which, as announced in the January number of THE LONDON MERCURY, was to
have been offered for sale by auction at Sotheby's on behalf of the
owner, Sir Francis Newdigate-Newdegate, K.C.M.G., has instead been sold
privately. Neither the name of the purchaser nor the destination of the
books has yet been made public. Since the collection contains editions
of Elizabethan books of the utmost rarity, and indeed some that are
apparently unique, it is to be hoped that it will not pass beyond the
reach of students of literature.
* * * * *
Collectors of Swinburniana will be interested in _A Catalogue of the
Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne in the Library of Mr. Edmund
Gosse_, London, privately printed at the Chiswick Press, 1919. Only
fifty copies of this catalogue have been issued, of which a few can
still be obtained from Mr. James Bain, bookseller, 14 King William
Street, Strand.
* * * * *
Many items of the greatest rarity are included in Mr. Gosse's
collection. Among them we would note one of the fifteen copies of
_The Devil's Due_ (1875), preserved by accident when the issue was
destroyed; _Laus Veneris_, Moxon, 1866, one of a few trial copies
issued before the poem was included in _Poems and Ballads_; the
essay on William Blake, Hotten, 1868, with the original title-page,
afterwards cancelled, ornamented by the vignette of Zamiel from the
Book of Job; _The Jubilee_, _The Question_, _Gathered Songs_, all three
published by Ottley in 1887, in editions of only twenty-five copies
each. Among the Swinburne MSS. in the possession of Mr. Gosse are the
holograph of _Pan and Thalassia_, and the holograph of the first draft
of _Anactoria_.
* * * * *
The new Public Libraries Bill, which received the Royal Assent in the
last days of 1919, should do much to assist the development of what
is already an important educative force. We look forward in time to a
national library system, with a central clearing house of books and a
free interchange between the individual libraries. It is surely only
in this way that the multifarious needs of an increasingly alert and
well-educated society can adequately be met.
* * * * *
Tuesday, March 23rd, is the date fixed for the sale of the second
portion of Mr. Henry Yates Thompson's collection of illuminated
manuscripts. Thirty-four lots are to be sold--twenty-six MSS. and
eight fifteenth-century books, printed on vellum and more or less
illuminated, "which mark the transition from writing to printing
... and are an indispensable addition to any complete collection of
medieval illumination."
* * * * *
The first fourteen lots are English manuscripts. A twelfth-century
book, _Hegesippus de excidio Judeorum_, is remarkable for its
contemporary binding, one of the very few of such bindings which have
come down to us. Lot XL. is a fourteenth-century Psalter, which appears
to have belonged to John of Gaunt, and subsequently to Henry VI. A
similar Psalter, evidently by the same hand, though of a rather later
date, exists in the library of Exeter College. These two Psalters
are, in Mr. Yates Thompson's opinion, the high-water mark of English
illumination, being perhaps second only to the St. Omer Psalter.
* * * * *
The eight printed books range in date from 1466 to 1498, and include a
copy of the excessively rare _Institutiones_ of Justinian, printed at
Mainz by P. Schöffer, 1468. The twelve MSS. which conclude the sale are
of French and Italian origin and have all belonged to famous owners.
Among them is an early fifteenth-century MS. of Boccaccio's _Des Cleres
et nobles femmes_, illustrated by miniatures of that Parisian school
of illuminators who "almost renounced the use of gold for backgrounds
and made use of bright and rich colours in broad masses." The book
belonged to the Admiral de Coëtivy, who was killed at the siege of
Cherbourg in 1450. Mr. Yates Thompson quotes an extract from one of the
Admiral's letters, which proves him to have been an ardent lover of his
books. "Envelopez bien mes livres," he writes to his servants, giving
directions for the packing and dispatching of his library, "et les
faites enfoncer en pippes (casks) en et par manière que s'ilz cheoient
en l'eaue, qu'ilz ne se puissent mouller ne gaster en aucune manière."
* * * * *
ITEMS FROM THE BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES
An extremely elegant little catalogue of old editions of Greek
and Latin authors has been sent to us from the "Aedes Dunsteri,
Cantabrigiæ, Novang," or in other words the Dunster House Bookshop,
Cambridge, Mass. No word in the vulgar tongue is allowed to pollute
these classical pages, where everything, with the exception of the
dollar sign in the prices, is the choicest Latin.
* * * * *
We have already had occasion to speak of the Daniel and other private
Presses. We are reminded by Messrs. Maggs Brothers' catalogue, No. 385,
of the magnificent examples of typography and binding which have issued
from the Doves Press and Bindery. A copy of _Paradise Lost and Paradise
Regained_, two volumes, 1902-1905, printed at the Doves Press and bound
by Mr. Cobden Sanderson in tooled morocco, is priced at £120. None of
the fifteen Doves Press books mentioned in this catalogue is priced at
less than £8 8_s._ Collectors will remember the "boom" in Kelmscott
books.
* * * * *
Good prices were fetched at Messrs. Hodgson's sale on January 28th for
first editions of Stevenson. _An Inland Voyage_ (1878) was sold for
£22; _Travels with a Donkey_ (1879) and _Virginibus Puerisque_ (1881)
went for £16 10_s._ each. First editions of the _Ebb Tide_ (1894) and
_The Wrong Box_ (1889) may be bought for 12_s._ 6_d._ at Messrs. Davis
& Orioli.
* * * * *
Messrs. Sotheran's catalogue of the library of the late Sir Edward
Poynter, P.R.A., has just reached us. Out of the many items of the
greatest interest which this catalogue contains we can mention only
a few, notably a fine set of Piranesi etchings, a collection of 250
caricatures by such masters as Hogarth, Bunbury, Gilray, and Rowlandson
(£75), a copy of Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job, presented by
Mrs. Opie to the French sculptor, David, with the inscription, "This
work, remarkable both for its genius and extravagance, is the gift of
Amelia Opie to her friend David, whose own genius will make him prize
the former, while his excellent taste makes it impossible for him to
imitate the latter." A complete set of the Kelmscott publications,
seventy volumes in all, is priced in this catalogue at £900. The main
bulk of the collection consists of books on the fine arts, and a
certain number of original drawings are included.
A. L. H.
CORRESPONDENCE
AMERICAN COPYRIGHT
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--In the second number of THE LONDON MERCURY I note a reference
in an Editorial Note to the status of the copyright relations between
America and Great Britain.
You emphasize the unsatisfactory status of the American copyright law.
It is the case, as you point out, that the provision inserted in the
original International Act which went into effect in 1891, and in the
amended Act which became law in 1909, makes it a condition that any
book, whether by an American or an English author, must, in order to
secure copyright protection in the United States, be published in an
edition "wholly manufactured" within this country. It has also been the
law up to within the past fortnight that the American edition must be
brought into the market within a term of not less than sixty days from
the date of publication in Great Britain.
This Act, as amended in 1912 and again in December, 1919, represents
the largest measure of copyright protection that it has thus far been
found practicable to secure for transatlantic authors. The fight to
secure any measure of recognition for the property rights of foreign
authors had continued from 1837 (when my father organised the first
Copyright League) to 1891, when a provision for international copyright
first found place in the American statute. I succeeded my father as the
Secretary and executive of the International Copyright League.
As a representative of this League (which at that time comprised
authors as well as publishers) I took to Washington in 1886 the draft
of a Bill which, if enacted, would have enabled the United States
to become a member of the Convention of Berne. After four years of
effort with two successive Congresses, I was obliged to report to the
Copyright League that there was no possibility of securing favourable
attention for any international copyright measure that did not make
provision for American manufacture.
The Book Manufacturing Union, comprising typesetters, printers,
binders, etc., had made clear to Congress that they would block the
enactment of any measure that did not include the manufacturing
requirement. In this position they were supported by the other unions
which had no direct interest in, and in fact no knowledge of, the
matter at issue. The unions have, wisely, probably for their own
interests, held increasingly to the policy of giving a general support
to a claim made by any one union or group.
Our League took the position that it was wiser to secure such measure
of recognition for literary property as was then practicable rather
than to leave without protection the books of transatlantic authors,
and the authors and publishers of Great Britain were in full accord
with this decision.
We are obliged to report that the unions have to-day a stronger
influence over Congress, and as a rule over the executive, than they
had in 1890. There is no possibility of securing the cancellation of
the manufacturing requirement unless, or until, the book manufacturing
unions can be persuaded to give their assent. There has been an
increasing effort to this end, and we hope yet to be able to make
clear to the book manufacturing trade that the American printers and
binders are now quite strong enough to secure their full share of the
work done, and that they do not need this special restriction in their
favour.
We have just succeeded in securing the enactment of an amendment, a
copy of which is enclosed.
This amendment has two purposes:
First:--The extension of the _ad interim_ term of copyright from sixty
to 120 days.
An English author now has four months' time within which to complete
the arrangements for his American edition, and there is no reason why
any book having value for American readers should not secure the full
protection of American copyright.
Second:--The Bill has the further purpose of giving protection to the
books of transatlantic authors which, under the special conditions
of the years of war and the dislocation of transatlantic mails, had
failed to fulfil the requirements of the copyright law. These books,
as far as they may not already have been appropriated, are now placed
in a position to meet these requirements and to secure copyright for
the full term. It is, however, a condition of this special protection
that the British authorities shall give reciprocal protection to books
by American authors which, under the same war conditions, have failed
to meet the requirements of the English statute and have, therefore,
forfeited the protection of the British Copyright Act.
The American authors have here a fair ground for complaint against
Great Britain.
The British Act of 1912 provides that copyright protection will be
accorded only to a book which has been brought into _bona-fide_
publication, and the Courts take the ground that this means placing
"adequate supplies" of the book in the market within the term
specified, fourteen days. This term is, you will note, very much
smaller than the sixty-day term granted in the earlier American Act, or
the 120 days which are now available.
In 1916 books were included under the heading of _luxuries_, the
importation of which into Great Britain was prohibited by the embargo
Act. Great Britain had, therefore, granted copyright with one hand
and with the other, under this embargo Act, had made it impossible
for American authors to meet the requirements of the Copyright Act.
The copyright arrangement between the United States and Great Britain
that went into effect in 1891, and that was confirmed by the Act of
1912, carried with it the obligations of a treaty, and the embargo Act
constituted, therefore, as far as copyright was concerned, a violation
of the treaty obligation.
I found, in bringing this matter in 1918 to the attention of the
Comptroller-General, that this consideration had not occurred to the
British authorities at the time of the embargo Act.
I pointed out to the Comptroller-General that as a result of this
embargo provision property rights had been lost not only for American
authors, but for a certain group of British authors who, not being
able under the manufacturing difficulties of the war period to secure
prompt publication of their books in Great Britain, had made first
publication in the United States. In so doing they had forfeited their
British copyright, although it had been their impression that they
would be able when the war had come to an end to secure protection for
British editions. The Comptroller-General agreed that the condition was
unsatisfactory, and agreed further that if the United States would do
what was now practicable to protect the publications of the war period
a similar protection of books of American authors would be arranged for
by the British authorities.
A fortnight back, on the day on which the President signed the Bill,
I cabled the report to the Comptroller-General that books by British
authors issued during the war period would be protected in America
as soon as the British authorities were prepared to grant reciprocal
protection. I hope to hear that prompt measures have been taken to
such effect. Lord Askwith has, I may mention, interested himself in
the matter and will, I understand, take prompt action to initiate the
necessary legislation.
I can but think that those who are critical of the present status of
the American copyright law should understand that the unsatisfactory
provisions in the law do not represent the opinion of the American
people, but the disproportioned influence of the manufacturing unions.
It would be in order also to give some measure of appreciation to the
American publishers and authors who have for many years been doing what
was in their power to secure adequate recognition for literary property
on both sides of the Atlantic.--Yours, etc.,
GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM.
The American Publishers' Copyright League,
Office of the Secretary, 2 West 45th Street, New York, January 3rd.
[Major Putnam's news, which we briefly recorded in our Editorial
Notes last month, is excellent hearing. In congratulating him on his
work in connection with copyright we must also mention the Authors'
League of America and our own Authors' Society, with their respective
indefatigable secretaries, Mr. Eric Schuler and Mr. G. Herbert
Thring.--EDITOR.]
MR. STURGE MOORE AND FLAUBERT
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--In the review of Mr. W. K. Seymour's _Miscellany of Poetry_--1919
(LONDON MERCURY, February) the best thing in the book is said to be "a
long epistle by Mr. Sturge Moore, which contains pictures as clean-cut
and vivid as those which made his _Micah_ so peculiarly rich a poem."
This is, of course, a very just remark, but it is a curious thing about
_Micah_ that the particular piece of imagery which struck one reader at
any rate can be paralleled almost verbatim from _Salammbo_. I intend no
discourtesy to Mr. Sturge Moore when I say that I consider the parallel
should have been acknowledged in the text. He has written much about
Flaubert and much also about the virtues of joint authorship, and I
think nothing but praise for what is apparently a verse translation
in _Micah_ would have resulted from the acknowledgment. As the matter
stands it seems that an explanation of some sort is wanting, and I
suggest that when _Micah_ is published in a collection of Mr. Moore's
poetry the point should surely not be overlooked.
The following are the lines referred to:
_Salammbo:_
"Le toit de la haute maison s'appuie sur de minces colonnettes,
rapprochées comme les bâtons d'une claire-voie, et par ces
intervalles le maître, étendu sur un long siége, aperçoit toutes ces
plaines autour de lui, avec les chasseurs entre les blés, le pressoir
où l'on vendange, les bœufs qui battent la paille."
Mr. Sturge Moore:
"The roof of that tall house lightly was raised
On slender colonnettes set nigh as close
As palings. Micah through these intervals
Had oft at leisure from his couch surveyed
The plain stretched round him; slingers in the corn
The wine-press whither they bring in his grapes.
Unmuzzled and well fed, slow oxen trod
The terrace threshing-floor."
Yours, etc.,
H. W. CRUNDELL.
PROSE AND MORTALITY
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--There is a good example of the recurrence of that "one music and
one speech" so richly instanced in your article "Prose and Mortality"
(January's LONDON MERCURY) in Keats's letter to Brown written on board
the _Maria Crowther_ off the Isle of Wight--good because, though
the music is not full nor the harmony flawless, it is yet heard
unmistakably in a familiar letter, where it rises from the midst of an
invalid's colloquial writing. Here it is:
"Land and sea, weakness and decline, are great separators, but Death is
the great divorcer for ever. When the pang of this thought has passed
through my mind I may say the bitterness of death is passed."--Yours,
etc.,
S. P. J.
Llangollen, February 8th.
[This is a perfect example, as it comes not from a set composition but
from a familiar letter.--EDITOR.]
TAMHTAB
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--There is an example of the "Moor Eeffocist" language which is not
open to "A. P.'s" very just objection.
When I was very young and had a vivid imagination I was taken into a
Chinese Restaurant, where I saw TUO YAW writ large on a glass door. For
a long time I thought I knew at least two words of Chinese.--Yours,
etc.,
DONALD J. WARDLEY.
25 Elgin Crescent, W.11, February 7th.
THE SONG OF THE MANDRAKE
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--Will you allow me to point out a curious slip in Mr. Walter de
la Mare's most wonderful little story, _The Creatures_, in the current
(January) number?
On page 281, eight lines from the bottom, he gives a list of
birds--"Gull, mandrake, plover, wagtail, finch, robin." Does Mr. de la
Mare really mean his readers to understand that the mandrake is a bird?
If so, surely the root must cry aloud as it is dragged from the ground
to be hurled into a different Natural Order.--Yours, etc.,
W. WALMESLEY WHITE.
Ellergarth, Budleigh Salterton, January 28th.
THE VERB TO DO
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--Will no one protest against and endeavour to check the ugly and
quite unnecessary modernism of "as it does"? I give an example of a
sentence, adequate and harmonious as written, which would be spoiled
were the favourite journalese "as it does" inserted after the word
"embracing."
"The glorious view from this spot, embracing the valley of Ville
d'Avray, the slopes opposite, the great city in the distance, was a
delight to Balzac."--Martin, _Stones of Paris_, II., 69.--Yours, etc.,
R. OWEN.
Belmount Hall, Outgate, Ambleside, January 12th.
JOHN DONNE
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--Mr. Robert Lynd in his very readable essay on _Donne_ in your
last number has inadvertently fallen into the old error of saying
that Donne was in 1612 "making use of his legal knowledge in order to
help the infamous Countess of Essex to secure the annulment of her
first marriage." It is true that Donne wrote an Epithalamium for the
Countess's second marriage, and that is mortifying enough without any
further charge. But Professor Grierson pointed out some time since that
it was Dr. Daniel Donne (or Dun) who drew up the paper referred to
(Grierson's _Donne_, ii. 94). If further evidence were needed, it might
be supplied from MS. Rawlinson 1386 in the Bodleian. On page 201 is the
autograph _Daniel Dun_, and someone, probably Rawlinson, has added "Sr.
Daniel Dr of Civil Lawes concern'd in Somerset's Divorce."
Mr. Lynd very rightly insists that John Donne is "the supreme example
of a Platonic lover among the English poets." But he implies that
the impassioned logic of _The Ecstasy_ is not quite consistent with
Platonism. What is Platonism? It is customary to develop a system of
philosophy of love from a few famous pages of the _Symposium_, ignoring
the rest, and this more or less hypothetical or mythical Platonism has
caused many people to forget Plato's real teaching. A careful study of
the _Symposium_ will, I think, show Donne to be much more truly in the
genuine Platonic tradition than were some of the poetical Platonists
who preceded him. Mr. Lynd is quite right on this point, and I think he
might have put it even more strongly.--Yours, etc.,
BEN CROCKER CLOUGH.
Oxford, February 13th.
DOGS
(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)
SIR,--Your reviewer in his notice of that interesting book _Seventeenth
Century Life in the Country Parish_, referring to the "dog-whipper,"
says, "But why did the dogs of those days show such a church-going
disposition?" I would remind him that the dog-whipper's office was not
created in the seventeenth century, but in those remoter times when no
gentleman appeared anywhere in public without his hawk on his wrist and
his hound at his heel. In Barclay's _Shippe of Fools_ (1509) he writes:
One time the hawkes bells jangleth hye
* * * * *
And now the houndes barking strikes the skye
* * * * *
They make of the Church for their hawkes a mewe,
And canell for their dogges, which they shall after rewe.
It was the custom to supply a pew (or pen) for the dogs of the Lord of
the Manor--the hall-dogs' "pew"--and as people worshipped (in their
hats) with the church doors standing open, I suppose the hounds of
the lesser gentry and inimitative yeomen would run in and fight and
distract attention.
Though in the seventeenth century the hawk had ceased to be an integral
part of a gentleman's equipage, the dogs had inherited the tradition
of taking their masters to church, maybe. And as the worshipper, even
in the seventeenth century, went from Divine service to a bull or
bear-baiting, he would like to have his dogs on the spot. And no doubt
all the curs of the village would want to follow them into church and
ask the news of high life.--Yours, etc.,
G. I. WHITHAM.
Lyneham Cottage, Chudleigh, S. Devon, February 13th.
LEARNED SOCIETIES, ETC.
THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES
Interest in the Near East is maintained, and a useful lead was given in
1913 by the Cyprus Government, who entrusted Professor Myres, assisted
by the Keeper of the Cyprus Museum and Mr. L. H. D. Buxton, with a
good round sum to conduct excavations in the island. The results were
described at length and illustrated on the screen, the most notable
discovery being a ruined sanctuary containing a collection of stone
statues with many of the painted surfaces in brilliant preservation,
ranging in date from the seventh century B.C. to Greco-Roman times.
Elsewhere many antiquities of the Bronze Age were brought to light, but
at present there are few, if any, traces of a Stone Age in the island.
The first stratified series of Cypriote pottery was provided by a
complete section of the Bamboula Hill at Larnaca, and the situation is
full of promise.
A marble statuette, now in the Ashmolean Museum, was the text of
Professor Langdon's discourse, and gave scope for surmise as well as
scholarship. It was found by the 14th Sikh Regiment when entrenching
before the battle of Istabalat, eight miles below Samara on the Tigris.
The object originally carried on the head has disappeared, but the
standing figure still holds a "boomerang" or sceptre, and the dress was
made in imitation of the fleece, a fashion to which Aristophanes is
supposed to refer in the _Wasps_, perhaps three thousand years later.
Various prehistoric specimens from England exhibited to the Society
have an interest of their own, but cannot compete with relics from the
cradle of civilisation, and at present the watch-word is _Ex oriente
lux_.
THE EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND