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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1881 Macmillan and Co. edition. + + + + + +THE LIBRARY + + + + +Contents: + +PREFATORY NOTE +AN APOLOGY FOR THE BOOK-HUNTER +THE LIBRARY +THE BOOKS OF THE COLLECTOR +ILLUSTRATED BOOKS + + + +Books, books again, and books once more! +These are our theme, which some miscall +Mere madness, setting little store +By copies either short or tall. +But you, O slaves of shelf and stall! +We rather write for you that hold +Patched folios dear, and prize "the small, +Rare volume, black with tarnished gold." +A. D. + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + + +The pages in this volume on illuminated and other MSS. (with the +exception of some anecdotes about Bussy Rabutin and Julie de +Rambouillet) have been contributed by the Rev. W. J. Loftie, who has +also written on early printed books (pp. 94-95). The pages on the +Biblioklept (pp. 46-56) are reprinted, with the Editor's kind +permission, from the Saturday Review; and a few remarks on the moral +lessons of bookstalls are taken from an essay in the same journal. + +Mr. Ingram Bywater, Fellow of Exeter College, and lately sub- +Librarian of the Bodleian, has very kindly read through the proofs +of chapters I., II., and III., and suggested some alterations. + +Thanks are also due to Mr. T. R. Buchanan, Fellow of All Souls +College, for two plates from his "Book-bindings in All Souls +Library" (printed for private circulation), which he has been good +enough to lend me. The plates are beautifully drawn and coloured by +Dr. J. J. Wild. Messrs. George Bell & Sons, Messrs. Bradbury, +Agnew, & Co., and Messrs. Chatto & Windus, must be thanked for the +use of some of the woodcuts which illustrate the concluding chapter. +A. L. + + + +AN APOLOGY FOR THE BOOK-HUNTER + + + +"All men," says Dr. Dibdin, "like to be their own librarians." A +writer on the library has no business to lay down the law as to the +books that even the most inexperienced amateurs should try to +collect. There are books which no lover of literature can afford to +be without; classics, ancient and modern, on which the world has +pronounced its verdict. These works, in whatever shape we may be +able to possess them, are the necessary foundations of even the +smallest collections. Homer, Dante and Milton Shakespeare and +Sophocles, Aristophanes and Moliere, Thucydides, Tacitus, and +Gibbon, Swift and Scott,--these every lover of letters will desire +to possess in the original languages or in translations. The list +of such classics is short indeed, and when we go beyond it, the +tastes of men begin to differ very widely. An assortment of +broadsheet ballads and scrap-books, bought in boyhood, was the +nucleus of Scott's library, rich in the works of poets and +magicians, of alchemists, and anecdotists. A childish liking for +coloured prints of stage characters, may be the germ of a theatrical +collection like those of Douce, and Malone, and Cousin. People who +are studying any past period of human history, or any old phase or +expression of human genius, will eagerly collect little contemporary +volumes which seem trash to other amateurs. For example, to a +student of Moliere, it is a happy chance to come across "La Carte du +Royaume des Pretieuses"--(The map of the kingdom of the +"Precieuses")--written the year before the comedian brought out his +famous play "Les Precieuses Ridicules." This geographical tract +appeared in the very "Recueil des Pieces Choisies," whose authors +Magdelon, in the play, was expecting to entertain, when Mascarille +made his appearance. There is a faculty which Horace Walpole named +"serendipity,"--the luck of falling on just the literary document +which one wants at the moment. All collectors of out of the way +books know the pleasure of the exercise of serendipity, but they +enjoy it in different ways. One man will go home hugging a volume +of sermons, another with a bulky collection of catalogues, which +would have distended the pockets even of the wide great-coat made +for the purpose, that Charles Nodier used to wear when he went a +book-hunting. Others are captivated by black letter, others by the +plays of such obscurities as Nabbes and Glapthorne. But however +various the tastes of collectors of books, they are all agreed on +one point,--the love of printed paper. Even an Elzevir man can +sympathise with Charles Lamb's attachment to "that folio Beaumont +and Fletcher which he dragged home late at night from Barker's in +Covent Garden." But it is another thing when Lamb says, "I do not +care for a first folio of Shakespeare." A bibliophile who could say +this could say anything. + +No, there are, in every period of taste, books which, apart from +their literary value, all collectors admit to possess, if not for +themselves, then for others of the brotherhood, a peculiar +preciousness. These books are esteemed for curiosity, for beauty of +type, paper, binding, and illustrations, for some connection they +may have with famous people of the past, or for their rarity. It is +about these books, the method of preserving them, their enemies, the +places in which to hunt for them, that the following pages are to +treat. It is a subject more closely connected with the taste for +curiosities than with art, strictly so called. We are to be +occupied, not so much with literature as with books, not so much +with criticism as with bibliography, the quaint duenna of +literature, a study apparently dry, but not without its humours. +And here an apology must be made for the frequent allusions and +anecdotes derived from French writers. These are as unavoidable, +almost, as the use of French terms of the sport in tennis and in +fencing. In bibliography, in the care for books AS books, the +French are still the teachers of Europe, as they were in tennis and +are in fencing. Thus, Richard de Bury, Chancellor of Edward III., +writes in his "Philobiblon:" "Oh God of Gods in Zion! what a rushing +river of joy gladdens my heart as often as I have a chance of going +to Paris! There the days seem always short; there are the goodly +collections on the delicate fragrant book-shelves." Since Dante +wrote of - + + +"L'onor di quell' arte +Ch' allumare e chiamata in Parisi," + + +"the art that is called illuminating in Paris," and all the other +arts of writing, printing, binding books, have been most skilfully +practised by France. She improved on the lessons given by Germany +and Italy in these crafts. Twenty books about books are written in +Paris for one that is published in England. In our country Dibdin +is out of date (the second edition of his "Bibliomania" was +published in 1811), and Mr. Hill Burton's humorous "Book-hunter" is +out of print. Meanwhile, in France, writers grave and gay, from the +gigantic industry of Brunet to Nodier's quaint fancy, and Janin's +wit, and the always entertaining bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), +have written, or are writing, on books, manuscripts, engravings, +editions, and bindings. In England, therefore, rare French books +are eagerly sought, and may be found in all the booksellers' +catalogues. On the continent there is no such care for our curious +or beautiful editions, old or new. Here a hint may be given to the +collector. If he "picks up" a rare French book, at a low price, he +would act prudently in having it bound in France by a good +craftsman. Its value, when "the wicked day of destiny" comes, and +the collection is broken up, will thus be made secure. For the +French do not suffer our English bindings gladly; while we have no +narrow prejudice against the works of Lortic and Cape, but the +reverse. For these reasons then, and also because every writer is +obliged to make the closest acquaintance with books in the direction +where his own studies lie, the writings of French authorities are +frequently cited in the following pages. + +This apology must be followed by a brief defence of the taste and +passion of book-collecting, and of the class of men known +invidiously as book-worms and book-hunters. They and their simple +pleasures are the butts of a cheap and shrewish set of critics, who +cannot endure in others a taste which is absent in themselves. +Important new books have actually been condemned of late years +because they were printed on good paper, and a valuable historical +treatise was attacked by reviewers quite angrily because its outward +array was not mean and forbidding. Of course, critics who take this +view of new books have no patience with persons who care for +"margins," and "condition," and early copies of old books. We +cannot hope to convert the adversary, but it is not necessary to be +disturbed by his clamour. People are happier for the possession of +a taste as long as they possess it, and it does not, like the demons +of Scripture, possess them. The wise collector gets instruction and +pleasure from his pursuit, and it may well be that, in the long run, +he and his family do not lose money. The amusement may chance to +prove a very fair investment. + +As to this question of making money by collecting, Mr. Hill Burton +speaks very distinctly in "The Book-hunter:" "Where money is the +object let a man speculate or become a miser. . . Let not the +collector ever, unless in some urgent and necessary circumstances, +part with any of his treasures. Let him not even have recourse to +that practice called barter, which political philosophers tell us is +the universal resource of mankind preparatory to the invention of +money. Let him confine all his transactions in the market to +purchasing only. No good comes of gentlemen-amateurs buying and +selling." There is room for difference of opinion here, but there +seems to be most reason on the side of Mr. Hill Burton. It is one +thing for the collector to be able to reflect that the money he +expends on books is not lost, and that his family may find +themselves richer, not poorer, because he indulged his taste. It is +quite another thing to buy books as a speculator buys shares, +meaning to sell again at a profit as soon as occasion offers. It is +necessary also to warn the beginner against indulging extravagant +hopes. He must buy experience with his books, and many of his first +purchases are likely to disappoint him. He will pay dearly for the +wrong "Caesar" of 1635, the one WITHOUT errors in pagination; and +this is only a common example of the beginner's blunders. +Collecting is like other forms of sport; the aim is not certain at +first, the amateur is nervous, and, as in angling, is apt to +"strike" (a bargain) too hurriedly. + +I often think that the pleasure of collecting is like that of sport. +People talk of "book-hunting," and the old Latin motto says that +"one never wearies of the chase in this forest." But the analogy to +angling seems even stronger. A collector walks in the London or +Paris streets, as he does by Tweed or Spey. Many a lordly mart of +books he passes, like Mr. Quaritch's, Mr. Toovey's, or M. +Fontaine's, or the shining store of M.M. Morgand et Fatout, in the +Passage des Panoramas. Here I always feel like Brassicanus in the +king of Hungary's collection, "non in Bibliotheca, sed in gremio +Jovis;" "not in a library, but in paradise." It is not given to +every one to cast angle in these preserves. They are kept for dukes +and millionaires. Surely the old Duke of Roxburghe was the happiest +of mortals, for to him both the chief bookshops and auction rooms, +and the famous salmon streams of Floors, were equally open, and he +revelled in the prime of book-collecting and of angling. But there +are little tributary streets, with humbler stalls, shy pools, as it +were, where the humbler fisher of books may hope to raise an +Elzevir, or an old French play, a first edition of Shelley, or a +Restoration comedy. It is usually a case of hope unfulfilled; but +the merest nibble of a rare book, say Marston's poems in the +original edition, or Beddoes's "Love's Arrow Poisoned," or Bankes's +"Bay Horse in a Trance," or the "Mel Heliconicum" of Alexander Ross, +or "Les Oeuvres de Clement Marot, de Cahors, Vallet de Chambre du +Roy, A Paris, Ches Pierre Gaultier, 1551;" even a chance at +something of this sort will kindle the waning excitement, and add a +pleasure to a man's walk in muddy London. Then, suppose you +purchase for a couple of shillings the "Histoire des Amours de Henry +IV, et autres pieces curieuses, A Leyde, Chez Jean Sambyx (Elzevir), +1664," it is certainly not unpleasant, on consulting M. Fontaine's +catalogue, to find that he offers the same work at the ransom of 10 +pounds. The beginner thinks himself in singular luck, even though +he has no idea of vending his collection, and he never reflects that +CONDITION--spotless white leaves and broad margins, make the market +value of a book. + +Setting aside such bare considerations of profit, the sport given by +bookstalls is full of variety and charm. In London it may be +pursued in most of the cross streets that stretch a dirty net +between the British Museum and the Strand. There are other more shy +and less frequently poached resorts which the amateur may be allowed +to find out for himself. In Paris there is the long sweep of the +Quais, where some eighty bouquinistes set their boxes on the walls +of the embankment of the Seine. There are few country towns so +small but that books, occasionally rare and valuable, may be found +lurking in second-hand furniture warehouses. This is one of the +advantages of living in an old country. The Colonies are not the +home for a collector. I have seen an Australian bibliophile +enraptured by the rare chance of buying, in Melbourne, an early work +on--the history of Port Jackson! This seems but poor game. But in +Europe an amateur has always occupation for his odd moments in town, +and is for ever lured on by the radiant apparition of Hope. All +collectors tell their anecdotes of wonderful luck, and magnificent +discoveries. There is a volume "Voyages Litteraires sur les Quais +de Paris" (Paris, Durand, 1857), by M. de Fontaine de Resbecq, which +might convert the dullest soul to book-hunting. M. de Resbecq and +his friends had the most amazing good fortune. A M. N- found six +original plays of Moliere (worth perhaps as many hundreds of +pounds), bound up with Garth's "Dispensary," an English poem which +has long lost its vogue. It is worth while, indeed, to examine all +volumes marked "Miscellanea," "Essays," and the like, and treasures +may possibly lurk, as Snuffy Davy knew, within the battered +sheepskin of school books. Books lie in out of the way places. +Poggio rescued "Quintilian" from the counter of a wood merchant. +The best time for book-hunting in Paris is the early morning. "The +take," as anglers say, is "on" from half-past seven to half-past +nine a.m. At these hours the vendors exhibit their fresh wares, and +the agents of the more wealthy booksellers come and pick up +everything worth having. These agents quite spoil the sport of the +amateur. They keep a strict watch on every country dealer's +catalogue, snap up all he has worth selling, and sell it over again, +charging pounds in place of shillings. But M. de Resbecq vows that +he once picked up a copy of the first edition of La Rochefoucauld's +"Maxims" out of a box which two booksellers had just searched. The +same collector got together very promptly all the original editions +of La Bruyere, and he even found a copy of the Elzevir "Pastissier +Francais," at the humble price of six sous. Now the " Pastissier +Francais," an ill-printed little cookery-book of the Elzevirs, has +lately fetched 600 pounds at a sale. The Antiquary's story of +Snuffy Davy and the "Game of Chess," is dwarfed by the luck of M. de +Resbecq. Not one amateur in a thousand can expect such good +fortune. There is, however, a recent instance of a Rugby boy, who +picked up, on a stall, a few fluttering leaves hanging together on a +flimsy thread. The old woman who kept the stall could hardly be +induced to accept the large sum of a shilling for an original quarto +of Shakespeare's "King John." These stories are told that none may +despair. That none may be over confident, an author may recount his +own experience. The only odd trouvaille that ever fell to me was a +clean copy of "La Journee Chretienne," with the name of Leon +Gambetta, 1844, on its catholic fly-leaf. Rare books grow rarer +every day, and often 'tis only Hope that remains at the bottom of +the fourpenny boxes. Yet the Paris book-hunters cleave to the game. +August is their favourite season; for in August there is least +competition. Very few people are, as a rule, in Paris, and these +are not tempted to loiter. The bookseller is drowsy, and glad not +to have the trouble of chaffering. The English go past, and do not +tarry beside a row of dusty boxes of books. The heat threatens the +amateur with sunstroke. Then, says M. Octave Uzanne, in a prose +ballade of book-hunters--then, calm, glad, heroic, the bouquineurs +prowl forth, refreshed with hope. The brown old calf-skin wrinkles +in the sun, the leaves crackle, you could poach an egg on the cover +of a quarto. The dome of the Institute glitters, the sickly trees +seem to wither, their leaves wax red and grey, a faint warm wind is +walking the streets. Under his vast umbrella the book-hunter is +secure and content; he enjoys the pleasures of the sport unvexed by +poachers, and thinks less of the heat than does the deer-stalker on +the bare hill-side. + +There is plenty of morality, if there are few rare books in the +stalls. The decay of affection, the breaking of friendship, the +decline of ambition, are all illustrated in these fourpenny +collections. The presentation volumes are here which the author +gave in the pride of his heart to the poet who was his "Master," to +the critic whom he feared, to the friend with whom he was on terms +of mutual admiration. The critic has not even cut the leaves, the +poet has brusquely torn three or four apart with his finger and +thumb, the friend has grown cold, and has let the poems slip into +some corner of his library, whence they were removed on some day of +doom and of general clearing out. The sale of the library of a late +learned prelate who had Boileau's hatred of a dull book was a scene +to be avoided by his literary friends. The Bishop always gave the +works which were offered to him a fair chance. He read till he +could read no longer, cutting the pages as he went, and thus his +progress could be traced like that of a backwoodsman who "blazes" +his way through a primeval forest. The paper-knife generally ceased +to do duty before the thirtieth page. The melancholy of the book- +hunter is aroused by two questions, "Whence?" and "Whither?" The +bibliophile asks about his books the question which the +metaphysician asks about his soul. Whence came they? Their value +depends a good deal on the answer. If they are stamped with arms, +then there is a book ("Armorial du Bibliophile," by M. Guigard) +which tells you who was their original owner. Any one of twenty +coats-of-arms on the leather is worth a hundred times the value of +the volume which it covers. If there is no such mark, the fancy is +left to devise a romance about the first owner, and all the hands +through which the book has passed. That Vanini came from a Jesuit +college, where it was kept under lock and key. That copy of Agrippa +"De Vanitate Scientiarum" is marked, in a crabbed hand and in faded +ink, with cynical Latin notes. What pessimist two hundred years ago +made his grumbling so permanent? One can only guess, but part of +the imaginative joys of the book-hunter lies ' in the fruitless +conjecture. That other question "Whither?" is graver. Whither are +our treasures to be scattered? Will they find kind masters? or, +worst fate of books, fall into the hands of women who will sell them +to the trunk-maker? Are the leaves to line a box or to curl a +maiden's locks? Are the rarities to become more and more rare, and +at last fetch prodigious prices? Some unlucky men are able partly +to solve these problems in their own lifetime. They are constrained +to sell their libraries--an experience full of bitterness, wrath, +and disappointment. + +Selling books is nearly as bad as losing friends, than which life +has no worse sorrow. A book is a friend whose face is constantly +changing. If you read it when you are recovering from an illness, +and return to it years after, it is changed surely, with the change +in yourself. As a man's tastes and opinions are developed his books +put on a different aspect. He hardly knows the "Poems and Ballads" +he used to declaim, and cannot recover the enigmatic charm of +"Sordello." Books change like friends, like ourselves, like +everything; but they are most piquant in the contrasts they provoke, +when the friend who gave them and wrote them is a success, though we +laughed at him; a failure, though we believed in him; altered in any +case, and estranged from his old self and old days. The vanished +past returns when we look at the pages. The vicissitudes of years +are printed and packed in a thin octavo, and the shivering ghosts of +desire and hope return to their forbidden home in the heart and +fancy. It is as well to have the power of recalling them always at +hand, and to be able to take a comprehensive glance at the emotions +which were so powerful and full of life, and now are more faded and +of less account than the memory of the dreams of childhood. It is +because our books are friends that do change, and remind us of +change, that we should keep them with us, even at a little +inconvenience, and not turn them adrift in the world to find a dusty +asylum in cheap bookstalls. We are a part of all that we have read, +to parody the saying of Mr. Tennyson's Ulysses, and we owe some +respect, and house-room at least, to the early acquaintances who +have begun to bore us, and remind us of the vanity of ambition and +the weakness of human purpose. Old school and college books even +have a reproachful and salutary power of whispering how much a man +knew, and at the cost of how much trouble, that he has absolutely +forgotten, and is neither the better nor the worse for it. It will +be the same in the case of the books he is eager about now; though, +to be sure, he will read with less care, and forget with an ease and +readiness only to be acquired by practice. + +But we were apologising for book-hunting, not because it teaches +moral lessons, as "dauncyng" also does, according to Sir Thomas +Elyot, in the "Boke called the Gouvernour," but because it affords a +kind of sportive excitement. Bookstalls are not the only field of +the chase. Book catalogues, which reach the collector through the +post, give him all the pleasures of the sport at home. He reads the +booksellers' catalogues eagerly, he marks his chosen sport with +pencil, he writes by return of post, or he telegraphs to the vendor. +Unfortunately he almost always finds that he has been forestalled, +probably by some bookseller's agent. When the catalogue is a French +one, it is obvious that Parisians have the pick of the market before +our slow letters reach M. Claudin, or M. Labitte. Still the +catalogues themselves are a kind of lesson in bibliography. You see +from them how prices are ruling, and you can gloat, in fancy, over +De Luyne's edition of Moliere, 1673, two volumes in red morocco, +double ("Trautz Bauzonnet"), or some other vanity hopelessly out of +reach. In their catalogues, MM. Morgand and Fatout print a +facsimile of the frontispiece of this very rare edition. The bust +of Moliere occupies the centre, and portraits of the great actor, as +Sganarelle and Mascarille (of the "Precieuses Ridicules"), stand on +either side. In the second volume are Moliere, and his wife +Armande, crowned by the muse Thalia. A catalogue which contains +such exact reproductions of rare and authentic portraits, is itself +a work of art, and serviceable to the student. When the shop of a +bookseller, with a promising catalogue which arrives over night, is +not too far distant, bibliophiles have been known to rush to the +spot in the grey morning, before the doors open. There are +amateurs, however, who prefer to stay comfortably at home, and pity +these poor fanatics, shivering in the rain outside a door in Oxford +Street or Booksellers' Row. There is a length to which enthusiasm +cannot go, and many collectors draw the line at rising early in the +morning. But, when we think of the sport of book-hunting, it is to +sales in auction-rooms that the mind naturally turns. Here the +rival buyers feel the passion of emulation, and it was in an +auction-room that Guibert de Pixerecourt, being outbid, said, in +tones of mortal hatred, "I will have the book when your collection +is sold after your death." And he kept his word. The fever of +gambling is not absent from the auction-room, and people "bid +jealous" as they sometimes "ride jealous" in the hunting-field. +Yet, the neophyte, if he strolls by chance into a sale-room, will be +surprised at the spectacle. The chamber has the look of a rather +seedy "hell." The crowd round the auctioneer's box contains many +persons so dingy and Semitic, that at Monte Carlo they would be +refused admittance; while, in Germany, they would be persecuted by +Herr von Treitschke with Christian ardour. Bidding is languid, and +valuable books are knocked down for trifling sums. Let the neophyte +try his luck, however, and prices will rise wonderfully. The fact +is that the sale is a "knock out." The bidders are professionals, +in a league to let the volumes go cheap, and to distribute them +afterwards among themselves. Thus an amateur can have a good deal +of sport by bidding for a book till it reaches its proper value, and +by then leaving in the lurch the professionals who combine to "run +him up." The amusement has its obvious perils, but the presence of +gentlemen in an auction-room is a relief to the auctioneer and to +the owner of the books. A bidder must be able to command his +temper, both that he may be able to keep his head cool when tempted +to bid recklessly, and that he may disregard the not very carefully +concealed sneers of the professionals. + +In book-hunting the nature of the quarry varies with the taste of +the collector. One man is for bibles, another for ballads. Some +pursue plays, others look for play bills. "He was not," says Mr. +Hill Burton, speaking of Kirkpatrick Sharpe, "he was not a black- +letter man, or a tall copyist, or an uncut man, or a rough-edge man, +or an early-English dramatist, or an Elzevirian, or a broadsider, or +a pasquinader, or an old brown calf man, or a Grangerite, {1} or a +tawny moroccoite, or a gilt topper, or a marbled insider, or an +editio princeps man." These nicknames briefly dispose into +categories a good many species of collectors. But there are plenty +of others. You may be a historical-bindings man, and hunt for books +that were bound by the great artists of the past and belonged to +illustrious collectors. Or you may be a Jametist, and try to gather +up the volumes on which Jamet, the friend of Louis Racine, scribbled +his cynical "Marginalia." Or you may covet the earliest editions of +modern poets--Shelley, Keats, or Tennyson, or even Ebenezer Jones. +Or the object of your desires may be the books of the French +romanticists, who flourished so freely in 1830. Or, being a person +of large fortune and landed estate, you may collect country +histories. Again, your heart may be set on the books illustrated by +Eisen, Cochin, and Gravelot, or Stothard and Blake, in the last +century. Or you may be so old-fashioned as to care for Aldine +classics, and for the books of the Giunta press. In fact, as many +as are the species of rare and beautiful books, so many are the +species of collectors. There is one sort of men, modest but not +unwise in their generations, who buy up the pretty books published +in very limited editions by French booksellers, like MM. Lemerre and +Jouaust. Already their reprints of Rochefoucauld's first edition, +of Beaumarchais, of La Fontaine, of the lyrics attributed to +Moliere, and other volumes, are exhausted, and fetch high prices in +the market. By a singular caprice, the little volumes of Mr. +Thackeray's miscellaneous writings, in yellow paper wrappers (when +they are first editions), have become objects of desire, and their +old modest price is increased twenty fold. It is not always easy to +account for these freaks of fashion; but even in book-collecting +there are certain definite laws. "Why do you pay a large price for +a dingy, old book," outsiders ask, "when a clean modern reprint can +be procured for two or three shillings?" To this question the +collector has several replies, which he, at least, finds +satisfactory. In the first place, early editions, published during +a great author's lifetime, and under his supervision, have authentic +texts. The changes in them are the changes that Prior or La Bruyere +themselves made and approved. You can study, in these old editions, +the alterations in their taste, the history of their minds. The +case is the same even with contemporary authors. One likes to have +Mr. Tennyson's "Poems, chiefly Lyrical" (London: Effingham Wilson, +Royal Exchange, Cornhill, 1830). It is fifty years old, this little +book of one hundred and fifty-four pages, this first fruit of a +stately tree. In half a century the poet has altered much, and +withdrawn much, but already, in 1830, he had found his distinctive +note, and his "Mariana" is a masterpiece. "Mariana" is in all the +collections, but pieces of which the execution is less certain must +be sought only in the old volume of 1830. In the same way "The +Strayed Reveller, and other poems, by A." (London: B. Fellowes, +Ludgate Street, 1849) contains much that Mr. Matthew Arnold has +altered, and this volume, like the suppressed "Empedocles on Etna, +and other Poems, by A." (1852), appeals more to the collector than +do the new editions which all the world may possess. There are +verses, curious in their way, in Mr. Clough's "Ambarvalia" (1849), +which you will not find in his posthumous edition, but which "repay +perusal." These minutiae of literary history become infinitely more +important in the early editions of the great classical writers, and +the book-collector may regard his taste as a kind of handmaid of +critical science. The preservation of rare books, and the +collection of materials for criticism, are the useful functions, +then, of book-collecting. But it is not to be denied that the +sentimental side of the pursuit gives it most of its charm. Old +books are often literary relics, and as dear and sacred to the lover +of literature as are relics of another sort to the religious +devotee. The amateur likes to see the book in its form as the +author knew it. He takes a pious pleasure in the first edition of +"Les Precieuses Ridicules," (M.DC.LX.) just as Moliere saw it, when +he was fresh in the business of authorship, and wrote "Mon Dieu, +qu'un Autheur est neuf, la premiere fois qu'on l'imprime." All +editions published during a great man's life have this attraction, +and seem to bring us closer to his spirit. Other volumes are +relics, as we shall see later, of some famed collector, and there is +a certain piety in the care we give to books once dear to +Longepierre, or Harley, or d'Hoym, or Buckle, to Madame de +Maintenon, or Walpole, to Grolier, or Askew, or De Thou, or Heber. +Such copies should be handed down from worthy owners to owners not +unworthy; such servants of literature should never have careless +masters. A man may prefer to read for pleasure in a good clear +reprint. M. Charpentier's "Montaigne" serves the turn, but it is +natural to treasure more "Les Essais de Michel Seigneur de +Montaigne," that were printed by Francoise le Febre, of Lyon, in +1595. It is not a beautiful book; the type is small, and rather +blunt, but William Drummond of Hawthornden has written on the title- +page his name and his device, Cipresso e Palma. There are a dozen +modern editions of Moliere more easily read than the four little +volumes of Wetstein (Amsterdam, 1698), but these contain reduced +copies of the original illustrations, and here you see Arnolphe and +Agnes in their habits as they lived, Moliere and Mdlle. de Brie as +the public of Paris beheld them more than two hundred years ago. +Suckling's "Fragmenta Aurea" contain a good deal of dross, and most +of the gold has been gathered into Miscellanies, but the original +edition of 1646, "after his own copies," with the portrait of the +jolly cavalier who died aetatis suae 28, has its own allurement. +Theocritus is more easily read, perhaps, in Wordsworth's edition, or +Ziegler's; but that which Zacharias Calliergi printed in Rome +(1516), with an excommunication from Leo X. against infringement of +copyright, will always be a beautiful and desirable book, especially +when bound by Derome. The gist of the pious Prince Conti's +strictures on the wickedness of comedy may be read in various +literary histories, but it is natural to like his "Traite de la +Comedie selon la tradition de l'Eglise, Tiree des Conciles et des +saints Peres," published by Lovys Billaine in 1660, especially when +the tract is a clean copy, arrayed in a decorous black morocco. + +These are but a few common examples, chosen from a meagre little +library, a "twopenny treasure-house," but they illustrate, on a +minute scale, the nature of the collector's passion,--the character +of his innocent pleasures. He occasionally lights on other literary +relics of a more personal character than mere first editions. A +lucky collector lately bought Shelley's copy of Ossian, with the +poet's signature on the title-page, in Booksellers' Row. Another +possesses a copy of Foppens's rare edition of Petrarch's "Le Sage +Resolu contre l'une et l'autre Fortune," which once belonged to Sir +Hudson Lowe, the gaoler of Napoleon, and may have fortified, by its +stoical maxims, the soul of one who knew the extremes of either +fortune, the captive of St. Helena. But the best example of a book, +which is also a relic, is the "Imitatio Christi," which belonged to +J. J. Rousseau. Let M. Tenant de Latour, lately the happy owner of +this possession, tell his own story of his treasure: It was in 1827 +that M. de Latour was walking on the quai of the Louvre. Among the +volumes in a shop, he noticed a shabby little copy of the "Imitatio +Christi." M. de Latour, like other bibliophiles, was not in the +habit of examining stray copies of this work, except when they were +of the Elzevir size, for the Elzevirs published a famous undated +copy of the "Imitatio," a book which brings considerable prices. +However, by some lucky chance, some Socratic daemon whispering, may +be, in his ear, he picked up the little dingy volume of the last +century. It was of a Paris edition, 1751, but what was the name on +the fly-leaf. M. de Latour read a J. J. Rousseau. There was no +mistake about it, the good bibliophile knew Rousseau's handwriting +perfectly well; to make still more sure he paid his seventy-five +centimes for the book, and walked across the Pont des Arts, to his +bookbinder's, where he had a copy of Rousseau's works, with a +facsimile of his handwriting. As he walked, M. de Latour read in +his book, and found notes of Rousseau's on the margin. The +facsimile proved that the inscription was genuine. The happy de +Latour now made for the public office in which he was a functionary, +and rushed into the bureau of his friend the Marquis de V. The +Marquis, a man of great strength of character, recognised the +signature of Rousseau with but little display of emotion. M. de +Latour now noticed some withered flowers among the sacred pages; but +it was reserved for a friend to discover in the faded petals +Rousseau's favourite flower, the periwinkle. Like a true Frenchman, +like Rousseau himself in his younger days, M. de Latour had not +recognised the periwinkle when he saw it. That night, so excited +was M. de Latour, he never closed an eye! What puzzled him was that +he could not remember, in all Rousseau's works, a single allusion to +the "Imitatio Christi." Time went on, the old book was not rebound, +but kept piously in a case of Russia leather. M. de Latour did not +suppose that "dans ce bas monde it fut permis aux joies du +bibliophile d'aller encore plus loin." He imagined that the +delights of the amateur could only go further, in heaven. It +chanced, however, one day that he was turning over the "Oeuvres +Inedites" of Rousseau, when he found a letter, in which Jean +Jacques, writing in 1763, asked Motiers-Travers to send him the +"Imitatio Christi." Now the date 1764 is memorable, in Rousseau's +"Confessions," for a burst of sentiment over a periwinkle, the first +he had noticed particularly since his residence at Les Charmettes, +where the flower had been remarked by Madame de Warens. Thus M. +Tenant de Latour had recovered the very identical periwinkle, which +caused the tear of sensibility to moisten the fine eyes of Jean +Jacques Rousseau. + +We cannot all be adorers of Rousseau. But M. de Latour was an +enthusiast, and this little anecdote of his explains the sentimental +side of the bibliophile's pursuit. Yes, it is SENTIMENT that makes +us feel a lively affection for the books that seem to connect us +with great poets and students long ago dead. Their hands grasp ours +across the ages. I never see the first edition of Homer, that +monument of typography and of enthusiasm for letters, printed at +Florence (1488) at the expense of young Bernardo and Nerio Nerli, +and of their friend Giovanni Acciajuoli, but I feel moved to cry +with Heyne, "salvete juvenes, nobiles et generosi; [Greek text]." + +Such is our apology for book-collecting. But the best defence of +the taste would be a list of the names of great collectors, a +"vision of mighty book-hunters." Let us say nothing of Seth and +Noah, for their reputation as amateurs is only based on the +authority of the tract De Bibliothecis Antediluvianis. The library +of Assurbanipal I pass over, for its volumes were made, as Pliny +says, of coctiles laterculi, of baked tiles, which have been +deciphered by the late Mr. George Smith. Philosophers as well as +immemorial kings, Pharaohs and Ptolemys, are on our side. It was +objected to Plato, by persons answering to the cheap scribblers of +to-day, that he, though a sage, gave a hundred minae (360 pounds) +for three treatises of Philolaus, while Aristotle paid nearly thrice +the sum for a few books that had been in the library of Speusippus. +Did not a Latin philosopher go great lengths in a laudable anxiety +to purchase an Odyssey "as old as Homer," and what would not Cicero, +that great collector, have given for the Ascraean editio princeps of +Hesiod, scratched on mouldy old plates of lead? Perhaps Dr. +Schliemann may find an original edition of the "Iliad" at +Orchomenos; but of all early copies none seems so attractive as that +engraved on the leaden plates which Pausanias saw at Ascra. Then, +in modern times, what "great allies" has the collector, what +brethren in book-hunting? The names are like the catalogue with +which Villon fills his "Ballade des Seigneurs du Temps Jadis." A +collector was "le preux Charlemaigne" and our English Alfred. The +Kings of Hungary, as Mathias Corvinus; the Kings of France, and +their queens, and their mistresses, and their lords, were all +amateurs. So was our Henry VIII., and James I., who "wished he +could be chained to a shelf in the Bodleian." The middle age gives +us Richard de Bury, among ecclesiastics, and the Renaissance boasts +Sir Thomas More, with that "pretty fardle of books, in the small +type of Aldus," which he carried for a freight to the people of +Utopia. Men of the world, like Bussy Rabutin, queens like our +Elizabeth; popes like Innocent X.; financiers like Colbert (who made +the Grand Turk send him Levant morocco for bindings); men of letters +like Scott and Southey, Janin and Nodier, and Paul Lacroix; warriors +like Junot and Prince Eugene; these are only leaders of companies in +the great army of lovers of books, in which it is honourable enough +to be a private soldier. + + + +THE LIBRARY + + + +The Library which is to be spoken of in these pages, is all unlike +the halls which a Spencer or a Huth fills with treasure beyond +price. The age of great libraries has gone by, and where a +collector of the old school survives, he is usually a man of +enormous wealth, who might, if he pleased, be distinguished in +parliament, in society, on the turf itself, or in any of the +pursuits where unlimited supplies of money are strictly necessary. +The old amateurs, whom La Bruyere was wont to sneer at, were not +satisfied unless they possessed many thousands of books. For a +collector like Cardinal Mazarin, Naude bought up the whole stock of +many a bookseller, and left great towns as bare of printed paper as +if a tornado had passed, and blown the leaves away. In our modern +times, as the industrious Bibliophile Jacob, says, the fashion of +book-collecting has changed; "from the vast hall that it was, the +library of the amateur has shrunk to a closet, to a mere book-case. +Nothing but a neat article of furniture is needed now, where a great +gallery or a long suite of rooms was once required. The book has +become, as it were, a jewel, and is kept in a kind of jewel-case." +It is not quantity of pages, nor lofty piles of ordinary binding, +nor theological folios and classic quartos, that the modern amateur +desires. He is content with but a few books of distinction and +elegance, masterpieces of printing and binding, or relics of famous +old collectors, of statesmen, philosophers, beautiful dead ladies; +or, again, he buys illustrated books, or first editions of the +modern classics. No one, not the Duc d'Aumale, or M. James +Rothschild himself, with his 100 books worth 40,000 pounds, can +possess very many copies of books which are inevitably rare. Thus +the adviser who would offer suggestions to the amateur, need +scarcely write, like Naude and the old authorities, about the size +and due position of the library. He need hardly warn the builder to +make the salle face the east, "because the eastern winds, being warm +and dry of their nature, greatly temper the air, fortify the senses, +make subtle the humours, purify the spirits, preserve a healthy +disposition of the whole body, and, to say all in one word, are most +wholesome and salubrious." The east wind, like the fashion of book- +collecting, has altered in character a good deal since the days when +Naude was librarian to Cardinal Mazarin. One might as well repeat +the learned Isidorus his counsels about the panels of green marble +(that refreshes the eye), and Boethius his censures on library walls +of ivory and glass, as fall back on the ancient ideas of librarians +dead and gone. + +The amateur, then, is the person we have in our eye, and especially +the bibliophile who has but lately been bitten with this pleasant +mania of collecting. We would teach him how to arrange and keep his +books orderly and in good case, and would tell him what to buy and +what to avoid. By the LIBRARY we do not understand a study where no +one goes, and where the master of the house keeps his boots, an +assortment of walking-sticks, the "Waverley Novels," "Pearson on the +Creed," "Hume's Essays," and a collection of sermons. In, alas! too +many English homes, the Library is no more than this, and each +generation passes without adding a book, except now and then a +Bradshaw or a railway novel, to the collection on the shelves. The +success, perhaps, of circulating libraries, or, it may be, the Aryan +tendencies of our race, "which does not read, and lives in the open +air," have made books the rarest of possessions in many houses. +There are relics of the age before circulating libraries, there are +fragments of the lettered store of some scholarly great-grandfather, +and these, with a few odd numbers of magazines, a few primers and +manuals, some sermons and novels, make up the ordinary library of an +English household. But the amateur, whom we have in our thoughts, +can never be satisfied with these commonplace supplies. He has a +taste for books more or less rare, and for books neatly bound; in +short, for books, in the fabrication of which ART has not been +absent. He loves to have his study, like Montaigne's, remote from +the interruption of servants, wife, and children; a kind of shrine, +where he may be at home with himself, with the illustrious dead, and +with the genius of literature. The room may look east, west, or +south, provided that it be dry, warm, light, and airy. Among the +many enemies of books the first great foe is DAMP, and we must +describe the necessary precautions to be taken against this peril. +We will suppose that the amateur keeps his ordinary working books, +modern tomes, and all that serve him as literary tools, on open +shelves. These may reach the roof, if he has books to fill them, +and it is only necessary to see that the back of the bookcases are +slightly removed from contact with the walls. The more precious and +beautifully bound treasures will naturally be stored in a case with +closely-fitting glass-doors. {2} The shelves should be lined with +velvet or chamois leather, that the delicate edges of the books may +not suffer from contact with the wood. A leather lining, fitted to +the back of the case, will also help to keep out humidity. Most +writers recommend that the bookcases should be made of wood close in +the grain, such as well-seasoned oak; or, for smaller tabernacles of +literature, of mahogany, satin-wood lined with cedar, ebony, and so +forth. These close-grained woods are less easily penetrated by +insects, and it is fancied that book-worms dislike the aromatic +scents of cedar, sandal wood, and Russia leather. There was once a +bibliophile who said that a man could only love one book at a time, +and the darling of the moment he used to carry about in a charming +leather case. Others, men of few books, preserve them in long boxes +with glass fronts, which may be removed from place to place as +readily as the household gods of Laban. But the amateur who not +only worships but reads books, needs larger receptacles; and in the +open oak cases for modern authors, and for books with common modern +papers and bindings, in the closed armoire for books of rarity and +price, he will find, we think, the most useful mode of arranging his +treasures. His shelves will decline in height from the lowest, +where huge folios stand at case, to the top ranges, while Elzevirs +repose on a level with the eye. It is well that each upper shelf +should have a leather fringe to keep the dust away. + +As to the shape of the bookcases, and the furniture, and ornaments +of the library, every amateur will please himself. Perhaps the +satin-wood or mahogany tabernacles of rare books are best made after +the model of what furniture-dealers indifferently call the "Queen +Anne" or the "Chippendale" style. There is a pleasant quaintness in +the carved architectural ornaments of the top, and the inlaid +flowers of marquetry go well with the pretty florid editions of the +last century, the books that were illustrated by Stothard and +Gravelot. Ebony suits theological tomes very well, especially when +they are bound in white vellum. As to furniture, people who can +afford it will imitate the arrangements of Lucullus, in Mr. Hill +Burton's charming volume "The Book-hunter" (Blackwood, Edinburgh, +1862).--"Everything is of perfect finish,--the mahogany-railed +gallery, the tiny ladders, the broad winged lecterns, with leathern +cushions on the edges to keep the wood from grazing the rich +bindings, the books themselves, each shelf uniform with its facings, +or rather backings, like well-dressed lines at a review." The late +Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, a famous bibliophile, invented a very +nice library chair. It is most comfortable to sit on; and, as the +top of the back is broad and flat, it can be used as a ladder of two +high steps, when one wants to reach a book on a lofty shelf. A kind +of square revolving bookcase, an American invention, manufactured by +Messrs. Trubner, is useful to the working man of letters. Made in +oak, stained green, it is not unsightly. As to ornaments, every man +to his taste. You may have a "pallid bust of Pallas" above your +classical collection, or fill the niches in a shrine of old French +light literature, pastoral and comedy, with delicate shepherdesses +in Chelsea china. On such matters a modest writer, like Mr. Jingle +when Mr. Pickwick ordered dinner, "will not presume to dictate." + +Next to damp, dust and dirt are the chief enemies of books. At +short intervals, books and shelves ought to be dusted by the amateur +himself. Even Dr. Johnson, who was careless of his person, and of +volumes lent to him, was careful about the cleanliness of his own +books. Boswell found him one day with big gloves on his hands +beating the dust out of his library, as was his custom. There is +nothing so hideous as a dirty thumb-mark on a white page. These +marks are commonly made, not because the reader has unwashed hands, +but because the dust which settles on the top edge of books falls +in, and is smudged when they are opened. Gilt-top edges should be +smoothed with a handkerchief, and a small brush should be kept for +brushing the tops of books with rough edges, before they are opened. +But it were well that all books had the top edge gilt. There is no +better preservative against dust. Dust not only dirties books, it +seems to supply what Mr. Spencer would call a fitting environment +for book-worms. The works of book-worms speak for themselves, and +are manifest to all. How many a rare and valuable volume is spoiled +by neat round holes drilled through cover and leaves! But as to the +nature of your worm, authorities differ greatly. The ancients knew +this plague, of which Lucian speaks. Mr. Blades mentions a white +book-worm, slain by the librarian of the Bodleian. In Byzantium the +black sort prevailed. Evenus, the grammarian, wrote an epigram +against the black book-worm ("Anthol. Pal.," ix. 251):- + + +Pest of the Muses, devourer of pages, in crannies that lurkest, +Fruits of the Muses to taint, labour of learning to spoil; +Wherefore, oh black-fleshed worm! wert thou born for the evil thou +workest? +Wherefore thine own foul form shap'st thou with envious toil? + + +The learned Mentzelius says he hath heard the book-worm crow like a +cock unto his mate, and "I knew not," says he, "whether some local +fowl was clamouring or whether there was but a beating in mine ears. +Even at that moment, all uncertain as I was, I perceived, in the +paper whereon I was writing, a little insect that ceased not to +carol like very chanticleer, until, taking a magnifying glass, I +assiduously observed him. He is about the bigness of a mite, and +carries a grey crest, and the head low, bowed over the bosom; as to +his crowing noise, it comes of his clashing his wings against each +other with an incessant din." Thus far Mentzelius, and more to the +same purpose, as may be read in the "Memoirs of famous Foreign +Academies" (Dijon, 1755-59, 13 vol. in quarto). But, in our times, +the learned Mr. Blades having a desire to exhibit book-worms in the +body to the Caxtonians at the Caxton celebration, could find few men +that had so much as seen a book-worm, much less heard him utter his +native wood-notes wild. Yet, in his "Enemies of Books," he +describes some rare encounters with the worm. Dirty books, damp +books, dusty books, and books that the owner never opens, are most +exposed to the enemy; and "the worm, the proud worm, is the +conqueror still," as a didactic poet sings, in an ode on man's +mortality. As we have quoted Mentzelius, it may not be amiss to +give D'Alembert's theory of book-worms: "I believe," he says, "that +a little beetle lays her eggs in books in August, thence is hatched +a mite, like the cheese-mite, which devours books merely because it +is compelled to gnaw its way out into the air." Book-worms like the +paste which binders employ, but D'Alembert adds that they cannot +endure absinthe. Mr. Blades finds too that they disdain to devour +our adulterate modern paper. + +"Say, shall I sing of rats," asked Grainger, when reading to Johnson +his epic, the "Sugar-cane." "No," said the Doctor; and though rats +are the foe of the bibliophile, at least as much as of the sugar- +planter, we do not propose to sing of them. M. Fertiault has done +so already in "Les Sonnets d'un Bibliophile," where the reader must +be pleased with the beautiful etchings of rats devouring an +illuminated MS., and battening on morocco bindings stamped with the +bees of De Thou. It is unnecessary and it would be undignified, to +give hints on rat-catching, but the amateur must not forget that +these animals have a passion for bindings. + +The book-collector must avoid gas, which deposits a filthy coat of +oil that catches dust. Mr. Blades found that three jets of gas in a +small room soon reduced the leather on his book-shelves to a powder +of the consistency of snuff, and made the backs of books come away +in his hand. Shaded lamps give the best and most suitable light for +the library. As to the risks which books run at the hands of the +owner himself, we surely need not repeat the advice of Richard de +Bury. Living in an age when tubs (if not unknown as M. Michelet +declares) were far from being common, the old collector inveighed +against the dirty hands of readers, and against their habit of +marking their place in a book with filthy straws, or setting down a +beer pot in the middle of the volume to keep the pages open. But +the amateur, however refined himself, must beware of men who love +not fly leaves neither regard margins, but write notes over the +latter, and light their pipes with the former. After seeing the +wreck of a book which these persons have been busy with, one +appreciates the fine Greek hyperbole. The Greeks did not speak of +"thumbing" but of "walking up and down" on a volume ([Greek text]). +To such fellows it matters not that they make a book dirty and +greasy, cutting the pages with their fingers, and holding the boards +over the fire till they crack. All these slatternly practices, +though they destroy a book as surely as the flames of Caesar's +soldiers at Alexandria, seem fine manly acts to the grobians who use +them. What says Jules Janin, who has written "Contre l'indifference +des Philistins," "il faut a l'homme sage et studieux un tome +honorable et digne de sa louange." The amateur, and all decent men, +will beware of lending books to such rude workers; and this +consideration brings us to these great foes of books, the borrowers +and robbers. The lending of books, and of other property, has been +defended by some great authorities; thus Panurge himself says, "it +would prove much more easy in nature to have fish entertained in the +air, and bullocks fed in the bottom of the ocean, than to support or +tolerate a rascally rabble of people that will not lend." +Pirckheimer, too, for whom Albert Durer designed a book-plate, was a +lender, and took for his device Sibi et Amicis; and Jo. Grolierii et +amicorum, was the motto of the renowned Grolier, whom mistaken +writers vainly but frequently report to have been a bookbinder. But +as Mr. Leicester Warren says, in his "Study of Book-plates" +(Pearson, 1880), "Christian Charles de Savigny leaves all the rest +behind, exclaiming non mihi sed aliis." But the majority of +amateurs have chosen wiser, though more churlish devices, as "the +ungodly borroweth and payeth not again," or "go to them that sell, +and buy for yourselves." David Garrick engraved on his book-plate, +beside a bust of Shakspeare, these words of Menage, "La premiere +chose qu'on doit faire, quand on a emprunte' un livre, c'est de le +lire, afin de pouvoir le rendre plutot." But the borrower is so +minded that the last thing he thinks of is to read a borrowed book, +and the penultimate subject of his reflections is its restoration. +Menage (Menagiana, Paris, 1729, vol. i. p. 265), mentions, as if it +were a notable misdeed, this of Angelo Politian's, "he borrowed a +'Lucretius' from Pomponius Laetus, and kept it for four years." +Four years! in the sight of the borrower it is but a moment. Menage +reports that a friend kept his "Pausanias" for three years, whereas +four months was long enough. + + +"At quarto saltem mense redire decet." + + +There is no satisfaction in lending a book; for it is rarely that +borrowers, while they deface your volumes, gather honey for new +stores, as De Quincey did, and Coleridge, and even Dr. Johnson, who +"greased and dogs-eared such volumes as were confided to his tender +mercies, with the same indifference wherewith he singed his own +wigs." But there is a race of mortals more annoying to a +conscientious man than borrowers. These are the spontaneous +lenders, who insist that you shall borrow their tomes. For my own +part, when I am oppressed with the charity of such, I lock their +books up in a drawer, and behold them not again till the day of +their return. There is no security against borrowers, unless a man +like Guibert de Pixerecourt steadfastly refuses to lend. The device +of Pixerecourt was un livre est un ami qui ne change jamais. But he +knew that our books change when they have been borrowed, like our +friends when they have been married; when "a lady borrows them," as +the fairy queen says in the ballad of "Tamlane." + + +"But had I kenn'd, Tamlane," she says, +"A lady wad borrowed thee, +I wad ta'en out thy twa gray een, +Put in twa een o' tree! + +"Had I but kenn'd, Tamlane," she says, +"Before ye came frae hame, +I wad ta'en out your heart o' flesh, +Put in a heart o' stane!" + + +Above the lintel of his library door, Pixerecourt had this couplet +carved - + + +"Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prete, +Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gate." + + +M. Paul Lacroix says he would not have lent a book to his own +daughter. Once Lacroix asked for the loan of a work of little +value. Pixerecourt frowned, and led his friend beneath the doorway, +pointing to the motto. "Yes," said M. Lacroix, "but I thought that +verse applied to every one but me." So Pixerecourt made him a +present of the volume. + +We cannot all imitate this "immense" but unamiable amateur. +Therefore, bibliophiles have consoled themselves with the inventions +of book-plates, quaint representations, perhaps heraldic, perhaps +fanciful, of their claims to the possession of their own dear +volumes. Mr. Leicester Warren and M. Poulet Malassis have written +the history of these slender works of art, and each bibliophile may +have his own engraved, and may formulate his own anathemas on people +who borrow and restore not again. The process is futile, but may +comfort the heart, like the curses against thieves which the Greeks +were wont to scratch on leaden tablets, and deposit in the temple of +Demeter. Each amateur can exercise his own taste in the design of a +book-plate; and for such as love and collect rare editions of +"Homer," I venture to suggest this motto, which may move the heart +of the borrower to send back an Aldine copy of the epic - + + +[Greek text] {3} + + +Mr. William Blades, in his pleasant volume, "The Enemies of Books" +(Trubner), makes no account of the book-thief or biblioklept. "If +they injure the owners," says Mr. Blades, with real tolerance, "they +do no harm to the books themselves, by merely transferring them from +one set of book-shelves to another." This sentence has naturally +caused us to reflect on the ethical character of the biblioklept. +He is not always a bad man. In old times, when language had its +delicacies, and moralists were not devoid of sensibility, the French +did not say "un voleur de livres," but "un chipeur de livres;" as +the papers call lady shoplifters "kleptomaniacs." There are +distinctions. M. Jules Janin mentions a great Parisian bookseller +who had an amiable weakness. He was a bibliokleptomaniac. His +first motion when he saw a book within reach was to put it in his +pocket. Every one knew his habit, and when a volume was lost at a +sale the auctioneer duly announced it, and knocked it down to the +enthusiast, who regularly paid the price. When he went to a private +view of books about to be sold, the officials at the door would ask +him, as he was going out, if he did not happen to have an Elzevir +Horace or an Aldine Ovid in his pocket. Then he would search those +receptacles and exclaim, "Yes, yes, here it is; so much obliged to +you; I am so absent." M. Janin mentions an English noble, a "Sir +Fitzgerald," who had the same tastes, but who unluckily fell into +the hands of the police. Yet M. Janin has a tenderness for the +book-stealer, who, after all, is a lover of books. The moral +position of the malefactor is so delicate and difficult that we +shall attempt to treat of it in the severe, though rococo, manner of +Aristotle's "Ethics." Here follows an extract from the lost +Aristotelian treatise "Concerning Books":- + +"Among the contemplative virtues we reckon the love of books. Now +this virtue, like courage or liberality, has its mean, its excess, +and its defect. The defect is indifference, and the man who is +defective as to the love of books has no name in common parlance. +Therefore, we may call him the Robustious Philistine. This man will +cut the leaves of his own or his friend's volumes with the butter- +knife at breakfast. Also he is just the person wilfully to mistake +the double sense of the term 'fly-leaves,' and to stick the 'fly- +leaves' of his volumes full of fly-hooks. He also loves dogs'-ears, +and marks his place with his pipe when he shuts a book in a hurry; +or he will set the leg of his chair on a page to keep it open. He +praises those who tear off margins for pipe-lights, and he makes +cigarettes with the tissue-paper that covers engravings. When his +books are bound, he sees that the margin is cut to the quick. He +tells you too, that 'HE buys books to read them.' But he does not +say why he thinks it needful to spoil them. Also he will drag off +bindings--or should we perhaps call this crime [Greek text], or +brutality, rather than mere vice? for vice is essentially human, but +to tear off bindings is bestial. Thus they still speak of a certain +monster who lived during the French Revolution, and who, having +purchased volumes attired in morocco, and stamped with the devices +of the oligarchs, would rip off the leather or vellum, and throw +them into the fire or out of the window, saying that 'now he could +read with unwashed hands at his ease.' Such a person, then, is the +man indifferent to books, and he sins by way of defect, being +deficient in the contemplative virtue of book-loving. As to the man +who is exactly in the right mean, we call him the book-lover. His +happiness consists not in reading, which is an active virtue, but in +the contemplation of bindings, and illustrations, and title-pages. +Thus his felicity partakes of the nature of the bliss we attribute +to the gods, for that also is contemplative, and we call the book- +lover 'happy,' and even 'blessed,' but within the limits of mortal +happiness. But, just as in the matter of absence of fear there is a +mean which we call courage, and a defect which we call cowardice, +and an excess which is known as foolhardiness; so it is in the case +of the love of books. As to the mean, we have seen that it is the +virtue of the true book-lover, while the defect constitutes the sin +of the Robustious Philistine. But the extreme is found in +covetousness, and the covetous man who is in the extreme state of +book-loving, is the biblioklept, or book-stealer. Now his vice +shows itself, not in contemplation (for of contemplation there can +be no excess), but in action. For books are procured, as we say, by +purchase, or by barter, and these are voluntary exchanges, both the +seller and the buyer being willing to deal. But books are, again, +procured in another way, by involuntary contract--that is, when the +owner of the book is unwilling to part with it, but he whose own the +book is not is determined to take it. The book-stealer is such a +man as this, and he possesses himself of books with which the owner +does not intend to part, by virtue of a series of involuntary +contracts. Again, the question may be raised, whether is the +Robustious Philistine who despises books, or the biblioklept who +adores them out of measure and excessively, the worse citizen? Now, +if we are to look to the consequences of actions only (as the +followers of Bentham advise), clearly the Robustious Philistine is +the worse citizen, for he mangles, and dirties, and destroys books +which it is the interest of the State to preserve. But the +biblioklept treasures and adorns the books he has acquired; and when +he dies, or goes to prison, the State receives the benefit at his +sale. Thus Libri, who was the greatest of biblioklepts, rescued +many of the books he stole from dirt and misuse, and had them bound +royally in purple and gold. Also, it may be argued that books +naturally belong to him who can appreciate them; and if good books +are in a dull or indifferent man's keeping, this is the sort of +slavery which we call "unnatural" in our POLITICS, and which is not +to be endured. Shall we say, then, that the Robustious Philistine +is the worse citizen, while the Biblioklept is the worse man? But +this is perhaps matter for a separate disquisition." + +This fragment of the lost Aristotelian treatise "Concerning Books," +shows what a difficulty the Stagirite had in determining the precise +nature of the moral offence of the biblioklept. Indeed, both as a +collector and as an intuitive moralist, Aristotle must have found it +rather difficult to condemn the book-thief. He, doubtless, went on +to draw distinctions between the man who steals books to sell them +again for mere pecuniary profit (which he would call "chrematistic," +or "unnatural," book-stealing), and the man who steals them because +he feels that he is their proper and natural possessor. The same +distinction is taken by Jules Janin, who was a more constant student +of Horace than of Aristotle. In his imaginary dialogue of +bibliophiles, Janin introduces a character who announces the death +of M. Libri. The tolerant person who brings the sad news proposes +"to cast a few flowers on the melancholy tomb. He was a +bibliophile, after all. What do you say to it? Many a good fellow +has stolen books, and died in grace at the last." "Yes," replies +the president of the club, "but the good fellows did not sell the +books they stole . . . Cest une grande honte, une grande misere." +This Libri was an Inspector-General of French Libraries under Louis +Philippe. When he was tried, in 1848, it was calculated that the +sum of his known thefts amounted to 20,000 pounds. Many of his +robberies escaped notice at the time. It is not long since Lord +Ashburnham, according to a French journal, "Le Livre," found in his +collection some fragments of a Pentateuch. These relics had been in +the possession of the Lyons Library, whence Libri stole them in +1847. The late Lord Ashburnham bought them, without the faintest +idea of Libri's dishonesty; and when, after eleven years, the +present peer discovered the proper owners of his treasure, he +immediately restored the Pentateuch to the Lyons Library. + +Many eminent characters have been biblioklepts. When Innocent X. +was still Monsignor Pamphilio, he stole a book--so says Tallemant +des Reaux--from Du Monstier, the painter. The amusing thing is that +Du Monstier himself was a book-thief. He used to tell how he had +lifted a book, of which he had long been in search, from a stall on +the Pont-Neuf; "but," says Tallemant (whom Janin does not seem to +have consulted), "there are many people who don't think it thieving +to steal a book unless you sell it afterwards." But Du Monstier +took a less liberal view where his own books were concerned. The +Cardinal Barberini came to Paris as legate, and brought in his suite +Monsignor Pamphilio, who afterwards became Innocent X. The Cardinal +paid a visit to Du Monstier in his studio, where Monsignor Pamphilio +spied, on a table, "L'Histoire du Concile de Trent"--the good +edition, the London one. "What a pity," thought the young +ecclesiastic, "that such a man should be, by some accident, the +possessor of so valuable a book." With these sentiments Monsignor +Pamphilio slipped the work under his soutane. But little Du +Monstier observed him, and said furiously to the Cardinal, that a +holy man should not bring thieves and robbers in his company. With +these words, and with others of a violent and libellous character, +he recovered the "History of the Council of Trent," and kicked out +the future Pope. Amelot de la Houssaie traces to this incident the +hatred borne by Innocent X. to the Crown and the people of France. +Another Pope, while only a cardinal, stole a book from Menage--so M. +Janin reports--but we have not been able to discover Menage's own +account of the larceny. The anecdotist is not so truthful that +cardinals need flush a deeper scarlet, like the roses in Bion's +"Lament for Adonis," on account of a scandal resting on the +authority of Menage. Among Royal persons, Catherine de Medici, +according to Brantome, was a biblioklept. "The Marshal Strozzi had +a very fine library, and after his death the Queen-Mother seized it, +promising some day to pay the value to his son, who never got a +farthing of the money." The Ptolemies, too, were thieves on a large +scale. A department of the Alexandrian Library was called "The +Books from the Ships," and was filled with rare volumes stolen from +passengers in vessels that touched at the port. True, the owners +were given copies of their ancient MSS., but the exchange, as +Aristotle says, was an "involuntary" one, and not distinct from +robbery. + +The great pattern of biblioklepts, a man who carried his passion to +the most regrettable excesses, was a Spanish priest, Don Vincente, +of the convent of Pobla, in Aragon. When the Spanish revolution +despoiled the convent libraries, Don Vincente established himself at +Barcelona, under the pillars of Los Encantes, where are the stalls +of the merchants of bric-a-brac and the seats of them that sell +books. In a gloomy den the Don stored up treasures which he hated +to sell. Once he was present at an auction where he was out-bid in +the competition for a rare, perhaps a unique, volume. Three nights +after that, the people of Barcelona were awakened by cries of +"Fire!" The house and shop of the man who had bought "Ordinacions +per los gloriosos reys de Arago" were blazing. When the fire was +extinguished, the body of the owner of the house was found, with a +pipe in his blackened hand, and some money beside him. Every one +said, "He must have set the house on fire with a spark from his +pipe." Time went on, and week by week the police found the bodies +of slain men, now in the street, now in a ditch, now in the river. +There were young men and old, all had been harmless and inoffensive +in their lives, and--all had been bibliophiles. A dagger in an +invisible hand had reached their hearts but the assassin had spared +their purses, money, and rings. An organised search was made in the +city, and the shop of Don Vincente was examined. There, in a hidden +recess, the police discovered the copy of "Ordinacions per los +gloriosis reys de Arago," which ought by rights to have been burned +with the house of its purchaser. Don Vincente was asked how he got +the book. He replied in a quiet voice, demanded that his collection +should be made over to the Barcelona Library, and then confessed a +long array of crimes. He had strangled his rival, stolen the +"Ordinacions," and burned the house. The slain men were people who +had bought from him books which he really could not bear to part +with. At his trial his counsel tried to prove that his confession +was false, and that he might have got his books by honest means. It +was objected that there was in the world only one book printed by +Lambert Palmart in 1482, and that the prisoner must have stolen +this, the only copy, from the library where it was treasured. The +defendant's counsel proved that there was another copy in the +Louvre; that, therefore, there might be more, and that the +defendant's might have been honestly procured. Here Don Vincente, +previously callous, uttered an hysterical cry. Said the Alcalde:- +"At last, Vincente, you begin to understand the enormity of your +offence?" "Ah, Senor Alcalde, my error was clumsy indeed. If you +only knew how miserable I am!" "If human justice prove inflexible, +there is another justice whose pity is inexhaustible. Repentance is +never too late." "Ah, Senor Alcalde, but my copy was not unique!" +With the story of this impenitent thief we may close the roll of +biblioklepts, though Dibdin pretends that Garrick was of the +company, and stole Alleyne's books at Dulwich. + +There is a thievish nature more hateful than even the biblioklept. +The Book-Ghoul is he who combines the larceny of the biblioklept +with the abominable wickedness of breaking up and mutilating the +volumes from which he steals. He is a collector of title-pages, +frontispieces, illustrations, and book-plates. He prowls furtively +among public and private libraries, inserting wetted threads, which +slowly eat away the illustrations he covets; and he broods, like the +obscene demon of Arabian superstitions, over the fragments of the +mighty dead. His disgusting tastes vary. He prepares books for the +American market. Christmas books are sold in the States stuffed +with pictures cut out of honest volumes. Here is a quotation from +an American paper:- + +"Another style of Christmas book which deserves to be mentioned, +though it is out of the reach of any but the very rich, is the +historical or literary work enriched with inserted plates. There +has never, to our knowledge, been anything offered in America so +supremely excellent as the $5000 book on Washington, we think-- +exhibited by Boston last year, but not a few fine specimens of books +of this class are at present offered to purchasers. Scribner has a +beautiful copy of Forster's 'Life of Dickens,' enlarged from three +volumes octavo to nine volumes quarto, by taking to pieces, +remounting, and inlaying. It contains some eight hundred +engravings, portraits, views, playbills, title-pages, catalogues, +proof illustrations from Dickens's works, a set of the Onwhyn +plates, rare engravings by Cruikshank and 'Phiz,' and autograph +letters. Though this volume does not compare with Harvey's Dickens, +offered for $1750 two years ago, it is an excellent specimen of +books of this sort, and the veriest tyro in bibliographical affairs +knows how scarce are becoming the early editions of Dickens's works +and the plates illustrating them. {4} Anything about Dickens in the +beginning of his career is a sound investment from a business point +of view. Another work of the same sort, valued at $240, is Lady +Trevelyan's edition of Macaulay, illustrated with portraits, many of +them very rare. Even cheaper, all things considered, is an extra- +illustrated copy of the 'Histoire de la Gravure,' which, besides its +seventy-three reproductions of old engravings, is enriched with two +hundred fine specimens of the early engravers, many of the +impressions being in first and second states. At $155 such a book +is really a bargain, especially for any one who is forming a +collection of engravings. Another delightful work is the library +edition of Bray's 'Evelyn,' illustrated with some two hundred and +fifty portraits and views, and valued at $175; and still another is +Boydell's 'Milton,' with plates after Westall, and further +illustrations in the shape of twenty-eight portraits of the painter +and one hundred and eighty-one plates, and many of them before +letter. The price of this book is $325." + +But few book-ghouls are worse than the moral ghoul. He defaces, +with a pen, the passages, in some precious volume, which do not meet +his idea of moral propriety. I have a Pine's "Horace," with the +engravings from gems, which has fallen into the hands of a moral +ghoul. Not only has he obliterated the verses which hurt his +delicate sense, but he has actually scraped away portions of the +classical figures, and "the breasts of the nymphs in the brake." +The soul of Tartuffe had entered into the body of a sinner of the +last century. The antiquarian ghoul steals title-pages and +colophons. The aesthetic ghoul cuts illuminated initials out of +manuscripts. The petty, trivial, and almost idiotic ghoul of our +own days, sponges the fly-leaves and boards of books for the purpose +of cribbing the book-plates. An old "Complaint of a Book-plate," in +dread of the wet sponge of the enemy, has been discovered by Mr. +Austin Dobson:- {5} + + +THE BOOK-PLATE'S PETITION. +By a Gentleman of the Temple. + + +While cynic CHARLES still trimm'd the vane +'Twixt Querouaille and Castlemaine, +In days that shocked JOHN EVELYN, +My First Possessor fix'd me in. +In days of Dutchmen and of frost, +The narrow sea with JAMES I cross'd, +Returning when once more began +The Age of Saturn and of ANNE. +I am a part of all the past; +I knew the GEORGES, first and last; +I have been oft where else was none +Save the great wig of ADDISON; +And seen on shelves beneath me grope +The little eager form of POPE. +I lost the Third that own'd me when +French NOAILLES fled at Dettingen; +The year JAMES WOLFE surpris'd Quebec, +The Fourth in hunting broke his neck; +The day that WILLIAM HOGARTH dy'd, +The Fifth one found me in Cheapside. +This was a Scholar, one of those +Whose Greek is sounder than their hose; +He lov'd old Books and nappy ale, +So liv'd at Streatham, next to THRALE. +'Twas there this stain of grease I boast +Was made by Dr. JOHNSON'S toast. +(He did it, as I think, for Spite; +My Master call'd him Jacobite!) +And now that I so long to-day +Have rested post discrimina, +Safe in the brass-wir'd book-case where +I watch'd the Vicar's whit'ning hair, +Must I these travell'd bones inter +In some Collector's sepulchre! +Must I be torn from hence and thrown +With frontispiece and colophon! +With vagrant E's, and I's, and O's, +The spoil of plunder'd Folios! +With scraps and snippets that to ME +Are naught but kitchen company! +Nay, rather, FRIEND, this favour grant me: +Tear me at once; but don't transplant me. + +CHELTENHAM, Sept. 31, 1792. + + +The conceited ghoul writes his notes across our fair white margins, +in pencil, or in more baneful ink. Or he spills his ink bottle at +large over the pages, as Andre Chenier's friend served his copy of +Malherbe. It is scarcely necessary to warn the amateur against the +society of book-ghouls, who are generally snuffy and foul in +appearance, and by no means so insinuating as that fair lady-ghoul, +Amina, of the Arabian Nights. + +Another enemy of books must be mentioned with the delicacy that +befits the topic. Almost all women are the inveterate foes, not of +novels, of course, nor peerages and popular volumes of history, but +of books worthy of the name. It is true that Isabelle d'Este, and +Madame de Pompadour, and Madame de Maintenon, were collectors; and, +doubtless, there are other brilliant exceptions to a general rule. +But, broadly speaking, women detest the books which the collector +desires and admires. First, they don't understand them; second, +they are jealous of their mysterious charms; third, books cost +money; and it really is a hard thing for a lady to see money +expended on what seems a dingy old binding, or yellow paper scored +with crabbed characters. Thus ladies wage a skirmishing war against +booksellers' catalogues, and history speaks of husbands who have had +to practise the guile of smugglers when they conveyed a new purchase +across their own frontier. Thus many married men are reduced to +collecting Elzevirs, which go readily into the pocket, for you +cannot smuggle a folio volume easily. This inveterate dislike of +books often produces a very deplorable result when an old collector +dies. His "womankind," as the Antiquary called them, sell all his +treasures for the price of waste-paper, to the nearest country +bookseller. It is a melancholy duty which forces one to introduce +such topics into a volume on "Art at Home." But this little work +will not have been written in vain if it persuades ladies who +inherit books not to sell them hastily, without taking good and +disinterested opinion as to their value. They often dispose of +treasures worth thousands, for a ten pound note, and take pride in +the bargain. Here, let history mention with due honour the paragon +of her sex and the pattern to all wives of book-collecting men-- +Madame Fertiault. It is thus that she addresses her lord in a +charming triolet ("Les Amoureux du Livre," p. xxxv):- + + +"Le livre a ton esprit . . . tant mieux! +Moi, j'ai ton coeur, et sans partage. +Puis-je desirer davantage? +Le livre a ton esprit . . . tant mieux! +Heureuse de te voir joyeux, +Je t'en voudrais . . . tout un etage. +Le livre a ton esprit . . . tant mieux! +Moi, j'ai ton coeur, et sans partage." + + +Books rule thy mind, so let it be! +Thy heart is mine, and mine alone. +What more can I require of thee? +Books rule thy mind, so let it be! +Contented when thy bliss I see, +I wish a world of books thine own. +Books rule thy mind, so let it be! +Thy heart is mine, and mine alone. + + +There is one method of preserving books, which, alas, only tempts +the borrower, the stealer, the rat, and the book-worm; but which is +absolutely necessary as a defence against dust and neglect. This is +binding. The bookbinder's art too often destroys books when the +artist is careless, but it is the only mode of preventing our +volumes from falling to pieces, and from being some day disregarded +as waste-paper. A well-bound book, especially a book from a famous +collection, has its price, even if its literary contents be of +trifling value. A leather coat fashioned by Derome, or Le Gascon, +or Duseuil, will win respect and careful handling for one specimen +of an edition whereof all the others have perished. Nothing is so +slatternly as the aspect of a book merely stitched, in the French +fashion, when the threads begin to stretch, and the paper covers to +curl and be torn. Worse consequences follow, whole sheets are lost, +the volume becomes worthless, and the owner must often be at the +expense of purchasing another copy, if he can, for the edition may +now be out of print. Thus binding of some sort not only adds a +grace to the library, presenting to the eye the cheerful gilded rows +of our volumes, but is a positive economy. In the case of our +cloth-covered English works, the need of binding is not so +immediately obvious. But our publishers have a taste for clothing +their editions in tender tones of colour, stamped, often, with +landscapes printed in gold, in white, or what not. Covers like +this, may or may not please the eye while they are new and clean, +but they soon become dirty and hideous. When a book is covered in +cloth of a good dark tint it may be allowed to remain unbound, but +the primrose and lilac hues soon call out for the aid of the binder. + +Much has been written of late about book-binding. In a later part +of this manual we shall have something to say about historical +examples of the art, and the performances of the great masters. At +present one must begin by giving the practical rule, that a book +should be bound in harmony with its character and its value. The +bibliophile, if he could give the rein to his passions, would bind +every book he cares to possess in a full coat of morocco, or (if it +did not age so fast) of Russia leather. But to do this is beyond +the power of most of us. Only works of great rarity or value should +be full bound in morocco. If we have the luck to light on a +Shakespeare quarto, on some masterpiece of Aldus Manutius, by all +means let us entrust it to the most competent binder, and instruct +him to do justice to the volume. Let old English books, as More's +"Utopia," have a cover of stamped and blazoned calf. Let the binder +clothe an early Rabelais or Marot in the style favoured by Grolier, +in leather tooled with geometrical patterns. Let a Moliere or +Corneille be bound in the graceful contemporary style of Le Gascon, +where the lace-like pattern of the gilding resembles the Venetian +point-lace, for which La Fontaine liked to ruin himself. Let a +binding, a la fanfare, in the style of Thouvenin, denote a novelist +of the last century, let panelled Russia leather array a folio of +Shakespeare, and let English works of a hundred years ago be clothed +in the sturdy fashion of Roger Payne. Again, the bibliophile may +prefer to have the leather stamped with his arms and crest, like de +Thou, Henri III., D'Hoym, Madame du Barry, and most of the +collectors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yet there +are books of great price which one would hesitate to bind in new +covers. An Aldine or an Elzevir, in its old vellum or paper +wrapper, with uncut leaves, should be left just as it came from the +presses of the great printers. In this condition it is a far more +interesting relic. But a morocco case may be made for the book, and +lettered properly on the back, so that the volume, though really +unbound, may take its place with the bound books on the shelves. A +copy of any of Shelley's poems, in the original wrappers, should I +venture to think be treated thus, and so should the original +editions of Keats's and of Mr. Tennyson's works. A collector, who +is also an author, will perhaps like to have copies of his own works +in morocco, for their coats will give them a chance of surviving the +storms of time. But most other books, not of the highest rarity and +interest, will be sufficiently clothed in half-bindings, that is, +with leather backs and corners, while the rest of the cover is of +cloth or paper, or whatever other substance seems most appropriate. +An Oxford tutor used to give half-binding as an example of what +Aristotle calls [Greek text], or "shabbiness," and when we recommend +such coverings for books it is as a counsel of expediency, not of +perfection. But we cannot all be millionaires; and, let it be +remembered, the really wise amateur will never be extravagant, nor +let his taste lead him into "the ignoble melancholy of pecuniary +embarrassment." Let the example of Charles Nodier be our warning; +nay, let us remember that while Nodier could get out of debt by +selling his collection, OURS will probably not fetch anything like +what we gave for it. In half-bindings there is a good deal of room +for the exercise of the collector's taste. M. Octave Uzanne, in a +tract called "Les Caprices d'un Bibliophile," gives some hints on +this topic, which may be taken or let alone. M. Uzanne has noticed +the monotony, and the want of meaning and suggestion in ordinary +half-bindings. The paper or cloth which covers the greater part of +the surface of half-bound books is usually inartistic and even ugly. +He proposes to use old scraps of brocade, embroidery, Venice velvet, +or what not; and doubtless a covering made of some dead fair lady's +train goes well with a romance by Crebillon, and engravings by +Marillier. "Voici un cartonnage Pompadour de notre invention," says +M. Uzanne, with pride; but he observes that it needs a strong will +to make a bookbinder execute such orders. For another class of +books, which our honest English shelves reject with disgust, M. +Uzanne proposes a binding of the skin of the boa constrictor; +undoubtedly appropriate and "admonishing." The leathers of China +and Japan, with their strange tints and gilded devices may be used +for books of fantasy, like "Gaspard de la Nuit," or the "Opium +Eater," or Poe's poems, or the verses of Gerard de Nerval. Here, in +short, is an almost unexplored field for the taste of the +bibliophile, who, with some expenditure of time, and not much of +money, may make half-binding an art, and give modern books a +peculiar and appropriate raiment. + +M. Ambrose Firmin Didot has left some notes on a more serious +topic,--the colours to be chosen when books are full-bound in +morocco. Thus he would have the "Iliad" clothed in red, the +"Odyssey" in blue, because the old Greek rhapsodists wore a scarlet +cloak when they recited the Wrath of Achilles, a blue one when they +chanted of the Return of Odysseus. The writings of the great +dignitaries of the Church, M. Didot would array in violet; scarlet +goes well with the productions of cardinals; philosophers have their +sober suit of black morocco, poets like Panard may be dressed in +rose colour. A collector of this sort would like, were it possible, +to attire Goldsmith's poems in a "coat of Tyrian bloom, satin +grain." As an antithesis to these extravagant fancies, we may add +that for ordinary books no binding is cheaper, neater, and more +durable, than a coat of buckram. + +The conditions of a well bound book may be tersely enumerated. The +binding should unite solidity and elegance. The book should open +easily, and remain open at any page you please. It should never be +necessary, in reading, to squeeze back the covers; and no book, +however expensively bound, has been properly treated, if it does not +open with ease. It is a mistake to send recently printed books to +the binder, especially books which contain engravings. The printing +ink dries slowly, and, in the process called "beating," the text is +often transferred to the opposite page. M. Rouveyre recommends that +one or two years should pass before the binding of a newly printed +book. The owner will, of course, implore the binder to, spare the +margins; and, almost equally of course, the binder, durus arator, +will cut them down with his abominable plough. One is almost +tempted to say that margins should always be left untouched, for if +once the binder begins to clip he is unable to resist the seductive +joy, and cuts the paper to the quick, even into the printed matter. +Mr. Blades tells a very sad story of a nobleman who handed over some +Caxtons to a provincial binder, and received them back MINUS 500 +pounds worth of margin. Margins make a book worth perhaps 400 +pounds, while their absence reduces the same volume to the box +marked "all these at fourpence." Intonsis capillis, with locks +unshorn, as Motteley the old dealer used to say, an Elzevir in its +paper wrapper may be worth more than the same tome in morocco, +stamped with Longepierre's fleece of gold. But these things are +indifferent to bookbinders, new and old. There lies on the table, +as I write, "Les Provinciales, ou Les Lettres Ecrites par Louis de +Montalte a un Provincial de ses amis, & aux R.R. P.P. Jesuites. A +Cologne, Ches PIERRE de la VALLEE, M.DC.LVIII." It is the Elzevir +edition, or what passes for such; but the binder has cut down the +margin so that the words "Les Provinciales" almost touch the top of +the page. Often the wretch--he lived, judging by his style, in +Derome's time, before the Revolution--has sliced into the head- +titles of the pages. Thus the book, with its old red morocco cover +and gilded flowers on the back, is no proper companion for "Les +Pensees de M. PASCAL (Wolfganck, 1672)," which some sober Dutchman +has left with a fair allowance of margin, an inch "taller" in its +vellum coat than its neighbour in morocco. Here once more, is "LES +FASCHEUX, Comedie de I. B. P. MOLIERE, Representee sur Le Theatre du +Palais Royal. A Paris, Chez GABRIEL QUINET, au Palais, dans la +Galerie des Prisonniers, a l'Ange Gabriel, M.DCLXIII. Avec +privilege du Roy." What a crowd of pleasant memories the +bibliophile, and he only, finds in these dry words of the title. +Quinet, the bookseller, lived "au Palais," in that pretty old arcade +where Corneille cast the scene of his comedy, "La Galerie du +Palais." In the Geneva edition of Corneille, 1774, you can see +Gravelot's engraving of the place; it is a print full of exquisite +charm (engraved by Le Mure in 1762). Here is the long arcade, in +shape exactly like the galleries of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. +The bookseller's booth is arched over, and is open at front and +side. Dorimant and Cleante are looking out; one leans on the books +on the window-sill, the other lounges at the door, and they watch +the pretty Hippolyte who is chaffering with the lace-seller at the +opposite shop. "Ce visage vaut mieux que toutes vos chansons," says +Dorimant to the bookseller. So they loitered, and bought books, and +flirted in their lace ruffles, and ribbons, and flowing locks, and +wide canons, when Moliere was young, and when this little old book +was new, and lying on the shelves of honest Quinet in the Palace +Gallery. The very title-page, and pagination, not of this second +edition, but of the first of "Les Fascheux," had their own fortunes, +for the dedication to Fouquet was perforce withdrawn. That +favourite entertained La Valliere and the King with the comedy at +his house of Vaux, and then instantly fell from power and favour, +and, losing his place and his freedom, naturally lost the flattery +of a dedication. But retombons a nos coches, as Montaigne says. +This pleasant little copy of the play, which is a kind of relic of +Moliere and his old world, has been ruthlessly bound up with a +treatise, "Des Pierres Precieuses," published by Didot in 1776. Now +the play is naturally a larger book than the treatise on precious +stones, so the binder has cut down the margins to the size of those +of the work on amethysts and rubies. As the Italian tyrant chained +the dead and the living together, as Procrustes maimed his victims +on his cruel bed, so a hard-hearted French binder has tied up, and +mutilated, and spoiled the old play, which otherwise would have had +considerable value as well as interest. + +We have tried to teach the beginner how to keep his books neat and +clean; what men and monsters he should avoid; how he should guard +himself against borrowers, book-worms, damp, and dirt. But we are +sometimes compelled to buy books already dirty and dingy, foxed, or +spotted with red, worn by greasy hands, stained with ink spots, or +covered with MS. notes. The art of man has found a remedy for these +defects. I have never myself tried to wash a book, and this care is +best left to professional hands. But the French and English writers +give various recipes for cleaning old books, which the amateur may +try on any old rubbish out of the fourpenny box of a bookstall, till +he finds that he can trust his own manipulations. There are "fat +stains" on books, as thumb marks, traces of oil (the midnight oil), +flakes of old pasty crust left in old Shakespeares, and candle +drippings. There are "thin stains," as of mud, scaling-wax, ink, +dust, and damp. To clean a book you first carefully unbind it, take +off the old covers, cut the old stitching, and separate sheet from +sheet. Then take a page with "fat stains" of any kind of grease +(except finger-marks), pass a hot flat iron over it, and press on it +a clean piece of blotting paper till the paper sucks up the grease. +Then charge a camel-hair brush with heated turpentine, and pass it +over the places that were stained. If the paper loses its colour +press softly over it a delicate handkerchief, soaked in heated +spirits of wine. Finger-marks you will cover with clean soap, leave +this on for some hours, and then rub with a sponge filled with hot +water. Afterwards dip in weak acid and water, and then soak the +page in a bath of clean water. Ink-stained pages you will first dip +in a strong solution of oxalic acid and then in hydrochloric acid +mixed in six times its quantity of water. Then bathe in clean water +and allow to dry slowly. + +Some English recipes may also be given. "Grease or wax spots," says +Hannett, in "Bibliopegia," "may be removed by washing the part with +ether, chloroform, or benzine, and placing it between pieces of +white blotting paper, then pass a hot iron over it." "Chlorine +water," says the same writer, removes ink stains, and bleaches the +paper at the same time. Of chloride of lime, "a piece the size of a +nut" (a cocoa nut or a hazel nut?) in a pint of water, may be +applied with a camel's hair pencil, and plenty of patience. To +polish old bindings, "take the yolk of an egg, beat it up with a +fork, apply it with a sponge, having first cleaned the leather with +a dry flannel." The following, says a writer in "Notes and +Queries," with perfect truth, is "an easier if not a better method; +purchase some bookbinder's varnish," and use it as you did the +rudimentary omelette of the former recipe. Vellum covers may be +cleaned with soap and water, or in bad cases by a weak solution of +salts of lemon. + +Lastly, the collector should acquire such books as Lowndes's +"Bibliography," Brunet's "Manuel," and as many priced catalogues as +he can secure. The catalogues of Mr. Quaritch, Mr. Bohn, M. +Fontaine, M.M. Morgand et Fatout, are excellent guides to a +knowledge of the market value of books. Other special works, as +Renouard's for Aldines, Willems's for Elzevirs, and Cohen's for +French engravings, will be mentioned in their proper place. +Dibdin's books are inaccurate and long-winded, but may occasionally +be dipped into with pleasure. + + + +THE BOOKS OF THE COLLECTOR + + + +The easiest way to bring order into the chaos of desirable books, +is, doubtless, to begin historically with manuscripts. Almost every +age that has left any literary remains, has bequeathed to us relics +which are cherished by collectors. We may leave the clay books of +the Chaldeans out of the account. These tomes resemble nothing so +much as sticks of chocolate, and, however useful they may be to the +student, the clay MSS. of Assurbanipal are not coveted by the +collector. He finds his earliest objects of desire in illuminated +manuscripts. The art of decorating manuscripts is as old as Egypt; +but we need not linger over the beautiful papyri, which are silent +books to all but a few Egyptologists. Greece, out of all her tomes, +has left us but a few ill-written papyri. Roman and early Byzantine +art are represented by a "Virgil," and fragments of an "Iliad"; the +drawings in the latter have been reproduced in a splendid volume +(Milan 1819), and shew Greek art passing into barbarism. The +illumination of MSS. was a favourite art in the later empire, and is +said to have been practised by Boethius. The iconoclasts of the +Eastern empire destroyed the books which contained representations +of saints and of the persons of the Trinity, and the monk Lazarus, a +famous artist, was cruelly tortured for his skill in illuminating +sacred works. The art was decaying in Western Europe when +Charlemagne sought for painters of MSS. in England and Ireland, +where the monks, in their monasteries, had developed a style with +original qualities. The library of Corpus Christi at Cambridge, +contains some of the earliest and most beautiful of extant English +MSS. These parchments, stained purple or violet, and inscribed with +characters of gold; are too often beyond the reach of the amateur +for whom we write. The MSS. which he can hope to acquire are +neither very early nor very sumptuous, and, as a rule, MSS. of +secular books are apt to be out of his reach. + +Yet a collection of MSS. has this great advantage over a collection +of printed books, that every item in it is absolutely unique, no two +MSS. being ever really the same. This circumstance alone would +entitle a good collection of MSS. to very high consideration on the +part of book-collectors. But, in addition to the great expense of +such a collection, there is another and even more serious drawback. +It is sometimes impossible, and is often extremely difficult, to +tell whether a MS. is perfect or not. + +This difficulty can only be got over by an amount of learning on the +part of the collector to which, unfortunately, he is too often a +stranger. On the other hand, the advantages of collecting MSS. are +sometimes very great. + +In addition to the pleasure--a pleasure at once literary and +artistic--which the study of illuminated MSS. affords, there is the +certainty that, as years go on, the value of such a collection +increases in a proportion altogether marvellous. + +I will take two examples to prove this point. Some years ago an +eminent collector gave the price of 30 pounds for a small French +book of Hours, painted in grisaille. It was in a country town that +he met with this treasure, for a treasure he considered the book, in +spite of its being of the very latest school of illumination. When +his collection was dispersed a few years ago this one book fetched +260 pounds. + +In the celebrated Perkins sale, in 1873, a magnificent early MS., +part of which was written in gold on a purple ground, and which was +dated in the catalogue "ninth or tenth century," but was in reality +of the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh, was sold for +565 pounds to a dealer. It found its way into Mr. Bragge's +collection, at what price I do not know, and was resold, three years +later, for 780 pounds. + +Any person desirous of making a collection of illuminated MSS., +should study seriously for some time at the British Museum, or some +such place, until he is thoroughly acquainted (1) with the styles of +writing in use in the Middle Ages, so that he can at a glance make a +fairly accurate estimate of the age of the book submitted to him; +and (2) with the proper means of collating the several kinds of +service-books, which, in nine cases out of ten, were those chosen +for illumination. + +A knowledge of the styles of writing can be acquired at second hand +in a book lately published by Mr. Charles Trice Martin, F.S.A., +being a new edition of "Astle's Progress of Writing." Still better, +of course, is the actual inspection and comparison of books to which +a date can be with some degree of certainty assigned. + +It is very common for the age of a book to be misstated in the +catalogues of sales, for the simple reason that the older the +writing, the plainer, in all probability, it is. Let the student +compare writing of the twelfth century with that of the sixteenth, +and he will be able to judge at once of the truth of this assertion. +I had once the good fortune to "pick up" a small Testament of the +early part of the twelfth century, if not older, which was +catalogued as belonging to the fifteenth, a date which would have +made it of very moderate value. + +With regard to the second point, the collation of MSS., I fear there +is no royal road to knowing whether a book is perfect or imperfect. +In some cases the catchwords remain at the foot of the pages. It is +then of course easy to see if a page is lost, but where no such clue +is given the student's only chance is to be fully acquainted with +what a book OUGHT to contain. He can only do this when he has a +knowledge of the different kinds of service-books which were in use, +and of their most usual contents. + +I am indebted to a paper, read by the late Sir William Tite at a +meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, for the collation of "Books +of Hours," but there are many kinds of MSS. besides these, and it is +well to know something of them. The Horae, or Books of Hours, were +the latest development of the service-books used at an earlier +period. They cannot, in fact, be strictly called service-books, +being intended only for private devotion. But in the thirteenth +century and before it, Psalters were in use for this purpose, and +the collation of a Psalter is in truth more important than that of a +Book of Hours. It will be well for a student, therefore, to begin +with Psalters, as he can then get up the Hours in their elementary +form. I subjoin a bibliographical account of both kinds of MSS. In +the famous Exhibition at the Burlington Club in 1874, a number of +volumes was arranged to show how persistent one type of the age +could be. The form of the decorations, and the arrangement of the +figures in borders, once invented, was fixed for generations. In a +Psalter of the thirteenth century there was, under the month of +January in the calendar, a picture of a grotesque little figure +warming himself at a stove. The hearth below, the chimney-pot +above, on which a stork was feeding her brood, with the intermediate +chimney shaft used as a border, looked like a scientific preparation +from the interior anatomy of a house of the period. In one of the +latest of the MSS. exhibited on that occasion was the self-same +design again. The little man was no longer a grotesque, and the +picture had all the high finish and completeness in drawing that we +might expect in the workmanship of a contemporary of Van Eyck. +There was a full series of intermediate books, showing the gradual +growth of the picture. + +With regard to chronology, it may be roughly asserted that the +earliest books which occur are Psalters of the thirteenth century. +Next to them come Bibles, of which an enormous issue took place +before the middle of the fourteenth century. These are followed by +an endless series of books of Hours, which, as the sixteenth century +is reached, appear in several vernacular languages. Those in +English, being both very rare and of great importance in liturgical +history, are of a value altogether out of proportion to the beauty +of their illuminations. Side by side with this succession are the +Evangelistina, which, like the example mentioned above, are of the +highest merit, beauty, and value; followed by sermons and homilies, +and the Breviary, which itself shows signs of growth as the years go +on. The real Missal, with which all illuminated books used to be +confounded, is of rare occurrence, but I have given a collation of +it also. Besides these devotional or religious books, I must +mention chronicles and romances, and the semi-religious and moral +allegories, such as the "Pelerinage de l'Ame," which is said to have +given Bunyan the machinery of the "Pilgrim's Progress." Chaucer's +and Gower's poetry exists in many MSS., as does the "Polychronicon" +of Higden; but, as a rule, the mediaeval chronicles are of single +origin, and were not copied. To collate MSS. of these kinds is +quite impossible, unless by carefully reading them, and seeing that +the pages run on without break. + +I should advise the young collector who wishes to make sure of +success not to be too catholic in his tastes at first, but to +confine his attention to a single period and a single school. I +should also advise him to make from time to time a careful catalogue +of what he buys, and to preserve it even after he has weeded out +certain items. He will then be able to make a clear comparative +estimate of the importance and value of his collection, and by +studying one species at a time, to become thoroughly conversant with +what it can teach him. When he has, so to speak, burnt his fingers +once or twice, he will find himself able to distinguish at sight +what no amount of teaching by word of mouth or by writing could ever +possibly impart to any advantage. + +One thing I should like if possible to impress very strongly upon +the reader. That is the fact that a MS. which is not absolutely +perfect, if it is in a genuine state, is of much more value than one +which has been made perfect by the skill of a modern restorer. The +more skilful he is, that is to say the better he can forge the style +of the original, the more worthless he renders the volume. + +Printing seems to have superseded the art of the illuminator more +promptly and completely in England than on the Continent. The dames +galantes of Brantome's memoirs took pleasure in illuminated Books of +Hours, suited to the nature of their devotions. As late as the time +of Louis XIV., Bussy Rabutin had a volume of the same kind, +illuminated with portraits of "saints," of his own canonisation. +The most famous of these modern examples of costly MSS. was "La +Guirlande de Julie," a collection of madrigals by various courtly +hands, presented to the illustrious Julie, daughter of the Marquise +de Rambouillet, most distinguished of the Precieuses, and wife of +the Duc de Montausier, the supposed original of Moliere's Alceste. +The MS. was copied on vellum by Nicholas Jarry, the great calligraph +of his time. The flowers on the margin were painted by Robert. Not +long ago a French amateur was so lucky as to discover the MS. book +of prayers of Julie's noble mother, the Marquise de Rambouillet. +The Marquise wrote these prayers for her own devotions, and Jarry, +the illuminator, declared that he found them most edifying, and +delightful to study. The manuscript is written on vellum by the +famous Jarry, contains a portrait of the fair Julie herself, and is +bound in morocco by Le Gascon. The happy collector who possesses +the volume now, heard vaguely that a manuscript of some interest was +being exposed for sale at a trifling price in the shop of a country +bookseller. The description of the book, casual as it was, made +mention of the monogram on the cover. This was enough for the +amateur. He rushed to a railway station, travelled some three +hundred miles, reached the country town, hastened to the +bookseller's shop, and found that the book had been withdrawn by its +owner. Happily the possessor, unconscious of his bliss, was at +home. The amateur sought him out, paid the small sum demanded, and +returned to Paris in triumph. Thus, even in the region of +manuscript-collecting, there are extraordinary prizes for the +intelligent collector. + + +TO KNOW IF A MANUSCRIPT IS PERFECT + + +If the manuscript is of English or French writing of the twelfth, +thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth centuries, it is probably +either--(1) a Bible, (2) a Psalter, (3) a book of Hours, or (4), but +rarely, a Missal. It is not worth while to give the collation of a +gradual, or a hymnal, or a processional, or a breviary, or any of +the fifty different kinds of service-books which are occasionally +met with, but which are never twice the same. + +To collate one of them, the reader must go carefully through the +book, seeing that the catch-words, if there are any, answer to the +head lines; and if there are "signatures," that is, if the foot of +the leaves of a sheet of parchment has any mark for enabling the +binder to "gather" them correctly, going through them, and seeing +that each signed leaf has its corresponding "blank." + +1. To collate a Bible, it will be necessary first to go through the +catch-words, if any, and signatures, as above; then to notice the +contents. The first page should contain the Epistle of St. Jerome +to the reader. It will be observed that there is nothing of the +nature of a title-page, but I have often seen title-pages supplied +by some ignorant imitator in the last century, with the idea that +the book was imperfect without one. The books of the Bible follow +in order--but the order not only differs from ours, but differs in +different copies. The Apocryphal books are always included. The +New Testament usually follows on the Old without any break; and the +book concludes with an index of the Hebrew names and their +signification in Latin, intended to help preachers to the figurative +meaning of the biblical types and parables. The last line of the +Bible itself usually contains a colophon, in which sometimes the +name of the writer is given, sometimes the length of time it has +taken him to write, and sometimes merely the "Explicit. Laus Deo," +which has found its way into many modern books. This colophon, +which comes as a rule immediately before the index, often contains +curious notes, hexameters giving the names of all the books, +biographical or local memoranda, and should always be looked for by +the collector. One such line occurs to me. It is in a Bible +written in Italy in the thirteenth century - + + +"Qui scripsit scribat. Vergilius spe domini vivat." + + +Vergilius was, no doubt, in this case the scribe. The Latin and the +writing are often equally crabbed. In the Bodleian there is a Bible +with this colophon - + + +"Finito libro referemus gratias Christo m.cc.lxv. indict. viij. +Ego Lafracus de Pacis de Cmoa scriptor scripsi." + + +This was also written in Italy. English colophons are often very +quaint--"Qui scripsit hunc librum fiat collocatus in Paradisum," is +an example. The following gives us the name of one Master Gerard, +who, in the fourteenth century, thus poetically described his +ownership:- + + +"Si Ge ponatur--et rar simul associatur - +Et dus reddatur--cui pertinet ita vocatur." + + +In a Bible written in England, in the British Museum, there is a +long colophon, in which, after the name of the writer--"hunc librum +scripsit Wills de Hales,"--there is a prayer for Ralph of Nebham, +who had called Hales to the writing of the book, followed by a date- +-"Fes. fuit liber anno M.cc.i. quarto ab incarnatione domini." In +this Bible the books of the New Testament were in the following +order:- the Evangelists, the Acts, the Epistles of S. Peter, S. +James, and S. John, the Epistles of S. Paul, and the Apocalypse. In +a Bible at Brussels I found the colophon after the index:- "Hic +expliciunt interpretationes Hebrayorum nominum Do gris qui potens +est p. sup. omia." Some of these Bibles are of marvellously small +dimensions. The smallest I ever saw was at Ghent, but it was very +imperfect. I have one in which there are thirteen lines of writing +in an inch of the column. The order of the books of the New +Testament in Bibles of the thirteenth century is usually according +to one or other of the three following arrangements:- + + +(1.) The Evangelists, Romans to Hebrews, Acts, Epistles of S. +Peter, S. James, and S. John, Apocalypse. + +(2.) The Evangelists, Acts, Epistles of S. Peter, S. James, and S. +John, Epistles of S. Paul, Apocalypse. This is the most common. + +(3.) The Evangelists, Acts, Epistles of S. Peter, S. James, and S. +John, Apocalypse, and Epistles of S. Paul. + +On the fly leaves of these old Bibles there are often very curious +inscriptions. In one I have this:- "Haec biblia emi Haquinas prior +monasterii Hatharbiensis de dono domini regis Norwegie." Who was +this King of Norway who, in 1310, gave the Prior of Hatherby money +to buy a Bible, which was probably written at Canterbury? And who +was Haquinas? His name has a Norwegian sound, and reminds us of St. +Thomas of that surname. In another manuscript I have seen + + +"Articula Fidei:- +Nascitur, abluitur, patitur, descendit at ima +Surgit et ascendit, veniens discernere cuncta." + + +In another this:- + + +"Sacramenta ecclesiae:- +Abluo, fumo, cibo, piget, ordinat, uxor et ungit." + + +I will conclude these notes on MS. Bibles with the following +colophon from a copy written in Italy in the fifteenth century:- + + +"Finito libro vivamus semper in Christo - +Si semper in Christo carebimus ultimo leto. +Explicit Deo gratias; Amen. Stephanus de +Tantaldis scripsit in pergamo." + + +2. The "Psalter" of the thirteenth century is usually to be +considered a forerunner of the "Book of Hours." It always contains, +and usually commences with, a Calendar, in which are written against +certain days the "obits" of benefactors and others, so that a well- +filled Psalter often becomes a historical document of high value and +importance. The first page of the psalms is ornamented with a huge +B, which often fills the whole page, and contains a representation +of David and Goliath ingeniously fitted to the shape of the letter. +At the end are usually to be found the hymns of the Three Children, +and others from the Bible together with the Te Deum; and sometimes, +in late examples, a litany. In some psalters the calendar is at the +end. These Psalters, and the Bibles described above, are very +frequently of English work; more frequently, that is, than the books +of Hours and Missals. The study of the Scriptures was evidently +more popular in England than in the other countries of Europe during +the Middle Ages; and the early success of the Reformers here, must +in part, no doubt, be attributed to the wide circulation of the +Bible even before it had been translated from the Latin. I need +hardly, perhaps, observe that even fragments of a Psalter, a +Testament, or a Bible in English, are so precious as to be +practically invaluable. + +3. We are indebted to Sir W. Tite for the following collation of a +Flemish "Book of Hours":- + + +1. The Calendar. + +2. Gospels of the Nativity and the Resurrection. + +3. Preliminary Prayers (inserted occasionally). + +4. Horae--(Nocturns and Matins). + +5. (Lauds). + +6. (Prime). + +7. (Tierce). + +8. (Sexte). + +9. (None). + +10. (Vespers). + +11. (Compline). + +12. The seven penitential Psalms + +13. The Litany. + +14. Hours of the Cross. + +15. Hours of the Holy Spirit. + +16. Office of the Dead. + +17. The Fifteen Joys of B. V. M. + +18. The seven requests to our Lord. + +19. Prayers and Suffrages to various Saints. + +20. Several prayers, petitions, and devotions. + + +This is an unusually full example, but the calendar, the hours, the +seven psalms, and the litany, are in almost all the MSS. The buyer +must look carefully to see that no miniatures have been cut out; but +it is only by counting the leaves in their gatherings that he can +make sure. This is often impossible without breaking the binding. + +The most valuable "Horae" are those written in England. Some are of +the English use (Sarum or York, or whatever it may happen to be), +but were written abroad, especially in Normandy, for the English +market. These are also valuable, even when imperfect. Look for the +page before the commencement of the Hours (No. 4 in the list above), +and at the end will be found a line in red,--"Incipit Horae secundum +usum Sarum," or otherwise, as the case may be. + +4. Missals do not often occur, and are not only very valuable but +very difficult to collate, unless furnished with catch-words or +signatures. But no Missal is complete without the Canon of the +Mass, usually in the middle of the book, and if there are any +illuminations throughout the volume, there will be a full page +Crucifixion, facing the Canon. Missals of large size and +completeness contain--(1) a Calendar; (2) "the proper of the +Season;" (3) the ordinary and Canon of the Mass; (4) the Communal of +Saints; (5) the proper of Saints and special occasions; (6) the +lessons, epistles, and gospels; with (7) some hymns, "proses," and +canticles. This is Sir W. Tite's list; but, as he remarks, MS. +Missals seldom contain so much. The collector will look for the +Canon, which is invariable. + +Breviaries run to an immense length, and are seldom illuminated. It +would be impossible to give them any kind of collation, and the same +may be said of many other kinds of old service-books, and of the +chronicles, poems, romances, and herbals, in which mediaeval +literature abounded, and which the collector must judge as best he +can. + +The name of "missal" is commonly and falsely given to all old +service-books by the booksellers, but the collector will easily +distinguish one when he sees it, from the notes I have given. In a +Sarum Missal, at Alnwick, there is a colophon quoted by my lamented +friend Dr. Rock in his "Textile Fabrics." It is appropriate both to +the labours of the old scribes and also to those of their modern +readers:- + + +"Librum Scribendo--Jon Whas Monachus laborabat - +Et mane Surgendo--multum corpus macerabat." + + +It is one of the charms of manuscripts that they illustrate, in +their minute way, all the art, and even the social condition, of the +period in which they were produced. Apostles, saints, and prophets +wear the contemporary costume, and Jonah, when thrown to the hungry +whale, wears doublet and trunk hose. The ornaments illustrate the +architectural taste of the day. The backgrounds change from +diapered patterns to landscapes, as the modern way of looking at +nature penetrates the monasteries and reaches the scriptorium where +the illuminator sits and refreshes his eyes with the sight of the +slender trees and blue distant hills. Printed books have not such +resources. They can only show varieties of type, quaint +frontispieces, printers' devices, and fleurons at the heads of +chapters. These attractions, and even the engravings of a later +day, seem meagre enough compared with the allurements of +manuscripts. Yet printed books must almost always make the greater +part of a collection, and it may be well to give some rules as to +the features that distinguish the productions of the early press. +But no amount of "rules" is worth six months' practical experience +in bibliography. That experience the amateur, if he is wise, will +obtain in a public library, like the British Museum or the Bodleian. +Nowhere else is he likely to see much of the earliest of printed +books, which very seldom come into the market. + +Those of the first German press are so rare that practically they +never reach the hands of the ordinary collector. Among them are the +famous Psalters printed by Fust and Schoffer, the earliest of which +is dated 1457; and the bible known as the Mazarine Bible. Two +copies of this last were in the Perkins sale. I well remember the +excitement on that occasion. The first copy put up was the best, +being printed upon vellum. The bidding commenced at 1000 pounds, +and very speedily rose to 2200 pounds, at which point there was a +long pause; it then rose in hundreds with very little delay to 3400 +pounds, at which it was knocked down to a bookseller. The second +copy was on paper, and there were those present who said it was +better than the other, which had a suspicion attaching to it of +having been "restored" with a facsimile leaf. The first bid was +again 1000 pounds, which the buyer of the previous copy made +guineas, and the bidding speedily went up to 2660 pounds, at which +price the first bidder paused. A third bidder had stepped in at +1960 pounds, and now, amid breathless excitement, bid 10 pounds +more. This he had to do twice before the book was knocked down to +him at 2690 pounds. + +A scene like this has really very little to do with book-collecting. +The beginner must labour hard to distinguish different kinds of +printing; he must be able to recognise at a glance even fragments +from the press of Caxton. His eye must be accustomed to all the +tricks of the trade and others, so that he may tell a facsimile in a +moment, or detect a forgery. + +But now let us return to the distinctive marks of early printed +books. The first is, says M. Rouveyre, - + +1. The absence of a separate title-page. It was not till 1476-1480 +that the titles of books were printed on separate pages. The next +mark is - + + +2. The absence of capital letters at the beginnings of divisions. +For example, in an Aldine Iliad, the fifth book begins thus - + + +[Greek text] + + +It was intended that the open space, occupied by the small epsilon +([epsilon symbol]), should be filled up with a coloured and gilded +initial letter by the illuminator. Copies thus decorated are not +very common, but the Aldine "Homer" of Francis I., rescued by M. +Didot from a rubbish heap in an English cellar, had its due +illuminations. In the earliest books the guide to the illuminator, +the small printed letter, does not appear, and he often puts in the +wrong initial. + +3. Irregularity and rudeness of type is a "note" of the primitive +printing press, which very early disappeared. Nothing in the +history of printing is so remarkable as the beauty of almost its +first efforts. Other notes are - + +4. The absence of figures at the top of the pages, and of +signatures at the foot. The thickness and solidity of the paper, +the absence of the printer's name, of the date, and of the name of +the town where the press stood, and the abundance of crabbed +abbreviations, are all marks, more or less trustworthy, of the +antiquity of books. It must not be supposed that all books +published, let us say before 1500, are rare, or deserve the notice +of the collector. More than 18,000 works, it has been calculated, +left the press before the end of the fifteenth century. All of +these cannot possibly be of interest, and many of them that are +"rare," are rare precisely because they are uninteresting. They +have not been preserved because they were thought not worth +preserving. This is a great cause of rarity; but we must not +hastily conclude that because a book found no favour in its own age, +therefore it has no claim on our attention. A London bookseller +tells me that he bought the "remainder" of Keats's "Endymion" for +fourpence a copy! The first edition of "Endymion" is now rare and +valued. In trying to mend the binding of an old "Odyssey" lately, I +extracted from the vellum covers parts of two copies of a very +scarce and curious French dictionary of slang, "Le Jargon, ou +Langage de l'Argot Reforme." This treatise may have been valueless, +almost, when it appeared, but now it is serviceable to the +philologist, and to all who care to try to interpret the slang +ballades of the poet Villon. An old pamphlet, an old satire, may +hold the key to some historical problem, or throw light on the past +of manners and customs. Still, of the earliest printed books, +collectors prefer such rare and beautiful ones as the oldest printed +Bibles: German, English,--as Taverner's and the Bishop's,--or +Hebrew and Greek, or the first editions of the ancient classics, +which may contain the readings of MSS. now lost or destroyed. +Talking of early Bibles, let us admire the luck and prudence of a +certain Mr. Sandford. He always longed for the first Hebrew Bible, +but would offer no fancy price, being convinced that the book would +one day fall in his way. His foreboding was fulfilled, and he +picked up his treasure for ten shillings in a shop in the Strand. +The taste for incunabula, or very early printed books, slumbered in +the latter half of the sixteenth, and all the seventeenth century. +It revived with the third jubilee of printing in 1740, and since +then has refined itself, and only craves books very early, very +important, or works from the press of Caxton, the St. Albans +Schoolmaster, or other famous old artists. Enough has been said to +show the beginner, always enthusiastic, that all old books are not +precious. For further information, the "Biography and Typography of +William Caxton," by Mr. Blades (Trubner, London, 1877), may be +consulted with profit. + +Following the categories into which M. Brunet classifies desirable +books in his invaluable manual, we now come to books printed on +vellum, and on peculiar papers. At the origin of printing, examples +of many books, probably presentation copies, were printed on vellum. +There is a vellum copy of the celebrated Florentine first edition of +Homer; but it is truly sad to think that the twin volumes, Iliad and +Odyssey, have been separated, and pine in distant libraries. Early +printed books on vellum often have beautifully illuminated capitals. +Dibdin mentions in "Bibliomania" (London, 1811), p. 90, that a M. +Van Praet was compiling a catalogue of works printed on vellum, and +had collected more than 2000 articles. When hard things are said +about Henry VIII., let us remember that this monarch had a few +copies of his book against Luther printed on vellum. The Duke of +Marlborough's library possessed twenty-five books on vellum, all +printed before 1496. The chapter-house at Padua has a "Catullus" of +1472 on vellum; let Mr. Robinson Ellis think wistfully of that +treasure. The notable Count M'Carthy of Toulouse had a wonderful +library of books in membranis, including a book much coveted for its +rarity, oddity, and the beauty of its illustrations, the +"Hypnerotomachia" of Poliphilus (Venice, 1499). Vellum was the +favourite "vanity" of Junot, Napoleon's general. For reasons +connected with its manufacture, and best not inquired into, the +Italian vellum enjoyed the greatest reputation for smooth and silky +whiteness. Dibdin calls "our modern books on vellum little short of +downright wretched." But the editor of this series could, I think, +show examples that would have made Dibdin change his opinion. + +Many comparatively expensive papers, large in format, are used in +choice editions of books. Whatman papers, Dutch papers, Chinese +papers, and even papier verge, have all their admirers. The amateur +will soon learn to distinguish these materials. As to books printed +on coloured paper--green, blue, yellow, rhubarb-coloured, and the +like, they are an offence to the eyes and to the taste. Yet even +these have their admirers and collectors, and the great Aldus +himself occasionally used azure paper. Under the head of "large +paper," perhaps "uncut copies" should be mentioned. Most owners of +books have had the edges of the volumes gilded or marbled by the +binders. Thus part of the margin is lost, an offence to the eye of +the bibliomaniac, while copies untouched by the binder's shears are +rare, and therefore prized. The inconvenience of uncut copies is, +that one cannot easily turn over the leaves. But, in the present +state of the fashion, a really rare uncut Elzevir may be worth +hundreds of pounds, while a cropped example scarcely fetches as many +shillings. A set of Shakespeare's quartoes, uncut, would be worth +more than a respectable landed estate in Connemara. For these +reasons the amateur will do well to have new books of price bound +"uncut." It is always easy to have the leaves pared away; but not +even the fabled fountain at Argos, in which Hera yearly renewed her +maidenhood, could restore margins once clipped away. So much for +books which are chiefly precious for the quantity and quality of the +material on which they are printed. Even this rather foolish +weakness of the amateur would not be useless if it made our +publishers more careful to employ a sound clean hand-made paper, +instead of drugged trash, for their more valuable new productions. +Indeed, a taste for hand-made paper is coming in, and is part of the +revolt against the passion for everything machine-made, which ruined +art and handiwork in the years between 1840 and 1870. + +The third of M. Brunet's categories of books of prose, includes +livres de luxe, and illustrated literature. Every Christmas brings +us livres de luxe in plenty, books which are no books, but have gilt +and magenta covers, and great staring illustrations. These are +regarded as drawing-room ornaments by people who never read. It is +scarcely necessary to warn the collector against these gaudy baits +of unregulated Christmas generosity. All ages have not produced +quite such garish livres de luxe as ours. But, on the whole, a book +brought out merely for the sake of display, is generally a book ill +"got up," and not worth reading. Moreover, it is generally a folio, +or quarto, so large that he who tries to read it must support it on +a kind of scaffolding. In the class of illustrated books two sorts +are at present most in demand. The ancient woodcuts and engravings, +often the work of artists like Holbein and Durer, can never lose +their interest. Among old illustrated books, the most famous, and +one of the rarest, is the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili," "wherein all +human matters are proved to be no more than a dream." This is an +allegorical romance, published in 1499, for Francesco Colonna, by +Aldus Manucius. Poliam Frater Franciscus Columna peramavit. +"Brother Francesco Colonna dearly loved Polia," is the inscription +and device of this romance. Poor Francesco, of the order of +preachers, disguised in this strange work his passion for a lady of +uncertain name. Here is a translation of the passage in which the +lady describes the beginning of his affection. "I was standing, as +is the manner of women young and fair, at the window, or rather on +the balcony, of my palace. My yellow hair, the charm of maidens, +was floating round my shining shoulders. My locks were steeped in +unguents that made them glitter like threads of gold, and they were +slowly drying in the rays of the burning sun. A handmaid, happy in +her task, was drawing a comb through my tresses, and surely these of +Andromeda seemed not more lovely to Perseus, nor to Lucius the locks +of Photis. {6} On a sudden, Poliphilus beheld me, and could not +withdraw from me his glances of fire, and even in that moment a ray +of the sun of love was kindled in his heart." + +The fragment is itself a picture from the world of the Renaissance. +We watch the blonde, learned lady, dreaming of Perseus, and Lucius, +Greek lovers of old time, while the sun gilds her yellow hair, and +the young monk, passing below, sees and loves, and "falls into the +deep waters of desire." The lover is no less learned than the lady, +and there is a great deal of amorous archaeology in his account of +his voyage to Cythera. As to the designs in wood, quaint in their +vigorous effort to be classical, they have been attributed to +Mantegna, to Bellini, and other artists. Jean Cousin is said to +have executed the imitations, in the Paris editions of 1546, 1556, +and 1561. + +The "Hypnerotomachia" seems to deserve notice, because it is the +very type of the books that are dear to collectors, as distinct from +the books that, in any shape, are for ever valuable to the world. A +cheap Tauchnitz copy of the Iliad and Odyssey, or a Globe +Shakespeare, are, from the point of view of literature, worth a +wilderness of "Hypnerotomachiae." But a clean copy of the +"Hypnerotomachia," especially on VELLUM, is one of the jewels of +bibliography. It has all the right qualities; it is very rare, it +is very beautiful as a work of art, it is curious and even bizarre, +it is the record of a strange time, and a strange passion; it is a +relic, lastly, of its printer, the great and good Aldus Manutius. + +Next to the old woodcuts and engravings, executed in times when +artists were versatile and did not disdain even to draw a book-plate +(as Durer did for Pirckheimer), the designs of the French "little +masters," are at present in most demand. The book illustrations of +the seventeenth century are curious enough, and invaluable as +authorities on manners and costume. But the attitudes of the +figures are too often stiff and ungainly; while the composition is +frequently left to chance. England could show nothing much better +than Ogilby's translations of Homer, illustrated with big florid +engravings in sham antique style. The years between 1730 and 1820, +saw the French "little masters" in their perfection. The dress of +the middle of the eighteenth century, of the age of Watteau, was +precisely suited to the gay and graceful pencils of Gravelot, +Moreau, Eisen, Boucher, Cochin, Marillier, and Choffard. To +understand their merits, and the limits of their art, it is enough +to glance through a series of the designs for Voltaire, Corneille, +or Moliere. The drawings of society are almost invariably dainty +and pleasing, the serious scenes of tragedy leave the spectator +quite unmoved. Thus it is but natural that these artists should +have shone most in the illustration of airy trifles like Dorat's +"Baisers," or tales like Manon Lescaut, or in designing tailpieces +for translations of the Greek idyllic poets, such as Moschus and +Bion. In some of his illustrations of books, especially, perhaps, +in the designs for "La Physiologie de Gout" (Jouaust, Paris, 1879), +M. Lalauze has shown himself the worthy rival of Eisen and Cochin. +Perhaps it is unnecessary to add that the beauty and value of all +such engravings depends almost entirely on their "state." The +earlier proofs are much more brilliant than those drawn later, and +etchings on fine papers are justly preferred. For example, M. +Lalauze's engravings on "Whatman paper," have a beauty which could +scarcely be guessed by people who have only seen specimens on +"papier verge." Every collector of the old French vignettes, should +possess himself of the "Guide de l'amateur," by M. Henry Cohen +(Rouquette, Paris, 1880). Among English illustrated books, various +tastes prefer the imaginative works of William Blake, the etchings +of Cruikshank, and the woodcuts of Bewick. The whole of the last +chapter of this sketch is devoted, by Mr. Austin Dobson, to the +topic of English illustrated books. Here it may be said, in +passing, that an early copy of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence," +written, illustrated, printed, coloured, and boarded by the author's +own hand, is one of the most charming objects that a bibliophile can +hope to possess. The verses of Blake, in a framework of birds, and +flowers, and plumes, all softly and magically tinted, seem like some +book out of King Oberon's library in fairyland, rather than the +productions of a mortal press. The pictures in Blake's "prophetic +books," and even his illustrations to "Job," show an imagination +more heavily weighted by the technical difficulties of drawing. + +The next class of rare books is composed of works from the famous +presses of the Aldi and the Elzevirs. Other presses have, perhaps, +done work as good, but Estienne, the Giunta, and Plantin, are +comparatively neglected, while the taste for the performances of +Baskerville and Foulis is not very eager. A safe judgment about +Aldines and Elzevirs is the gift of years and of long experience. +In this place it is only possible to say a few words on a wide +subject. The founder of the Aldine press, Aldus Pius Manutius, was +born about 1450, and died at Venice in 1514. He was a man of +careful and profound learning, and was deeply interested in Greek +studies, then encouraged by the arrival in Italy of many educated +Greeks and Cretans. Only four Greek authors had as yet been printed +in Italy, when (1495) Aldus established his press at Venice. +Theocritus, Homer, AEsop, and Isocrates, probably in very limited +editions, were in the hands of students. The purpose of Aldus was +to put Greek and Latin works, beautifully printed in a convenient +shape, within the reach of all the world. His reform was the +introduction of books at once cheap, studiously correct, and +convenient in actual use. It was in 1498 that he first adopted the +small octavo size, and in his "Virgil" of 1501, he introduced the +type called Aldine or Italic. The letters were united as in +writing, and the type is said to have been cut by Francesco da +Bologna, better known as Francia, in imitation of the hand of +Petrarch. For full information about Aldus and his descendants and +successors, the work of M. Firmin Didot, ("Alde Manuce et +l'Hellenisme a Venise: Paris 1875)," and the Aldine annals of +Renouard, must be consulted. These two works are necessary to the +collector, who will otherwise be deceived by the misleading +assertions of the booksellers. As a rule, the volumes published in +the lifetime of Aldus Manutius are the most esteemed, and of these +the Aristotle, the first Homer, the Virgil, and the Ovid, are +perhaps most in demand. The earlier Aldines are consulted almost as +studiously as MSS. by modern editors of the classics. + +Just as the house of Aldus waned and expired, that of the great +Dutch printers, the Elzevirs, began obscurely enough at Leyden in +1583. The Elzevirs were not, like Aldus, ripe scholars and men of +devotion to learning. Aldus laboured for the love of noble studies; +the Elzevirs were acute, and too often "smart" men of business. The +founder of the family was Louis (born at Louvain, 1540, died 1617). +But it was in the second and third generations that Bonaventura and +Abraham Elzevir began to publish at Leyden, their editions in small +duodecimo. Like Aldus, these Elzevirs aimed at producing books at +once handy, cheap, correct, and beautiful in execution. Their +adventure was a complete success. The Elzevirs did not, like Aldus, +surround themselves with the most learned scholars of their time. +Their famous literary adviser, Heinsius, was full of literary +jealousies, and kept students of his own calibre at a distance. The +classical editions of the Elzevirs, beautiful, but too small in type +for modern eyes, are anything but exquisitely correct. Their +editions of the contemporary. French authors, now classics +themselves, are lovely examples of skill in practical enterprise. +The Elzevirs treated the French authors much as American publishers +treat Englishmen. They stole right and left, but no one complained +much in these times of slack copyright; and, at all events, the +piratic larcenous publications of the Dutch printers were pretty, +and so far satisfactory. They themselves, in turn, were the victims +of fraudulent and untradesmanlike imitations. It is for this, among +other reasons, that the collector of Elzevirs must make M. Willems's +book ("Les Elzevier," Brussels and Paris, 1880) his constant study. +Differences so minute that they escape the unpractised eye, denote +editions of most various value. In Elzevirs a line's breadth of +margin is often worth a hundred pounds, and a misprint is quoted at +no less a sum. The fantastic caprice of bibliophiles has revelled +in the bibliography of these Dutch editions. They are at present +very scarce in England, where a change in fashion some years ago had +made them common enough. No Elzevir is valuable unless it be clean +and large in the margins. When these conditions are satisfied the +question of rarity comes in, and Remy Belleau's Macaronic poem, or +"Le Pastissier Francais," may rise to the price of four or five +hundred pounds. A Rabelais, Moliere, or Corneille, of a "good" +edition, is now more in request than the once adored "Imitatio +Christi" (dateless), or the "Virgil"' of 1646, which is full of +gross errors of the press, but is esteemed for red characters in the +letter to Augustus, and another passage at page 92. The ordinary +marks of the Elzevirs were the sphere, the old hermit, the Athena, +the eagle, and the burning faggot. But all little old books marked +with spheres are not Elzevirs, as many booksellers suppose. Other +printers also stole the designs for the tops of chapters, the +Aegipan, the Siren, the head of Medusa, the crossed sceptres, and +the rest. In some cases the Elzevirs published their books, +especially when they were piracies, anonymously. When they +published for the Jansenists, they allowed their clients to put +fantastic pseudonyms on the title pages. But, except in four cases, +they had only two pseudonyms used on the titles of books published +by and for themselves. These disguises are "Jean Sambix" for Jean +and Daniel Elzevir, at Leyden, and for the Elzevirs of Amsterdam, +"Jacques le Jeune." The last of the great representatives of the +house, Daniel, died at Amsterdam, 1680. Abraham, an unworthy scion, +struggled on at Leyden till 1712. The family still prospers, but no +longer prints, in Holland. It is common to add duodecimos of +Foppens, Wolfgang, and other printers, to the collections of the +Elzevirs. The books of Wolfgang have the sign of the fox robbing a +wild bee's nest, with the motto Quaerendo. + +Curious and singular books are the next in our classification. The +category is too large. The books that be "curious" (not in the +booksellers' sense of "prurient" and "disgusting,") are innumerable. +All suppressed and condemned books, from "Les Fleurs du Mal" to +Vanini's "Amphitheatrum," or the English translation of Bruno's +"Spaccia della Bestia Trionfante," are more or less rare, and more +or less curious. Wild books, like William Postel's "Three +Marvellous Triumphs of Women," are "curious." Freakish books, like +macaronic poetry, written in a medley of languages, are curious. +Books from private presses are singular. The old English poets and +satirists turned out many a book curious to the last degree, and +priced at a fantastic value. Such are "Jordan's Jewels of +Ingenuity," "Micro-cynicon, six Snarling Satyres" (1599), and the +"Treatize made of a Galaunt," printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and found +pasted into the fly-leaf, on the oak-board binding of an imperfect +volume of Pynson's "Statutes." All our early English poems and +miscellanies are curious; and, as relics of delightful singers, are +most charming possessions. Such are the "Songes and Sonnettes of +Surrey" (1557), the "Paradyce of daynty Deuices" (1576), the "Small +Handful of Fragrant Flowers," and "The Handful of Dainty Delights, +gathered out of the lovely Garden of Sacred Scripture, fit for any +worshipful Gentlewoman to smell unto," (1584). "The Teares of +Ireland" (1642), are said, though one would not expect it, to be +"extremely rare," and, therefore, precious. But there is no end to +the list of such desirable rarities. If we add to them all books +coveted as early editions, and, therefore, as relics of great +writers, Bunyan, Shakespeare, Milton, Sterne, Walton, and the rest, +we might easily fill a book with remarks on this topic alone. The +collection of such editions is the most respectable, the most +useful, and, alas, the most expensive of the amateur's pursuits. It +is curious enough that the early editions of Swift, Scott, and +Byron, are little sought for, if not wholly neglected; while early +copies of Shelley, Tennyson, and Keats, have a great price set on +their heads. The quartoes of Shakespeare, like first editions of +Racine, are out of the reach of any but very opulent purchasers, or +unusually lucky, fortunate book-hunters. Before leaving the topic +of books which derive their value from the taste and fantasy of +collectors, it must be remarked that, in this matter, the fashion of +the world changes. Dr. Dibdin lamented, seventy years ago, the +waning respect paid to certain editions of the classics. He would +find that things have become worse now, and modern German editions, +on execrable paper, have supplanted his old favourites. Fifty years +ago, M. Brunet expressed his contempt for the designs of Boucher; +now they are at the top of the fashion. The study of old +booksellers' catalogues is full of instruction as to the changes of +caprice. The collection of Dr. Rawlinson was sold in 1756. "The +Vision of Pierce Plowman" (1561), and the "Creede of Pierce Plowman" +(1553), brought between them no more than three shillings and +sixpence. Eleven shillings were paid for the "Boke of Chivalrie" by +Caxton. The "Boke of St. Albans," by Wynkyn de Worde, cost 1 +pounds: 1s., and this was the highest sum paid for any one of two +hundred rare pieces of early English literature. In 1764, a copy of +the "Hypnerotomachia" was sold for two shillings, "A Pettie Pallace +of Pettie his Pleasures," (ah, what a thought for the amateur!) went +for three shillings, while "Palmerin of England" (1602), attained no +more than the paltry sum of fourteen shillings. When Osborne sold +the Harley collection, the scarcest old English books fetched but +three or four shillings. If the wandering Jew had been a collector +in the last century he might have turned a pretty profit by selling +his old English books in this age of ours. In old French, too, +Ahasuerus would have done a good stroke of business, for the prices +brought by old Villons, Romances of the Rose, "Les Marguerites de +Marguerite," and so forth, at the M'Carthy sale, were truly +pitiable. A hundred years hence the original editions of Thackeray, +or of Miss Greenaway's Christmas books, or "Modern Painters," may be +the ruling passion, and Aldines and Elzevirs, black letter and +French vignettes may all be despised. A book which is commonplace +in our century is curious in the next, and disregarded in that which +follows. Old books of a heretical character were treasures once, +rare unholy possessions. Now we have seen so many heretics that the +world is indifferent to the audacities of Bruno, and the veiled +impieties of Vanini. + +The last of our categories of books much sought by the collector +includes all volumes valued for their ancient bindings, for the mark +and stamp of famous amateurs. The French, who have supplied the +world with so many eminent binders,--as Eve, Padeloup, Duseuil, Le +Gascon, Derome, Simier, Bozerian, Thouvenin, Trautz-Bauzonnet, and +Lortic--are the chief patrons of books in historical bindings. In +England an historical binding, a book of Laud's, or James's, or +Garrick's, or even of Queen Elizabeth's, does not seem to derive +much added charm from its associations. But, in France, peculiar +bindings are now the objects most in demand among collectors. The +series of books thus rendered precious begins with those of Maioli +and of Grolier (1479-1565), remarkable for their mottoes and the +geometrical patterns on the covers. Then comes De Thou (who had +three sets of arms), with his blazon, the bees stamped on the +morocco. The volumes of Marguerite of Angouleme are sprinkled with +golden daisies. Diane de Poictiers had her crescents and her bow, +and the initial of her royal lover was intertwined with her own. +The three daughters of Louis XV. had each their favourite colour, +and their books wear liveries of citron, red, and olive morocco. +The Abbe Cotin, the original of Moliere's Trissotin, stamped his +books with intertwined C's. Henri III. preferred religious emblems, +and sepulchral mottoes--skulls, crossbones, tears, and the insignia +of the Passion. Mort m'est vie is a favourite device of the +effeminate and voluptuous prince. Moliere himself was a collector, +il n'es pas de bouquin qui s'echappe de ses mains,--"never an old +book escapes him," says the author of "La Guerre Comique," the last +of the pamphlets which flew from side to side in the great literary +squabble about "L'Ecole des Femmes." M. Soulie has found a rough +catalogue of Moliere's library, but the books, except a little +Elzevir, have disappeared. {7} Madame de Maintenon was fond of +bindings. Mr. Toovey possesses a copy of a devotional work in red +morocco, tooled and gilt, which she presented to a friendly abbess. +The books at Saint-Cyr were stamped with a crowned cross, besprent +with fleurs-de-lys. The books of the later collectors--Longepierre, +the translator of Bion and Moschus; D'Hoym the diplomatist; +McCarthy, and La Valliere, are all valued at a rate which seems fair +game for satire. + +Among the most interesting bibliophiles of the eighteenth century is +Madame Du Barry. In 1771, this notorious beauty could scarcely read +or write. She had rooms, however, in the Chateau de Versailles, +thanks to the kindness of a monarch who admired those native +qualities which education may polish, but which it can never confer. +At Versailles, Madame Du Barry heard of the literary genius of +Madame de Pompadour. The Pompadour was a person of taste. Her +large library of some four thousand works of the lightest sort of +light literature was bound by Biziaux. Mr. Toovey possesses the +Brantome of this dame galante. Madame herself had published +etchings by her own fair hands; and to hear of these things excited +the emulation of Madame Du Barry. She might not be CLEVER, but she +could have a library like another, if libraries were in fashion. +One day Madame Du Barry astonished the Court by announcing that her +collection of books would presently arrive at Versailles. Meantime +she took counsel with a bookseller, who bought up examples of all +the cheap "remainders," as they are called in the trade, that he +could lay his hands upon. The whole assortment, about one thousand +volumes in all, was hastily bound in rose morocco, elegantly gilt, +and stamped with the arms of the noble house of Du Barry. The bill +which Madame Du Barry owed her enterprising agent is still in +existence. The thousand volumes cost about three francs each; the +binding (extremely cheap) came to nearly as much. The amusing thing +is that the bookseller, in the catalogue which he sent with the +improvised library, marked the books which Madame Du Barry possessed +BEFORE her large order was so punctually executed. There were two +"Memoires de Du Barry," an old newspaper, two or three plays, and +"L'Historie Amoureuse de Pierre le Long." Louis XV. observed with +pride that, though Madame Pompadour had possessed a larger library, +that of Madame Du Barry was the better selected. Thanks to her new +collection, the lady learned to read with fluency, but she never +overcame the difficulties of spelling. + +A lady collector who loved books not very well perhaps, but +certainly not wisely, was the unhappy Marie Antoinette. The +controversy in France about the private character of the Queen has +been as acrimonious as the Scotch discussion about Mary Stuart. +Evidence, good and bad, letters as apocryphal as the letters of the +famous "casket," have been produced on both sides. A few years ago, +under the empire, M. Louis Lacour found a manuscript catalogue of +the books in the Queen's boudoir. They were all novels of the +flimsiest sort,--"L'Amitie Dangereuse," "Les Suites d'un Moment +d'Erreur," and even the stories of Louvet and of Retif de la +Bretonne. These volumes all bore the letters "C. T." (Chateau de +Trianon), and during the Revolution they were scattered among the +various public libraries of Paris. The Queen's more important +library was at the Tuileries, but at Versailles she had only three +books, as the commissioners of the Convention found, when they made +an inventory of the property of la femme Capet. Among the three was +the "Gerusalemme Liberata," printed, with eighty exquisite designs +by Cochin, at the expense of "Monsieur," afterwards Louis XVIII. +Books with the arms of Marie Antoinette are very rare in private +collections; in sales they are as much sought after as those of +Madame Du Barry. + +With these illustrations of the kind of interest that belongs to +books of old collectors, we may close this chapter. The reader has +before him a list, with examples, of the kinds of books at present +most in vogue among amateurs. He must judge for himself whether he +will follow the fashion, by aid either of a long purse or of patient +research, or whether he will find out new paths for himself. A +scholar is rarely a rich man. He cannot compete with plutocrats who +buy by deputy. But, if he pursues the works he really needs, he may +make a valuable collection. He cannot go far wrong while he brings +together the books that he finds most congenial to his own taste and +most useful to his own studies. Here, then, in the words of the old +"sentiment," I bid him farewell, and wish "success to his +inclinations, provided they are virtuous." There is a set of +collectors, alas! whose inclinations are not virtuous. The most +famous of them, a Frenchman, observed that his own collection of bad +books was unique. That of an English rival, he admitted, was +respectable,--"mais milord se livre a des autres preoccupations!" +He thought a collector's whole heart should be with his treasures. + + +En bouquinant se trouve grand soulas. +Soubent m'en vay musant, a petis pas, +Au long des quais, pour flairer maint bieux livre. +Des Elzevier la Sphere me rend yure, +Et la Sirene aussi m'esmeut. Grand cas +Fais-je d'Estienne, Aide, ou Dolet. Mais Ias! +Le vieux Caxton ne se rencontre pas, +Plus qu' agneau d'or parmi jetons de cuivre, +En bouquinant! + +Pour tout plaisir que l'on goute icy-bas +La Grace a Dieu. Mieux vaut, sans altercas, +Chasser bouquin: Nul mal n'en peult s'ensuivre. +Dr sus au livre: il est le grand appas. +Clair est le ciel. Amis, qui veut me suivre +En bouquinant? + +A. L. + + + +ILLUSTRATED BOOKS {8} + + + +Modern English book-illustration--to which the present chapter is +restricted -has no long or doubtful history, since to find its first +beginnings, it is needless to go farther back than the last quarter +of the eighteenth century. Not that "illustrated" books of a +certain class were by any means unknown before that period. On the +contrary, for many years previously, literature had boasted its +"sculptures" of be-wigged and be-laurelled "worthies," its +"prospects" and "land-skips," its phenomenal monsters and its +"curious antiques." But, despite the couplet in the "Dunciad" +respecting books where + + +" . . . the pictures for the page atone, +And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own;" - + + +illustrations, in which the designer attempted the actual +delineation of scenes or occurrences in the text, were certainly not +common when Pope wrote, nor were they for some time afterwards +either very numerous or very noteworthy. There are Hogarth's +engravings to "Hudibras" and "Don Quixote;" there are the designs of +his crony Frank Hayman to Theobald's "Shakespeare," to Milton, to +Pope, to Cervantes; there are Pine's "Horace" and Sturt's "Prayer- +Book" (in both of which text and ornament were alike engraved); +there are the historical and topographical drawings of Sandby, Wale, +and others; and yet--notwithstanding all these--it is with Bewick's +cuts to Gay's "Fables" in 1779, and Stothard's plates to Harrison's +"Novelist's Magazine" in 1780, that book-illustration by imaginative +compositions really begins to flourish in England. Those little +masterpieces of the Newcastle artist brought about a revival of +wood-engraving which continues to this day; but engraving upon +metal, as a means of decorating books, practically came to an end +with the "Annuals" of thirty years ago. It will therefore be well +to speak first of illustrations upon copper and steel. + + +Stothard, Blake, and Flaxman are the names that come freshest to +memory in this connection. For a period of fifty years Stothard +stands pre-eminent in illustrated literature. Measuring time by +poets, he may be said to have lent something of his fancy and +amenity to most of the writers from Cowper to Rogers. As a +draughtsman he is undoubtedly weak: his figures are often limp and +invertebrate, and his type of beauty insipid. Still, regarded as +groups, the majority of his designs are exquisite, and he possessed +one all-pervading and un-English quality--the quality of grace. +This is his dominant note. Nothing can be more seductive than the +suave flow of his line, his feeling for costume, his gentle and +chastened humour. Many of his women and children are models of +purity and innocence. But he works at ease only within the limits +of his special powers; he is happier in the pastoral and domestic +than the heroic and supernatural, and his style is better fitted to +the formal salutations of "Clarissa" and "Sir Charles Grandison," +than the rough horse-play of "Peregrine Pickle." Where Rowlandson +would have revelled, Stothard would be awkward and constrained; +where Blake would give us a new sensation, Stothard would be poor +and mechanical. Nevertheless the gifts he possessed were thoroughly +recognised in his own day, and brought him, if not riches, at least +competence and honour. It is said that more than three thousand of +his drawings have been engraved, and they are scattered through a +hundred publications. Those to the "Pilgrim's Progress" and the +poems of Rogers are commonly spoken of as his best, though he never +excelled some of the old-fashioned plates (with their pretty borders +in the style of Gravelot and the Frenchmen) to Richardson's novels, +and such forgotten "classics" as "Joe Thompson", "Jessamy," "Betsy +Thoughtless," and one or two others in Harrison's very miscellaneous +collection. + +Stothard was fortunate in his engravers. Besides James Heath, his +best interpreter, Schiavonetti, Sharp, Finden, the Cookes, +Bartolozzi, most of the fashionable translators into copper were +busily employed upon his inventions. Among the rest was an artist +of powers far greater than his own, although scarcely so happy in +turning them to profitable account. The genius of William Blake was +not a marketable commodity in the same way as Stothard's talent. +The one caught the trick of the time with his facile elegance; the +other scorned to make any concessions, either in conception or +execution, to the mere popularity of prettiness. + + +"Give pensions to the learned pig, +Or the hare playing on a tabor; +Anglus can never see perfection +But in the journeyman's labour," - + + +he wrote in one of those rough-hewn and bitter epigrams of his. Yet +the work that was then so lukewarmly received--if, indeed, it can be +said to have been received at all--is at present far more sought +after than Stothard's, and the prices now given for the "Songs of +Innocence and Experience," the "Inventions to the Book of Job," and +even "The Grave," would have brought affluence to the struggling +artist, who (as Cromek taunted him) was frequently "reduced so low +as to be obliged to live on half a guinea a week." Not that this +was entirely the fault of his contemporaries. Blake was a +visionary, and an untuneable man; and, like others who work for the +select public of all ages, he could not always escape the +consequence that the select public of his own, however willing, were +scarcely numerous enough to support him. His most individual works +are the "Songs of Innocence," 1789, and the "Songs of Experience," +1794. These, afterwards united in one volume, were unique in their +method of production; indeed, they do not perhaps strictly come +within the category of what is generally understood to be +copperplate engraving. The drawings were outlined and the songs +written upon the metal with some liquid that resisted the action of +acid, and the remainder of the surface of the plate was eaten away +with aqua-fortis, leaving the design in bold relief, like a rude +stereotype. This was then printed off in the predominant tone-- +blue, brown, or yellow, as the case might be--and delicately tinted +by the artist in a prismatic and ethereal fashion peculiarly his +own. Stitched and bound in boards by Mrs. Blake, a certain number +of these leaflets--twenty-seven in the case of the first issue--made +up a tiny octavo of a wholly exceptional kind. Words indeed fail to +exactly describe the flower-like beauty--the fascination of these +"fairy missals," in which, it has been finely said, "the thrilling +music of the verse, and the gentle bedazzlement of the lines and +colours so intermingle, that the mind hangs in a pleasant +uncertainty as to whether it is a picture that is singing, or a song +which has newly budded and blossomed into colour and form." The +accompanying woodcut, after one of the illustrations to the "Songs +of Innocence," gives some indication of the general composition, but +it can convey no hint of the gorgeous purple, and crimson, and +orange of the original. + +Of the "Illustrations to the Book of Job," 1826, there are excellent +reduced facsimiles by the recently-discovered photo-intaglio +process, in the new edition of Gilchrist's "Life." The originals +were engraved by Blake himself in his strong decisive fashion, and +they are his best work. A kind of deisidaimonia--a sacred awe-- +falls upon one in turning over these wonderful productions of the +artist's declining years and failing hand. + + +"Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, +That stand upon the threshold of the new," + + +sings Waller; and it is almost possible to believe for a moment that +their creator was (as he said) "under the direction of messengers +from Heaven." But his designs for Blair's "Grave," 1808, +popularised by the burin of Schiavonetti, attracted greater +attention at the time of publication; and, being less rare, they are +even now perhaps better known than the others. The facsimile here +given is from the latter book. The worn old man, the trustful +woman, and the guileless child are sleeping peacefully; but the king +with his sceptre, and the warrior with his hand on his sword-hilt, +lie open-eyed, waiting the summons of the trumpet. One cannot help +fancying that the artist's long vigils among the Abbey tombs, during +his apprenticeship to James Basire, must have been present to his +mind when he selected this impressive monumental subject. + +To one of Blake's few friends--to the "dear Sculptor of Eternity," +as he wrote to Flaxman from Felpham--the world is indebted for some +notable book illustrations. Whether the greatest writers--the +Homers, the Shakespeares, the Dantes--can ever be "illustrated" +without loss may fairly be questioned. At all events, the showy +dexterities of the Dores and Gilberts prove nothing to the contrary. +But now and then there comes to the graphic interpretation of a +great author an artist either so reverential, or so strongly +sympathetic at some given point, that, in default of any relation +more narrowly intimate, we at once accept his conceptions as the +best attainable. In this class are Flaxman's outlines to Homer and +AEschylus. Flaxman was not a Hellenist as men are Hellenists to- +day. Nevertheless, his Roman studies had saturated him with the +spirit of antique beauty, and by his grand knowledge of the nude, +his calm, his restraint, he is such an illustrator of Homer as is +not likely to arise again. For who--with all our added knowledge of +classical antiquity--who, of our modern artists, could hope to rival +such thoroughly Greek compositions as the ball-play of Nausicaa in +the "Odyssey," or that lovely group from AEschylus of the tender- +hearted, womanly Oceanides, cowering like flowers beaten by the +storm under the terrible anger of Zeus? In our day Flaxman's +drawings would have been reproduced by some of the modern facsimile +processes, and the gain would have been great. As it is, something +is lost by their transference to copper, even though the translators +be Piroli and Blake. Blake, in fact, did more than he is usually +credited with, for (beside the acknowledged and later "Hesiod," +1817) he really engraved the whole of the "Odyssey," Piroli's plates +having been lost on the voyage to England. The name of the Roman +artist, nevertheless, appears on the title-page (1793). But Blake +was too original to be a successful copyist of other men's work, and +to appreciate the full value of Flaxman's drawings, they should be +studied in the collections at University College, the Royal Academy, +and elsewhere. {9} + +Flaxman and Blake had few imitators. But a host of clever +designers, such as Cipriani, Angelica Kauffmann, Westall, Uwins, +Smirke, Burney, Corbould, Dodd, and others, vied with the popular +Stothard in "embellishing" the endless "Poets," "novelists," and +"essayists" of our forefathers. Some of these, and most of the +recognised artists of the period, lent their aid to that boldly- +planned but unhappily-executed "Shakespeare" of Boydell,--"black and +ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum Northcotes, straddling +Fuselis," as Thackeray calls it. They are certainly not enlivening- +-those cumbrous "atlas" folios of 1803-5, and they helped to ruin +the worthy alderman. Even courtly Sir Joshua is clearly ill at ease +among the pushing Hamiltons and Mortimers; and, were it not for the +whimsical discovery that Westall's "Ghost of Caesar" strangely +resembles Mr. Gladstone, there would be no resting-place for the +modern student of these dismal masterpieces. The truth is, Reynolds +excepted, there were no contemporary painters strong enough for the +task, and the honours of the enterprise belong almost exclusively to +Smirke's "Seven Ages" and one or two plates from the lighter +comedies. The great "Bible" of Macklin, a rival and even more +incongruous publication, upon which some of the same designers were +employed, has fallen into completer oblivion. A rather better fate +attended another book of this class, which, although belonging to a +later period, may be briefly referred to here. The "Milton" of John +Martin has distinct individuality, and some of the needful qualities +of imagination. Nevertheless, posterity has practically decided +that scenic grandeur and sombre effects alone are not a sufficient +pictorial equipment for the varied story of "Paradise Lost." + +It is to Boydell of the Shakespeare gallery that we owe the "Liber +Veritatis" of Claude, engraved by Richard Earlom; and indirectly, +since rivalry of Claude prompted the attempt, the famous "Liber +Studiorum" of Turner. Neither of these, however--which, like the +"Rivers of France" and the "Picturesque Views in England and Wales" +of the latter artist, are collections of engravings rather than +illustrated books--belongs to the present purpose. But Turner's +name may fitly serve to introduce those once familiar "Annuals" and +"Keepsakes," that, beginning in 1823 with Ackermann's "Forget-me- +Not," enjoyed a popularity of more than thirty years. Their general +characteristics have been pleasantly satirised in Thackeray's +account of the elegant miscellany of Bacon the publisher, to which +Mr. Arthur Pendennis contributed his pretty poem of "The Church +Porch." His editress, it will be remembered, was the Lady Violet +Lebas, and his colleagues the Honourable Percy Popjoy, Lord Dodo, +and the gifted Bedwin Sands, whose "Eastern Ghazuls" lent so special +a distinction to the volume in watered-silk binding. The talented +authors, it is true, were in most cases under the disadvantage of +having to write to the plates of the talented artists, a practice +which even now is not extinct, though it is scarcely considered +favourable to literary merit. And the real "Annuals" were no +exception to the rule. As a matter of fact, their general literary +merit was not obtrusive, although, of course, they sometimes +contained work which afterwards became famous. They are now so +completely forgotten and out of date, that one scarcely expects to +find that Wordsworth, Coleridge, Macaulay, and Southey, were among +the occasional contributors. Lamb's beautiful "Album verses" +appeared in the "Bijou," Scott's "Bonnie Dundee" in the "Christmas +Box," and Tennyson's "St. Agnes' Eve" in the "Keepsake." But the +plates were, after all, the leading attraction. These, prepared for +the most part under the superintendence of the younger Heath, and +executed on the steel which by this time had supplanted the old +"coppers," were supplied by, or were "after," almost every +contemporary artist of note. Stothard, now growing old and past his +prime, Turner, Etty, Stanfield, Leslie, Roberts, Danby, Maclise, +Lawrence, Cattermole, and numbers of others, found profitable labour +in this fashionable field until 1856, when the last of the "Annuals" +disappeared, driven from the market by the rapid development of wood +engraving. About a million, it is roughly estimated, was squandered +in producing them. + +In connection with the "Annuals" must be mentioned two illustrated +books which were in all probability suggested by them--the "Poems" +and "Italy" of Rogers. The designs to these are chiefly by Turner +and Stothard, although there are a few by Prout and others. +Stothard's have been already referred to; Turner's are almost +universally held to be the most successful of his many vignettes. +It has been truly said--in a recent excellent life of this artist +{10}--that it would be difficult to find in the whole of his works +two really greater than the "Alps at Daybreak," and the "Datur Hora +Quieti," in the former of these volumes. Almost equally beautiful +are the "Valombre Falls" and "Tornaro's misty brow." Of the "Italy" +set Mr. Ruskin writes:- "They are entirely exquisite; poetical in +the highest and purest sense, exemplary and delightful beyond all +praise." To such words it is not possible to add much. But it is +pretty clear that the poetical vitality of Rogers was secured by +these well-timed illustrations, over which he is admitted by his +nephew Mr. Sharpe to have spent about 7000 pounds, and far larger +sums have been named by good authorities. The artist received from +fifteen to twenty guineas for each of the drawings; the engravers +(Goodall, Miller, Wallis, Smith, and others), sixty guineas a plate. +The "Poems" and the "Italy," in the original issues of 1830 and +1834, are still precious to collectors, and are likely to remain so. +Turner also illustrated Scott, Milton, Campbell, and Byron; but this +series of designs has not received equal commendation from his +greatest eulogist, who declares them to be "much more laboured, and +more or less artificial and unequal." Among the numerous imitations +directly induced by the Rogers books was the "Lyrics of the Heart," +by Alaric Attila Watts, a forgotten versifier and sometime editor of +"Annuals," but it did not meet with similar success. + +Many illustrated works, originating in the perfection and +opportunities of engraving on metal, are necessarily unnoticed in +this rapid summary. As far, however, as book-illustration is +concerned, copper and steel plate engraving may be held to have gone +out of fashion with the "Annuals." It is still, indeed, to be found +lingering in that mine of modern art-books--the "Art Journal;" and, +not so very long ago, it made a sumptuous and fugitive reappearance +in Dore's "Idylls of the King," Birket Foster's "Hood," and one or +two other imposing volumes. But it was badly injured by modern +wood-engraving; it has since been crippled for life by photography; +and it is more than probable that the present rapid rise of modern +etching will give it the coup de grace. {11} + +By the end of the seventeenth century the art of engraving on wood +had fallen into disuse. Writing circa 1770, Horace Walpole goes so +far as to say that it "never was executed in any perfection in +England;" and, speaking afterwards of Papillon's "Traite de la +Gravure," 1766, he takes occasion to doubt if that author would ever +"persuade the world to return to wooden cuts." Nevertheless, with +Bewick, a few years later, wood-engraving took a fresh departure so +conspicuous that it amounts to a revival. In what this consisted it +is clearly impossible to show here with any sufficiency of detail; +but between the method of the old wood-cutters who reproduced the +drawings of Durer, and the method of the Newcastle artist, there are +two marked and well-defined differences. One of these is a +difference in the preparation of the wood and the tool employed. +The old wood-cutters carved their designs with knives and chisels on +strips of wood sawn lengthwise--that is to say, upon the PLANK; +Bewick used a graver, and worked upon slices of box or pear cut +across the grain,--that is to say upon the END of the wood. The +other difference, of which Bewick is said to have been the inventor, +is less easy to describe. It consisted in the employment of what is +technically known as "white line." In all antecedent wood-cutting +the cutter had simply cleared away those portions of the block left +bare by the design, so that the design remained in relief to be +printed from like type. Using the smooth box block as a uniform +surface from which, if covered with printing ink, a uniformly black +impression might be obtained, Bewick, by cutting white lines across +it at greater or lesser intervals, produced gradations of shade, +from the absolute black of the block to the lightest tints. The +general result of this method was to give a greater depth of +colouring and variety to the engraving, but its advantages may +perhaps be best understood by a glance at the background of the +"Woodcock" on the following page. + +Bewick's first work of any importance was the Gay's "Fables" of +1779. In 1784 he did another series of "Select Fables." Neither of +these books, however, can be compared with the "General History of +Quadrupeds," 1790, and the "British Land and Water Birds," 1797 and +1804. The illustrations to the "Quadrupeds" are in many instances +excellent, and large additions were made to them in subsequent +issues. But in this collection Bewick laboured to a great extent +under the disadvantage of representing animals with which he was +familiar only through the medium of stuffed specimens or incorrect +drawings. In the "British Birds," on the contrary, his facilities +for study from the life were greater, and his success was +consequently more complete. Indeed, it may be safely affirmed that +of all the engravers of the present century, none have excelled +Bewick for beauty of black and white, for skilful rendering of +plumage and foliage, and for fidelity of detail and accessory. The +"Woodcock" (here given), the "Partridge," the "Owl," the "Yellow- +Hammer," the "Yellow-Bunting," the "Willow-Wren," are popular +examples of these qualities. But there are a hundred others nearly +as good. + +Among sundry conventional decorations after the old German fashion +in the first edition of the "Quadrupeds," there are a fair number of +those famous tail-pieces which, to a good many people, constitute +Bewick's chief claim to immortality. That it is not easy to imitate +them is plain from the failure of Branston's attempts, and from the +inferior character of those by John Thompson in Yarrell's "Fishes." +The genius of Bewick was, in fact, entirely individual and +particular. He had the humour of a Hogarth in little, as well as +some of his special characteristics,--notably his faculty of telling +a story by suggestive detail. An instance may be taken at random +from vol. I. of the "Birds." A man, whose wig and hat have fallen +off, lies asleep with open mouth under some bushes. He is +manifestly drunk, and the date "4 June," on a neighbouring stone, +gives us the reason and occasion of his catastrophe. He has been +too loyally celebrating the birthday of his majesty King George III. +Another of Bewick's gifts is his wonderful skill in foreshadowing a +tragedy. Take as an example, this truly appalling incident from the +"Quadrupeds." The tottering child, whose nurse is seen in the +background, has strayed into the meadow, and is pulling at the tail +of a vicious-looking colt, with back-turned eye and lifted heel. +Down the garden-steps the mother hurries headlong; but she can +hardly be in time. And of all this--sufficient, one would say, for +a fairly-sized canvas--the artist has managed to give a vivid +impression in a block of three inches by two! Then, again, like +Hogarth once more, he rejoices in multiplications of dilemma. What, +for instance, can be more comically pathetic than the head-piece to +the "Contents" in vol. I. of the "Birds"? The old horse has been +seized with an invincible fit of stubbornness. The day is both +windy and rainy. The rider has broken his stick and lost his hat; +but he is too much encumbered with his cackling and excited stock to +dare to dismount. Nothing can help him but a Deus ex machina,--of +whom there is no sign. + +Besides his humour, Bewick has a delightfully rustic side, of which +Hogarth gives but little indication. From the starved ewe in the +snow nibbling forlornly at a worn-out broom, to the cow which has +broken through the rail to reach the running water, there are +numberless designs which reveal that faithful lover of the field and +hillside, who, as he said, "would rather be herding sheep on Mickle +bank top" than remain in London to be made premier of England. He +loved the country and the country-life; and he drew them as one who +loved them. It is this rural quality which helps to give such a +lasting freshness to his quaint and picturesque fancies; and it is +this which will continue to preserve their popularity, even if they +should cease to be valued for their wealth of whimsical invention. + +In referring to these masterpieces of Bewick's, it must not be +forgotten that he had the aid of some clever assistants. His +younger brother John was not without talent, as is clear from his +work for Somervile's "Chace," 1796, and that highly edifying book, +the "Blossoms of Morality." Many of the tail-pieces to the "Water +Birds" were designed by Robert Johnson, who also did most of the +illustrations to Bewick's "Fables" of 1818, which were engraved by +Temple and Harvey, two other pupils. Another pupil was Charlton +Nesbit, an excellent engraver, who was employed upon the "Birds," +and did good work in Ackermann's "Religious Emblems" of 1808, and +the second series of Northcote's "Fables." But by far the largest +portion of the tail-pieces in the second volume of the "Birds" was +engraved by Luke Clennell, a very skilful but unfortunate artist, +who ultimately became insane. To him we owe the woodcuts, after +Stothard's charming sketches, to the Rogers volume of 1810, an +edition preceding those already mentioned as illustrated with steel- +plates, and containing some of the artist's happiest pictures of +children and amorini. Many of these little groups would make +admirable designs for gems, if indeed they are not already derived +from them, since one at least is an obvious copy of a well-known +sardonyx--("The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche.") This volume, +generally known by the name of the "Firebrand" edition, is highly +prized by collectors; and, as intelligent renderings of pen and ink, +there is little better than these engravings of Clennell's. {12} +Finally, among others of Bewick's pupils, must be mentioned William +Harvey, who survived to 1866. It has been already stated that he +engraved part of the illustrations to Bewick's "Fables," but his +best known block is the large one of Haydon's "Death of Dentatus." +Soon after this he relinquished wood-engraving in favour of design, +and for a long period was one of the most fertile and popular of +book-illustrators. His style, however, is unpleasantly mannered; +and it is sufficient to make mention of his masterpiece, the +"Arabian Nights" of Lane, the illustrations to which, produced under +the supervision of the translator, are said to be so accurate as to +give the appropriate turbans for every hour of the day. They show +considerable freedom of invention and a large fund of Orientalism. + +Harvey came to London in 1817; Clennell had preceded him by some +years; and Nesbit lived there for a considerable time. What +distinguishes these pupils of Bewick especially is, that they were +artists as well as engravers, capable of producing the designs they +engraved. The "London School" of engravers, on the contrary, were +mostly engravers, who depended upon others for their designs. The +foremost of these was Robert Branston, a skilful renderer of human +figures and indoor scenes. He worked in rivalry with Bewick and +Nesbit; but he excelled neither, while he fell far behind the +former. John Thompson, one of the very best of modern English +engravers on wood, was Branston's pupil. His range was of the +widest, and he succeeded as well in engraving fishes and birds for +Yarrell and Walton's "Angler," as in illustrations to Moliere and +"Hudibras." He was, besides, a clever draughtsman, though he worked +chiefly from the designs of Thurston and others. One of the most +successful of his illustrated books is the "Vicar of Wakefield," +after Mulready, whose simplicity and homely feeling were well suited +to Goldsmith's style. Another excellent engraver of this date is +Samuel Williams. There is an edition of Thomson's "Seasons," with +cuts both drawn and engraved by him, which is well worthy of +attention, and (like Thompson and Branston) he was very skilful in +reproducing the designs of Cruikshank. Some of his best work in +this way is to be found in Clarke's "Three Courses and a Dessert," +published by Vizetelly in 1830. + +From this time forth, however, one hears less of the engraver and +more of the artist. The establishment of the "Penny Magazine" in +1832, and the multifarious publications of Charles Knight, gave an +extraordinary impetus to wood-engraving. Ten years later came +"Punch," and the "Illustrated London News," which further increased +its popularity. Artists of eminence began to draw on or for the +block, as they had drawn, and were still drawing, for the "Annuals." +In 1842-6 was issued the great "Abbotsford" edition of the "Waverley +Novels," which, besides 120 plates, contained nearly 2000 wood- +engravings; and with the "Book of British Ballads," 1843, edited by +Mr. S. C. Hall, arose that long series of illustrated Christmas +books, which gradually supplanted the "Annuals," and made familiar +the names of Gilbert, Birket Foster, Harrison Weir, John Absolon, +and a crowd of others. The poems of Longfellow, Montgomery, Burns, +"Barry Cornwall," Poe, Miss Ingelow, were all successively +"illustrated." Besides these, there were numerous selections, such +as Willmott's "Poets of the Nineteenth Century," Wills's "Poets' Wit +and Humour," and so forth. But the field here grows too wide to be +dealt with in detail, and it is impossible to do more than mention a +few of the books most prominent for merit or originality. Amongst +these there is the "Shakespeare" of Sir John Gilbert. Regarded as +an interpretative edition of the great dramatist, this is little +more than a brilliant tour de force; but it is nevertheless +infinitely superior to the earlier efforts of Kenny Meadows in 1843, +and also to the fancy designs of Harvey in Knight's "Pictorial +Shakespeare." The "Illustrated Tennyson" of 1858 is also a +remarkable production. The Laureate, almost more than any other, +requires a variety of illustrators; and here, for his idylls, he had +Mulready and Millais, and for his romances Rossetti and Holman Hunt. +His "Princess" was afterwards illustrated by Maclise, and his "Enoch +Arden" by Arthur Hughes; but neither of these can be said to be +wholly adequate. The "Lalla Rookh" of John Tenniel, 1860, albeit +somewhat stiff and cold, after this artist's fashion, is a superb +collection of carefully studied oriental designs. With these may be +classed the illustrations to Aytoun's "Lays of the Scottish +Cavaliers," by Sir Noel Paton, which have the same finished +qualities of composition and the same academic hardness. Several +good editions of the "Pilgrim's Progress" have appeared,--notably +those of C. H. Bennett, J. D. Watson, and G. H. Thomas. Other books +are Millais's "Parables of our Lord," Leighton's "Romola," Walker's +"Philip" and "Denis Duval," the "Don Quixote," "Dante," "La +Fontaine" and other works of Dore, Dalziel's "Arabian Nights," +Leighton's "Lyra Germanica" and "Moral Emblems," and the "Spiritual +Conceits" of W. Harry Rogers. These are some only of the number, +which does not include books like Mrs. Hugh Blackburn's "British +Birds," Wolf's "Wild Animals," Wise's "New Forest," Linton's "Lake +Country," Wood's "Natural History," and many more. Nor does it take +in the various illustrated periodicals which have multiplied so +freely since, in 1859, "Once a Week" first began to attract and +train such younger draughtsmen as Sandys, Lawless, Pinwell, +Houghton, Morten, and Paul Grey, some of whose best work in this way +has been revived in the edition of Thornbury's "Ballads and Songs," +recently published by Chatto and Windus. Ten years later came the +"Graphic," offering still wider opportunities to wood-cut art, and +bringing with it a fresh school of artists. Herkomer, Fildes, +Small, Green, Barnard, Barnes, Crane, Caldecott, Hopkins, and +others,--quos nunc perscribere longum est--have contributed good +work to this popular rival of the older, but still vigorous, +"Illustrated." And now again, another promising serial, the +"Magazine of Art," affords a supplementary field to modern +refinements and younger energies. + +Not a few of the artists named in the preceding paragraph have also +earned distinction in separate branches of the pictorial art, and +specially in that of humorous design,--a department which has always +been so richly recruited in this country that it deserves more than +a passing mention. From the days of Hogarth onwards there has been +an almost unbroken series of humorous draughtsmen, who, both on wood +and metal, play a distinguished part in our illustrated literature. +Rowlandson, one of the earliest, was a caricaturist of inexhaustible +facility, and an artist who scarcely did justice to his own powers. +He illustrated several books, but he is chiefly remembered in this +way by his plates to Combe's "Three Tours of Dr. Syntax." Gillray, +his contemporary, whose bias was political rather than social, is +said to have illustrated "The Deserted Village" in his youth; but he +is not famous as a book-illustrator. Another of the early men was +Bunbury, whom "quality"-loving Mr. Walpole calls "the second +Hogarth, and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original +(!);" but whose prints to "Tristram Shandy," are nevertheless +completely forgotten, while, if he be remembered at all, it is by +the plate of "The Long Minuet," and the vulgar "Directions to Bad +Horsemen." With the first years of the century, however, appears +the great master of modern humorists, whose long life ended only a +few years since, "the veteran George Cruikshank"--as his admirers +were wont to style him. He indeed may justly be compared to +Hogarth, since, in tragic power and intensity he occasionally comes +nearer to him than any artist of our time. It is manifestly +impossible to mention here all the more important efforts of this +indefatigable worker, from those far-away days when he caricatured +"Boney" and championed Queen Caroline, to that final frontispiece +for "The Rose and the Lily"--"designed and etched (according to the +inscription) by George Cruikshank, age 83;" but the plates to the +"Points of Humour," to Grimm's "Goblins," to "Oliver Twist," "Jack +Sheppard," Maxwell's "Irish Rebellion," and the "Table Book," are +sufficiently favourable and varied specimens of his skill with the +needle, while the woodcuts to "Three Courses and a Dessert," one of +which is here given, are equally good examples of his work on the +block. The "Triumph of Cupid," which begins the "Table Book," is an +excellent instance of his lavish wealth of fancy, and it contains +beside, one--nay more than one--of the many portraits of the artist. +He is shown en robe de chambre, smoking (this was before his +regenerate days!) in front of a blazing fire, with a pet spaniel on +his knee. In the cloud which curls from his lips is a motley +procession of sailors, sweeps, jockeys, Greenwich pensioners, Jew +clothesmen, flunkies, and others more illustrious, chained to the +chariot wheels of Cupid, who, preceded by cherubic acolytes and +banner-bearers, winds round the top of the picture towards an altar +of Hymen on the table. When, by the aid of a pocket-glass, one has +mastered these swarming figures, as well as those in the foreground, +it gradually dawns upon one that all the furniture is strangely +vitalised. Masks laugh round the border of the tablecloth, the +markings of the mantelpiece resolve themselves into rows of madly- +racing figures, the tongs leers in a degage and cavalier way at the +artist, the shovel and poker grin in sympathy; there are faces in +the smoke, in the fire, in the fireplace,--the very fender itself is +a ring of fantastic creatures who jubilantly hem in the ashes. And +it is not only in the grotesque and fanciful that Cruikshank excels; +he is master of the strange, the supernatural, and the terrible. In +range of character (the comparison is probably a hackneyed one), +both by his gifts and his limitations, he resembles Dickens; and had +he illustrated more of that writer's works the resemblance would +probably have been more evident. In "Oliver Twist," for example, +where Dickens is strong, Cruikshank is strong; where Dickens is +weak, he is weak too. His Fagin, his Bill Sikes, his Bumble, and +their following, are on a level with Dickens's conceptions; his Monk +and Rose Maylie are as poor as the originals. But as the defects of +Dickens are overbalanced by his merits, so Cruikshank's strength is +far in excess of his weakness. It is not to his melodramatic heroes +or wasp-waisted heroines that we must look for his triumphs; it is +to his delineations, from the moralist's point of view, of vulgarity +and vice,--of the "rank life of towns," with all its squalid tragedy +and comedy. Here he finds his strongest ground, and possibly, +notwithstanding his powers as a comic artist and caricaturist, his +loftiest claim to recollection. + +Cruikshank was employed on two only of Dickens's books--"Oliver +Twist" and the "Sketches by Boz." {13} The great majority of them +were illustrated by Hablot K. Browne, an artist who followed the +ill-fated Seymour on the "Pickwick Papers." To "Phiz," as he is +popularly called, we are indebted for our pictorial ideas of Sam +Weller, Mrs. Gamp, Captain Cuttle, and most of the author's +characters, down to the "Tale of Two Cities." "Phiz" also +illustrated a great many of Lever's novels, for which his skill in +hunting and other Lever-like scenes especially qualified him. + +With the name of Richard Doyle we come to the first of a group of +artists whose main work was, or is still, done for the time-honoured +miscellany of Mr. Punch. So familiar an object is "Punch" upon our +tables, that one is sometimes apt to forget how unfailing, and how +good on the whole, is the work we take so complacently as a matter +of course. And of this good work, in the earlier days, a large +proportion was done by Mr. Doyle. He is still living, although he +has long ceased to gladden those sprightly pages. But it was to +"Punch" that he contributed his masterpiece, the "Manners and +Customs of ye Englyshe," a series of outlines illustrating social +life in 1849, and cleverly commented by a shadowy "Mr. Pips," a sort +of fetch or double of the bustling and garrulous old Caroline +diarist. In these captivating pictures the life of thirty years ago +is indeed, as the title-page has it, "drawn from ye quick." We see +the Molesworths and Cantilupes of the day parading the Park; we +watch Brougham fretting at a hearing in the Lords, or Peel holding +forth to the Commons (where the Irish members are already +obstructive); we squeeze in at the Haymarket to listen to Jenny +Lind, or we run down the river to Greenwich Fair, and visit "Mr. +Richardson, his show." Many years after, in the "Bird's Eye Views +of Society," which appeared in the early numbers of the "Cornhill +Magazine," Mr. Doyle returned to this attractive theme. But the +later designs were more elaborate, and not equally fortunate. They +bear the same relationship to Mr. Pips's pictorial chronicle, as the +laboured "Temperance Fairy Tales" of Cruikshank's old age bear to +the little-worked Grimm's "Goblins" of his youth. So hazardous is +the attempt to repeat an old success! Nevertheless, many of the +initial letters to the "Bird's Eye Views" are in the artist's best +and most frolicsome manner. "The Foreign Tour of Brown, Jones, and +Robinson" is another of his happy thoughts for "Punch;" and some of +his most popular designs are to be found in Thackeray's "Newcomes," +where his satire and fancy seem thoroughly suited to his text. He +has also illustrated Locker's well-known "London Lyrics," Ruskin's +"King of the Golden River," and Hughes's "Scouring of the White +Horse," from which last the initial at the beginning of this chapter +has been borrowed. His latest important effort was the series of +drawings called "In Fairy Land," to which Mr. William Allingham +contributed the verses. + +In speaking of the "Newcomes," one is reminded that its illustrious +author was himself a "Punch" artist, and would probably have been a +designer alone, had it not been decreed "that he should paint in +colours which will never crack and never need restoration." +Everyone knows the story of the rejected illustrator of "Pickwick," +whom that and other rebuffs drove permanently to letters. To his +death, however, he clung fondly to his pencil. In technique he +never attained to certainty or strength, and his genius was too +quick and creative--perhaps also too desultory--for finished work, +while he was always indifferent to costume and accessory. But many +of his sketches for "Vanity Fair," for "Pendennis," for "The +Virginians," for "The Rose and the Ring," the Christmas books, and +the posthumously published "Orphan of Pimlico," have a vigour of +impromptu, and a happy suggestiveness which is better than correct +drawing. Often the realisation is almost photographic. Look, for +example, at the portrait in "Pendennis" of the dilapidated Major as +he crawls downstairs in the dawn after the ball at Gaunt House, and +then listen to the inimitable context: "That admirable and devoted +Major above all,--who had been for hours by Lady Clavering's side +ministering to her and feeding her body with everything that was +nice, and her ear with everything that was sweet and flattering--oh! +what an object he was! The rings round his eyes were of the colour +of bistre; those orbs themselves were like the plovers' eggs whereof +Lady Clavering and Blanche had each tasted; the wrinkles in his old +face were furrowed in deep gashes; and a silver stubble, like an +elderly morning dew, was glittering on his chin, and alongside the +dyed whiskers, now limp and out of curl." A good deal of this--that +fine touch in italics especially--could not possibly be rendered in +black and white, and yet how much is indicated, and how thoroughly +the whole is felt! One turns to the woodcut from the words, and +back again to the words from the woodcut with ever-increasing +gratification. Then again, Thackeray's little initial letters are +charmingly arch and playful. They seem to throw a shy side-light +upon the text, giving, as it were, an additional and confidential +hint of the working of the author's mind. To those who, with the +present writer, love every tiny scratch and quirk and flourish of +the Master's hand, these small but priceless memorials are far +beyond the frigid appraising of academics and schools of art. + +After Doyle and Thackeray come a couple of well-known artists--John +Leech and John Tenniel. The latter still lives (may he long live!) +to delight and instruct us. Of the former, whose genial and manly +"Pictures of Life and Character" are in every home where good- +humoured raillery is prized and appreciated, it is scarcely +necessary to speak. Who does not remember the splendid languid +swells, the bright-eyed rosy girls ("with no nonsense about them!") +in pork pie hats and crinolines, the superlative "Jeames's," the +hairy "Mossoos," the music-grinding Italian desperadoes whom their +kind creator hated so? And then the intrepidity of "Mr. Briggs," +the Roman rule of "Paterfamilias," the vagaries of the "Rising +Generation!" There are things in this gallery over which the +severest misanthrope must chuckle--they are simply irresistible. +Let any one take, say that smallest sketch of the hapless mortal who +has turned on the hot water in the bath and cannot turn it off +again, and see if he is able to restrain his laughter. In this one +gift of producing instant mirth Leech is almost alone. It would be +easy to assail his manner and his skill, but for sheer fun, for the +invention of downright humorous situation, he is unapproached, +except by Cruikshank. He did a few illustrations to Dickens's +Christmas books; but his best-known book-illustrations properly so +called are to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the "Comic Histories" of +A'Beckett, the "Little Tour in Ireland," and certain sporting novels +by the late Mr. Surtees. Tenniel now confines himself almost +exclusively to the weekly cartoons with which his name is popularly +associated. But years ago he used to invent the most daintily +fanciful initial letters; and many of his admirers prefer the serio- +grotesque designs of "Punch's Pocket-Book," "Alice in Wonderland," +and "Through the Looking-Glass," to the always correctly-drawn but +sometimes stiffly-conceived cartoons. What, for example, could be +more delightful than the picture, in "Alice in Wonderland," of the +"Mad Tea Party?" Observe the hopelessly distraught expression of +the March hare, and the eager incoherence of the hatter! A little +further on the pair are trying to squeeze the dormouse into the +teapot; and a few pages back the blue caterpillar is discovered +smoking his hookah on the top of a mushroom. He was exactly three +inches long, says the veracious chronicle, but what a dignity!--what +an oriental flexibility of gesture! Speaking of animals, it must +not be forgotten that Tenniel is a master in this line. His +"British Lion," in particular, is a most imposing quadruped, and so +often in request that it is not necessary to go back to the famous +cartoons on the Indian mutiny to seek for examples of that +magnificent presence. As a specimen of the artist's treatment of +the lesser felidae, the reader's attention is invited to this +charming little kitten from "Through the Looking-Glass." + +Mr. Tenniel is a link between Leech and the younger school of +"Punch" artists, of whom Mr. George du Maurier, Mr. Linley +Sambourne, and Mr. Charles Keene are the most illustrious. The +first is nearly as popular as Leech, and is certainly a greater +favourite with cultivated audiences. He is not so much a humorist +as a satirist of the Thackeray type,--unsparing in his denunciation +of shams, affectations, and flimsy pretences of all kinds. A master +of composition and accomplished draughtsman, he excels in the +delineation of "society"--its bishops, its "professional beauties" +and "aesthetes," its nouveaux riches, its distinguished foreigners,- +-while now and then (but not too often) he lets us know that if he +chose he could be equally happy in depicting the lowest classes. +There was a bar-room scene not long ago in "Punch" which gave the +clearest evidence of this. Some of those for whom no good thing is +good enough complain, it is said, that he lacks variety--that he is +too constant to one type of feminine beauty. But any one who will +be at the pains to study a group of conventional "society" faces +from any of his "At Homes" or "Musical Parties" will speedily +discover that they are really very subtly diversified and +contrasted. For a case in point, take the decorously sympathetic +group round the sensitive German musician, who is "veeping" over one +of his own compositions. Or follow the titter running round that +amused assembly to whom the tenor warbler is singing "Me-e-e-et me +once again," with such passionate emphasis that the domestic cat +mistakes it for a well-known area cry. As for his ladies, it may +perhaps be conceded that his type is a little persistent. Still it +is a type so refined, so graceful, so attractive altogether, that in +the jarring of less well-favoured realities it is an advantage to +have it always before our eyes as a standard to which we can appeal. +Mr. du Maurier is a fertile book-illustrator, whose hand is +frequently seen in the "Cornhill," and elsewhere. Some of his best +work of this kind is in Douglas Jerrold's "Story of a Feather," in +Thackeray's "Ballads," and the large edition of the "Ingoldsby +Legends," to which Leech, Tenniel, and Cruikshank also contributed. +One of his prettiest compositions is the group here reproduced from +"Punch's Almanack" for 1877. The talent of his colleague, Mr. +Linley Sambourne, may fairly be styled unique. It is difficult to +compare it with anything in its way, except some of the happier +efforts of the late Mr. Charles Bennett, to which, nevertheless, it +is greatly superior in execution. To this clever artist's invention +everything seems to present itself with a train of fantastic +accessory so whimsically inexhaustible that it almost overpowers one +with its prodigality. Each fresh examination of his designs +discloses something overlooked or unexpected. Let the reader study +for a moment the famous "Birds of a Feather" of 1875, or that +ingenious skit of 1877 upon the rival Grosvenor Gallery and Academy, +in which the late President of the latter is shown as the proudest +of peacocks, the eyes of whose tail are portraits of Royal +Academicians, and whose body-feathers are paint brushes and +shillings of admission. Mr. Sambourne is excellent, too, at +adaptations of popular pictures,--witness the more than happy +parodies of Herrman's "A Bout d'Arguments," and "Une Bonne +Histoire." His book-illustrations have been comparatively few, +those to Burnand's laughable burlesque of "Sandford and Merton" +being among the best. Rumour asserts that he is at present engaged +upon Kingsley's "Water Babies," a subject which might almost be +supposed to have been created for his pencil. There are +indications, it may be added, that Mr. Sambourne's talents are by no +means limited to the domain in which for the present he chooses to +exercise them, and it is not impossible that he may hereafter take +high rank as a cartoonist. Mr. Charles Keene, a selection from +whose sketches has recently been issued under the title of "Our +People," is unrivalled in certain bourgeois, military, and +provincial types. No one can draw a volunteer, a monthly nurse, a +Scotchman, an "ancient mariner" of the watering-place species, with +such absolutely humorous verisimilitude. Personages, too, in whose +eyes--to use Mr. Swiveller's euphemism--"the sun has shone too +strongly," find in Mr. Keene a merciless satirist of their "pleasant +vices." Like Leech, he has also a remarkable power of indicating a +landscape background with the fewest possible touches. His book- +illustrations have been .mainly confined to magazines and novels. +Those in "Once a Week" to a "Good Fight," the tale subsequently +elaborated by Charles Reade into the "Cloister and the Hearth," +present some good specimens of his earlier work. One of these, in +which the dwarf of the story is seen climbing up a wall with a +lantern at his back, will probably be remembered by many. + +After the "Punch" school there are other lesser luminaries. Mr. W. +S. Gilbert's drawings to his own inimitable "Bab Ballads" have a +perverse drollery which is quite in keeping with that erratic text. +Mr. F. Barnard, whose exceptional talents have not been sufficiently +recognised, is a master of certain phases of strongly marked +character, and, like Mr. Charles Green, has contributed some +excellent sketches to the "Household Edition" of Dickens. Mr. +Sullivan of "Fun," whose grotesque studies of the "British +Tradesman" and "Workman" have recently been republished, has +abounding vis comica, but he has hitherto done little in the way of +illustrating books. For minute pictorial stocktaking and +photographic retention of detail, Mr. Sullivan's artistic memory may +almost be compared to the wonderful literary memory of Mr. Sala. +Mr. John Proctor, who some years ago (in "Will o' the Wisp") seemed +likely to rival Tenniel as a cartoonist, has not been very active in +this way; while Mr. Matthew Morgan, the clever artist of the +"Tomahawk," has transferred his services to the United States. Of +Mr. Bowcher of "Judy," and various other professedly humorous +designers, space permits no further mention. + + +There remains, however, one popular branch of book-illustration, +which has attracted the talents of some of the most skilful and +original of modern draughtsmen, i.e. the embellishment of children's +books. From the days when Mulready drew the old "Butterfly's Ball" +and "Peacock at Home" of our youth, to those of the delightfully +Blake-like fancies of E. V. B., whose "Child's Play" has recently +been re-published for the delectation of a new generation of +admirers, this has always been a popular and profitable employment; +but of late years it has been raised to the level of a fine art. +Mr. H. S. Marks, Mr. J. D. Watson, Mr. Walter Crane, have produced +specimens of nursery literature which, for refinement of colouring +and beauty of ornament, cannot easily be surpassed. The equipments +of the last named, especially, are of a very high order. He began +as a landscapist on wood; he now chiefly devotes himself to the +figure; and he seems to have the decorative art at his fingers' ends +as a natural gift. Such work as "King Luckieboy's Party" was a +revelation in the way of toy books, while the "Baby's Opera" and +"Baby's Bouquet" are petits chefs d'oeuvre, of which the sagacious +collector will do well to secure copies, not for his nursery, but +his library. Nor can his "Mrs. Mundi at Home" be neglected by the +curious in quaint and graceful invention. {14} Another book--the +"Under the Window" of Miss Kate Greenaway--comes within the same +category. Since Stothard, no one has given us such a clear-eyed, +soft-faced, happy-hearted childhood; or so poetically "apprehended" +the coy reticences, the simplicities, and the small solemnities of +little people. Added to this, the old-world costume in which she +usually elects to clothe her characters, lends an arch piquancy of +contrast to their innocent rites and ceremonies. Her taste in +tinting, too, is very sweet and spring-like; and there is a fresh, +pure fragrance about all her pictures as of new-gathered nosegays; +or, perhaps, looking to the fashions that she favours, it would be +better to say "bow-pots." But the latest "good genius" of this +branch of book-illustrating is Mr. Randolph Caldecott, a designer +assuredly of the very first order. There is a spontaneity of fun, +an unforced invention about everything he does, that is infinitely +entertaining. Other artists draw to amuse us; Mr. Caldecott seems +to draw to amuse himself,--and this is his charm. One feels that he +must have chuckled inwardly as he puffed the cheeks of his "Jovial +Huntsmen;" or sketched that inimitably complacent dog in the "House +that Jack Built;" or exhibited the exploits of the immortal "train- +band captain" of "famous London town." This last is his +masterpiece. Cowper himself must have rejoiced at it,--and Lady +Austen. There are two sketches in this book--they occupy the +concluding pages--which are especially fascinating. On one, John +Gilpin, in a forlorn and flaccid condition, is helped into the house +by the sympathising (and very attractive) Betty; on the other he has +donned his slippers, refreshed his inner man with a cordial, and +over the heaving shoulder of his "spouse," who lies dissolved upon +his martial bosom, he is taking the spectators into his confidence +with a wink worthy of the late Mr. Buckstone. Nothing more genuine, +more heartily laughable, than this set of designs has appeared in +our day. And Mr. Caldecott has few limitations. Not only does he +draw human nature admirably, but he draws animals and landscapes +equally well, so one may praise him without reserve. Though not +children's books, mention should here be made of his "Bracebridge +Hall," and "Old Christmas," the illustrations to which are the +nearest approach to that beau-ideal, perfect sympathy between the +artist and the author, with which the writer is acquainted. The cut +on page 173 is from the former of these works. + + +Many of the books above mentioned are printed in colours by various +processes, and they are not always engraved on wood. But--to close +the account of modern wood-engraving--some brief reference must be +made to what is styled the "new American School," as exhibited for +the most part in "Scribner's" and other Transatlantic magazines. +Authorities, it is reported, shake their heads over these +performances. "C'est magnifique, mais ce nest pas la gravure," they +whisper. Into the matter in dispute, it is perhaps presumptuous for +an "atechnic" to adventure himself. But to the outsider it would +certainly seem as if the chief ground of complaint is that the new +comers do not play the game according to the old rules, and that +this (alleged) irregular mode of procedure tends to lessen the +status of the engraver as an artist. False or true, this, it may +fairly be advanced, has nothing whatever to do with the matter, as +far, at least, as the public are concerned. For them the question +is, simply and solely--What is the result obtained? The new school, +availing themselves largely of the assistance of photography, are +able to dispense, in a great measure, with the old tedious method of +drawing on the block, and to leave the artist to choose what medium +he prefers for his design--be it oil, water-colour, or black and +white--concerning themselves only to reproduce its characteristics +on the wood. This is, of course, a deviation from the method of +Bewick. But would Bewick have adhered to his method in these days? +Even in his last hours he was seeking for new processes. What we +want is to get nearest to the artist himself with the least amount +of interpretation or intermediation on the part of the engraver. Is +engraving on copper to be reproduced, we want a facsimile if +possible, and not a rendering into something which is supposed to be +the orthodox utterance of wood-engraving. Take, for example, the +copy of Schiavonetti's engraving of Blake's Death's Door in +"Scribner's Magazine" for June 1880, or the cut from the same source +at page 131 of this book. These are faithful line for line +transcriptions, as far as wood can give them, of the original +copper-plates; and, this being the case, it is not to be wondered at +that the public, who, for a few pence can have practical facsimiles +of Blake, of Cruikshank, or of Whistler, are loud in their +appreciation of the "new American School." Nor are its successes +confined to reproduction in facsimile. Those who look at the +exquisite illustrations, in the same periodical, to the "Tile Club +at Play," to Roe's "Success with Small Fruits," and Harris's +"Insects Injurious to Vegetation,"--to say nothing of the selected +specimens in the recently issued "Portfolios"--will see that the +latest comers can hold their own on all fields with any school that +has gone before. {15} + +Besides copperplate and wood, there are many processes which have +been and are still employed for book-illustrations, although the +brief limits of this chapter make any account of them impossible. +Lithography was at one time very popular, and, in books like +Roberts's "Holy Land," exceedingly effective. The "Etching Club" +issued a number of books circa 1841-52; and most of the work of +"Phiz" and Cruikshank was done with the needle. It is probable +that, as we have already seen, the impetus given to modern etching +by Messrs. Hamerton, Seymour Haden, and Whistler, will lead to a +specific revival of etching as a means of book-illustration. +Already beautiful etchings have for some time appeared in "L'Art," +the "Portfolio," and the "Etcher;" and at least one book of poems +has been entirely illustrated in this way,--the poems of Mr. W. Bell +Scott. For reproducing old engravings, maps, drawings, and the +like, it is not too much to say that we shall never get anything +much closer than the facsimiles of M. Amand-Durand and the +Typographic Etching and Autotype Companies. But further +improvements will probably have to be made before these can compete +commercially with wood-engraving as practised by the "new American +School." + + +"Of making many books," 'twais said, +"There is no end;" and who thereon +The ever-running ink doth shed +But probes the words of Solomon: +Wherefore we now, for colophon, +From London's city drear and dark, +In the year Eighteen Eight-One, +Reprint them at the press of Clark. + +A. D. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} This is the technical name for people who "illustrate" books +with engravings from other works. The practice became popular when +Granger published his "Biographical History of England." + +{2} Mr. William Blades, in his "Enemies of Books" (Trubner, 1880), +decries glass-doors,-- "the absence of ventilation will assist the +formation of mould." But M. Rouveyre bids us open the doors on +sunny days, that the air may be renewed, and, close them in the +evening hours, lest moths should enter and lay their eggs among the +treasures. And, with all deference to Mr. Blades, glass-doors do +seem to be useful in excluding dust. + +{3} "Send him back carefully, for you can if you like, that all +unharmed he may return to his own place." + +{4} No wonder the books are scarce, if they are being hacked to +pieces by Grangerites. + +{5} These lines appeared in "Notes and Queries," Jan. 8, 1881. + +{6} In the Golden Ass of Apuleius, which Polia should not have +read. + +{7} M. Arsene Houssaye seems to think he has found them; marked on +the fly-leaves with an impression, in wax, of a seal engraved with +the head of Epicurus. + +{8} This chapter was written by Austin Dobson.--DP + +{9} The recent Winter Exhibition of the Old Masters (1881) +contained a fine display of Flaxman's drawings, a large number of +which belonged to Mr. F. T. Palgrave. + +{10} By Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse. + +{11} These words were written before the "Art Journal" had +published its programme for 1881. From this it appears that the +present editor fully recognises the necessity for calling in the +assistance of the needle. + +{12} The example, here copied on the wood by M. Lacour, is a very +successful reproduction of Clennell's style. + +{13} He also illustrated the "Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi." But +this was simply "edited" by "Boz." + +{14} The reader will observe that this volume is indebted to Mr. +Crane for its beautiful frontispiece. + +{15} Since this paragraph was first written an interesting paper on +the illustrations in "Scribner," from the pen of Mr. J. Comyns Carr, +has appeared in "L'Art." + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Library, by Andrew Lang + |