The Book-Collector Part 14

R. Montague (1730-40).

This represents not only the entire a.s.semblage and succession, so far as England is concerned, but covers Scotland and Ireland; and several of the names are obviously those of foreigners. The Scotish artists, if, as there is no absolute reason to doubt, a large number of early books were clothed on the spot, possessed much taste and originality, and some of them have descended to us in a pristine state of preservation with the lavish gilding as fresh and brilliant as when they left the workshop. We may fairly consider, looking at the intimate relations.h.i.+p between Scotland and France in former times, that a certain proportion of volumes of Scotish origin were bound abroad, just as Americans at present send over their books to England.

Coming down to more recent days, the two names chiefly a.s.sociated with Scotland are C. Murton and J. Mackenzie, neither of whom attained special celebrity.

But it is to be more than suspected that all important work in this direction was long executed out of Scotland--either in London or in Paris. The time came, however, when the Scots acquired a school and style of their own, and all that can be pleaded for it is, that it is manneristic and peculiar. Of recent years heavy prices have been paid for first-cla.s.s examples, which are of unusual rarity. Messrs. Kerr & Richardson, of Glasgow, bought over Mr. Quaritch at the Laing sale in London at a preposterous figure (295) a copy of one of Sir George Mackenzie's legal works simply for the covers; it was offered by the purchasers afterward to the underbidder, who quietly informed them that he had come to his senses again.

There is no reason why the magnificent copy on vellum of Boece's _Chronicles of Scotland_ (1536), which occurred at the Hamilton sale in 1884, should not have received its clothing of oaken boards covered with gilt calf at home.

The most familiar names to English ears are perhaps those of Roger Payne, Charles Hering, C. Kalthoeber, Charles Lewis, Francis Bedford, Robert Riviere, and Zaehnsdorf. The genuine Roger Paynes in good state are very scarce and equally desirable. Hering excelled in russia and half-binding. Lewis bound with equal excellence in brown calf and Venetian morocco, and was largely employed by Heber. Bedford had two or three periods, of which the last was, on the whole, the best; he was famous for his brown calf, but made it too dark at first, instead of allowing it to deepen in colour with time. Riviere could do good work when he took pains; but he was unequal and uncertain.

Charles Lewis had been preceded by another person of his name, who is noticed in Nichols's _Anecdotes_ (iii. 465) as dying in 1783, and as of Chelsea. This personage was held in high esteem by his clients, and was very intimate with Smollett the novelist, who is said to have had Lewis in his mind, when he drew the character of Strap in _Roderick Random_.

Fas.h.i.+ons in binding, which occupy a distinct position, are the embroidered covers in gold, silver, and variegated threads, executed both abroad and in England, and of which many examples are ascribed to the Nuns of Little Gidding in Huntingdons.h.i.+re; and velvet, silk, and metal bindings, which exist in sufficient abundance, and usually occur with marks of original owners.h.i.+p, lending to them a special value.

Much depends in all these instances on the character of the work and the preservation of the copy; and each book has to be judged on its own merits. A considerable proportion of indifferent specimens are constantly in the market.

The Little Gidding bindings are made additionally interesting by the apparent connection between them and John Farrer of Little Gidding, who had a princ.i.p.al hand in producing a volume on Virginia ent.i.tled _Virgo Triumphans_, of which there were three issues, 1650-51, the last of which has the map by G.o.ddard in two states, one bearing the inscription: _John Farrer, Esq., Collegit_. And the other: _Domina Virginia Farrer Collegit_. It is highly probable that the material for the book-covers worked by the Nunnery were obtained by the Farrers direct from Virginia. But it may be well questioned whether the holy ladies did more than the decorative and finis.h.i.+ng stages.

The early provincial school of English binding is chiefly remarkable for the productions of Edwards of Halifax, who, with his two sons, James and Thomas, held a prominent rank in the book-trade at Halifax and in London in the last and present century, and whose name is also recognised as that of an enthusiastic amateur. It was at the sale of the private library of James Edwards in 1815 that the celebrated _Bedford Missal_ occurred. The bindings of Edwards present nothing very extraordinary; but many of them have painted edges or sides, sometimes executed with great care and skill. A copy of the _History of Halifax_, with a view of the place thus given on the leaves, is a favourable ill.u.s.tration of a practice which was formerly carried out on an extensive scale, and of course with very unequal results. A brisk demand arose a short time since for this branch of ingenuity; but it has probably ere now subsided, having been in response to a call for the artist by one or two collectors. Of course, the prices advanced instantaneously to high-water mark, from the certainty that the craze was ephemeral.

But the school of Edwards of Halifax probably borrowed the idea from earlier men, who had occasionally decorated the edges of books in this way, and we may instance Samuel Mearne, bookbinder to Charles II., by whom a copy of North's _Plutarch_, 1657, was clothed in a richly gilt morocco vesture, the leaves gilt and painted with flowers. Mearne also introduced what is known as the cottage-roof pattern.

There are two fas.h.i.+ons in the costlier department of binding which have recommended themselves to adoption by some connoisseurs in this country, and to which we do not find it easy to reconcile our taste: the invest.i.ture of old English books in Parisian liveries and their treatment by our own binders in the French style. Both courses of proceeding strike us, we have to confess, as equally unsatisfactory.

There is an absence of harmony and accord between the book and its cover, like dissonant notes in music. At the same time, Bedford was fairly successful in copying the French manner for foreign works, and his productions of this cla.s.s are very numerous.

The practice of clothing English volumes in foreign liveries was occasionally followed in early times. Messrs. Pearson & Co. bought at Paris some years ago a lovely copy of Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-Book, 1590, in a richly gilt contemporary French, perhaps Lyonnese, calf binding. The work was executed for an Englishman resident abroad, more probably than for a local collector. But these instances are rare. One of a different character occurred to our notice in a copy of Whitney's _Choice of Emblems_, printed at Leyden in 1586, and still preserved in the old Dutch boards--old, but not coeval.

Of amateur binding all countries have had their examples to show, and here we do not intend the limitation of the artist to a particular pattern and material chosen by his employer, such as the Hollis plain red morocco, or the Duke of Roxburghe's half-morocco with marbled paper sides for his old plays, but the conduct of the whole process under the owner's roof, as in the case of Robert Southey, whose first wife attired many of her husband's books in cotton raiment, and led him to speak of them as his Cottonian library; or, nearer to us, in that of Sir Edward Sullivan, who devotes himself to the finis.h.i.+ng stages of any volumes belonging to friends or otherwise, when the article has been "forwarded" in an ordinary workshop. Sir Edward tools, gilds, decorates, and letters, and subscribes or inscribes himself _E. S. Aurifex_. Specimens of his handicraft occur fairly often in the market; as to their merit, opinions differ. But after all, there is a _soupcon_ of gratification in having a Baronet to your binder; and we understand that Sir Edward is complaisant enough to accept commissions outside his personal acquaintance.

A second essayist in the same way, who has become almost a member of the vocation, is Cobden Sanderson, who bound several books of ordinary character and moderate value for William Morris, and whose merit, if the prices realised for the lots in the auction be any sort of a criterion, must be extremely high. The present writer and many others carefully examined the volumes, and failed to see any justification for the enthusiasm awakened in at least two compet.i.tors.

Specimens occur also now and then in the market of the beautiful morocco bindings executed by another and (as some think) superior amateur, Mrs. Prideaux. A copy of Arnold's edition of Wordsworth's _Select Poems_, 1893, bound by this lady in Levant morocco, with elaborate gold tooling on back and sides--only one small octavo volume--is priced in a catalogue of 1898 at 12, 12s.

The Parisian differs from us islanders in these particulars _toto caelo_. There is an utter and hopeless incompatibility. His predilection is for morocco _in genere_; he estimates it not only above russia (_calf_ is hardly in his dictionary), but above even the choicest vellum encas.e.m.e.nt to be procured or conceived; but on _maroquin rouge dentelle_ or _aux pet.i.ts fers_ from some pre-revolutionary workshop he is hobbyhorsical to a pathetic extent.

The most celebrated French binders are carefully enumerated by the latest authorities in their chronological order, but there is a difficulty in respect to many of them a.n.a.logous to that encountered by the inquirer on English ground, since the names of several even of the best period are unknown, and the productions are accordingly cla.s.sable only under their styles or their early owners.

A good deal of the finest French work is attributed to the two Eves, whose _chefs d'oeuvre_ must, and can easily, be distinguished from the tolerably frequent imitations put into the market from time to time, some probably nearly coeval with the original examples. Prior to the Eves, however, France had more or less skilful artists in this line of industry. In the Frere sale at Sotheby's in 1896 occurred a copy of Philelphus _De Liberorum Educatione_, printed by Gilles Gourmont in 1508, in the original stamped leather covers, with the name of Andre Boule on the sides. Under Francis I. we find the names of Estienne Roffet, _dit le Faulcheur_, as "Relieur du Roy," and also with that of Pignolet. The initials _G. G._ occur on a volume of 1523 in Messrs. Pearson & Co.'s catalogue, 1897-98, No. 679; they are probably those of Gilles Gourmont above mentioned. In 1528, according to his edition of _Meliadus de Leonnois_, Galliot du Pre was sworn binder to the University of Paris. In the imprint of his edition of _Lancelot du Lac_, Paris, 1533, Philippe le Noir describes himself as one of the two sworn binders of the same University; and we gather elsewhere that Francois Regnault was then the other.

When we reach the seventeenth century, greater facilities naturally arise for identification of artists. One of the earliest directly a.s.sociated with his own labours was Le Gascon (1620-60), followed by the Boyets (1650-1725), Louis de Bois (1725-28), Augustin du Seuil, (1728-46), and Andreau (binder to the queen of Louis XV.). From the commencing years of the eighteenth century, in addition to the binders just enumerated, there is a fairly consecutive series, who worked for the court and the public: Padeloup, the two Deromes, Douceur (who was much employed by Madame de Pompadour), the two Bozerians, Le Monnier, Tessier, Dubuisson (famous for his gilding), Simier, Thompson of Paris, Cape, Duru, Chambolle, Lesne (who printed in 1827 a didactic poem on his craft), Trautz, Bauzonnet, Marius-Michel, and Lortic.

Agreeably to the experience in every other department of skilled labour connected with book-production, the French obeyed here the early influence of Italian and German taste, and the germ was Teutonic, as in Spain it was Moorish. The stamped leather bindings, mainly common to Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, &c., were largely copied in England for the royal and n.o.ble libraries of the Tudor era.

In some of those executed abroad, the artificer, as we have seen, was accustomed to place his name or initials very conspicuously outside the cover. Ludovicus or Lodewijk Bloc, for instance, who flourished at Ghent or Bruges at the close of the fifteenth century, usually signs and claims his work in an elaborate inscription. Two specimens bear: _Ludovicus Bloc ob Amorem Christi librum hunc recte ligavi_. Jodocus de Lede adopted a similar method of commemoration.

In the case of foreign books, especially those of French origin, the presence of a pure and unblemished morocco binding by a recognised artist, coupled with the armorial cognisance or _ex libris_ of some famous amateur and the binder's ticket, which is equally _de rigueur_, enhances the commercial importance of a volume or set of volumes beyond calculation, and has its only a.n.a.logue in the stupendous figures paid for the Sevres soft paste porcelain of the true epoch, when all the necessary conditions are happily united and fulfilled.

Nothing is more striking than the immense disparity between a book in the right sort of garniture and in the wrong one, or, again, in the true covers with some ulterior sophistication in the shape of added arms, restored joints, renovated gilding, and a hundred other subtleties difficult to detect. The case is on all fours with a specimen of unimpeachable Sevres contrasted with another of which the porcelain dates back beyond the painting and the gold. A French book in old morocco by Derome, Le Gascon, or some other esteemed artist, with its credentials and pedigree above suspicion, may fetch 50 or double; the identical production in old calf or in modern morocco or russia will not bring the price of the binding; all the magic is in the leather and the ticket. It is not a literary object, but an article of _vertu_. There is probably no description of Continental books which has so greatly risen in value during the last thirty years as the ill.u.s.trated publications of the last century, provided always that they conform to the very exacting requirements of a Parisian exquisite. Above all, they must be of the statutory tallness and breadth, and in the livery by bibliographical injunction and usage prescribed.

No more impressive exemplification of the difference between a book or set of books in the French series, in the _right_ and in the _wrong_ state, could be afforded or desired than the edition of Moliere, 1773, which in contemporary morocco may be worth 100, and in calf or any other ordinary dress a five-pound note. But after all, a still more signal case is that of Laborde's _Chansons mises en Musique_, published in the same year, which, even in thoroughly preserved contemporary calf, brings under the hammer in proof state nearly 200, while in modern morocco it is rather dear at a quarter of that amount.

The extreme rarity of pure and genuine specimens of the work of the earliest foreign binders--nay, of our own--has naturally produced a large inheritance of imitations of varied character and degree. There is nothing to save the amateur from deception but the same kind of training which qualifies collectors in other departments to distinguish what is true from what is false. A man who proposes to himself to make Bindings a speciality, cannot do better than graduate by studying the most trustworthy and contemporary guides on the subject in different literatures, and then we should send him on a tour round the great public and private libraries of Great Britain and the Continent. This, of course, applies only where the undertaker is in thorough earnest, and wishes to spare himself a good deal of expense and a good deal of mortification. Ill.u.s.trated catalogues are of very indifferent value, especially those of auctioneers, which too often offer the result of sophistication so cleverly disguised that to an inexperienced eye the repair is not palpable. If one goes in search of _desiderata_ to the trade, let it be to the dealer who knows his business and charges his price, but who supplies the article, and not to the empiric, who charges a price and does not supply it, for the excellent reason (among others) that this party does not know a fine binding when he sees it--or a spurious one.

In curiosities generally it is the safest plan for a private collector to place himself more or less in the hands of the highest firms in the particular line which he selects, provided that he is not one of a hundred thousand, and is a mile or two ahead even of professional experts. Then, wherever he goes and whatever he buys, he is always armed _cap-a-pie_. To him, to him solely, are the lots almost as precious as the purse of Fortunatus; he alone it is who may fall in with Caxtons, Clovis Eves, Rembrandts, Syracusan medallions, for a song, and carry them home without a qualm.

A curious case, unique in its way, of what may be characterised as perverted ingenuity, occurred at a public sale in November 1897 at Sotheby's rooms. It was, in the words of the catalogue, "A Remarkable Collection of Magnificent Modern Bindings, Formed by an Amateur;" but the salient feature was--in fact, the ruling one, with one exception--that the whole of the specimens represented imitations of ancient work and of historical copies of early books. The interiors were authentic; they had simply served as the medium for carrying out a rather whimsical, not to say foolish, project, and the hundred and ten lots, dest.i.tute of any conspicuous or genuine interest, probably yielded very much less than the cost of their counterfeit liveries.

The present volume is not a treatise on Binding, and we can merely indicate the general bearings of this branch and aspect of Book-Collecting, on which several useful, and some very sumptuous and beautiful, monographs have appeared of recent years. An amateur cannot do better, for purposes of reference, than secure a copy of Mr.

Quaritch's _Catalogue of Bindings_, 1888, which includes particulars of all the princ.i.p.al works on the subject, English and foreign, and one of Zaehnsdorf's _Short History of Bookbinding_, 1895, with ill.u.s.trations of processes, and a glossary of styles and terms used in the art. Mr. Wheatley and Mr. Bra.s.sington have also produced monographs upon it.

In America, during many years past, there has been a laudable effort to establish a national taste and feeling in this direction; for collectors in the States formerly made a general rule of sending their books either to London or to Paris for treatment. The inst.i.tution of the Grolier Club of New York nearly twenty years since was a step in the direction of independence, and its _Transactions_ form an interesting and creditable series. The Club printed a catalogue of its library of early typographical examples in 1895, with facsimiles of bindings.

The modern French school of literary architecture unites in the type, the paper, the ill.u.s.trations such a remarkable degree of taste and feeling, combined with economy of production, that in England there is no present approach to what may be termed the _ensemble_ of a volume placed in the market by our neighbours. This style of book-making asks of course age to mellow it, and perchance the materials employed may not bear the test of time and manipulation by successive owners, like the old eighteenth-century work. But as they emerge from the workshop, and stand upon the shelves or in the case, their aspect is decidedly agreeable, while half a roomful of them are to be had for the price of a Clovis Eve or even a first-rate Padeloup. Very much, on the contrary, we are apt to conceive a dislike for that unwieldy imperial _format_ which some of the Parisian _libraires editeurs_ affect, and which perhaps occupy the same place in French literature of the day as our detestable English _editions de luxe_.

CHAPTER XIV

Aids to the formation of a library: (i.) Personal observation; (ii.) Works of reference--Rarity of taste and judgment--Dependence of some booksellers on want of knowledge in their clients--Trade catalogues--Princ.i.p.al modern books of reference criticised--Those for the (i.) Bibliography; (ii.) for the Prices--Unsatisfactory execution of _Book Prices Current_, &c.--The British Museum Catalogue of Early English books--Obsolete authorities--Their unequal demerit--British Museum _General Catalogue_ and Mr. Quaritch's _New General Catalogue_--The former not implicitly trustworthy--Source of the value of the latter--The labours of Sir Egerton Brydges, Joseph Haslewood, and others--Tribute to their worth--_Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica_--The Heber Catalogue--Its magnitude and immense value and interest--Where Heber obtained his treasures--His library the most splendid ever formed in any country--Its absorption of all preceding collections--And the vital obligations of every succeeding collection to it--The Grenville Catalogue--George Daniel--His fly-leaf _canards_--Collier's _Bibliographical Catalogue_--Corser's _Collectanea_--Unequal value of the posthumous parts--The Huth Catalogue--Testimony to its character--Several monographs--Lord Crawford's Broadsides--Lists of the College libraries at Oxford and Cambridge--Catalogues of the Dyce and Forster Bequests to South Kensington--Halliwell-Phillipps's _Shakespeariana_--Blades's _Caxton_--Botfield's _Cathedral Libraries_--A new catalogue of the Althorp-Rylands books in preparation--Mr. Wheatley's scheme for cataloguing a library--Redundant cataloguing exemplified--Differences in copies of the same book and edition--French books of reference--Brunet, Cohen, Gay--Special treatises on Playing-cards, Angling, Tobacco: Bewick, Bartolozzi: Tokens, Coins and Medals, and Americana--Tracts relating to Popery--The Printing Clubs and Societies--Errors in books of reference liable to perpetuation--Heads of advice to collectors of books with supplements, extra leaves, &c.

THE two princ.i.p.al aids to the formation of a library, great or small, general or special, are Personal Observation and Works of Reference.

The first is obviously an uncertain quant.i.ty, and may be restricted to an ordinary mechanical experience, or may comprise the finest commercial and literary instinct. We have had among us ere now amateurs who possessed the highest qualifications for a.s.sembling round them gratifying and valuable monuments of their taste and judgment, with the harmless satisfaction of feeling tolerably sure that the investment, if not a source of profit, would not form one of serious loss. This is a fair and legitimate demand and expectation; but such characters are far rarer than the books which they collect; and if it were otherwise, the large industry which lies in the purchase and re-sale of literary property could not exist. The buyer whose knowledge is in advance of that of the salesman is a party whom Mr.

---- and Mr. ---- and the remainder of the alphabet pharisaically admire, while they privily harbour toward him sadly unchristian feelings and views.

The second and remaining auxiliary, the Book of Reference, has become a wide term, since it has so enormously developed itself, and formed branches, so as to const.i.tute a library within a library, and to call for its own bibliographer. So far as the current value and general character of literary works are concerned, all the older authorities are more or less untrustworthy, and the same is to be predicated of a heavy proportion of auctioneers' and booksellers' catalogues, where the first and sole object is to realise the maximum price for an article. The system pursued by the former cla.s.s of vendors of late years renders it far more hazardous to bid on the faith of the printed descriptions, and there is, in fact, greater danger for the novice in the elaborate rehearsal of the t.i.tle and the accompanying fillip in the shape of a note (usually erroneous) than the good old-fas.h.i.+oned plan of setting out the particulars briefly--even illiterately; for in the latter case the burden of discovering the exact truth is thrown on the customer or acquirer. We must say that few things are less satisfactory than trade-catalogues with certain honourable exceptions, which it might be invidious to particularise; and the book-buyer has to depend almost exclusively on his own discernment and the bibliographers. Of what he reads in the catalogues he may believe as much or as little as he likes.

Nothing could be more ungracious than to speak disrespectfully of the publications of those laborious and earnest workers who have preceded us, and who for that very sufficient reason did not know quite so much as we do. We admire their industry, on the contrary, their taste and their devotion; we buy their volumes because it is pleasant to have them at our side; and ever and anon we dip into this one or that, and meet with something which had escaped us. Seriously, however, they are, on the whole, not merely of slight use, but of a misleading tendency. For the G.o.ds of our forefathers, Ware, Tanner, Ames, Herbert, Oldys, Dibdin, Brydges, Watt, Park, Haslewood, the compilers of the _Bibliotheca Grenvillana_, _Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica_, and _Biographia Dramatica_, and scores besides, before and even since, we have subst.i.tuted others, a.s.suredly more complete, perhaps constructed on truer and more lasting principles. We have on our shelves (i.) for the _Bibliography_, the Heber, Collier, Corser, and Huth catalogues (1834-80), and the writer's own _Collections_ (1867-1903), _Bibliographica_ and the _Transactions of the Bibliographical Society_: (ii.) for the _Prices_, _Book Prices Current_ and _Book Sales_. Unfortunately the two latter undertakings are little better than mechanical transcripts from the auctioneers' extremely treacherous catalogues by outsiders. The peculiar cla.s.s of information purporting to be supplied by such catalogues is often in need of some qualifying criticism or admonition, which it is not easy, if possible, for any one not on the spot and behind the scenes to offer. No mere reference to the catalogue after the event is capable of initiating one into these _arcana_; and the same has to be said of the quotations in the ordinary periodicals. This is a species of employment for which there must be either a long training or a unique instinct.

_Book Prices Current_ and _Book Sales_ cannot be trusted as an authority or a guide by any person who does not approach them with a certain measure of experience. Where an editor cites a common and comparatively worthless volume as selling for a high sum, and omits to mention that on the t.i.tle there is a valuable autograph, the mischief is obvious; and this and allied forms of error are habitual. Such empirical attempts do more harm than good.

The Account printed by the Trustees of the Early English books in the British Museum is not without its value, although it is almost everything that it ought not to have been; and there are several monographs of importance dealing with special items in public or private collections. It is to be hoped that in course of time we may see a creditable catalogue of the Britwell Library, and that the Spencer books at Manchester will be done over again by a competent hand. If money is expended on these objects, it is distressing to find that the task has been confided to a gentleman whose best credentials are his personal acquaintance with the owner.

We do not add to existing authorities: (i.) for the printers, Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin, or (ii.) for general information Lowndes's _Manual_ by Bohn and his coadjutors, because we are afraid that there is almost greater danger of being misled by them than being helped or enlightened. Both Ames and Herbert, however, we emphatically p.r.o.nounce conscientious, and accurate in the highest degree in their respective days; but these days were long ago, and the present state of knowledge has rendered a considerable proportion of their texts obsolete and unreliable. Dibdin has certainly added to Herbert, but he has not, on the contrary, in all cases faithfully reprinted him; if his book had been as great an advance on his predecessor as Herbert's was on Ames, it would have been a treasure indeed. A new Lowndes is said to be in the hands of a syndicate. I know nothing about it; but I shall rejoice if it should prove worthy of the subject, and as unlike Lowndes or Lowndes by Bohn as possible. I labour, however, under the gravest apprehension that it will prove one of those undertakings which will just be advanced enough to block the right book without being relatively anything approaching even to an English Brunet. At least five-and-twenty annotated copies of Lowndes must exist. Will the promoters deem it necessary to acquire or to borrow them? Probably not. There must be thousands of additions and corrections in the writer's alone. It is estimated that the enlarged Lowndes contains about 10 per cent. of the literature which ought to find a place, not reckoning the earlier English books, tracts, or broadsides, and that of that proportion about 7 per cent. are misdescribed. The anecdote of Pope and the wag who retorted to his habitual exclamation, "_G.o.d mend me!_" "It would take less to make a new one," appears to apply in the present case.

The original Lowndes in 1834 was a poor affair; but Bohn's recension twenty years or so later was by comparison a still poorer one, for there was the opportunity, in the presence of innumerable discoveries and a large body of new bibliographical material in various shapes, of rendering the new edition a really creditable performance. The name of the publisher, however, was a sufficient guarantee for this not being the case, and where the second impression is superior to the first, is where Bohn happened to have an interest in mentioning certain works, or information was communicated to him by others.

The sole comfort for us is, that Brunet has pa.s.sed through five editions, and yet remains deplorably imperfect and inaccurate.

There are three prominent publications, each in its way of signal value and merit: the British Museum and Bodleian Catalogues of Printed Books, and Mr. Quaritch's New General Catalogue. The two former, of course confine themselves to the contents of the respective libraries; they are consequently far from exhaustive. They have been compiled by human beings; they are consequently far indeed from faultless. They express, as a rule, no opinions, and of commercial estimation very properly take no cognisance. But the Oxford collection has always been differently situated from the National Library in not having any adequate means of purchasing deficiencies, while it is rich in its own very interesting way by reason of bequests of unique value, making it the possessor of numerous priceless volumes not to be found in Great Russell Street or anywhere else. The Quaritch Catalogue (including the _Typographical Supplement_, 1897), a n.o.ble monument to the energy and courage of the _grand marchand_ whose name it bears, is a good deal more than even a bookseller's advertising medium on a large or the largest scale. It is, in fact, a literary performance; and it is an open secret to whom we owe it. The collector, apart from the question of purchase, will find it replete with useful, instructive, and trustworthy information, so far as bibliography is concerned.

The highly honourable and equally laborious publications of Sir Egerton Brydges, Joseph Haslewood, Thomas Park, E. V. Utterson, and others, if they are of minor substantial value to us at present, demonstrate the keen appet.i.te for bibliographical information and anecdote in the first quarter of this century. The _Censura Literaria_, extending to ten octavo volumes, pa.s.sed through two editions, and, in common with other similar works, till recently commanded a heavy price. That they have fallen into neglect is due to the necessity, on the part of buyers and sellers of early literature, of studying only the latest authorities.

At the same time, from a literary point of view, the _Rest.i.tuta_ and _Censura Literaria_ (2nd edit. 1815) of Brydges, and many members of the same group and period, will always be worth consulting, and will be found to yield a vast store of interesting and instructive matter.

Such works may at present be sterile enough, but yet we are bound to recollect on their behalf that on their first appearance they were revelations and pioneers. It is where a book at the outset is behind the knowledge of the day, or indeed rather not in advance of it, that it seems to be disent.i.tled to respect.

Not only have more modern labours superseded the Brydges, Park, Haslewood, and other series, which till of late years held the market firmly enough, but the Rev. Dr. Dibdin, whose sumptuously printed and ill.u.s.trated productions long remained such prime favourites at heavy prices, both at home and in the United States, has been overtaken by a general neglect, and the Americans, who were once so enthusiastic and generous as bidders for these books, will at present scarcely agree to acquire them at a fifth of their appreciation in the height of the Dibdinomania.

Many of the gems which have pa.s.sed through the hands of successive owners are known to have once formed part of the _Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica_, a famous--almost historical catalogue of old literature on sale in 1815 by Longmans, when that firm dealt in such commodities, and imported largely from the Continent in response to the keen and hungry demand on the part of the school created by the Roxburghe sale and the Roxburghe Club, Heber its greatest disciple and ornament, Heber a colossus in himself. Many are the traditional anecdotes of the wonderful bargains which Longmans' agent secured for his princ.i.p.als in all sorts of places, whither he resorted in quest of prey--of the romances in folio in the virgin stamped Spanish bindings, which they might have worn since they lay on the shelves of Don Quixote or the Licentiate, brought for sale, as it were haphazard, to some market-place in Seville or Valladolid in wine-skins. But the contents of the above-mentioned _Bibliotheca_ were purely English. It was a small but choice a.s.semblage of old poetry formed by Mr. Thomas Hill, otherwise Tommy Hill, otherwise Paul Pry, which he offered to Longmans on the plea of failing health, and for which the purchasers elected, looking prophetically at his moribund aspect, to grant him an annuity in preference to a round sum. Mr. Hill's apprehensions, however, were premature, as the transaction had the effect of restoring his spirits; and the booksellers scored rather indifferently. How pleased they must have been to see him coming for his pension year after year!