advertising books 
 through catalogues and lists at end of other publications — 
 Classes of literature principally in demand — Origin of sales by 
 public competition — A book-lottery in 1661 — The book-auction 
 in London makes a beginning — The practice extends to the 
 provinces and Scotland (1680-95)— -First sale-catalogue where 
 Caxtons were separately lotted (1682) — Catalogue of a private 
 library appended to a posthumous publication (1704)— JMystery 
 surrounding the sources whence the Harleian Library was 
 supplied with its early English rarities — An explanation — 
 Indebtedness of the Heber Collection to private purchasers 
 on a large scale — Vast additions to our knowledge since 
 Heber's time — The modern auction-marts — Penny and other 
 biddings at auctions — An average auction-room — Watching 
 the Ashburnham sale — The collector behind the scenes — Key 
 to certain prices — The Frost and the Boom— Difficulty of 
 gauging quotations without practical experience — The Court 
 of Appeal — The Duke of Wellington pays £105 for a shilling 
 pamphlet — A few more words about the Frere sale in illustra- 
 tion of the Boom and something else — The Rig. 
 
 The earliest method of communication between holders 
 and vendors of books and probable buyers of them related 
 to the issue of new works, or, at most, to such as were 
 not out of date. Maunsell's celebrated folio, of which he 
 was not apparently encouraged to proceed with more than 
 certain sections, and which did not comprise the subjects 
 most interesting to us, came out in 1595 in two parts, 
 and was, notwithstanding its imperfect fulfilment, the 
 
 310 
 
HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 311 
 
 most comprehensive enterprise of the kind in our language 
 down to comparatively recent times. These matters 
 usually took the form of notices, accompanying a pub- 
 lished volume, of others already in print or in prepara- 
 tion by the same firm. No possessor or observer of old 
 English books can fail to have met with such advertise- 
 ments; but, as we have said, they limit themselves, as 
 a rule, to current literature and .the ventures of the 
 immediate stationer or printer. To some copies of 
 Marmion's Antiquary, 1641, we find attached a slip 
 containing an announcement by Thomas Dring of old 
 plays on sale by him at the White Lion in Chancery 
 Lane, and inserted posterior to the issue of this particular 
 drama, which does not bear Dring's name; and we all 
 know the list of dramatic performances appended to 
 Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1661, and probably emanating 
 from Kirkman the bookseller, where we discern items 
 belonging to an earlier period — of some of which we know 
 nothing further. This catalogue, the material for which 
 Kirkman had personally brought together by the ex- 
 penditure of considerable time and labour, was re-issued 
 in 1671, and from about that time Clavell and other 
 members of the trade circulated periodical accounts of 
 all the novelties of the season, but almost entirely in 
 those classes which seem to have then appealed to the 
 public: Law, Science, and Divinity— just the sections 
 with which Maunsell in 1595 began and ended. 
 
 The absence of the machinery supplied by the auction 
 
312 HISTORY OF 
 
 long necessitated a practice which not only survived sales 
 by inch of candle and under the hammer, but which still 
 prevails, of disposing of libraries and small collections en 
 bloc to the trade, and the dedication by the particular 
 buyer of a serial catalogue to his purchase. Executors 
 and others long possessed no other means of realisation ; 
 the Harleian printed books were thus dispersed; and 
 even those of Heber, almost within our own memory, 
 engrossed the resources of two or three firms of salesmen. 
 The conditions under which a library was accumulated in 
 former days were not less different than those under which 
 it passed into other hands ; the possibilities of profit were 
 infinitesimal; a heavy loss was almost a certainty. But 
 then men bought more generally for the mere love of 
 the objects or for purposes of study. The speculative 
 element had yet to arise. 
 
 Evelyn, in his famous letter to Pepys, August 12, 
 1689, speaks of Lord Maitland's library as certainly the 
 noblest, most substantial, and accomplished, that ever 
 passed under the spear. This was within two decades 
 or so of the commencement of the system of selling 
 literary effects by auction. We are aware that in the 
 Bristol records of the fourteenth century the trumpet, 
 introduced from France, is mentioned as a medium for 
 the realisation of property in the same way; and there 
 was the much later mch-qf-candle principle — a perhaps 
 unconscious loan from King Alfred's alleged time-candles, 
 which are referred to by his biographer Asser — a work 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 313 
 
 suspected of being unauthentic, yet on that account may 
 have none the less suggested the idea to some one. 
 
 Abroad the trumpet or the cry appear among the 
 commercial states of the Middle Ages to have been the 
 usual forms. In the particulars of a sale of galleys by 
 auction at Venice in 1332, 1 the property was cried before- 
 hand on behalf of the Government, and the buyer, till 
 he paid the price reached, furnished a surety. This 
 process was known as the inccmto; and it is curious 
 enough that in the sale-catalogue of Francis Hawes, Esq., 
 a South Sea Company director, in 1722, the goods are 
 said to be on sale by cant or auction. But the modern 
 Italian still speaks of an auction as an asta (the Roman 
 hasta). Some of these types are illustrated by Lacroix 
 in his Mceurs et Usages. In France Miey anciently had 
 the bell and the crier (the Roman prceco). . 
 
 In London, firms of commercial brokers long continued 
 to hold their sales of goods by inch of candle ; but the 
 Roman practice seems to have survived down to com- 
 paratively modern days in Spain and Portugal, if not 
 in France and Italy. In 1554, Junius Rabirius, a French 
 jurist, published at Paris, with a metrical, inscription to 
 Henry. II. of France, a Latin treatise on the origin of 
 Hastce and Auctions, in which he enters at some length 
 into the system pursued by the ancients, and still 
 retained in the sixteenth century by the Latin com- 
 munities of Europe. This is probably the, earliest 
 1 Hazlitt's Venice, 1860, iv. 431. 
 
314 , HISTORY OF 
 
 monograph which we possess on the present branch of 
 the subject. It is a tolerably dull and uninforming one. 
 
 Some of us are aware by practical experience how 
 deplorably tedious a normal modern auction under the 
 hammer is, although it extends only at the utmost from 
 one to five or six in the afternoon. But, like some of the 
 Continental sales of to-day, the old-fashioned affair spread, 
 with a break for refreshment, over twice the space of time, 
 and was conducted, previous to the introduction of the 
 hammer, by inch of candle. This system was somewhat 
 less inconvenient than it at first sight strikes us as being, 
 since the property was lotted to a much larger extent in 
 parcels and bundles, and the biddings were apt to be 
 comparatively fewer. Another way of saying that the 
 early auction appealed less to private than to professional 
 buyers, and not merely in that, but in every aspect. The 
 same remark still applies to the dispersion of all miscel- 
 laneous collections of secondary importance, unless an 
 amateur chooses to compete for a dozen articles, which 
 he does not want, for the sake of one, which he does. 
 
 The steadily accumulating volume of literary pro- 
 duction in the seventeenth century inspired two suc- 
 cessive movements, which we regard to-day as peremptory 
 necessities and matters of course, but which, so long as 
 books were scarcer, and the demand for them corres- 
 pondingly restricted, failed to strike any one as likely 
 to prove popular and advantageous. These movements 
 were the second-hand department and the auction- 
 
BOOK-COXLECTING 315 
 
 room. It is a sufficiently familiar fact that during the 
 reign of Charles II. both sprang into existence, although 
 among the Hollanders the usage of putting up books to 
 public competition had commenced three-quarters of a 
 century prior; but in 1661 there do not appear to 
 have been any facilities for disposing of libraries or col- 
 lections, as in that year John Ogilby, the historian, 
 arranged to sell his books— the remainder of his own 
 publications — through the medium of a lottery. It was 
 within a very brief interval, however, that the sale by 
 auction is shown to have become an accomplished fact. 
 The earliest of which an actual catalogue has come down 
 to us is that of Dr. Lazarus Seaman, sold by Cooper 
 in 1676 ; but there were in all probability anterior ex- 
 periments, and side by side with the auctioneer grew 
 up the professional ancestor of the Thorpes and the 
 Rodds — the men who supplied Burton, Drummond, 
 Evelyn, Pepys, Selden, and many more, with the 
 rarities which are yet associated with their names. 
 The system of selling under the hammer in its various 
 stages of development and different ramifications is not 
 an unimportant factor in our modern social and com- 
 mercial life; it did not require many years from its 
 introduction into the metropolis to recommend it to 
 the provinces and to Scotland ; and we possess catalogues 
 of libraries or properties dispersed in this manner at 
 Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, 
 and elsewhere in the last quarter of the last but one 
 
816 HISTORY OF 
 
 century; and in one case at least of this kind of pro- 
 perty being offered at a fair. 1 Occasionally, as in the 
 case of Secondary Smith, 1682, a precocious feeling for 
 the early English school reveals itself; but, for the 
 most part, the articles accentuated by the old-fashioned 
 auctioneer are foreign classics, history, and theology — 
 the literary wares, in fact, in vogue. Annexed to the 
 Memoirs of Thomas (or Tom) Brown, 1704, is a very 
 unusual feature — a catalogue of his library. 
 
 Within about five-and-twenty years of the supposed 
 starting-point of the auction, the modern practice of 
 the London auctioneer being engaged to conduct sales 
 in the country, even in important provincial towns, 
 seems to have fairly commenced, for in 1700 Edward 
 Millington of Little Britain sold at Cambridge the 
 library of Dr. Cornwall of Clapton in Northampton- 
 shire. In the preliminary matter attached to the cata- 
 logue, Millington remarks that " he always esteems it a 
 privilege to exercise his lungs amongst his friends. 11 
 
 A glimpse of the method of collecting by the Hon. 
 John North, one of the sons of Lord North of Kirt- 
 ling, and born in 1645, is afforded by his brother and 
 biographer, Roger North, who says that he gradually 
 accumulated, commencing about 1666, a large collection 
 of books, principally Greek, and generally bought them 
 himself, spending much time in company with his relation 
 
 1 The library of James Chamberlain, sold at Stourbridge Fair in 
 1686. 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 317 
 
 in booksellers' shops, and not objecting to possess dup- 
 licates, if other copies in better condition were found or 
 were presented to him by friends. Mr. North flourished 
 during the halcyon days of the classics. The literature 
 of his own country probably interested him little. North, 
 however, was so far a true book-lover, inasmuch as he 
 sought what pleased himself. 
 
 It affords a pleasanter impression of the pursuit when 
 one perceives individuals of all ranks and callings buying 
 themselves personally, either ,at the book-shop or the 
 saleroom, in the selection of their periodical acquisitions. 
 The marked copies of the older auction catalogues are 
 distinguished by the names of some of our most eminent 
 collectors, but at present gentlemen prefer to give their 
 commissions to their booksellers from want of leisure or 
 other motives. -. 
 
 I have alluded to the sale by auction of Dr. Seaman's 
 library in 1676, which took place at his house in War- 
 wick Court, Warwick Lane. The address to the reader, 
 presumably by Cooper, commences : — 
 
 " It hath not been usual here in England to make sale of Books 
 by way of Auction, or who will give most for them : But it having 
 been practised in other Countreys to the Advantage both of Buyers 
 and Sellers ; It was therefore conceived (for the Encouragement of 
 Learning) to publish the Sale of these Books this manner of way.'' 
 The Catalogue is not divided into days, but the fifth condition says, 
 "That the Auction will begin the 31st of October, punctually at 
 Nine of the Clock in the Morning, and Two in the afternoon, and 
 this to continue daily until all the Books be Sold ; Wherefore it is 
 desired, that the Gentlemen, or those deputed by them, may be 
 
818 HISTORY OF 
 
 there precisely the Hours appointed, lest they should miss the 
 opportunity of Buying those .Books, which either themselves or 
 their Friends desire.'' 
 
 In 1682 Thomas Parkhurst, in offering for sale the 
 libraries of several eminent men, announces that the 
 catalogues might be had gratis at the Bible on London 
 Bridge (his place of business as a bookseller), and he 
 takes occasion to introduce (perhaps for the first time) 
 that courageous form of statement so popular to this 
 day among the fraternity as to the collection being the 
 finest ever sold or to be sold, and the opportunity by 
 consequence being one which would never probably recur. 
 
 But the present writer does not enter minutely into 
 this branch of the subject, which Mr. Lawler has made 
 his own. 
 
 It has always been, and must always remain, a 
 mystery whence the Harleian exemplars of a large 
 number of unique or almost unique volumes belong- 
 ing to the early vernacular literature of Great Britain 
 were obtained. In some cases they are traceable to 
 anterior owners and catalogues; but a considerable re- 
 sidue first come to the front here, and the explanation 
 seems to be that the practice of registering unregarded 
 trifles, as they were then deemed to be, in large parcels 
 was necessarily fatal to individuality and to the survival 
 of clues. To a certain extent the same disappointment 
 awaits us in more recent days, till, in fact, the demand 
 for old poetry, romances, and plays made the few extant 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 819 
 
 copies objects of interest to the trade sufficient to entitle 
 them to prominence in their lists and in those published 
 by the auctioneers. It may have been the catalogue of 
 Joseph Ames, 1760, which was among the earliest to 
 raise such items to the dignity of separate lots, thought 
 by the purchasers at the time worth a shilling or two ; 
 but the noted sale of Mr. West in 1773 is entitled to 
 rank as the foremost in those days, where the books and 
 tracts, long since discovered to be represented by one 
 or two accidental survivors, and grown dearer than gold 
 a hundredfold, began to draw figures indicative of in- 
 creased curiosity and appreciation. 
 
 The most eminent of the earlier race of auctioneers 
 in London, who confined their attention to properties 
 belonging to the fine arts, were William Cooper, a man 
 of considerable literary taste and culture, whom we have 
 seen disposing of Dr. Seaman's books in 1676; Edward 
 Millington, Robert Scott, and John Dunton, of whom 
 we know more than of his predecessors and contempo- 
 raries through his publications, and especially his Life and 
 Errors. Commercial rivalry and jealousy arose among 
 the members of the fraternity before the institution had 
 grown at all old, and complaints were also made against 
 gentlemen-bidders. In the preface to the catalogue of a 
 French library, where he takes occasion to animadvert 
 severely on his contemporary and confrere Scott, Mil- 
 lington refers to the third condition of sale, requiring 
 all buyers to give in their place of abode, " to prevent 
 
320 HISTORY 01 
 
 the inconveniences that have more or less hitherto 
 attended the Undertakers, and also the Purchasers, by 
 reason that several persons, out of Vanity and Ostenta- 
 tion, have appeared and bought, to the damage and 
 disappointment of the Parties they outbid, and have 
 not been so kind to their own Reputation, or just to 
 the Proprietors, as to pay for and fetch them away." 
 This was in 1687. 
 
 It seems to have been a considerable time after the 
 first institution of the auction before a fixed place of 
 business was appointed for the sale of literary and artistic 
 properties consigned to a particular party for realisation. 
 We find taverns and coffee-houses much in request for this 
 purpose during the former half of the last century. 
 The library of printed books and MSS. belonging to 
 Thomas Britton, " small-coal man," were sold about 
 1720 at Tom's Coffee-House, and about the same date 
 portions of Thomas Rawlinson's stupendous collections, 
 of which the_ dispersion extended over a dozen years, 
 came to the hammer at the Paul's Head Tavern in 
 Carter Lane. 
 
 It is improbable that any early auction catalogue of 
 consequence has disappeared, and looking at those which 
 we have, say, from the outset to 1700, we at once per- 
 ceive the comparatively limited business transacted in 
 this direction during a lengthened term of years, and the 
 numerous instances where a not very considerable cata- 
 logue embraces three or four properties. Collections 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 321 
 
 were, as a rule, made on a smaller scale prior to the 
 Harley epoch. 
 
 The practice of publishing booksellers' and auctioneers' 
 catalogues, rudimentary as it was at the outset, succeeded 
 by the more systematic descriptive accounts of public and 
 private collections, gradually extended the knowledge of 
 the surviving volumes of early literature, and laid the 
 foundation, of a National Bibliography. We shall pro- 
 bably never fully learn our amount of obliged indebted- 
 ness to Richard Heber, who in his own person, from 
 about 1800 to 1833, consolidated and concentrated an 
 immense preponderance of the acquisitions of anterior 
 collectors, and with them gained innumerable treasures, 
 which came to him through other channels. His mar- 
 vellous catalogue must have proved a revelation at the 
 time, and to-day it is a work of reference at once in- 
 structive and agreeable. 
 
 What must strike any one who has attentively con- 
 sidered the Heber library, even if it is not a case of 
 having had the catalogue at his elbow, as I have, in a 
 manner, all his life, is the presence there of so large a 
 number of items of which no trace occurs in earlier lists, 
 and of which no duplicates have since presented them- 
 selves. It is perfectly marvellous how Heber accumulated 
 the vast bibliographical treasures brought to light, and 
 of which his catalogue is the- record achievement; he 
 must have been not only indefatigable in his own person, 
 but must have furnished encouragement to many others, 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 who met with rare books, to afford him the first re- 
 fusal. 
 
 On the other hand, hundreds of early English books 
 and tracts which this indefatigable and munificent of col- 
 lectors never succeeded in obtaining, items and authors 
 whose titles and names were hitherto utterly unknown, 
 have within the last two generations come piecemeal 
 into the market, to delight alike, yet in a different way, 
 the bibliographer and the amateur. The accidental and 
 almost miraculous survival of literary relics of past 
 ages is curious on account of the purely casual manner 
 in which they present themselves from season to season, 
 as well as from the strange hands in which many of 
 them are found — often persons of obscure character and 
 in humble life, who have one, two, or half-a-dozen books 
 of which all had somehow eluded the researches of every 
 collector. Cases are known in which a single article 
 has come to light in this manner, a unique publication 
 of the Plantagenet or Tudor era, maybe in sorry state, 
 maybe just as it left the press two or three centuries 
 ago, but anyhow a monument and a revelation. 
 
 The almost exclusive sources of intelligence on these 
 questions are the correspondence of the period, a portion 
 of which is printed in the volumes of 1813 devoted to 
 Aubrey's Collections, and another in Nichol's Anecdotes. 
 There we perceive that Lord Oxford was indebted for 
 many rarities to John Bagford and other private pur- 
 veyors of printed books as well as MSS. In a letter of 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 1731 to Hearne, his Lordship mentions his impression that 
 he had forty-two Caxtons at that date. He seems to have 
 possessed seventy-three examples of Wynkyn de Worde; 1 
 
 With respect to some of the college libraries at 
 Oxford, Cambridge, and even Dublin, it is easier to 
 arrive at the facts, so far as they go, or, in other words, 
 many of the rare and important acquisitions of those 
 institutions came to them at a period anterior to what 
 may be termed the bibliographical era, and were often 
 contemporary gifts from th§ authors of the volumes or 
 from early owners of them. 
 
 The value of the auction became manifest at a com- 
 paratively early date, when a clear demand for certain 
 descriptions of literary property had set in, particularly 
 when the formation of the Harleian library was in pro- 
 gress. In 1757 the representatives of Sir Julius Caesar, 
 Master of the Rolls under James I., proposed to sell his 
 MSS., and eventually negotiated with a cheesemonger, 
 who offered i?10 for the collection as waste paper. 
 Paterson, the auctioneer, fortunately heard of the affair, 
 dissuaded the family from it, and prepared a careful 
 catalogue of the articles, by which he realised to the 
 owners £356. Take another case. In 1856 the Wol- 
 frestons decided on parting with a lot of Old books and 
 pamphlets which an ancestor had collected under the 
 Stuarts, or even earlier, and would, as one of them 
 
 1 See Catalogue, of Early English Miscellanies formerly in the Harleian. 
 Library, by William Hazlitt, 1862. 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 informed us, have gladly accepted i?30 for the whole. 
 But they were sent to Sotheby's, and realised ,£750. 
 
 On the other hand, instances are by no means un- 
 known, in spite of what the auctioneers may assert, where 
 it has suited a bookseller to give for a library or a parcel 
 of books a sum at all events sufficient to tempt the 
 owner, who has always before his eyes, in the case of a 
 sale under the hammer, a variety of risks and draw- 
 backs, which an immediate cheque, even for a lower 
 amount, at once removes. 
 
 After all, the book -lover must, as a rule, be satisfied 
 with the pleasure attendant on temporary possession. 
 
 Of the houses which lend themselves in our own day, 
 and have done so during the last hundred or hundred 
 and fifty years, to the incessant redistribution of literary 
 acquisitions, and have gradually reduced an originally * 
 rather rudimentary principle to a sort of fine art, so 
 much has been written by a succession of gentlemen 
 interested in- these specialities that we could hardly 
 add much that was new, or treat this aspect of the 
 topic without repeating others or ourselves. 
 
 A point which merits a passing mention, however, 
 is the history of the bidding at these scenes of competi- 
 tion. It has been remarked as a singular circumstance 
 that in the seventeenth century penny biddings were 
 usual ; but it was the silver penny of those days, and 
 we have to remember the higher purchasing value of 
 money. Twopenny and threepenny advances succeeded, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 and although these have long ceased in London, they 
 yet survive in the provinces, where the lots are less 
 important. Some of the principal houses now decline 
 even sixpence, a shilling being the minimvum offer enter- 
 tained. The twopenny bidding still prevailed in 1731, 
 as a print copy of the sale catalogue of Robert Gray, 
 M.D., 1 shows. An offer of threepence is still not unknown 
 in the provinces, as we have intimated above in our 
 notice of an v episode in Lincolnshire— -not the Spalding 
 one, but a second about the same point of time. 
 
 One of the not least interesting and curious aspects 
 of the auction system is the diversity of motives inducing 
 owners to part with their property. A study of the 
 title-pages or covers of catalogues admits us ostensibly 
 to the confidence of this or that collector. We should 
 not otherwise become aware that some fairly obscure 
 gentleman or lady was leaving bis or her actual abode, 
 that Balbus was changing the character of his library, 
 that his friend so-and-so, owing to a failure of health, 
 had found it necessary to settle in a more genial climate, 
 gr that "a well-known amateur,' 1 of whom we never 
 heard before, was selling his duplicates. What does it 
 signify? Literary acquisitions, in common with every- 
 thing else, are constantly passing from one hand to 
 another. Of course, if the last proprietor is deceased, 
 if it is an executor's affair, it is just as well to mention 
 
 1 See besides, HasMtt Memoirs, 1896, chaps, vii, viii, ix; and 
 Hazlitt's Confessions of a Collector, 1897, p. 150 et seq. 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 the fact, as it places the operation on a clearer footing, 
 and there is little, if any, suspicion of nursing ; but with 
 ordinary lots of books, where the party or parties in- 
 terested may be living, it seems preferable to describe 
 the objects of competition purely and simply as so many 
 items for sale. The reason for the step is immaterial, 
 more especially as there is a proneness to receive the one 
 tendered, if not with indifference, with incredulity. 
 
 A singular entry in one of the sale catalogues of 
 Edward Jeffery, of Warwick Street, Golden Square, 
 under 1788, is a property described as "the Immgimg 
 book of a gentleman," in the near vicinity of which we 
 come across " the Parliamentary and constitutional library 
 of a man of fashion.'" 
 
 Of course, where a famous or capital assemblage of 
 literary treasures is for sale, it is quite proper and 
 expedient on every account to connect with it the name 
 on which it confers, and which may even confer on it, 
 distinction. But it is different when Mr. Jones is chang- 
 ing his lines, or Mr. Brown is removing into the country 
 or out of it, or the executors of the late Mr. Robinson 
 have given instructions for the submission of his effects 
 to the hammer. Qu'wiporte ? Who cares ? 
 
 The composition of an average auction-room, where 
 the property is miscellaneous, is a curious and not un- 
 edifying study. One beholds a large, closely-packed 
 room, where the atmosphere is not too salubrious, and 
 yet the names which the auctioneer proclaims as those 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 327 
 
 of the buyers are not numerous, are not even in all 
 cases the names of persons present. The reason is that 
 booksellers or their representatives often attend sales for 
 the sake of watching the market or of noting the prices, 
 and are on the spot when a lot occurs which suits them, 
 or for which they have a commission. It is not perhaps 
 too much to say that if the company should be reduced 
 by 75 per cent, the quotations would remain unaltered, 
 for a certain proportion are dummies beyond a moderate 
 figure, and a certain proportion never open their mouths. 
 The latter are spectators, or proprietors, or individuals 
 whose biddings are given from the rostrum by proxy. 
 An experienced dealer will probably guess for whom the 
 salesman or his clerk is acting, and will be guided by 
 such a hint in his own course of proceeding. 
 
 Where the goods on sale are of a prevailingly low 
 standard, the scene varies in compliance with the cir- 
 cumstances, and the purchasers' names in the priced 
 catalogue are almost without exception the names of 
 booksellers, who make their account by going in for 
 heavy lots and rough stuff — an excellent vocation thirty 
 years ago, but now a fairly forlorn hope and quest. 
 The bargain is no longer to the man who can buy for 
 a shilling and sell for a pound, but to him who has 
 the courage and means to buy for fifty pounds what he 
 can sell for five times fifty by virtue of his knowledge 
 and connection. 
 
 To watch carefully and studiously a big sale such as 
 
328 HISTORY OF 
 
 that of the Ashburnham library, of which two out of 
 three portions are now scattered, is a bibliographical, if 
 not a commercial, education in little. We attended in 
 person throughout, and observed with interest and profit 
 the curious working, unappreciable to those not practically 
 versed in books, and acquainted with the result only 
 through paragraphs in the newspapers. A spectator 
 with some preparatory training could see how and why 
 certain lots fetched such and such abnormal figures ; and 
 a leading agency in this direction was the unfortunate 
 employment — unfortunate for himself, not for the owner 
 or the auctioneer — by a leading buyer of an agent who 
 had to win his purchases from men stronger than him- 
 self. Thus the Caxton's Jason, instead of bringing 
 perhaps i?1000, ran up to more than twice that sum, 
 while, if it was re-sold under different conditions, it might 
 not even reach the lower amount. Still more striking 
 were the offers for such things as the first English edition 
 of More's Utopia (£51), a volume which has repeatedly 
 sold for a couple of guineas; while, on the other hand, 
 a handsomely bound copy of Bourrienne's Memovres in 
 ten volumes went for lis., and other ordinary works in 
 proportion. 
 
 The names in the booksellers' ledgers and in the 
 auctioneers' catalogues as buyers of old or scarce literature 
 are not by any means necessarily always the names of 
 collectors. They are often those of middlemen, through 
 whose hands a volume passes before it reaches its ultimate 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 329 
 
 destination — passes in many cases from one of these 
 channels to another. This is, of course, another mode 
 of saying that the number of actual book-holders on their 
 own permanent account is comparatively limited, and so 
 it is. A call on the part of two or three persons for a 
 particular class of work or subject immediately puts the 
 whole trade on its mettle; everything directly or in- 
 directly connected with the new topic is bought up or 
 competed for with extraordinary and abrupt eagerness; 
 the entire fraternity is bent on supplying the latest 
 demand; and prices rise with proportionate rapidity to 
 an extravagant height. The market consists of a couple 
 or trio of individuals, who might be insensible to the 
 excitement which they have occasioned if it were not for 
 the offers from all sides which pour in upon them from 
 day to day ; and in a season or so it is all over ; quota- 
 tions are as before; and the running is on something 
 different. Books of Emblems, Catholic Literature, 
 Gardening and Agriculture, Occult Sciences, Early 
 Poetry, Old Plays, Americana, Bewick, Cruikshank, the 
 modern novelists, have all had their day. But the cry 
 and the want are largely artificial. The customers are 
 few ; the caterers are many. Such a criticism applies 
 only to the rarer and costlier desiderata. 
 
 The characteristics and frequent surprises of auction 
 figures largely proceed from the pressure brought to bear 
 from without by bidders who are in the background, 
 who often possess slight "bibliographical knowledge, and 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 whose resources enable thern to furnish their representa- 
 tives with generous instructions. These competitors are 
 usually restripted to prominent sales, where the capital 
 items are numerous, and the name of the proprietor is 
 that of a departed celebrity, or at all events, where 
 certain copies, whether of manuscripts or printed books, 
 are submitted to public competition after a lengthened 
 period of detention in the hands of the late holder. The 
 Ashburnham sale (now completed) afforded abundant 
 proof of the influence on the market of a collector who 
 began to form his library before many of us were born, 
 and who succeeded not only in securing many treasures 
 •at present almost beyond reach, but in doing so at fairly 
 moderate prices. But even when the late Lord Ashburn- 
 ham went to what was in his time considered an extreme 
 figure, he or his estate generally gained. For example, 
 his Parzival and Titurell, 1477, which cost Mr. Quaritch 
 i?30, and was sold to his Lordship for £4*5 or less (Lord 
 Ashburnham did not object to a discount), was reacquired 
 by the former for £S\, and the set of Walton's Angler, 
 which is understood to have cost £%00, realised four 
 times that amount. 
 
 The auction mart, where literary property of all kinds 
 changes hands, possesses its slang vocabulary, and knows 
 alike the Frost and the Boom — not to mention the Fluke. 
 In the notices which occur in the press the public sees 
 only one side, only the high quotations. The public are 
 of course, as a rule, destitute of bibliographical know- 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 331 
 
 ledge, and so is the normal journalist. He marches into 
 the room after some sale, asks for the priced catalogue, 
 scans the pages, and makes notes of the highest figures, 
 which are as often as not misprinted by him in the organ 
 by which he is employed. He does not say that a lot 
 which was worth £3,0 went for £%, or that one which 
 would usually fetch £2 brought £20 by reason of some 
 mentioned technicality, because he does not know. A 
 man who has devoted his life to the study of books and 
 prices is aware that there are occasions when very 
 ordinary property realises silly prices, and that there are 
 others when the rarest and most valuable articles are 
 given away. Sometimes, again, the company is not 
 vmammaus enough, and a sovereign's worth may go for 
 more than a sovereign, or, if there is perfect friendship 
 among those present, a first folio Shakespeare may drop 
 at a dozen pounds ; but then there is, you know, the court 
 qf appeal, which reassesses the amount to be finally paid. 
 Not invariably. We have our very selves not so long 
 since, on a hot Saturday afternoon, sat at the auctioneer's 
 table, and made nearly a clean sweep of a library of old 
 English plays, where the maximum bid was eighteen 
 pence, and there was a buzz through the room when one, 
 no better than the rest, was accidentally carried to 14s. 
 
 But to the artificial inflation of prices in our sale- 
 rooms there is more than one side and one key. There 
 was not so long since an instance at Christie's, and a 
 second at Sotheby's, where the high quotations were 
 
HISTORY OF 
 
 entirely due to the competition of a so-called interloper, 
 who bade, as he thought, on the judgment of the room, 
 and was signally handicapped. Again, something has 
 ere now been carried to a prodigious figure owing to an 
 unlimited commission inadvertently given to two agents. 
 The old Duke of Wellington once gave ,£105 in this way 
 for a shilling pamphlet, and even then the bidding was 
 only stopped by arrangement. However, of all the 
 miraculous surprises, the most signal on record was 
 one of the most recent — the Frere sale at Sotheby's in 
 1896, already alluded to, where the prices realised for 
 books in very secondary preservation set all records and 
 precedents at thorough defiance. The phenomenon, if it 
 could be referred to any cause, arose from the peculiar 
 atmosphere and surroundings; it was a bond fide old 
 library, formed partly by the Freres of Roydon Hall, 
 Norfolk, and partly by their relative Sir John Fenn, 
 editor of the Paston Letters, and a rather noted antiquary 
 of the last century. It was all straight and fair, so 
 far as one could see; there was no "rigging," and the 
 competition was simply insane. A portion of the Paston 
 Correspondence struck us as cheap by comparison at 
 £400; it was that which was offered at Christie's some 
 time since, and bought in at about the same figure. 
 
 There were one or two singular errors in the catalogue. 
 An Elizabethan edition of Sir John Mandeville's Travels 
 was ascribed to 1503 and the press of Wynkyn de Worde, 
 and the Tylney Psalter, belonging to the fifteenth century, 
 
BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 was stated in a note by a former possessor to be of the 
 age of Richard Coeur de Lion. One of the most un- 
 accountable blunders in an auctioneer's catalogue which 
 we can call to mind was the description of a Sarum 
 service book as a grammatical treatise. But solecisms 
 of various kinds are periodical. A German book is said 
 to be printed at Gedruckt, and a copy of Sir John 
 Mandeville in Italian is entered as Questo, that being its 
 compiler's frugal method of giving the tjtle (Questo e il 
 
 Kbro). 
 
 * 
 
 One striking feature in the Frere sale was that it was 
 only a part of the library, and that not the part which 
 the auctioneers' representative saw at Roydon. Some 
 further instalments occurred at another saleroom a few 
 months later; and perhaps there is yet more to come. 
 But in a bibliographical respect the dispersion proved of 
 interest, as many of the items, formerly Sir John Fenn's, 
 had remained imperfectly known and described ; and it 
 was not absolutely certain that they survived. 
 
 An element in the modern auctions which is patent 
 to all fairly conversant with such mysteria, and has 
 become one not less indispensable than normal, is what 
 is commonly known as the Rig. A Rig is a sale which 
 departs or declines from the strict line of bona fides so far 
 as not to be precisely what the forefront of the catalogue 
 avouches it, and by one or two houses it is discoun- 
 tenanced. Nevertheless it exists, and will continue from 
 the nature of things to do so ; and we observe in the very 
 
334 HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING 
 
 opening decade of auctions, in the very infancy of the 
 system, a trace or germ of this commencing impurity or 
 abuse. For some of the catalogues, so far back as 1678, 
 purport to register within their covers the libraries of 
 certain noblemen or gentleman " and others " {aMorwrhque, 
 in the Latin diction then so much in favour), and so it 
 has been ever since. When we go to the rooms and lift 
 up our voices, we do not always know whose property we 
 are trying to secure ; nor, if our own judgment is worth 
 anything, does it greatly signify. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES 
 
 P. 5. Of the public collections in England, those of Humphrey, Duke 
 of Gloucester, at Oxford, of which very little remains, and of Sir 
 John Gyllarde, Prior of the Calendaries' Gild in Bristol (founded 
 before 1451), appear to be the pioneers. For the latter the Bishop of 
 Worcester is said to have provided, in 1464, a receptacle or building ; 
 but the collection was destroyed by fire in 1466. 
 
 P. 5. Illuminated MSS. — A great store of information is capable of 
 being collected on the subject of the embellishing and finishing 
 processes which MSS. underwent when the scribe had done his 
 part. Among the Paston Letters occurs a bill from Thomas (the) 
 Limner of Bury St. Edmunds to Sir John Howard, afterward Duke 
 of Norfolk, in 1467, for illuminating several books, and we have also 
 one of Antoine Verard of Paris, " Enlumineur du Roy," in 1493 for 
 similar work executed for the Comte d'Angoule^rie' by artists in the 
 printer's employment. 
 
 P. 7. Circulating Libraries.— -There was a library of this class at 
 Dunfermline in 1711 and at Edinburgh in 1725. When Benjamin 
 Franklin came to London, there was nothing of the. kind. A book- 
 seller named Wright established one about 1740, and it was kept up 
 by his successors, Sion College was limited in its lending range to 
 the London clergy. 
 
 P. 9. Add the Le Stranges of Hunstanton to the East Anglian 
 
 collectors. 
 
 P. 9. Kent as a Hunting-ground for Boohs in Old Days.— Flockton 
 of Canterbury it was who once sold Marlowe's Dido, 1594, for 2s. He 
 was a contemporary of William Hutton, the Birmingham bookseller. 
 This may have been the very copy which formerly belonged to 
 Henry Oxinden of Barham, near Canterbury, and passed in succession 
 into the hands of Isaac Reed, George Steevens, the Duke of Rox- 
 burgh^ Sir Egerton Brydges, and Mr. Hener. The price charged by 
 Flockton, however, was fairly extravagant in comparison with that 
 given by John Henderson, the actor, for the copy which subsequently 
 
386 NOTES 
 
 belonged to J. P. Kemble and the Duke of Devonshire — fourpence — 
 probably the original published price. 
 
 P. 10. Bristol Houses. — Add Strong/. Strong's catalogues for 1827- 
 1828 are now before me, and describe 10,000 items. No sucli stock has 
 been kept at Bristol since. Jefferies had in former days some very 
 remarkable books on sale — Caxtons included ; and Kerslake and 
 George could shew you volumes worth your notice and money, who- 
 ever you might be. Now, alas I you have to leave the city as empty 
 as you entered it. 
 
 P. 18. Loss of Old Books. — The fate of a heavy percentage of our 
 earlier books — of the earlier books of every people — is curiously and 
 mournfully readable in the*illiterate bucolic scrawls, doing duty for 
 autographs and inscriptions, which tell, only too plainly, how such 
 property slowly but surely passed out of sight and existence. 
 
 P. 19. Old Libraries. — Add Fraser of Lovat, Boswell of Auchinleck, 
 and Fountaine of Narford. 
 
 P. 25. Rolls of Book-Collectors. — Rather say 5000 names. 
 
 P. 29. Spoliation ofLibraries. — A precious volume of early English 
 tracts was not very long since offered at an auction, which had been 
 stolen from Peterborough Cathedral, and another, which constituted 
 one of the chief treasures of Sion College. 
 
 P. 32. The bulk of the books of Mr. Samuel Sandars were left to 
 the University Library, Cambridge, which has since acquired those 
 of the late Lord Acton. 
 
 P. 33. Lincoln. Cathedral Library. — Besides the Honeywood books 
 sold to Dibdin, the Dean and Chapter- have suffered others to stray 
 from their homes. A notice is before me of one, a large folio on 
 vellum, containing tracts of a theological complexion, chiefly by an 
 Oxford doctor, Robert of Leicester, which was presented, as a coeval 
 inscription apprises ns, by Thomas Driffield, formerly Chancellor of 
 the Diocese, in 1422 to the new library of the cathedral. 
 
 P. 34. Provincial Libraries. — Of the books at Bamborough Castle, 
 a catalogue was printed at Durham in 1799. Some of the books at 
 York Minster appear to have been gifts from Archbishop Mathews. 
 At Colchester they are fortunate in possessing the library of Arch- 
 bishop Harsnet. 
 
 P. 35. Marlowe's Edward II., 1594. — Possibly obtained by the 
 Landgraf of Hesse during his visit to London in 1611. This is men- 
 tioned by me in my Shakespear Monograph, 1903. 
 
 P. 37. Private Libraries. — In the case of private collections, we 
 have to distinguish between those of an ancestral character, insensibly 
 accumulated from generation to generation without any fixed or 
 
NOTES 387 
 
 preconcerted plan, and such as have been formed by or for wealthy 
 individuals in the course of a single life, if not of a few years, on some 
 general principle, with or without an eye to cost. Under either of 
 these conditions the motive is usually personal, and the ultimate transfer 
 in some instances to a public institution an accident or afterthought. 
 
 P. 38. Harleian Library. — The taste of the Harley family for books 
 dated from the time of Charles I. Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton 
 Castle, is credited with the possession of " an extraordinary library 
 of manuscript and piinted books, which had been collected from one 
 descent to another." The house was besieged and burned in 1643, 
 and these literary and bibliographical treasures probably peiished 
 with it. But his grandson, the first Earl of Oxford, restored the 
 library ; and we all know that the second earl, who survived till 1741, 
 elevated it to the rank of the first private collection in England, 
 while he unconsciously sacrificed it to the incidence of a languid and 
 falling market. 
 
 P. 42. Mr. William Henry Miller of Craigentinny was originally a 
 solicitor in Edinburgh. 
 
 P. 65. Books of Emblems. — Besides those described is the trans- 
 lation executed by Thomas Combe, and licensed in 1593, of the 
 Thiatre des Bans Engins of Guillaume de la Perriere, of which no 
 perfect copy of any edition had been seen till the writer met with 
 one of 1614 among the Burton-Constable books. 
 
 P. 103. Books Appreciable on Special Grounds. — Among these are 
 — Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 1769, and White's Selborne, 1785. 
 Everybody is aware that there are better works on Scotland than 
 Pennant's, and better accounts of birds, those of Selborne included, 
 than White's. But we desire the two heirlooms, as their authors left 
 them, pure and simple. We prefer not to have to disentangle the two 
 pieces of eighteenth century workmanship from the editorial and 
 artistic improvements which have overlaid them. A much-edited 
 writer becomes a partner in a limited company without a vote. His 
 pages are converted by degrees into an arena where others commend 
 him above his deserts, or what might have been his wishes, while 
 here and there he finds a commentator, whose aim is to convince you 
 how superior a job he would have made of it had it been left to him. 
 
 P. 109. Translations. — It is remarkable that Aulus Gellius makes 
 the same complaint as is embodied in the text, about the lame 
 versions of Latin writers from the Greek. 
 
 P. 117. Howell's New Sonnets and Pretty Pamphlets. — The Huth 
 fragment seems as if it would complete the unique, but imperfect, 
 Capell copy. 
 
 Y 
 
388 NOTES 
 
 P. 119. A Hundred Merry Tales. — Besides the Huth mutilated 
 copy and the Gottingen complete one (of 1526) there is a fragment at 
 the Birthplace Museum, Stratford. I saw it there, but did not note 
 to what impression it belonged. 
 
 P. 122. Four Sons of Aymon, 1504. — A fine copy is offered at 15s. 
 in a catalogue about 1760. Of the Famous history of the vertuous 
 and godly woman Judith, 1565, all that is so far discoverable is that 
 it is a translation in English metre by Edward Jenynges. A title- 
 page, preserved among Ames's collections at the British Museum, is 
 copied by me in Bill. Coll., 1903, pp. 210-11. 
 
 P. 125. Destruction of Books. — Untold numbers of volumes have 
 also been sacrificed to the accumulation of material on special lines. 
 Tons of the Annual Register, Gentleman's Magazine, Notes and 
 Queries, and the like, have been lost, if it be a loss, in this way. A 
 few pages, maybe, are all that survive of a book, and when the 
 library of the specialist is sold, the rest shares the same fate at the 
 hands of an unsympathetic purchaser. 
 
 P. 126. Unique copies. — The play of Orestes, 1567, came to light at 
 Plymouth about forty years ago with an equally unique issue of one 
 of Drayton's pieces. Of such things the present writer has met in 
 the course of a lengthened career with treasures which would make a 
 small library, and has beheld no duplicates. 
 
 P. 128. Fragments. — The Fragment has within the last twenty or 
 thirty years come into surprising evidence, and in my latest instalment 
 of Bibliographical Notes, 1903, 1 have been enabled to supply numerous 
 deficiencies in existing records even of modern date from a variety of 
 sources not ostensibly connected with Bagford, Fenn, or any other 
 culprit of this type, shewing that the process of disappearance was in 
 universal operation, and that mere chance arrested it here and there 
 just in the nick of time. 
 
 P. 128. Capital Books. — It is perhaps not unfair to add that although 
 Milton's Poems, 1645, is not a rare book, it is eminently so in an irre- 
 proachable state, to say nothing of such a copy as the Bodleian one 
 presented by the poet himself, which one of the earlier officials, a Dr. 
 Hudson, thought might be thrown away without detriment to the 
 library. 
 
 P. 171. Early Prices of Binding. — The books or pamphlets issued 
 atone penny, that is, a silver penny of the day, were usually stitched 
 or sewn. 
 
 The edition of the Book of Common Prayer, 1552, was sold, bound 
 in parchment, at 3s. 4d., and in leather, paper boards, or clasps, at 4s. 
 But in. the next impression, it being in contemplation to suppress 
 certain matter, the price was to be reduced in proportion. 
 
NOTES 839 
 
 P. 183. There has been recently added to Cohen's work a companion 
 one on the French illustrated literature of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Books like Bewick's Birds and Quadrupeds, and indeed all works 
 of the modern side in request, are best liked in the original boards 
 with labels inviolate. 
 
 P. 191. Cloister Life of Charles V. — The Keir illustrated copy was 
 long at Leighton's in Brewer Street, while the late Sir W. Stirling- 
 Maxwell was known as Mr. Stirling. 
 
 P. 198. Henry VIII., Prayers, 1544. — This exists in.later impressions 
 in English, and of the date 1S44 in Latin. 
 
 P. 200. Special Copies. — To the list given may be added the extra- 
 ordinary volume of tracts formerly in the possession of Edmund 
 Spenser and Gabriel Harvey, a MS. note in which throws an entirely 
 new light on the earlier life of Spenser, as first pointed out by me 
 after my purchase of the book at an auction, where its importance 
 was overlooked. 
 
 P. 205. Shakespear' s Copy of Florio's Montaigne, 1603. — In my 
 Monograph on Shakespear, 1903, I have adduced new evidence in 
 support of the authenticity of this and other signatures of the poet. 
 
 P. 206. Books with MSS. Notes. — There is yet another category of 
 remains among the older literature of all countries, and it is that, in 
 which an acknowledged judge or master of a subject, though himself 
 perhaps a person of no peculiar celebrity, has rendered a copy of some 
 book the medium for preserving for future use matter overlooked by 
 the author or editor or correcting serious errors, and the lapse of time 
 exercises its influence in the appreciation of such adversaria. A' 
 living scholar in ay be capable of going far beyond his predecessors in 
 enriching margins and flyleaves ; but there is the caveat that he is our 
 contemporary. The privilege of the grave appertains to the man who 
 laid down his pen ever so long ago. We may know much more than 
 Langbaine or Oldys about the drama, and than Johnson or Malone 
 about Shakespear ; yet, depend upon it, their notes are more wanted 
 than ours. 
 
 P. 208. Autographs in Books. — In his copy of Slatyer's Palcealbion, 
 1621, the poet Earl of Westmorland wrote on a flyleaf : " Solus Deus 
 Protector Meus. W N Ex dono Danielis Beswitchservimeifidelis, 1654." 
 Among his books Robespierre possessed a MS. Account of the 
 Glorious Achievements of Louis XIV. with illustrative drawings, and 
 did it the honour of attaching his autograph — an operation seldom so 
 harmless. 
 
 P. 218. Books on Velltan. — The Horce of the Virgin in the ancient 
 impressions on vellum are commoner than those on paper, though, as 
 
340 NOTES 
 
 the late Mr. Hutli quietly observed to me, the vellum copies may be 
 more desirable. 
 
 The material, on which the Gwynn and Methuen copy of Hehjas, 
 1512, was printed, was unusually coarse, and this criticism applies to 
 other early English books taken off on that substance. They are a 
 powerful contrast to the Italian productions of the same class. 
 
 P. 232. A good deal of information has gradually accumulated 
 respecting the Venetian school of binding ; but undoubted examples 
 of early date remain singularly scarce. See my Venetian Republic, 
 1900, ii. 663, 728. The older school of French binding resembled that 
 of the finer porcelain of ChantiUy and Sevres, where on a choice piece 
 of the Louis XV. period are found, side by side, the separate marks 
 of maker, painter, and gilder. 
 P. 244-5. English Binders. Add :— 
 
 Edmond Richardson of Scalding Alley. 
 
 Matthews. (Binder of the Hibbert, Wilkes, Gardner, and Huth 
 copy of Shakespear, 1623.) 
 
 Hayflay. (Worked for W. Pickering.) 
 
 Leighton. 
 
 J. & J. Leighton. (This firm still does business in Brewer 
 Street.) 
 
 Douglas Cockerell. 
 
 J. Larkins. 
 
 Miss Prideaux. 
 
 Sir Edward Sullivan. 
 B. Montague (1730-40), bookseller, publisher, and binder, had a 
 place of business in 1732 at the corner of Great Queen Street, Drury 
 Lane, and in 1740 in Great Wyld Street. He undertook to gild and 
 letter books at his customers' own houses. John Bancks of Sunning 
 was his journeyman. It was the late Mr. Huth who expressed to me 
 the opinion that Bedford's brown calf should have been left to acquire' 
 a natural tone. 
 
 P. 248. Books with Painted and Goffered Edges. — I have seen 
 volumes belonging to the first quarter of the sixteenth century with 
 the leaves goffered and ornamentally inscribed ; but the painted 
 edge, as we know it, was then already in existence in Italy, and the 
 most eminent artists did not disdain to execute this kind of em- 
 bellishment. One family at Belluno long possessed numerous 
 examples enriched by the hand of Cesare Vecellio. See my Venetian 
 Republic, 1900, ii. 728. The major part of a sale at Sotheby's a year 
 or so ago consisted of books treated on this principle by the owner ; 
 and the commercial result was not joyous. 
 
NOTES 341 
 
 P. 253. French and other Binders. Add : — 
 Brodel Aine et fils. 
 
 Bisiques. (Famous for his Turkey leather.) 
 Thouvenin. 
 
 L. Muller. (Thouvenin's successor.) 
 The house of Marius-Michel combined binding and gilding. Among 
 the Rothschild MSS., now in the British Museum, is a Boccaccio 
 bound by Thomas Berthelet before 1552 for the Protector Somerset. 
 It is in gilt calf with the motto : Foy povr Debvoir. 
 
 P. 263. The catalogue of the Early English Books in the British 
 Museum was mainly the work of Mr. Eccles, a late member of the 
 staff. A new, enlarged, and much improved edition by Mr. Pollard is 
 in progress, 
 
 P. 271. That fairly familiar term, Unique, has been very badly 
 entreated. A late eminent auctioneer, who was not shy of using 
 it, tried to bring into vogue the variant form, Uni Que. 
 
 P. 274. Huth Catalogue. — My copy is full of corrections, the text 
 abounding with errors, some of a very serious character. The late 
 Mr. F. S. Ellis was the responsible editor, and omitted at his discretion 
 much interesting matter. 
 
 P. 275. • Bibliographical Works of Reference. — One of the best is 
 Dickson and Edmond's Annals of Scotish Printing, 1890. The 
 Kylands Catalogue proved a fiasco. 
 
 P. 298. Of course the notification in the press of a signally high 
 price at an auction for a really important lot overwhelms the vendors 
 with inquiries and offers — offers of similar treasures, which are 
 extremely the reverse. 
 
 P. 307. Mr. Robert Hoe acquired the bulk or whole of Mr. Pope's 
 books after his death, including the Caxton Arthur, 1485, and this 
 gentleman continues to buy some of the most important items which 
 occur for sale in London. 
 
 After all said, much as we at home here in Britain need to be better 
 instructed in the art of Book-Collecting, our American cousins are still 
 farther from having completed their education in this way — a few 
 have not commenced it, I fancy. It is not generally realised in 
 England that the American collector of loftier range is a type entirely 
 distinct from the normal book-collector, whose limit is quickly 
 reached. Those who buy books in the United States are by no means 
 all Hoes and Morgans. 
 
 P. 311. Early Catalogues of old Plays. — I should have added the 
 so often quoted one annexed to the Old Law, 1656. 
 
 P. 314. Inch of Candle. — This practice survived down to modern 
 
342 NOTES 
 
 times both in France and England in the disposal or transfer of real 
 property. 
 
 P. 315. Lazarus Seaman. — This gentleman was a member of the 
 Assembly of Divines, and at one time chaplain to the Duke of 
 Northumberland. He held the living of All Hallows, Bread Street, 
 and became Master of Feterhouse, Cambridge. But he lost his clerical 
 preferment at the Restoration, and chiefly resided in his later days in 
 Warwick Lane, London, where he died in 1675. 
 
 P. 317. Book Auctions. — It is at present, I believe, at the discretion 
 of the auctioneer to postpone a sale, when the company is too small to 
 promise a satisfactory result, yet I have known one carried out when 
 not more than two influential bidders were present. In a catalogue 
 of 1681, however, there is a proviso that at least twenty gentlemen 
 must attend. 
 
 P. 323. It is a powerful exemplification of the contrast between old 
 times and ours, that Mr. Pierpont Morgan is credited with having 
 acquired forty Caxtons at one swoop. 
 
ERRATA 1 
 
 P. 5, 1. 8, for depends read depend. 
 
 P. 7, 1. 3, for Warm Well read Warmwell. 
 
 P. 9, 1. 8 from foot, for Oxendens read Oxindens. 
 
 P. 31 , 1. 8, read Dr. Williams's Library, Gordon Square. 
 
 P. 35, 1. 4 from foot, read The late Mr. Quaritch narrated. 
 
 P. 40, 1. 14, read the second Earl of Oxford. 
 
 P. 54, 1. 5 from foot, read such as the Dyce. 
 
 P. 54, 1. 6, read Auchinleck (Boswell). 
 
 P. 107, 1. 22, read St. John's (J. A.). 
 
 P. 107, 1. 26, read (Bayle) Montaigne the Essayist. 
 
 P. 114, 1. 4 from foot, read Maiden. 
 
 P. 120, 1. 3, read Oxinden. 
 
 P. 145, 1. 3, read eighteenth century. 
 
 P. 152, 1. 15, read which falls. 
 
 P. 155, 1. 3 from foot, read Makellar. 
 
 P. 156, 1. 2 from foot, read sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 P. 160, 1. 12, read Stevens. 
 
 P. 168, 1. 20, read twentieth century has well opened. 
 
 P. 180, bis, read Basiliologia. 
 
 P. 181, 1. 4 from foot, read we may place. 
 
 P. 210, 1. 14, read Dere. 
 
 P. 221, 1. 2 from foot, read Concubranus. 
 
 l Owing to circumstances for which neither the writer nor the printers are 
 responsible, some sheets were worked, before the corrections had been carried 
 out, 
 
 343 
 
344 ERRATA 
 
 P. 245, 1. 11, read Charles Lewis the younger. 
 
 P. 251, 1. 3, read genere. 
 
 P. 262, 1. 13, read 1867-1903. 
 
 P. 277, 1. 21, read Inglis copy. 
 
 P. 283, 1. 20, read last century. 
 
 P. 297, 1. 5, read the right one. 
 
 P. 300, 1. 3, read Watson, Barnfield. 
 
 P. 303, 1. 21, read descended a little. 
 
 P. 322, 1. 4 from foot, read Nichols's Anecdotes. 
 
 P. 323, last Hoe, read W. C. Hazlitt. 
 
 P. 325, L 6, read priced copy 1 . 
 
 P. 326, 1. 4, read to describe. 
 
 P. 326, 1. 12, read books of a gentleman. 
 
 P. 332, 1. 10 from foot, read eighteenth century. 
 
 P. 333, 1. 5 from foot, read bona fides. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acton, Lohd, 57-58 
 
 Adam Bel, 121 
 
 Addington, S., 45 
 
 Advice in the formation of a 
 
 catalogue, 277 
 in the formation of a library, 
 
 275-276 
 
 to collectors, 255-256, 282 
 
 Aldenham, Lord (H. H. Gibbs), 
 
 56-57, 58 
 Alexander de Villa Dei (Ville 
 
 Dieu), 217 
 Alleyn, Edward, 32 
 Althorp Library, 48 
 Amatenr binding, 249-250, 340 
 American laws, bibliography of, 
 
 279 
 
 libraries, 34, 36, 341 
 
 literature, 72-73 
 
 market, 13, 36, 70-72, 145, 
 
 151, 158-160, 213, 257, 304- 
 
 307 
 reprints of English books, 
 
 158 
 Amherst, Hon. Alicia, 25 
 Anathema against book-thieves, 
 
 30 
 Ancient bindings, 209-210 
 Anglo-American literature, 158 
 Anglo-French collectors, 27, 173, 
 
 192-194 
 Anne, Queen, 39 
 Arthur, Romance of, printed by 
 
 Caxton, 301, 305 
 
 Arundel Books and MSS., 4, 55 
 Ashburnham Library, 5, 47, 49-51 , 
 
 275, 328, 330 
 Ashburton, Lord, 27 
 Aubrey, John, 19 
 Auctions, 141-142, 310 et seqq., 5, 
 '■ 323, 342 
 
 catalogues of, 318, 332 
 
 provincial, 315 
 
 Aulus Gellius, 104, 337 
 Autographs in books, 195 et seqq. 
 
 French books, 210-211 
 
 Aymon, Four Sons of, 338 
 
 Bagford, John, 24, 122, 322 
 
 Baker, Thomas, 221 
 
 Ballads, 45, 78 
 
 Bam borough Castle, 336 
 
 Barclay's Ship of Fools, 232 
 
 Bargains, 20, 287 
 
 Barnard, Sir E., 38 
 
 Barretts of Lee, 9 
 
 Bay Psalm Book, 159 
 
 Bayle's Dictionary, 94 
 
 Beckford, W., 56, 208-209 
 
 Bedford Missal, 248 
 
 Bewick, W., 184 
 
 Bibles, 68-69, 199, 204, 223, 299- 
 
 . 301,304 
 
 Biblioclasts, 123-124 
 
 Bibliomania, 19-20 
 
 Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, 
 
 29, 38 
 Biddings, low, 324-325 
 
 345 
 
346 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Binding, 220 et seqq., 338, 340 
 Blanchardme and Eglantine, 35 
 Blenheim Palace library, 43 
 Blount's Jocular Tenures, 215 
 Bolingbroke, Lord, 205 
 Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, 57 
 Book of St. Albans, 303 
 Book-Clubs, 7, 257, 280 
 'Book-collecting centres (old), 33 
 Book-lovers, 15-17, 88, 94 
 Book-market (1810-1870), 46 
 Book -recipients, 90 
 Book trade, 293 
 Books of reference, 262-263 
 Books, which are books, 94-108 
 Bradshaw, Henry, 52, 158 
 Breton, Nicholas, 80, 149-151 
 Bridgewater library, 56, 58, 272 
 Bright, B. H., 5, 47 
 Bristol, 335 
 
 booksellers, 10, 336 
 
 British Museum, 4, 31, 42, 53, 121, 
 
 263, 270, 341 
 Britton, Thomas, 320 
 Britwell Library, 25-26, 41-43, 
 
 277 
 Brooke, Thomas, 203 
 Brown, Tom, 316 
 Brydges, Sir Egerton, 335 
 Bunburys of Bury, 9 
 Burneys, the, 208 
 Burns, R., 305 
 Bury, 8-9, 335 
 Bute, Earls and Marquises of, 56 
 
 Cmsajs,, Sir Julius, 323 
 Calendaries' Gild at Bristol, 335 
 Cambridge, 10-11, 30-33, 65, 77, 
 
 201, 275, 316, 336 
 Capell's Shakespearian^, 275 
 Capital books, 296, 338 
 Carew MSS., 5 
 Carleton, Sir Dudley, 151 
 
 Catalogues of libraries, 46, 57-58, 
 310 
 
 Caveat Emptor, 282 
 
 Cavendish, Henry, 57 
 
 Caxton, W., 21, 24, 77, 201, 232, 
 301, 328 
 
 Cervantes, 113 
 
 Chained books, 34 
 
 Chamberlain, John, 150 
 
 Changes of taste, 135, 139 
 
 Chap-books, 76 
 
 Characters, books of, 65 
 
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 
 printed by Caxton, 5, 301, 306 
 
 Cheap literature, 111 
 
 Chetham, Humphrey, 33, 205 
 
 Church libraries, 33 
 
 Circulating libraries, 6-7, 335 
 
 City Companies, 200, 204 
 
 Civil War tracts, 65 
 
 Classification of libraries, 59-91 
 
 Colchester, 336 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 15, 207 
 
 Collections, English, 54 
 
 Collectors of MSS., 4-5 
 
 Collier, John Payne, 41, 57, 270 
 
 Collins, William, 8 
 
 Colonial (North American) litera- 
 ture, 158-160 
 
 Combe, Thomas, 337 
 
 Commission system, 307-309 
 
 Concubranus, 221, 343 
 
 Continental libraries, 34 
 
 Cooper, William, 319 
 
 Copper-plates, 182 
 
 Copyright, 176 
 
 Correction of the press, 177 
 
 Corser, Rev. Thomas, 14, 47, 273 
 
 Cotton, Sir Robert, 4 
 
 Counterfeit bindings, 256 
 
 Crawford, Earl of, 274 
 
 Crichton, James, 68 
 
 Guisinier Francois, 22 
 
INDEX 
 
 347 
 
 Cunliffe, Henry, 47 
 Currer, Miss Richardson, 25, 
 47-48 
 
 Danby, Lord Treasurer, 205 
 
 Daniel, George, 20, 42, 45-47, 272 
 
 Samuel, 20, 28, 45-47 
 
 Davenant, Sir W., 215 
 
 Davies, Sir Thomas, 207 
 
 Day, Stephen, printer at Cam- 
 bridge (N.E.), 159 
 
 Dedications, 214-215 
 
 D'Eon, Chevalier, 21-24 
 
 Derings of Surrenden, 5 
 
 Destruction of books, 18, 125, 338 
 
 Devonshire, Duke of, 41, 57 
 
 Diane de Poitiers bindings, 231 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 7 
 
 Dilettanti, 82 
 
 Doran, Dr., 89 
 
 Dorat, 187-188 
 
 Drayton, Michael, 202, 205, 338 
 
 Driffield, Thomas, 336 
 
 Dryden, John, 201-202 
 
 Dulwich College, 32 
 
 Dunfermline, 335 
 
 Dunton, John, 7, 319 
 
 Durham and Winchester bind- 
 ings, 222 
 
 Dyce, Rev. A., 40, 54, 79 
 
 Earle, Mrs., 24 
 
 Earliest productions of the press, 
 
 18 
 Early English literature, 144 et 
 
 East Anglia, 9, 335-336 
 Edge-painting, 248 
 Edinburgh, 335 
 Edition de Luxe, 191 
 Edwards of Halifax, 244, 248 
 Elements of interest in books, 
 296 
 
 Elizabeth's (Queen) Prayer Book, 
 
 249 
 Elizabethan literature, 143 et 
 
 seqq. 
 Ellenbog, Udalric, 226 
 Elliott's Brewery at Pimlico, 42 
 Emblems, Books of, 64-65, 337 
 English and foreign presses, 67-68, 
 
 153 
 English binders, 201, 208, 220 
 
 et seqq., 242, et seqq., 340 
 
 books abroad, 35 
 
 collectors, 4-5,8-9, 11, 14-16, 
 
 54-58 
 
 lists of, 244, 246 
 
 presses, 153-154 
 
 series, 149 
 
 Enscheden collection at Haar- 
 lem, 35 
 Ephemeral schools of writers, 173 
 Esprit in binding, 228 
 Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of, 
 
 205 
 Evelyn, John, 9, 312, 315 
 Eves, the two, 251 
 
 Fanshawe, Sir R, 202 
 
 Farrer of Little Gidding, 247 
 
 Fenn, Sir John, 9, 123, 151, 295, 
 332 
 
 Fictitious imprints, 153-154 
 
 First editions, 174-176, 178 
 
 FitzGerald, Edward, 88 
 
 Flockton, bookseller at Canter- 
 bury, 335 
 
 Florio, John, 202, 205, 214, 339 
 
 Foljambe, Sir F., 202 
 
 Foreign liveries for English hooks, 
 249 
 
 presses for the same, 153 
 
 Forster, John, 54, 65 
 
 Fountaine Collection, 196, 336 
 
 Four Sons of Aymon, 122, 338 
 
348 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Fragments of books, 115-119, 122, 
 
 338 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 335 
 Franks, Sir Wollaston, 214 
 Fraser of Lovat, 336 
 Free libraries, 7, 161-163 
 French binders, 234, 236, 238,251, 
 
 et seqq., 341 
 
 list of, 252 
 
 books, 186-187, 192-194 
 
 collectors, 22, 192-194 
 
 taste in collecting, 36 
 
 works of reference, 278 
 
 Frere sale, 295, 332 
 Freres, The, 9 
 
 Garlands, 77 
 
 George III., 40 
 
 Gilding of books, 234 
 
 Goffering, 340 
 
 Gold binding, 214 
 
 Grenville, Thomas, 15, 46, 271 
 
 Grolier bindings, 226, 230-231 
 
 Club, 257 
 
 Guarini, B., 203 
 
 Hailstone, Edward, 81 
 
 Ham House, 55 
 
 Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 80 
 
 Hanmers of Mildenhall, 9 
 
 Hardwicke MSS., 4 
 
 Harleian Library, 4, 37-38, 40, 
 
 55, 312, 318, 321-322, 337 
 
 Miscellany, 79 
 
 Harvey, Gabriel, 201 
 Hasta, 312-313 
 Hawes, Francis, 313 
 Hazlitt, W.,80, 158, 165 
 Hearne, Thomas, 21, 135, 221 
 Heber, Richard, 4-5, 38, 40-43, 
 
 46,81, 267, 269, 270-271, 321, 335 
 Helyas, 1512, 340 
 Henri Deux binding, 231 
 
 Henrietta Maria, 214 
 Henry VIII., 196, 198, 339 
 Heriot, George, 234 
 Herveys of Ickworth, 9 
 Hesse, Landgraf of, 336 
 Highest prices realised for books, 
 
 299-304 
 Hill, Thomas, 268 
 Hoe, Robert, 341-342 
 Hogarth, 181 
 Honeywood bequest to Lincoln, 
 
 33, 336 
 Harm, 63, 199, 210, 339 
 Howard, Sir John, first Duke of 
 
 Norfolk, 335 
 Howell, Thomas, 337 
 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 
 
 335 
 Hundred Merry Tales, 1526,35, 338 
 Hunt, Leigh, 39, 80, 158, 165 
 Huth, Henry, 6, 15, 21, 25, 41- 
 
 46, 64, 274, 341 
 Hutton, W., 335 
 
 Illuminated MSS., 335 
 Illustrated Books, 178 et seqq., 
 278, 339 
 
 copies, 189-191 
 
 Imitatio Christi, 64, 111 
 Imperfect books, 134 
 Incanto, 313 
 Inch of candle, 314, 341 
 Inglis library, 54, 56 
 Inns of Court, 11 
 Irish collectors, 158 
 
 presses, 157 
 
 series, 156-158 
 
 Jenynges, Edward, '338 
 Jermyn, Henry, 215 
 Johnson, Dr., 38, 55, 103, 339 
 Johnsons of Spalding, 19, 51-53 
 Jolley, Thomas, 81 
 
INDEX 
 
 349 
 
 Jonson, Benjamin, 202 
 Josephine, the Empress, 211 
 Jubinal, Achille, 29 
 Judith, History of, 1565, 338 
 
 Kbie Library, 191 
 
 Kentish collectors, 9 
 
 Killigrew, T., 205 
 
 Kinloss Abbey, 204 
 
 Kirkman, F., 311 
 
 Knight, Charles, 7 
 
 Kressen, Anton, of Niirnberg, 210 
 
 Laing, David, 11 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 6, 15, 88, 139, 158, 
 
 207, 209, 240 
 Lambeth Library, 5 
 Lambton, Henry, 202 
 Langbaine, Gerard, 339 
 Langland, Andrew, 204 
 Laycock, W., 79 
 Lee-Warlys, the, 9 
 Leigh, George, auctioneer, 24, 
 
 208 
 Le Houx, Jean, 112-113 
 Le Neve, P., 5 
 
 Le Stranges of Hunstanton, 335 
 Levant morocco, 225, 250 
 Libraries, Cathedral, 33 
 
 College, 31 
 
 Foreign, 34 
 
 National, 31 
 
 Provincial, 336 
 
 Libraries compared, 15-17, 38 
 Lichfield, William, 121 
 Limited market for rarer books, 
 
 138 
 Lincoln Cathedral, 33, 336 
 Lincoln Nosegay, 269 
 Lincolnshire, two give-away sales 
 
 in, 133 
 Little Gidding bindings, 247 
 Liturgies, 63, 68 
 
 Locker-Lampson, F., 45, 58 
 
 Longleat library, 56 
 
 Lost hooks, 120-128, 130, 133 
 
 Louis XV., 230 
 
 Louis XVI., 211 
 
 Lounging Books of a Gentleman, 
 
 1788, 326 
 Lovelace's Lueasta, 129 
 Luttrell, Narcissus, 21, 77 
 Lydgate's Troy.Book, 35-36 
 Lyonnese calf, 225, 249 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 6 
 M'Culloch, J. R., 3-4 
 Maidment, James, 11 
 Maioli bindings, 231 
 Maitland, Lord, 312 
 Malone, Edmond, 21, 339 
 Manesse Liderbuch, 304 
 Manuscript Notes iu Books, 206, 
 
 339 
 Manuscripts, 4-5 
 Marie Antoinette, 36, 187, 211 
 Marler, Anthony, 200 
 Marlowe, Christopher, 35, 89, 
 
 284, 336 
 Maroquin de Constantinople, 225 
 Martin of Palgrave, T., 5, 9, 123 
 Massinger, Philip, 202 
 Materials in which books have 
 
 been bound, 223 et seqq. 
 on which books have been 
 
 printed, 137, 216-220, 339 
 Mazarin or Gutenberg Bible, 44- 
 
 45, 69, 300-301 
 Medical literature, 73 
 Mentelin, Johann, 209 
 Mesdames de France, 230 
 Middle-Hill Library, 80 
 Millers of Craigentinny, 42-43,337 
 Millington, Edward, 316, 319 
 Milton, John, 201 
 Miscellaneous collectors, 80 
 
350 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Missce Speciales, 299 
 
 Mitford, Rev. John, 9 
 
 Modern side in collecting, 161 
 
 et seqq. 
 Moliere, 254 
 Monastic binding, 221 
 
 writers, 66 
 
 Monographs, 279 
 
 Montague, R., 340 
 
 Montaigne, 29, 101, 106, 109, 111, 
 
 200, 339 
 Moore, John, Bishop of Ely, 123 
 More, Sir T.> 204 
 Morgan, Pierpont, 341-342 
 Morocco bindings (early), 223, 
 
 253 
 Motives for selling libraries, 325 
 Murray, Regent, 204 
 
 Napoleon, 211-212 
 Nash, Richard, 206 
 Newcastle, Duchess of, 15 
 " Newton, Sir Isaac, 215 
 Norfolk, Duke of, library given 
 
 to Royal Society, 55 
 North family, 316 
 Northcote family, 204 
 
 Obsolete books of reference, 
 
 263-265, 266-267 
 Occult Literature, 74 
 Ogilby, John, 315 
 Oldys, W., 339 
 Old-fashioned English libraries, 
 
 38 
 Orestes, 1567, 338 
 Osterley'Park library, 55, 301 
 Over-production of books (former) , 
 
 13 
 Oxford, 4-5, 11, 30-32, 65, 77, 114, 
 
 153, 275, 335 
 
 Harleys, Earls of, 37-38 
 
 Oxindens of Barham, 9, 335 
 
 Palsgrave, John, 178 
 
 Parkhurst, Thomas, 318 
 
 Parr family, 199 
 
 Parzival and Titurell, 330 
 
 Paston Letters, 332 
 
 Patmore, Coventry, 218 
 
 Paul's Head Tavern in Carter 
 
 Lane, 320 
 Pennant, Thomas, 337 
 Pepys, S., 24, 33, 76-77, 208, 215, 
 
 284, 286, 312, 315 
 Peterborough Cathedral, 336 
 Petre, Lord, 9 
 Petrarch, 209-210 
 Phillipps, Sir T., 5, 81 
 Picas of Salisbury use, 77 
 Pilgrim Fathere, 72, 159 
 Pirkheimer Library, 55 
 Plantin Museum, 35 
 Playing-cards, 279 
 Plymouth, 338 
 Pope, A., 205 
 Porter, Endymion, 215 
 Prices of books, 20-21, 170-171, 
 
 285 et seqq. 
 
 binding, 171, 338 
 
 Prideaux, Miss, 250, 340 
 Provincial bindings, 247 
 
 booksellers, 8-11 
 
 Psalters of 1457 and 1459, 299-300, 
 
 304 
 Public libraries, 29-36 
 Pyne, Henry, 70, 89-90 
 
 Quaritch's catalogue of bind- 
 ings, 1888, 257 
 General catalogue, 255-256 
 
 Rabirius, Junius, 313, 
 Randolph, Thomas, 147 
 Rarities in early English series, 
 
 149 
 Rawlinson, Thomas, 320 
 
INDEX 
 
 351 
 
 Re'a or Rede, Francis, bookbinder, 
 
 201 
 Reed, Isaac, 89, 335 
 Reference books, 165, 259 et seqq., 
 
 292 
 
 libraries, 7 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 3, 206 
 Richard Ckeur de Lion, 1509, 49 
 Richards, John, a Dorsetshire 
 
 farmer, 7 
 Richardson, Edmond, 208, 340 
 ' Rig, the, 333-334 
 Rimbault, Dr., 80 
 Risks of realisation, 140-142 
 Robert of Leicester, 336 
 Robespierre, 211, 339 
 Rodd, Thomas, 20 
 Rolle of Hampole, Richard, 205 
 Rolls of collectors, Hazlitt's, 6, 
 
 25, 37, 86, 90, 336 
 Romish literature, 67 
 Roxhurghe, John, Earl of, 39 
 
 Library, 11, 39, 40, 46, 335 
 
 Royal books, 198-200 
 Rylands, Mrs., 25, 48 
 
 Sandaks, Samuel, 32, 54, 336 
 
 Sanderson, Cobden, 250 
 
 Savile family, 204 
 
 Schreiber, Lady Charlotte, 48 
 
 Scotland, 7, 11, 19, 149, 204 
 
 Scotish binders, 244-246 
 
 collectors, 11, 19, 155, 204, 
 
 229, 336 
 
 presses, 155 
 
 series, 149 
 
 Scott, Robert, 319 
 
 Seaman, Lazarus, 315, 317, 342 
 
 Separation of sets of books, 235 
 
 Service-books, 63, 148 
 
 Shakespear, W., 13, 20-21, 22, 
 35, 38, 80, 100, 170, 205, 207, 
 214, 233, 275, 302-303, 339 
 
 Ship of Fools,?!®, 
 
 Simeon, Sir John, 81 
 
 Sion College, 32, 335 
 
 Skene of Skene, 19 
 
 Slatyer's Palmalbion, 1621, 339 
 
 Smith, George, 274 
 
 Richard, 316 
 
 Smollett, T., 246 
 
 Solly, Edward, 81 
 
 Somen Tracts, 79 
 
 Southey's Cottonian Library, 249 
 
 Spanish binding, 230, 267-268 
 
 Special collections in public 
 
 libraries, 33 
 
 : copies of books, 200 
 
 ,, Specialists, 60 et seqq., 79-80 
 Spencer, Lord, 49, 271 
 Spenser, Edmund, 128, 201, 233, 
 
 241 
 Spoliation of public libraries, 29, 
 
 336 
 Steevens, George, 89, 335 
 Stirling-Maxwell, Sir W., 191, 339 
 Subjects or Lines, choice of, for 
 
 libraries, 59-91 
 Sullivan, Sir Edward, 250, 340 
 Superabundance of books, 13 
 Surrey collectors, 9 
 Swinton, General, 11 
 Sydneys of Penshurst, 9 
 
 Taylor, John, 202 
 Technical treatises, 75 
 Thomason the stationer, 65, 
 
 194 
 Thomas Limner of Bury, 335 
 Thorold, Sir John, 56 
 Thorpe, Thomas, 45 
 Thought or mind in binding, 228 
 " Three-halfpenny ware," 150 
 Tite, Sir W., 43 
 Toledo Missal, 303 
 Tollemaches, the, 9, 45 
 
352 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tom's coffee-house, 320 
 Tonson, Jacob, 201 
 Translations, 109-114, 337 
 Turbervile, George, 233 
 Turner, Dawson, 9 
 
 J. M. W., 181 
 
 R. S., 27 
 
 Twopenny biddings, 325 
 Twysden, Mary, 205 
 Types of collectors, 88-91 
 Tyrrwhitt, Lady Elizabeth, 214 
 
 Unique books, 338, 341 
 
 English books abroad, 35 
 
 Universities, 10-11, 65, 77, 336 
 Usher, Archbishop, 205 
 
 Vaux de Vire, 112-113 
 Venetian school of binding, 246, 
 340 
 
 Venice, 34 
 
 Verard, Antoine, 335 
 Vocabulary of auctions, 330 
 Voyages and travels, 70 
 
 Walton, Isaak, 203, 213, 233 
 Warton, Thomas, 8, 20 
 Weale, Jacobus, 53, 64 
 West of England, 10, 336, 338 
 Westminster Abbey, 34 
 Westmorland, Earl of, 339 
 White, Gilbert, 108, 337 
 Williams, Lord- Keeper, 34 
 Willoughby family, 204 
 Wodhull, Michael, 208 
 Wolfreston books, 323 
 Wycherley, W., 204-205 
 Wynns of Feniarth, 57 
 
 Zurich, 34-35 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &■ Co. 
 Edinburgh 6* London