[i]

THE BOOK-HUNTER AT HOME

[ii]

Of this edition 500 copies have been printed,
and 50 upon fine paper.

THE BOOK-HUNTER AT HOME

(JAN SIX, BY REMBRANDT)]

[iii]

THE
BOOK-HUNTER
AT HOME

BY

P. B. M. ALLAN

THE SECOND EDITION,
REVISED

LONDON
PHILIP ALLAN & CO.
QUALITY COURT, CHANCERY LANE

[iv]

First Edition—1920

Second Edition—1922

PRINTED BY WHITEHEAD BROTHERS, WOLVERHAMPTON.

[v]

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

To the Honourable and Vertuous Lady Mistress E. K. A.

[vii]

PREFACE

[viii]

CONTENTS

[ix]

ILLUSTRATIONS

[1]

CHAPTER I

ADVENTURES AMONG BOOKS

t is a sad truth that bargains are met with
more frequently in our youth than in our
age. The sophist may argue that age begets
philosophy, and that philosophy contemns
all worldly things; yet certain it is that the
book-hunter, one of the most philosophical
of beings, remains on the look-out for bargains to the very
end of his career. Nevertheless, it is a fact that in youth alone
do we make those great bargains which lay the foundations
of our careers as book-hunters.

It is this sad truth which fosters in most of us the belief
that we live in a decadent age, and that the days of our youth
were infinitely more seemly than those which we now endure.
But it is we who have changed: the bargains are still there,
and may still be had at the cost of youthful energy and
enthusiasm.

‘Ah, but you can’t get the bargains nowadays that you
could when I was a young man,’ says the elderly bookseller,
with a knowing shake of his head. Can’t you! Then mankind
must have changed strangely since the period of this
sage’s youth. Bargains, and rich ones too, in everything that
is bought and sold, are made every day and will continue to[2]
be made so long as human nature endures, bargains in books
no less among them.

The rich finds of which the aged bookseller dreams are
bargains only in the light of present-day prices. As a matter
of fact, the great majority of them were not really bargains
at all. He may bitterly lament having parted with a copy of
the first edition of the ‘Compleat Angler,’ in the ‘sixties for
twenty guineas, but he overlooks the fact that that was then
its market value. Had he asked a thousand pounds for it,
his sanity would certainly have been open to question. ‘Why,
when I was a boy,’ he says, ‘you could buy first editions of
Shelley, Keats, or Scott for pence.’ Precisely: which was
their current value; by no stretch of the imagination can they
be considered bargains. His business is, and has always been,
to buy and sell; not to hoard books on the chance that they
will become valuable ‘some day.’ Neither can it be urged
that ‘people’ (by which he means collectors) ‘did not know
so much about books fifty years ago.’ Collectors know, and
have ever known, all that they need for the acquisition of their
particular desiderata. If they were ignorant of the prices
which volumes common in their day would realise at some
future period, why, so were the dealers and every one else
concerned! Judging by analogy, we have every reason to
believe that many volumes which we come across almost daily
on the bookstalls, marked, perhaps, a few pence, will be fought
for one day across the auction-room table.

The chief reason why the elderly bookseller no longer comes
across these advantageous purchases is that he has passed
the age (though he does not know it) at which bargains are
to be had. But bargains are not encountered, they are made.
It is the youthful vigour and enthusiasm of the young collector,
prompting him into the byways and alleys of book-land, that
bring bargains to his shelves.

So, if you are young and enthusiastic, and not to be deterred
by a series of wild-goose chases, happy indeed will be your
lot. For over the post-prandial pipe you will be able to hand[3]
such and such a treasure to your admiring fellow-spirit, saying:
‘This I picked up for n-pence in Camden Town; this one
cost me x-shillings at Poynder’s in Reading: Iredale of
Torquay let me have this for a florin; I found this on the
floor in a corner of Commin’s shop at Bournemouth; this was
on David’s stall at Cambridge, and I nearly lost it to the fat
don of King’s’; and so on and so on.

Bargains, forsooth! Our book-hunter was once outbid at
Sotheby’s for a scarce volume which he found, a week later,
on a barrow in Clerkenwell for fourpence! The same year he
picked up for ten shillings, in London, an early sixteenth-century
folio, rubricated and with illuminated initials. It was
as fresh as when it issued from the press, and in the original
oak and pig-skin binding. He failed to trace the work in any
of the bibliographies, nor could the British Museum help him
to locate another copy. David’s stall at Cambridge once
yielded to him a scarce Defoe tract for sixpence. But this
being, as Master Pepys said, ‘an idle rogueish book,’ he sold
it to a bookseller for two pounds, ‘that it might not stand in
the list of books, nor among them, to disgrace them, if it
should be found.’ A copy has recently fetched twenty
guineas.

Doubtless every bibliophile is perpetually on the look-out
for treasures, and it is essential that he learn, early in his
career, to make up his mind at once concerning an out-of-the-way
book. He who hesitates is lost, and this is doubly true
of the book-collector. More than once in his early days of
collecting has our book-hunter hesitated and finally left a
book, only to dash back—perhaps a few hours later, perhaps
next day—and find it gone.

Once upon a time a spotlessly clean little square octavo
volume of Terence, printed in italics, caught his eye upon a
bookstall. One shilling was its ransom, but it was not the
price that deterred him so much as the fact that every available
nook and corner of his sanctum was already filled to overflowing
with books. ‘A nice clean copy of an early-printed[4]
book,’ he mused. But early-printed books were not in his
line—then; had they been in those early days of book-hunting,
his library would have been slow indeed of growth.
So he passed on and left it.

All that evening the memory of the little square volume
would keep recurring most absurdly. He didn’t want it, it
was not in his line, he would never read it, and so on and so on.
But over his pipe that evening the colophon ‘. . . . studio &
impensis Philippi de Giunta florentini . . ., 1505,’ came
back to his memory; he must have been mad not to have
bought it at that price, and such a fine copy too. And so to
bed, sorely harassed in his bibliophilic mind.

Next morning he awoke sane and conscious of his folly.
An early visit to the bookstall followed, but the little volume
had gone; and it was not comforting to learn that it had been
sold shortly after our bookman saw it, to a man who ‘knew a
lot about that kind of books.’ Let us hope that the purchaser
treasures the little square volume, printed in italics, as much
as our friend would.

What poignant memories they are, these memories of rare
books which we have found and failed to secure! Two
prominent instances of our bookman’s folly stand out with
bitter clearness, ever fresh in his memory as a reminder of
the criminal stupidity of procrastination. One was an
exceedingly scarce work by Lawrence Humphrey, entitled
‘Optimates sive De Nobilitate eiusque Antiqua Origine,’
printed in small octavo at Basle in 1560, which he once saw
in a catalogue for five shillings. He sent for it three days
after the receipt of the catalogue, and of course it had gone.
The other was an unknown, or at least undescribed, edition
of Osorio’s ‘De Gloria et Nobilitate,’ printed at Barcelona
in the early part of the sixteenth century. He lost this in the
same manner, at two shillings! Perhaps, however, you too
have been guilty of these lapses, reader? Semel insanivimus
omnes. Experience is better than advice, and for his part our
book-hunter will not be caught napping again. The following[5]
incident will show you, moreover, that it is not always safe to
order books from a catalogue even by return of post.

For many years he had searched in vain for that rarest of
all English heraldry books (though not properly English, for
it is in the Latin tongue), the ‘De Studio Militari, Libri
Quatuor’ of Master Nicholas Upton. It was edited by Sir
Edward Bysshe, and printed in folio at London in 1654. The
numerous booksellers in London and the country from whom
he sought it had never seen it; indeed, most of them were
unaware of its existence, though it is well known to all heralds.

At length, coming home late one night, our book-hunter
found on his table a catalogue from a bookseller who seems
to garner more out-of-the-way books than any of his fellows.
His catalogues are issued very frequently, for he has a large
and quick sale, pricing most of his wares at less than five
shillings. Moreover, the fact that the books described therein
are thrown together without any attempt at classification, even
alphabetical, serves but to add a zest to the repast. But our
book-hunter was tired, and his evil star was in the ascendant,
for he went to bed leaving the catalogue unopened.

Reading it over a late breakfast next morning, upon the last
page he came across the following entry:—

Scarce, indeed! In less than five minutes he was driving
hot-haste to the shop.

Of course it was sold: sold by telegram dispatched the
night before. He was allowed to see it, even to handle it,
and he frankly confesses that murderous thoughts rose within
him as he held it in his hands. . . . The bookseller was an old
man . . . the shop was very dark . . . just a push, and
perhaps one firm application super caput of a large-paper copy
of Camden’s ‘Britannia’ which lay handy upon the table.
. . . But I am glad to say that our bookman’s better nature
prevailed, and sorrowfully he returned the volume to the[6]
dealer’s hands. Did he know the customer, and if so would
he try to buy it back? Certainly he would. A week later
came a letter saying that the customer was also a collector
of these things, but that he was willing to part with it ‘at a
price.’ Unfortunately his price was not our book-hunter’s,
and he failed to secure the treasure—then.

Now comes the more pleasant sequel. About a year later,
coming home in the small hours from a dance, our bookman
found a catalogue from this same bookseller on his table.
Although tired out, his previous bitter experience had taught
him a lesson; so pulling up a chair before the remains of the
fire he proceeded to skim through the catalogue. He had
reached the last page, and was already beginning to nod,
when suddenly his weariness vanished in a flash: he was wide
awake and on his feet in an instant, for his eyes had met the
same entry that had thrilled him a year ago. This time it
was described as ‘very scarce,’ and the price was considerably
enhanced; but he had his coat on and was in the street almost
immediately.

The nearest telegraph office likely to be open at such an
hour was a mile away, and it was a miserable night, snowing
and blowing; but no weather would have deterred him. So
the telegram was safely dispatched, and he returned to bed,
pinning a notice on the bedroom door to the effect that he
was to be called, without fail, at seven o’clock.

That night he was obsessed by Uptons of all shapes and
sizes. Some he beheld with agony, cut down by the ruthless
binder to duodecimo size; others there were no larger than
Pickering’s Diamond Classics; some (on his chest) were of a
size which I can only describe as ‘Atlas,’ or, perhaps more
appropriately, ‘Elephant Folio,’ large-paper copies with
hideous margins.

Next morning our bookman was at the shop betimes. Yes!
his wire had arrived; Upton was his at last! Should the
dealer send it for him by carrier? Carrier, forsooth! As well
entrust the Koh-i-noor to a messenger boy. Of course it was[7]
the same copy that our friend had missed previously, the
owner having sold his books en bloc in the meantime.

Why Upton is so scarce it is hard to say; perhaps very few
copies were printed, or perhaps a fire at the printer’s destroyed
most of them. Certain it is that the premises of James Allestry
and Roger Norton, who published the book, were both burnt
in the great fire twelve years after its publication. Besides
the two copies in the British Museum, there are examples
of it in several of the ancient libraries throughout the
kingdom; but it is very rarely indeed to be met with in the
London salerooms.[1] Dallaway mentions two copies as being,
in 1793, in the library of Lord Carlisle at Naworth; and
probably there are examples in some of the libraries of our
older nobility. There would seem to be copies, also, in
France; for several writers upon chivalry, such as La Roque
and Sainte Marie, make mention of it. The writer bought a
portion of it, some forty-eight pages, a few years ago for four
shillings. But take heart, brother bibliophile; it is quite
possible that you may unearth a copy some day—if indeed
the book be in your line—long buried in the dust of some old
country bookshop.

Upton died in 1457, and his work was so popular that
numerous copies of the manuscript were made. The treatise
on coat-armour, or ‘cootarmuris,’ as it is quaintly spelt, which
comprises the third part of the ‘Book of Saint Albans’ (first
printed in 1486), is, for the greater part, a literal translation
of the second half of the fourth book of the ‘De Studio
Militari’ as printed by Bysshe. Ames, in his ‘Typographical
Antiquities,’ asserts that Upton’s work was reprinted from[8]
the St. Albans book in folio, 1496, ‘with the King’s Arms and
Caxton’s mark printed in red ink.’ But he gives no authority
for his assertion, and it seems doubtful whether such a volume
ever existed. At all events there does not appear to be any
trace of such a book beyond this mention, and Herbert, editing
Ames, omitted the whole passage. Hain,[2] probably copying
Ames, calls this supposititious work ‘De Re Heraldica,’ and
states that it was printed at Westminster in 1496 ‘Anglice.’
So much for worthy Master Nicholas, Canon of Salisbury and
protégé of the ‘good duke Humfrey.’

There is a curious phenomenon of not infrequent occurrence
among book-collectors, and that is the enforced acquisition of
certain volumes solely by means of the passive persuasion of
their presence. In other words, it is possible to bully the
bibliophile into purchasing a book merely by obtruding it
continually before his gaze, till at length its very presence
becomes a source of annoyance to him. To escape from this
incubus he purchases the volume.

In nine cases out of ten, books so acquired never attain the
same status as their fellow-volumes. They are invariably
assigned either to the lowest or topmost shelves of the library,
and are, in fact, pariahs. Their owner did not really want
them, and he can never quite forgive their presence on his
shelves. Generally their stay in any one home is not a long
one, for they are weeded out at the first opportunity, and find
no permanent rest until they come finally to that ultimate
goal of books, the paper mills. I confess that in my early
days of collecting this phenomenon was of not infrequent
occurrence, being associated, probably, with the indecision of
youth. And in this connection a bookseller once told me an
interesting story.

A certain young man of the working class, on his way to
work every day, used to pass a bookstall situated in a narrow
alley. Every day he glanced at the books, and as custom
was scanty he would notice what books were sold and with[9]
what works the bookseller filled the empty places on the
shelves. In this way all of the books which the young man
had first noticed gradually disappeared, with one exception.
This was a volume bound in calf, containing some rather
curious poems, and no one seemed to want it. At length,
after some weeks, the young man could stand it no longer.
He approached the bookseller, and for sixpence the volume
became his.

The verses seemed to him rather poor, though one entitled
‘Hans Carvel’ amused him rather. The title-page bore the
date 1707, and he wondered who was the ‘E. Curll at the
Peacock without Temple-Bar,’ for whom the work was printed.
Some time afterwards he read in the newspaper that a certain
book had been sold for a large sum because of a misprint in it.
This set him wondering . . . ‘at the Peacock without
Temple-Bar . . .’ Temple-Bar without a peacock he could
imagine: surely this was a misprint! Perhaps the book was
valuable, and others had not ‘spotted’ the error!

And now he bethought him of an acquaintance who kept
a bookshop in the West End of the town, a man who knew
a lot about old books. He would take it to him and ask his
advice. So, one Saturday afternoon he carried his ‘treasure’
to the shop in question. Inside, an elderly man was examining
a calf-bound volume.

‘. . . the first authentic edition, seventeen hundred and
nine,’ he was saying.

The young man glanced at the volume under discussion,
and as a page was turned he caught sight of the heading
‘Hans Carvel.’ Good gracious; this volume was the same
as his! Just then the elderly man looked up, and the young
fellow handed his volume to the bookseller, saying: ‘Here’s
another one, same as that, but mine’s got something wrong
on the front page.’

The bookseller opened the newcomer’s volume, looked at
the title-page, and handed it without a word to his customer,
who took it with a look of surprise.

[10]
‘Something wrong?’ said he, ‘why, bless me, what’s this—1707—that
rascal Curll’s edition—where did you get
this?’

The young man told him, adding that he gave sixpence
for it.

‘Sixpence, did you?’ said the connoisseur; ‘well, I’ll give
you six guineas for it’: which he did, there and then.

It was a copy of the rare ‘pirated’ collection of his poems,
published without Matt Prior’s knowledge, some two years
before the first authentic edition appeared. Some years later,
when the elderly collector died, this volume came to the
saleroom with the rest of his books. It realised forty pounds!
So much for the ugly duckling.

What an absorbing topic is that of ‘lost books’! There
is a fascination about the subject that every bibliophile must
have experienced. ‘Hope springs eternal in the human
breast,’ and it is impossible to read of books long lost without
making a mental note of their titles in the hope that some
day we may come across them. Perhaps it is these memories,
pigeon-holed in our mind, that add a zest to anticipation
whenever we go book-hunting on our travels. But alas! the
reward for the bibliophile’s hope in this direction is rare as
the blossoming of the aloe.

It is curious to think of the thousands of books that have
completely disappeared. Nowadays the Act which assures
the preservation in our greater libraries of every book published
in this country will doubtless prevent the disappearance
of a good many English books of lesser importance, such as
school books and other works that are quickly superseded.
But before the passing of this Act there was nothing to
prevent an unpopular or useless work from becoming extinct,
and vast numbers must have disappeared in this country alone.
There are many books, however, important books even, and
books which we know to have been immensely popular in
their day, of which so much as a glimpse has been denied us.
The 1606 octavo of ‘The Passionate Pilgrim,’ the first issue[11]
of John Barclay’s satirical romance ‘Euphormionis Lusinini
Satyricon,’ published at London in 1603, the ‘Famous
Historie of the Vertuous and Godly Woman Judith,’ London,
1565 (of which a title-page has been preserved), what would
not every book-collector give for copies of these?

Then there are such early-printed works as Caxton’s
translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, probably published
by him about 1480, ‘The Life of St. Margaret’ (known by
three leaves preserved in the Bodleian), the ‘goste of guido’
or Ghost of Guy, and the Epitaph of the King of Scotland,
all printed by Pynson, as well as that mysterious volume
ycleped ‘The Nigramansir,’ said to be by John Skelton the
poet-laureate who lived under five kings and died in 1529.
Many of Skelton’s works, perhaps even the majority of his
writings, are known to us by title and hearsay alone; but who
shall say that his ‘Speculum Principis,’ or ‘the Commedy
Achademios callyd by name,’ which he himself mentions, are
lost beyond all hope of recovery? ‘The Nigramansir’ was
actually seen by Thomas Warton, the poet-laureate, in the
‘fifties of the eighteenth century, and is described by him in
some detail. His account is so interesting that it deserves
quoting.

‘I cannot quit Skelton,’ he writes, ‘without restoring to
the public notice a play, or morality, written by him, not
recited in any catalogue of his works, or annals of English
typography; and, I believe, at present totally unknown to the
antiquarians in this sort of literature. It is, The nigramansir,
a morall enterlude and a pithie written by Maister
skelton laureate and plaid before the king and other
estatys at Woodstock on Palme Sunday. It was printed by
Wynkin de Worde in a thin quarto, in the year 1504.’

Against this Warton makes the following note: ‘My
lamented friend Mr. William Collins . . . . shewed me this
piece at Chichester, not many months before his death (Collins
died in 1759), and he pointed it out as a very rare and valuable
curiosity. He intended to write the History of the Restoration[12]
of Learning under Leo the Tenth, and with a view to that
design had collected many scarce books. Some few of these
fell into my hands at his death. The rest, among which, I
suppose, was this Interlude, were dispersed.’

Warton then goes on to describe the book in detail, and
this circumstance, together with the fact that he quotes one
of the stage directions (‘enter Balsebub with a Berde‘) seems
to point to the fact that he actually had the volume in his
hands. It concerned the trial of Simony and Avarice, with
the Devil as Judge. ‘The characters are a Necromancer or
Conjurer, the Devil, a Notary Public, Simonie, and Philargyria
or Avarice. . . . There is no sort of propriety in calling this
play the Necromancer: for the only business and use of this
character is to open the subject in a long prologue.’[3]
Unfortunately there is no other mention of this interesting
work, and of recent years its very existence has been doubted.

‘It was at Chichester,’ wrote Hazlitt, ‘that the poet Collins
brought together a certain number of early books, some of
the first rarity; his name is found, too, in the sale catalogues
of the last century as a buyer of such; and the strange and
regrettable fact is that two or three items which Thomas
Warton actually saw in his hands, and of which there are no
known duplicates, have not so far been recovered.’ Mr.
Gordon Duff, in his ‘English Provincial Printers,’ mentions
seventeen books described by Herbert at the end of the
eighteenth century, of which no copies are now known to
exist. Another rare volume is known to have existed about
the same time. A copy, the only one known, of ‘The
Fabulous Tales of Esope the Phrygian’ by Robert Henryson,
published at London in 1577, was formerly in the library of
Syon College; for it is included in Reading’s catalogue of
that college library, compiled in 1724. But its whereabouts
is now unknown. Fortunately in this case a later edition
has survived.

[13]
Another mysterious volume is the treatise concerning
Elizabeth Barton, the Maid of Kent, who was burnt at Tyburn
in 1534. Cranmer, describing her story to a friend, writes:
‘and a boke (was) written of all the hole storie thereof, and
putt into prynte, which euer syns that tyme hath byn
comonly sold and goone abrod amongs all people.’ From
the confession of John Skot, the printer of this work, at the
trial, it seems that seven hundred copies were printed; but no
copy is now known to exist.

Other works there are as yet unseen by bibliographer, such
as Markham’s ‘Thyrsis and Daphne,’ a poem printed in 1593,
and the 1609 and 1612 quartos of Ben Jonson’s ‘Epicœne or
the Silent Woman.’ This last was seen by William Gifford a
century ago, but neither is now known to exist. Or is a copy
extant of Horace’s ‘Art of Poetry’ english’d by Jonson and
published so late as 1640. Alas! the list of works by ‘rare
Ben Jonson’ now lost to us, it is feared, for ever, is quite a
lengthy one. Who has seen the original issue of ‘Gude and
Godlie Ballatis,’ printed at Edinburgh in 1546? Of this book
it has been said that, after the Bible, it did more for the
spread of Reformation doctrines in Scotland than any other
volume; so presumably a fairly large edition was printed.

That the editions of some of these early-printed books, now
with us no more, were of considerable size may be judged from
contemporary evidence of their widespread popularity.
Speaking of the ‘Morte d’Arthur,’ Mr. E. G. Duff remarks:
‘Of the popularity of the book we have striking evidence.
Of Caxton’s edition two copies are known, of which one is
imperfect.[4] The second edition, printed by Wynkin de Worde[14]
in 1498, is known from one copy only, which is imperfect;
while the third edition, also printed by de Worde is, again,
only known from one imperfect copy. It may well be,
considering these facts, that there were other intervening
editions which have entirely disappeared.’

Of the thirteen early editions of Shakespeare’s ‘Venus and
Adonis’ only twenty-two copies have so far been traced. Yet
if each of these editions comprised only 250 copies, the tale
of survivors is not large out of a total of 3,250. ‘Printers and
publishers . . . strained their resources to satisfy the demands
of eager purchasers,’ remarks Sir Sidney Lee; so presumably
the estimate of 250 per edition is a conservative one.

Where are these volumes now? It is difficult to believe
they have been utterly destroyed, leaf by leaf, so that no
vestige of them any longer exists. Surely they will turn up
at an auction sale some day, for they may well be safely
ensconced, at this very moment, on the shelves of some
neglected country library. Mr. Duff himself records the
discovery recently of a copy of Caxton’s ‘Speculum,’
‘amongst some rubbish in the offices of a solicitor at
Birkenhead.’

What a vast number of books there is, also, of which only
one copy is known to exist. Of the early editions of
Shakespeare’s plays alone, more than a dozen are known by
solitary examples. Of such books Hazlitt remarks that he
‘has met in the course of a lengthened career with treasures
which would make a small library, and has beheld no
duplicates.’ Probably many of these incognita and rarissima
perished in the great fire of London; others again met their
fate solely through their own popularity, being ‘thumbed’
to pieces. In 1494 Pynson thought well enough to reprint
Caxton’s ‘Book of Good Manners’; but of this once popular
book one copy only—that which was formerly in the Amherst
Library—now survives.

Then there is that ancient romance of European popularity
‘The four Sons of Aymon.’ One of the great cycle of[15]
Charlemagne romances, such was its popularity that by the
end of the thirteenth century it had penetrated even to Iceland.
Many and various were the editions that issued from the early
presses. Caxton printed it about 1489, but of this thick
quarto impression one imperfect copy only has survived. A
second edition, as we learn from the colophon of the third
edition, was ‘imprinted at London by Wynken de Worde, the
viii daye of Maye, and the year of our lorde M.CCCCC. iiii’;
but a solitary leaf, discovered in the binding of an ancient
book, is the sole representative of an edition that ran
probably into several hundreds.

In the case of some at least of these early books there is
another reason for their disappearance and scarcity. Stephen
Vaughan, the indefatigable agent of Mr. Secretary Cromwell,
writing to his master from Antwerp, mentions that he is
‘muche desirous t’atteyne the knowlage of the Frenche
tonge,’ but that he is unable to obtain a copy of the only
primer which he knows to exist. This volume, called
‘L’Esclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse,’ was ‘compose
par Maistre Jehan Palsgraue, Angloys, natyf de Londres et
gradue de Paris,’ and was printed by Pynson, though it was
finished and published by Hawkins in 1530.

Palsgrave, the author, seems to have been determined that
his book should not fall into the hands of other teachers of
French (he was ‘scolemaster’ to the Princess Mary, sister of
Henry viii., in 1513, at a stipend of £6 13s. 4d.); and
although Vaughan writes that he ‘made not a letle labour
to Mr. Palsgrave to have one of his books,’ yet ‘in no wise
he wolde graunt for no price.’ So Vaughan entreats Thomas
Cromwell to obtain a copy for him, ‘not doubtyng but though
he unkyndly denyd me one, he will not denye youe one.’

Apparently Palsgrave had entered into some kind of
arrangement with the printer, for Vaughan writes that he
‘hathe willed Pynson to sell none of them to any other person
than to suche as he shall comaunde to have them, lest his
proffit by teching the Frenche tonge myght be mynished by[16]
the sale of the same to suche persons as, besids hym, wern
disposed to studye the sayd tongue.’

From this premise it is easy to understand why ‘L’Esclarcissement’
is such a rare book. Very few copies indeed are
known to exist. Yet one cannot help wondering what became
of the copies that had not been disposed of at the author’s
death. Possibly a very small number was printed, and perhaps
‘Johan Haukyns,’ faithful to his pact, destroyed those on
hand. That the book was in high esteem may be gathered
from the fact that, in spite of his rebuff, Vaughan says: ‘If I
had one, I wolde no less exteme it then a Jewell.’ The letter
ends with a delightful burst of ingenuousness. ‘Syr, I
remember Mr. Palsgrave gave youe one of his books, which
if it please you to geve me I wer muche bounde to youe.’
Whether he obtained a copy in the end history does not
relate; but if our book-hunter is ever so fortunate as to come
across one, like Vaughan he will certainly ‘no less exteme it
then a Jewell.’

Very many, indeed the vast majority, of the popular
jest-books which appeared in such numbers during Queen
Elizabeth’s reign are now lost to us. Some are known by
later quotation of their titles, others by later editions, such
as ‘The Life of Long Meg of Westminster,’ ‘A Lytle and
Bryefe Treatyse called the Defence of Women,’[5] etc. But
these were small volumes of few pages, and were doubtless
considered as little worthy of preservation as is the modern
‘penny dreadful.’ ‘But, when we consider how very many
of these early books have come down to our time only in
single copies or even fragments out of an edition of some
hundreds, it is only natural to suppose that a great number
must have utterly disappeared.’[6]

It is not for want of enterprise that so many of these books
have not so far been recovered. The smaller and more
remote towns, even villages, of these islands and the[17]
Continent have been, and are being, ransacked by dealers
as well as collectors. The number of works hitherto
undescribed that has been brought to light during the last
sixty years must be considerable; and one still hears every
now and then of some rich trover that has been unearthed.
In 1887 a small octavo manuscript volume, in a worn brown
binding, was offered at the end of a sale at Sotheby’s. It had
stood, for how long no man knows, on the shelf of a small
parish library in Suffolk; and it was offered for sale
‘presumably as being unreadable to country folk, and capable
of being turned into hard cash wherewith a few works of
fiction might be purchased.’ Acquired by the Bodleian
Library for £6, it proved, by perhaps one of the most romantic
chains of evidence ever attached to a book,[7] to be the favourite
devotional volume and constant companion of Saint Margaret,
Queen of Scotland, who died in 1093. It was not until 1905
that the original quarto edition (1594) of Shakespeare’s ‘Titus
Andronicus’ was known to exist, when a copy was discovered
and sold for £2000.

Books travel far afield. At the dissolution of the
monasteries the rich libraries that many of them possessed
were scattered far and wide. One of these religious houses
was famed for its rich store of books; and that the report was
not exaggerated we know from its ancient library catalogue,
still extant. In this case some of the books were taken by
the inmates with them into exile in Flanders; and when the
small community migrated thence to Portugal, the precious
tomes were carried reverently with them. A fire at their
convent in 1651 destroyed a large number of the volumes,
and when some of the nuns returned to England in 1809 they
brought the remaining books with them. Some were sold,
but three cases of these ancient books were sent back to the
nuns who stayed behind in Portugal, and of these cases two
were lost in transit.

[18]
London, however, has always been the centre of book
production in this country, and it is there that any existing
copies of these forgotten books are most likely to re-appear.
Was not a priceless manuscript, a Household Book of the
Black Prince, discovered only a few years ago in the office of
a city lawyer? Once, in the course of his rambles by the
bookstalls of the Farringdon Road,[8] our book-hunter caught
a glimpse of an old box almost covered by books and prints
on one of the stalls. Being unearthed, it proved to be a
veritable gem of a trunk, about two feet by one, and nine
inches deep. It had a convex lid, and was covered with
shaggy horsehide, bound with heavily studded leather. The
proprietor stated that he had found it in a cellar, full of old
books, most of which had already been sold (his listener
promptly pictured Caxtons among them); and he was amused
to think that any one could be so foolish as to offer him two
shillings for such a dirty old box. However, it was carried
home in triumph, regardless of the great interest shown by
fellow-travellers in the train. A year or two ago the same
vender produced a similar trunk, rather larger, which was full
of ancient deeds relating to property in Clerkenwell. These
he sold for a shilling or two shillings apiece, according to size
and seals. The box was larger than our bookman wanted,
but apparently it soon found a purchaser.

Surely such instances must be common in this great city,
and many a trunk must yet linger in cellars and attics in the
old parts of the town. Not many years ago our book-hunter
chanced to visit an ancient house at the end of a small court
off Fleet Street. Inside, it seemed to be entirely lined with
oak planking, and it was occupied, or at least that part into
which he penetrated was, by a printer in a small way of
business. The staircase was magnificent, of massive coal-black
oak; and when our book-hunter remarked upon it, the[19]
printer informed him he had discovered that the house had
once been the town residence of a famous bishop of Tudor
times.[9] How the occupant discovered this fact our bookman
does not remember; possibly the house is well known to
antiquaries, and the occupier may have read about it or have
been told by the previous tenant. But it is also within the
bounds of possibility that he unearthed some deed or papers
relating to the premises. It is strange, too, that one of the
few letters of this bishop which have been preserved refers to
books. ‘Ye promised unto me, long agone,’ he writes to
Secretary Cromwell, ‘the Triumphes of Petrarche in the
Ytalion tonge. I hartely pray you at this tyme by this
beyrer, . . . to sende me the said Boke with some other at
your deuotion; and especially, if it please you, the boke
called Cortigiano in Ytalion.’[10]

There must be many such houses still extant in London,
and who knows what there may be in their long-disused
attics? Hidden away in the darkness beneath their tiles,
between joists and under the eaves, it is possible that books
till now unknown to us, by sight at least, may still exist.
Or who has explored the lumber accumulated in many a
disused cellar within a quarter of a mile of the Mansion House?
The very existence of the trunks which we have mentioned
proves that such things do still linger in the nooks and
crannies of this great city.

And I would not confine my surmise in this direction to
London alone. Two ancient libraries there are, one in the
North Countrie, the other in the West, that to my certain[20]
knowledge have never been explored by modern bibliographer.
The latter is spurned and neglected, the books are deep in
dust and even mildew; the former is also neglected, but at
least the house is inhabited. The owner, an old, old woman,
will never permit of any volume being disturbed. It is said
that her father collected the books many years ago, and that
she still guards them jealously for him.

Perhaps one day a copy of the ‘Nigramansir’ will emerge
from its long sleep in some such house as these. Indeed, it
is not so much a matter of surprise that such books should
have disappeared, as that they should have remained hidden
for so long. In 1909 an ancient volume was accidentally
discovered in an old manor-house in the North of England,
where it had lain undisturbed for generations. It proved to
consist of no less than five of Caxton’s publications bound up
together. Moreover, it was in the original binding, and was
bound, probably, by one of Caxton’s workmen, whose initials
it bore. On being put up for sale at Sotheby’s, it changed
hands at £2,600.

The account which Gairdner gives in the Introduction to
his last edition of the Paston letters, of the loss and rediscovery
of those historic documents, is also a striking example of the
manner in which books may lie hidden for years. For nearly
a century the originals of Sir John Fenn’s compilation were
utterly lost. ‘Even Mr. Serjeant Frere who edited the fifth
volume . . . declared that he had not been able to find the
originals of that volume any more than those of the others.
Strange to say, however, the originals of that volume were in
his house all the time. . . .’ Gairdner then applied to the
owner of Roydon Hall for the remainder of the manuscripts,
but received answer ‘that he did not see how such MSS.
should have found their way to Roydon.’ Yet there they were
discovered (with many others) eight years later! Even then
the whereabouts of the letters forming Fenn’s first and second
volumes, which he had presented in 1787 to King George iii.,
was still unknown. ‘The late Prince Consort . . . caused a[21]
careful search to be made for them, but it proved quite
ineffectual.’ No wonder, for in 1889 they came to light in a
Suffolk manor-house!

It is difficult to portray in words the sensations of the
book-collector when engaged in searching some ancient
building or library—especially if he be upon a ‘hot scent.’
The thrills that he experiences as he handles some rich volume
that has lain hid for years, the delicious excitement that
pervades him while exploring some huge charter chest or
ancient oaken press, these are feelings not to be described in
words. ‘It was discovered in the library at such and such a
place,’ we read, and we barely stop to picture the scene of its
finding or to imagine the sensations of its finder. The very
finding at Syon by ‘Master Richard Sutton, Esq.,’ of the
manuscript containing the ‘revelacions’ of St. Katherin of
Siena, from which de Worde printed his edition, conjures
up a whole romance in itself; yet in his eulogy of the work
Wynkyn dismisses the matter briefly, merely stating that it
was found ‘in a corner by itself.’ ‘We were shipwrecked,’
says the mariner, relating his adventures; and in those three
words what a world of incident and sensations is comprised!

Our book-hunter confesses frankly to having had much good
luck in book collecting. Some years ago he made up his
mind to start collecting Elzeviers, more with the intention of
gathering a representative collection of books printed by that
great family of printers than with any idea of specialising in
them. Probably he was urged thereto by reading that wholly
delightful book ‘The Library’ by Andrew Lang, wherein the
author discourses so pleasantly on these rare pygmies of the
book world. ‘The Pastissier François,’ we read, ‘has lately
fetched £600 at a sale’; and the ‘Cæsar’ of 1635 seemed
nearly as rare, provided it were a copy of that impression
wherein the 149th page is misprinted ‘153.’ A little later our
bookman was dipping, for the n-th time, into that bibliophile’s
bible ‘The Book Hunter,’ by John Hill Burton, whose opinion
of the Cæsar seemed even higher, for he devotes nearly half[22]
a page to the little volume which Brunet describes as ‘une des
plus jolies et plus rares de la collection des Elsevier.’

That decided our friend. He would collect Elzeviers.
Moreover, he would continue to collect them until he had
acquired both the ‘Pastissier François’ and the 1635 ‘Cæsar.’
Such was the confidence of youth! So he sallied forth straight
away, determined to ransack the nooks and corners of certain
shops of his acquaintance.

He didn’t find the ‘Pastissier François’ that afternoon,
but he found the 1635 ‘Cæsar’ in Charing Cross Road for
two shillings. Moreover, it had the requisite misprint and
certain other distinctions which proclaim it to be of the rare
impression, and it is no less than 126 millimetres in height!
He has not yet come across the Pastissier, but doubtless he
will find a copy one day, provided his luck holds good.

The little ‘Pastissier’ is a far more interesting volume
than the ‘Cæsar.’ The latter is a dainty book, beautifully
printed upon fine paper, with folding maps and plans of
castramentation. The ‘Pastissier,’ on the other hand, is a
disappointing little book in appearance, for it is but
indifferently printed upon poor paper. It cannot even claim
the merit of originality, being merely a pirated reprint of a
volume that appeared in Paris some two years previously.[11]
But it is very, very rare, and it has been celebrated by many
distinguished pens.

‘”Monsieur,” said I, “pray forgive me if my question
seems impertinent, but are you extremely fond of eggs?”‘

Such were the words with which Alexandre Dumas first
addressed Charles Nodier, the famous dramatist and bibliophile,
whom he found sitting next to him at the Théâtre
Porte-Saint-Martin. Dumas’ curiosity as to the little volume
that was engrossing his neighbour’s attention more than the[23]
play was at length allayed, and it was a view of the title-page
that prompted his unusual question. Looking over his
neighbour’s shoulder, he read, opposite the engraved frontispiece,
as follows:—

LE PASTISSIER FRANÇOIS

Où eſt enſeigné la maniere de
faire toute ſorte de Paſtiſſerie,
tres-utile à toute ſorte
de perſonnes.

ENSEMBLE

Le moyen d’apreſter toutes ſortes d’oeufs
pour les jours maigres & autres,
en plus de ſoixante façons.

A AMSTERDAM

Chez Louys & Daniel Elzevier

A M DC LV.

But Nodier was far from being the gourmet that Dumas
supposed him to be. He was merely a bookhunter devouring
a rare ‘find’; and the little book, he explained to Dumas,[24]
was one of those tiny volumes published in the seventeenth
century by the house of the Elzeviers at Leyden and
Amsterdam; and of all the many productions of that press,
this was the most sought for by collectors.

Elzeviers, however, are no longer fashionable, in this country
at least. The Cæsar might possibly bring five pounds if it
came to the notice of an Elzevier specialist, but I doubt it.[12]
Only the Pastissier has retained its exalted price, probably
on account of its notoriety. A copy, in modern calf binding,
sold recently (1917) at Sotheby’s for so much as £130; but
Lord Vernon’s copy, choicely bound by Capé, realised only
£70 at the Sudbury sale in June 1918. However, it was a
poor copy and much cut down.

Railway-trains, among other things, have killed Elzeviers.
Nothing could be more convenient for saddle-bag or
knapsack, or the restricted luggage which one could stow in
the boot of a coach. But who makes a practice nowadays of
putting books into his suit-case or gladstone-bag?[13] Besides,
before the advent of railways, there was not the same facility
for distributing books, and one might travel many leagues
and visit many villages without coming to a place where there
would be a bookshop. In travelling nowadays one is
continually in the presence of cheap books.

The fate of the little Pastissier was probably that of many
popular books. There must have been thousands of copies
of it printed. Dumas, in that delightful chapter of ‘Mes
Mémoires’ which we have just quoted, makes Nodier say,
‘Techener declares that there were five thousand five hundred
copies issued, and I maintain that there were more than ten
thousand printed’; and he goes on to declare that ‘there are
probably only ten examples of it left in Europe.’ Willems,
however, in his bibliography of the Elzeviers published in
1880, enumerates some thirty copies, and states that the[25]
highest price yet paid for the Pastissier was 10,000 francs.
But that was for a quite exceptional copy. From 4,500 francs
to 5,500 francs seems to have been the average value of the
book in Willems’ time, and, enthusiast as he is, he hesitates
not to describe it as a ‘bouquin insignifiant et médiocrement
imprimé.’

Its scarcity at the present day is, perhaps, not surprising;
for, from the very nature of its contents, its habitat must
always have been the kitchen rather than the library. How
long would such a tiny volume, with its 130 thin paper leaves,
bear the rough and greasy handling of chefs and ‘pastissiers’?
Book-shelves are rare in kitchens, and the little book must
have been continually moved from pillar to post. Besides,
it is unlikely that copies for kitchen use would be strongly
bound in morocco. The very printing and paper of the book
sufficiently indicate the use to which its producers at least
expected it to be put. So the little ‘French pastrycook’
gradually disappeared. Those for whose benefit it had been
written would soon learn its secrets by heart and confide them
verbally to their apprentices; and it would not be long ere the
tattered and greasy booklet found its way into the dustbin.

Of all the rarae aves sought by book-collectors this little
volume is perhaps the most widely known. That copies may
still exist in this country is shown to be possible by the fact
(recorded by Willems) that one was sold at an auction in
Belfast. Another was found at Brighton, and occasionally
one appears in the London salerooms, as we have shown. It
requires little imagination to picture merchants and travellers,
whose paths led through the Low Countries at that time,
slipping copies into their pockets or holsters for use in the
household across the water. Many a courtly exile during the
Protectorate, glancing through the bookshops of Amsterdam,
must have chanced upon the little volume as a gift for wife
or daughter.

Numbers, also, must have found their way to France. Some
years ago our book-hunter happened to stay at an ancient[26]
hostel in Rouen. From the outside the building was everything
that could possibly be desired by bibliophile or
antiquary. It was situated in one of those quaint narrow
back streets that lead towards the Place Henri Quatre; and
the courtyard was so small as scarcely to allow a baker’s cart
to turn round in it. Like many of the houses in this ancient
town, its crookedness was such that it seemed impossible for
it to remain standing much longer. Misgivings arose within
him as he ascended the staircase, which seemed to sway as
he avoided the broken treads. But the sight of the bedroom
he was to occupy, furnished with such furniture and such a
bed, all spotlessly clean and polished, sent him into the seventh
heaven of delight. Here he could read and write undisturbed
for as long as he chose to stay. Surely pleasant surprises
must be in store for one in every way in such surroundings
as these!

It was not long before he got one.

‘Will Monsieur require anything to be cooked for him
to-night?’ inquired the trim hostess.

It was rather late and our bookman was disinclined to seek
a restaurant. Besides, he was anxious to explore his lodging
before it got too dark. An omelette would be delicious,
provided she could make one properly.

‘Eggs, perhaps, and tea, with bread and butter’—could she
turn the eggs into an omelette?

‘Why certainly,’ with a merry laugh, ‘of course—I can
prepare eggs in more than sixty ways.‘

To say that our book-hunter started would be to put it
mildly. A certain title-page instantly rose before his eyes.
There was only one way in which anybody could possibly
learn to cook eggs in sixty different ways, and that was by
studying the ‘Pastissier François.’ Without the slightest
doubt the hostess possessed a copy, and he was at last to look
upon the tiny volume that he had sought for so long. But as
she seemed so proud of her achievement, could she be induced
to part with the precious tome? These and many other[27]
kindred thoughts passed rapidly through his mind as he
repeated slowly ‘en plus de soixante façons?’

She laughed again. Ah yes, but she couldn’t repeat them
d’abord, she would have to refer to her book.

He had difficulty in controlling his voice sufficiently to
inquire what her book was.

Oh, it was just a little book which her mother had given
her, a little book of la cuisine. Could he see it? Why
certainly, but it could not possibly interest monsieur, it was
only a common little book, and dirty.

Ah, as usual it would be soiled, perhaps badly, for it was
evidently still in constant use; but so long as it were complete
one might possibly be able to clean it. What delightful
thoughts and anticipations passed through his mind as the
hostess slowly descended the rickety stairs to fetch her
treasure! At last he had found it, and just in the very sort
of house and town where he had always expected to come
across it. Well, well, if you make up your mind to have a
thing and search eagerly enough for it, you are bound to
obtain it in the long run.

Then another thought entered his mind: how much should
he offer her for it? Probably she would not part with it
unless he named a sum which she could not resist; yet if the
sum were at all large she might suspect the book’s value and
refuse. Ten francs, twenty-five, a hundred? While he was
deliberating this important point she was ascending the stairs.
Should he turn his back to her, shut his eyes, and tell her to
place the volume on the middle of the table, then suddenly
turn about and gloat upon the little treasure?

Before he could make up his mind she came in and he got
his second surprise that day. It was not as pleasant as the
first, for in her hands she held a thick octavo volume bound
in shiny black leather. Heavens! . . . a large-paper copy?
. . . No, no, impossible. . . .

‘Le voici, m’sieu.’

Our poor book-hunter’s feelings almost overcame him, and[28]
he opened the dirty manuscript volume mechanically, feebly
muttering ‘très intéressant.’ She watched him closely, and
from that moment considered him slightly mad. However,
the book certainly did contain sixty-two recipes for cooking
eggs as well as receipts for making fancy pastry and cakes.
Whether it was copied out of the ‘Pastissier’ I know not;
but certain it is that the hostess had no knowledge of, nor
had ever seen, that volume.

There must be many book-treasures lying hid in all these
ancient towns of Northern France, towns also that lie far
off the restless tourist’s track, small country towns in which
the majority of the houses are slipshod timbered relics of a
bygone age. No striking or unusual feature can they offer
to the curious, and so for the most part they are dismissed
in brief by the guide book. Yet there is many an aged
building in Brittany where old books do still lie hid, as our
bookman knows from the library of a friend who lives in
Finisterre. St. Brieuc, Guingamp, Morlaix, Quimper, even
Brest, all these must harbour long-forgotten books.

But there are other towns which no power on earth shall
force our book-hunter to disclose. One there is far off the
beaten track, where the houses, painted with bright colours,
lean all askew, supporting each other and sometimes almost
toppling across the narrow winding streets. So that, entering
it, one seems to have stepped suddenly into some such fairy
town as exists in the pages of Grimm or Hans Andersen;
and, half ashamed, one peers curiously at the dwellers in this
goblin town, as though expecting to find that they have
pointed ears and narrow elfin feet. They never seem to move
about, and, sitting at almost every doorstep, watch one intently
from weird nooks and crannies. Hurry and bustle are here
unknown, and though they will reply to you in the best of
French, yet to each other the townsfolk speak a strange and
uncouth tongue.

Once, rambling in the narrow alleys about the ancient
church, our book-hunter ventured through a gothic doorway[29]
along a broad passage that was guarded by a huge and
ancient iron grille and presently he found himself in a small
courtyard paved with moss-grown cobbles. About it was a
timbered gallery, roofed, once doubtless level, now gently and
gracefully undulating so that it seemed about to fall from off
the wall to which it was attached. But the walls had also
subsided with the gallery, so that the whole still showed a
symmetry that was pleasing to the eye. Above the gallery
and across the front of the building had been painted the
legend hotel du lion d’or, and a dim weatherbeaten shield
above the doorway still bore the trace of a rampant lion. It
seemed a large building, judging by the number of its
windows, far larger than its present-day custom could possibly
warrant.

The place was curiously still, for the noise of carts and
footsteps could never penetrate into that silent court, and it
must have been many years since chaise or horseman clattered
across its now mossy pavé. The stillness was almost uncanny,
forbidding, and our book-hunter hesitated to cross the courtyard
lest the sound of his footsteps should disturb the slumber
of the ancient building. Presently a rat squealed somewhere
along the gallery, and a voice called out sharply within. The
spell was broken, and entering the house he called for a
‘petit verre’ preparatory to finding out something of the
inn’s history.

Yes, it was very old, and madame had been born in it;
but now that she was left alone with Jeanne it was very
lonely, and there was little custom. Did they have many
travellers there? Oh no, not for a long time, the house was
not easy to find, and as the old customers died none came
to fill their places. But sometimes Messieurs So and So came
in of an evening and took a ‘petit verre,’ and then the
neighbours were very friendly, so it was not so bad.

So the hostess prattled on, only too pleased to impart the
news of her little world to a newcomer from the greater one,
while all the time fantastic visions rose before him. He[30]
pictured old hide-bound trunks that had been left behind by
travellers who had never returned, trunks which, opened,
would prove to contain priceless black-letter books: boxes,
stored in attics and cellars and in concealed presses, which
would contain ancient apparel with copies of the ‘Pastissier’
in the pockets: small travelling bags, tendered by needy
scholars in lieu of payment, which he would find stuffed with
rare Elzeviers: rusty iron-bound chests enclosing missals,
books of hours and antiphonals: in short to such heights did
his imagination soar that he resolved to sojourn there till he
had explored the old house from attic to cellar.

Then a rat squealed again, near at hand. Oh yes, they
were everywhere, ever since Monsieur Gautier rented the
left wing of the house to store grain in; and they were so
tame and so large that Madame was obliged to keep miou-miou
in her bedroom every night.

That decided our book-hunter. Enthusiasm can be carried
too far. Even the possibilities of a rich trover would not
compensate for having rats running about one’s bed at night.
Moreover the vermin would surely have gnawed, if not
devoured, any copies of the ‘Pastissier’ that might have been
lying about, even if these were innocent of bacon-grease
stains. And so consoling himself, he took another ‘petit
verre’ and departed, casting more than one regretful glance
backwards at the old Lion d’Or.

[31]

CHAPTER II

THE LIBRARY

hat magic there is for the book-lover in that
word ‘library’! Does it not instantly
conjure up a vision of happy solitude, a
peaceful seclusion where we may lie hidden
from our fellow-creatures, an absence of idle
chatter to distract our thoughts, and countless
books about us on either hand? No man with any
pretensions to learning can possibly fail to be impressed when
he enters an ancient library, older perhaps by generations
than the art of printing itself.

They are delicious retreats, abodes of seasoned thought and
peaceful meditation, these ancient homes of books. ‘I no
sooner come into the library,’ wrote Heinz, that great literary
counsellor of the Elzeviers, ‘than I bolt the door, excluding
Lust, Ambition, Avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is
Idleness, the mother of Ignorance and Melancholy. In the[32]
very lap of Eternity, among so many divine souls, I take my
seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all
great men and rich to whom this happiness is unknown.’

Happy indeed are those days when the book-lover has been
accorded the freedom of some ancient library. A delicious
feeling of tranquillity pervades him as he selects some nook
and settles himself to read. Presently the mood takes him
to explore, and he wanders about from case to case, now
taking down some plump folio and glancing at the title-page
and type, now counting the engravings of another and
collating it in his mind, now comparing the condition of a
third with the copy which he has at home, now searching
through the text of some small duodecimo to see whether it
contains the usual blanks or colophon. But presently he will
chance upon some tome whose appeal is irresistible. So he
retires with it to his nook, and is soon absorbed once more
with that tranquillity which is better than great riches.

Dearly, however, though we may treasure the benefits and
conveniences which these libraries of ancient foundation
afford, for most of us there is another library that is nearer
to our hearts; that cosy chamber with which we are
accustomed to associate warmth, comfort, soft chairs and footrests,
a wide writing-table that we may pile high with books,
with scribbling-paper, foolscap and marking-slips in plenty.
In short, a room so far removed from earthly cares and noise,
that the dim occasional sounds of the outside world serve but
to accentuate our absolute possession of ease. Here we may
labour undisturbed though surrounded by a thousand friends.
Or, if the mood take us, we may abandon ourselves to idle
meditation

and, lying back at our ease, may gaze contentedly upon the
faithful companions of our crowded solitude, gathering
inspiration from their silent sympathy.

Each to his taste. Whether we be student, book-hunter,[33]
librarian, or precentor,[14] no earthly abode can be compared
with that garden of our choice wherein we labour so
contentedly. It may be a small room in our own house, it
may be an ancient university or college library, but it is all
one: it is a library, that haven of refuge from our worldly
cares, where troubles are forgotten and sorrows lightened by
the gently persuasive experience of the wise men that have
gone before us.

But, mark you, it must be literally removed from cares and
noise, for it is impossible to study at all deeply while exposed
to interruption. How terribly most of us have suffered from
this form of mental torture, for it is little else! What trains
of lucid thought, what word-pictures have been destroyed by
thoughtless breakings of the chain of sequence! ‘I have
never known persons who exposed themselves for years to
constant interruption who did not muddle away their intellects
by it at last,’ wrote Miss Florence Nightingale. Hamerton,
quoting her, is equally emphatic upon this point.

‘If,’ he writes, ‘you are reading in the daytime in a house
where there are women and children, or where people can
fasten upon you for pottering details of business, you may be
sure that you will not be able to get to the end of the passage
without in some way or other being rudely awakened from
your dream, and suddenly brought back into the common
world. The loss intellectually is greater than any one who
had not suffered from it could imagine. People think that an
interruption is merely the unhooking of an electric chain, and
that the current will flow, when the chain is hooked on again,
just as it did before. To the intellectual and imaginative
student an interruption is not that; it is the destruction of a
picture.’

Who has not suffered from the idle chatter, or even worse—the
lowered voice, that often assails the ear when working in
our larger public libraries? Some innocent-looking individual[34]
will be reading quietly some paces away, so quietly and
decorously in fact that one’s heart goes out to him as a
sympathetic fellow-bookman. Then enters some one whom
he knows. In a flash he becomes a fiend incarnate. A word
or two of greeting spoken in an ordinary voice one would
pardon; but a long conversation is carried on in a monotonous
forced undertone, terrible in its intensity. It is impossible to
read so long as the conversation lasts, and murder surges in
one’s heart. O for the power to drop ten atlas folios in a
pile upon their heads! People do not realise the carrying
power of a strained and lowered voice. Generally the volume
of sound is the same as when speaking aloud, for the tone is
merely lowered and the same amount of breath is used. But
often more force is required to vibrate the slackened vocal
chords, and the maddening sound reaches to every corner
of the building.

In the Reading Room of the British Museum one is
constantly aware of this buzzing going on all over the room.
Would that the rule enforced at one of our older monasteries
were applied: ‘In the Chafynghowys al brethren schal speke
latyn or els keep silence.’ This would indeed ensure quietness
nowadays. The rule for nuns, however (who, presumably,
were not so well acquainted with Latin) would be better still.
They were not to speak at all.[15]

So, if it be possible, see to it that your library, study,
sanctum, or whatever you may call that one room in the
house which is sacred to the daughters of Mnemosyne, is
really your own: that it be a close closet to which you (and
you alone) may retire at all seasons, certain in the knowledge
that by closing the door you may shut out effectually all
earthly cares and interruptions. Whether you are engaged
in research merely for the gratification of your desire to
possess knowledge, or whether literary production be your
aim, unless you may study undisturbed your labours will[35]
never bear their full fruit. Interrupted, your knowledge will
be scanty, diverse, and generally inapplicable, your literary
output sketchy, incoherent, and disconnected.

Perhaps it is this incubus of interruption that drives so many
men to working late at night. Doubtless those whose habit
it is to work at that season produce just as good work in those
hours as at any other time; possibly better, for habit may
have accustomed them to put forth their finest intellectual
efforts at that time of day. But the mind that has been
brought up to rise at seven and go to bed at ten, is
undoubtedly at its best before noon. Night working is not a
natural tendency, it is an acquired habit; and though the
expression ‘burning the midnight oil’ is taken to be
synonymous with the acquisition of learning, yet in the long
run it is but a poor economy of time, for the wisdom so
acquired is often obtained at the cost of health and eyesight.

And what is freedom from interruption but another name
for solitude? It may be temporary, it may be prolonged,
it may be permanent, but for the intellectual man it is
absolutely essential. No one would be so foolish as to deny
that literary work of the highest rank can be, and has been
frequently, accomplished amid the bustle and noise of cities;
witness the works of those literary giants who have passed
their lives as town-dwellers. Doubtless they obtained the
necessary solitude by spiritual detachment. But on the other
hand, for intense and prolonged meditation, for the communing
with one’s innermost soul on the immense principles
of life and nature, for the production of such deep soul-searching
work as we see in the compositions of à Kempis,
Dante, Milton, and Wordsworth, absolute solitude for some
seasons is essential. There must be complete freedom from
the daily distractions caused by one’s fellow-beings.

‘Believe me, upon my own experience,’ wrote St. Bernard,
‘you will find more in the woods than in books; the forests
and rocks will teach you what you cannot learn of the greatest
masters.’ It is not necessary, however, for us to take up our[36]
abode in a cave that we may meditate undisturbed. Let us
rather follow Wordsworth’s example when he pours forth
gratitude

It is sufficient if we can withdraw at will into the solitudes.
The younger Pliny, moralising to his friend Minutius (I should
like to think him the progenitor of Aldo Manuccio), describes
the delights of seclusion at his villa on the shore of the
Adriatic. ‘At such a season,’ says he, in a retrospect of the
day’s work, ‘one is apt to reflect how much of my life has
been lost in trifles! At least it is a reflection that frequently
comes across me at Laurentum, after I have been employing
myself in my studies, or even in the necessary care of the
animal machine; for the body must be repaired and supported
if we would preserve the mind in all its vigour. In that
peaceful retreat I neither hear nor speak anything of which
I have occasion to repent. I suffer none to repeat to me the
whispers of malice; nor do I censure any man, unless myself,
when I am dissatisfied with my compositions. There I live
undisturbed by rumour, and free from the anxious solicitudes
of hope or fear, conversing only with myself and my books.
True and genuine life! Pleasing and honourable repose!
More, perhaps, to be desired than the noblest employments!
Thou solemn lea and solitary shore, best and most retired
scene for contemplation, with how many noble thoughts have
you inspired me! Snatch then, my friend, as I have, the first
occasion of leaving the noisy town with all its very empty
pursuits, and devote your days to study, or even resign them
to ease. For, as my ingenious friend Attilius pleasantly said,
‘It is better to do nothing than to be doing nothings!”

The great Cardinal Ximenes, in the zenith of his power,[37]
built with his own hands a hut in a thick unfrequented wood,
where he could retire occasionally from the busy world. Here
he used to pass a few days, every now and then, in meditation
and study. These he was wont to describe as the happiest
days of his life, and declared that he would willingly exchange
all his dignities for his hut in the chestnut wood. Thomas
Aquinas, coming to visit the learned Bonaventura, asked him
to point out the books which he used in his studies. The
monk led him into his cell and showed him a few common
volumes upon his table. Thomas explained that the books
he wished to see were those from which the learned master
drew so many wonders. Thereupon Bonaventura showed
him a small oratory. ‘There,’ he said, ‘are my books; that
is the principal book from which I draw all that I teach and
write.’

To the thoughtless and those of shallow intellect solitude
is inseparable from loneliness. There is, for them, something
terrible in the thought of being debarred, even temporarily,
from the society of their fellow-beings. ‘Retirement,’ says
Disraeli, ‘to the frivolous is a vast desert; to the man of
genius it is the enchanted garden of Armida.’ And for ‘man
of genius’ I would substitute ‘man of literary pursuits.’

There is a pleasant story told of a monk who lived in the
monastery of St. Honorat, which is situated on one of the
Lerine Islands, off the coast of Provence. Possessed of a
mind which, in the larger world, would indubitably have
become an influence in the artistic progress of mankind, he
found the sole outlet for its expression in the painting of those
exquisite miniatures which are at once the delight and the
despair of a more modern age. But it was not in the scriptorium
nor was it in the bestiaries or the examples of his predecessors
that he acquired his art. Every year, in the spring and
autumn, he would go alone to one of the delicious islands of
Hyères, where there was a small hermitage. Here he would
spend the weeks, not altogether in prayer and fasting, but
in making friends with the birds and small animals that[38]
resorted there; studying their gestures, plumage, and colours,
that he might reproduce them faithfully on the vellum of his
missals and devotional books. Surely he learnt more on this
deserted island than was possible at that time in the richest
library in France.

There is another kind of solitude, however, which can afford
consolation to the soul as deep and as lasting as that afforded
by the woods, the hills, the moors, the islands, those

and that is, the solitude engendered by a deep communion
with books. For, if our paths lie amid the toil and turmoil
of the world, and if it be impossible for us to seek seclusion
amid the wastes, where else than in a library can we obtain
that mental solitude so necessary for the nourishing of our
literary spirit?

Roger Ascham, sick at heart with long parting from his
beloved books, writes to Sir William Cecil from Brussels in
1553, to beg that ‘libertie to lern, and leysor to wryte,’ which
his beloved Cambridge alone could afford him. ‘I do wel
perceyve,’ he says, ‘their is no soch quietnesse in England,
nor pleasur in strange contres, as even in S. Jons Colledg, to
kepe company with the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes,
and Tullie.’ And he goes on to say, ‘Thus I, first by myn
own natur, . . . lastly caulled by quietnesse, thought it good
to couche myself in Cambridge ageyn.’

Yet although we may seek solitude among our books, how
far removed are we from being really alone! ‘A man is
never less alone than when he is alone,’ said the noble
Scipio[16]; and this is especially true of the book-lover. What
bibliophile does not prefer the companionship of his books
to that of all other friends? What friends so steadfast, so[39]
reliable in their friendship, so helpful in our difficulties, so
apt upon all occasions, as the books which form our library?
They are never elated at our mistakes, they are never
‘superior’ when we display ignorance. Human friendships
are limited; but to the number of our most intimate
acquaintances in cloth, vellum, and morocco, there is no end.

It is this universal sympathy afforded by our books that
makes our sanctum such a delicious retreat. Here we need
never be bored, for we can put aside the tedious or insipid
at will, and turn to whatever subject or companion our fancy
indicates. We are not bound to talk with persons or on
themes that have no interest for us. There is no clashing of
ideas, and complete harmony reigns amid our comfort.

To the man of literary tastes there are few things more
depressing than the conversations of ‘small-talk’ which an
exacting society occasionally demands. Who has not suffered
from their enervating effects? We are not all possessed of
that mental abstraction which La Fontaine succeeded in
carrying with him throughout life, forming a buffer from which
all idle talk rebounded. He was once asked to dinner by a
‘fermier-général’ to amuse the guests. Thoroughly bored,
La Fontaine ate much and said little, and rising very early
from the table said that he had to go to the Academy. ‘Oh,’
said his host, ‘but you are much too early for it.’ ‘Oh well,’
replied Jean, ‘I shall go the longest way to it.‘ Poor Jean
was really very absent-minded. He had a son whom he
confided at the age of fourteen to a friend to educate. Not
having seen the youth for a long time, he met him one day
at the house of a savant without knowing him. Afterwards
he happened to mention that he thought him a youth of wit
and taste. Some one told him that the lad was his own son.
‘Is he indeed,’ said Jean, ‘well I’m very glad to hear it.’

There is no end to the delightful hobbies that we may
cultivate in a library. Here we may go fishing or whaling,
fighting battles or exploring new countries, tracing pedigrees
or going on crusade, cutting our way through virgin forests or[40]
filling herbaceous borders in our mind, or we may even
descend into the pyramid of Cheops.

Our book-hunter has a friend whose hobby takes the form
of tracing the parentage and posterity of men who lived long
years ago. They are mostly unknown to fame, and their
names are only to be found in ancient peerages and suchlike
books. Whether they were good or bad, religious or wicked,
useful to their country or indifferent, handsome or ugly, is
immaterial to him. In some cases they founded families that
have endured, in others they perished with all their kindred
within a century of the Norman Conquest. But to our genealogist
they are very living people. He is intimately acquainted
with the most of them, no less than with their wives
and children, their fathers and grandfathers, their uncles and
their aunts. As to the personal characteristics of Reginald
Fitz-Ranulf lord of Bosham Castle in Com. Ebor, or his deeds
or memorable actions (if, indeed, he ever perpetrated any) this
student is unable to enlighten us. But that his wife was called
Gunnora and that she was a daughter and co-heir of Richard
de Tourville, he is quite positive. Apparently they had two
sons, Fulk and Waleran, but our friend is strongly of opinion
that Hamon FitzReginald (who had a moiety of the manor of
Worthleys and was co-parcener with Payn FitzGeoffrey lord
of Buncombe) was really a son of Reginald by a former wife.

The memory of this eager student is little short of
marvellous. He can remember not only names and marriages,
but at least several of the families which owned any manor
that you like to mention. He would certainly have put to the
blush Pierre d’Hozier, the great French genealogist whose
memory was so wonderful that it was said he must surely
have been present at all the marriages and baptisms in
Christendom!

The library of this genealogist is a most interesting room.
Many of the books necessary for his researches are of folio
size and must be ready to hand; so they are ranged round
the apartment at the level of one’s waist. On entering the[41]
room one is struck by this belt of massive volumes, the more
so when their owner takes them up casually and turns to page
after page without ever troubling to refer to the index.

An evening spent with him is quite exciting. He asks the
book-hunter’s assistance over a knotty point. Several huge
sheets of paper are laid upon the table, and each step in the
pedigree is debated graphically. Volume after volume is
referred to. At the slightest hitch out come Patent Rolls,
Close Rolls, Fine Rolls, Pipe Rolls, and records of almost
every description. Presently the room has the appearance of
having been struck by a tornado. Volumes are lying about
everywhere, and in every conceivable position. The floor is
covered with them, all the chairs are in use, three Patent Rolls
are lying open and face downwards on the mantelpiece, there
are several on the hearthrug. In fact it is now impossible to
move. Yet our host, accustomed to these things, in his search
for a volume jumps from spot to spot with the agility of an
antelope. The book-shelves are half-emptied, some of the
remaining volumes have fallen down. My coffee cup lies on
a pile composed of Rotuli Hundredorum, a Placita Abbreviatio,
and a Testa de Nevil. But it is good fun, if exhausting,
and a sovereign cure for insomnia. Our book-hunter usually
leaves him about one o’clock in the morning, and the
genealogist is genuinely sorry when he goes.

But to tell the truth our bookman is not a bit the wiser
as to Reginald FitzRanulf!

One day friend Brown (for so he is called) came to see the
book-hunter in great distress. He had but lately become a
parent, and was still slightly excited about it.

”Pon my word,’ said he, ‘I don’t know what to do. You
know how proud I am of my family, and how I hoped all along
that it would be a boy so that I could give it the name that
generations of my ancestors possessed. And now Mary says
she won’t hear of it.’

The bookman sympathised with him, but asked what was
the proposed name.

[42]
‘Turchetil,’ said he; ‘they were all called that for
generations. But of course the name wasn’t Brown then,
Le Brun was the family name in the twelfth century.’

‘A fine lofty name,’ replied his friend, ‘but wouldn’t
Turchetil Brown sound rather funny nowadays?’

‘I don’t see why,’ said he stiffly; ‘they’re both good old
names.’

The bookman assented, though inwardly he could not but
agree with Mrs. Brown. Turchetil Le Brun was one thing,
and Turchetil Brown quite another. Perhaps, however, a
compromise might be reached.

‘Is there no other ancient name in your family that would
do?’ he suggested.

‘Yes,’ said the genealogist, ‘there are two others, but not
so good as Turchetil. They are Baldric and Bigod . . .’

Truly the study of genealogy has its disadvantages. There
must have been great bitterness in the Brown household
before its mistress obtained her own way, and even more in
the heart of our poor friend as he stood at the font and heard
his firstborn son irrevocably named—George.

Another friend and brother collector with whom our book-hunter
sometimes passes an evening is a medical man of no
small talent. But attached as he is to his profession,
archæology is for ever striving with medicine for the first
place in his affections, and his knowledge of herbals and the
literature of alchemy is immense. His collection of works
dealing with these subjects is well known to the booksellers,
and the book-hunter sometimes receives a line from him
asking him to pay a visit for the purpose of examining some
recently acquired treasure.

Of late his hobby has taken a curious turn. A chance
conversation induced him to inquire into the death of Queen
Anne. He professed to discover, in the accounts of her
demise, certain symptoms which indicated a different disease
from that usually assigned to her. So now he must needs
hold an inquest upon the death of each one of our sovereigns,[43]
from the time of King William the Conqueror. He is
exceedingly enthusiastic about it, and is preparing a paper
to read before the local antiquarian society. In this he hopes
to prove conclusively the impossibility of lampreys having
had any share in the death of Henry the First, which was
clearly due to appendicitis.

Sometimes when the book-hunter visited his medical friend
he would find another collector there already, deep in bookish
or scientific talk. Like the doctor, the biologist was a
specialist in books no less than in science, and his hobby
comprised a field till recent times untilled. Keen though he
was in his pursuit, it was the sea that claimed his every day
of leisure. An active mind, eager in the elucidation of the
more abstruse problems of physiology, yet his alert bearing,
his quickness of movement and springy step, spoke more of
the quarterdeck than the laboratory. Denied the sea as a
profession, his heart was for ever in ships; and when at
length preferment took him inland to one of the ancient seats
of learning, the ordered training of his mind turned his hobby
towards the history and evolution of all craft that sail upon
the waters.

He is a great authority upon all matters pertaining to the
rigging of mediæval ships. The history of their hulls he
leaves to the attention of the important societies of nautical
research. But on the evolution of the sky-topsail or fore-top-gallant-backstays
his word carries much weight. He will
travel a hundred miles in a week-end to see an illumination
or carving of a ship, and his vacations he spends touring
France and Flanders in search of stained glass windows that
may throw some light upon his hobby. His collection of
seals incised with ancient ships is a fine one, and the
proceedings of more than one society are the richer for his
researches.

Not long ago I came across another example of the manifold
uses to which a private library can be put. A friend had
given me a letter of introduction to a collector with whom he[44]
desired me to become acquainted. I was given to understand
that the fellow-spirit was an exceedingly well-read man, and
something of a wanderer.

‘He’s a great traveller,’ said my friend with a laugh,
‘there’s hardly a country in the world that he has not visited.’

‘What an interesting man he must be,’ I replied, ‘but why
do you laugh?’

‘Oh, you’ll see all right presently,’ said he; ‘but go and
spend an evening with him; you will certainly be entertained—provided
you are sympathetic and content to let him do all
the talking.’

So a few days later I called at the house of the traveller.
He welcomed me in his study, a fine large room yet possessed
of that cosiness imparted by the presence of many books.
The walls were entirely covered with bookcases to a height
of about eight feet; and these contained, he told me, about
three thousand volumes. At the end of this long room was
a wide bay window, and here was placed a comfortable easy
chair with twin oak tables, very strong and low, at either arm.
Close at hand were a revolving bookcase and a stand
containing five or six japanned cylinders about three feet
long, and some six inches across, such as are used to contain
nautical charts.

‘You are fond of travel, are you not?’ I remarked, as soon
as I was settled. ‘Jones told me that there are few countries
with which you are unacquainted.’

‘That is so,’ he replied; ‘travel has always been my
passion from my youth up, and of all the volumes which you
see around you, there are scarcely a hundred that do not treat
of some foreign country or voyage.’

‘How interesting,’ I replied; ‘it is a wise old dictum that
there is nothing like travel to broaden one’s mind. Unless
we acquaint ourselves with the opinions held by men of other
nations, men whose everyday life differs so widely from our
own, who see things consequently from a different standpoint,
how can we expect to regard any subject from all its various[45]
aspects, which is essential if we are to pronounce an opinion
which——’

‘Quite so,’ he interrupted, eyeing me suspiciously, and
obviously fearing from my verbiage that he was about to be
beset by a bore. (To tell the truth, I was rather glad of his
interruption, for the sentence was beginning to get out of
hand.) ‘As you say, there’s nothing like travel to broaden
the mind. Why,’ he went on hurriedly, ‘before I was
eighteen I had been up Aconcagua with Conway.’

‘Really?’ I said, trying to associate the two with a country
and a date. (Of course I knew where Aconcagua was—it
was one of the most familiar names in my geography, only for
the moment memory was a little refractory. Obviously it was
a mountain, because he spoke of having been ‘up’ it. The
name had a Spanish ending—of course! now I knew.) ‘A
wonderful country, Mexico,’ I went on.

‘Mexico?’ said he; ‘yes, I know Mexico too. Been right
through it, from Chihuahua to Tehuentepec and Campeachy.’
(This was unfortunate, but apparently he didn’t notice the
mistake, for he went on at once.) ‘But as I was saying, I’d
been up Aconcagua before I left school.’

‘Good gracious,’ I replied, amazed at his intrepidity, ‘that
must have been an experience!’

‘Rather,’ said he: ‘Haven’t you read Conway’s book?
Published in ’02, I think.’ He strode across the room and
brought back a volume. ‘Yes, 1902: capital book; well
worth reading. But Mexico,’ he continued, without giving me
time to display the knowledge that I suddenly recollected as
I turned the pages of the book, ‘Ah! there’s a country for
you! How I enjoyed my first visit! Ever been there?’

‘Alas! no,’ I replied; ‘but one of my fondest dreams has
been to visit the ancient cities of the new world.’ (I thought
that was rather nicely put.)

‘Charnay,’ he said; ‘you know Charnay, then? It was he
who took me there first. Early ‘eighties, I think.’ He pulled
out another volume and turned to the title-page. ‘Here we[46]
are, “The Ancient Cities of the New World,” ’87. My copy
is only the translation, published two years after the original
appeared.’

This puzzled me rather. If he had been eighteen in 1902,
he must have been a mere babe in 1885.

‘Rather young, were you not, when you were there?’ I
ventured.

‘Young? Why?’ he replied.

‘Oh, only because you said that you were eighteen when
you ascended Aconcagua in 1902, so I thought that you must
have been rather young when you were in Mexico in 1885.’

He stood still and stared at me, a puzzled look on his face.

‘Good gracious,’ he said, ‘didn’t Jones tell you? Didn’t
he explain to you about me and my travels?’

‘Oh yes,’ I hastened to reassure him, fearful that I had
given offence; ‘he told me that you were a widely-travelled
man; and, if you will permit me to say so, I think he
understated——’

‘Yes, yes,’ he went on, ‘but didn’t he tell you how I
travelled? Didn’t he tell you that I had never been out of
Europe? This is my world,’ he continued, waving his arm
round the bookcases; ‘here are my Americas, my Africa, my
Asia, my Europe, and my Australia. There (pointing to a
case by the window) is my West Indies, here (indicating
another one) is my Polynesia, there my Arctic and Antarctic.
Here (patting the back of the big easy chair) is my steamboat,
my mule, and my camel. No weather can delay me, no storm
prevent my setting out. Though it snow a blizzard, still can
I cross the very summits of the Andes: be there a year-old
drought, still may I journey from Sydney to Port Darwin
overland.’

I could only marvel at the man. No world-wide traveller
could have been prouder or have found greater satisfaction in
the contemplation of his travels. And a further conversation
assured me that, assisted by a good memory, he knew more,
far more, of the countries about which he had read so many[47]
books than did ninety-nine out of a hundred of the tourists
who had actually visited those lands.

‘Don’t think,’ he said, ‘that I merely pass my time reading
promiscuously all manner of books of travel. I do nothing
of the sort. At the beginning of each year I map out the
countries I intend to visit during that year. So much time is
allotted to each, according to the size of the country and that
of its travel literature. Then I compile a list of the books
that I intend to read, and the order in which they should be
read. I have a fine collection of maps, and those tin cylinders
over there contain charts, by means of which I am enabled to
follow more accurately and minutely the different journeys and
voyages that I make.

‘Let me give you an example.’ Here he took a thin octavo
book from one of the cases. ‘This is Commodore John
Byron’s narrative of the loss of H.M.S. Wager, one of Anson’s
squadron, on the coast of Chili, in 1740. It was published in
1768, and is, in my opinion, one of the most thrilling tales of
shipwreck and suffering that has ever been written. I dare
say you remember Campbell’s beautiful lines in “The
Pleasures of Hope”; they are pencilled on the fly-leaf of
my copy:—

‘There is no map in the volume, much less a chart, to show
where the ship struck, though we are told that the land was
“on the larboard beam, bearing n.w.,” and that they landed
“in the latitude of between 47 and 48° South.” But without
charts and maps how can one possibly follow the journey of
the four poor sufferers along the coast on that terrible march
from Mount Misery (as they named the inhospitable
promontory where they landed) to civilisation on the island
of Chiloe? With my maps I can follow their every footstep,[48]
with my chart I may visit each inlet that their frail canoe
entered. Nor need I refer to these aids whenever I may turn
to the volume again, for here (he unfolded a beautifully drawn
map bound at the end of the volume) I have copied a chart
which shows with a red line the whole of their terrible journey.
I have done this with several of the older works on travel
which I possess, books that were published without maps.’

To me at least it was a new aspect of book-collecting,
and an interesting one. But I confess to having been
impressed more by its originality and the patient perseverance
of its devotee than by the knowledge which it had
enabled him to accumulate. His was a vast knowledge,
yet limited; for it was confined almost entirely to the topography
and early exploration of the countries which he
studied, together with such sociology as he would glean midst
travellers’ accounts of adventures and sport. Development,
resources, industry, had little place in it. He was thoroughly
conversant with the early history of Australia, could recite the
names of all the early pioneers, and could plot Burke’s
expedition or Phillip’s voyage to Botany Bay. But of
Melbourne or Sydney to-day, their size, commerce, exports,
the principal industries or railways, of these he knew nothing.
On the other hand, with those countries which have come less
quickly under the hand of civilisation, such as New Guinea or
West Africa, he was well acquainted. He had followed the
history of this last down to fairly modern times, knew the story
of every settlement from Bathurst to the Bight and to
Benguela, with their principal exports; and could talk
interestedly with any dweller on ‘the Coast.’

He is still comparatively a young man. If ever he sets out
to see the world for himself, his pleasures will far exceed those
of the ordinary tourist. Wherever he may go, he will need no
guide-book to instruct him, in history at least. And he will
visit out-of-the-way spots unnoticed by these authorities, but
dear to him by reason of their mention in the pages of his
fireside Mentors, their association with some thrilling though[49]
unimportant event of which he has read. Harbours, villages,
buildings, will be familiar to him through some old print or
coloured engraving; and he will eagerly compare the actual
appearance with the mental picture he has borne for so long.
Disappointment sometimes there will be, but a delightful
anticipation always.

I hope, however, that I shall never be his travelling
companion!

And here I cannot forbear to mention one other book-collecting
acquaintance. A bosom friend of the genealogist,
he was at one time a fellow-worker, and they would sit
closeted for hours debating the parentage of Henry ap John.
But he lacked that determination which prevented his friend
from being constantly side-tracked, and the minutiæ of history
had a fatal attraction for him. As to whether Hugo de
Beauchamp of Com. Wigorn. (which was their pleasant way
of saying that he lived in Worcestershire) held his manor by
serjeanty of the condimentum was of small moment to him
compared with the price which King Edward paid him for a
couple of goshawks or a greyhound; and he wondered of
what sort was the tun of wine which he had from that
sovereign as a Christmas present. And so his book-buying
became more and more confined, for it was restricted now to
those curious and uncommon works which treat of the byways
of history; such as the Accounts of the Wardrobe and
Hanaper, the reports of the lords marchers of the realm,
books on feudal customs and offices, and the like.

During the great war our friend busied himself with His
Majesty’s ordnance. Hitherto he had always associated the
term with cast-iron cannon, and had vague recollections of
the number of ‘ordnance’ carried by the Great Harry or
fired from the Tower of London during Sir Thomas Wyatt’s
insurrection. But even when these dreams were dispelled,
his thoughts still harped on mediæval equipment and harness
while checking cases of boots or mess-tins; and he wondered
how such things were managed before the days of railways.[50]
Released at length from this employ, his interest increased
with leisure to pursue his investigations.

His passion now is the method in which the ancient
campaigns of this country were conducted. He is quite an
authority upon mediæval transport, by sea as well as by land,
and he can tell you at once the quantities of bowstrings and
quarrels ‘indented for’ during the Crécy and Poictiers
campaigns. Not long ago, poring over an ancient roll of
parchment in the Record Office, he came across a list of the
ships requisitioned for the Agincourt expedition, with their
names, ports, and tonnage, inscribed on the back of one of the
membranes. Great was his delight, and it will be some time
before his friends will be allowed to forget this important
discovery.

How valuable are these researches of our book-collecting
friends! Do they not add a zest to those delightful evenings
when, with curtains drawn and blazing fire, our favourite pipe
aglow, a tall glass at our elbow, we hunt our treasures o’er
again in comfort, roaming the bookstalls of our fancy? It is
well, however, that our humours in book-lore are not all alike,
else how tedious would some of these conferences become.
Elation and jealousy would be hard to banish at times when
we held some coveted volume in our hands. But with
divergence of tastes such feelings cannot exist, and we
eagerly share our friends’ enthusiasm in their treasures and
their delight in some newly-found gem.

It is a very serious business, this book-collecting. Whether
we are contented now to let our library be slow of growth,
or whether we are still imbued with the ardour of our early
youth, we are none the less under the spell of books. Our
paths may lie outside the pale of book-land for years, but the
chance handling of a valuable or scarce volume will instantly
awaken all our bibliophilic desires. Book-collecting is not
like other pursuits. In after years we may realise that many
of our hobbies are but vanities, but the love of good books is
something far beyond all these ephemeral pursuits.

[51]
Doubtless few of us realised at the outset of our careers as
book collectors how completely we should be mastered by this
love of books. Who did not think that it comprised but
occasional visits to the book-shops and bookstalls, perhaps
even to an auction-room, and the reading of nondescript
catalogues? But it is like all other hobbies: ridden at first
with too little restraint, it soon gets the upper hand, and
off it goes, bit between teeth, carrying its rider ever farther
and farther afield. And no man of spirit would think of
seeking to curb his hobby’s gallop. We have mounted of
our own free will, determined to pursue the chase, and never
shall it be said that we were too timid to face the difficulties
of the country ahead. The greater the difficulties the greater
the sport, and in our enthusiasm we are determined to overcome
all obstacles. So that, though our hobby may at length
become our master, so enthralled are we in the pursuit that
there is little danger of it assuming the semblance of a
nightmare.

The farther we go, the wider the fields which open to our
view, and there is interest for us in all of them. We roam at
our pleasure over vast fields of literature, digressing here and
there just as our fancy takes us. There is no danger, moreover,
in being side-tracked, for such divagations in the realms
of bibliography as we may make will serve but to increase
our knowledge of books in the right direction. The only risk
that we shall incur is that of becoming specialists, which is
precisely what we should most desire.

And how delightful are these digressions in the world of
books! There is no other occupation in which one may
wander so innocuously. In most of the learned professions
digressions are fatal to success. Anthony Despeisses was a
lawyer who used frequently to digress. Beginning one day
in Court to talk of Ethiopia, an attorney who sat behind him
remarked ‘Heavens! He is got into Ethiopia, he will never
come back.’ Despeisses, we are told, was so abashed with
the ridicule that he chose rather to leave off pleading than to[52]
correct himself of this unfortunate habit, and quitted the Bar
for ever. Doubtless he found solace among his books, for
here at least he could digress to his heart’s content.

Although, from a worldly point of view, side-tracks are fatal
to success, yet they are as necessary a part of our literary
education as is the application to study itself. Without
digressing as we applied ourselves to books, narrow indeed
would be the views that we acquired. Of what value is a vast
acquaintance with the material details of a war, if we are
ignorant as to the causes which brought it about, or the
reasons why the nations were warring? ‘Ah yes,’ perhaps
you may exclaim, ‘but politics and history are all one, for
the former creates the latter.’ Precisely: so that in order
to obtain a knowledge of the one, we must deviate to the
other. Sharon Turner in his ‘History of England during the
Middle Ages’ passes abruptly from the death of King Henry
the Second to the military spirit of Mohammedanism, from
the Troubadours to the early dissipations of King John, and
devotes two of his five volumes to the Literature of England
with copious examples of early poetry. It is all history, yet
how indispensable are the side-tracks.

It is a subtle art, however, this knowledge of how and when
to digress, and not easy to be learnt. Gerard de St. Amand
died of grief in his middle age because Louis xiv. could not
bear his reading of a poem on the Moon, in which he praised
the King for his skill in swimming. On the other hand
Madame de Staël obtained almost all the material for her
literary work by a consummate skill in directing the
digressions of conversation. Upon whatever subject her pen
was engaged, that was the theme to which she led all talk.

Sir Thomas Browne’s famous letter ‘To a friend upon
occasion of the death of his intimate friend’ is a masterpiece
of the art of digressing. Surely it is one of the quaintest
letters of condolence ever written, if indeed it were ever
intended to be such, for it has that stamp of careful
literary composition which is usually so apparent in all[53]
letters written with a view to publication. The friend in
question died of a consumption, and Sir Thomas recapitulates
his disease, symptoms and death; contrasting each feature
with the celebrated examples of history; moralising and
discussing the opinions of the ancients upon these points as
he goes along; and showing by his own experience that a
man ‘after a cough of almost fifty years, in whom all the
lobes adhered unto the Pleura,’ might yet die of stone in the
bladder. Doubtless the friend to whom the letter was indited
was highly edified by the aged doctor’s learning, yet one
cannot conceive that he would be greatly consoled by being
informed, when discussing the patient’s cough, that ‘in
cetaceous Fishes, who have large and strong lungs, the same
is not observed; nor yet in oviparous Quadrupeds.’
Digressing in this manner is a risky business, and if the grief
were still fresh, it is more than likely that the bereaved one
would exclaim ‘A fig for your fishes, Sir.’ But Sir Thomas
was a wise and worldly man, and would know from experience
precisely when to administer his soothing draught.

The attractions of digressing are far more insidious than
would appear at first sight. It is so easy, one finds such
delightful things, it is all in the daily task of gathering
knowledge, it may be useful to us some day, and so on. But,
unwisely employed, it is a more terrible thief of time even
than Young’s ‘procrastination.’ Worse still, it is a waster;
for the scrappy knowledge so often acquired by this means
becomes invariably the ‘little learning’ which is so dangerous—and
useless—a thing. So that unless we are strongly
imbued with the spirit of scholarly research, determined that
we will not deviate one iota from the particular side-track
which we are exploring, we are in grave danger of becoming
lost in the maze of paths. Digressions in conversation and
books can be of immense value, but he must be a man of
iron will who can utilise to permanent advantage his resources
in this direction. Constant and purposeless digressions, in
reading no less than in talk, are just as injurious as interrup[54]tions.
The mind is switched from one subject to another,
and an entire sequence of reasoning which we may have been
building up by the study of some days is destroyed in a few
moments by the opening up of an unexplored tract of
thought.

For many years there was a learned man at work in one of
our ancient abbey libraries, cataloguing the manuscripts
and monastic charters of the ancient foundation. Their number
runs into many thousands, and at the outset the Keeper[17]
realised that if this task of providing an index and précis of the
entire collection (which would be of incalculable value to the
historical students who came after him) were to be accomplished
in his lifetime, it would be necessary to adhere rigidly
to his plan. Any deviation, however slight, would mean the
loss of valuable time. To the historian and antiquary such
a determination must have cost more than we can imagine;
for every now and again he came across some charter of great
historical interest. ‘Ah,’ he would sigh, reading it through,
‘and now I suppose you must go back again into the
obscurity in which you have lain for eight hundred years.’
He quietly made his précis, indexed the document, and
replaced it in the oaken press. There, thanks to his labours,
it will be turned to at some future date to add laurels to the
‘researches’ of another man.

Perhaps the most innocuous way in which we may digress
is by compiling one of those delectable literary hotch-potches
known as ‘commonplace books.’ Here, with careful selection,
we may garner those delightful thoughts, those gay conceits or[55]
pithy stories, that strike our fancy as we read. And though
perhaps it may be urged that such collections resemble a
casket of loose jewels plucked from their settings, yet they
are jewels none the less. We may store all our collections
within one cover, or we may preserve separately our extracts
from the poets, our biographies, our meditations, or our
anecdotes.

The first ‘commonplacer’ of whom I have seen mention
was one Photius, a colonel in the Life Guards at
Constantinople during the ninth century, or—as he was then
called—Protospatharius. Later he became ambassador to
the court of Baghdad, and amused himself by compiling a
volume which he called Myriobiblon, a collection of extracts
of the authors which he had read. He was a man, we are
told, of extraordinary vigour of mind, and of encyclopædical
knowledge, and he was so devoted to reading that he passed
whole nights without sleep. Accordingly we are not surprised
to find that the Myriobiblon, with its Latin translation, forms
a folio volume of some 1500 pages. When on an embassy to
Assyria, he carried his library—some 300 rolls—with him,
presumably on camels. Thus, we suppose, he could bestride
his dramatic camel, his poetic camel, or his theological camel
as the mood took him. The Myriobiblon was compiled merely
as a handbook for his brother Tarasius, that the latter might
enjoy a brief synopsis of what the ambassador read on his
travels. Several authors are now known only by the extracts
in this book; and among them may be mentioned a writer
named Conon, who is said to have written fifty novels, which
Photius condensed to his liking. All this, of course, was
merely pour passer le temps; the really important works of
this bookworm being a lexicon and a number of books on
theology. Needless to say in due course he became Patriarch
of Constantinople.

Who nowadays keeps a commonplace book? Doubtless a
good many readers of to-day have neither time nor inclination
to indulge this pleasing fashion, at one time so popular; but[56]
to anyone whose delight is the reading of good books as
opposed to modern novels, there can be no more interesting
amusement.

It can be a risky thing, however, this commonplacing, and
he would be a bold man who dared to assign unto any one
writer a popular phrase for no other reason than that this one
has first expressed it in writing. There is no new thing under
the sun, and by continued expression a familiar maxim
becomes at last a proverb. Ask at a dinner-table who first
wrote ‘God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.’ The
knowing ones will puzzle their brains in silence; some lady
with religious tendencies will claim it for the Holy Writ,
inclining towards Isaiah; but the quiet bookish man at the
end of the table will smile in a superior way, and offer to wager
that he can name the author. You may safely accept his bet,
for it is a hundred pounds to a penny that he will proclaim
Laurence Sterne to have written it—he may even quote the
context. Granted that Sterne did write it, but Sterne was a
widely-read man and a plagiarist of no mean ability. So you
may ask the bookish man how he doth account for this saying
occurring in that quaint collection of ‘Outlandish Proverbs’
entitled ‘Jacula Prudentum,’ by Master George Herbert,
compiled from ancient sources full a hundred years before the
birth of the ‘Sentimental Journey.’[18]

Sometimes in ancient literature one comes across an
expression which is in the vocabulary of everybody to-day,
and one realises how very ancient some of these popular
aphorisms must be. ‘It is not alle golde that glareth,’ wrote
Chaucer, and the same theme was sung in Provençal by
Amanieu des Escas near a hundred years before. But, like
‘A bird in the hand,’ it is so applicable to the failings to[57]
which mankind is prone, that its origin must surely have been
far beyond even the classics of the old world, back in the dim
ages of man’s history. Common also to all nations must some
at least of these primitive sayings be, for there is a primæval
simplicity about them that knows nothing of race or
civilisation. ‘A soft answer turns away wrath,’ ‘Pride goes
before a fall,’ ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ are not all
these and many others, collected by King Solomon from the
wisdom of the East, as applicable to our everyday life in this
age as they have ever been in the whole history of mankind?[19]
Enough of moralising, however; or else, convinced of the
futility of attempting to assign originality to any man, you
will come to agree with the young lady of fifteen who, priding
herself on the possession of a literary flair, once remarked
to the writer: ‘In fact there is little doubt that Junius never
wrote the letters attributed to him at all!’

[58]

CHAPTER III

BOOKS WHICH FORM THE LIBRARY.

t is one of the tragedies of the book-collector’s
life that he is made aware continually of the
deficiencies of his collection. Every bookseller’s
catalogue that he takes up reveals
these lacunæ; and even after many years
of diligent book-hunting, when he can look
upon his library with no small pride and has come to regard
it as being more or less complete (for his own purposes, that
is), some intimate friend to whom he is displaying his treasures
will ask to see some well-known book, and he will be obliged
to confess that he does not possess a copy. The reason
probably is either that he has collected books upon no
definite system, or that he has lost sight of the many works
which his library should contain, through having confined
himself too rigidly to specialism.

Both practices are bad, though the former is infinitely the
worse. To collect books indiscriminately tends to develop
the dread bibliomania. To specialise in a particular class of
books should be the object of every collector; but to adhere
so rigidly to that one class of literature as to exclude from
our library the great books of the world, is to deprive ourselves[59]
of all the advantages which a library can offer. ‘There are
some books, as Homer, Virgil, Horace, Milton, Shakespeare,
and Scott, which every man should read who has the opportunity;
should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. To
neglect the opportunity of becoming familiar with them, is
deliberately to sacrifice the position in the social scale which
an ordinary education enables its possessor to reach.’[20] What
a number of famous names one can add, without which no
library worthy the name can be complete! We are not all
such sages as that great man Philip Melanchthon, whose
library is said to have consisted of four authors only, namely,
Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, and Ptolemy the geographer. But
then, these are whole libraries in themselves.

Who, beside ourselves, shall decide what we shall read?
‘A man’s reading, to be of any value,’ wrote Professor Blackie,
‘must depend upon his power of association; and that again
depends upon his tendencies, his capacities, his surroundings,
and his opportunities.’ But there are some authors whom the
world has decided are great, whom we cannot possibly afford
to neglect in the course of our literary education. There can
be no doubt as to our decision here; and although it has been
said truly that ‘a lifetime will hardly suffice to know, as they
ought to be known, these great masterpieces of man’s
genius,’[21] yet these great classics should form the nucleus of
our library, and to them we may add the other famous and
approved books of the world as opportunities occur.

It is not without diffidence that I venture to approach
this important question as to what we should read. Perhaps
there is nothing more irritating to the real book-lover than
to be told, usually by some well-meaning person, that he or
she should read this or that. In nine cases out of ten the
book or author recommended is one that we can safely afford
to neglect. It is one of the commonest of human failings to
imagine that a book which pleases us must necessarily please[60]
all others too, and we recommend it blindly to the first friend
we come across, regardless of age, disposition, intellectual
capacity, opportunity, surroundings, or even sex. It never
even occurs to us to consider these matters, these vital qualities
upon which the whole question of like or dislike depends.

‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every
purpose under heaven’; and again, ‘A wise man’s heart
discerneth both time and judgment,’ wrote the Preacher of
Judah. Yet mindful though we be of these ancient words of
wisdom, how rarely do we apply them to our everyday
reading! If we be in the mood for reading we pick up any
book at random; if it please us at the moment, we continue
to read it. If it be distasteful to us, we put it aside
immediately. Possibly we recollect, next time that our eyes
light upon a volume so discarded, that it was once displeasing,
and we never take it up again. So, it may be urged, our mind
exercises the power of selection for us: we can only absorb at
any given time the class of literary food for which our mind
then happens to be hungry.

But the truth is far otherwise. If we take up and read a
book at random, in nine cases out of ten we continue to read
it simply because it entails no mental effort. We do not have
to think of what we are reading; our eyes gallop over
sentence after sentence, and so long as the language is
colloquial and the facts are bald, all is well, and we can go
on and on. It is not only the body that, unchecked, is
inclined to be slothful. Unless we have as complete a control
over our minds as we have over our limbs, it is quite impossible
that our reading shall benefit us to its full extent.

There is another point of view also. ‘Every book that we
take up without a purpose is an opportunity lost of taking
up a book with a purpose.’[22] And this does not mean that
we should always be reading ‘improving’ books, that we
must never read for recreation alone; for, I repeat, ‘there[61]
is a time to every purpose under heaven.’ But it does insist
most emphatically that there should be a rhyme and a reason
for reading any book at any time. There is a time for work
and a time for play in reading no less than in the daily cycle
of our lives. As to what shall constitute recreative reading,
that is a matter which every man must decide for himself. I
will venture to prophesy, however, that, by judicious selection
and thoughtful reading, there will come a time when he will
consider the reading of the great books to constitute the finest
mental recreation in the world.

To return, however, to the great writers, those giants of
whom we have said that it behoves us all to know something
at least. Must we read them all? Let us leave ‘must’ out
of the question; for our lifetime, however long it may be, will
be scarcely sufficient to know and appreciate to the full these
great masters of human thought. Yet at least it can be our
aim ever to feed our minds only upon food of the finest
quality and of a permanent nutritive value. But alas! How
terribly limited are our capacities both as regards time and
opportunity! How narrow the bounds which confine our
reading abilities! Though a list of the great writers contain
all the constituents of an Epicurean feast, yet to most of us
it resembles the menu of a Gargantuan banquet.

As to the classics of the old world, surely, it may be urged,
in such an essentially practical age we can afford to neglect
books so hopelessly out of date? Yet there can be no greater
mistake than to imagine that the wisdom of the old world
can ever be out of date, for it is the wisdom that has created
the civilisation of the newer world. Countless generations of
men may pass away and be utterly forgotten, but the principles
of morality inherent in man’s nature will endure for ever.
And it is these great principles of all that is good and noble
in our nature that is brought out and developed insensibly by
the study of the classics in our youth. Moreover they are
books that have been accepted by all the nations of Europe
as containing the bases of human thought. Something at[62]
least we should all know of these great writers common to all
civilised nations.

To most of us, however, there is an insurmountable barrier
surrounding them, the matter of language. The knowledge
of Greek and Latin that we acquired at school has become
painfully rusty. Is it worth while slogging away laboriously
with grammar and dictionary at the expense of valuable time
which might otherwise be devoted to the more modern classics
in our own tongue? Candidly, it is not. If we have retained
sufficient of our Greek and Latin to read it at sight with but
an occasional reference to the dictionary well and good; but
otherwise it is a painful waste of time. Hamerton recommends
that we read the ancients with the help of literal
translations beside the original, in which way, he says, we
‘may attain a closer acquaintance with ancient literature
than would be possible by translation alone.’ But to many,
an English version must be the only door by which they may
enter Attica and Rome.

After all, it is for each one of us to decide how widely our
time and opportunities shall permit us to wander on the
slopes of Mount Parnassus. ‘The best time-savers are the
love of soundness in all we learn to do, and a cheerful
acceptance of inevitable limitations.’[23] Yet it is better to have
wandered on the lowermost slopes of the mountain than never
to have entered ancient Greece at all.

Who nowadays, outside the universities, reads these ancient
classics? Where will you find a business man of thirty years
of age whose delight in his leisure time is the reading of
Horace or Homer? Here and there, perhaps, you may come
across a man of classical education who still retains the love
of ancient Greece and Rome, instilled into him in his youth,
sufficiently to influence the course of his reading; but he is a
rarity indeed. Among the many thousands of young men
employed in business in the great cities, most of whom have[63]
learnt something at least of the classics in their youth, scarcely
will you find one who will confess to having time for such
literature. Yet all these thousands read many books each
year, and can always find time to devour the latest popular
novel.

It is chiefly a question of recreation versus education. Tired
and jaded with the day’s business, the young man of to-day
has little inclination to devote his leisure time to study. Light
frothy literature removes his thoughts from worldly cares, and
by a complete change of subject stimulates a mind that has
been enervated by concentration for hours on one particular
theme. No effort is required, and, more important still,
it does not make one think.

For daily reading in the train or over meals, with this
purpose always in view, so far so good. But what of the many
hours of leisure in every man’s life, when no mental recreation
is needed? What does the average man read then? It must
be confessed that in nine cases out of ten his literature remains
precisely the same. Doubtless the reason is simply because,
having always been accustomed to reading the same kind
of books, he knows no other sort. Mention Shakespeare,
Milton, Shelley, and he stares at you aghast. ‘Good gracious,’
he exclaims, ‘I’m not going to read stuff like that; I should
get the hump for a week; give me something cheerful.’ And
he picks up ‘The Bauble,’ by Mrs. Risquet Trashe.

And he is quite right. To anyone whose literature has
consisted for years of nothing but novels of the circulating
library type, a sudden application to the great writers would
indeed be depressing. Is it necessary, however, or indeed
wise, that any man’s mental pabulum should consist entirely
of novels? Nothing is further from my mind than to decry
the taste for novel-reading; for, wisely employed, novels can
become one of the joys of life. One can but agree with
Miss Austen when she inveighs, in ‘Northanger Abbey,’
against those who belittle the productions of the novelist.
But would she have been so emphatic had she lived to witness[64]
the printing-presses spouting forth that frothy flood which
effervesces round the more serious writings of to-day? Would
that every novel we take up had the delightful ‘genius, wit,
and taste’ of Jane Austen to recommend it. How few and
far between are the really good novels that we read!

There can be no finer recreation for a tired mind than a
good novel. There is, however, one habit of reading which
has become almost a social evil; and that is the habit of
reading newspapers which many indulge in, morning, noon,
and night. It is difficult to imagine anything more calculated
to destroy consecutive and considered thought than the
enormous variety of inconsequential topics that assails one
every time one opens a newspaper. The mind becomes
completely fuddled with the heterogeneous patchwork of
entirely useless information. The only method I have
discovered by which one can acquire the important news and
yet retain the serenity of one’s mind is that of having such
news only as she knows will be of use read out by one’s wife
at breakfast. And this does not mean that the mental
discomforts of the newspaper are relegated to one’s better-half,
for women are usually interested in the smaller details
of everyday life.

No wonder that a large number of ‘city men’ live out their
lives without ever opening a book that is worth reading
meditatively; for newspaper-reading in course of time must
completely undermine one’s mental stability. After a few
years, a book that is not composed of headlines, short chapters,
small paragraphs and ejaculatory sentences, is unreadable
without mental effort. So that long before he is middle-aged
the city man has acquired the habit of ‘glancing at’ a news-sheet
or magazine whenever he has nothing to do for a few
minutes: a kind of reading that is about as advantageous to
the mind as that which we indulge in when fingering the
antique periodicals in the dentist’s waiting-room. In later
years he may or he may not overcome the repugnance he has
acquired to anything deep or ‘solid’ (by which he generally[65]
means ‘unparagraphed’): but I venture to think that,
having once taken the plunge, there must be moments when
he marvels at his foolishness in not having entered, years
before, the City of the golden streets.

Perhaps it is unwise to use the word ‘education’ in
speaking of the benefits to be derived from reading the great
books, for to many people the term is synonymous with
‘school,’ where one is obliged frequently to do things against
one’s will. Good books, that is the books that ‘live,’ are
no mere education, they are steps up the path of civilisation
itself. They are just as necessary for the advancement of
knowledge as are the letters and numerals which we learnt
at school. The greatest books of the world do not teach us;
they help us to teach ourselves, a very different matter. ‘They
are masters who instruct us without rod or ferule,’ wrote an
early book-lover[24]; ‘if you approach them they are not asleep;
if you inquire of them they do not withdraw themselves; they
never chide when you make mistakes; they never laugh
if you are ignorant.’ And the books which would be available
to him would be chiefly the works of the Early Fathers,
professedly books of moral instruction. But the books of our
library ‘are so many faithful and serviceable friends, gently
teaching us everything through their persuasive and wise
experience.’[25]

And that is precisely the point. Good books do not instruct
us so much as they persuade us; so that we come to be of the
same mind as the great man who had deliberated and debated
the matter so thoroughly for us. Perchance we disagree and
take a different standpoint. Then can one almost see the
spirit of the sage chuckling with delight at having found
someone with whom to cross swords. ‘I have made him
think, I have made him think,’ he repeats gleefully; and,
sure of his point, he delights in having held our attention so
intently as to cause us to debate the issue with ourselves.

[66]
It were foolish, however, to suppose that all the great books
of the world are at once suitable to every reader. Time, above
all other considerations, decides what we shall read; and the
book which makes its greatest impression upon one man at
thirty will fail to appeal to his neighbour till he be fifty or
more. ‘A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot
endure in his age,’ says Benedick, and the converse is equally
true. What a mistaken notion it is that puts into the hands
of boys such classics as ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘Don
Quixote’; for they are books which a knowledge of the
world and of human nature alone can enable us to appreciate
to the full. Their very foundations are built upon the rock
of experience, every page exhibits the thoughts and deeds of
men. No wonder that nine boys out of ten grow up with a
dislike of Bunyan and all his works, and a contempt for the
adventures of the immortal Don. Generally, however, all
recollection of Quixote, except that he had a rotten old horse
and charged some windmills, has (mercifully) disappeared
long before the reader has attained his eighteenth year.

In later life, perhaps, we take up these books again, and are
surprised to find that they have completely changed. There
is hardly an incident in them that we remember, and we
marvel how such and such a glorious passage could possibly
have escaped us before. Our book-hunter’s experience must
have been that of many others. Long after his school-days
were ended he took up, for the first time, ‘The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer.’ How wistfully he thought of the enjoyment
that would have been his when at school, had but some kind
chance put into his hands this and similar books in which
boys, and real human boys, played the principal parts, not
strange outlandish men, the like of whom he had never met.

This unwise reading, this plunging, as it were, in medias res,
is, I am inclined to think, the reason why to so many men the
library of great authors is for ever locked. After a lengthy
course of ‘light’ reading, they take up, all at once, some such
work as ‘Bacon’s Essays’ or the ‘Paradise Lost,’ determined[67]
‘to give the classics a chance.’ They wade conscientiously
through a good many pages, and then retire beaten, simply
because they have failed to recognise that in reading, as in
every other business, profession, craft, or pursuit, practice
makes perfect. Who is there, outside Olympus, that can
master any of these at sight? It is only by a continuous and
continual course of reading that one comes at length to
appreciate these great masters. ‘The proper appreciation of
the great books of the world is the reward of lifelong study.
You must work up to them, and unconsciously you will
become trained to find great qualities in what the world has
decided is great.’[26]

‘That’s all very well,’ says the newspaper-reader, taking
the word ‘study’ in its first dictionary sense; ‘but I, for one,
haven’t got time—or inclination—for this lifelong application.’
And yet, I reply, you have both time and inclination to apply
yourself assiduously to newspapers, magazines, and suchlike
reading. If you read at all, why not read good healthy stuff,
which will be of permanent use to you in your journey through
the world? Why devour garbage when rich meats are
constantly about you? ‘To stuff our minds with what is
simply trivial, simply curious, or that which at best has but a
low nutritive power, this is to close our minds to what is solid
and enlarging and spiritually sustaining.‘[27] Look at it which
way you will, the man who purposely neglects the great books
deliberately closes the channels of knowledge flowing to his
brain, sentences himself to intellectual exile, bolts and bars
in his own face the only door which can lead him into the
society of the wisest and greatest men this world has known.

And what are the great books of the world? They are
those which, from their native excellences, have been approved
by generations of wise men as beneficial for mankind—not
for their generation alone. Times change and manners with
them, but countless centuries are powerless to effect the[68]
slightest change in man’s essence. Do not the characters
in the oldest book in the world still live in our everyday life,
and are not they possessed of the very thoughts and reasonings
that are our portion to-day? Tastes may change vastly in
even a short period, but it is only fashion, the constant craving
for something new:—

But the books which by common consent have been assigned
places in the library of the immortals can never be out of
fashion: for they contain the essences of human nature.

How then shall we start to make acquaintance with these
classics? With what books shall we begin, with what
continue? These are questions which it is impossible to
answer without a knowledge of those qualities so necessary
in recommending books. But at least it is possible to indicate
the general line to be followed. It would be foolish, for
example, for the man whose reading hitherto has consisted
entirely of the modern novels of a circulating library, to turn
at once to the Paradise Lost, Bacon’s Essays, or the poems
of Wordsworth. He would probably acquire a distaste for
good literature which might never be overcome.

It is like everything else that counts: we set the greatest
store by those things that we have come by through difficulties.
The longer the journey and the more beautiful the scenes we
pass through, the greater our pleasure and subsequent recollection
of it. Let us begin our systematic reading by turning
at first to those books which we shall appreciate immediately.
Have novels been our reading hitherto? Then let us turn at
once to some of the greater novelists, both living and dead.
Here the field is wide, and we may quickly find writers to our
taste. Thus we shall gradually work up to some name or
names in the list of the immortals. In the same way we shall
approach, step by step, the essayists, the moralists, the
dramatists and (lastly) the poets.

It cannot be emphasised too strongly that Time above all[69]
other considerations decides what we shall read. Moreover,
there are passages in many of the greatest writers that appeal
to a man before he has really arrived at the time of their
understanding. So that, reading some such passage (e.g.
Addison’s description of the Widows’ Club in the
‘Spectator’) as this, and finding the remainder not to his
taste, he concludes that he has discovered the kernel and that
the rest can be cast aside. Practice alone makes perfect:
macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra.

With regard to editions, it were needless to specify them;
the great books of the world are reprinted and re-edited every
few years. But our editions should be good ones. ‘A good
edition should be a complete edition, ungarbled and
unabridged.’[28] Perchance you may prefer to have them, if
it be possible, in the original editions? If so, you will be
wise in your generation, but your purse will need to be a long
one indeed.

Remember that the first edition is not necessarily the best.
It may be, but in the great majority of cases it is not. In
addition to the inevitable clerical mistakes and printer’s errors
which are almost always corrected in the second and
subsequent editions, the author or editor frequently
interpolates matter which the publication de ipso has brought
to his notice by reviews or correspondence. This is notably
the case in large and important works. ‘Scott’s Last
Expedition,’ published in two large octavo volumes in 1914,
rapidly passed through five editions the same year, corrections
being incorporated in each successive edition (thereby
distinguishing them from mere ‘impressions’); so that the
fifth edition remains the best, being the most correct. On
the other hand, in the second edition an author sometimes
omits passages or makes drastic emendations from prudential
reasons. Then it is that the first edition is to be sought for
in preference to all others, for this alone contains the author’s[70]
true opinions on certain subjects. Such instances the book-lover
gradually learns in his journey through the world of
books.

But I repeat that, apart from this question of first or later
issue, our editions should be good ones. Good editions are
not merely luxuries. The better the type and paper, the
greater our ease in reading, and—most important of all—the
consequent safeguarding of our eyesight.

It is not only type and paper, however, that constitute a
good edition. In addition to these requisites it must contain
the recognised text complete, it must be in a seemly and
convenient shape, neither extravagant nor blatant, and it
must not contain a long list of errata. Of the many qualities
that go to make up a good edition, after paper and print,
these are perhaps the most important. But there is another
immediate consideration: shall it have notes? And this
raises such a momentous point that I almost hesitate to
approach it. The answer must be qualified. Provided always
that the edition has been superintended (I use the word
advisedly) by a recognised scholar, and that the notes are
few, short, and concise, it is well. But who has not suffered
under the tedious and tiresome verbosity of editors? The
writer possesses an edition of Pope in which page after page
contains two lines of the poet and thirty-four lines of editor.
Reed’s Shakespeare (1813) frequently contains a solitary line
of text with forty of notes. Fortunately, however, such things
are now numbered with the past.

As to our editions of the Greek and Latin Classics, whether
we can read them in the original tongue or whether we must
have recourse to translations, we have already debated. But
without wishing to discourage the book-lover in any possible
way from making (or renewing, as the case may be)
acquaintance with these great writers, it must be borne in
mind that few indeed are the translations from any language
that are wholly in the spirit of the original. In recommending
the following translations of some of the greater world-classics,[71]
literary and animate qualities have been had in view no less
than scholarly translation.

Aeschylus and Sophocles have been admirably rendered in
English verse by Mr. E. D. A. Morshead. Of the first, ‘The
House of Atreus’ (being the ‘Agamemnon,’ ‘Libation-Bearers,’
and ‘Furies’) was first published by him in 1881,
an octavo volume which was reprinted in 1890 and 1901.
‘The Suppliant Maidens,’ ‘The Persians,’ ‘The Seven
against Thebes,’ and ‘Prometheus Bound’ were collected
in one octavo volume in 1908. His version of Sophocles’
‘Oedipus the King’ was published in 1885, while the ‘Ajax’
and ‘Electra’ were printed in prose, 1895.

The Plays of Aristophanes are, perhaps, best known to
English readers by Hookham Frere’s excellent translations.
His first volume, containing the ‘Acharnians,’ the ‘Knights,’
and the ‘Birds,’ was originally printed at Malta in 1839, in
which year a similar quarto volume containing the ‘Frogs’
was also issued. But there are several later editions of both
these volumes, and almost any bookseller can provide one. In
addition to these plays, the ‘Clouds’ and the ‘Wasps’ were
included in Thomas Mitchell’s version first published in two
octavo volumes dated 1820 and 1822. But we may have a
complete set of the eleven plays which have come down to us,
in Mr. B. B. Rogers’ scholarly translation in verse. This
beautiful edition in eleven small quarto volumes was published
by Messrs. George Bell and Sons between 1902 and 1916,
and has the Greek and English on opposite pages. For the
plays of Euripides we must turn to the metrical versions of
Professor Gilbert Murray, published by Mr. George Allen
between 1905 and 1915. Perhaps it is not too much to say
that this great scholar-poet has done more than any other to
bring the Greeks of old before those to whom a classical
education has been denied.

Needless to say, the translation into English of the
immortal Homeric cycle has tempted many pens. Among
the best known versions are those of Pope, Chapman, and[72]
Cowper. But this matter has been so thoroughly debated
by Mr. Frederic Harrison in his delightful volume ‘The
Choice of Books,’ that I will refrain from poaching upon his
preserve, and will content myself by remarking that the
recommendations of this excellent judge are the ‘Iliad’ of
Lord Derby and the ‘Odyssey’ of Philip Worsley. This
last is a beautiful translation in the Spenserian stanza, of
which a second edition appeared in 1868, in two octavo
volumes. But if you are not already acquainted with Mr.
Harrison’s work you will do well to obtain it, and to read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest all that he has to say therein
upon ‘The Poets of the Old World.’

With regard to the Latin classics, if we are unacquainted
with the language there is greater difficulty; for it is next to
impossible to render in English the light and vivacious lilt
of the Italian poets. Our translations may be fine, scholarly,
dignified and the rest of it, but they bear little semblance to
the originals. Dryden’s version of the ‘Aeneid’ may be
read, not as a translation but as an epic in the English of a
great poet; and to those who are masters of sufficient Latin
to explore the ancients by the help of commentaries,
Conington’s translation will be of assistance. Horace is
utterly untranslatable, and prose translations afford little clue
to the music of his songs.

Perhaps it goes without saying that in reading these ancient
classics we shall necessarily lose much of their sentiment and
allusion unless our memory has retained that atmosphere of
classic times which we obtained by constant intercourse with
these ancients during our years at school. We may refresh
our memory, however, and at the same time glean the most
modern thought upon those times, by having recourse to
certain useful volumes, companions to our study of these
classic writers.

J. A. St. John’s ‘Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece,’
three octavo volumes which appeared in 1842, is a perfect
encyclopædia in itself. Of Mr. Leonard Whibley’s ‘Com[73]panion
to Greek Studies’ a third edition, with more than
200 illustrations and maps, was published by the Cambridge
University Press in 1916. The fellow volume is by Sir
J. E. Sandys, and is entitled ‘A Companion to Latin Studies.’
The second edition, very fully illustrated, appeared in 1913—a
large octavo also published at a guinea by the same press.
Professor Mahaffy’s ‘Social Life in Greece from Homer to
Menander’ has gone through a number of editions. For the
theatre of the Greeks we must turn to ‘The Attic Theatre’
by A. E. Haigh. The third edition, edited by Mr. A. W.
Pickard-Cambridge, was issued by the Clarendon Press, 1907.
It is the standard work upon this subject; and therein one
can find all about everything pertaining to the Greek theatre
and the actual presentation of the play. A useful little guide
to the study of ancient Greece and Italy is Dr. J. B. Mayer’s
‘Guide to the Choice of Classical Books,’ a small octavo of
which a third edition appeared in 1885. In 1896 a ‘new
supplement’ was published, and this contains fifty pages of
‘Helps to the Study of Ancient Authors’—the best books
which had appeared up to 1896 on the Art, Coins, Law,
History, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Domestic Life,
Amusements, and almost every aspect of life in ancient Rome
and Athens. Copies of this invaluable reference book are
probably in most of the public libraries throughout the
kingdom.

With regard to some of the other great world-classics,
Boccaccio has been attempted by many translators, none of
whom can be said to have succeeded, and I forbear to
recommend any English version. He is straightforward and
not difficult to read in the original, and it is well worth
learning sufficient Italian to enable one to explore his rich
charm for oneself.

As to Calderon, eight of his plays have been rendered in
English by that prince of translators Edward Fitzgerald,
though his version is not, nor did he pretend it to be, a close
translation. Yet it is more in the spirit of the dramatist than[74]
one would deem possible in an English version of a Spanish
author. Six of these plays were first published by Fitzgerald
in 1853, and this volume was reprinted in the series known
as ‘The King’s Classics’ in 1903. The complete set of eight
may be obtained in one small octavo volume, in the beautiful
‘Eversley’ series published by Macmillan. But you may
read seventeen of Calderon’s plays, in the French of Damas
Hinard, in the ‘Chef d’œuvre du Théâtre Espagnol,’ 1841-3,
which also includes the works of Lope de Vega: in all five
small octavo volumes—if you are so lucky as to find them.

With regard to Don Quixote, as a boy our book-hunter
made more than one attempt to explore ‘the ingenious
gentleman’ but always gave it up after proceeding less than
half-way through the first volume. It was all so dry and
outlandish, and the version he possessed was written in such
stilted language. There were no notes to his edition, and
whole passages and allusions were beyond his comprehension.
Looking back now I more than suspect that they were beyond
the comprehension of the translator as well. ‘Rocinante,’
spelt ‘Rosinante,’ he thought was rather a pretty name for
the Don’s charger; but he saw no humour in it until he
discovered, many years later, that rocin means a ‘cart-horse’
and ante, ‘previously.’ Nor could he see anything amusing
in the landlord’s boast that he too had been a knight-errant
in his time, roaming the Isles of Riaran in quest of adventures—until
he learnt that this was a city slum, the resort of
thieves and cut-throats. The whole work abounds with local
and topical allusions, and it is essential that our edition be
well supplied with notes. There is one which fulfils this
condition and in addition provides a most scholarly text, more
closely approaching the original than any other which has
appeared hitherto. This is the masterly translation of John
Ormsby, which appeared in four octavo volumes in 1885. It
contains a valuable history of the work, together with a life
of Cervantes, and the appendices to the last volume contain
a bibliography of the immortal book.

[75]
Dante must be read in the original tongue. There is a
lofty and spiritual grandeur in the language of the three great
epics which one can never hope to realise in reading translations,
be they never so good. Nevertheless those versions
which are most in favour among students are of considerable
value as commentaries, and are of great assistance in reading
the original. One cannot do better at the outset of one’s
acquaintance with the great poet than to procure Dr. J. A.
Carlyle’s excellent version of the ‘Inferno.’ A third edition
was published in 1882. It has explanatory notes and a prose
translation, in measured, dignified language, above the text
of the original; forming in all respects a handy and convenient
volume. Dr. A. J. Butler’s versions of the ‘Purgatory’ and
‘Paradise’ were issued, in octavo, in 1880 and 1885
respectively. Aids to the study of Dante are legion. The
fourth edition of Professor J. Addington Symond’s
‘Introduction to the Study of Dante’ appeared in 1899;
whilst Lord Vernon’s ‘Readings in Dante,’ six octavo
volumes, is said to have occupied that great scholar for more
than twenty-five years of his life.

Goethe is known to English readers chiefly by the immortal
Faust; and this work alone has engaged the attention of
numerous scholars. A volume containing seven of Goethe’s
plays in English was published in Bohn’s Standard Library
in 1879. It included Sir Walter Scott’s version of ‘Goetz
von Berlichingen,’ the remainder being translated by Miss
Swanwick and E. A. Bowring. Miss Swanwick’s ‘Faust’ is
well known and has often been reprinted; a beautiful edition
illustrated by Mr. Gilbert James appeared in 1906. There is
a version, however, which stands far above the rest, a version
which the writer for his part has always considered to rank
with the greatest translations. This is the ‘Faust’ of
Bayard Taylor, which indeed may be read as a poem in itself.
But then Taylor had advantages possessed by few translators.
An American by birth, his mother was a German, and he
spent a part of his life in Germany. From his birth he was[76]
bilinguous; and added to this linguistic advantage were his
profound scholarship and poetic gift. There are numerous
editions of his work, but only one—so far as I am aware, in
this country at least—worthy of its great merit, namely, that
which appeared in two octavo volumes in 1871. It is an
edition somewhat hard to obtain.

For Schiller’s dramatic works we must have recourse to
Coleridge, who has given us versions of both parts of the
‘Wallenstein’ and ‘William Tell.’ The Poems and Ballads
were rendered in English by Sir E. Bulwer Lytton (Lord
Lytton): two volumes, 1844. Heine’s short four-line verses
do not lend themselves to translating and though many have
attempted it, the results are almost always a jingle, often
approaching doggerel. The prose works have recently been
translated by Mr. C. G. Leland, and the ‘Atta Troll’ by
Miss Armour, both forming part of a twelve volume edition
published between 1892 and 1905.

The mention of Rabelais conjures up one of those
extremely rare instances where a translation constitutes as
great a classic as the original work. Whether it was the
difficulty of translation, or the despair of eclipsing so notable
a success as had been achieved by their predecessor, that
deterred other scholars from making the attempt, we know
not; but certain it is that the version put forth by Sir Thomas
Urquhart in 1653 has remained, and seems likely to remain,
the standard representation of the fantastic ‘Doctor in
Physick’ in this language. Urquhart, that polished and
gifted Scottish d’Artagnan, translated the first three books
only; the last two were added by Motteux, a French refugee,
in 1694. Urquhart’s work, ‘precise, elegant, and very
faithful,’ comes as near perfection as any translation can hope
to be. Motteux’s rendering was revised by Ozell; but
unfortunately it falls far short of the version of Sir Thomas,
who, with a longer life, might perhaps have undertaken these
last two books as well.

Of these five books of Master Francis Rabelais thus[77]
english’d, there have been, of course, numerous editions.
Our book-hunter prefers that which appeared in three quarto
volumes in 1904, with photogravure illustrations by M. Louis
Chalon. Both from a scholarly and a bibliographical standpoint
it is all that can be desired, and one can have a copy
for less than a pound.

Why is it that we all have some acquaintance at least with
the Arabian Nights? What have these purely Eastern tales
to do with us? Both questions may be answered at once.
It is because they contain the very essence of oriental thought,
manners, customs, habits, speech, and deeds: because we can
learn from them more of the everyday life of the orient, both
of to-day and of a thousand years ago, than an entire library
of travels can teach us. Surely it is more than mere curiosity
that urges us to know something at least of the manner in
which so many millions of our fellow-beings live.

Who has not read at least some of these glorious tales?
Who has not heard of Sinbad or the Roc, of Scheherazade or
of Haroun al Raschid? Truly they are

Wordsworth himself came early under their spell. He tells
how as a young child

And so he makes a covenant ‘with one not richer than
myself’ that each should save up until their joint savings
were sufficient to purchase the complete work. But alas!

There must be few books in the world from which we may
learn so much while being so rapturously entertained.[78]
Burton’s edition is perhaps the best known to English
readers, though Lane’s version is much to be preferred. Of
the latter there are many editions.[29]

How much has been written on the Art of Reading, and
what scanty knowledge of that art have the most industrious
of readers! Outside the Universities, reading is apt nowadays
to be looked upon as a light form of recreation, generally to
be indulged in on a rainy day. ‘There’s nothing to do but
sit indoors and read,’ one frequently hears remarked in
country houses when the weather is too inclement to permit
of motoring. Novel-reading has indeed become a part of our
fashionable life.

How often, too, does one come across readers of both sexes
who possess, seemingly, a wide knowledge of books, even of
the great books of the world. Yet in nine cases out of ten
such knowledge is of the most superficial kind, acquired by
‘dipping into’ such and such an author to ascertain whether
he be to his or her taste. Frankly, the great author is almost
invariably not to the modern reader’s taste; but the scanty
knowledge acquired by perusing the first chapter, the
headings of the remaining chapters, and the last chapter,
enables the reader (save the mark!) to discourse at large on
this particular writer among his own coterie. Perchance one
of his friends has similarly insulted the great author, and they
are enabled to discuss the book for nearly a minute by the[79]
clock, each thinking the other a devilish well-read fellow.
Truly it has been said that ‘just as profligacy is easy within
the strict limits of the law, a boundless knowledge of books
may be found with a narrow education.’[30]

More rarely one comes across a man who, being the
fortunate possessor of a truly wonderful memory, is enabled
to retain the bulk of the information which he has acquired
by wide reading. There is a story told of a certain don at
one of our older universities who, being possessed of an
insatiable thirst for knowledge coupled with an excellent
memory and an inexhaustible capacity for work, passed as a
well-read if not a very learned man. There seemed to be
few topics upon which he could not discourse on equal terms
even with those who had made that subject their own.

Now it happened that there were two young Fellows at the
same college who, wearied of his constant superiority in
conversation, determined to take Brown (for such was his
name) ‘down a peg or two.’ So each night at dinner in hall
they skilfully turned the conversation to unusual topics,
hoping to light upon some chink in the redoubtable Brown’s
intellectual armour. Once they tried him on the rarer British
hemipterous homoptera, but soon discovered that he was a
very fair entomologist. Next evening the conversation veered
to ancient Scandinavian burial rites, but here again he could
give them points. The Byzantine coinage of Cyprus was, of
course, well known to him while he had himself worked on
the oolitic foraminifera of the blue marl at Biarritz. His
experiments on the red colouring matter of drosera rotundifolia
had formed the subject of a monograph, and he was
particularly interested in the hagiological folk-lore of Lower
Brittany.

It seemed almost hopeless. Try as they would they could
find no subject with which he was unacquainted. Every night
some fresh outlandish topic was introduced. Brown looked[80]
very bored, and proceeded to tell them all there was to be
said upon the subject. But one night a casual remark put
them on the right track. Someone happened to ask Brown
a question about Indian music. He answered shortly, and
remarked that it was a subject upon which a good deal of
work was yet to be done. The conspirators looked across the
table at each other, left the common-room early, and retired
to Jones’s rooms.

‘Did you notice?’ said Jones.

‘Yes,’ said Smith; ‘he evidently doesn’t know much about
oriental music.’

‘But he will by to-morrow,’ replied the astute Jones. ‘As
soon as ever he gets to his rooms to-night, he’ll read up
everything he possibly can on Indian music, and he’ll continue
in the Library to-morrow. By dinner-time he’ll be stuffed
full of tom-toms and shawms and dulcimers, or whatever they
play in India.’

‘We must ride him off,’ said Smith. ‘How about Chinese
music? He won’t know anything about that.’

This seemed such a promising topic that they got out the
encyclopædia and found to their joy that there was quite a
lengthy and learned disquisition on the subject. So they read
it again and again, even learning the more abstruse sentences
by heart. Next day they were observed to chuckle whenever
they caught each other’s eye, and at lunch they were unusually
cheerful and more than ordinarily attentive to the unsuspecting
Brown.

That night at dinner they could hardly restrain their
impatience, and Smith introduced the topic, rather clumsily,
as soon as the fish appeared. Brown stared at them and said
nothing. Jones, plucking up courage, presently asked him a
question about the dominant fifth of the scale used by the
natives of Quang-Tung. He answered evasively. They
could hardly conceal their delight, and their voices rose so
that presently the whole table was looking at them. At some
of their recondite utterances Brown fairly winced, and it soon[81]
became evident to all what was afoot. Upstairs in the
common-room they pursued their unhappy victim. The
senior tutor and the dean, secretly enjoying the fun, stood
near. At last, flushed with victory, Jones proceeded to
administer the coup de grâce.

‘You really ought to read something about Chinese music,
Brown, it’s a most interesting topic, and I’m sure you’d like
to be able to talk about it. There are quite a number of good
books on the subject. For a start you couldn’t do better
than study the article in the “Encyclopædia Academica.”
It’s clear and concise, evidently written by a man who knows
what he’s talking about.’

‘I have read it,’ said Brown patiently; ‘in fact I—er—wrote
it, but I’m afraid it’s quite out of date now.’

We are not all the lucky possessors of such a capacity for
acquiring knowledge. Wide reading may be good from an
educational point of view, but unless we are able to assimilate
what we read better a thousand times to restrict our reading.
Gibbon’s advice is bad, for it indicates merely the system he
employed in compiling his monumental work. ‘We ought
not,’ he remarks, ‘to attend to the order of our books so
much as (to the order) of our thoughts.’ So, in the midst of
Homer he would skip to Longinus; a passage in Longinus
would send him to Pliny, and so on. General reading upon
this plan, with no idea of collection in view, would in time
reduce most of us to idiocy.

Let our reading be, above all things, well ordered and
systematic. Let us imitate Ancillon rather than Gibbon.
Ancillon never read a book throughout without reading in
his progress many others of an exegetic nature; so that ‘his
library table was always covered with a number of books for
the most part open.’[31] An excellent habit, provided that we
can resist the temptation to be side-tracked. The list of
books by this industrious student, however, shows by their[82]
curious variety that he at least was not sufficiently strong-minded
to resist wandering, during the compilation of his
historical works, in the byways of literature.

If we read the good solid books at all, let us at least read
them with the aim of acquiring the maximum amount of
information they afford. To read sketchily and diversely is
not only a most painful waste of time, but it abuses our brains.
Suppose now that our bookman has decided to ‘read up’
the French Revolution, a subject to which we all turn at some
period of our lives. He has been led thereto, perhaps, by
having lighted upon a translation of someone’s memoirs, the
recollections of some insignificant valet-de-chambre or
dissolute curé (for such memoirs abound), more interesting by
reason of its piquancy than its historical accuracy. He reads
of persons and events that he recollects vaguely to have heard
of before, and so he goes on and on.

At the end, he has an ambiguous and temporary knowledge
of names and events. He has become acquainted with certain
facts that he may possibly remember; such as that the name
of the French King was Louis and that his Queen was Marie
Antoinette, that they tried to escape and got as far as
Varennes (wherever that may be), but were brought back and
executed; that there were various politicians named Mirabeau,
Danton, Robespierre, Desmoulins, and a curious party called
the Girondins, et cetera. As to the causes which led up to
the Revolution, the condition of the country and people, the
ministry of Turgot, the characters of the King and Queen,
Necker’s policy, the Abbé Siéyès, the Tennis Court, the
composition of the Assembly, and the host of essential facts,
his knowledge is precisely nil. The terms Right Centre,
Extreme Left, the Jacobins, the White Terror, Assignats,
Hébertists and Dantonists, the Montagnards, the Old
Cordelier, are so much ‘Hebrew-Greek’ to him. At the end
of six months he will not be at all sure whether it was
Louis xiv., xv., or xvi. who was beheaded.

Surely his reading of these dubious memoirs has been a[83]
most mistaken course and a lamentable waste of time? He
has gained nothing that has benefited him intellectually, and
he has loaded his mind with an indigestible hotch-potch of
unclassified information. How then should he have approached
the subject? Obviously he should have begun at the
threshold, or rather at the outer gate. To plunge straight
away into Louis Blanc’s twelve volumes or Lamartine’s
‘History of the Girondins’ would be as great a mistake as
the reading of the unprofitable memoirs. A good beginning
is half done. So, having prepared the way by a short study
of the economic condition of France immediately prior to the
Revolution, that he may readily understand the causes of that
event, let our reader begin with some elementary school
text-book which will give him a short and concise view of
the Revolution as a whole. Having laid the foundations he
will confine himself at the outset to works in his own tongue;
choosing his literature for each succeeding phase of the
Revolution in turn. But until he has obtained a thorough
groundwork and has acquired sufficient knowledge to enable
him to explore the more famous works in French, it were
profitless to devour the scraps afforded by dubious memoir
writers.

If we read three books consecutively on any one subject,
we know not merely three times as much as if we had read
one only, but thirty times. And our knowledge of the subject
will not be vague, inaccurate and fleeting, but it will be
concise, accurate and permanent. To acquire a correct and
lasting knowledge of any subject, whether it be an event or
an epoch of history, a science or an art or craft, it is essential
that we read consecutively and comparatively as many books
upon that subject as our opportunities and time allow. It
should also be borne in mind that if we are content to read
one volume only, it is quite possible that we may chance upon
an author who is inaccurate or biased, or whose work does
not represent the latest stage of our knowledge upon that
subject.

[84]

CHAPTER IV

CHIVALRY AND ROMANCE

nce upon a time, long long before the
Venerable Bede had completed that famous
last chapter in his cell at Jarrow, there lived
in the ancient capital of Sampsiceramus, a
holy man named Heliodorus. Now in his
youth Heliodorus (as is not uncommon with
the young) had turned his thoughts to worldly things; and
being of a romantic nature, wearied by the eternal sameness
of the books available to him, had conceived the extraordinary
notion of writing an untrue book, a book that should never
instruct or point a moral or show you where you are wrong,
but should be all joyousness and enchantment. Possessed
with this great idea, timidly yet sure of himself, he set to work.

The very first thing he did was sufficiently startling for
those days. Instead of selecting some great man for his
central figure and putting his dialogue into the mouths of
learned men, fathers of the church, philosophers, orators, or
famous poets, he chose deliberately a young and handsome
man of no particular learning, and—a woman! It was[85]
unheard of! A book, a voluminous roll closely written,
containing nothing but the adventures of a pair of lovers!
Monstrous! Yet it was done at last, and the roll, finding
favour in the eyes of a bosom friend, was quickly passed from
hand to hand. All were entranced by it. Here was a book
that had characters one could understand, for whom one could
even feel affection. The loves of dashing young Theagenes
and his dear Chariclea found an echo in many a youthful
breast.

Meanwhile Heliodorus disappears from view, and for many
years we hear nothing of him until suddenly he reappears as
a bishop in Thessaly! Now comes the sequel to his audacious
design, but for which it is doubtful if we should ever have
heard of him. A synod was convened, and Heliodorus was
condemned because in his youth he had written a novel. He
was given his choice between bishopric and book, to retain
the one he must destroy the other by word as well as by deed.

At first sight the choice appears not difficult to make, for
although so laical and original a work had proved to be
popular, yet such popularity was hardly of a nature to appeal
to so devout a Christian as one who had already attained
episcopal rank. But to Heliodorus his work (which may well
have been the employment of some years) stood for all that
he held most dear. It was his conception of the ideal in
worldly—as opposed to spiritual—life. Less austere, perhaps,
than many of the fathers of the early Church whose works
had seemed so tedious to him in his youth, his devoutness
was tempered largely with a charity and forgiveness that
were not unworthy of his creed. It was impossible to deny
those principles of chivalric virtue and chastity which his novel
preached, so he chose to stand by his book rather than by his
benefice, and quitted Thessaly.

So runs the pleasing tale of Nicephorus. But alas! the
relentless voice of modern research will have it that the real
author was not the bishop at all, but a Sophist who lived in
the third century of our era. Be it as it may, I for my part[86]
shall go on believing the old romantic tale until a better one
is invented for the Sophist.

The work itself is called ‘Ten Books of Aethiopian
History,’ for the first and last scenes are laid in Egypt, but
it is better known by the name of its hero and heroine. Its
popularity was immense, and it was soon translated into
‘almost all languages.’ Later Père Amyot published a
version in French for Francis i., who was so delighted with
the result that he made the translator abbé of Belozane.
Racine tells us it was this ancient romance that first fired his
imagination with the desire to write. His tutor discovered
him absorbed in its contents, and snatching it from his hand
angrily consigned it to the fire. Racine bought another copy,
which suffered a like fate. But so strong a hold upon him
had the story, that he purchased a third, and devoured it in
secret, offering it to his master with a smile when he had
thoroughly mastered its contents.

It seems that this ancient Greek romance was lost for
many centuries. At the sack of Buda in 1526, however, a
manuscript of it was discovered in the royal library, where it
had once formed part of the vast library amassed by Matthias
Corvinus, the great King of Hungary. Matthias is said to
have ‘spoken almost all the European languages,’ so doubtless
he had passed many a pleasant hour with the tale. This
manuscript (others have since been discovered) was printed
at Basel ‘in officina Ioan Hervagii’ in 1534, a small quarto
printed with Greek types.[32]

That the early romances of chivalry possess a charm for
the book-collector it is impossible to deny. They are ‘a
series of books,’ writes Mr. John Ormsby, ‘which, complete,
would be a glory to any library in the world; which, in first
editions, would now probably fetch a sum almost large enough[87]
to endow a college; and which . . . . is perhaps . . . . as
worthless a set of books as could be made up out of the refuse
novels of a circulating library.’ Times without number they
have been derided and decried, even in the days when they
were popular. The curate of La Mancha was not the only
one who disapproved of them. ‘In our fathers tyme,’ wrote
old Roger Ascham, judging the flock by a few black sheep,
‘nothing was red, but bookes of fayned cheualrie, wherein a
man by redinge, shuld be led to none other ende, but onely
to manslaughter and baudrye.’ Possevino, a learned Jesuit
and famous preacher of the sixteenth century, used to complain
that for the last five hundred years the princes of Europe had
read nothing but romances. René d’Anjou listened to his
chaplain inveighing against Launcelot, Amadis, and the
romances of which he was particularly fond; but, says
Villeneuve, while respecting the preacher for his boldness,
the king continued to read them, and even composed new
volumes in imitation of them.[33]

Full of monstrous fictions some of these ancient stories
undoubtedly are. It were foolish to expect that all of them
should attain the high level of those great legends which
centre about the Holy Grail. Good things have ever been
imitated indifferently; and it was only the later series of
tales which had to do chiefly with enchantments and fairies
and ‘giaunts, hard to be beleeved.’ But alas! all alike have
come under the ban of those who decry reading for
recreation’s sake. Good and bad have been damn’d
indifferently. One cannot help wondering however that so
much has been written against them, and that so many have[88]
been at pains to point out their unreasonableness. One would
have thought that the very fact of them all abounding with
incidents that are not only impossible but preposterous,
would have given these critics pause, and have urged them to
ask themselves why and wherefore such things were repeated.

To anyone possessed of imagination the answer, of course,
is obvious. The better tales all had the exaltation of the
chivalric spirit in view, and sought to achieve this end by
allegory as well as by parable. He must be a dullard indeed
who fails to understand their symbolism. Malory, describing
the entry of Tristram into the field, wishes to impress upon
us the fact that he was indeed a ‘preux chevalier, sans peur
et sans reproche,’ the model of a Christian knight; so he
mounts him on a white horse and arrays him in white harness,
and he rides out at a postern, ‘and soo he came in to the feld
as it had ben a bryght angel.’ Doubtless those to whom
understanding has been denied would argue hotly as to
whether there is any authority for a knight painting his
armour white. What sane man, reading ‘The Faerie Queene,’
could think that it purported to depict actual scenes or
incidents? Yet time and again the ‘sheer impossibility’ of
these stories has been urged in condemnation of them. Truly
it is not every man who should turn to these ancient books
which

Gavaudan, a troubadour of the twelfth century, meets the
undiscerning critic more than half-way. Let none judge, he
writes, till he be capable of separating the grain from the
chaff; ‘for the fool makes haste to condemn, and the ignorant
only pretends to know all things, and muses on the wonders
that are too mighty for his comprehension.’

‘Romances,’ says Sharon Turner, ‘are so many little
Utopias, in which the writer tries to paint or to inculcate
something which he considers to be more useful, more happy[89]
or more delightful, more excellent or more interesting, than
the world he lives in, than the characters he surveys, or the
events or evils which he experiences.’ Yet Dunlop, who
examined the romances of chivalry at some length in his
‘History of Fiction,’ seems never to have suspected that
these tales were written with any other intention than to
amuse or that the events which they related were looked upon
by their readers as other than facts. For Arthur he has
scant respect, ‘nor,’ says he, ‘as we advance, do we find him
possessed of a single quality, except strength and courage,
to excite respect or interest.’ Surely the remark of one who
must have been dead to all sense of imagination and romance—although
purporting to be an authority upon them! The
teaching of the whole Arthurian cycle of romances was ‘that
noble men may see and lerne the noble actes of chyualrye,
the Ientyl and vertuous dedes that somme Knyghtes vsed in
tho dayes, by whyche they came to honour; and how they
that were vycious were punysshed and ofte put to shame and
rebuke.’ The quest of the Holy Grail, motive of the most
exquisite series of mystic tales that has ever been written,
was, we are expressly informed, ‘the hygh way of our Lord
Jhesu Cryst, and the way of a true good lyver, not that of
synners and of mysbelievers.’ Godfrey de Bouillon, the hero
of another cycle, was ‘moult preudhomme et sage et moult
aymant Dieu et gens d’esglise,’ as we read in ‘Le Triomphe
des Neuf Preux’ (folio, Abbeville 1487). Preposterous tales?
Perhaps; yet, as regards their moral side, not suffering greatly
by comparison with our modern fiction.

Those whose reading is confined to the literature of to-day
can have no idea of the influence which these romances had
upon the lives of our forefathers. It was not merely a system
of morality which they taught, it was a civilisation of a very
high order. When we are inclined to mock at these
‘preposterous tales’ we should never forget that to them we
owe a debt so immense that we are lost in the contemplation
of it. It cannot be gainsaid that it was as much by the study[90]
and teaching of these romances as it was by the spirit which
gave them birth, that our ancestors came to mould their lives
in such a sort as to influence the civilisation of the whole of
the western world.

That the romances were the outcome of chivalry cannot
be urged, though doubtless in a later age they helped to keep
the spirit of knighthood alive. Edward the Black Prince, the
very model of mediæval chivalry, avowedly studied the ancient
romances for patterns. When Pedro the Cruel had prevailed
upon the prince to defend his cause, the princess bitterly
bewailed her husband’s decision. ‘I see well,’ said the prince,
to whom her expressions were related, ‘that she wishes me
to be always at her side and never to leave her chamber. But
a prince must be ready to win renown and to expose himself
to all kinds of danger, as in days of old did Roland, Oliver,
Ogier, the four sons of Aimon, Charlemagne, the great Leon
de Bourges, Juan de Tournant, Lancelot, Tristan, Alexander,
Arthur and Godfrey whose courage, bravery, and fearlessness,
both warlike and heroic, all the romances extoll. And by
Saint George, I will restore Spain to the rightful heir.’

Occleve, a little later, has no doubt as to the beneficial
effects of perusing the romances. Indeed he goes so far as
to exhort his friend, Sir John Oldcastle, to leave off studying
Holy Writ, and to read ‘Lancelot de lake, Vegece, or the
Siege of Troie or Thebes.’ ‘What do ye now,’ says Caxton
in ‘The Order of Chivalry,’ ‘but go to the baynes and playe
atte dyse? . . . Leve this, leve it, and rede the noble volumes
of Saynt Graal, of Lancelot, of Galaad, of Trystram, of
Perseforest, of Percyval, of Gawayn, and many mo. Ther
shalle ye see manhode, curtosye, and gentylnesse.’

What other system in this world could have bestowed that
absolute serenity of mind which those who practised chivalry
retained amid the tumults of their life? The Saracens,
abashed by the tranquil spirit of their royal prisoner, Louis ix.,
mistook his humility for pride. In vain did they threaten
him with torture: the king only replied ‘Je suis prisonnier[91]
du Sultan, il peut faire de moi à son vouloir.’ And when at
last the Sultan’s murderer rushed into his prison, his hands
dripping with blood, and crying, ‘What will you give me for
having destroyed him who would have put you to death?’ the
king was more struck with horror at the crime than with fear
for his own safety, and remained motionless, disdaining to
answer. Thereupon the Saracen, maddened by a tranquillity
which he rightly attributed to the immense power of Christian
chivalry, presented the point of his blood-stained sword to the
king’s breast, crying, ‘Fais moi chevalier, ou je te tue.’
‘Fais toi Chrestien,’ replied the intrepid king, ‘et je te
ferai chevalier.’

We are accustomed nowadays to look upon chivalry merely
as a knightly institution which had to do solely with tournaments,
banquets, knight-errantry, and the rescuing of encastled
maidens. The modern acceptance of the term omits all those
gentle qualities of mind which go to make the true chivalric
disposition. We associate chivalry with ‘fair play’ combined
with ‘manliness’; and humility has no part in it. Indeed
it never enters into our mind that it was a system of
‘humanyte, curtosye, and gentylnesse.’ More, it was a
religion deeply ingrained in the hearts of men, a religion
which spread through all grades of society, and one which
consisted in the beatifying of the noblest qualities of human
nature; and it has left an indelible mark upon our national
character. Chivalry is not dead to-day as thoughtless people
so often exclaim; it will never die so long as our national
characteristics endure, though to-day it passes under a
different name. ‘Sport’ we call it now, and we pride ourselves
in being ‘sporting’ even in the hour of death—witness
the countless instances brought about by the late great war.

Bertrand du Guesclin, one of the greatest and most fearless
exponents of the chivalric spirit, and the Black Prince’s most
redoubtable enemy, fell at last into the hands of the English.
One day at Bordeaux the Prince summoned him from his
prison, and asked him how he fared. ‘Par may foy,[92]
monseigneur,’ replied Bertrand, ‘il m’ennuye de n’entendre
que le chant des Souris de Bourdeaux; je voudrois bien ouyr
les Rossignols de nostre pais’; but he added that he loved
honour better than aught else and never had anything brought
him more glory than his prison, seeing that, as all the other
prisoners had been ransomed, he was kept there only through
fear of his prowess. The Prince of Wales, touched in his
honour (or rather pride) at du Guesclin’s words, agreed to
liberate Bertrand upon payment of seventy thousand florins
of gold.[34] ‘But what was more extraordinary in this
adventure,’ says a French chronicler, ‘was that the Princess
of Wales gave him thirty thousand, and Sir John Chandos,
who had taken him prisoner, took upon himself to pay what
was wanting to make the sum complete.’ ‘Sporting,’ was
it not? Truly we are a marvellous race, and it is not to be
wondered that other nations, from whom this spirit has long
passed away, despair of ever being able to understand us.

England has always been the home of chivalry. La
Colombière in his ‘Vray Théatre d’Honneur et de Chevalerie
ou le Miroir Heroique de la Noblesse’ remarks that the
greatest number of the old romances have been more
particularly employed in celebrating the valour of the knights
of this kingdom than that of any other; because, in fact,
they have always loved such exercises in an especial manner.
‘The city of London,’ writes Francisco de Moraes in the
‘Palmerin de Inglaterra,’ ‘contained in those days all, or the
greater part, of the chivalry of the world.’ In Perceforest
a damozel says to his companion ‘Sire chevalier, I will gladly
parley with you because you come from Great Britain; it is
a country which I love well, for there habitually (coustumierement)
is the finest chivalry in the world; c’est le pays au[93]
monde, si comme je croy, le plus remply des bas et joyeulx
passetemps pour toutes gentilles pucelles et jeunes bacheliers
qui pretendent a honneur de chevalerie.’[35]

The entire cycle of legends which has the Holy Grail for
its centre is concerned with Britain and Britain alone.
Caerleon and Winchester, Tintagel and Glastonbury, these
are the chief stages in this great romance of perfect knighthood;
and whether related by a scribe of Hainault in the
thirteenth century or sung by a Welsh bard before the Norman
Conquest or praised at the court at Paris by the favourite
troubadour of Philip Augustus, it is all one as regards the
setting and the chief characters. ‘Whether for goodly men
or for chivalrous deeds, for courtesy or for honour,’ wrote the
Norman chronicler Wace in the middle of the twelfth century,
‘in Arthur’s day England bore the flower from all the lands
near by, yea from every other land whereof we know. The
poorest peasant in his smock was a more courteous and valiant
gentleman than was a belted knight beyond the sea.’

There is a pleasing story which relates how Robert Bruce,
marching with his army in the mountains of Ireland, heard a
woman crying during one of the halts. He inquired immediately
what was the matter, and was told that it was a
camp-follower, a poor laundress, who was taken in child-bed;
and as it was impossible to take her with them, she bemoaned
her fate in being left behind to die. The king replied that
he is no man who will not pity a woman then. He ordered[94]
that a tent should be pitched for her immediately, and that
she should be attended at once by the other women; and
there he tarried his host until she had been delivered and
could be carried along with them. ‘This,’ says the Chronicler,
‘was a full great courtesy.’ Chivalry? In the very highest
sense of the word.

We must be careful lest, losing sight of the many attributes
of chivalry, we incline towards the erroneous view that it was
confined entirely to the upper classes. That the manuscript
volumes of the romantic tales which were so eagerly purchased
and treasured by the educated classes could never possibly
come into the hands of the rude illiterate peasants is a
fallacious argument. Scanty indeed would be our folk-lore
had it all been transmitted graphically. Chaucer bears
evidence of the widespread popularity of these heroic tales
in his day:

The incidents of these immortal tales were as well known to
the humblest as to the highest in the land. We have abundant
evidence of their popularity when recounted in front of the
fire in hostel or homestead. Even so late as Milton’s day it
was the custom to recount knightly adventures and fairy tales
about the evening fireside. When

until at length

How great a part of the pleasures of this world have they
missed whose pulses are never stirred by the Spirit of
Romance! Content and Peace of Mind may be had by all[95]
who will offer up sacrifices to obtain them; but Imagination
is not to be had at any price unless it be a part of our birthright.
Content may yield a tranquillity of mind that refreshes
the soul, but it is Imagination alone that can produce that
spiritual exaltation which takes our minds from worldly things,
carries us backwards or forwards through countless ages of
the past or æons of futurity, and enables us to ride in the
chariot of Phœbus. It is a vast library in itself.

It was the fortune of our book-hunter once to spend an
afternoon in June upon the downs near Winchester. To
southward of the old town there is a deep grassy hollow,
crescent-shaped, its southern slope fringed with wood; and
here in the shade he lay reading the ‘Morte d’Arthur’ of old
Malory. Coming at length to the Noble Tale of the
Sangreal, he read how King Arthur, having come ‘unto
Camelot by the houre of undorn on Whytsonday,’ and feasting
with the fellowship of the Round Table, was told of the marvel
wrought unto Balin’s sword by Merlin.

You will remember that Balin fought unbeknown with his
brother Balan, that each wounded the other unto death, and
that they were buried by Merlin in the same tomb. Then
Merlin ‘lete make by his subtylyte that Balyn’s swerd was
put in a marbel stone standyng up ryght as grete as a mylle
stone, and the stone hoved alweyes above the water, and
dyd many yeres, and so by adventure it swam doun the streme
to the Cyte of Camelot that is in Englysshe Wynchestre.’

To the west the downs slope steeply into the river valley,
and set in the rich green meadows like a skein of silver
threads the book-hunter could discern the Itchen with its
attendant rivulets. So he gazed across to the stream and
pondered over this marvellous stone which ‘hoved’ always
above the water, a sword set in it so that the pommel alone
could be seen, ‘and in the pomel therof were precyous stones[96]
wrought with subtyle letters of gold.’ It was the symbol
which was to prove the youthful Galahad the haut prince who
should achieve the Sangreal.

That same evening, wandering along the river’s bank below
the city, his head full of the wondrous tale, an adventure
befell him. It was dusk, and he had crossed the stream
at a ford, when suddenly he saw the stone. It was lying upon
its side, not a dozen paces from the water. There was no
doubt whatever about it. It was roughly five feet long, about
half as wide and thick, and of a curious reddish-brown—the
colour of dried blood.

‘Sir,’ said the squire who brought the news to the King
and his Knights, ‘there is here bynethe at the Ryver a grete
stone which I saw flete above the water, and therin I sawe
styckyng a swerd. The Kynge sayde, I wille see that
marveill. Soo all the Knyghtes went with hym. And whanne
they came unto the ryver they fonde there a stone fletyng,
as hit were of reed marbel, and therin stack a fair ryche
swerd.’

I confess that not a little awe was mingled with delight
as our book-hunter gazed upon the stone, walked round it,
touched it! Then suddenly away in the old city a bell tolled,
and he recollected that it was Whitsun Eve! That walk home
in the twilight was something not easily to be forgotten, and
neither supper nor a pipe could bring him back to earth and
the twentieth century again. Next morning he was up early,
anxious to see if any trace were left of the spot where this
marvel had occurred, for it was scarcely possible that the
whole adventure was other than a dream. But the spot was
soon found, and sure enough there was the stone or peron,[36]
and he could examine it in the sunshine at his leisure. How
it got there or whence it came it were impossible to guess;
the chalk for miles around contains nothing but flints, and
the peron was smooth and polished ‘as a mill-stone.’

THE PERON

[97]
That Winchester is not Camelot antiquaries have told us
often enough. The city of the Knights may have been in
the West Country or in Wales for aught our bookman cares;
but until they can produce a likelier site and a better peron
he will continue to take Sir Thomas’s word for it.

One other point. I have said that the stone lay some few
paces from the water. You will notice when you pay a pilgrimage
to the stone (it lies at the ford, hard by a church) that the
ground about it is almost level with the water, so that when
the river is in flood the stone must be almost submerged: in
other words, it would then hove above the water. It is easy
to see from the bank on the other side that the river has
changed its course by a few yards, leaving the stone now
high and dry. If you dispute this, why then I can only say
that the stone, as ‘by adventure it swam down the stream,’
must have been cast there by the river when in flood. That
there is a cleft in the stone whence Galahad withdrew the
sword I can neither affirm nor deny; it may have closed up,
for with perons of this nature all things are possible, or the
stone itself may have got turned over.[37] At all events I for
one shall not be so rash as to cast suspicion upon so historic a
relic.

For those materialists who doubt that such an event ever
took place, I will propound a theory. That the first twelve
books of the ‘Morte d’Arthur’ were translated from the
French by Sir Thomas Malory seems probable. Caxton says
as much in his Preface, and the Epilogue to Book xii. reads,
‘Here endeth the second book of Syr Tristram that was
drawen oute of Frensshe in to Englysshe. But here is no
rehersal of the thyrd book. And here foloweth the noble
tale of the Sancgreal that called is the hooly vessel.’ It has
been shown[38] that the stories of the Holy Grail are probably
of Welsh origin, and—Sir Thomas is said to have been a[98]
Welshman. Is it possible that he was ever at Winchester,
that he wandered on Whitsun Eve (as did our book-hunter)
along the Itchen, that he came to and roused over the stone
(smooth and polished as a mill-stone), so different from any
to be seen hereabout, and that as he wandered back to
Camelot he wove the delicious romance about it? At all
events, if he were ever there, it is at least possible that the
spot was in his mind when adapting the Welsh legends for his
book. Mark how well the events which I relate accord with
the topography of the spot. The stone was ‘beneath at the
river,’ the damozel who comes to view the marvel ‘came
rydynge doune the ryver . . . . on a whyte palfroy toward
them,’ and there is mention of the river meads. It is hard to
believe that Sir Thomas would definitely assert that Camelot
‘is in English Winchester,’ and make it the chief scene of his
romance, had he never visited the town.

The book was finished, Caxton tells us, ‘the ix yere of the
reygne of king edward the fourth,’ 1469; but was not
‘chapytred and emprynted and fynysshed in th’abbey
Westmestre’ until ‘the last day of July the yere of our lord
m.cccc.lxxxv.,’ 1485. Three weeks later a fateful battle
was fought—that of Bosworth, which placed the crown upon
Harry Tudor’s head. The facts that the new king was a
great benefactor to Winchester, that he held the castle to have
been built by King Arthur, and that he brought hither his
queen to be delivered of his first-born (whom he named
Arthur), point to something more than a chance connection
between the city and the book.

Henry Tudor was also a Welshman, and possibly Malory
was of the king’s acquaintance, if not actually of his retinue.
Bale asserts that Malory was occupied with affairs of state.
But conclusions are dangerous things. The preface to the
‘Morte d’Arthur’ ascribes the ordering of the book to
Edward the Fourth. ‘. . . I made a book unto th’excellent
prynce and kyng of noble memorye kyng Edward the fourth.
The sayd noble Ientylmen instantly requyred me t’emprynte[99]
thystorye of the sayd noble kyng and conquerour king Arthur
and of his knyghtes, wyth thystorye of the saynt greal, and
of the deth and endynge of the sayd Arthur; Affermyng that
. . . there ben in frensshe dyvers and many noble volumes
of his actes and also of his knyghtes.’[39] Which looks rather
as if Edward the Fourth (who had no reason to love the
Welsh—you will remember that he had beheaded Owen
Tudor, Richmond’s grandfather) had heard of or read
Malory’s work, and was anxious to possess it in print, though
unwilling to credit it to a follower of the Lancastrian party.
It is a pleasant field for surmise, and, however wrongly,
it is good to picture old Sir Thomas strolling along those
pleasant meads beside the river, weaving his immortal cycle
of tales.

There is a connection somewhere between Malory and
Caxton too. In 1469 Malory finished his book, and in March
of that year Caxton began to translate le Fevre’s ‘Recueil
des Histoires de Troyes.’ Where and when did Malory meet
Caxton, who lived for some years about that time at Bruges,
discovering that they possessed the same literary tastes? Did
Malory hand the manuscript of his work to Caxton, in the
service of the Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward the
Fourth, and did the great printer (or the Duchess) show it
to that king? We shall never know, and only Imagination can
fill the gap.

But to continue. It was Whitsunday, and as the last notes
of the voluntary echoed away among those ‘antick pillars
massy proof’ of the great church, our book-hunter’s thoughts
turned once more to King Arthur and his knights. For was
it not upon this very day that the vision of the Holy Grail
was vouchsafed to them as they sat at meat within the castle
hall?

[100]
‘And thenne the kynge and al estates wente home unto
Camelot, and soo wente to evensonge to the grete mynster.
And soo after upon that to souper. . . . Thenne anone they
herd crakynge and cryenge of thonder, that hem thought the
place shold alle to dryve. . . . Not for thenne there was no
knyght myghte speke one word a grete whyle. . . . Thenne
ther entred in to the halle the holy graile coverd with whyte
samyte, but ther was none myghte see hit,[40] nor who bare
hit. . . . And whan the holy grayle had be borne thurgh the
halle thenne the holy vessel departed sodenly, that they
wyste not where hit becam: thenne had they alle brethe to
speke.’

So the man of books climbed the hill and presently stood
within the beautiful hall with its glorious black marble pillars,
sole remnant of the ancient stronghold. The round table
(barbarously painted) now hangs upon the western wall, but
it needed little imagination to picture it set down in the midst,
covered with a fair silken cloth (‘the Kynge yede unto the
syege Peryllous and lyfte vp the clothe, and fonde there the
name of Galahad’), and on it set rich flagons and dishes,
strangely wrought and worked with precious stones, and all
about the table the famous knights in costumes strange to
our eyes. . . . Launcelot upon the king’s left,[41] now glancing
with fatherly pride upon the youthful Galahad (occupying the
Siege Perilous), now smiling up at Queen Guenevere seated
in the gallery with her maidens . . . . the walls hung with
coarse dull-red cloth and bundles of sweet-smelling herbs
hanging here and there, the floor strewn with fresh green
rushes, gathered early that morning in the meadows below
. . . . by the king’s side a snow-white brachet, a golden collar
about its neck . . . . and so on and so on. Imagination
forsooth! He must be dull indeed who, reading the book
and standing in the hall, cannot picture the scene for himself.

[101]
It is useless to declaim that the great hall of the castle was
not completed until the time of Henry the Third, that it did
not exist at all before the Norman Conquest, that the castle
occupied by King Arthur is more likely to have been on the
site of the more ancient one which stood near the river (now
known as Wolvesey), and that the great round table (eighteen
feet in diameter, of stout old English oak, cunningly bolted
together) was made during the former king’s reign and was
never used by Arthur at all. What are such crude exactitudes
to us? As well object to the heavy plate-armour worn by the
knights—everybody knows this to be an anachronism of nigh
a thousand years. Romantic phantasy and scientific data are
as far apart as the poles, and none but a fool would try to
reconcile them. King Arthur feasted in the castle hall, says
Malory, and so far as our book-hunter is concerned he shall
feast there as often and as long as he likes.

There is a romance, too, about the name of this older castle.
Wolvesey its scanty ruins are called to-day, and the antiquarians
tell us that this was originally WULF’S EY, or
‘the wolf’s isle.’ Was it once the scene of a battue by the
young bloods of the tribe to drive out some wolves that had
established themselves there, a fierce fight with axes and
spears at close quarters whilst the rest of the tribe lined the
opposite banks and prevented any escape? Or was it the
scene of some homeric combat seul à seul? Perhaps some
day a wolf’s skull will be dug up there, with a stone axe
sticking in it. But the history of it has gone for ever, had
gone, probably, long centuries before King Kynegils found
it a strong site for his castle.

It was at Wolvesey that King Alfred himself is said to have
penned some part of the Saxon Chronicle now treasured in
the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was
a true book-lover, this great English king, and it is to the
school of illuminators which arose later in the ‘new minster’
by St. Swithun’s that we are indebted for some of the most
beautiful examples of mediæval art that have come down to[102]
us. The Golden Book of Edgar, Bede’s ‘Ecclesiastical
History’—in the Cathedral library—and the exquisitely
illuminated ‘benedictional’ of St. Æthelwold possessed by
the Duke of Devonshire, all these were produced before the
end of the tenth century by the artists who laboured so
patiently in the Scriptorium beside those peaceful meadows.
For two centuries the Winchester school of illuminators was
renowned throughout the western world.

It is a pleasant spot, this ancient city of Camelot, and I
like to read that among the aldermen who assembled at the
Tun Moot in bygone days were a pinder, a mole-catcher, and
an ale-conner. A stout fellow, this last, for without his
permission not a single barrel of beer could be broached.
The business transacted at the Moot, we are told, was little
more than to receive taxes, provide for the defence of the
city, and settle disputes. After which the aldermen (with the
permission of the ale-conner, it is to be presumed) proceeded
to consume the ale allowed to them by custom immemorial
at the rate of two gallons a man at each sitting. O tempora,
O mores!

At one time, however, that kill-joy Edgar came near to
causing an insurrection, for he ordained that all drinking-horns
should have pegs set in them at regular intervals and that
no man might drink below his peg. Thus were practically
abolished those friendly drinking-bouts between Danes and
English that did so much to rid the town of its northern
intruders. Floreat Wintonia, and may it stand for ever to
book-lovers and lovers of romance as the ideal of all that is
knightly and kingly and romantic—and hospitable.

It is to be feared, however, that the Spirit of Romance is
now moribund—if, indeed, it has not already passed away;
and with it we are losing one of the most ennobling qualities
in our nature. We pride ourselves nowadays in living in a
‘matter-of-fact’ age, by which we mean a practical,
unromantic age. But is it a matter for so much pride after
all? Granted that the benefits which have accrued to man[103]kind
during the past century and a half are worth all the
Romance in the world; but is the relegation of Romance to
the domain of History a sine qua non so far as progress is
concerned? In our haste to get on we have tried to drive
Romance and Progress in tandem, with steady-going Progress
in the shafts; but having found that together they need
skilful handling, we have unharnessed the leader and hitched
him on behind, to be dragged along anyhow in our wake.

There must be many who regard the loss of romantic ideals
as a matter for more than passing regret. Reverence, too,
not only for our elders and betters but even for the great
works of our predecessors, is going the way of its cousin,
Romance. Recently, rambling over the Hampshire downs,
our bookman toiled up the grassy bosom of this rolling land
to a still loftier height whence on a clear day the Isle of Wight,
nigh thirty miles away, can be distinguished. As he neared
the top a mound came into view, one of those unmistakable
monuments raised o’er the graves of the great chieftains of
our ancient race. It was a most impressive spot, the highest
point for many miles round, and the book-hunter wondered
who he was that lay there in solemn majesty keeping watch
through the long centuries over the land that once was his.
On approaching closer the wayfarer was horrified to see that
on the top of the mound, in the centre, there was a deep hole.
Its import was obvious. The mortal remains of one who
had lain for centuries in a grandeur befitting his lordly rank
had been torn from their sepulchre, probably by some
irreverent commoner, and were now doubtless exhibited to
the vulgar gaze, in a glass case.

Doubtless the ghoul (for he that rifles tombs is none other)
who perpetrated this enormity described himself as an
archæologist. Possibly he was of gentle birth and had
received a University education. If so, so much the greater
his crime, for he could not plead ignorance. Surely no
seriously minded person can urge that the knowledge thus
gained as to ancient methods of burial, age of the remains,[104]
and so on, warranted such sacrilege.[42] We can only hope that
the chieftain was granted five minutes with the archæologist
when that individual at length entered the land of shadows.
Doubtless the archæologist had no qualms whatever, and
slept soundly in the belief that by his ‘researches’ he had
wrought great things for mankind; but when he encountered
the chieftain it is unlikely that they would see eye to eye.
‘Happy are they who deal so with men in this world that
they are not afraid to meet them in the next,’ and happier
still are they who deal so reverently with the earthly memorials
of the dead, that there may be many to speak in their favour
when they approach the Great Tribunal.

THE HALL OF THE KNIGHTS

This particular form of irreverence, however, has been a
byword throughout all the ages; civilisation and education
have done little to check it, possibly because the romantic
spirit which forbids such crimes is born, not made. King
Arthur’s bones were dug up in the twelfth century. ‘Mummie
is become Merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharoah
is sold for balsoms,’ wrote Sir Thomas Browne five hundred
years later. In 1788 the massive stone coffin which held the
remains of our illustrious King Alfred was discovered facing
the High Altar at Hyde Abbey, Winchester, whither they
had been translated in 1110. The coffin was broken in pieces,
the bones found in it were scattered, and the lead enveloping
the remains was sold by the workmen. A stone from the
wrecked tomb, bearing the name ÆLFRED, was carried off
to Cumberland as a curio. Hyde Abbey was razed to make
way for a county Bridewell. ‘At almost every stroke of the
mattock,’ relates an eye-witness, ‘some antient sepulchre or
other was violated.’ Examples of such desecrations can be
multiplied without number. The Great Alaric was wise
indeed when he had the course of a river changed so that his[105]
bones, when lying at the bottom of it, might never be
disturbed.

Our ancient laws dealt sternly with this matter. ‘If any
man shall dig up a body that has already been buried,’ ruled
Henry the First, ‘he shall be wargus,’ that is, banished
from his district as a rogue. ‘Malice provoketh not to dig up
tombes and graves,’ wrote an unknown Elizabethan scholar,
commenting on this; ‘and though it should, yet religion doth
now restraine it, by reason it is counted sacriledge to violate
anythinge in churches or churchyards. Covetousness made
some to dig up the dead, because ornaments, jewels, or money,
were in times past buried with many; but now that custome
seasing, no man for desire of gaine is invited to commit this
offence, and it now being generally reputed a most vile acte,
no man will presume to transgresse these lawes, and every
man is a law to himself therein.’ But in this ‘enlightened’
age, when we are held to be above the need of such legislation,
there is nothing to prevent the archæologist from practising
his hobby where and when he please—so long as he avoids
the churchyards. ‘Tush,’ he cries, ‘here lies an ancient
heathen who was not even buried in consecrated ground. We
may find some curious relics buried with him. Up with his
bones.’

‘Freedom for all men’ may be a glorious motto, yet when
we view these crimes (and the carved initials which deface
so many of our most sacred monuments) we cannot but muse
that there are many who should never be free—at least from
the restraint of discipline. ‘None can love freedom heartily,
but good men: the rest love not freedom, but licence.’[43]

[106]

CHAPTER V

THE CARE OF BOOKS

herein lies the charm of an old book?
In its contents? Not altogether, for then
would the reprint be just as acceptable;
perhaps more so, for it would be possibly
more legible, probably cleaner, certainly in
a more convenient shape. In its scarcity,
then? Partly, perhaps; yet not necessarily, for there are
many ‘old’ books that are always eagerly bought up by
collectors, though quite frequent in occurrence. Then wherein
lies the old book’s charm? It is chiefly in its appearance.

It is the spiritual appearance rather than the material
aspect of a book, however, that draws the book-lover to it.
To the true bibliophile there is an intangible something about
an old book which it is impossible to describe. That this
feeling is closely akin to the impressive influence of antiquity
there can be no doubt; for you may prove it by taking your
book-lover successively to a modern free library and to a[107]
collection of ancient books, and noting carefully his expression
in each. Though he be surrounded by thousands of volumes
issued from the press during the last half-century, rich and
luxurious works even, yet the probability is that he will be
merely bored. But watch him as he stands before the thick
oak shelves eagerly scrutinising the dim lettering on ancient
calf and vellum back! See how his eye flashes as he takes
down an ancient quarto, gently and reverently lest the headband
be grown weak with age, and, carefully blowing the
dust from its top edge, turns eagerly to title-page and
colophon!

And this feeling is not influenced by the surroundings
which one is accustomed to associate with old books. Whether
they be in a cathedral or college library, in a bookshop or the
most modern of cases, it is all one to your true collector. It
is the books and the books only about which he cares. No
sooner does he feel the ancient tome within his hands than
his soul is borne rapidly away upon the wings of fancy, far
far back into the dim ages, high above all worldly considerations;
caring, understanding, feeling, in tune with the magic
so wondrously locked up in this ancient volume, to which his
love of books alone has provided the key.

It is no wonder that he is impressed, for the soul of the
true book-collector is ever in communion with the manes of
those who gave birth to his books. He is brother to author,
paper-maker, compositor, publisher, and binder, understanding
all their hopes, doubts, and fears, in sympathy with all the
thoughts that gave his volumes their shape, size, and
appearance. Have you not often realised, brother collector,
the spirit that is hidden in every old book, the concentrated
thoughts that have been materialised in giving it birth?
Surely thoughts never die. ‘Our thoughts are heard in
heaven’ wrote a neglected poet, and are not books
‘sepulchres of thought’?

Happier is the book-collector than he who acquires ancient
pieces of furniture, old vases, or pewter mugs. For, unlike[108]
the old book, these things can be reproduced in facsimile so
that you may not tell the difference between old and new,
and the reproduction may be stronger and more serviceable
than the original. Moreover he is not troubled with qualms
as to their genuineness, undergoing agonies of apprehension
while each treasure—or otherwise—is submitted to the
scrutiny of friends and experts.

There is a lasting charm about a book of our choice which
the antique-collector can never hope to experience. His
treasure may be grotesque or it may be beautiful, in either
case it may please the eye every time that he behold it,
through many years. But beyond pleasure to the eye and
perhaps a smug complacency in its possession, there is nothing
else. He knows it inside-out, as it were, within a few minutes
of its acquisition. Very different, however, is the case with
a book. After the attraction exercised by its ancient
appearance, the exterior aspect is in reality but a secondary
consideration, and when we have expressed ourselves as to
whether it be a fine or a poor copy, we turn at once to its
contents. The very wording of the title-page gives us an
inkling of the writer’s character, places us upon his plane, and
tunes our thoughts in harmony with his.

What book-lover does not sympathise with that great man
Lenglet du Fresnoy? Perhaps few men have come so
completely under the spell of books; for he devoted a long
life entirely to consuming the fruits of the master minds that
had gone before him. In spite of the gossip concerning him,
not always to his credit, that has come down to us, it is
undeniable that by sheer love and knowledge of books he
piled up a monument that will ever keep his name in memory
among bibliophiles for he is numbered with such giants as
Hain, Brunet, and Lowndes. The ‘Methode pour étudier
l’Histoire’ alone is sufficient to show his extraordinary knowledge
of books; indeed, they were the very inspirers of his
being and though his paths led him to high places, ‘a passion
for study for ever crushed the worm of ambition.’ Having[109]
spent the greater part of his eighty-two years among old
books, it was a modern one which caused his end; for,
slumbering over its dulness, he fell into the fire and was
burned to death!

It is said of him that he refused all the conveniences offered
by a rich sister, that he might not endure the restraint of a
settled dinner-hour; preferring to browse undisturbed among
his beloved tomes. His immense knowledge of ancient books
is shown by the vast number of diverse works which he wrote
and edited; but so forcible and controversial were his writings
that he was sent to the Bastille some ten or twelve times.
It is even related of him that he got to know the prison so
well, that when Tapin (one of the guards who usually
conducted him thither) entered his chamber, he did not wait
to hear his commission but began himself by saying ‘Ah!
Bonjour, Monsieur Tapin,’ then turning to the woman who
waited on him, ‘Allons vite, mon petit paquet, du linge et
du tabac,’ and went along gaily with M. Tapin to the Bastille.
Verily the true bibliophile is not as other men, and a modern
world looks upon him askance. Yet his portion is a happiness
that riches cannot purchase, for his soul has found lasting
comfort and contentment in a knowledge of the innermost
recesses of human thought. There is no aspect or phase of
the human mind with which he is unacquainted; and it is a
knowledge that books alone can impart.

Yet our true book-lover is not of those whose very religion
is the preservation of the pristine appearance of their books,
who deem it sacrilege to destroy one jot of the contemporary
leather in which their treasures are clothed: liking rather to
glue, varnish, and patch, preferring even a grotesque effect
rather than sacrifice an inch of decayed calf. Their point of
view is wholly admirable: that the only form in which we are
justified in possessing a book is that in which it was originally
issued to the world: that the men who bestowed great thought
in giving it birth, to wit, author and publisher, know better
what is meet and seemly for it than can any man of a different[110]
age: that one man’s choice is another man’s abhorrence: and
so on, and so on. Granted these things are so; but surely
he who possesses the volume may have some say in its
appearance, since it exists upon his shelf solely for his own
delight and for no other man’s?

‘It is mine,’ says Praktikos, ‘may I not clothe it in the
colours of the rainbow if it please me?’

‘Then you are a vandal,’ replies Phulax, ‘for you will
ruin your book, and it will not be worth ten shillings when
it returns from the binder.’

And there’s the rub: rebind your book and—in nine cases
out of ten—you will lower its market value. Therefore, if
the book-collector have any eye to the purely commercial value
of his library, he will do well to become an ‘original-boards-uncut’
man at once. Handsome his library will never be,
for here there will be a whole set of paper-bound volumes
lacking backs, here a folio strangely patched and mended,
there a book in rather dirty vellum somewhat cockled by
damp, and so on. But he will have the satisfaction of knowing
that his volumes retain, in their appearance at least, something
of the spirit of the time in which they first saw light. Perhaps
they will create for him the more easily that stimulating yet
peaceful atmosphere imparted by a collection of old books.

Is there not, then, any alternative to preserving one’s
volumes in a disreputable condition? Assuredly there is—there
are two alternatives. Either the collector will be so
wise (and, incidentally, so wealthy) as never to purchase a
dilapidated book, or else he must exercise great common
sense and much good taste, putting fancy entirely to one side.

You possess a copy of Cotton’s translation of the Commentaries
of Messire Blaize de Montluc, folio 1674. It is a
good, clean, tall copy, but clothed in tattered contemporary
brown calf. Half of the back is missing, two of the corners
are badly broken, and a piece of the leather upon the under
cover is torn off. Perchance you elect to send it to your
binder, with strict instructions that it is to be repaired with[111]
plain calf. In due course the volume is returned to you, and
it now presents a fearful and marvellous appearance. It is the
proud possessor of a new back, nearly but not quite matching
the sides in colour, and upon this the remaining upper
half of the original back has been pasted. The corners bulge
strangely, and you can discern new leather underneath the
old and wherever the old was deficient. The sides shine with
polishing, and a patch—again not quite matching the original,
for it is next to impossible to do this—has been inserted on
the under cover. The whole volume shines unnaturally, and
has rather a piebald appearance. In short, it reminds one of
Bardolph’s face—’all bubukles and whelks and knobs.’

But perchance you possess another copy in precisely the
same condition inside and out, and this you have decided must
be rebound. It goes to your binder, always with your very
definite instructions, and in due course returns, modestly
attired in morocco of, let us say, a dark sage-green hue. On
each side there is a plain double panel, ‘blind’ tooled; the
back is simply lettered

BLAIZE
DE
MONTLUC

and there are ‘blind’ lines at the sides of each band; but,
beyond the lettering, there is no gilding whatever on the
back. The edges have not been trimmed, much less cut,
but have been left precisely as they were originally.

Suppose now for an instant that you do not possess either
copy, but that both are offered to you by a bookseller at
precisely the same price. What will be your feelings as you
handle the repaired copy? It is more than probable that you
will sigh ‘Poor thing‘ as you open it gently for fear of
cracking the old piece pasted on to the back. But, ‘What a
nice clean copy‘ you will say as you take up the other; and
it is improbable that you will hesitate long in making choice.

The repairing of moderately old bindings is an excellent
thing so long as it is not carried to extremes. Obviously[112]
there are many cases where it would be sheer foolishness to
rebind the volume, slight repairs at the hands of an
experienced binder being all that is necessary to enable the
book to be described as a fine, tall, clean copy, in the original
binding, neatly repaired. And this is where one’s carefully
considered judgment and good taste must be exercised.

But advice is easier to give than to follow. If our purse
be a slender one, it is next to impossible to confine our
purchases to perfect copies in choice condition. And so it is
unavoidable that a certain number of our volumes should be
in a more or less dilapidated state. A book that we have long
sought for crops up; it is a perfect copy, more or less clean
inside, but in a sad state of decay as regards the binding. On
this account it is offered to us at one-half the price which a
sound copy would fetch, perhaps even less. Of course we buy
it, and many others like it; so that at length we are faced
with the choice between a formidable binder’s bill and the
alternative of harbouring a collection of wrecks.

This temptation to acquire imperfect books and poor copies
is a most insidious one, and few collectors can withstand it
altogether. Andrew Lang, than whom there was never a
more genuine book-lover, seems to have been as susceptible
as most of us. ‘I believe no man,’ he writes in ‘Books and
Bookmen,’ ‘has a library so rich in imperfect works as the
author of these pages.’ Yet although the purchasing of a
volume in a state of decay (externally, that is) is sometimes
unavoidable, it should be every collector’s endeavour, however
modest his means, to avoid buying dilapidated books. If a
book be at all frequent in occurrence it is far better to bide
our time until a better copy turns up, even though we may
have to pay a few shillings more for it, than to rest content
with the possession of a sorry example in which we can take
no pride, and one that will never be worth a penny more than
we gave for it until it has passed through the binder’s hands.
Remember also that although the choicest binder in Europe
may lavish his art upon our volume, yet a taller and cleaner[113]
copy in the original, or contemporary, binding, and in perfect
condition, will ever command a better price in the sale-room.
Our choice in binding—however appropriate to the book—may
not be the choice of him who next possesses the volume.

As an example of this discretion which one must exercise in
rebinding one’s volumes, here is an incident that occurred in
a London sale-room a few years ago. A copy of Jane
Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’ in three volumes, 1814, was put
up for auction and realised £20. It was bound in boards and
was entirely uncut. Nevertheless it was not in the original
binding, but it had been rebound in precisely the same style
as that in which it was originally published. The paper labels
had been reprinted in facsimile, and the edges had not been
tampered with in any respect, not even ‘trimmed.’ The best
price that had been realised previously for an uncut copy in
the original boards was £18 10s.

The owner was indeed wise in his generation. Had he
sent the volumes to his binder to be bound in full morocco
‘extra,’ at a cost of, perhaps, twenty shillings apiece, the work
would have realised, probably, seven or eight pounds. But
by good judgment (and, in the writer’s opinion at least, good
taste) his expenditure would not exceed fifteen shillings for
the three, his profit being four times as great. Not long ago
two copies of the first edition of Keats’ ‘Endymion’ appeared
at an auction-sale in London. Both were ‘uncut,’ but one
was in the original form in which it issued from the press, the
other was bound in morocco. The former realised £41, the
latter £17, 5s. Dictum sapienti sat est.

Old books, by which I intend sixteenth and early
seventeenth century volumes, are always best left alone as
regards the binding. If they be at all dilapidated, it is as
well to have a case[44] made for them which can be lettered on[114]
the back, and they can then stand upon the shelf among one’s
other books. Nothing is more unseemly and incongruous
than an ancient volume in a modern cover, and, try as the
most skilful binder may, it is impossible to imitate an ancient
binding so closely as to deceive the eye even momentarily.
Do not seek to make them presentable by patching and
repairing, unless they be too far gone for their value to be
of any consideration.

In the case of early-printed books and works of great rarity,
never, upon any account, tamper with your copy or seek to
improve it in any way. Not only, as I have said, is it quite
impossible to impart a contemporary appearance to a
fifteenth-century book however famous and skilful the binder,
but age leaves its mark upon the constitutions of books as
surely as it does upon mankind. No volume of that age will
stand the handling of a casual reader, still less the pulling,
patting, and pressing that re-sewing and re-covering
necessitate, however gently such processes be carried out.

There is a terrible story (I hope it is untrue) told of a
certain peer who decided to send to the auction-room the six
or seven Caxtons which had descended to him with a noble
library from his ancestors. As, however, the volumes were
bound in fifteenth-century sheepskin (probably in Caxton’s
house) he thought that their appearance would be rendered
rather more attractive if they were rebound first of all. So he
sent them forthwith to the local binder; and on their return,
now gorgeously clothed in ‘calf gilt extra’ (à la school prize),
he despatched them to the London sale-room. The result may
be imagined. His foolishness must have robbed him of a
sum running well into four figures!

There is another point also to be considered, and that is the
pedigree of a volume. The solitary impression of a binder’s
tool upon a fragment of binding may identify a volume and
its previous owners. Some years ago the writer purchased
an ancient folio without title-page and colophon, bound in
tattered fragments of ancient calf covering stout oak boards.[115]
There was, apparently, nothing to indicate when, where, or
by whom the volume was printed or bound, or whence it came.
But from a certain peculiarity in the type (which he noticed
when studying the early printers of Nürnberg) he now knows
the name of the printer and the town in which he plied his
trade; while from a certain woodcut which that printer used
also in two other dated works only, both printed the same
year, he discovered when the volume in all probability was
printed.

A scrutiny of the remains of the binding revealed the blind
impressions of four different stamps. As these occur frequently
in conjunction upon the bindings executed by the monks at a
certain monastery in Germany in the sixteenth century, there
is little difficulty in assigning a provenance to the volume.
Furthermore the initial H in a heart-shaped impression
identifies the binder as a monk whose initials H.G. (on two
heart-shaped tools) are of frequent occurrence on contemporary
volumes at that time in the possession of the monastery.

Needless to say, it has not been rebound. The tattered
pieces of skin have been carefully pasted down, and a case—lettered
on the back—now contains the book upon his shelf.[45]

In the case, however, of more recent books bound in tattered
or perished calf, books of which one may obtain duplicates at
any time, except they be works of extreme value there is no
reason why they should not be re-bound. Even here, however,[116]
the collector must tread warily; for should he send his copy
of Tim Bobbin’s Lancashire dialogue of Tummus and Meary
to the binders with brief instruction that it is to be bound in
full morocco, it may be returned to him in all the splendour
of a sixteenth-century Florentine binding.

With regard to books published in cardboard covers with
paper backs and paper labels, what is to be done with these
when the backs are dirty or torn off, the labels of some
volumes missing? Must they be re-bound in leather or cloth?
Not necessarily, and I for my part maintain that the
delightful ease which one experiences in handling them when
reading the early editions of Byron, Scott, or Irving, and
those writers who flourished in the first few decades of the
nineteenth century when books were commonly issued in this
form, is sufficient excuse for retaining them in their original
shape. Such volumes may easily be made presentable at the
cost of a little time and trouble, as I shall presently show.

An appearance of antiquity is never a desideratum to the
honest book-collector. I say ‘honest’ advisedly, for there
have been—and doubtless are—persons so misguided as to
stoop to the fabrication of certain small and excessively
valuable books. To such, an appearance of age is no doubt
indispensable in their wares. But these are torments which
afflict the wealthy only; and for this I at least am sincerely
thankful.

There is no doubt, however, that in the collection of many
things antiquity in appearance is desirable: witness the
modern fabrication of ‘antique’ furniture and pottery. Our
book-hunter was once acquainted with a certain country
gentleman, a learned man and most excellent companion,
whose passion for rare things once got the better of his
judgment. It was not books that he collected, but butterflies;
and he was inordinately proud of a rather seedy-looking
‘Large Copper’ which his cabinet contained. For the benefit
of his admiring entomological friends he would recite how his
grandfather had caught it with his hat when on a holiday in[117]
the Fens. It grew to be quite an exciting tale. One day,
however, in the course of a country ramble they fell to
discussing the romancer, or man who resorts to fiction that
his adventures may be the more interesting. And as (for the
sake of argument) the man of books affected to praise him,
remarking that any soulless fool can tell the bald truth whereas
it requires an artistic temperament to adorn a tale with
realistic embellishment (!), his friend turned to him eagerly.
Being encouraged, he confessed that his Large Copper was
not all that it appeared to be. In short, the bookman
discovered that he had secured it himself while on a summer
tour in Switzerland, and with the aid of a camel’s-hair brush
had succeeded in reducing it to a venerable state.

‘Of course,’ the entomologist hastened to explain, ‘no one
could possibly tell that it was not my grandfather’s. He had
a very fine collection, and probably there was more than one
Large Copper in it, though there was only the one in the
cabinet that came to me. I shall never forget my feelings
when it happened. I had taken it out of the drawer to show
to a friend, when we both saw, outside the window, what we
thought was an Antiopa. We rushed out, and when we came
back we found that the cat. . . . Dear me; I was quite
overcome. . . . But that summer I caught the one you have
seen in Switzerland; and as my dear friend was no more and
nobody else knew of the catastrophe, I thought there would
be no harm in merely restoring a specimen to my grandfather’s
collection.’

But the bookman pointed out to him that when he died
and his collection was sold his family would benefit by some
pounds through his indiscretion; for it was now known to all
his friends as a genuine English specimen. This troubled the
entomologist greatly, for it was a point of view that had never
occurred to him, and, like the rich young man, ‘he went away
grieved.’

So it is sometimes in book-collecting: there is a temptation
to ‘restore’ an incomplete book. Should the collector find[118]
that his copy of a certain work lacks a portrait, what is more
natural than to go to the print-shop and purchase a portrait
of the same individual for insertion in his copy? And in this
there may be little harm, provided that the book is of no
value and that he makes a note in ink inside the front cover
as to what he has done. But occasionally some unscrupulous
book-fiend—he is, of course, no true book-collector—substitutes
for a damaged page a page from another copy,
or perhaps of a later edition; sometimes he supplies his
volume with a spurious title-page or other leaf; and, worst of
all, substitutes in his copy of the second edition, whereof the
title-page is damaged, the title-page of a first edition, of which
he possesses an incomplete copy.

And here let me utter a word of warning. Apparently it is
the practice of certain cheap second-hand booksellers to
abstract the engraved plates from folio books, occasionally
also removing the ‘List of Plates’ that the theft may remain
undiscovered, and to sell the works thus mutilated as sound
and perfect copies. Needless to say to the print collector
such plates are invariably worth a shilling or two apiece, if
portraits considerably more. I know to my cost one London
bookseller who habitually removes the engraved portraits
with which certain seventeenth-century folios, especially
historical ones, are wont to be embellished. How many rare
volumes this ghoul has ruined it is impossible to say,
probably some hundreds. Our book-hunter confesses to
having been caught by him three times, discovering the reason
for the cheapness of his bargains (!) some time later. A friend
has also suffered from his attentions. I need hardly add that
his shop is now avoided, by two book-hunters at least, as
something unclean.

Occasionally, also, one comes across scarce volumes bereft
of title-pages, these having been torn out by some vampire to
adorn his scrapbook. Surely no fate can be too bad for the
man who dismembers books. His proper place is certainly
in the Inferno, where, in company with Bertrand de Born,[119]
he will be condemned for ever to carry his own head, after
it has been separated from his body, in the shape of a lantern.[46]

As soon as ever you reach home with your purchases from
a ramble along the bookstalls, and whenever you receive books
that you have ordered through a bookseller’s catalogue, collate
your acquisitions carefully. Whenever it is possible refer to
a bibliography to see that your copy is all that it should be.
Nothing is more annoying than to discover, perhaps years
afterwards, that your copy of a rare book, which you fondly
imagined to be a fine one in every respect, lacks a page or so,
or a leaf of index or errata, or a plate. It is a good plan to
make a point of keeping books upon your table until they
have been properly collated and catalogued, when—and not
before—they may be placed upon the shelves.

Frequently you will discover that a second book, or even
a third, has been bound up with your volume, and you would
have overlooked these but for collating. It was a common
practice at one time (as, indeed, it is with some collectors
nowadays) to bind up thin books with thicker ones to save
the expense of binding. Probably this is the reason why
certain sixteenth and seventeenth century works which consist
of but fifty or sixty leaves are so hard to find, being bound
at the end of larger works and thus commonly escaping the
cataloguer’s eye.

It is necessary for the collector to exercise the greatest
caution in acquiring a valuable old book from any but a
reputable bookseller. The fabrication of a page or so—especially
a title-page—is a comparatively small matter to the
nefarious dealer who hopes by this means to obtain for his
copy the price which a perfect one would command. ‘Perfect’
copies of rare fifteenth-century works are made up from two
or more imperfect ones, title-pages and leaves are reproduced
in facsimile, blank leaves and engravings are inserted: for all
these the collector must be continually upon his guard. Other
books there are which have certain passages frequently[120]
mutilated, or a genealogical tree or a table generally missing.

Hazlitt gives two examples of this species of knavery.
One, in which a reproduction of the scarce portrait of Milton
usually attached to the first edition of his ‘Poems,’ 1645, had
been actually split and laid down on old paper to make it
resemble the original print: the other, a case in which a copy
of Lovelace’s ‘Lucasta,’ 1649, lacked a plate representing
Lucy Sacheverell (which makes a good deal of the value of
the book), and a copy of the modern reproduction of this plate
to be found in Singer’s ‘Select Poets’ had been soaked off
and ‘lined’ to give it the appearance of a genuine impression
mounted, and then bound in.

And these mutilations are not the only things of which the
collector must beware. Early in the history of books, the
reputation that hall-marked the publications of certain famous
presses became a source of envy to less fortunate printers.
Type and imprints were soon counterfeited, and the fine
editions of the Classics printed at Venice by the great Aldine
press were reproduced at Lyons and elsewhere. In this
matter of forgery and pirated reprints, you will find Gustave
Brunet’s ‘Imprimeurs Imaginaires et Libraires Supposés’ of
value. It is a catalogue of books printed with fictitious
indication of place or with wrong dates, an octavo volume
published in 1866.

These things, however, cannot be learnt at once, and it is
only by the continual study of catalogues and bibliographies
that one comes to know them. Needless to say, however,
all reputable booksellers will take back a work which is
discovered to be imperfect, provided that the volume be
returned without delay.

Books, like those who gave them birth, are of all conditions;
but from the collector’s point of view they may be divided
conveniently into five classes. To the First Class belong
those volumes which are described by booksellers and
auctioneers as ‘fine copies.’ Ever since their publication they
have been in the possession of wealthy men, often peers, and[121]
(sometimes like their owners!) have passed their lives for the
most part undisturbed amid luxurious surroundings. They
are invariably richly bound, often in historic bindings, and are
clean and fresh inside. Frequently they are sumptuous works
and presentation copies, and they always command high
prices. In a word, they are aristocrats among books. They
are not necessarily rare volumes, though frequently they are
large-paper copies, and for the true collector they do not
offer so much attraction as the Second Class, in which we
place those books that are more eagerly sought after. These
are generally rare books, such as incunabula and the higher
class English literature of the seventeenth century, and are
to be found in the libraries of wealthy collectors who are
also learned men. They are always well bound and in good
condition, though sometimes they have their headlines shaved,
occasionally they are slightly imperfect, or have been cleaned
and repaired. But they are always desirable books, and evoke
spirited bidding whenever they appear in the auction-room.

Class Three comprises the great army of what may be
termed ‘middle-class books.’ They are bound usually in half-bindings,
when they are not in the publisher’s cloth, and are
good, clean, sound, copies of such works as county histories,
antiquarian books, sets of the learned societies’ publications
and of ‘standard authors.’ They are such stable and solid
books as you will usually find in the libraries of the well-to-do
middle classes. In short they are gilt-edged securities, and
command a steady price in the market.

To Class Four may be assigned the volumes contained in
the average second-hand bookseller’s shop in this country.
They are the ὃι πολλοί among books, and for the most part
they include the more frequent and more modern English
works. Usually they are quite desirable copies, though
frequently they lack a portrait or other plate, sometimes they
have a torn or mounted title-page, or other imperfection.
They are generally in cloth or calf bindings which are almost
invariably somewhat decrepit, being either rubbed or perished,[122]
or cracked at the joints. They are dusty and rather unkempt,
and fox-marks are common, for such volumes have passed
through many hands and have not always been accorded the
care that is due to good books. But it is here that one comes
across books ‘in the original boards uncut,’ and, if expense
be no object to you, you may often raise such purchases to a
higher class.

Books in Class Five are the outcasts of the book-world,
being those decrepit volumes which stack the bookstalls and
barrows in the larger towns. They are the weedings of auction
sales and shops, books that are not worth cataloguing by the
dealer. Like human beings they have drifted through life
with all its vicissitudes, knowing many masters and earning
the gratitude of none. And so at length, deprived even of a
home, they find their way into the streets, where they are
soon reduced to wreckage.

At first sight it would seem that they owe their situation
to their quality, both intrinsic and extrinsic—that they are
valueless either as literature or as specimens of book-production,
or that they are imperfect or odd volumes. In
many cases this may be true, but in general it is not so. The
wrecks of handsomely produced books of high-class literature
are common on the bookstalls and barrows, as all collectors
of modest means are aware. They owe their situation chiefly
to inconsiderate handling and to the carelessness of their
successive owners.

As to the practice of inserting illustrations in books that
are published without them, ‘Grangerising,’ as it is called,
it is perhaps best left alone. At first sight there appears to
be small harm in providing, let us say, a volume of travels or
the description of a town with an appropriate engraved
frontispiece, or adorning your biography of So-and-so with
a portrait. But the temptation to overstep the bounds of
seemliness is so great that it is seldom the collector stops at a
mere frontispiece. In most cases the Grangerite soon loses
his self-control, and develops an acute mania for embellishing[123]
his volume with all and every print upon which he can lay his
hands, apposite in the slightest degree to the subject of the
book. Every year the sale-rooms witness these monstrosities.
Biographies issued in a single volume are ‘extended’
(‘rended asunder’ would be a better term) to fifteen or
twenty volumes by the insertion of hundreds of engravings
depicting every place mentioned in the text and every man
or woman that the subject of the biography ever met. I have
seen an octavo volume multiplied into twenty-five folio ones
in this fashion, the leaves being inlaid to suit the size of the
huge portraits and views stuffed into the disjointed sections
of the wretched book. Nor is it only engravings that are
used. Play-bills, lottery-tickets, tradesmen’s advertisements,
autograph letters, maps, charts, broadsides, street ballads,
bills even, all are grist for the Grangerite’s mill.

It is a singularly futile hobby, and it is certainly a pernicious
form of bibliomania, for it is responsible for the destruction
of many good books. Whether its devotee imagines that any
one is ever going to wade through his twenty monstrosities,
turning, perhaps, six illustrations between page and page of
text, we have not discovered. His completed labours form a
compilation about as valuable as a scrap-book. If it were
possible to gather into one volume, or rather portfolio, every
portrait, let us say, of a certain celebrity that has ever been
published, one would possess a valuable storehouse for
reference purposes; and such a volume, from its completeness,
would be invaluable in the British Museum. But these limits
are too narrow for the true Grangerite. He desires a wider
field of action. So he embarks upon a task which he can
never hope to complete. Though he labour all his life there
will always be some one or more engravings that he has failed
to secure; and so far from being ‘invaluable,’ his collection
becomes merely of passing interest. As a book it is, of course,
grotesque.

The fate of most of these collections is probably the same.
So long as the binding remains in good condition they are[124]
ensured a niche on some neglected shelf; but once the marks
of age or wear and tear manifest themselves their fate is
sealed. They come speedily into the hands of those booksellers
who deal also in prints, and beneath such ruthless
hands the labour of years is undone in a few minutes. At
least it is pleasant to think that the poor pages, separated for
so many years, come together again if only for a few hours
before they reach the paper-mill!

Whether the sober-minded collector whose pride is the
well-being of his books is justified in adding a frontispiece
and, say, half-a-dozen good engravings to a book that he
appreciates, is a moot question. Doubtless the correct view
is that books should not be meddled with by amateur book-producers,
that both publisher and author know best what is
most fitting for the volume they produce, that any book which
has been tampered with internally in any way becomes a
monster and is to be avoided. But this brings up again the
old question, ‘May we not do what we like with our own
volumes?’

Personally I am of opinion that the judicious and extremely
moderate adornment of certain books is justified by the result.
There is no doubt that the insertion in an unillustrated
volume of travel of, let us say, six engraved plates depicting
scenes mentioned in the text, adds a charm to the volume and
enhances both its appearance and the pleasure of its perusal.
Similarly the addition of an authentic portrait to a biography
certainly lends an added interest, whilst the addition of a map
is often of the greatest assistance to the reader. But that
books should be mutilated, torn apart, and stuffed with
play-bills, lottery-tickets, and the like, no sane book-lover
will admit.

There are some books that seem to ask for illustration.
Who has handled the three folio volumes which comprise the
first edition of Clarendon’s ‘History of the Rebellion’ without
feeling that by rights they should contain fine mezzotint
portraits of the chief actors in that great drama? But they[125]
must be mezzotints, mark you—mere line engravings would
be out of place among those bank-note paper leaves with their
handsome great-primer type. This question of seemliness,
too, must be considered carefully ere we add a single plate
to any volume. Not every engraving, however beautiful in
design and impression, is at once suitable to every book that
treats of the subject it depicts. That the illustrations be
contemporary with the text goes without saying. No one
would be so foolish as to insert modern ‘half-tone’
illustrations in a seventeenth-century book.

That heading ‘Extra-illustrated,’ so dear to certain booksellers,
must send a shudder through many of the discerning
readers of their catalogues. Books that are extra-illustrated
should be avoided by the collector on principle. There is
something foolishly egotistical in seeking (by those who
have no knowledge of book-production) to ‘improve’ the
work of other men whose business is the making of books.
There can be no necessity for it; the author is quite sure to
have added the illustrations that are requisite for the volume.
It is only books that were published without illustrations that
we are justified in attempting to embellish. Illustrations in a
book are invariably a question of the author’s and publisher’s
tastes; the cost of their production is not usually an
all-important item: it is the setting up of the type, the paper,
and the binding that count—not the illustrations.

It was the fashion in the early decades of the last century
to issue volumes of engravings suitable for illustrating the
works of contemporary writers, such as Byron and Scott: and
these illustrations can be used when you have your editions
rebound. There is no particular merit about the greater part
of them, but they depict incidents described in the text, so at
least they are apposite. Each to his taste; our book-hunter for
his part needs no second-rate illustrations to help him visualise
the glories of Childe Harold or Don Juan; and he has long
since confined his Grangerising to the sparing addition of
finely engraved portraits to biographical volumes.

[126]

CHAPTER VI

THE CARE OF BOOKS—(Continued)

here can be no subject of such prime
importance to the collector as the housing
of his books. In most cases the books
themselves have small say in the matter,
for a certain room in the house is allotted
to them without any consideration as to its
suitability for storing books, and there they must abide,
making such shift as their possessor shall determine. This
must always be the case where their owner is in lodgings or
in any temporary abode, where it is not considered worth
while going to the expense of putting up permanent shelves
for his books. But, after careless handling, there is nothing
that ruins books more quickly than an indifference to their
well-being; and unless our volumes are constantly placed in
their proper position, that is upon their feet, they will age
speedily and visibly both inside and out.

‘The surest way to preserve your books in health is to treat
them as you would your own children,’ wrote that great[127]
bibliophile, William Blades; and the care which should ever
be bestowed upon ancient volumes cannot be too strongly
emphasised. And it is not only ‘ancient’ volumes that
require attention. Cloth bindings are hardly so durable as
leather, and without proper care a library of modern books
can be reduced to wreckage in a year. It is just as easy to
provide proper accommodation for one’s books, wherever one
may be living, as it is to provide comforts for oneself. Treat
your books well and they will last you all your life, giving
pleasure every time that you may take them in your hands.
Remember also that although one may judge the propensities
of a collector from the titles of his volumes and his character
from their contents, yet there is nothing which indicates his
habits so surely as the external appearance of his books.
Whenever our book-hunter enters the library of a fellow-bookman
he can gauge at once the depths of his feelings
towards books, let alone the extent of his bibliographical
knowledge.

Surely no man is such a giant among his fellows that he
may allow the life-works of the greatest geniuses of this
world to be spurned underfoot? ‘Take thou a book into
thine hands,’ wrote Thomas à Kempis, ‘as Simeon the Just
took the Child Jesus into his arms to carry him and kiss him.’

What true book-lover could find it in his heart wantonly
to injure a good book? ‘. . . as good almost kill a Man as
kill a good Book,’ wrote Milton in that oft-quoted passage in
his Areopagitica; ‘who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature,
God’s Image; but hee who destroyes a good Booke kills
Reason itselfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye.
Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke
is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm’d and
treasur’d up on purpose to a Life beyond Life.’

It is not only the critic who destroys books, for neglect
may approach dangerously near to wanton destruction. At
the least, he who regards not the welfare of his books is an
accessory before the fact of their destruction. ‘Books,’ says[128]
that veteran bibliophile M. Octave Uzanne, ‘are so many
faithful and serviceable friends, gently teaching us everything
through their persuasive and wise experience.’ Surely if
good books are so much to us, such a great part of our lives,
it behoves us to respect them not a little. Have they not
taught us, guided us, advised us, soothed us, and amused us
from our youth up? And is it meet that we should repay their
constant friendship with indignity?

‘Thou, whosoever thou art that studiest in this book,’
wrote an unknown book-lover many centuries ago upon the
margin of a favourite volume, ‘take heed to turn the leaves
lightly and smoothly, that thou mayest avoid tearing them
on account of their thinness; and seek to imitate the example
of Jesus Christ who, when He had gently opened the book of
Isaiah and read it with attention, at length closed it reverently
and returned it to the minister.’

On this subject of shelving our book-hunter can speak from
experience, for he has provided proper accommodation for a
thousand to three thousand volumes in three temporary
abodes.[47] It takes a little time, a fair amount of trouble, and
an outlay of three or four pounds; but when once accomplished
such shelving is a thing of no small pride to oneself,
and the object of a good deal of admiration by one’s friends.
Briefly, the plan he has always adopted is to erect shelves of
pine or deal stained brown, nine inches wide and five-eighths
or three-quarters of an inch thick, along the entire walls of his
sanctum. It is firmly made and will last a lifetime, yet it can
readily be taken to pieces in a few minutes.

THE HOME-MADE LIBRARY

In erecting such shelving the first thing to do is to estimate
how many feet of it you will require. On an average one
foot will contain ten octavo or quarto volumes or six folio
ones. There should be ten inches between the shelves for[129]
octavos, twelve inches for quartos, and fourteen inches for
folios: while at the bottom you may have a shelf sixteen
inches in height for such large folios as you may acquire or
already possess. Should the huge folios (almost folissimos)
published by the Record Commission in the early years of
the nineteenth century fall within the category of your
collecting activities, you will require one shelf at least no less
than nineteen inches in height. If only for the sake of your
peace of mind I would strongly advise you not to begin
collecting early Spanish antiphonaries, such as you may see
in the Escurial; for these are frequently six feet high and
four feet wide, and are really out of place in the small domestic
library. I forget for the moment their precise dimensions in
millimetres.

It is a mistake to have the top shelves too high. Not to
speak of the inconvenience of having to stretch upon tip-toe
or mount a chair in order to obtain a volume, your books will
be subjected to a higher temperature the nearer they are to
the ceiling. Blades, in his ‘Enemies of Books,’ is emphatic
upon this point. ‘Heat alone,’ he says, ‘without any noxious
fumes is, if continuous, very injurious to books; and, without
gas, bindings may be utterly destroyed by desiccation, the
leather losing all its natural oils by long exposure to much
heat. It is, therefore, a great pity to place books high up in
a room where heat of any kind is used, for it must rise to
the top, and if sufficient to be of comfort to the readers below
is certain to be hot enough above to injure the bindings.’

Gas is one of the greatest enemies of books, the sulphur
in the gas fumes attacking the leather bindings readily, so
that in time they are reduced to tinder. So if gas be the
illuminant in your study, see to it that no volume of yours be
above the level of the burner. In any case, if space will
permit, the highest shelf should not be more than six feet
from the ground. For similar reasons of temperature, the
bottom shelves should be six inches above the floor.

As to the actual length of the shelves, if constructed of[130]
wood five-eighths of an inch thick when planed, they should
not exceed two feet two inches in length between supports.
If made longer they will gradually bend in the middle under
the weight of the books and soon look unsightly. But if
made of three-quarter-inch wood, they may well be three
feet long.

Now as to the actual construction of the cases. We will
suppose that the entire case, that is shelves and uprights,
is to be made of planks five-eighths of an inch thick when
planed. The first thing to do is to estimate how many feet of
timber you will require. Measure your wall space. In
calculating the length of shelving remember that each upright
is five-eighths of an inch thick; and in estimating the height
of the uprights, don’t forget to add the thicknesses of the
shelves to the spaces between them. Perhaps the following
example will be useful.

To find height of upright:—

The top shelf will be 5ft. 5in. from the ground.

The uprights must be two inches wider than the shelves
in order that the latter may not rest against the wall. There
must always be a space between shelves and wall to allow a
free circulation of air about the books. Therefore, let your
uprights be eleven inches and your shelves nine inches in[131]
width. In estimating the amount of timber required, don’t
forget the top.

The manner in which the shelves are supported by the
uprights is as follows. Strips of wood five-eighths of an inch
square and nine inches long are screwed across the uprights,
and on these the shelves rest. So when you order the wood
from your carpenter or timber merchant see that he sends
you also a sufficiency of these strips, two for each shelf.

The fixing of these strips will entail a certain amount of
carpentry, and in addition to bradawl, screwdriver, and footrule
you will need a hard pencil and a carpenter’s square, as
well as some stout iron screws one inch long. Two screws
are sufficient for each strip. If you are anything of a
carpenter you will countersink the holes for the heads of the
screws; this will also prevent a possible splitting of the strip.

When your carpentering is completed, the whole case must
be stained to your taste. For this purpose our book-hunter
has found nothing so good as the solution known as
‘Solignum,’ which may be purchased at any ironmonger’s.
In addition to being a wood-preservative, it has the advantage
of being obnoxious to insects. It dries a pleasing brown, not
unlike old oak. The only objection to its use that he has
discovered is that it smells strongly, though not unpleasantly,
for about a fortnight. One coat is quite sufficient, and after
a few days you may rub the shelves with an old duster to
remove any of the solution that has not yet been absorbed.

The case should now be put together, the tops (which are
in one piece, the entire width of the case) and lowest shelves
being screwed to the uprights. The other shelves are merely
rested on the strips. You will find that if your floor be level,
and you have sawn the bottoms of the uprights squarely,
there will be no necessity to affix the case to the wall: the
weight of the books alone will keep it in position. If the
floor proves uneven, small wedges underneath the uprights
will be sufficient.

You will find it an advantage to cover the shelves and their[132]
sides with green baize. This protects the bindings of the
books considerably, and it is easily stuck on with glue. It
has also the advantage of holding the dust which collects,
and with the aid of a small ‘vacuum-cleaner’ such as most
households possess nowadays, the cases may be cleaned
thoroughly without removing a single shelf.[48] Felt would be
better, but it is, of course, much more expensive. Sir John
Cheke, tutor to Edward the Sixth, that learned man who, says
Milton, ‘taught Cambridge and King Edward Greek,’ used
buckram. ‘Among other lacks,’ he writes from Cambridge
in 1549 to a friend in London, ‘I lack painted bucram to lai
betweyne bokes and bordes in mi studi, which I now have
trimd. I have need of XXX yardes. Chuse you the color.’
But the buckram of his day was probably a very different
material from the cloth which we are accustomed to associate
with the binding of books. At all events I certainly should
not recommend its use when you trim your studi.

On no account must you paint or varnish your shelves,
unless, of course, you intend to cover them with baize or
felt. However good the paint, however hard the varnish,
heavy leather-bound books will adhere to them in course of
time. So that when you come to remove a volume which you
have treasured in its ancient calf, you will find that the leather
at the bottom edges of the boards remains behind with the
shelf. Therefore, unless you intend to line them, let your
shelves be stained or sparingly polished only.

Care must be taken not to place any volume near wet or
even damp ‘Solignum.’ Make sure that it is thoroughly dry
or covered with baize before you place a single volume on the
shelves. Should you wish your work to look particularly neat,
you may putty over the heads of the screws before you begin
staining operations. An additional ‘finish’ is given by
numbering the cases with Roman numerals in gold upon[133]
small stained blocks (about 2 inches by 1¼ inches) affixed to
the top of each case. The shelves may also be lettered with
letters of the alphabet cut out of gold paper.

But perhaps you may prefer to designate the cases of your
library by the names of ancient Rome, as was the practice
followed notably in these days in the library of Sir Robert
Cotton. It is a pleasant conceit, and there is certainly something
more dignified about ‘Vespasian, VII, 7,’ or ‘Cleopatra,
IV, 26′ than there is about a mere ‘B, VI, 8,’ or ‘XIV, C, 16.’
Asinius Pollio, that great warrior, historian, and book-lover of
the Augustan age, is said to have been the first to adorn his
library with portraits and busts of celebrated men as well as
with statues of Minerva and the Muses, an example that was
soon followed by others. Pollio was the first to found a public
library at Rome, which he endowed with the money obtained
in his Illyrian campaign, says Pliny: but in how many public
libraries at the present day will you find a memorial of this
great patron of Virgil and Horace?

The effect of placing statuettes of marble or plaster, about
sixteen inches high, on the top of one’s book-cases is
singularly pleasing; and there is an appropriateness about it
to the eye that it is impossible to describe. One may have
beautiful reproductions of all the most famous classical statues
and busts for a few shillings. What can be more appropriate
than for Calliope to preside over your case containing Homer
and Virgil, Dante and Milton; or that Euterpe should be
enthroned above Theocritus and Horace, Shelley and
Swinburne? You may carry your fancy on these lines as far
as you like, and you may include any figure that pleases you,
from the well-known ‘Discobolus’ (over your case of sporting
books!) to the exquisite statue which many still persist in
calling the ‘Venus de Milo.’[49]

[134]
A friend of our book-hunter has adopted a somewhat similar
plan. Above each case in his library he has placed an oaken
shield on which are emblazoned the arms of one of the ancient
historic families of England, such as Warren, Clare, Mortimer,
or Doyly. The effect is striking, and the bold colouring of
fesses and chevrons lightens the sombre tone of the mahogany
cases. The shields are chosen for their distinctive features,
and, once learnt, it would be impossible in seeking ‘Warr. C,
21’ to mistake the scarlet chevrons of Clare for the blue and
white chess-board coat of Warren.

On the matter of cases with glass doors we need not touch
here; it has been thoroughly debated by such masters as
Blades and Lang. For the storing of valuable books and
bindings such cases are excellent, provided always that there
is a free circulation of air about the volumes, or that the doors
are opened every day. But for one who is at work continually
in his library, and is referring constantly to his books, the
repeated opening and closing of glass doors would be something
more than irritating. Charles v. of France had grilles
of brass wire put in the windows of his library in the Louvre,
to preserve the books from the attacks of ‘birds and other
beasts.’ The document recording the payment for this work
makes the sinister remark that the books were in the tower
‘devers la Fauconnerie.’ Precisely what the clerk of the
works thought we shall never know; possibly he pictured a
goshawk pouncing upon the ‘veluyau ynde’ in which some
chubby duodecimo was clothed. In the end, however, the
‘oyseaux et autres bestes’ had to make room for the books;
and the Tour de la Fauconnerie, known thenceforth as the
Tour de la Librairie, was panelled throughout with ‘bois
d’Irlande,’ carved and inlaid (as it seems) with cypress wood.
However, this was so long ago as 1368.

We must now turn to another important matter—perhaps
the most important subject to the collector after the housing
of his volumes—namely, the binding of his books. It is a
subject that is naturally of the greatest moment to the[135]
bibliophile, for it is as essentially a part of his volumes as are
their leaves and print. It is constantly before him, and will
continue to occupy his thoughts to the end of his book-collecting
career. So often, however, has it been treated, so
many are the books upon it by skilled craftsmen, that it were
needless (and, indeed, presumptuous for the writer) to enter
into any details here concerning its methods. I would
strongly urge every young collector, however, to make himself
thoroughly acquainted with the craft so far as can be done
without actually becoming apprentice to a bookbinder. Bookbinding
is taught nowadays at most of the County Council
Schools of Technics throughout the kingdom; and there are
opportunities in this direction for the young bibliophile to-day
which his elder brethren regard with envy.

Even where such practical instruction is unobtainable it is
possible to acquire a quite considerable knowledge of the craft
by a diligent study of practical text-books and the scrutinous
handling of volumes bound in all ages. As he reads each
page, each section of his manual, the collector should examine
repeatedly the volumes lying by his side. Our book-hunter
began his study of bookbinding with a small and excellent
text-book by Mr. Joseph Zaehnsdorf, a member of the well-known
firm of binders (sm. 8vo, 3rd ed. 1897); but it has
perhaps been superseded by the more recent work of Mr.
Douglas Cockerell, namely, ‘Bookbinding and the Care of
Books,’ a perfectly invaluable little book to the collector
(sm. 8vo, 4th ed. 1915, published by Mr. John Hogg,
Paternoster Row). A diligent application to this book and
constant reference to bound volumes during his perusal will
teach the collector sufficient about the binding of books for
his purpose. He will be able to distinguish between a cased
and a bound book, a well-bound and a badly-bound volume,
good and bad sewing, tooling, etc.; and he will learn the
advantages of the solid back.

Now he may turn to the valuable work by Mr. H. P. Horne
entitled ‘The Binding of Books’ (8vo, 1894) from which he[136]
will learn a great deal that is of interest concerning the
history of binding. An excellent pamphlet on bookbinders
and the history of their craft, by Mr. W. H. J. Weale, was
issued in 1898 by the authorities of the Victoria and Albert
Museum at South Kensington. It was published at one
shilling, and consists of 130 pages with illustrations of binders’
stamps and tools, and has an excellent index. At the time of
writing it is still in print. But you will find valuable lists of
works on the history and practice of bookbinding in Mr.
Cyril Davenport’s delightful volume ‘The Book: its History
and Development’ (8vo, 1907, Messrs. Constable and Co.).
And there are two small volumes on the qualities of the
modern book-binding leathers which the collector will do well
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest at the outset of his
bibliopegic studies. They are ‘Leather for Libraries’ (8vo,
London 1905), by a committee of the Library Association,
and the Report of the Committee of the Society of Arts on
Leather for Bookbinding, also octavo, London 1905.

Now as to the practical application of his knowledge of
bookbinding. He will have realised at the outset of his
career that unless a book be strongly bound in leather at the
first, much use will quickly reduce it to the condition of a
wreck. The British Museum authorities, recognising this,
wisely rebind in leather certain volumes published in cloth
covers which are to be placed on the shelves of the Reading
Room. Where much use is accorded to the volumes doubtless
the ideal way, if one were possessed of sufficient means, would
be to purchase new books in quires only, and to have them
bound in vellum, pigskin or morocco straight away. With
regard to second-hand books (by which I mean old-time
literature) these would be rebound, similarly, before they were
assigned places on the shelves.

Fortunately, however, in the private library our volumes
are immune from that careless handling usually accorded to
books by those who love not learning for learning’s sake, but
look upon it as a necessary part of their worldly education.[137]
Usually there is no need to rebind these ancient tomes whose
‘joints’ are so delicately described by the bookseller as
‘tender’: their very infirmity will ensure that they be
accorded careful handling. But there comes a time when
the old fellow succumbs to his arthrodial trouble, and there
is nothing for it but to send him to the binder that he may
acquire a second youth. Then it is that the collector’s
learning in the art of binding will prove of the greatest use.
He will take the patient in his hands, examine him minutely,
and write a long prescription which he will slip into the
volume opposite the title-page, before proceeding to wrap him
up for the journey. It will run something like this:

M. Pasquier’s ‘Recherches de la France’
Fo: Paris 1633.

• To be bound in full Niger, dark brown (as I usually have it).
• Solid back, big round bands.
• All edges untouched.
• Old marbled endpapers, cloth joints.
• Blind panel and lozenge tooling on sides (like the pattern you have of my big Menestrier).
• On the back a broad gold line either side of each band.
• Panels plain.
• To be lettered (thick fount)

RECHERCHES
DE LA FRANCE

• and in the middle panel

PASQUIER.

• The engraved portrait facing the title-page to be washed and sized.
• Tears on pp. 721, 723 to be mended.

Pigskin, vellum, and morocco (by which I intend goatskin):
there are no alternatives if durability be our aim; calf,
of course, we have learnt long ago to eschew. No leather,
except Russia, perishes more quickly or more easily. Rather
have a book bound in cloth than in calf any day. Buckram is[138]
good and stands fairly rough handling; it is useful for binding
catalogues and cheap books. See that your binder gives you
good thick boards when he clothes your books in buckram.

Years ago, when books were most commonly bound in calf,
a custom arose of stamping the lettering on thin pieces of
leather of a different colour from the binding, and these were
stuck on to the back of the book. There is no doubt that
these leather labels have sometimes a pleasing effect, and for
a time the custom was very popular. But it is a bad habit.
Besides the meretricious effect generally produced, the paste
which holds the label to the back of the book perishes in
time, and the label drops off. A visit to any large second-hand
bookshop will afford an admirable illustration of the result
of this habit. Here one may see sets of Shakespeare’s works
and other classics which present a most woebegone appearance
owing to several of the volumes having shed their labels.
The only excuse for this custom that I have ever heard urged,
is that one always knows when to rebind volumes so adorned:
it is when the labels begin to fall.

As to the merits and demerits of the different coloured
moroccos, you will find these fully dealt with in the bookbinding
manuals. White and black we are warned against
especially. The bookbinding authorities tell us that vellum,
if exposed to a strong light, perishes and chips off like
egg-shell; and we are warned to place vellum bound volumes
with their backs to the wall, lettering the fore-edge with pen
and ink, as was often done of old. But if kept away from the
windows this precaution seems to be unnecessary. The
beautiful brown vellum used for binding and repairing old
books by Messrs. John Ramage and Son is very attractive
and is, perhaps, as durable a binding as it is possible to have.
Possibly other bookbinders use it, though I do not remember
to have seen it used by any other firm. So far as I am aware
this firm is the only one in London capable of executing work
of the very highest class at a price within the means of the
modest collector.

[139]
It has been said that there are only four bookbinders in
London who may be trusted not to mutilate a book, and that
there are only two who have any sense of design and harmony
of colour. But this is not to be wondered at when we consider
that the majority of the bookbinders’ customers know nothing
whatever of bookbinding good or bad, requiring only that
their volumes shall present a gorgeous appearance to the eye.
Consequently the ordinary binder is rarely called upon to pay
those minute attentions to detail demanded by a hypercritical
collector. Bibliophiles are born, not made, and it were foolish
to expect that every bookbinder has the love of books at
heart. In nine cases out of ten it is our own fault if the
binder goes wrong, for it means that our instructions have
been either too meagre or lacking in a knowledge of technical
detail.

When sending a book to the binder, definite instructions
should always be enclosed. The details should be set forth
clearly on a slip accompanying the volume. It should be
stated:

And here let me say that it is always better to choose the
leather (the actual skin) oneself. The binder will make up
two little books, lettered with the collector’s name on the
cover, containing moroccos of different hues; one he will give
to the collector, the other he will retain. As every sample in
these books is numbered, when ordering it is merely necessary
to give the number (written very distinctly!). It is perhaps
superfluous to add that, at the outset, the collector will have
obtained a guarantee from his binder that only acid-free skins
shall be used in binding his books. And he will also be
careful to avoid selecting the very bright tints, such skins not
being so durable as those of more sombre hue.

[140]

A goodly list? Yes, but a necessary one unless one is
content to leave these things to the binder’s discretion. He
may be one of the two who are said to possess ‘a sense of
design and harmony of colour’; but unless the collector has
enclosed instructions as to all these points, if on its return
the appearance of the book displease him he has only himself
to blame.

The care which the book-lover bestows upon his volumes
should not end, however, when they return from the binder.
Unless attended to from time to time a leather binding—however
good the leather—will perish, probably, within a
lifetime. Vellum, apparently, is everlasting, provided it be[141]
kept away from the light and not exposed to great changes
of weather or temperature. But pigskin, goatskin, and of
course calf, in time lose by evaporation certain fats which are
inherent in the leather. Some collectors use furniture-polish
or brown boot-polish to brighten up dingy old bindings, and
this certainly has a pleasing (and often surprising) effect. But
it is a bad practice, for the polish hardens the leather, which
soon cracks worse than before. ‘It would add immensely to
the life of old leather bindings,’ writes Mr. Cockerell, ‘if
librarians would have them treated, say once a year, with
some preservative.’ And he goes on to recommend that the
bindings be rubbed over with a solution of paraffin wax
dissolved in castor oil. Our book-hunter has used a preparation
of glycerine for some years with success, but the paraffin
wax promises to evaporate less rapidly. Old calf bindings
should be treated at least once every year.

What shall we do with our volumes in ‘original boards,
uncut’ when their paper backs become tattered, their labels
illegible? Is there no other treatment for them than a visit
to the binder’s? That depends entirely upon one’s energy,
one’s capacity for taking pains, one’s neatness of finger, and
the time at one’s disposal. As I have said, the pleasure in
handling volumes so attired is sufficient excuse for a desire
to retain them in their original condition as long as possible.
There is a facility in opening, a lightness in holding, and a
simple charm in their appearance that is unknown to their
more richly clad brethren. Our book-hunter for his part has
long since given up sending such volumes to the binder’s.
Let the adept exercise his craft upon tomes in worn-out
leather bindings; with the repairing of books in their original
boards our amateur himself will deal.

It is not a difficult matter, and it can be done by the
bibliophile at home. The first requisites are some sheets of
strong, tough paper, brown and coloured. These can be
procured for a few pence from any paper-merchant or place
where they sell wrapping-paper. A pot of ‘Stickphast’[142]
paste, a pencil, a ruler, a pocket-knife, and a pair of scissors
are the accessories. Sometimes it is necessary only to re-back
the volume. This is a simple matter. First of all the tattered
paper on the back is scraped off, then a strip of brown or
coloured paper is cut the required width and an inch and a half
longer than the height of the volume. Cover the strip with
paste, then take the volume in your left hand and paste
the back and half an inch on to the sides, having first of all
placed a sheet of clean paper, slightly larger than the book,
inside the cover at each end (i.e. under the boards). This is
to prevent soiling.

Now press the back of the book on to the strip, lying on the
table ready pasted, so that it adheres; and with your right
hand press the sides of the strip over on to the sides of the
book. Experience will quickly teach you that if you use
too much paste you will make a mess; whilst if you use too
little the strip will not stick. If the paper is very thick it is
necessary to rub the paste well into it.

Next put the back of the book upon the table (which we
trust you have covered with a newspaper) and allow the boards
to fall flat, holding the leaves upright. Now comes the tricky
part of the business: you have got to fold the projecting ends
of the new back over the top and bottom of the boards and
under the body of the book. If this is not quite lucid, get
a volume in boards and hold it as we have directed, you will
soon see what is meant. It is a ticklish operation and the
paper is easily torn if too thin or too damp. It also requires
some patience, for probably you will find that the strip has
come away from the sides during your manipulations. Press
it down again and do the other end. Pressing and pulling
gently and kneading are the secrets of success. A small
rubber squeegee such as photographers use is useful here.
With it you can press out the superfluous paste under the
sides of the strip; but it must be used cautiously and not too
hard.

Now close the volume, not forgetting to insert sheets of[143]
clean paper between boards and leaves at either end, take it
up again in your left hand, and pat and finger it carefully
till you are satisfied that all is well. Then remove a volume
of similar thickness from a rather tightly packed shelf, and
insert your patient in its place as far as the strip. Leave it
here to dry for at least twenty-four hours.

If the original paper label is legible and intact, it can be
easily soaked off the tattered back, though you may have to
operate first of all with the pocket-knife to remove it entire
from the book. Press it between blotting-paper and allow it
to dry naturally. When the new back is dry (not before) the
label may be pasted on to it. If, however, the label is missing
or too tattered to be of service, there is nothing for it but to
write another one with your best penmanship, copying the
original, if you have it, in facsimile. Such labels should be
written with Indian (waterproof) ink upon rather thin paper
of a different colour from the back. Light buff is the most
useful colour, though pale blue and light green can be used
sometimes with advantage.

Should you wish to make your work look extra neat, and
to disguise the fact that the volume has been rebacked, it is
possible sometimes to raise the end-papers at the inner corners
of the boards, so that the projecting ends of the backing-strip
may be tucked under. So much for rebacking.

Sometimes, however, the boards are too dirty or broken to
be retained, or some of the boards in a set of volumes are
missing. Then there is nothing for it but to provide new
boards or patch up and re-cover the old ones. Here again the
labour is not very great. New boards may be cut from a
cardboard box of suitable size and thickness. Those used by
dressmakers are not very suitable, the card being generally
too soft. If your volume lacks one or both boards, paste the
back with stickphast, and then press on to it a strip of very
thin linen (a strip torn from an old cambric handkerchief
serves admirably) about two inches wider than the back and
an inch shorter than the height of the book. The linen will[144]
project an inch on either side of the back. Now put the
volume aside to dry.

When the back is dry, having provided suitable boards,
paste the linen sides on the underside of each board, i.e. so
that when the book is shut, the linen is between leaves and
board. The best way to do this is to take a volume of
similar thickness, cover it with newspaper, and place it flat
upon the table with its fore-edge to the back of the ‘patient.’
Then lay the board on the supporting volume, and so paste
the linen to it. Do one side after the other, stand the book
‘ajar,’ and allow to dry. Now you may proceed just as in
re-backing, covering the boards first of all by pasting over
them a rather thin but opaque paper. You will find the
squeegee useful here. These side-papers are measured and
cut one inch larger than the volume at head, foot, and fore-edge.
The projecting edges are folded over the boards and
rubbed down with the squeegee. The corners need some
attention and pressing.

When you have re-backed your book and all is dry, you will
have to provide it with end-papers. Any opaque white paper
will do, provided it is not too stiff. That used for lining chests
of drawers will answer the purpose, though a paper of slightly
better quality is preferable. Measure it carefully about
one-eighth of an inch less at head and foot than the height of
the book. You need not trouble about the width: so long
as the free edge projects beyond the fore-edge when you close
the book it can be cut level afterwards. Do not use too much
paste, and crease the paper carefully along, and slightly into,
the ‘joint’ with an ivory paperknife. Do not close the book
until it is dry.

Whenever you may have occasion to add new end-papers,
remember to preserve all indications of the pedigree of your
book, by which I mean traces of previous ownership. If
there be a bookplate, soak it off, and when dry paste it inside
the end cover. If there be autographs of interest on the
boards, soak the paper off, cut out the writing and paste it[145]
back again when you have finished the book.

When you have provided your volume with new boards,
however, you may prefer to clothe it in a ‘whole binding’;
that is, to use a single piece of paper to cover both back and
sides. This is slightly more difficult and some little patience
is needed; but when successfully accomplished the effect
repays one amply. Lay your book on a sheet of coloured
paper, so that the boards are flat whilst you are holding the
leaves perpendicularly; then pencil and rule lines all round,
leaving a margin of about three-quarters of an inch. Cut out
this piece, paste it, paste the back and boards, and lay the
book down again on the paper just as you did to begin with.
The book is held in this position with either hand whilst the
edges are turned up over the boards. It takes a little practice,
and one requires some experience in the shrinkage of the
paper used. Old boards that have their corners broken can
be easily repaired by the use of plenty of paste rubbed well
into the breaks, and by using fairly strong covering paper.

There is another matter of which mention must be made
here, for it is a necessary adjunct to the binding of books, and
that is cleaning, or washing, as it is generally called. Often
one comes across leaves in a volume that are stained or spotted
in such a manner as to spoil the appearance of the book which
otherwise is perfect. Such blemishes can usually be removed
when the volume is rebound. Either it is not such a difficult
matter as many who have written of these things would have
us believe, or else our book-hunter has been singularly
fortunate. For he confesses to having achieved considerable
success in this direction. Like all other matters involving
care and thoroughness, it takes a good deal of time, and no
small amount of trouble; but apart from these considerations
there is no reason why any bibliophile endowed with patience
and a capacity for taking pains, should not attend to the
washing of his more ‘grubby’ volumes himself.

It is not the writer’s intention here to go into the various
processes employed, for that has been done already by[146]
experienced bookbinders; but perhaps the methods which he
has employed successfully may be of interest and, possibly, of
some use to beginners.

Perhaps it is hardly necessary to say that your first
experiments should be made upon books of no value whatever,
preferably volumes that have been picked out of the penny
tub for this purpose. You will also have procured (if indeed
you do not already possess) a copy of Mr. Douglas Cockerell’s
invaluable little book which I have already mentioned, and
have studied it as has been suggested above. Mr. Zaehnsdorf’s
work also contains a chapter on this subject.

The paraphernalia required are not numerous or expensive,
for they consist merely of three or four wide-mouthed glass-stoppered
bottles in which to store your chemicals, and a few
photographer’s developing dishes (the deep ones, of white
porcelain) of a suitable size for octavo, quarto, or folio leaves.

Obviously the first thing to do is to remove from the book
the leaf or leaves that require cleaning. Unless, like Gerard
de Leew, the Antwerp printer, you are ‘a man of grete
wysedom in all maner of kunnyng,’ you will not attempt to
clean the leaves of a book in situ. In fact he would be a
very brave (or foolish) man who, without great experience,
tried to remove any sort of stain from a page without removing
the leaf first of all. Our own experience is that it is better
to pull the whole book to pieces—or rather take it to pieces,
for the word ‘pull’ in this connection makes one shudder.
Carefully cut the threads that hold the quires to the bands,
and little by little remove each quire. If the book is in an
old leather binding, with a solid back, your task will be no
easy one, for it is necessary to scrape away the glue from the
back after it has been damped. A cloth dipped in very hot
water and wrung out tightly is sometimes of use here, but
you must use the greatest caution.

Having removed the leaf, or rather sheet of four pages
(we will suppose that the volume has been ‘cut’) that requires
cleaning, you have now to diagnose its complaint and prescribe[147]
the correct remedy, which you will have learnt from the text-books
we have mentioned. But if the leaf is not merely
stained in part, but altogether brown and discoloured, the
following treatment probably will prove efficacious. Put half
an ounce of permanganate of potash in a jug that holds about
a pint and a half, and fill it up with hot water. Stir with a
piece of wood until the permanganate is dissolved. Then lay
your sheet in a developing dish and pour the hot solution in
gently, taking care that there are no bubbles and that the
leaf is completely covered. At the end of five minutes (or ten
if the paper is thick and heavily sized) pour back the liquid
into the jug, and, holding the dish over a sink, let cold water
run across it in a gentle stream until all the permanganate is
washed away.

The leaf will now be stained a deep brown. Stand the
dish on end (the leaf of course sticks to the bottom of the
dish) to drain while you prepare the bleaching part of the
operation. Now take a similar jug, put half an ounce of
oxalic acid into it, and again fill up with hot water. Pour
this (hot but not boiling) over the leaf as before. When the
leaf is as white as the dish itself, which will take from five
minutes to a quarter of an hour, pour off the solution and
wash the surplus fluid away. Then let the leaf wash in gently
running water for one hour. Our book-hunter always uses
the bath for this purpose, but a tin foot-bath under a tap does
excellently. The best way to dry the leaf is to press it gently
between two sheets of unused blotting-paper, then remove the
upper sheet and allow the leaf to dry naturally. Remember,
however, that after any washing or bleaching, leaves must
always be ‘sized’ to give back to the paper that substance
which the washing has taken out. You will find full instructions
for doing this in the text-books I have mentioned.
It is quite a simple matter.

Mr. Cockerell recommends that the permanganate bath
be only ‘warmed slightly,’ and that the leaf be left in it for
‘about an hour.’ Our book-hunter has found (fortunately not[148]
to his cost, for the volumes which he used for experimental
purposes were valueless) that this sometimes rots the paper,
and on one occasion the leaves at the end of an hour came
to pieces when the solution was poured off. If used hot and
quickly it does not seem to injure the paper, but the water
must never be so hot that you cannot bear your finger in it,
and you must take care never to use a stronger solution. A
strong solution of permanganate will reduce paper to pulp in
a few minutes. For similar reasons our bookman prefers
oxalic to sulphurous acid, but this too must never be used
stronger than I have indicated. I hasten to add, however,
in deference to such an excellent authority, that our
book-hunter does not recommend, but merely states the
methods with which he personally has been successful.

The most difficult stains to remove that the writer has yet
come across are those made by a child’s paint-box. Some
colours are easily removed, but seventeenth-century gamboge
is a perfect beast. The only successful way to deal with
these ‘stains’ is by studying the chemistry of the ‘colours,’
and the re-actions of the chemicals of which they are made.
With a little experimenting there is no reason why any of
these pigments should not be removed successfully, and at
some future period of leisure our book-hunter hopes to record
his own experiences in this matter.

Here a word of warning. Do not handle permanganate of
potash in the room where your bleached leaves are drying.
If you do probably you will be annoyed to find small purple
specks on the leaves where the fine permanganate dust has
settled. It is unpleasant stuff to use, and stains everything
with which it comes into contact. Undoubtedly it is at its
best in a closely stoppered bottle. Rubber gloves would be
useful, if they did not make one ‘all thumbs.’ Remember
that oxalic acid will remove the stains from your hands just
as well as from paper—also that it bleaches carpets. (Item,
don’t conduct your operations in the dining-room.) The best
thing with which to handle the leaves when wet is a broad[149]
flat bone paper-knife with smooth edges. On various
occasions when our bookman has not had time to complete
the bleaching process, he has dried the leaves in their brown
state and put them aside for a week before bleaching. So far
he has not found this to have any ill effect on the paper,
though possibly if kept for a longer period—especially if they
got damp—the permanganate might rot them.

A very hot and strong solution of alum I have used with
success for leaves that are more dirty than stained, and do
not really require bleaching. Ether is excellent for stains of
a greasy nature, though some may prefer the stains to the
vapour which it gives off. With hydrochloric acid, so strongly
recommended by some, I have never had any success. If
used strong it destroys the paper, and if used weak the leaf
has to be left in it for so long as to reduce the paper almost
to a pulp. Remember that as a general rule, the shorter the
process of washing the better. Long immersion tends to rot
the fibres of the paper. With regard to staining the leaf so
as to match the rest of the book, our book-hunter generally
uses a solution of cigarettes (Virginians are quite the best).
Possibly this is a very bad practice, but at least it is effective,
the stain diffuses easily, and it can be regulated to any shade.
Coffee is recommended by some.

Thumb-marks and the stains of dirty fingers are best
removed by rubbing them lightly (and very carefully) with
one of those disc-shaped erasers used by typists. These
erasers remove the surface of the paper, so they must be used
with extreme caution.[50]

There is yet another byway of book-collecting which we
must study before we may graduate in book-lore. To the[150]
uninitiated the word ‘bibliography’ conveys little more than
a mere writing about books. But it is a vast study, and, if
we are to become proficient in it, one that will occupy us for
many years.

For the specialist there is no more delightful pursuit than
the compilation of a bibliography upon the subject of his
choice. Not only will it give him a sound bibliographical
knowledge of the books which he desires and hopes ultimately
to possess, but it will enable him to collate immediately every
volume that he acquires. It will also open up a new field of
interest for the young collector, for he will be constrained to
study books from their material aspect; and with a knowledge
of the ‘natural history’ of the book will come a regard for
the well-being of his volumes. So also will he be brought
into touch with modern methods of bibliography, and he will
certainly find an additional interest in his books.

The main objects of bibliography are, briefly, to determine

(i) Whether a book is genuine.

(ii) Whether it is complete and perfect.

(iii) Whether it is in its original condition, i.e. as it issued
from the press.

(iv) Whether it has been made up by the insertion of leaves
or quires from another copy or edition.

(v) To provide a standard collation (i.e. an accurate
description of the book in its original state) with which other
copies may be compared. For the purpose of the specialist
we may add

(vi) To provide a bibliographical catalogue of those books
in which he is especially interested.

All this may sound very simple, but it must be borne in
mind that where no standard collation is available, the only
method of providing one is by a diligent, thorough, and
precise study of the leaves, quires, watermarks and ‘make up’
of a number of copies. As these things frequently vary
considerably in different copies of the same book, the task of
standardising a collation is by no means an easy one. The[151]
difficulties that beset one in the case of early-printed books
are immense; but with the inconstancies of incunabula we
are not concerned here.

It is easily begun, this making of a bibliography, and it is a
delightful hobby, though necessarily it takes up a good deal
of time. The plan which our book-hunter adopted is as
follows, and it has been so successful and valuable to him that
he has no hesitation in recommending it. First of all he
procured a card-index box capable of holding about a thousand
cards. Upon these he entered the books as he came across
them in catalogues of all sorts, under the authors’ names.
Thus:

After each he generally pencils the price and bookseller,
or other authority for the book’s existence; but this is for
his own guidance only, and is by the way. A fresh card is
used for every book. This forms a rough index of every work
upon his subject with which he is acquainted.

Now for the bibliography proper. For this our bookman
uses single sheets of paper, eight inches by five, ruled with
feint lines. These are contained in a ‘spring-back’ portfolio,
thus forming a handy volume in which pages can be
inserted anywhere at will. At the top of the page he writes
the author’s name, just as for the index, and beneath this
(leaving a line blank) he copies the title-page of the book
in extenso, using red ink for red print, capitals where capitals
occur, and underlining those words which are in italics. The
end of each line is indicated by a vertical stroke. Then follows
a complete collation of the book. The following illustration,
however, will convey a better idea than can be given in words.
It will be noticed that after the size (which is given in the
English notation) the measurement of the title-page in[152]
millimetres is added within parentheses. If more than one
copy has been examined this measurement is of the largest.
The reason why the form-notation is given as well as the
actual size, is because it is easier to carry the form-notation in
one’s head.

Whenever our book-hunter has an afternoon to spare,
pocketing a handful of cards from the index he sets off for
the British Museum (or wherever he may happen to be
working at the time, where access may be had to the volumes
he requires) and settles himself to collate and copy title-pages.
But it must be borne in mind that the collation of any volume[153]
cannot be considered as ‘standard’ until at least three copies
of the book have been examined, all of which are identical.
The majority of the common books printed after the year
1600 vary not at all in their make up; and having once
collated such a volume, the comparison with it of other copies
takes but a very few minutes. Sixteenth-century books,
however, especially those printed in the first half of the
century, vary sufficiently in their collations to demand a much
more careful scrutiny. If the volume under examination is
a book of which different copies vary considerably, you must
naturally be exceedingly cautious in declaring that your
collation represents the form in which the book was issued
from the press. It is quite possible that you will find
differences in each of six copies.

At the end of each collation our book-hunter puts a letter
or letters in brackets to denote the habitations of the copies
he has examined, the tallest copy (of which the title-page’s
measurements are given) being distinguished by an asterisk;
thus: A, B*, N. ‘A’ represents our book-hunter’s own copy,
‘B’ that in the Bodleian Library, ‘N’ that in the Bibliothèque
Nationale; and so on. Mention, of course, from which
copy the collation has been taken is made in the text; or,
if you prefer it, you may denote this, so that it may be seen
at a glance, by entering the necessary distinguishing letter
in red ink.

As I have said, it is a fascinating pursuit, but unless the
subject in which you specialise is a narrow one, you may be
overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task. Take heed that
you do not undertake more than you have time or opportunity
to complete; or else, embarking upon a labour of Hercules
you may liken yourself to Sisyphus. Mazzuchelli began ‘Gli
Scrittori d’Italia,’ but succeeded in finishing only the first
two letters of the alphabet. The temptation to leave behind
us some great work by which our name will become in time
a household word, is doubtless a great one; but gigantic
though our magnum opus may be in our own estimation, it[154]
does not follow that others will set a like value upon it, or,
indeed, upon the labours of its author. Jean de la Haye, the
preacher in ordinary to Anne of Austria, published his Biblia
maxima in nineteen folio volumes; but, says the bibliographer,
‘no part of it is esteemed except the Prolegomena, and even
they are too diffuse.’ Louis Barbier gained the confidence of
the Duke of Orleans by his great tact (which probably
amounted to servility) and skill in repeating the tales of
Rabelais. Mazarin appointed him Bishop of Langres for
having betrayed his master. When he died in 1670, he left
a hundred crowns to whoever would write an epitaph worthy
of him. So Bernard de la Monnoye wrote the following:

But whether Bernard got the legacy history does not relate.

It is astonishing, however, what can be accomplished in
this direction by diligence. Le Clerc, not content with having
produced a ‘Bibliothèque Universelle et Historique,’ laboured
till he had given to the world a ‘Bibliothèque Choisie’ and
a ‘Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne,’ in all eighty-two
duodecimo volumes! Beausobre and L’Enfant compiled a
‘Bibliothèque Germanique,’ comprising the period 1720-40;
and published it in fifty volumes. Baillet’s ‘Catalogue des
Matières’ occupies thirty-five folio volumes. But of course
all these were mere lists and criticisms of books, not detailed
bibliographies of carefully collated works.

It is a great gift, this gift of ‘finding time.’ ‘When I see
how much Varro wrote,’ says St. Augustine in his ‘De
Civitate Dei,’ ‘I marvel much that ever he had any leisure
to read; and when I perceive how many things he read, I
marvel more that ever he had any leisure to write.’ The[155]
creation of opportunity is no lesser gift. ‘A wise man,’ says
Bacon, ‘will make more opportunities than he finds.’
Tomaso de Andrada, a Portuguese Jesuit, wrote his magnum
opus in a dungeon, in chains, without clothes, with little food,
writing only in the middle of the day by the help of a faint
light which he received through an air-hole.

The compilation of bibliographies began early in the history
of books, and doubtless grew out of the catalogues which the
early printers put forth. Conrad von Gesner compiled a
‘Bibliotheca Universalis’ which was printed at Zurich in four
volumes between 1545 and 1555. François Grudé published
a ‘Bibliothèque Françoise’ in 1584. It is a catalogue of
French authors and is not confined to any particular subject,
but at least it is a step in the direction of classification. From
that date the number of these invaluable works has steadily
increased, and about the middle of the seventeenth century
L’Abbé put forth the first (?) of those useful book-collector’s
aids, a ‘Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum.’ This interesting little
volume is really a list of books (under their authors’ names)
which also contain lists of authors. As L’Abbé says in the
preface to his volume, so pleasantly dedicated ‘Lectoribus
Philobiblis,’ he designs his book to be a ‘Bibliothecam
Bibliothecarum, Catalogum Catalogorum, Nomenclatorem
Nomenclatorum, Indicem Indicum, et quid non?’ The only
edition which I have seen was printed at Paris in 1664, but
the licence is dated 1651. Another edition was printed at
Rouen in 1672, a third at Leipzig in 1682, and a fourth some
years later, all in duodecimo or small octavo.

Grudé’s book is a choice one. It is entitled ‘Le Premier
Volume de La Bibliothèque du Sieur de la Croix-du-Maine:
Qui est un catalogue général de toutes sortes d’Autheurs, qui
ont escrit en François depuis cinq cents ans et plus jusques
à ce iourd’huy,’ and was published at Paris ‘Chez Abel
L’Angelier’ in 1584. It is one of those folio volumes printed
in large pica on thick paper that delight the heart of the
bibliophile and are a joy to handle. At the back of the[156]
title-page is an oval portrait of Henry of Navarre, dated 1581.
He was not a handsome man, if one may judge by this portrait,
in fact it would be difficult to draw a more repellent face; yet
the book was dedicated to the king in a long ‘Epistre au Roy’
which ends with the author’s quaint anagram ‘Race du mans,
si fidel a son Roy’ (François de la Croix du Maine). But
perhaps the portrait was omitted in the royal copy. The
work was to have been completed in three volumes, of which
the first two were to contain works published in the vernacular,
and the third those printed in Latin. But alas! the author
left only this first volume, which contains some three thousand
authors, with short biographies of them. One hesitates to
connect this premature end of the book (or, indeed, the
author’s assassination six years later) with the unlucky
portrait! Altogether a very delightful volume.

Nowadays a bibliography that is not at once complete,
detailed, and meticulously accurate is of no value. In this
critical age when the methods of modern science are applied
to books, it behoves the bibliographer to be careful, thorough,
and precise. Unless he can bring these three attributes to
bear upon his work, far better that he should never undertake
it; for the result will be not only valueless but misleading, and
he will certainly fail to obtain ‘that lasting fame and
perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented
shall be the reward of those whose published labours advance
the good of mankind.’

There is one small appendage of the private library which
must be mentioned before we close the chapter. A list of the
prices which he has paid for his books forms a record that is
indispensable to the book-collector. It is impossible to carry
all one’s ‘bargains’ in one’s head, and if pencilled inside the
book itself it is exposed to that publicity which one naturally
shuns. Such a record is of something more than curious
interest, for a knowledge of the rise or fall in the price of
those books in which he is interested is essential to the
collector. Whenever he comes across, in a bookseller’s[157]
catalogue, a book that he already possesses, he will like to
know how the present price compares with that which he gave
for his copy.

A convenient shape for this useful book is an ordinary
folio account book (our book-hunter’s measures 15 inches × 9½
inches), and it should be ruled for ‘cash,’ with an inner margin.
Between the inner margin and (outer) cash column he rules
two lines, dividing the middle of the page into three columns,
of which the left-hand one is the widest. The illustration over-page
will show you precisely what is meant. At the top of
each page is placed a letter of the alphabet, and, immediately
beneath or alongside this, the date of a year. In the inner
margin each line is numbered down the page. In the next
column is written the author and short title of the book—sufficient
to identify it—then the place where it was bought,
then the date when purchased, and in the cash column the
price which was paid for it.

In our book-hunter’s ledger the first few pages are headed

Θ

(Books presented to me)

and the next heading is

Φ

(Books published by instalments, extending over several years)

Then comes

A

1900

and so on, each year having a letter assigned to it.[51]

Now for the practical use of this ledger. Inside the front
cover of every one of his volumes our book-hunter affixes a
book-plate; and in the left-hand bottom corner of this he[158]
writes the year-letter and number of the book’s entry in his
ledger: e.g. A 24, L 7, etc. Thus supposing that one wishes
to find out when and where one acquired a certain book and
how much was paid for it, one has only to raise the front cover
of the volume in question, and find its index mark. Suppose
it to be ‘E 28.’ Turning to our ledger we find that E
represents the year 1904, and No. 28 is the volume in question.
Similarly A 24 signifies No. 24 of 1900, L 7 is No. 7 of 1911,
and so on. If your library be a large one, and a search for
the volume would entail trouble, you may conveniently pencil
this index mark against the book’s entry in your catalogue,
but in such a way that it cannot be mistaken for the shelf-mark.

It is as well to write the entries in the ledger upon the recto
of the leaves only, so that the verso (being numbered like the
opposite recto) may be used for recording the bindings,
published prices, previous owners, etc., of the volumes opposite.
When all the letters of the alphabet have been used up, they
may be repeated doubled, as AA 4, DD 32, etc.

[159]

C 1902 C

[160]

CHAPTER VII

BOOKS OF THE COLLECTOR

ust as anyone who sets out to collect prints
or antiques must provide himself at the
outset with certain books necessary for
obtaining a knowledge of the subject, so
the book-collector must gather to himself
those works which, if studied carefully, will
enable him to become thoroughly conversant with the objects
of his favourite pursuit. To the real collector there is no
more delightful reading than the literature which deals with
the subject he has made his own; and the more ample and
specialised it be, the greater will be his delight.

What bibliophile has not read, and read again, such delightful
works as Burton’s ‘Book Hunter,’ Blades’ ‘Enemies
of Books’ and ‘Life and Typography of William Caxton,’
‘The Library’ and ‘Books and Bookmen’ by Andrew Lang,
Harrison’s ‘Choice of Books’ and ‘Among my Books,’
Clark’s ‘Care of Books,’ Edwards’ ‘Libraries and Founders
of Libraries,’ and many others of equal charm? Indeed,
these volumes may well be among the first that he who
embarks upon the peaceful sea of book-collecting gathers to[161]
himself. Nor is there any less fascination in the more
specialised works, such as Mr. Gordon Duff’s ‘Early Printed
Books,’[52] ‘English Provincial Printers,’ and ‘The Printers of
Westminster and London to 1535,’ Bradshaw’s ‘Collected
Papers,’ Mr. A. W. Pollard’s ‘Early Illustrated Books,’
Wheatley’s ‘Prices of Books,’ Professor Ferguson’s ‘Aspects
of Bibliography,’ and the publications of the Bibliographical
Society. All these and many others are necessary if we are
to acquire a thorough knowledge of old books. They are, or
should be, in every large public library; and we may read
them through and through at our leisure, learning more from
each perusal.

There are certain works, however, which the book-collector
should himself possess, for he will have continual recourse to
them throughout his book-collecting career. Doubtless some
of them will make an inroad upon his purse, but it will be
money well spent, and the knowledge which he will gain from
them will save him many a shilling. Their acquisition must
be looked upon in the same light as the shelves and fittings of
the library.

First of all we will take those bibliographies which deal
with books published in the English language, and there are
certain of these volumes that are indispensable
to the book-collector. Among them are
Lowndes’ ‘Bibliographer’s Manual,’ in six octavo volumes,
last published in 1869[53] (alas! sadly deficient, but still of
considerable use), which one can have for about a pound,
and Hazlitt’s valuable ‘Bibliographical Collections and Notes[162]
on Early English Literature,’ complete in eight octavo
volumes, published between 1867 and 1903. The Bibliographical
Society’s publications, from 1893 onwards, are of
the greatest value, comprising lists of English printers, early
editions of rare books, lists of early English plays, tales, and
prose romances, with numerous bibliographies. For recourse
to these, probably it will be necessary to visit the nearest
important public library, though one may purchase individual
numbers from time to time at the second-hand booksellers’.

Arber’s ‘Term Catalogues,’ published in three quarto
volumes between 1903 and 1906, gives a complete list of
works entered at Stationers’ Hall from 1668 to 1709. It
followed the same author’s ‘Transcripts of the Registers of
the Worshipful Company of Stationers of London, 1554-1640,’
which was privately printed in five volumes between 1875 and
1894. A second ‘Transcript’ of these registers, from 1640
to 1708, was issued similarly in 1913-14, in three more volumes.

Sir Egerton Brydges’ ‘British Bibliographer’ (in which he
was assisted by Joseph Haslewood) was published in four
octavo volumes, 1810-14, and is an entertaining work, though
not one which it is necessary that the collector should acquire.
The second edition of his ‘Censura Literaria’ appeared in
ten volumes in 1815, and the ‘Restituta; or Titles, Extracts,
and Characters of Old Books in English Literature revived,’
was published in four volumes, 1814-16. All these afford
interesting reading; but they are for the armchair and fireside
rather than the desk: and the information that they contain
must not always be regarded as infallible. Payne Collier’s
‘Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language,’
which appeared in two volumes in 1865, is rather more dull
than its title suggests. Karslake’s ‘Notes from Sotheby’s’
is useful, being a compilation of 2032 notes from catalogues
of book-sales between 1885 and 1909.

Quaritch’s ‘General Catalogue of Books’ is useful for
reference. It comprises short descriptions of more than
38,000 works, and was published in 1887 in six volumes. An[163]
additional volume containing an index to the whole was issued
in 1892. The catalogue of the Huth Library, five large
octavo volumes published in 1880, is also valuable. Then
there is, of course, the British Museum catalogue, which was
printed in 1884 under the title ‘A Catalogue of Books in the
Library of the British Museum, printed in England, Scotland,
and Ireland, and of Books in English printed abroad, to the
year 1640’: three octavo volumes.

For an actual list of the published works of all British
authors of note, one must consult the ‘Dictionary of National
Biography’: while the more detailed bibliographies to each
volume of the ‘Cambridge History of English Literature’
are of great assistance, though they vary considerably, and
do not pretend to be complete. Allibone’s ‘Critical
Dictionary of English Literature and British and American
Authors,’ in three volumes, was published by Lippincott
(Philadelphia) between 1859 and 1871. There is a supplement
to it by J. F. Kirk, which appeared in two volumes in
1891. It is a work of considerable value to the bibliographer.

With regard to the books printed abroad (as well as in
England), it is essential that the collector procure a copy
of Brunet’s ‘Manuel de Libraire et de l’Amateur de Livres,’
a most valuable work dealing with the literature of all
countries. The last (fifth) edition of this great work was
published in six octavo volumes at Paris, 1860-65. In 1870
a companion volume by Pierre Deschamps was issued, entitled
‘Dictionnaire de Géographie Ancienne et Moderne à l’Usage
du Libraire,’ a dictionary of the Latin and Greek names of
places with their modern equivalents and some account of the
first presses at those places. There is a modern-ancient index.
A supplement to the ‘Manuel’ was published by MM.
P. Deschamps and Gustave Brunet in two volumes, 1878 and
1880. The complete work, in all nine large octavo volumes,
1860-1880, cost formerly about £18; however, a reprint of the
fifth edition—an exact facsimile in type and size—was issued
by Brockhaus of Leipzig (at ten pounds the set) in 1920.[164]
Graesse’s ‘Trésor de Livres Rares et Précieux’ is also
valuable. It comprises books in all tongues and contains a
mass of bibliographical information. Published in six quarto
volumes (vol. 6 is in two parts) between 1859 and 1867, a
supplement was issued in 1869: in all seven volumes.[54]

Of all the older general bibliographies, however, there are
few that can compare with old David Clement’s ‘Bibliothèque
Curieuse Historique et Critique, ou Catalogue Raisonné de
Livres Dificiles à Trouver.’ Not, I hasten to add, for its
accuracy or even the amount of information it contains. But
there is a charm about these nine old quarto volumes with
their handsome type and title-pages in red and black that
appeals irresistibly to the collector. He was a true bibliophile,
this worthy Lutheran pastor, and his gradations of
rarity are delightfully expressive and concise. ‘Rare,’
‘très-rare,’ ‘fort-rare,’ he describes his treasures, and
occasionally ‘peu-commun’; but he does not hesitate to
condemn as ‘rare et mauvaise’ an edition that disturbs his
bibliographical soul. Alas! his work was only carried as far
as the letter H (Hesiod).

For early-printed books the collector will require Ludwig
Hain’s ‘Repertorium Bibliographicum . . . usque ad annum
1500,’ which was published at Stuttgart in four
octavo volumes, 1826-38, and is still the standard
work upon this subject. For those who collect fifteenth-century
books this work is essential, for all catalogues and
descriptions of books of that period refer to it. Generally
the mere number of the work in Hain’s monumental list is
referred to, such as ‘H 3234,’ which means that the volume
offered for sale is as described by Hain, number 3234 in the
‘Repertorium.’ In 1891 Dr. Konrad Burger added an Index
of Printers to this great work, while between 1898 and 1902
Dr. W. Copinger published a supplement, adding some 7,000
new entries to Hain’s 16,299. Dr. Burger added a further[165]
supplement in 1908, and between 1905 and 1910 Dr. Dietrich
Reichling published appendices, additions and emendations
to all of these, adding an index thereto in 1911. For early
German books, Panzer’s ‘Annalen der altern Deutschen
Litteratur’ to 1526, which appeared at Nürnberg in two
volumes between 1788 and 1805, has not yet been entirely
superseded; though considerable additions have been made
by Mozler, Weller, and Petzholdt.

Mr. C. E. Sayle’s ‘List of Early English Printed Books
in the University Library at Cambridge, 1475 to 1640,’ in
four octavo volumes, was published by that university between
1900 and 1907; while for books printed at Oxford from the
establishment of the first press there in 1478 to 1640, you
must consult Mr. Falconer Madan’s ‘The Early Oxford
Press,’ published in 1895.

Blades’ ‘Life and Typography of William Caxton’ I
have already mentioned; and although many of us may never
behold a Caxton save through a sheet of glass, yet every
book-collector should be acquainted with the work of this
great father of the English press. Blades’ work first appeared
in two quarto volumes, published respectively in 1861 and
1863, and is much to be preferred to ‘The Biography and
Typography of William Caxton’ which is practically a reprint
in a cheaper form issued in one octavo volume in 1877. A
second edition of this last appeared in 1882. In the Preface
to the 1877 reprint, Blades states that ‘only one additional
fact of any importance has been added, viz. that Caxton was
married . . .’ and that ‘the bibliography has been curtailed.’

Proctor’s ‘Index to the Early Printed Books in the British
Museum from the Invention of Printing to the Year MD.,’
begun in 1898, was cut short by his untimely death. The
Museum authorities have now in course of publication an
important work entitled ‘A Catalogue of Books printed in
the Fifteenth Century now in the British Museum,’ which is
being compiled by Mr. A. W. Pollard and his assistants; it
will be completed in six folio (really atlas quarto) volumes.[166]
Of these the first part, dealing with block-books and the
productions of German presses, appeared in 1908; Part ii.,
also German-printed books, in 1912; Part iii., Germany,
Switzerland, Austria and Hungary, in 1913: while Part iv.,
the productions of Italy, appeared in 1916. Parts v. and vi.
will contain the works of England, France, and other countries,
Part vi. also containing a general index to the entire work.
The Introduction to Part i. gives a valuable résumé of the
study of scientific bibliography from Panzer in 1793. Mr.
Gordon Duff’s great work on the English incunabula,
‘Fifteenth Century Books,’ was issued by the Bibliographical
Society in 1917. It contains fifty-three facsimiles, and records
the existence of 439 books or fragments issued in English,
or by the printers in this country, before the end of the year
1500.

In France much valuable work has been done on the early
presses of that country. M. Anatole Claudin has put forth
some extremely useful books on the early printers of Poitiers,
Limoges, Rheims, and of many other towns; whilst for the
Exposition Universelle of 1900 he prepared a monumental
work upon the early printers of Paris. This sumptuous book,
entitled ‘Histoire de l’Imprimerie en France au XV^e et au
XVI^e Siècle,’ was printed in two large quarto (atlas quarto)
volumes, copiously adorned with illuminated and other illustrations.
The chapter on Antoine Verard is delightful.

There is a large number of books, too, on the incunabula
of various European towns and districts, such as Augsburg,
Bavaria, Belgium, Bohemia, Ferrara, Mainz, Lyons, Mantua,
Nürnberg, Rome, Rouen, Toulouse, to mention only a few.
For the incunabula printed with Greek characters Legrand’s
‘Bibliographie hellénique,’ which appeared in two octavo
volumes in 1885, is useful.

For a description of the early ‘block-books,’ the prototype
of printing, the collector must have recourse to Sotheby’s
beautiful work entitled ‘Principia Typographica,’ published
in three large quarto volumes in 1858. It contains no less[167]
than a hundred and twenty full-page facsimiles, some in colour,
of block-books, early types, paper-marks, etc., and is one of
the most important works on the history of printing that has
ever been produced.[55] He will do well also to acquire Bigmore
and Wyman’s ‘Bibliography of Printing,’ a valuable work
which appeared in three quarto volumes, 1880-86; and there
is an immense amount of information concerning individual
printers and stationers with their productions in ‘The
Library’ (in progress), the three large volumes of ‘Bibliographica’
published in twelve parts between 1895 and 1897,
and the transactions of the Bibliographical Society.

If early wood-engravings interest you, there are several
works to which you may turn for guidance. Lippman’s
‘Wood Engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth
Century,’ of which an English edition was
published in 1888, and Kristeller’s ‘Early Florentine
Woodcuts’ which appeared in 1897, treat of illustrated
Italian books. Venetian books of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries are dealt with by Prince d’Essling in his ‘Bibliographie
des Livres à Figures Vénitiens 1469-1525,’ of which
a new edition appeared in 1906. The works of Dutch and
Belgian artists are dealt with by Sir W. M. Conway in ‘The
Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century.’
This was published in 1884. M. Claudin’s ‘Histoire de
l’Imprimerie en France’ contains many illustrations of early
Parisian woodcuts and illuminations, while Muther’s ‘Die
Deutsche Bücherillustration der Gothik und Frührenaissance,’
published in 1884, is also useful. For English engravers you
will find Sir Sidney Colvin’s ‘Early Engraving and Engravers
in England’ (1905) useful, as well as Lewine’s ‘Bibliography[168]
of Eighteenth Century Art and Illustrated Books,’ which
appeared in 1898. A very delightful work on the eighteenth-century
French engravers is M. H. Cohen’s ‘Guide de
l’Amateur de Livres à Gravures du XVIII^e Siècle,’ of which
the fifth edition was published in 1886. Bewick’s work has
been dealt with by Mr. Austin Dobson in his ‘Thomas Bewick
and his Pupils,’ octavo, 1884; and ‘A Descriptive and Critical
Catalogue of Works Illustrated by Thomas and John Bewick’
was published by E. J. Selwyn in 1851. Mr. A. W. Pollard’s
‘Early Illustrated Books,’ of which a new edition appeared
in 1917, is of value from the historical point of view.

Cotton’s ‘Typographical Gazetteer,’ of which the second
(and better) edition was printed at Oxford in 1831, is valuable
for the identification of ancient Latin place-names.
A second series was published in 1866.
J. Hilton’s ‘Chronograms’ (1882) and ‘Chronograms
Continued’ (1885) are often of great assistance with regard
to dates. In 1895 this indefatigable collector published a
third volume, quarto, containing more than four thousand
additional examples. For mere lists of works upon definite
subjects one may consult Sargant and Whishaw’s ‘Guide-Book
to Books’ (1891) and ‘The Best Books,’ by W. S.
Sonnenschein.

For the identification of authors who wrote under a
pseudonym you will find ‘A Handbook of Fictitious Names,’
by ‘Olphar Hamst’ (which was the pseudonym
of Ralph Thomas) useful. It was published in
1868. But this has been partly superseded by Cushing’s
‘Initials and Pseudonyms,’ large octavo, London, 1886; and
the valuable work of Emil Weller, entitled ‘Lexicon
Pseudonymorum,’ of which the second edition was published
at Regensburg the same year, in octavo. This contains
thousands of pseudonyms of all nations and all ages. Cushing
also published ‘A Dictionary of Revealed Authorship,’ in two
volumes, 1890. Then there is the valuable ‘Dictionary of the
Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain,’[169]
by Halkett and Laing, which appeared in four octavo volumes
between 1882 and 1888. Mr. F. Marchmont’s ‘Concise
Handbook of Literature issued Anonymously under
Pseudonyms or Initials,’ appeared in 1896.

Antoine Barbier’s ‘Dictionnaire des Ouvrages Anonymes
et Pseudonymes’ was published first in four octavo volumes
at Paris so long ago as 1806-8. A second edition was put
forth in 1822-27. But between 1869 and 1879 a third edition,
revised and enlarged, was incorporated with ‘Les Supercheries
Littéraires Dévoilées’ of Joseph Marie Quérard (the
second edition), the whole being edited by MM. Gustave
Brunet and Olivier Barbier, and issued in seven large octavo
volumes. The first three volumes (1869-70) appeared under
the title of Quérard’s work, the last four (1872-9) under that
of Barbier. Quérard’s work, which first appeared in four
octavo volumes, 1847-52, is, as its title indicates, a dictionary
of those books in French which have been published under
fictitious names, are spurious, or have been wrongly ascribed.
It is valuable for the identification of many fictitious memoirs
and like books. Barbier’s work deals with French anonymous
and pseudonymous books. De Manne’s ‘Nouveau Dictionnaire
des Ouvrages Anonymes et Pseudonymes,’ octavo, Lyon,
1862, deals chiefly with contemporary French works. For
pseudonymous books in Italian one must consult the work of
Vincenzo Lancetti, which appeared at Milan, in octavo, 1836,
as well as the ‘Dizionario di Opere Anonime e Pseudonime
di Scrittori Italiani,’ by G. M. (Gaetano de’ Conti Melzi),
also published at Milan in three octavo volumes, 1848-59.
A supplement, by G. Passano, was issued at Ancona in 1887.

Dibdin’s rather sumptuously produced works are perhaps
of more interest than bibliographical value, though his edition
(vols. 1-4, 1810-19) of the ‘Typographical Antiquities,’ begun
by Ames (1749), and augmented by Herbert (3 vols., 1785-90),
is useful, in spite of the fact that it was never completed. For
illustrations of the early printers’ devices you must still have
recourse to the ‘Bibliographical Decameron,’ three large[170]
octavo volumes, published in 1817. For the devices of French
printers there is a more recent work entitled ‘Marques
Typographiques des Libraires et Imprimeurs de France,
1470-1600,’ by M. Silvestre, which was printed in two octavo
volumes at Paris, 1853-1867. It contains illustrations of more
than 1300 devices. Every year witnesses the production of
these indispensable aids to book-collecting, and the modern
trend of such works is towards a constricted specialism. By
this means it is possible to realise a minuteness and accuracy
unobtainable in wider fields. The ‘Bibliografia Aragonesa
del Siglo XVI’ of Señor Sanchez, a sumptuous work with
illustrations of title-pages, colophons, etc., which was
published in two folio volumes in 1913-14, is a striking
example of this.

There are bibliographies of almost every class of books,
and a great number dealing with the works of individual
authors and printers of renown; but these are in the domain
of the specialist. There are certain works, however, which
will be of assistance to the collector in compiling a list of
authorities upon his special subject. Dr. Julius Petzholdt’s
‘Bibliotheca Bibliographica’ was published at Leipzig so
long ago as 1866; Sabin’s ‘Bibliography of Bibliographies’
appeared at New York in 1877; while Vallée’s ‘Bibliographie
des Bibliographies’ (though neither very accurate nor
complete) was published at Paris, in large octavo, in 1883.
A supplement to this last was issued in 1887. For the large
number of bibliographical works which have issued from the
press since that date you must consult Mr. W. P. Courtney’s
invaluable ‘Register of National Bibliography,’ in three
volumes, 1905 to 1912; which, indeed, for modern purposes
has superseded the above-mentioned works. In passing we
would remark that the ‘national’ of its title-page is in the
wider sense of the term.

And here a word of warning. Always make a point of
entering the errata with a pencil in the margins of every
reference-book that you acquire. Do this before you assign[171]
a place to the volume on the shelf; otherwise you may quote
or condemn a passage or date which has been rendered
wrongly owing to a clerical or printer’s error, and has been
put right in the errata.[56] Need we say that this practice
should not necessarily be confined to works of reference?
One may even find some amusement here. Was it not Scarron
who wrote a poem, ‘A Guillemette, chienne de ma sœur,’
but quarrelling with his sister just as the volume was about
to appear, put in the errata, ‘For chienne de ma sœur read
ma chienne de sœur‘!

All these works will assuredly impart to the book-collector
much knowledge of ancient books and their attributes, but he
will still be at sea with regard to that most necessary part of
their collection, namely, their commercial value. There is
only one way in which this knowledge may be obtained, and
that is by the study of catalogues. To arrive at a proper
estimate of a book’s value from the purely financial point of
view, a close study of booksellers’ catalogues and auction-sale
prices through many years is necessary. The divergence in
price of identical works is somewhat disturbing at first to the
novice, and it is only after some considerable experience and
the actual handling of books that one is enabled to arrive at
a proper estimate of their worth. ‘Continual use gives men
a judgment of things comparatively, and they come to fix on
what is most proper and easy, which no man, upon cursory
view, would determine.’[57]

Before the writer are two catalogues, one from a country
bookseller, the other from a well-known London house. Each
contains a copy of the ‘Thesaurus Cornucopiæ et Horti[172]
Adonidis,’ printed by Aldus Manutius in 1496. The former
offers it for 25s., the latter for £25. Why this extraordinary
difference in price?

The reasons are ample. The London copy has this
description:

The country bookseller’s copy, on the other hand, is
described as follows:

In other words, one copy is a very choice specimen of the
book, tall, clean, and perfect; while the other is an undesirable
copy of ordinary size, imperfect, and in poor condition.

There is another point also. The London dealer specialises
in such books, in fact deals only in ancient and scarce works,
and has a definite clientèle of rich and well-known collectors.
He can ‘place’ certain rare books at once, for he knows the
desiderata of each of his customers and the deficiencies of
their collections. The countryman, on the other hand, deals
in all manner of books, ancient and modern, has few rich
purchasers among his customers, and knows nothing whatever
of their book-buying propensities. Any volume that he offers
for sale may remain on his hands for an indefinite time.

Then there are such volumes as ‘association books,’ by
which is meant books possessing an additional interest by
reason of their former association with some notability, such
association being evident by autographs, corrections, annotations,
additions, or binding. Such volumes often exceed
enormously the price of ordinary copies. The first Edinburgh[173]
edition (1787) of Burns’ Poems is worth usually about £5;
but a copy realised £75 at auction a few years ago. The
reason for this extraordinary price was that in this volume
all those lines in which asterisks occur were filled in with
the full names in the handwriting of the poet. Moreover it
contained an additional stanza on ‘Tam Samson’ in Burns’
autograph. For such a jewel one cannot consider the figure
excessive, and it will doubtless run well into three figures if
it ever appear in the sale-room again. Similarly, each year
witnesses the sale of certain of these ‘association’ volumes;
and unless you are aware of the reasons causing these high
prices to rule, such records will be worse than useless to you.
A superficial study of all auction-sale prices is apt to be
intensely misleading. Unless you are actually on the spot
or have handled the volume in question, the price that it
realises will tell you little as to the stable value of the work.
A torn page, a shaved headline, the underlining of a line or
two with ink, a ‘mounted’ frontispiece, a missing plate, or
even a worn impression of it, all these things affect the price
of a volume.

Then there are considerations outside the book itself.
A scarce volume included in a sale of unimportant books is
unlikely to realise so high a price as it might have done had
it appeared in a Huth or Ashburnham sale; for important
books attract important bidders. The prices paid for poor
copies at the Frere sale in 1896 were enormous; the reason
being, probably, that this library had long been known to
contain desiderata for which public and private collections
alike had hitherto thirsted in vain; the sale was something
of a battue, and the room was thronged with buyers from all
parts of the kingdom.

It is a ticklish question, this matter of the price which the
collector pays, and should pay, for his books, and one that
may not be resolved early in his career. In addition to
exercising your memory when perusing the catalogues which
reach you, you will do well to obtain and study ‘Prices of[174]
Books: an Enquiry into the Changes in the Price of Books
which have occurred in England at Different Periods,’ an
interesting volume by that great connoisseur, Henry B.
Wheatley. It was published in octavo in 1898.

Most of the catalogues that one receives from the booksellers
are of little use when read, and no useful purpose is
served by preserving them. But there are certain dealers
who specialise in a definite class of books, and their catalogues
are always of value, for they contain only works upon a
definite subject or of a definite class. Such catalogues form
most useful reference works, and even bibliographies of that
particular subject. By all means preserve them; you may
have them plainly bound in buckram (when you have collected
a sufficient number of them) at the cost of a shilling or two,
or you may keep them in a small portfolio on your shelf.

Sotheby’s auction-sale catalogues are also valuable. They
are nicely produced, and have fine margins for making notes.
It is well worth obtaining these regularly, which one may
do by paying a small subscription. Most of them contain a
miscellaneous assortment of books, and are not worth keeping,
but on the other hand most of the famous libraries that are
dispersed in this country pass through the Bond Street house,
and the catalogues of these are of the greatest value.

The history of booksellers’ catalogues is an interesting one,
and as yet we have no authoritative work upon this intermediary
between publisher and reader. The earliest catalogue
so far known was printed at Mainz by Peter Schoeffer in 1469.
It was a catalogue of books for sale by himself or his agent,
and consisted of a single sheet, probably intended to be used
as a poster. It is in abbreviated Latin, and comprises the
titles of twenty-one books, being headed—

[175]
and at the foot is printed in large type—

—a specimen of the type with which the Psalter mentioned in
the list was printed. Beneath this would be written the name
of the place where the books could be obtained, this being
the case with the only copy of this advertisement that has
come down to us, Schoeffer’s traveller having written at the
foot, ‘Venditor librorum repertibilis est in hospicio dicto zum
willden mann’—’the bookseller is to be found at the sign of
the Wild Man.’

Caxton adopted the same expedient with regard to his
Sarum Ordinale. This advertisement, which is in English,
is as follows:

At the foot of this was printed ‘Supplico stet cedula’—Please
don’t tear down the bill. The ‘pyes’ of this advertisement
(the English form of the Latin Pica) were the guides
by which one might learn the proper combinations of collects
and prayers for Saints’ days, at certain epochs, according to
the Salisbury Ritual. The ‘reed pale,’ or red pale, was the
heraldic sign which Caxton adopted for his printing-house.[58]

Other printers soon followed Schoeffer’s example; notably
Johan Mentelin of Strasbourg. But these were mere lists of
books, sometimes eulogies of an individual work, printed for
the most part by one particular press and issued by the actual[176]
printer. In 1480 Anton Koberger of Nürnberg issued a
catalogue of the books which he had for sale, twenty-two in
all, though not all of them were printed by himself. Koberger
was perhaps the most important printer and publisher of the
fifteenth century. He is said to have employed twenty-four
presses at Nürnberg, besides having books printed for him
in other towns.[59] He it was who introduced the printing-press
into Nürnberg in 1470. His enterprise, however, was not
limited to the mere printing of books. He is said to have
had sixteen shops where his books were sold, and agents in
every city in Christendom! Truly he was the father of
booksellers.

Another German printer, Erhart Ratdolt, printed at Venice,
before 1488, a handsome sheet in red and black in which he
enumerates some forty-six books arranged under six headings,
which he had for sale. They comprised the productions of
several presses, the list being headed ‘Libri venales Venetiis
impressi.’ Some thirty or more of these catalogues of German
printers,[60] produced before the end of the fifteenth century,
are known.

In 1485 Antoine Verard, one of the most important figures
in the annals of French printing, began business at Paris by
putting forth an edition of the Decameron. From this date
he continued as a publisher, and has been called ‘the most
important Paris publisher of the fifteenth century.’ So far
as I am aware no catalogue of the books which he had for
sale has yet been discovered; though from the fact that our
King Henry vii. purchased a number of his volumes it would
seem that his agents or travellers were in possession of lists.

Beckmann, in his ‘History of Inventions and Discoveries,’
says: ‘It appears that the printers themselves first gave up
the bookselling part of the business, and retained only that of
printing; at least this is said to have been the case with that[177]
well-known bookseller John Rainman, who was born at
Oehringen and resided at Augsburg’; and goes on to say
that he was at first a printer and letter-founder, and supplied
Aldus with his types. But this offset of the main business of
book-production began still earlier: witness the catalogues of
Koberger and Ratdolt already quoted. Many other printers
also there were, before 1490, who were acting as agents or
‘booksellers’ to other firms. This was the case, too, with
many of the Parisian houses.

‘Printing therefore gave rise[61] to a new and important
branch of trade, that of bookselling, which was established in
Germany chiefly at Frankfort-on-the-Main, where, at the time
of the fairs particularly, there were several large booksellers’
shops in that street which still retains the name of “book
street.”‘[62] This ancient custom of having bookstalls in the
streets (particularly about the church or cathedral) upon fair-days
still survives in more than one old-world town upon the
Continent. Indeed it is this very custom that gave rise to
the term ‘stationer.’ The early booksellers were wont to
erect their stalls or ‘stations’ against the very walls of the
cathedrals, whence they were known as ‘stacyoneres.’

Beckmann mentions two other of these early booksellers
at Augsburg—Joseph Burglin and George Diemar. ‘Sometimes,’
he continues, ‘they were rich people of all conditions,
particularly eminent merchants, who caused books which they
sold to be printed at their own expense.’ George Willer, a
bookseller who kept a large shop at Augsburg, was the first,
says, Beckmann, who hit upon the plan of causing a catalogue
of all the new books to be printed, in which the size and
printers’ names were marked. His catalogues from 1564 to[178]
1592 were printed by Nicholas Bassé at Frankfort. Beckmann
relates that a collection of these sixteenth-century German
book-catalogues was in the library of Professor Baldinger of
Göttingen; possibly it still reposes in the fine library of that
university.

‘In all these catalogues, which are in quarto and not paged,’
continues Beckmann, ‘the following order is observed. The
Latin books occupy the first place . . . and after these, books
of jurisprudence, medicine, philosophy, poetry and music. The
second place is assigned to German works, which are arranged
in the same manner.’

Bassé’s collection is entitled ‘Collectio in unum corpus
omnium librorum Hebraeorum, Graecorum, Latinorum necnon
Germanice, Italice, Gallice, et Hispanice scriptorum, qui in
nundinis Francofurtensibus ab anno 1564 usque ad nundinas
Autumnales anni 1592 . . . . desumpta ex omnibus Catalogis
Willerianis singularum nundinarum, & in tres Tomos distincta
. . . . Plerique in aedibus Georgij Willeri ciuis & Bibliopole
Augustani, venales habentur.’ It was printed in quarto at
Frankfort ‘ex officina Typographica Nicolai Bassaei,
MDXCII.’ Part 2 (which has a separate pagination and
title) is in German, and contains German books only. Part 3,
also a distinct work, has a title-page in both Latin and French,
and contains books in Italian, Spanish, and French. This
title reads: ‘Recueil en un corps des livres Italiens, Espagnols,
et François, qui ont este exposez en vente en la boutique
des Imprimeurs frequentans les foires de Francfort depuis
l’an 1568 jusques à la foire de Septembre 1592. Extraict des
Catalogues des dictes foires, et reduict en method conuenable,
et tres utile.’ An exceedingly interesting work, this last part.

A priced catalogue of the books printed by Christian Wechel
is extant. It was printed at Paris in 1543, a duodecimo of
twelve leaves, containing about three hundred books. These
are classed under the headings Grammatica, Dialectica,
Rhetorica, Historica, Poetica, Moralia, Physica, et Mathematica,
Theologia, Legalis, and Medica. Under each of[179]
these headings the books are divided into ‘Graece’ and
‘Latine,’ but ‘Grammatica’ and ‘Theologia’ have each the
additional subheading ‘Hebraice.’ The prices are interesting.
They vary from twopence (the Ars versificatoria of Ulric von
Hutten and a Nicholas Beroald) to 80s.—a Hippiatria in
French. There are six at 3d., ten at 4d., forty-five at 6d.,
none at 5d. or 7d., twenty-two at 8d., four at 9d., seventeen
at 10d., and thirty-seven at 1s. There are ten at 1s. 3d.,
twenty-three at 1s. 6d., and twelve at 1s. 8d.; whilst from 2s.
to 6s. the prices rise by 6d. But only one volume is priced
at 4s. 6d., and two each at 5s. 6d. and 6s. There are from two
to four volumes at 7s., 8s., 12s., 15s., 16s., and 18s.; whilst
six are priced at 10s., and five at 20s.

The more expensive works are chiefly illustrated ‘standard’
authors, such as Modestus (‘De Vocabulis Rei Militaris,’
18s.), Vegetius (gallice, cum picturis, 16s., or in Latin
permultis picturis, 20s.), and several medical works such as
Galen (two at 20s.) and Jo. Tagaultius (20s.). A Vegetius
‘in minore forma’ but also ‘picturis’ is priced at 4s. At the
end is, in Latin: ‘And these are the books, printed with our
types, which we offer you. Moreover there are others of all
kinds for sale in our shop (Taberna), both in Italian and
German and French.’ Then comes the announcement of a
forthcoming edition of Eustathius’ Commentary on the first
book of Homer’s Iliad.