"Item: Whereas of time not long past, within the city of Norwich, and

the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, there were no more but six or eight

atturneys at the most coming to the King's Courts, in which time great

tranquillity reigned in the said city and counties, little trouble or

vexation was made by untrue or foreign suits, and now so it is, that in

the said city and counties there be four score atturneys or more, the

more part of them having no other thing to live upon, but only his gain

by the practise of atturneyship: and also the more part of them not

being of sufficient knowledge to be an atturney, which come to every

fair, market, and other places, where is any assembly of people,

exhorting, procuring, moving, and inciting the people to attempt untrue

and foreign suits for small trespasses, little offences, and small sums

of debt, whose actions be triable and determinable in Court Barons,

whereby proceed many suits, more of evil will and malice than of truth

of the thing, to the manifold vexations and no little damage of the

inhabitants of the said city and counties, and all to the perpetual

diminution of all the Court Barons in the said counties, unless

convenient remedy be provided in this behalf. The foresaid Lord the

King, considering the premises, by the advice, assent, and authority

aforesaid, hath ordained and stablished that at all times, from

hencefort, there shall be but six common atturneys in the said county of

Norfolk, and six common atturneys in the said county of Suffolk, and two

common atturneys in the said city of Norwich, to be atturneys in the

Courts of Record."

FUSTIAN.--(11 Henry VII. c. 27.)

"Now so it is, that divers persons, by subtilty and undue sleights and

means, have deceivably imagined and contrived instruments of iron, with

the which irons, in the most highest and secret places of their houses,

they strike and draw the said irons over the said fustians unshorn; by

means whereof they pluck off both the nap and cotton of the same

fustians, and break commonly both the ground and threeds in sunder, and

after by crafty sleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the

common people fine, whole, and sound: and also they raise up the cotton

of such fustians, and then take a light candle and set it in the fustian

burning, which sindgeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustian

from the one end to the other down to the hard threeds, in stead of

shering, and after that put them in colour, and so subtilly dress them

that their false work cannot be espied without it be by workmen sherers

of such fustians, or by the wearers of the same, and so by such

subtilties, whereas fustians made in doublets or put to any other use,

were wont and might endure the space of two years and more, will not

endure now whole by the space of four months scarcely, to the great hurt

of the poor commons and serving men of this realm, to the great damage,

loss, and deceit of the King's true subjects, buyers and wearers of such

fustians," &c.

The history of statute-making is not absolutely divested of pleasantry.

The best tradition connected with it at present arising in the memory is

not to be brought to book, and must be given as a tradition of the time

when George III. was king. Its tenor is, that a bill which proposed, as

the punishment of an offence, to levy a certain pecuniary penalty, one

half thereof to go to his Majesty and the other half to the informer,

was altered in committee, in so far that, when it appeared in the form

of an act, _the punishment_ was changed to whipping and imprisonment,

_the destination_ being left unaltered.

It is wonderful that such mistakes are not of frequent occurrence when

one remembers the hot hasty work often done by committees, and the

complex entanglements of sentences on which they have to work.[48]

Bentham was at the trouble of counting the words in one sentence of an

Act of Parliament, and found that, beginning with "Whereas" and ending

with the word "repealed," it was precisely the length of an ordinary

three-volume novel. To offer the reader that sentence on the present

occasion would be rather a heavy jest, and as little reasonable as the

revenge offered to a village schoolmaster who, having complained that

the whole of his little treatise on the Differential Calculus was

printed bodily in one of the earlier editions of the Encyclopædia

Britannica (not so profitable as the later), was told that he was

welcome, in his turn, to incorporate the Encyclopædia Britannica in the

next edition of his little treatise.

[Footnote 48: A polite correspondent reminds me of the Registration Act,

52 G. III. c. 156, in which the fruit of penalties is divided between

the informer, who gets one half, and certain charitable purposes, to

which the other is devoted, while the only penalty set forth in the Act

is transportation for fourteen years.]

In the supposition, however, that there are few readers who, like Lord

King, can boast of having read the Statutes at large through, I venture

to give a title of an Act--a title only, remember, of one of the bundle

of acts passed in one session--as an instance of the comprehensiveness

of English statute law, and the lively way in which it skips from one

subject to another. It is called--

"An Act to continue several laws for the better regulating of pilots,

for the conducting of ships and vessels from Dover, Deal, and the Isle

of Thanet, up the River Thames and Medway; and for the permitting rum or

spirits of the British sugar plantations to be landed before the duties

of excise are paid thereon; and to continue and amend an Act for

preventing fraud in the admeasurement of coals within the city and

liberties of Westminster, and several parishes near thereunto; and to

continue several laws for preventing exactions of occupiers of locks and

wears upon the River Thames westward; and for ascertaining the rates of

water-carriage upon the said river; and for the better regulation and

government of seamen in the merchant service; and also to amend so much

of an Act made during the reign of King George I. as relates to the

better preservation of salmon in the River Ribble; and to regulate fees

in trials and assizes at nisi prius," &c.

But this gets tiresome, and we are only half way through the title after

all. If the reader wants the rest of it, as also the substantial Act

itself, whereof it is the title, let him turn to the 23d of Geo. II.,

chap. 26.

No wonder, if he anticipated this sort of thing, that Bacon should have

commended "the excellent brevity of the old Scots acts." Here, for

instance, is a specimen, an actual statute at large, such as they were

in those pigmy days:--

"Item, it is statute that gif onie of the King's lieges passes in

England, and resides and remains there against the King's will, he shall

be halden as Traiter to the King."

Here is another, very comprehensive, and worth a little library of

modern statute-books, if it was duly enforced:--

"Item, it is statute and ordained, that all our Sovereign lord's lieges

being under his obeisance, and especially the Isles, be ruled by our

Sovereign lord's own laws, and the common laws of the realm, and none

other laws."

The Irish statute-book conveys more expressively than any narrative the

motley contrasts of a history in the fabric of which the grotesque and

the tragic are so closely interwoven. So early as the middle of the

sixteenth century, English statesmen discover usquebaugh, and pass an

act to extinguish it at once: "forasmuch as _aqua vitæ_, a drink nothing

profitable to be daily drunken and used, is now universally throughout

this realm of Ireland made, and especially in the borders of the

Irishry, and for the furniture of Irishmen, and thereby much corn,

grain, and other things are consumed, spent, and wasted," and so forth.

To get men to shave and wash themselves, and generally to conform to the

standard of civilisation in their day, seems innocent if not laudable;

yet is there a world of heartburning, strife, oppression, and

retaliatory hatred expressed in the title of "an act, that the Irishmen

dwelling in the counties of Dublin, Meath, Uriell, and Kildare, shall go

apparelled like Englishmen, and wear their beards after the English

manner, swear allegiance, and take English surnames." Further on we have

a whole series of acts, with a conjunction of epithets in their titles

which, at the present day, sounds rather startling, "for the better

suppressing Tories, Robbers, and Rapparees, and for preventing

robberies, burglaries, and other heinous crimes." The classes so

associated having an unreasonable dislike of being killed, difficulties

are thus put in the way of those beneficially employed in killing them,

insomuch that they, "upon the killing of any one of their number, are

thereby so alarmed and put upon their keeping, that it hath been found

impracticable for such person or persons to discover and apprehend or

kill any more of them, whereby they are discouraged from discovering and

apprehending or killing," and so forth. There is a strange and

melancholy historical interest in these grotesque enactments, since they

almost verbatim repeat the legislation about the Highland clans passed a

century earlier by the Lowland Parliament of Scotland.

There is one shelf of the law library laden with a store of which few

will deny the attractive interest--that devoted to the literature of

Criminal Trials. It will go hard indeed, if, besides the reports of mere

technicalities, there be not here some glimpses of the sad romances

which lie at their heart; and, at all events, when the page passes a

very slight degree beyond the strictly professional, the technicalities

will be found mingled with abundant narrative. The State Trials, for

instance--surely a lawyer's book--contains the materials of a thousand

romances: nor are these all attached to political offences; as,

fortunately, the book is better than its name, and makes a virtuous

effort to embrace all the remarkable trials coming within the long

period covered by the collection. Some assistance may be got, at the

same time, from minor luminaries, such as the Newgate Calendar--not to

be commended, certainly, for its literary merits, but full of matters

strange and horrible, which, like the gloomy forest of the Castle of

Indolence, "sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood."

There are many other books where records of remarkable crimes are mixed

up with much rubbish, as, The Terrific Register, God's Revenge against

Murder, a little French book called Histoire Générale des Larrons

(1623), and if the inquirer's taste turn towards maritime crimes, The

History of the Bucaniers, by Esquemeling. A little work in four

volumes, called the Criminal Recorder, by a student in the Inner Temple,

can be commended as a sort of encyclopædia of this kind of literature.

It professes--and is not far from accomplishing the profession--to give

biographical sketches of notorious public characters, including

"murderers, traitors, pirates, mutineers, incendiaries, defrauders,

rioters, sharpers, highwaymen, footpads, pickpockets, swindlers,

housebreakers, coiners, receivers, extortioners, and other noted persons

who have suffered the sentence of the law for criminal offences." By far

the most luxurious book of this kind, however, in the English language,

is Captain Johnston's Lives of Highwaymen and Pirates. It is rare to

find it now complete. The old folio editions have been often mutilated

by over use; the many later editions in octavo are mutilated by design

of their editors; and for conveying any idea of the rough truthful

descriptiveness of a book compiled in the palmy days of highway robbery,

they are worthless.

All our literature of that nature must, however, yield to the French

Causes Célèbres, a term rendered so significant by the value and

interest of the book it names, as to have been borrowed by writers in

this country to render their works attractive. It must be noted as a

reason for the success of this work, and also of the German collection

by Feuerbach, that the despotic Continental method of procedure by

secret inquiry affords much better material for narrative than ours by

open trial. We make, no doubt, a great drama of a criminal trial.

Everything is brought on the stage at once, and cleared off before an

audience excited so as no player ever could excite; but it loses in

reading; while the Continental inquiry, with its slow secret development

of the plot, makes the better novel for the fireside.

There is a method by which, among ourselves, the trial can be imbedded

in a narrative which may carry down to later generations a condensed

reflection of that protracted expectation and excitement which disturb

society during the investigations and trials occasioned by any great

crime. This is by "illustrating" the trial, through a process resembling

that which has been already supposed to have been applied to one of

Watts's hymns. In this instance there will be all the newspaper

scraps--all the hawker's broadsides--the portraits of the criminal, of

the chief witnesses, the judges, the counsel, and various other

persons,--everything in literature or art that bears on the great

question.

He who inherits or has been able to procure a collection of such

illustrated trials, a century or so old, is deemed fortunate among

collectors, for he can at any time raise up for himself the spectre as

it were of the great mystery and exposure that for weeks was the

absorbing topic of attraction for millions. The curtains are down--the

fire burns bright--the cat purrs on the rug; Atticus, soused in his

easy-chair, cannot be at the trouble of going to see Macbeth or

Othello--he will sup full of horrors from his own stores. Accordingly he

takes down an unseemly volume, characterised by a flabby obesity by

reason of the unequal size of the papers contained in it, all being

bound to the back, while the largest only reach the margin. The first

thing at opening is the dingy pea-green-looking paragraph from the

provincial newspaper, describing how the reapers, going to their work at

dawn, saw the clay beaten with the marks of struggle, and, following the

dictates of curiosity, saw a bloody rag sticking on a tree, the leaves

also streaked with red, and, lastly, the instrument of violence hidden

in the moss; next comes from another source the lamentations for a young

woman who had left her home--then the excitement of putting that and

that together--the search, and the discovery of the body. The next

paragraph turns suspense into exulting wrath: the perpetrator has been

found with his bloody shirt on--a scowling murderous villain as ever was

seen--an eminent poacher, and fit for anything. But the next paragraph

turns the tables. The ruffian had his own secrets of what he had been

about that night, and at last makes a clean breast. It would have been a

bad business for him at any other time, but now he is a revealing angel,

for he noted this and that in the course of his own little game, and

gives justice the thread which leads to a wonderful romance, and brings

home desperate crime to that quarter where, from rank, education, and

profession, it was least likely to be found. Then comes the trial and

the execution; and so, at a sitting, has been swallowed all that

excitement which, at some time long ago, chained up the public in

protracted suspense for weeks.

The reader will see, from what I have just been saying, that I am not

prepared to back Charles Lamb's Index Expurgatorius.[49] It is

difficult, almost impossible, to find the book from which something

either valuable or amusing may not be found, if the proper alembic be

applied. I know books that are curious, and really amusing, from their

excessive badness. If you want to find precisely how a thing ought not

to be said, you take one of them down, and make it perform the service

of the intoxicated Spartan slave. There are some volumes in which, at a

chance opening, you are certain to find a mere platitude delivered in

the most superb and amazing climax of big words, and others in which you

have a like happy facility in finding every proposition stated with its

stern forward, as sailors say, or in some other grotesque mismanagement

of composition. There are no better farces on or off the stage than when

two or three congenial spirits ransack books of this kind, and compete

with each other in taking fun out of them.

[Footnote 49: "In this catalogue of _books which are no books--biblia a

biblia_--I reckon court calendars, directories, pocket-books,

draught-boards bound and lettered on the back, scientific treatises,

almanacs, statutes at large; the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson,

Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and generally all those volumes which 'no

gentleman's library should be without;' the histories of Flavius

Josephus (that learned Jew) and Paley's Moral Philosophy. With these

exceptions, I can read almost anything. I bless my stars for a taste so

catholic, so unexcluding. I confess that it moves my spleen to see these

_things in books' clothing_ perched upon shelves, like false saints,

usurpers of true shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting out

the legitimate occupants. To reach down a well-bound semblance of a

volume, and hope it some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what

'seem its leaves,' to come bolt upon a withering population essay. To

expect a Steele, or a Farquhar, and find--Adam Smith. To view a

well-arranged assortment of block-headed encyclopædias (Anglicanas or

Metropolitanas) set out in an array of russia or morocco, when a tithe

of that good leather would comfortably reclothe my shivering folios,

would renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund Lully to look

like himself again in the world. I never see these impostors but I long

to strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils."--Essays of

Elia.]

There is a solid volume, written in an inquiring spirit, but in a manner

which reminds one of deep calling unto deep, about the dark

superstitions of a country which was once a separate European kingdom. I

feel a peculiar interest in it, from the author having informed me, by

way of communicating an important fact in literary history, and also as

an example to be followed by literary aspirants, that, before committing

the book to the press, he had written it over sixteen times. It would

have been valuable to have his first manuscript, were it only that one

might form some idea of the steps by which he had brought it into the

condition in which it was printed. But its perusal in that condition was

not entirely thrown away, since I was able to recommend it to a teacher

of composition, as containing, within a moderate compass--after the

manner, in fact, of a handbook--good practical specimens of every

description of depravity of style of which the English language is

susceptible.

In the present day, when few scholars have opportunities of enriching

the world with their prison hours, perhaps the best conditions for

testing how far any volume or portion of printed matter, however

hopeless-looking, may yet yield edifying or amusing matter to a

sufficient pressure, will occur when a bookish person finds himself

imprisoned in a country inn, say for twenty-four hours. Such things are

not impossible in this age of rapid movement. It is not long since a

train, freighted with musical artistes, sent express to perform at a

provincial concert and be back immediately in town for other

engagements, were caught by a great snow-storm which obliterated the

railway, and had to live for a week or two in a wayside alehouse, in one

of the dreariest districts of Scotland. The possessor and user of a

large library undergoing such a calamity in a modified shape will be

able to form a conception of the resources at his disposal, and to

calculate how long it will take him to exhaust the intellectual

treasures at his command, just as a millionaire, haunted as such people

sometimes are by the dread of coming on the parish, might test how long

a life his invested capital would support by spending a winter in a

Shetland cottage, and living on what he could procure. Having exhausted

all other sources of excitement and interest, the belated traveller is

supposed to call for the literature of the establishment. Perhaps the

Directory of the county town is the only available volume. Who shall say

what the belated traveller may make of this? He may do a turn in local

statistics, or, if his ambition rises higher, he may pursue some

valuable ethnological inquiries, trying whether Celtic or Saxon names

prevail, and testing the justice of Mr Thierry's theory by counting the

Norman patronymics, and observing whether any of them are owned by

persons following plebeian and sordid occupations. If in after-life the

sojourner should come in contact with people interested in the politics

or business of that county town, he will surprise them by exhibiting his

minute acquaintance with its affairs.

If, besides the Directory, an Almanac, old or new, is to be had, the

analysis may be conducted on a greatly widened basis. The rotations of

the changes of the seasons may at the same time suggest many appropriate

reflections on the progress of man from the cradle to the grave, and all

that he meets with between the alpha and omega; and if the prisoner is

a man of genius, the announcements of eclipses and other solar phenomena

will suggest trains of thought which he can carry up to any height of

sublimity. A person in the circumstances supposed, after he has

exhausted the Directory and the Almanac, may perhaps be led to read (if

he can get) Zimmerman On Solitude, Hervey's Meditations, Watts on the

Improvement of the Mind, or Hannah More's Sacred Dramas. Who knows what

he may be reduced to? I remember the great Irish liberator telling how,

when once detained in an inn in Switzerland, he could find no book to

beguile the time with but the Lettres Provinciales of Pascal. I have no

doubt that the coerced perusal of them to which he had to submit did him

a deal of good.

Let us imagine that nothing better is to be found than the advertising

sheet of an old newspaper--never mind. Let the unfortunate man fall to

and read the advertisements courageously, and make the best of them. An

advertisement is itself a fact, though it may sometimes be the vehicle

of a falsehood; and, as some one has remarked, he who has a fact in hand

is like a turner with a piece of wood in his lathe, which he can

manipulate to his liking, tooling it in any way, as a plain cylinder or

a richly ornamented toy. There have been fortunate instances of people

driven to read them finding good jokes and other enjoyable things in

advertisements--such things as make one almost regret that so little

attention has been paid to this department of literature.[50] Besides

the spontaneous undesigned attractions to be found in it, there have

been men of distinguished parts whose powers have found development in

the advertisement line. George Robins, a hero in his day, is surely not

yet quite forgotten; and though he were, doubtless his works will be

restored to notice by future philosophers who will perhaps find in them

the true spirit of the nineteenth century. Advertisements, more prosaic

than his, however, bring us into the very heart of life and business,

and contain a world of interest. Suppose that the dirty broadside you

pick up in the dingy inn's soiled room contains the annual announcement

of the reassembling of the school in which you spent your own years of

schoolboy life--what a mingled and many-figured romance does it recall

of all that has befallen to yourself and others since the day when the

same advertisement made you sigh, because the hour was close at hand

when you were to leave home and all its homely ways to dwell among

strangers! Going onward, you remember how each one after another ceased

to be a stranger, and twined himself about your heart; and then comes

the reflection, Where are they all now? You remember how

"He, the young and strong, who cherished

Noble longings for the strife,

By the roadside fell and perished,

Weary with the march of life."

You recall to your memory also those two inseparables--linked together,

it would seem, because they were so unlike. The one, gentle, dreamy, and

romantic, was to be the genius of the set; but alas, he "took to bad

habits," and oozed into the slime of life, imperceptibly almost, hurting

no creature but himself--unless it may be that to some parent or other

near of kin his gentle facility may have caused keener pangs than others

give by cruelty and tyranny. The other, bright-eyed, healthy, strong,

and keen-tempered--the best fighter and runner and leaper in the

school--the dare-devil who was the leader in every row--took to Greek

much about the time when his companion took to drinking, got a

presentation, wrote some wonderful things about the functions of the

chorus, and is now on the fair road to a bishopric.

[Footnote 50: Take, for instance, the announcement of the wants of an

affluent and pious elderly lady, desirous of having the services of a

domestic like-minded with herself, who appeals to the public for a

"groom to take charge of two carriage-horses of a serious turn of mind."

So also the simple-hearted innkeeper, who founds on his "limited charges

and civility;" or the description given by a distracted family of a

runaway member, who consider that they are affording valuable means for

his identification by saying, "age not precisely known--but looks older

than he is."]

Next arises the vision of "the big boy," the lout--the butt of every

one, even of the masters, who, when any little imp did a thing well,

always made the appropriate laudation tell to the detriment of the big

boy, as if he were bound to be as superfluous in intellect as in flesh.

He has sufficiently dinned into him to make him thoroughly modest, poor

fellow, how all great men were little. Napoleon was little, so was

Frederic the Great, William III., the illustrious Condé, Pope, Horace,

Anacreon, Campbell, Tom Moore, and Jeffrey. His relations have so

thoroughly given in to the prejudice against him, that they get him a

cadetship because he is fit for nothing at home; and now, years

afterwards, the newspapers resound with his fame--how, when at the

quietest of all stations when the mutiny suddenly broke out in its most

murderous shape, and even experienced veterans lost heart, he remained

firm and collected, quietly developing, one after another, resources of

which he was not himself aware, and in the end putting things right,

partly by stern vigour, but more by a quiet tact and genial appreciation

of the native character. But what has become of the Dux--him who, in the

predictions of all, teachers and taught, was to render the institution

some day illustrious by occupying the Woolsack, or the chief place at

the Speaker's right hand? A curious destiny is his: at a certain point

the curve of his ascent was as it were truncated, and he took to the

commonest level of ordinary life. He may now be seen, staid and sedate

in his walk, which brings him, with a regularity that has rendered him

useful to neighbours owning erratic watches, day by day to a lofty

three-legged stool, mounted on which, all his proceedings confirm the

high character retained by him through several years for the neatness of

his handwriting, and especially for his precision in dotting his i's and

stroking his t's.

This is all along of the use which the reflective man may make of an old

advertisement. If it be old, the older the better--the more likely is it

to contain matter of curious interest or instruction about the ways of

men. To show this, I reprint two advertisements from British newspapers.

From the Public Advertiser of 28th March 1769.

"TO BE SOLD, A BLACK GIRL, the property of J. B----, eleven years

of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and

speaks English perfectly well: is of an excellent temper, and

willing disposition.

"Inquire of Mr Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St Clement's Church

in the Strand."

From the Edinburgh Evening Courant, 18th April 1768.

"A BLACK BOY TO SELL.

"TO BE SOLD, A BLACK BOY, with long hair, stout made, and

well-limbed--is good tempered, can dress hair, and take care of a

horse indifferently. He has been in Britain nearly three years.

"Any person that inclines to purchase him may have him for £40. He

belongs to Captain ABERCROMBIE at Broughton.

"This advertisement not to be repeated."

There was at that time probably more of this description of property in

Britain than in Virginia. It had become fashionable, as one may see in

Hogarth. Such advertisements--they were abundant--might furnish an apt

text on which a philosophical historian could speculate on the probable

results to this country, had not Mansfield gone to the root of the

matter by denying all property in slaves.

So much for the chances which still remain to the devourer of books, if,

after having consumed all the solid volumes within his reach, he should

be reduced to shreds and patches of literature,--like a ship's crew

having resort to shoe-leather and the sweepings of the locker.

Pretenders.

But now to return to the point whence we started--the disposition, and

almost the necessity, which the true enthusiast in the pursuit feels to

look into the soul, as it were, of his book, after he has got possession

of the body. When he is not of the omnivorous kind, but one who desires

to possess a particular book, and, having got it, dips into the contents

before committing it to permanent obscurity on his loaded shelves, there

is, as we have already seen, a certain thread of intelligent

association linking the items of his library to each other. The

collector knows what he wants, and why he wants it, and that _why_ does

not entirely depend on exteriors, though he may have his whim as to that

also.

He is a totally different being from the animal who goes to all sales,

and buys every book that is cheap. That is a painfully low and

grovelling type of the malady; and, fortunately for the honour of

literature, the bargain-hunter who suffers under it is not in general a

special votary of books, but buys all bargains that come in his

way--clocks, tables, forks, spoons, old uniforms, gas-meters, magic

lanterns, galvanic batteries, violins (warranted real Cremonas, from

their being smashed to pieces), classical busts (with the same testimony

to their genuineness), patent coffee-pots, crucibles, amputating knives,

wheel-barrows, retorts, cork-screws, boot-jacks, smoke-jacks,

melon-frames, bath-chairs, and hurdy-gurdies. It has been said that

once, a coffin, made too short for its tenant, being to be had an

undoubted bargain, was bought by him, in the hope that, some day or

other, it might prove of service in his family. His library, if such it

may be termed, is very rich in old trade-directories, justices of peace

and registers of voters, road-books, and other useful manuals; but there

are very learned books in it too. That clean folio Herodotus was

certainly extremely cheap at half-a-crown; and you need not inform him

that the ninth book is wanting, for he will never find that out. The day

when he has discovered that any book has been bought by another person,

a better bargain than his own copy, is a black one in his calendar; but

he has a peculiar device for getting over the calamity by bringing down

the average cost of his own copy through fresh investments. Having had

the misfortune to buy a copy of Goldsmith's History of England for five

shillings, while a neighbour flaunts daily in his face a copy obtained

for three, he has been busily occupied in a search for copies still

cheaper. He has now brought down the average price of his numerous

copies of this more agreeable than accurate work to three shillings and

twopence, and hopes in another year to get below the three shillings.

Neither is the rich man who purchases fine and dear books by deputy to

be admitted within the category of the genuine book-hunter. He must hunt

himself--must actually undergo the anxiety, the fatigue, and, so far as

purse is concerned, the risks of the chase. Your rich man, known to the

trade as a great orderer of books, is like the owner of the great

game-preserve, where the sport is heavy butchery; there is none of the

real zest of the hunter of the wilderness to be had within his gates.

The old Duke of Roxburghe wisely sank his rank and his wealth, and

wandered industriously and zealously from shop to stall over the world,

just as he wandered over the moor, stalking the deer. One element in the

excitement of the poorer book-hunter he must have lacked--the feeling of

committing something of extravagance--the consciousness of parting with

that which will be missed. This is the sacrifice which assures the

world, and satisfies the man's own heart, that he is zealous and earnest

in the work he has set about. And it is decidedly this class who most

read and use the books they possess. How genial a picture does Scott

give of himself at the time of the Roxburghe sale--the creation of

Abbotsford pulling him one way, on the other his desire to accumulate a

library round him in his Tusculum. Writing to his familiar Terry, he

says, "The worst of all is, that while my trees grow and my fountain

fills, my purse, in an inverse ratio, sinks to zero. This last

circumstance will, I fear, make me a very poor guest at the literary

entertainment your researches hold out for me. I should, however, like

much to have the treatise on Dreams by the author of the New Jerusalem,

which, as John Cuthbertson, the smith, said of the minister's sermon,

'must be neat wark.' The loyal poems by N.T. are probably by poor Nahum

Tate, who was associated with Brady in versifying the Psalms, and more

honourably with Dryden in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel. I

never saw them, however, but would give a guinea or thirty shillings for

the collection."

One of the reasons why Dibdin's expatiations among rare and valuable

volumes are, after all, so devoid of interest, is, that he occupied

himself in a great measure in catering for men with measureless purses.

Hence there is throughout too exact an estimate of everything by what it

is worth in sterling cash, with a contempt for small things, which has

an unpleasant odour of plush and shoulder-knot about it. Compared with

dear old Monkbarns and his prowlings among the stalls, the narratives of

the Boccaccio of the book-trade are like the account of a journey that

might be written from the rumble of the travelling chariot, when

compared with the adventurous narrative of the pedestrian or of the

wanderer in the far East. Everything is too comfortable, luxurious,

and easy--russia, morocco, embossing, marbling, gilding--all crowding

on one another, till one feels suffocated with riches. There is a

feeling, at the same time, of the utter useless pomp of the whole thing.

Volumes, in the condition in which he generally describes them, are no

more fitted for use and consultation than white kid gloves and silk

stockings are for hard work. Books should be used decently and

respectfully--reverently, if you will; but let there be no toleration

for the doctrine that there are volumes too splendid for use, too fine

almost to be looked at, as Brummel said of some of his Dresden china.

That there should be little interest in the record of rich men buying

costly books which they know nothing about and never become acquainted

with, is an illustration of a wholesome truth, pervading all human

endeavours after happiness. It is this, that the active, racy enjoyments

of life--those enjoyments in which there is also exertion and

achievement, and which depend on these for their proper relish--are not

to be bought for hard cash. To have been to him the true elements of

enjoyment, the book-hunter's treasures must not be his mere property,

they must be his achievements--each one of them recalling the excitement

of the chase and the happiness of success. Like Monkbarns with his

Elzevirs and his bundle of pedlar's ballads, he must have, in common

with all hunters, a touch of the competitive in his nature, and be able

to take the measure of a rival,--as Monkbarns magnanimously takes that

of Davie Wilson, "'commonly called Snuffy Davie, from his inveterate

addiction to black rappee, who was the very prince of scouts for

searching blind alleys, cellars, and stalls, for rare volumes. He had

the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap of a bull-dog. He would

detect you an old blackletter ballad among the leaves of a law-paper,

and find an _editio princeps_ under the mask of a school Corderius.'"

In pursuing the chase in this spirit, the sportsman is by no means

precluded from indulgence in the adventitious specialties that delight

the commonest bibliomaniac. There is a good deal more in many of them

than the first thought discloses. An _editio princeps_ is not a mere

toy--it has something in it that may purchase the attention even of a

thinking man. In the first place, it is a very old commodity--about four

hundred years of age. If you look around you in the world you will see

very few movables coeval with it. No doubt there are wonderfully ancient

things shown to travellers,--as in Glammis Castle you may see the

identical four-posted bedstead--a very creditable piece of

cabinet-makery--in which King Malcolm was murdered a thousand years ago.

But genuine articles of furniture so old as the _editio princeps_ are

very rare. If we should highly esteem a poker, a stool, a drinking-can,

of that age, is there not something worthy of observance, as indicating

the social condition of the age, in those venerable pages, made to look

as like the handwriting of their day as possible, with their decorated

capitals, all squeezed between two solid planks of oak, covered with

richly embossed hog-skin, which can be clasped together by means of

massive decorated clasps? And shall we not admit it to a higher place in

our reverence than some mere item of household furnishing, when we

reflect that it is the very form in which some great ruling intellect,

resuscitated from long interment, burst upon the dazzled eyes of Europe

and displayed the fulness of its face?

His Achievements in the Creation of Libraries.

So much, then, for the benefit which the class to whom these pages are

devoted derive to themselves from their peculiar pursuit. Let us now

turn to the far more remarkable phenomena, in which these separate and

perhaps selfish pursuers of their own instincts and objects are found to

concur in bringing out a great influence upon the intellectual destinies

of mankind. It is said of Brindley, the great canal engineer,

that,--when a member of a committee, where he was under examination, a

little provoked or amused by his entire devotion to canals, asked him if

he thought there was any use of rivers,--he promptly answered, "Yes, to

feed navigable canals." So, if there be no other respectable function in

life fulfilled by the book-hunter, I would stand up for the proposition

that he is the feeder, provided by nature, for the preservation of

literature from age to age, by the accumulation and preservation of

libraries, public or private. It will require perhaps a little

circumlocutory exposition to show this, but here it is.

A great library cannot be constructed--it is the growth of ages. You may

buy books at any time with money, but you cannot make a library like one

that has been a century or two a-growing, though you had the whole

national debt to do it with. I remember once how an extensive publisher,

speaking of the rapid strides which literature had made of late years,

and referring to a certain old public library, celebrated for its

affluence in the fathers, the civilians, and the medieval chroniclers,

stated how he had himself freighted for exportation, within the past

month, as many books as that whole library consisted of. This was likely

enough to be true, but the two collections were very different from each

other. The cargoes of books were probably thousands of copies of some

few popular selling works. They might be a powerful illustration of the

diffusion of knowledge, but what they were compared with was its

concentration. Had all the paper of which these cargoes consisted been

bank-notes, they would not have enabled their owner to create a

duplicate of the old library, rich in the fathers, the civilians, and

the medieval chroniclers.

This impossibility of improvising libraries is really an important and

curious thing; and since it is apt to be overlooked, owing to the

facility of buying books, in quantities generally far beyond the

available means of any ordinary buyer, it seems worthy of some special

consideration. A man who sets to to form a library will go on

swimmingly for a short way. He will easily get Tennyson's

Poems--Macaulay's and Alison's Histories--the Encyclopædia

Britannica--Buckle on Civilisation--all the books "in print," as it is

termed. Nay, he will find no difficulty in procuring copies of others

which may not happen to be on the shelves of the publisher or of the

retailer of new books. Of Voltaire's works--a little library in

itself--he will get a copy at his call in London, if he has not set his

mind on some special edition. So of Scott's edition of Swift or Dryden,

Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson, and the like. One can scarcely

suppose a juncture in which any of these cannot be found through the

electric chain of communication established by the book-trade. Of

Gibbon's and Hume's Histories--Jeremy Taylor's works--Bossuet's

Universal History, and the like, copies abound everywhere. Go back a

little, and ask for Kennet's Collection of the Historians--Echard's

History, Bayle, Moreri, or Father Daniel's History of France, you cannot

be so certain of immediately obtaining your object, but you will get the

book in the end--no doubt about that.

Everything has its caprices, and there are some books which might be

expected to be equally shy, but in reality, by some inexplicable

fatality, are as plentiful as blackberries. Such, for instance, are

Famianus Strada's History of the Dutch War of Independence--one of the

most brilliant works ever written, and in the very best Latin after

Buchanan's. There is Buchanan's own history, very common even in the

shape of the early Scotch edition of 1582, which is a highly favourable

specimen of Arbuthnot's printing. Then there are Barclay's Argenis, and

Raynal's Philosophical History of the East and West Indies, without

which no book-stall is to be considered complete, and which seem to be

possessed of a supernatural power of resistance to the elements, since,

month after month, in fair weather or foul, they are to be seen at their

posts dry or dripping.

So the collector goes on, till he perhaps collects some five thousand

volumes or so of select works. If he is miscellaneous in his taste, he

may get on pretty comfortably to ten or fifteen thousand, and then his

troubles will arise. He has easily got Baker's and Froissart's and

Monstrelet's Chronicles, because there are modern reprints of them in

the market. But if he want Cooper's Chronicle, he may have to wait for

it, since its latest form is still the black-letter. True, I did pick up

a copy lately, at Braidwood's, for half-a-guinea, but that was a

catch--it might have caused the search of a lifetime. Still more

hopeless it is when the collector's ambition extends to The Ladder of

Perfection of Wynkin de Worde, or to his King Rycharde Cure de Lion,

whereof it is reported in the Repertorium Bibliographicum, that "an

imperfect copy, wanting one leaf, was sold by auction at Mr Evans's, in

June 1817, to Mr Watson Taylor for £40, 19s." "Woe betide," says

Dibdin, "the young bibliomaniac who sets his heart upon Breton's

Flourish upon Fancie and Pleasant Toyes of an Idle Head, 1557, 4to; or

Workes of a Young Wyt trussed up with a Fardell of Pretty Fancies!!

Threescore guineas shall hardly fetch these black-letter rarities from

the pigeon-holes of Mr Thorpe. I lack courage to add the prices for

which these copies sold." But he has some comfort reserved for the

hungry collector, in the intimation that The Ravisht Soul and the

Blessed Weaper, by the same author, may be had for £15.[51] It creates a

thrilling interest to know, through the same distinguished authority,

that the Heber sale must have again let loose upon the world "A merry

gest and a true, howe John Flynter made his Testament," concerning which

we are told, with appropriate solemnity and pathos, that "Julian Notary

is the printer of this inestimably precious volume, and Mr Heber is the

thrice-blessed owner of the copy described in the Typographical

Antiquities."

[Footnote 51: Library Companion, p. 699.]

Such works as the Knightly Tale of Galogras, The Temple of Glas, Lodge's

Nettle for Nice Noses, or the Book of Fayts of Armes, by Christene of

Pisa, or Caxton's Pylgremage of the Sowle, or his Myrrour of the Worlde,

will be long inquired after before they come to the market, thoroughly

contradicting that fundamental principle of political economy, that the

supply is always equal to the demand.

He, indeed, who sets his mind on the possession of any one of these

rarities, may go to his grave a disappointed man. It will be in general

the consolation of the collector, however, that he is by no means the

"homo unius libri." There is always something or other turning up for

him, so long as he keeps within moderate bounds. If he be rich and

ravenous, however, there is nothing for it but duplicating--the most

virulent form of book-mania. We have seen that Heber, whose collection,

made during his own lifetime, was on the scale of those public libraries

which take generations to grow, had, with all his wealth, his

liberality, and his persevering energy, to invest himself with

duplicates, triplicates--often many copies of the same book.

It is rare that the private collector runs himself absolutely into this

quagmire, and has so far exhausted the market that no already

unpossessed volume turns up in any part of the world to court his eager

embraces. The limitation constitutes, however, a serious difficulty in

the way of rapidly creating great public libraries. We would obtain the

best testimony to this difficulty in America, were our brethren there in

a condition to speak or think of so peaceful a pursuit as

library-making. In the normal condition of society there--something

like that of Holland in the seventeenth century--there are powerful

elements for the promotion of art and letters, when wealth gives the

means and civilisation the desire to promote them. The very absence of

feudal institutions--the inability to found a baronial house--turns the

thoughts of the rich and liberal to other foundations calculated to

transmit their name and influence to posterity. And so we have such

bequests as John Jacob Astor's, who left four hundred thousand dollars

for a library, and the hundred and eighty thousand which were the

nucleus of the Smithsonian Institution. Yes! Their efforts in this

direction have fully earned for them their own peculiar form of

laudation as "actually equal to cash." Hence, as the book-trade and

book-buyers know very well, the "almighty dollar" has been hard at work,

trying to rear up by its sheer force duplicates of the old European

libraries, containing not only all the ordinary stock books in the

market, but also the rarities, and those individualities--solitary

remaining copies of impressions--which the initiated call uniques. It is

clear, however, that when there is but one copy, it can only be in one

place; and if it have been rooted for centuries in the Bodleian, or the

University of Tubingen, it is not to be had for Harvard or the Astorian.

Dr Cogswell, the first librarian of the Astorian, spent some time in

Europe with his princely endowment in his pocket, and showed himself a

judicious, active, and formidable sportsman in the book-hunting world.

Whenever, from private collections, or the breaking-up of public

institutions, rarities got abroad into the open market, the collectors

of the old country found that they had a resolute competitor to deal

with--almost, it might be said, a desperate one--since he was in a

manner the representative of a nation using powerful efforts to get

possession of a share of the literary treasures of the Old World.

In the case of a book, for instance, of which half-a-dozen copies might

be known to exist, the combatants before the auctioneer would be, on the

one side, many an ambitious collector desiring to belong to the

fortunate circle already in possession of such a treasure; but on the

other side was one on whose exertions depended the question, whether the

book should henceforth be part of the intellectual wealth of a great

empire, and should be accessible for consultation by American scholars

and authors without their requiring to cross the Atlantic. Let us see

how far, by a brief comparison, money has enabled them to triumph over

the difficulties of their position.

It is difficult to know exactly the numerical contents of a library, as

some people count by volumes, and others by the separate works, small or

great; and even if all should consent to count by volumes, the estimate

would not be precise, for in some libraries bundles of tracts and other

small works are massed in plethoric volumes for economy, while in

affluent institutions every collection of leaves put under the command

of a separate title-page is separately bound in cloth, calf, or morocco,

according to its rank. The Imperial Library at Paris is computed to

contain above eight hundred thousand volumes; the Astorian boasts of

approaching a hundred thousand: the next libraries in size in America

are the Harvard, with from eighty thousand to ninety thousand; the

Library of Congress, which has from sixty thousand to seventy thousand;

and the Boston Athenæum, which has about sixty thousand.

There are many of smaller size. In fact, there is probably no country so

well stocked as the States with libraries of from ten thousand to twenty

thousand volumes,--the evidence that they have bought what was to be

bought, and have done all that a new people can to participate in the

long-hoarded treasures of literature which it is the privilege of the

Old World to possess. I know that, especially in the instance of the

Astorian Library, the selections of books have been made with great

judgment, and that, after the boundaries of the common crowded market

were passed, and individual rarities had to be stalked in distant

hunting-grounds, innate literary value was still held an object more

important than mere abstract rarity, and, as the more worthy quality of

the two, that on which the buying power available to the emissary was

brought to bear.

The zeal and wealth which the citizens of the States have thrown into

the limited field from which a library can be rapidly reaped, are

manifested in the size and value of their private collections. A volume,

called The Private Libraries of New York, by James Wynne, M.D., affords

interesting evidence of this phenomenon. It is printed on large thick

paper, after the most luxurious fashion of our book clubs, apparently

for private distribution. The author states, however, that "the greater

part of the sketches of private libraries to be found in this volume,

were prepared for and published in the Evening Post about two years

since. Their origin is due to a request on the part of Mr Bigelow, one

of the editors of the Post, to the writer, to examine and sketch the

more prominent private collections of books in New York."

Such an undertaking reveals, to us of the old country, a very singular

social condition. With us, the class who may be thus offered up to the

martyrdom of publicity is limited. The owners of great houses and great

collections are doomed to share them with the public, and if they would

frequent their own establishments, must be content to do so in the

capacity of librarians or showmen, for the benefit of their numerous and

uninvited visitors. They generally, with wise resignation, bow to the

sacrifice, and, abandoning all connection with their treasures, dedicate

them to the people--nor, as their affluence is generally sufficient to

surround them with an abundance of other enjoyments, are they an object

of much pity.

But that the privacy of our ordinary wealthy and middle classes should

be invaded in a similar shape, is an idea that could not get abroad

without creating sensations of the most lively horror. They manage these

things differently across the Atlantic, and so here we have "over" fifty

gentlemen's private collections ransacked and anatomised. If _they_ like

it, we have no reason to complain, but rather have occasion to rejoice

in the valuable and interesting result.

It is quite natural that their ways of esteeming a collection should not

be as our ways. There is a story of a Cockney auctioneer, who had a

location in the back settlements to dispose of, advertising that it was

"almost entirely covered with fine old timber." To many there would

appear to be an equal degree of verdant simplicity in mentioning among

the specialties and distinguishing features of a collection--the

Biographia and Encyclopædia Britannica, Lowndes's Manual, the Quarterly

and Edinburgh Reviews, Boyle, Ducange, Moreri, Dodsley's Annual

Register, Watt's Bibliotheca, and Diodorus Siculus.

The statement that there is in Dr Francis's collection a "complete set

of the Recueil des Causes Célèbres, collected by Maurice Mejan, in

eighteen volumes--a scarce and valuable work"--would throw any of our

black-letter knight-errants into convulsions of laughter. There are also

some instances of perhaps not unnatural confusion between one merely

local British celebrity and another, as where it is set forth that in Mr

Noyes's collection "there is a fine copy of Sir Robert Walpole's works,

in five large quarto volumes, embellished with plates." But under all

this inexperience of the ways of the craft as it is cultivated among us,

and unconsciousness of such small parochial distinctions as may hold

between Sir Robert Walpole, our Prime Minister, and Horace Walpole, the

man of letters and trinkets, the book contains a quantity of valuable

and substantial matter, both as a record of rich stores of learning

heaped up for the use of the scholar, and marvellous varieties to dazzle

the eyes of the mere Dibdinite. The prevailing feature throughout is the

lavish costliness and luxury of these collections, several of which

exceed ten thousand volumes. Where collections have grown so large that,

on the principles already explained, their increase is impeded, the

owner's zeal and wealth seem to have developed themselves in the lavish

enshrining and decorating of such things as were attainable.[52]

[Footnote 52: Take as a practical commentary on what has been said (p.

82) on "illustrating" books, the following passage describing some of

the specialties of a collection, the general features of which are

described further on:--

"But the crowning glory is a folio copy of Shakespeare, illustrated by

the collector himself, with a prodigality of labour and expense, that

places it far above any similar work ever attempted. The letterpress of

this great work is a choice specimen of Nichol's types, and each play

occupies a separate portfolio. These are accompanied by costly

engravings of landscapes, rare portraits, maps, elegantly coloured

plates of costumes, and water-colour drawings, executed by some of the

best artists of the day. Some of the plays have over 200 folio

illustrations, each of which is beautifully inlaid or mounted, and many

of the engravings are very valuable. Some of the landscapes, selected

from the oldest cosmographies known, illustrating the various places

mentioned in the pages of Shakespeare, are exceedingly curious as well

as valuable.

"In the historical plays, when possible, every character is portrayed

from authoritative sources, as old tapestries, monumental brasses, or

illuminated works of the age, in well-executed drawings or recognised

engravings. There are in this work a vast number of illustrations, in

addition to a very numerous collection of water-colour drawings. In

addition to the thirty-seven plays, are two volumes devoted to

Shakespeare's life and times, one volume of portraits, one volume

devoted to distinguished Shakespearians, one to poems, and two to

disputed plays, the whole embracing a series of forty-two folio volumes,

and forming, perhaps, the most remarkable and costly monument, in this

shape, ever attempted by a devout worshipper of the Bard of Avon. The

volume devoted to Shakespeare's portraits was purchased by Mr Burton, at

the sale of a gentleman's library, who had spent many years in making

the collection, and includes various 'effigies' unknown to many

laborious collectors. It contains upwards of 100 plates, for the most

part proofs. The value of this collection may be estimated by the fact,

that a celebrated English collector recently offered its possessor £60

for this single volume.

"In the reading-room directly beneath the main library, are a number of

portfolios of prints illustrative of the plays of Shakespeare, of a size

too large to be included in the illustrated collection just noticed.

There is likewise another copy of Shakespeare, based upon Knight's

pictorial royal octavo, copiously illustrated by the owner; but although

the prints are numerous, they are neither as costly nor as rare as those

contained in the large folio copy.

"Among the curiosities of the Shakespeare collection are a number of

copies of the disputed plays, printed during his lifetime, with the name

of Shakespeare as their author. It is remarkable, if these plays were

not at least revised by Shakespeare, that no record of a contradiction

of their authorship should be found. It is not improbable that many

plays written by others were given to Shakespeare to perform in his

capacity as a theatrical manager, requiring certain alterations in order

to adapt them to the use of the stage, which were arranged by his

cunning and skilful hand, and these plays afterward found their way into

print, with just sufficient of his emendations to allow his authorship

of them, in the carelessness in which he held his literary fame, to pass

uncontradicted by him.

"There is a copy of an old play of the period, with manuscript

annotations, and the name of Shakespeare written on the title-page. It

is either the veritable signature of the poet, or an admirably imitated

forgery. Mr Burton inclined to the opinion that the work once belonged

to Shakespeare, and that the signature is genuine. If so, it is probably

the only scrap of his handwriting on this continent. This work is not

included in the list given of Ireland's library, the contents of which

were brought into disrepute by the remarkable literary forgeries of the

son, but stands forth peculiar and unique, and furnishes much room for

curious speculation."--(148-51.)]

The descriptions of a remorseless investigator like this have a fresh

individuality not to be found here, where our habitual reserve prevents

us from offering or enjoying a full, true, and particular account of

the goods of our neighbours, unless they are brought to the hammer,--and

then they have lost half the charm which they possessed as the household

gods of some one conspicuous by position or character, and are little

more estimable than other common merchandise. It would be difficult to

find, among the countless books about books produced by us in the old

country, any in which the bent of individual tastes and propensities is

so distinctly represented in tangible symbols; and the reality of the

elucidation is increased by the sort of innocent surprise with which the

historian approaches each "lot," evidently as a first acquaintance,

about whom he inquires and obtains all available particulars,

good-humouredly communicating them in bald detail to his reader. Here

follows a sketch--and surely a tempting one--of a New York interior:--

"Mr Burton's library contains nearly sixteen thousand volumes. Its

proprietor had constructed for its accommodation and preservation a

three-storey fire-proof building, about thirty feet square, which is

isolated from all other buildings, and is connected with his residence

in Hudson Street by a conservatory gallery. The chief library-room

occupies the upper floor of this building, and is about twenty-five feet

in height. Its ceiling presents a series of groined rafters, after the

old English style, in the centre of which rises a dome-skylight of

stained glass. The sides of the library are fitted up with thirty-six

oak book-cases of a Gothic pattern, which entirely surround it, and are

nine feet in height. The space between the ceiling and the book-cases is

filled with paintings, for the most part of large size, and said to be

of value. Specimens of armour and busts of distinguished authors

decorate appropriate compartments, and in a prominent niche, at the head

of the apartment, stands a full-length statue of Shakespeare, executed

by Thom, in the same style as the Tam o' Shanter and Old Mortality

groups of this Scotch sculptor.

"The great specialty of the library is its Shakespeare collection; but,

although very extensive and valuable, it by no means engrosses the

entire library, which contains a large number of valuable works in

several departments of literature.

"The number of lexicons and dictionaries is large, and among the latter

may be found all the rare old English works so valuable for reference.

Three book-cases are devoted to serials, which contain many of the

standard reviews and magazines. One case is appropriated to voyages and

travels, in which are found many valuable ones. In another are upwards

of one hundred volumes of table-talk, and numerous works on the fine

arts and bibliography. One book-case is devoted to choice works on

America, among which is Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia Totius Orbis

Regionum, published in folio at Basle in 1537, which contains full notes

of Columbus, Vespucci, and other early voyagers. Another department

contains a curious catalogue of authorities relating to Crime and

Punishment; a liberal space is devoted to Facetiæ, another to American

Poetry, and also one to Natural and Moral Philosophy. The standard works

of Fiction, Biography, Theology, and the Drama, are all represented.

"There is a fair collection of classical authors, many of which are of

Aldine and Elzevir editions. Among the rarities in this department is a

folio copy of Plautus, printed at Venice in 1518, and illustrated with

woodcuts."

The author thus coming upon a Roman writer of plays, named Plautus,

favours us with an account of him, which it is unnecessary to pursue,

since it by no means possesses the interest attached to his still-life

sketches. Let us pass on and take a peep at the collection of Chancellor

Kent, known in this country as the author of Kent's Commentary:--

"To a lawyer, the Chancellor's written remarks on his books are,

perhaps, their most interesting feature. He studied pen in hand, and all

of his books contain his annotations, and some are literary curiosities.

His edition of Blackstone's Commentaries is the first American edition,

printed in Philadelphia in 1771. It is creditable to the press of that

time, and is overlaid with annotations, showing how diligently the

future American commentator studied the elegant work of his English

predecessor. The general reader will find still more interest in the

earlier judicial reports of the State of New York, printed while he was

on the bench. He will find not merely legal notes, but biographical

memoranda of many of the distinguished judges and lawyers who lived at

the commencement of the century, and built up the present system of

laws.

"In proceeding from the legal to the miscellaneous part of the library,

the visitor's attention will, perhaps, be attracted by an extensive and

curious collection of the records of criminal law. Not merely the

English state trials and the French _causes célèbres_ are there, but the

criminal trials of Scotland and of America, and detached publications of

remarkable cases, Newgate Calendars, Malefactors' Register, Chronicles

of Crime, with ghastly prints of Newgate and Old Bailey, with their

executions. The Chancellor is not responsible for this part of the

library, which owes its completeness to the morbid taste of his

successor, who defends the collection as best illustrating the popular

morals and manners of every period, and contends that fiction yields in

interest to the gloomy dramas of real life."

The practice attributed to the Chancellor of annotating his books is

looked on by collectors as in the general case a crime which should be

denied benefit of clergy. What is often said, however, of other crimes

may be said of this, that if the perpetrator be sufficiently

illustrious, it becomes a virtue. If Milton, for instance, had thought

fit to leave his autograph annotations on the first folio Shakespeare,

the offence would not only have been pardoned but applauded, greatly to

the pecuniary benefit of any one so fortunate as to discover the

treasure. But it would be highly dangerous for ordinary people to found

on such an immunity. I remember being once shown by an indignant

collector a set of utterly and hopelessly destroyed copies of rare

tracts connected with the religious disputes of Queen Elizabeth's day,

each inlaid and separately bound in a thin volume in the finest morocco,

with the title lengthways along the back. These had been lent to a

gentleman who deemed himself a distinguished poet, and he thought proper

to write on the margin the sensations caused within him by the perusal

of some of the more striking passages, certifying the genuineness of his

autograph by his signature at full length in a bold distinct hand. He,

worthy man, deemed that he was adding greatly to the value of the

rarities; but had he beheld the owner's face on occasion of the

discovery, he would have been undeceived.

There are in Dr Wynne's book descriptions, not only of libraries

according to their kind, but according to their stage of growth, from

those which, as the work of a generation or two, have reached from ten

to fifteen thousand, to the collections still in their youth, such as Mr

Lorimer Graham's of five thousand volumes, rich in early editions of

British poetry, and doubtless, by this time, still richer, since its

owner was lately here collecting early works on the literature of

Scotland, and other memorials of the land of his fathers. Certainly,

however, the most interesting of the whole is the library of the Rev. Dr

Magoon, "an eminent and popular divine of the Baptist Church." He

entered on active life as an operative bricklayer. There are, it

appears, wall-plates extant, and not a few, built by his hands, and it

was only by saving the earnings these brought to him that he could

obtain an education. When an English mechanic finds out that he has a

call to the ministry, we can easily figure the grim ignorant fanatical

ranter that comes forth as the result. If haply he is able to read, his

library will be a few lean sheepskin-clad volumes, such as Boston's

Crook in the Lot, Fisher's Marrow of Modern Divinity, Brooks's Apples of

Gold, Bolton's Saint's Enriching Examination, and Halyburton's Great

Concern. The bricklayer, however, was endowed with the heavenly gift of

the high æsthetic, which no birth or breeding can secure, and threw

himself into that common ground where art and religion meet--the

literature of Christian medieval art. Things must, however, have greatly

changed among our brethren since the days of Cotton Mather, or even of

Jonathan Edwards, when a person in Dr Magoon's position could embellish

his private sanctuary in this fashion.

"The chief characteristic of the collection is its numerous works on

the history, literature, and theory of art in general, and of Christian

architecture in particular. There is scarcely a church, abbey,

monastery, college, or cathedral; or picture, statue, or illumination,

prominent in Christian art, extant in Italy, Germany, France, or the

British Islands, that is not represented either by original drawings or

in some other graphic form.

"In addition to these works, having especial reference to Christian art,

are many full sets of folios depicting the leading galleries of ancient,

medieval, and modern art in general. Some of these, as the six elephant

folios on the Louvre, are in superb bindings; while many others, among

which are the Dresden Gallery and Retzsch's Outlines, derive an

additional value from once having formed a part of the elegant

collection of William Reginald Courtenay.

"But what renders this collection particularly valuable, is its large

number of original drawings by eminent masters which accompany the

written and engraved works. Amongst these are two large sepia drawings,

by Amici, of the Pantheon and St Peter's at Rome. These drawings were

engraved and published with several others by Ackermann. Both the

originals, and the engravings executed from them, are in the collection.

The original view near the Basilica of St Marco, by Samuel Prout, the

engraving of which is in Finden's Byron, and the interior of St Marco,

by Luke Price, the engraving of which is in Price's Venice Illustrated,

grace the collection. There is likewise a superb general view of Venice,

by Wyld; a fine exterior view of Rheims Cathedral, by Buckley; an

exterior view of St Peter's at Caën, by Charles Vacher; and the interior

of St Germain des Prés at Paris, by Duval."

The early history of the American settlements is naturally the object

around which many of these collections cluster; but the scraps of this

kind of literature which have been secured have a sadly impoverished

aspect in comparison with the luxurious stores which American money has

attracted from the Old World.[53] Here one is forcibly reminded of

those elements in the old-established libraries of Europe which no

wealth or zeal can achieve elsewhere, because the commodity is not in

the market.

[Footnote 53: "This collection [Mr Menzies's] contains four thousand

volumes, and is for the most part in the English language. Its chief

specialty consists in works on American history and early American

printed books. Among the latter may be mentioned a series of the

earliest works issued from the press in New York. Of these, is A Letter

of Advice to a Young Gentleman, by R.L., printed and sold by William

Bradford, in New York, 1696. Richard Lyon, the author, came early to

this country, and officiated as a private tutor to a young English

student at Cambridge, to whom the letter of advice was written. It is

undoubtedly the earliest work which issued from the press in New York,

and is so extremely rare, that it is questionable whether another copy

is to be found in the State. There is a collection of tracts comprised

in seven volumes, written by the Rev. George Keith, and published by

Bradford, at New York, 1702-4. Keith was born in Scotland, and settled

in East Jersey, in the capacity of surveyor-general, in 1682. The

several tracts in the collection are on religious subjects, and are

controversial in their character. As early specimens of printing, and as

models of the manner in which the religious controversies of the day

were conducted, they are both instructive and curious. In addition to

these is a work entitled The Rebuker Rebuked, by Daniel Leeds, 1703; A

Sermon preached at Kingston in Jamaica, by William Corbin, 1703; The

Great Mystery of Foxcraft, by Daniel Leeds, 1705; A Sermon preached at

Trinity Church, in New York, by John Sharp, 1706; An Alarm Sounded to

the Inhabitants of the World, by Bath Bowers, 1709; and Lex

Parliamentaria, 1716. All the above works were printed by Bradford, the

earliest New York publisher, and one of the earliest printers in

America. They constitute, perhaps, the most complete collection in

existence of the publications of this early typographer. The whole are

in an excellent state of preservation, and are nearly, if not quite,

unique."]

America had just one small old library, and the lamentation over the

loss of this ewe-lamb is touching evidence of her poverty in such

possessions. The Harvard Library dates from the year 1638. In 1764 the

college buildings were burned, and though books are not easily consumed,

yet the small collection of five thousand volumes was overwhelmed in the

general ruin. So were destroyed many books from the early presses of the

mother country, and many of the firstlings of the transatlantic

printers; and though its bulk was but that of an ordinary country

squire's collection, the loss has been always considered national and

irreparable.

It is, after all, a rather serious consideration--which it never seems

as yet to have occurred to any one to revolve--how entirely the new

states of the West and the South seem to be cut off from the literary

resources which the Old World possesses in her old libraries. Whatever

light lies hidden beneath the bushel in these venerable institutions,

seems for ever denied to the students and inquirers of the new empire

rising in the antipodes, and consequently to the minds of the people at

large who receive impressions from students and inquirers. Books can be

reprinted, it is true; but where is the likelihood that seven hundred

thousand old volumes will be reprinted to put the Astorian Library on a

par with the Imperial? Well, perhaps some quick and cheap way will be

found of righting it all when the Aerial Navigation Company issues its

time-bills, and news come of battles "from the nation's airy navies

grappling in the central blue."

In the meantime, what a lesson do these matters impress on us of the

importance of preserving old books! Government and legislation have done

little, if anything, in Britain, towards this object, beyond the

separate help that may have been extended to individual public

libraries, and the Copyright Act deposits. Of general measures, it is

possible to point out some which have been injurious, by leading to the

dispersal or destruction of books. The house and window duties have done

this to a large extent. As this statement may not be quite self-evident,

a word in explanation may be appropriate. The practice of the department

having charge of the Assessed Taxes has been, when any furniture was

left in an unoccupied house, to levy the duty--to exempt only houses

entirely empty. It was a consequence of this that when, by minority,

family decay, or otherwise, a mansion-house had to be shut up, there was

an inducement entirely to gut it of its contents, including the library.

The same cause, by the way, has been more destructive still to

furniture, and may be said to have lost to our posterity the fashions of

a generation or two. Tables, chairs, and cabinets first grow

unfashionable, and then old; in neither stage have they any friends who

will comfort or support them--they are still worse off than books. But

then comes an after-stage, in which they revive as antiquities, and

become exceeding precious. As Pompeiis, however, are rare in the world,

the chief repositories of antique furniture have been mansions shut up

for a generation or two, which, after more fashions than generations

have passed away, are reopened to the light of day, either in

consequence of the revival of the fortunes of their old possessors, or

of their total extinction and the entry of new owners. How the house and

window duties disturbed this silent process by which antiques were

created is easily perceived.

One service our Legislature has done for the preservation of books in

the copies which require to be deposited under the Copyright Act at

Stationers' Hall for the privileged libraries. True, this has been

effected somewhat in the shape of a burden upon authors, for the benefit

of that posterity which has done no more for them specially than it has

for other people of the present generation. But in its present modified

shape the burden should not be grudged, in consideration of the

magnitude of the benefit to the people of the future--a benefit the full

significance of which it probably requires a little consideration to

estimate. The right of receiving a copy of every book from Stationers'

Hall has generally been looked on as a benefit to the library receiving

it. The benefit, however, was but lightly esteemed by some of these

institutions, the directors of which represented that they were thus

pretty well supplied with the unsaleable rubbish, while the valuable

publications slipped past them; and, on the whole, they would sell their

privilege for a very small annual sum, to enable them to go into the

market and buy such books, old and new, as they might prefer. The view

adopted by the law, however, was, that the depositing of these books

created an obligation if it conferred a privilege, the institution

receiving them having no right to part with them, but being bound to

preserve them as a record of the literature of the age.[54]

[Footnote 54: I am not aware that in the blue-books, or any other source

of public information, there is any authenticated statement of the

quantity of literature which the privileged libraries receive through

the Copyright Act. The information would afford a measure of the

fertility of the British press. It is rather curious, that for a morsel

of this kind of ordinary modern statistics, one must have recourse to so

scholarly a work as the quarto volume of the _Præfationes et Epistolæ

Editionibus Principibus Auctorum Veterum præpositæ, curante Beriah

Botfield, A.M._ The editor of that noble quarto obtained a return from

Mr Winter Jones, of the number of deposits in the British Museum from

1814 to 1860. Counting the "pieces," as they are called--that is, every

volume, pamphlet, page of music, and other publication--the total number

received in 1814 was 378. It increased by steady gradation until 1851,

when it reached 9871. It then got an impulse, from a determination more

strictly to enforce the Act, and next year the number rose to 13,934,

and in 1859 it reached 28,807. In this great mass, the number of books

coming forth complete in one volume or more is roundly estimated at

5000, but a quantity of the separate numbers and parts which go to make

up the total are elementary portions of books, giving forth a certain

number of completed volumes annually. From the same authority, it

appears that the total number of publications which issued from the

French press in 1858 was estimated at 13,000; but this includes

"sermons, pamphlets, plays, pieces of music, and engravings." In the

same year the issues from the German press, Austria not included, are

estimated at 10,000, all apparently actual volumes, or considerable

pamphlets. Austria in 1855 published 4673 volumes and parts. What a

contrast to all this it must be to live in sleepy Norway, where the

annual literary prowess produces 146 volumes! In Holland the annual

publications approach 2000. "During the year 1854, 861 works in the

Russian language, and 451 in foreign languages were printed in Russia;

besides 2940 scientific and literary treatises in the different

periodicals." The number of works anywhere published is, however, no

indication of the number of books put in circulation, since some will

have to be multiplied by tens, others by hundreds, and others by

thousands. We know that there is an immense currency of literature in

the American States, yet, of the quantity of literature issued there,

the Publishers' Circular for February 1859 gives the following meagre

estimate:--"There were 912 works published in America during 1858. Of

these 177 were reprints from England, 35 were new editions, and 10 were

translations from the French or German. The new American works thus

number only 690, and among them are included sermons, pamphlets, and

letters, whereas the reprints are in most cases _bonâ fide_ books."]

If the rule come ever to be thoroughly enforced, it will then come to

pass that of every book that is printed in Britain, good or bad, five

copies shall be preserved in the shelves of so many public libraries,

slumbering there in peace, or tossed about by impatient readers, as the

case may be. For the latter there need not perhaps be much anxiety; it

is for the sake of those addicted to slumbering in peaceful obscurity

that this refuge is valuable. There is thus at least a remnant saved

from the relentless trunk-maker. If the day of resuscitation from the

long slumber should arrive, we know where to find the book--in a

privileged library. The recollection just now occurs to me of a man of

unquestionable character and scholarship, who wrote a suitable and

intelligent book on an important subject, and at his own expense had it

brought into the world by a distinguished publisher, prudently

intimating on the title-page that he reserved the right of translation.

Giving the work all due time to find its way, he called at the Row,

exactly a year after the day of publication, to ascertain the result. He

was presented with a perfectly succinct account of charge and discharge,

in which he was credited with three copies sold. Now, he knew that his

family had bought two copies, but he never could find out who it was

that had bought the third. The one mind into which his thoughts had

thus passed, remained ever mysteriously undiscoverable. Whether or not

he consoled himself with the reflection that what might have been

diffused over many was concentrated in one, it is consolatory to others

to reflect that such a book stands on record in the privileged

libraries, to come forth to the world if it be wanted.

Nor is the resuscitation of a book unsuited to its own age, but suited

to another, entirely unexampled. That beautiful poem called Albania was

reprinted by Leyden, from a copy preserved somewhere: so utterly

friendless had it been in its obscurity, that the author's history, and

even his name, were unknown; and though it at once excited the high

admiration of Scott, no scrap of intelligence concerning it could be

discovered in any quarter contemporary with its first publication. The

Discourse on Trade by Roger North, the author of the amusing Lives of

Lord-Keeper Guildford and his other two brothers, was lately reprinted

from a copy in the British Museum, supposed to be the only one existing.

Though neglected in its own day, it has been considered worthy of

attention in this, as promulgating some of the principles of our

existing philosophy of trade. On the same principle, some rare tracts on

political economy and trade were lately reprinted by a munificent

nobleman, who thought the doctrines contained in them worthy of

preservation and promulgation. The Spirit of Despotism, by Vicesimus

Knox, was reprinted, at a time when its doctrines were popular, from a

single remaining copy: the book, though instructive, is violent and

declamatory, and it is supposed that its author discouraged or

endeavoured to suppress its sale after it was printed.

In the public duty of creating great libraries, and generally of

preserving the literature of the world from being lost to it, the

collector's or book-hunter's services are eminent and numerous. In the

first place, many of the great public libraries have been absolute

donations of the treasures to which some enthusiastic literary sportsman

has devoted his life and fortune. Its gradual accumulation has been the

great solace and enjoyment of his active days; he has beheld it, in his

old age, a splendid monument of enlightened exertion, and he resolves

that, when he can no longer call it his own, it shall preserve the

relics of past literature for ages yet to come, and form a centre whence

scholarship and intellectual refinement shall diffuse themselves around.

We can see this influence in its most specific and material shape,

perhaps, by looking round the reading-room of the British Museum--that

great manufactory of intellectual produce, where so many heads are at

work. The beginning of this great institution, as everybody knows, was

in the fifty thousand volumes collected by Sir Hans Sloane--a wonderful

achievement for a private gentleman at the beginning of the last

century. When George III. gave it the libraries of the kings of England,

it gained, as it were, a better start still by absorbing collections

which had begun before Sloane was born--those of Cranmer, Prince Henry,

and Casaubon. The Ambrosian Library at Milan was the private collection

of Cardinal Borromeo, bequeathed by him to the world. It reached forty

thousand volumes ere he died, and these formed a library which had

arisen in free, natural, and symmetrical growth, insomuch as, having fed

it during his whole life, it began with the young and economic efforts

of youth and poverty, and went on accumulating in bulk and in the

costliness of its contents as succeeding years brought wealth and

honours to the great prelate. What those merchant princes, the Medici,

did for the Laurentian Library at Florence is part of history. Old

Cosmo, who had his mercantile and political correspondents in all lands,

made them also his literary agents, who thus sent him goods too precious

to be resold even at a profit. "He corresponded," says Gibbon, "at once

with Cairo and London, and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books were

often imported by the same vessel." The Bodleian started with a

collection which had cost Sir Thomas Bodley £10,000, and it was

augmented from time to time by the absorption of tributary influxes of

the same kind. Some far-seeing promoters of national museums have

reached the conclusion that it is not a sound ultimate policy to press

too closely on the private collector. He is therefore permitted, under a

certain amount of watchful inspection, to accumulate his small treasury

of antiquities, shells, or dried plants, in the prospect that in the

course of time it will find its way, like the feeding rills of a lake,

into the great public treasury.[55]

[Footnote 55: The most complete mass of information which we probably

possess in the English language about the history of libraries, both

home and foreign, is in the two octavos called Memoirs of Libraries,

including a Handbook of Library Concerns, by Edward Edwards.]

In many instances the collectors whose stores have thus gone to the

public, have merely followed their hunting propensities, without having

the merit of framing the ultimate destiny of their collections, but in

others the intention of doing benefit to the world has added zest and

energy to the chase. Of this class there is one memorable and beautiful

instance in Richard of Bury, Bishop of Durham, who lived and laboured so

early as the days of Edward III., and has left an autobiographical

sketch infinitely valuable, as at once informing us of the social

habits, and letting us into the very inner life, of the highly endowed

student and the affluent collector of the fourteenth century. His little

book, called Philobiblion, was brought to light from an older obscure

edition by the scholar printer Badius Ascensius, and was the first fruit

of his press when he set it up in Paris in the year 1499. An English

translation of it was published in 1832. It is throughout adorned with

the gentle and elevated nature of the scholar, and derives a still

nobler lustre from the beneficent purpose to which the author destined

the literary relics which it was the enjoyment of his life to collect

and study. Being endowed with power and wealth, and putting to himself

the question, "What can I render to the Lord for all that he hath

conferred on me?" he found an answer in the determination of smoothing

the path of the poor and ardent student, by supplying him with the means

of study. "Behold," he says, "a herd of outcasts rather than of elect

scholars meets the view of our contemplations, in which God the

artificer, and nature his handmaid, have planted the roots of the best

morals and most celebrated sciences. But the penury of their private

affairs so oppresses them, being opposed by adverse fortune, that the

fruitful seeds of virtue, so productive in the unexhausted field of

youth, unmoistened by their wonted dews, are compelled to wither. Whence

it happens, as Boetius says, that bright virtue lies hid in obscurity,

and the burning lamp is not put under a bushel, but is utterly

extinguished for want of oil. Thus the flowery field in spring is

ploughed up before harvest; thus wheat gives way to tares, the vine

degenerates to woodbine, and the olive grows wild and unproductive."

Keenly alive to this want, he resolved to devote himself, not merely to

supply to the hungry the necessary food, but to impart to the poor and

ardent scholar the mental sustenance which might possibly enable him to

burst the bonds of circumstance, and, triumphing over his sordid lot,

freely communicate to mankind the blessings which it is the function of

cultivated genius to distribute.

The Bishop was a great and powerful man, for he went over Europe

commissioned as the spiritual adviser of the great conqueror, Edward

III. Wherever he went on public business--to Rome, France, or the other

states of Europe--"on tedious embassies and in perilous times," he

carried about with him "that fondness for books which many waters could

not extinguish," and gathered up all that his power, his wealth, and his

vigilance brought within his reach. In Paris he becomes quite ecstatic:

"Oh blessed God of gods in Zion! what a rush of the glow of pleasure

rejoiced our heart as often as we visited Paris--the Paradise of the

world! There we longed to remain, where, on account of the greatness of

our love, the days ever appeared to us to be few. There are delightful

libraries in cells redolent of aromatics--there flourishing greenhouses

of all sorts of volumes: there academic meads trembling with the

earthquake of Athenian peripatetics pacing up and down: there the

promontories of Parnassus and the porticos of the stoics."

The most powerful instrument in his policy was encouraging and bringing

round him, as dependents and followers, the members of the mendicant

orders--the labourers called to the vineyard in the eleventh hour, as he

calls them. These he set to cater for him, and he triumphantly asks,

"Among so many of the keenest hunters, what leveret could lie hid? What

fry could evade the hook, the net, or the trawl of these men? From the

body of divine law down to the latest controversial tract of the day,

nothing could escape the notice of these scrutinisers." In further

revelations of his method he says, "When, indeed, we happened to turn

aside to the towns and places where the aforesaid paupers had convents,

we were not slack in visiting their chests and other repositories of

books; for there, amidst the deepest poverty, we found the most exalted

riches treasured up; there, in their satchels and caskets, we discovered

not only the crumbs that fell from the master's table for the little

dogs, but, indeed, the shew-bread without leaven--the bread of angels

containing all that is delectable." He specially marks the zeal of the

Dominicans or Preachers; and in exulting over his success in the field,

he affords curious glimpses into the ways of the various humble

assistants who were glad to lend themselves to the hobby of one of the

most powerful prelates of his day.[56]

[Footnote 56: "Indeed, although we had obtained abundance both of old

and new works, through an extensive communication with all the religious

orders, yet we must in justice extol the Preachers with a special

commendation in this respect; for we found them, above all other

religious devotees, ungrudging of their most acceptable communications,

and overflowing with a certain divine liberality; we experienced them

not to be selfish hoarders, but meet professors of enlightened

knowledge. Besides all the opportunities already touched upon, we easily

acquired the notice of the stationers and librarians, not only within

the provinces of our native soil, but of those dispersed over the

kingdoms of France, Germany, and Italy, by the prevailing power of

money; no distance whatever impeded, no fury of the sea deterred them;

nor was cash wanting for their expenses, when they sent or brought us

the wished-for books; for they knew to a certainty that their hopes

reposed in our bosoms could not be disappointed, but ample redemption,

with interest, was secure with us. Lastly, our common captivatrix of the

love of all men (money), did not neglect the rectors of country schools,

nor the pedagogues of clownish boys, but rather, when we had leisure to

enter their little gardens and paddocks, we culled redolent flowers upon

the surface, and dug up neglected roots (not, however, useless to the

studious), and such coarse digests of barbarism, as with the gift of

eloquence might be made sanative to the pectoral arteries. Amongst

productions of this kind, we found many most worthy of renovation,

which, when the foul rust was skilfully polished off, and the mask of

old age removed, deserved to be once more remodelled into comely

countenances, and which we, having applied a sufficiency of the needful

means, resuscitated for an exemplar of future resurrection, having in

some measure restored them to renewed soundness. Moreover, there was

always about us in our halls no small assemblage of antiquaries,

scribes, bookbinders, correctors, illuminators, and, generally, of all

such persons as were qualified to labour advantageously in the service

of books.

"To conclude. All of either sex, of every degree, estate, or dignity,

whose pursuits were in any way connected with books, could, with a

knock, most easily open the door of our heart, and find a convenient

reposing place in our bosom. We so admitted all who brought books, that

neither the multitude of first-comers could produce a fastidiousness of

the last, nor the benefit conferred yesterday be prejudicial to that of

to-day. Wherefore, as we were continually resorted to by all the

aforesaid persons, as to a sort of adamant attractive of books, the

desired accession of the vessels of science, and a multifarious flight

of the best volumes were made to us. And this is what we undertook to

relate at large in the present chapter."]

The manner in which Richard of Bury dedicated his stores to the

intellectual nurture of the poor scholar, was by converting them into a

library for Durham College, which merged into Trinity of Oxford. It

would have been a pleasant thing to look upon the actual collection of

manuscripts which awakened so much recorded zeal and tenderness in the

great ecclesiastic of five hundred years ago; but in later troubles they

became dispersed, and all that seems to be known of their whereabouts

is, that some of them are in the library of Baliol.[57] Another eminent

English prelate made a worthy, but equally ineffectual, attempt to found

a great university library. This was the Rev. John Fisher, Bishop of

Rochester, who gave what was called "the noblest library in England" to

the newly founded college of St John's. It was not a bequest. To make

his gift secure, it was made over directly to the college, but as he

could not part with his favourites while he lived, he borrowed the whole

back for life. This is probably the most extensive book loan ever

negotiated; but the Reformation, and his own tragic destiny, were

coming on apace, and the books were lost both to himself and his

favourite college.[58]

[Footnote 57: Edwards on Libraries, vol. i. p. 586.]

[Footnote 58: Edwards on Libraries, vol. i. p. 609.]

The Preservation of Literature.

The benefactors whose private collections have, by a generous act of

endowment, been thus rendered at the same time permanent and public,

could be counted by hundreds. It is now, however, my function to

describe a more subtle, but no less powerful influence which the

book-hunter exercises in the preservation and promulgation of

literature, through the mere exercise of that instinct or passion which

makes him what he is here called. What has been said above must have

suggested--if it was not seen before--how great a pull it gives to any

public library, that it has had an early start; and how hard it is, with

any amount of wealth and energy, to make up for lost time, and raise a

later institution to the level of its senior. The Imperial Library of

Paris, which has so marvellously lived through all the storms that have

swept round its walls, was founded in the fourteenth century. It began,

of course, with manuscripts; possessing, before the beginning of the

fifteenth century, the then enormous number of a thousand volumes. The

reason, however, of its present greatness, so far beyond the rivalry of

later establishments, is, that it was in active operation at the birth

of printing, and received the first-born of the press. There they have

been sheltered and preserved, while their unprotected brethren, tossed

about in the world outside, have long disappeared, and passed out of

existence for ever.

Among the popular notions passing current as duly certified axioms, just

because they have never been questioned and examined, one is, that,

since the age of printing, no book once put to press has ever died. The

notion is quite inconsistent with fact. When we count by hundreds of

thousands the books that are in the Paris Library, and not to be had for

the British Museum, we know the number of books which a chance refuge

has protected from the general destruction, and can readily see, in

shadowy bulk, though we cannot estimate in numbers, the great mass

which, having found no refuge, have disappeared out of separate

existence, and been mingled up with the other elements of the earth's

crust.

We have many accounts of the marvellous preservation of books after they

have become rare--the snatching of them as brands from the burning;

their hairbreadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach. It would be

interesting, also, to have some account of the progress of destruction

among books. A work dedicated apparently to this object, which I have

been unable to find in the body, is mentioned under a very tantalising

title. It is by a certain John Charles Conrad Oelrichs, author of

several scraps of literary history, and is called a Dissertation

concerning the Fates of Libraries and Books, and, in the first place,

concerning the books that have been eaten--such I take to be the meaning

of "Dissertatio de Bibliothecarum ac Librorum Fatis, imprimis libris

comestis." This is nearly as tantalising as the wooden-legged

Britisher's explanation to the inquisitive Yankee, who solemnly engaged

to ask not another question were he told how that leg was lost, and was

accordingly told that "it was bitten off."

Nor is there anything to allay the curiosity thus excited in finding

that the French, in the all-comprehensive spirit of their classification

and nomenclature, include the book-eater with the decorous title

Bibliophage, seeing that in so gossiping a work as Peignot's

Dictionnaire de Bibliologie, all that is communicated under this

department is, "Bibliophage signifie celui qui mange des livres." We are

not favoured with any examples explanatory of the kind of books most in

demand by those addicted to this species of food, nor of the effect of

the different classes of books on the digestive organs.

Religious and political intolerance has, as all the world knows, been a

terrible enemy to literature, not only by absolute suppression, but by

the restraints of the licenser. So little was literary freedom indeed

understood anywhere until recent days, that it was only by an accident

after the Revolution that the licensing of books was abolished in

England. The new licenser, Edmond Bohun, happened in fact to be a

Jacobite, and though he professed to conform to the Revolution

Settlement, his sympathies with the exiled house disabled him from

detecting disaffection skilfully smothered, and the House of Commons, in

a rage, abolished his office by refusing to renew the Licensing Act. Of

the extent to which literature has suffered by suppression, there are no

data for a precise estimate. It might bring out some curious results,

however, were any investigator to tell us of the books which had been

effectually put down after being in existence. It would of course be

found that the weak were crushed, while the strong flourished. Among the

valuable bibliographical works of Peignot, is a dictionary of books

which have been condemned to the flames, suppressed, or censured. We do

not require to go far through his alphabet to see how futile the

burnings and condemnations have been in their effect on the giants of

literature. The first name of all is that of Abelard, and so going on we

pick up the witty scamp Aretin, then pass on to D'Aubigné the great

warrior and historian, Bayle, Beaumarchais, Boulanger, Catullus,

Charron, Condillac, Crébillon, and so on, down to Voltaire and Wicliffe.

Wars and revolutions have of course done their natural work on many

libraries, yet the mischief effected by them has often been more visible

than real, since they have tended rather to dispersion than destruction.

The total loss to literature by the dispersion of the libraries of the

monastic establishments in England, is probably not nearly so great as

that which has accompanied the chronic mouldering away of the treasures

preserved so obstinately by the lazy monks of the Levant, who were found

by Mr Curzon at their public devotions laying down priceless volumes

which they could not read, to protect their dirty feet from the cold

floor. In the wildest times the book repository often partakes in the

good fortune of the humble student whom the storm passes over. In the

hour of danger, too, some friend who keeps a quiet eye upon its safety

may interpose at the critical moment. The treasures of the French

libraries were certainly in terrible danger when Robespierre had before

him the draft of a decree, that "the books of the public libraries of

Paris and the departments should no longer be permitted to offend the

eyes of the republic by shameful marks of servitude." The word would

have gone forth, and a good deal beyond the mere marks of servitude

would have been doubtless destroyed, had not the emergency called forth

the courage and energies of Renouard and Didot.[59]

[Footnote 59: Edwards on Libraries, vol. ii. p. 272.]

There are probably false impressions abroad as to the susceptibility of

literature to destruction by fire. Books are not good fuel, as,

fortunately, many a housemaid has found, when, among other frantic

efforts and failures in fire-lighting, she has reasoned from the false

data of the inflammability of a piece of paper. In the days when

heretical books were burned, it was necessary to place them on large

wooden stages, and after all the pains taken to demolish them,

considerable readable masses were sometimes found in the embers; whence

it was supposed that the devil, conversant in fire and its effects, gave

them his special protection. In the end it was found easier and cheaper

to burn the heretics themselves than their books.

Thus books can be burned, but they don't burn, and though in great fires

libraries have been wholly or partially destroyed, we never hear of a

library making a great conflagration like a cotton mill or a tallow

warehouse. Nay, a story is told of a house seeming irretrievably on

fire, until the flames, coming in contact with the folio Corpus Juris

and the Statutes at Large, were quite unable to get over this joint

barrier, and sank defeated. When anything is said about the burning of

libraries, Alexandria at once flares up in the memory; but it is

strange how little of a satisfactory kind investigators have been able

to make out, either about the formation or destruction of the many

famous libraries collected from time to time in that city. There seems

little doubt that Cæsar's auxiliaries unintentionally burnt one of them;

its contents were probably written on papyrus, a material about as

inflammable as dried reeds or wood-shavings. As to that other burning in

detail, when the collection was used for fuel to the baths, and lasted

some six weeks--surely never was there a greater victim of historical

prejudice and calumny than the "ignorant and fanatical" Caliph Omar al

Raschid. Over and over has this act been disproved, and yet it will

continue to be reasserted with uniform pertinacity in successive rolling

sentences, all as like each other as the successive billows in a swell

at sea.[60]

[Footnote 60: One of the latest inquirers who has gone over the ground

concludes his evidence thus: "Omar ne vint pas à Alexandrie; et s'il y

fut venu, il n'eut pas trouvé des livres à brûler. La bibliothèque

n'existait plus depuis deux siècles et demi."--Fournier, L'Esprit dans

l'Histoire. What shall we say to the story told by Zonaras and repeated

by Pancirole, of the burning, in the reign of the Emperor Basilisc, of

the library of Constantinople, containing one hundred and twenty

thousand volumes, and among them a copy of the Iliad and the Odyssey,

written in golden letters on parchment made from the intestines of the

dragon?]

Apart, however, from violence and accident, there is a constant decay of

books from what might be called natural causes, keeping, like the decay

of the human race, a proportion to their reproduction, which varies

according to place or circumstance; here showing a rapid increase where

production outruns decay, and there a decrease where the morbid elements

of annihilation are stronger than the active elements of reproduction.

Indeed, volumes are in their varied external conditions very like human

beings. There are some stout and others frail--some healthy and others

sickly; and it happens often that the least robust are the most

precious. The full fresh health of some of the folio fathers and

schoolmen, ranged side by side in solemn state on the oaken shelves of

some venerable repository, is apt to surprise those who expect mouldy

decay; the stiff hard binding is as angular as ever,--there is no

abrasion of the leaves, not a single dog-ear or a spot, or even a

dust-border on the mellowed white of the margin. So, too, of those

quarto civilians and canonists of Leyden and Amsterdam, with their

smooth white vellum coats, bearing so generic a resemblance to Dutch

cheeses, that they might be supposed to represent the experiments of

some Gouda dairyman on the quadrature of the circle. An easy life and an

established position in society are the secret of their excellent

preservation and condition. Their repose has been little disturbed by

intrusive readers or unceremonious investigators, and their repute for

solid learning has given them a claim to attention and careful

preservation. It has sometimes happened to me, as it probably has to

many another inquisitive person, to penetrate to the heart of one of

these solid volumes and find it closed in this wise:--As the binder of a

book is himself bound to cut off as little as possible of its white

margin, it may take place, if any of the leaves are inaccurately folded,

that their edges are not cut, and that, as to such leaves, the book is

in the uncut condition so often denounced by impatient readers. So have

I sometimes had to open with a paper-cutter the pages which had shut up

for two hundred years that knowledge which the ponderous volume, like

any solemn holder-forth whom no one listens to, pretended to be

distributing abroad from its place of dignity on the shelf. Sometimes,

also, there will drop out of a heavy folio a little slip of

orange-yellow paper covered with some cabalistic-looking characters,

which a careful study discovers to be a hint, conveyed in high or low

Dutch, that the dealer from whom the volume was purchased, about the

time of some crisis in the Thirty Years' War, would be rather gratified

than otherwise should the purchaser be pleased to remit to him the price

of it.

Though quartos and folios are dwindling away, like many other

conventional distinctions of rank, yet are authors of the present day

not entirely divested of the opportunity of taking their place on the

shelf like these old dignitaries. It would be as absurd, of course, to

appear in folio as to step abroad in the small-clothes and queue of our

great-grandfathers' day, and even quarto is reserved for science and

some departments of the law. But then, on the other hand, octavos are

growing as large as some of the folios of the seventeenth century, and a

solid roomy-looking book is still practicable. Whoever desires to

achieve a sure, though it may be but a humble, niche in the temple of

fame, let him write a few solid volumes with respectably sounding

titles, and matter that will rather repel the reader than court him to

such familiarity as may beget contempt. Such books are to the frequenter

of a library like country gentlemen's seats to travellers, something to

know the name and ownership of in passing. The stage-coachman of old

used to proclaim each in succession--the guide-book tells them now. So

do literary guide-books in the shape of library-catalogues and

bibliographies, tell of these steady and respectable mansions of

literature. No one speaks ill of them, or even proclaims his ignorance

of their nature, and your "man who knows everything" will profess some

familiarity with them, the more readily that the verity of his

pretensions is not likely to be tested. A man's name may have resounded

for a time through all the newspapers as the gainer of a great victory

or the speaker of marvellous speeches--he may have been the most

brilliant wit of some distinguished social circle--the head of a great

profession--even a leading statesman; yet his memory has utterly

evaporated with the departure of his own generation. Had he but written

one or two of these solid books, now, his name would have been

perpetuated in catalogues and bibliographical dictionaries; nay,

biographies and encyclopædias would contain their titles, and perhaps

the day of the author's birth and death. Let those who desire posthumous

fame, counting recollection as equivalent to fame, think of this.

It is with no desire to further the annihilation or decay of the stout

and long-lived class of books of which I have been speaking, that I now

draw attention to the book-hunter's services in the preservation of some

that are of a more fragile nature, and are liable to droop and decay. We

can see the process going on around us, just as we see other things

travelling towards extinction. Look, for instance, at school-books, how

rapidly and obviously they go to ruin. True, there are plenty of them,

but save of those preserved in the privileged libraries, or of some that

may be tossed aside among lumber in which they happen to remain until

they become curiosities, what chance is there of any of them being in

existence a century hence? Collectors know well the extreme rarity and

value of ancient school-books. Nor is their value by any means fanciful.

The dominie will tell us that they are old-fashioned, and the pedagogue

who keeps a school, "and ca's it a acaudemy," will sneer at them as

"obsolete and incompatible with the enlightened adjuncts of modern

tuition;" but if we are to consider that the condition of the human

intellect at any particular juncture is worth studying, it is certainly

of importance to know on what food its infancy is fed. And so of

children's play-books as well as their work-books; these are as

ephemeral as their other toys. Retaining dear recollections of some that

were the favourites, and desiring to awaken from them old recollections

of careless boyhood, or perhaps to try whether your own children inherit

the paternal susceptibility to their beauties, you make application to

the bookseller--but, behold, they have disappeared from existence as

entirely as the rabbits you fed, and the terrier that followed you with

his cheery clattering bark. Neither name nor description--not the

announcement of the benevolent publishers, "Darton, Harvey, and

Darton"--can recover the faintest traces of their vestiges.[61] Old

cookery-books, almanacs, books of prognostication, directories for

agricultural operations, guides to handicrafts, and other works of a

practical nature, are infinitely valuable when they refer to remote

times, and also infinitely rare.

[Footnote 61: I question if Toy Literature, as it may be called, has

received the consideration it deserves, when one remembers how great an

influence it must have on the formation of the infant mind. I am not

prepared to argue that it should be put under regulation--perhaps it is

best that it should be left to the wild luxuriance of nature--but its

characteristics and influence are surely worthy of studious observation.

It happened to me once to observe in the library of an eminent divine a

large heap of that class of works which used to be known as "penny

bookies." My reverend friend explained, in relation to them, that they

were intended to counteract some pernicious influences at work--that he

had made the important and painful discovery that the influence of this

class of literature had been noticed and employed by the enemies of the

Church. In confirmation of this view, he showed me some passages, of

which I remember the following:--

"B was a Bishop who loved his repose,

C was a Curate who had a red nose,"

D was a Dean, but how characterised I forget. I did not think, however,

that the proposed antidote, in which the mysteries of religion and the

specialties of a zealous class in the English Church were mixed up with

childish prattle, was much more decorous or appropriate than what it was

intended to counteract.]

But of course the most interesting of all are the relics of pure

literature, of poems and plays. Whence have arisen all the anxious

searches and disappointments, and the bitter contests, and the rare

triumphs, about the early editions of Shakespeare, separately or

collectively, save from this, that they passed from one impatient hand

to another, and were subjected to an unceasing greedy perusal, until

they were at last used up and put out of existence? True it was to be

with him--

"So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky."