There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven; but
between times--and it is of those I speak--it is otherwise. Mr. Thomas
Greenwood, in a most meritorious work on Public Libraries, supplies
figures which show that, without counting pamphlets (which are books
gone wrong) or manuscripts (which are books _in terrorem_), there are
at this present moment upwards of 71,000,000 printed books in bindings
in the several public libraries of Europe and America. To estimate
the number and extent of private libraries in those countries is
impossible. In many large houses there are no books at all--which is
to make ignorance visible; whilst in many small houses there are, or
seem to be, nothing else--which is to make knowledge inconvenient; yet
as there are upwards of 280,000,000 of inhabitants of Europe and
America, I cannot greatly err if a passion for round numbers drives me
to the assertion that there are at least 300,000,000 books in these
countries, not counting bibles and prayer-books. It is a poor show!
Russia is greatly to blame, her European population of 88,000,000
being so badly provided for that it brings down the average. Were
Russia left out in the cold, we might, were our books to be divided
amongst our population _per capita_, rely upon having two volumes
apiece. This would not afford Mr. Gosse (the title of one of whose
books I have stolen) much material for gossip, particularly as his two
books might easily chance to be duplicates. There are no habits of man
more alien to the doctrine of the Communist than those of the
collector, and there is no collector, not even that basest of them
all, the Belial of his tribe, the man who collects money, whose love
of private property is intenser, whose sense of the joys of ownership
is keener than the book-collector's. Mr. William Morris once hinted at
a good time coming, when at almost every street corner there would be
a public library, where beautiful and rare books will be kept for
citizens to examine. The citizen will first wash his hands in a
parochial basin, and then dry them on a parochial towel, after which
ritual he will walk in and stand _en queue_ until it comes to be his
turn to feast his eye upon some triumph of modern or some miracle of
old typography. He will then return to a bookless home proud and
satisfied, tasting of the joy that is in widest commonalty spread.
Alas! he will do nothing of the kind, not, at least, if he is one of
those in whom the old Adam of the bookstalls still breathes. A public
library must always be an abomination. To enjoy a book, you must own
it. 'John Jones his book,' that is the best bookplate. I have never
admired the much-talked-of bookplate of Grolier, which, in addition to
his own name, bore the ridiculous advice _Et Amicorum_. Fudge! There
is no evidence that Grolier ever lent any man a book with his plate
in it. His collection was dispersed after his death, and then
sentimentalists fell a-weeping over his supposed generosity. It would
be as reasonable to commend the hospitality of a dead man because you
found amongst his papers a vast number of unposted invitations to
dinner upon a date he long outlived. Sentiment is seldom in place, but
on a bookplate it is peculiarly odious. To paste in each book an
invitation to steal it, as Grolier seems to have done, is foolish; but
so also is it to invoke, as some book-plates do, curses upon the heads
of all subsequent possessors--as if any man who wanted to add a volume
to his collection would be deterred by such braggadocio. But this is a
digression. Public libraries can never satisfy the longings of
book-collectors any more than can the private libraries of other
people. Whoever really cared a snap of his fingers for the contents of
another man's library, unless he is known to be dying? It is a
humorous spectacle to watch one book-collector exhibiting his stores
to another. If the owner is a gentleman, as he usually is, he affects
indifference--'A poor thing,' he seems to say, 'yet mine own'; whilst
the visitor, if human, as he always is, exhibits disgust. If the
volume proffered for the visitor's examination is a genuine rarity,
not in his own collection, he surlily inquires how it was come by;
whilst if it is no great thing, he testily expresses his astonishment
it should be thought worth keeping, and this although he has the very
same edition at home.
On the other hand, though actual visits to other men's libraries
rarely seem to give pleasure, the perusal of the catalogues of such
libraries has always been a favourite pastime of collectors; but this
can be accounted for without in any way aspersing the truth of the
general statement that the only books a lover of them takes pleasure
in are his own.
Mr. Gosse's recent volume, _Gossip in a Library_, is a very pleasing
example of the pleasure taken by a book-hunter in his own books. Just
as some men and more women assume your interest in the contents of
their nurseries, so Mr. Gosse seeks to win our ears as he talks to us
about some of the books on his shelves. He has secured my willing
attention, and is not likely to be disappointed of a considerable
audience.
We live in vocal times, when small birds make melody on every bough.
The old book-collectors were a taciturn race--the Bindleys, the
Sykeses, the Hebers. They made their vast collections in silence;
their own tastes, fancies, predilections, they concealed. They never
gossiped of their libraries; their names are only preserved to us by
the prices given for their books after their deaths. Bindley's copy
fetched £3 10s., Sykes' £4 15s. Thus is the buyer of to-day tempted to
his doom, forgetful of the fact that these great names are only quoted
when the prices realized at their sales were less than those now
demanded.
But solacing as is the thought of those grave, silent times,
indisposed as one often is for the chirpy familiarities of this
present, it is, or it ought to be, a pious, and therefore pleasant,
reflection that there never was a time when more people found delight
in book-hunting, or were more willing to pay for and read about their
pastime than now.
Rich people may, no doubt, still be met with who think it a serious
matter to buy a book if it cost more than 3s. 9d. It was recently
alleged in an affidavit made by a doctor in lunacy that for a
well-to-do bachelor to go into the Strand, and in the course of the
same morning spend £5 in the purchase of 'old books,' was a ground for
belief in his insanity and for locking him up. These, however, are but
vagaries, for it is certain that the number of people who will read a
book like Mr. Gosse's steadily increases. This is its justification,
and it is a complete one. It can never be wrong to give pleasure. To
talk about books is better than to read about them, but, as a matter
of hard fact, the opportunities life affords of talking about books
are very few. The mood and the company seldom coincide; when they do,
it is delightful, but they seldom do.
Mr. Gosse's book ought not to be read in a fierce, nagging spirit
which demands, What is the good of this? or, Who cares for that? His
talk, it must be admitted, is not of masterpieces. The books he takes
down are--in some instances, at all events--sad trash. Smart's poems,
for example, in an edition of 1752, which does not contain the
'David,' is not a book which, viewed baldly and by itself, can be
honestly described as worth reading. This remark is not prompted by
jealousy, for I have the book myself, and seldom fail to find the list
of subscribers interesting, for, among many other famous names, it
contains those of 'Mr. Gray, Peter's College, Cambridge,' 'Mr. Samuel
Richardson, editor of _Clarissa_, two books,' and 'Mr. Voltaire,
Historiographer of France.' There are various Johnsons among the
subscribers, but not Samuel, who apparently would liefer pray with Kit
Smart than buy his poetry, thereby showing the doctor's usual piety
and good sense.[A]
[Footnote A: 'He insisted on people praying with him, and I'd as lief
pray with Kit Smart as with anyone else.']
Although the nagging spirit before referred to is to be deprecated, it
is sometimes amusing to lose your temper with your own hobby. If a
book-collector ever does this, he longs to silence whole libraries of
bad authors. ''Tis an inglorious acquist,' says Joseph Glanvill in his
famous _Vanity of Dogmatizing_--I quote from the first edition, 1661,
though the second is the rarer--'to have our heads or volumes laden as
were Cardinal Campeius his mules, with old and useless luggage.'
''Twas this vain idolizing of authors,' Glanvill had just before
observed, 'which gave birth to that silly vanity of _impertinent
citations_, and inducing authority in things neither requiring nor
deserving it.' In the same strain he proceeds, 'Methinks 'tis a
pitiful piece of knowledge that can be learnt from an _Index_ and a
poor ambition to be rich in the inventory of another's Treasure. To
boast a _Memory_ (the most that these pedants can aim at) is but an
humble ostentation. 'Tis better to own a Judgment, though but with a
_Curta Supellex_ of coherent notions, than a _Memory_ like a sepulchre
furnished with a load of broken and discarnate bones.' Thus far the
fascinating Glanvill, whose mode of putting things is powerful.
There are times when the contemplation of huge libraries wearies, and
when even the names of Bindley and Sykes fail to please. Dr. Johnson's
library sold at Christie's for £247 9s. Let those sneer who dare. It
was Johnson, not Bindley, who wrote the _Lives of the Poets_.
But, of course, no sensible man ever really quarrels with his hobby. A
little petulance every now and again variegates the monotony of
routine. Mr. Gosse tells us in his book that he cannot resist
Restoration comedies. The bulk of them he knows to be as bad as bad
can be. He admits they are not literature--whatever that may
mean--but he intends to go on collecting them all the same till the
inevitable hour when Death collects him. This is the true spirit;
herein lies happiness, which consists in being interested in
something, it does not much matter what. In this spirit let me take up
Mr. Gosse's book again, and read what he has to tell about _Pharamond;
or, the History of France. A Fam'd Romance. In Twelve Parts_, or about
Mr. John Hopkins' collection of poems, printed by Thomas Warren for
Bennet Bunbury at the Blue Anchor, in the Lower Walk of the New
Exchange, 1700. The Romance is dull, and as it occupies more than
1,100 folio pages may be pronounced tedious, and the poetry is bad,
but as I do not seriously intend ever to read a line of either the
Romance or the poetry, this is no great matter.