Part 15 (1/2)
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 catalogue 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 t.i.te for 225. The _Sonnets_ of 1609 would at present be worth 250. As regards the bulk of the lots, however, one might almost read s.h.i.+llings 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. d.i.c.k of Bury St. Edmunds stood him in good stead.
What Dibdin euphemistically christened the _Lincoln 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, notwithstanding all this sort of pillage; and the dim religious light which is shed around lends an air of sanct.i.ty 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.semblage of literary treasures 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 the 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 warning that the prices are not in the least degree trustworthy; the cla.s.sics and some of the early typography went pretty high; and the Early English books were only saved from being given away by the active compet.i.tion 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 Devons.h.i.+re, 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 cla.s.s offered for public sale in Heber's time, but an immense a.s.sortment 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 extent 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 certain 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 with 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 acc.u.mulations 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, Roxburghe, Grenville, Spencer, Blandford, Ashburnham, 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 const.i.tuted 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 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 appet.i.tes of compet.i.tors; 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 for themselves. The printed account of them, viewed as a work of reference, must be read _c.u.m grano salis_--_c.u.m multis granis_. The sale was the starting-point of a new epoch and school in prices. Nothing of the kind on so extended a scale in that particular way had so far been seen before.
Collier's _Bibliographical Catalogue_, 1865, is an enlargement of his Bridgewater House Catalogue, 1837, without the ill.u.s.trations. 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 render the t.i.tles correctly. One signal fault distinguishes the undertaking from what may be regarded as a commercial 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 Anglo-Poetica_ of the Rev. Thomas Corser, in eleven parts, of which some were posthumous, const.i.tutes 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 a.s.semblages 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 gentleman's footsteps; but he would have to spend more money than Mr. Corser did by some thousands.
Of the Huth Catalogue, 1880, we can only say that it is a splendid gathering in a comparatively short period of various cla.s.ses of books 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 cla.s.s, 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 Chatsworth Catalogue, which does not include the books at Devons.h.i.+re House, and Lord Crawford's catalogue of his 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 disappointing yet suggestive volume. We ought to remind the reader that the catalogue of Trinity, Cambridge, embraces Capell's _Shakesperiana_, 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'
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 _Book 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 technical 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, 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 const.i.tute 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 a.s.semblages of literary monuments, and was not suited to the English taste, unless it might be in the case of a rich n.o.bleman, to whom s.p.a.ce 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 of 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 t.i.tle seldom occupies more than a single line. Plentiful ill.u.s.trations 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 contents of ninety-nine libraries out of a hundred is the facilitation of reference, combined with an excusable personal pride; but a great deal of repet.i.tion and redundancy and useless expense are incurred by the literal transcript of the t.i.tles 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 cocta_.
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 unknown 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 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 ma.n.u.script 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 serviceable than its English a.n.a.logue, and the book is, curiously enough, particularly unsafe in such a field as the French books of former times, where so much depends on fact.i.tious 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 mentioned: Cohen, _Guide de l'Amateur de Livres a Gravures du XVIII^th siecle_, 5^me ed. 8^o, 1886-90, and Gay, _Bibliographie des Ouvrages relatifs a l'Amour, aux Femmes, au Mariage, et des Livres Facetieux_, 3^me ed. 12^o, 1871, 6 vols.
Both, but especially the first, are essential for guidance in the choice of a cla.s.s of publication of which the innumerable variations and the artificial prices necessitate the utmost caution on the part of an intending buyer.
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 cla.s.s 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 _Coin 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.