Book-Worm ever does is to illustrate his books, because this insures his
reading them, at least with his fingers. Not always, for a certain
chronicler of collections of privately illustrated books in this country
narrates, how "relying upon the index" of a book, which he illustrated, he
inserted a portrait of Sam Johnson, the famous, whereas "the text called
for Sam Johnson, an eccentric dramatic writer," etc. His binder, he says,
laughed at him for being ignorant that there "two Sam Johnsons" (there are
four in the biographical dictionaries, one of whom was an early president
of King's College in New York). But if done personally and conscientiously
it is a means of valuable culture. As one of the oldest survivors of the
genus Illustrator in this country, I have thus assumed to offer an apology
and defense for my much berated kind. And now let me make a few
suggestions as to what seems to me the most suitable mode of the pursuit.
In illustrating there seem to be two methods, which may be described as
the literal or realistic, and imaginative. The first consists simply in
the insertion of portraits, views and scenes appropriate to the text. A
pleasing variety may be imparted to this method by substituting for a mere
portrait a scene in the life of the celebrity in question. For example,
if Charles V. and Titian are mentioned together, it would be interesting
to insert a picture representing the historical incident of the emperor
picking up and handing the artist a brush which he had dropped--and one
will have an interesting hunt to find it. But I am more an adherent of the
romantic school, which finds excellent play in the illustration of poetry.
For example, in the poem, "Ennui," in "The Croakers," for the line, "The
fiend, the fiend is on me still," I found, after a search of some years, a
picture of an imp sitting on the breast of a man in bed with the gout. In
the same stanza are the lines, "Like a cruel cat, that sucks a child to
death," and for this I have a print from a children's magazine, of a cat
squatting on the breast of a child in a cradle. Now I would like "a
Madagascar bat," which rhymes to "cat" in the poem. "And like a tom-cat
dies by inches," is illustrated by a picture of a cat caught by the paw in
a steel trap. "Simon" was "a gentleman of color," the favorite pastry cook
and caterer of New York half a century ago--before the days of Mr. Ward
McAllister. "The Croaker" advises him to "buy an eye-glass and become a
dandy and a gentleman." This is illustrated by a rare and fine print of a
colored gentleman, dressed in breeches, silk stockings, and ruffled shirt,
scanning an overdressed lady of African descent through an eye-glass. "The
ups and downs of politics" is illustrated by a Cruikshank print, the upper
part of which shows a party making an ascension in a balloon and the lower
part a party making a descent in a diving-bell, and entitled "the ups and
downs of life." To illustrate the phrase, "seeing the elephant," take the
print of Pyrrhus trying to frighten his captive, Fabricus, by suddenly
drawing the curtains of his tent and showing him an elephant with his
trunk raised in a baggage-smashing attitude. For "The Croakers" there are
apt illustrations also of the following queer subjects: Korah, Dathan and
Abiram; Miss Atropos, shut up your Scissors; Albany's two Steeples high in
Air, Reading Cobbett's Register, Bony in His Prison Isle, Giant Wife,
Beauty and The Beast, Fly Market, Tammany Hall, The Dove from Noah's Ark,
Rome Saved by Geese, Caesar Offered a Crown, Caesar Crossing the Rubicon,
Dick Ricker's Bust, Sancho in His Island Reigning, The Wisest of Wild
Fowl, Reynold' Beer House, A Mummy, A Chimney Sweep, The Arab's Wind,
Pygmalion, Danae, Highland Chieftain with His Tail On, Nightmare, Shaking
Quakers, Polony's Crazy Daughter, Bubble-Blowing, First Pair of Breeches,
Banquo's Ghost, Press Gang, Fair Lady With the Bandaged Eye, A Warrior
Leaning on His Sword, A Warrior's Tomb, A Duel, and A Street Flirtation.
As the charm of illustrating consists in the hunt for the prints, so the
latter method is the more engrossing because the game is the more
difficult to run down. Portraits, views and scenes are plenty, but to find
them properly adaptable is frequently difficult. Some things which one
would suppose readily procurable are really hard to find. For example, it
was a weary chase to get a treadmill, and so of a drum-major, although the
latter is now not uncommon: and although I know it exists, I have not
attained unto a bastinado. Sirens and mermaids are rather retiring, and
when Vedder depicted the Sea-Serpent he conferred a boon on Illustrators.
"God's Scales," in which the mendicant weighs down the rich man, is a
rarity. Milton leaving his card on Galileo in prison is among my wants,
although I have seen it.
As to scarce portraits, let me sing a song of
THE SHY PORTRAITS.
Oh, why do you elude me so--
Ye portraits that so long I've sought?
That somewhere ye exist, I know--
Indifferent, good, and good for naught.
Lucrezia, of the poisoned cup,
Why do you shrink away by stealth?
To view your "mug" with you I'd sup,
And even dare to drink your health.
Oh! why so coy, Godiva fair?
You're covered by your shining tresses,
And I would promise not to stare
At sheerest of go-diving dresses.
Come out, old Bluebeard; don't be shy!
You're not so bad as Froude's great hero;
Xantippe, fear no law gone by
When scolds were ducked in ponds at zero.
Not mealy-mouthed was Mrs. Behn,
And prudish was satiric Jane,
But equally they both shun men,
As if they bore the mark of Cain.
George Barrington, you may return
To country which you "left for good;"
Psalmanazar, I would not spurn
Your language when 'twas understood.
Jean Grolier, you left many books--
They come so dear I must ignore 'em--
But there's no evidence of your looks
For us surviving "amicorum."
This country's overrun by grangers--
I'm ignorant of their christian names
But my afflicted eyes are strangers
To one I want whom men call James.
There's Heber, man of many books--
You're far more modest than the Bishop;
I'm curious to learn your looks,
And care for nothing shown at his shop.
And oh! that wondrous, pattern child!
His truthfulness, no one can match it;
Dear little George! I'm almost wild
To find a wood-cut of his hatchet.
Show forth your face, Anonymous,
Whose name is in the books I con
Most frequently; so famous thus,
Will you not come to me anon?
By way of jest I have inserted an anonymous portrait opposite an anonymous
poem, and was once gravely asked by an absent-minded friend if it really
was the portrait of the author. One however will probably look in vain for
portraits of "Quatorze" and "Quinze," for which a print seller of New York
once had an inquiry, and I have been told of a collector who returned
Arlington because of the cut on his nose, and Ogle because of his damaged
eye. But there is more sport in hunting for a dodo than a rabbit.
It is also a pleasant thing to lay a picture occasionally in a book
without setting out to illustrate it regularly, so that it may break upon
one as a surprise when he takes up the book years afterward. It is a
grateful surprise to find in Ruskin's "Modern Painters" a casual print
from Roger's "Italy," and in Hamerton's books some sporadic etchings by
Rembrandt or Hayden. It is like discovering an unexpected "quarter" in the
pocket of an old waistcoat. For example, in "With Thackeray in America,"
Mr. Eyre Crowe tells how the second number of the first edition of "The
Newcomes" came to the author when he was in Paris, and how he found fault
with Doyle's illustration of the games of the Charterhouse boys. He says:
"The peccant accessory which roused the wrath of the writer was the group
of two boys playing at marbles on the left of the spectator. 'Why,' said
the irate author, 'they would as soon thought of cutting off their heads
as play marbles at the Charterhouse!' This woodcut was, I noticed,
suppressed altogether in subsequent editions." Now in my copy--not being
the possessor of the first edition--I have made a reference to Mr. Crowe's
passage, and supplied the suppressed cut from an early American copy which
cost me twenty-five cents. How many of the first edition men know of the
interesting fact narrated by Mr. Crowe? The Illustrator ought always at
least to insert the portrait of the author whenever it has been omitted by
the publisher.
Second: What to illustrate. The Illustrator should not be an imitator or
follower, but should strive after an unhackneyed subject. A man is not apt
to marry the woman who flings herself at his head; he loves the
excitement of courting; and so there is not much amusement in utilizing
common pictures, but the charm consists in hunting for scarce ones. It is
very natural to tread in others' tracks, and easy, because the market
affords plenty of material for the common subjects. Shakespeare and Walton
and Boswell's Johnson, and a few other things of that sort, have been done
to death, and there is fairer scope in something else. Biographies of
Painters, Elia's Essays, Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici" and "Urn
Burial," "Childe Harold," Horace, Virgil, the Life of Bayard, or of
Vittoria Colonna, or Philip Sidney, and Sappho are charming subjects, and
not too common. A ponderous or voluminous work lends itself less
conveniently to the purpose than a small book in one or two volumes. Great
quartos and folios are mere mausoleums or repositories for expensive
prints, too huge to handle, and too extensive for any one ever to look
through, and therefore they afford little pleasure to the owners or their
guests. An illustrated Shakespeare in thirty volumes is theoretically a
very grand object, but I should never have the heart to open it, and as
for histories, I should as soon think of illustrating a dictionary. Walton
is a lovely subject, but I would adopt a small copy and keep it within two
or three volumes. After all there is nothing so charming as a single
little illustrated volume, like "Ballads of Books," compiled by Brander
Matthews; Andrew Lang's "Letters to Dead Authors," or "Old Friends,"
Friswell's "Varia," the "Book of Death," "Melodies and Madrigals," "The
Book of Rubies," Winter's "Shakespeare's England."
A gentleman who published, a good many years ago, a monograph of privately
illustrated books in this country, spoke of the work that I had done in
this field, and criticised me for my "apparent want of method,"
"eccentricity," "madness," "vagaries," "omnivorousness," and "lack of
speciality or system," and finally, although he blamed me for having
illustrated pretty much everything, he also blamed me for not having
illustrated any "biographical works." This criticism seems not only
inconsistent, but without basis, for one man may not dictate to another
what he shall prefer to illustrate for his own amusement, any more than
what sort of a house or pictures he shall buy or what complexion or
stature his wife shall have. The author also did me the honor to spell my
name wrong, and did the famous Greek amatory poet the honor of mentioning
among my illustrated work, "Odes to Anacreon." Would that I could find
that book!
I offer these suggestions with diffidence, and with no intention to impose
my taste upon others.
If the Illustrator can get or make something absolutely unique he is a
fortunate man. For example, I know one, stigmatized as eccentric, who has
illustrated a printed catalogue of his own library with portraits of the
authors, copies of prints in the books, and duplicates of engraved
title-pages; also one who has illustrated a collection in print or in
manuscript of his own poems; also one who has illustrated a Life of
Hercules, written by himself, printed by one of his own family, and
adorned with prints from antique gems and other subjects; and even a
lawyer who has illustrated a law book written by himself, in which he has
found place for prints so diverse and apparently out of keeping as Jonah
and the whale, John Brown, a man pacing the floor in a nightgown with a
crying baby, a "darkey" shot in a melon-patch, an elephant on the rampage,
Cupid, Hudibras writing a letter, Joanna Southcote, Launce and his dog, a
dog catching a boy going over a wall, Dr. Watts, Robinson Crusoe, Barnum
in the form of a hum-bug, Jacob Hall the rope dancer, Lord Mayor's
procession, Raphael discoursing to Adam, gathering sea-weed, Artemus Ward,
a whale ashore, a barber-shop, Gilpin's ride, King Lear, St. Lawrence on
his gridiron, Charles Lamb, Terpsichore, and a child tumbling into a well.
The owner of such a book may be sure that it is unique, as the man was
certain his coat of arms was genuine, because he made it himself.
Third: the Illustrator should not be in a hurry.
There are three singular things about the hunt for pictures. One is, the
moment you have your book bound, no matter how many years you may have
waited, some rare picture you wanted is sure to turn up. Hence the
reluctance of the Illustrator to commit himself to binding, a reluctance
only paralleled by that of the lover to marry the woman he had courted for
ten years, because then he would have no place to spend his evenings. (I
have had books "in hand" for twenty years).
Another is, when you have found your rare picture you are pretty certain
to find one or two duplicates. Prints, like accidents or crimes, seem to
come in cycles and schools. I have known a man to search in vain in thirty
print-shops in London, and coming home find what he wanted in a New York
print-shop, and two copies at that. The third is, that you are continually
coming very near the object without quite attaining it. Thus one may get
Lady Godiva alone, and the effigy of Peeping Tom on the corner of an old
house at Coventry, but to procure the whole scene is, so far as I know,
out of the question. It would seem that Mr. Anthony Comstock has put his
ban on it. So one will find it difficult to get "God's scales," in which
wealth and poverty are weighed against each other, but I have had other
scales thrust at me, such as those in which the emblems of love are
weighed against those of religion, and a king against a beggar, but even
the latter is not the precise thing, for in these days there are poor
kings and rich beggars.
One opinion in which all illustrators agree seems sound, and that is, that
photographs are not to be tolerated. Photography is the most
misrepresentative of arts. But an exception may be indulged in the case
of those few celebrities who are too modest to allow themselves to be
engraved, and of whom photography furnishes the only portraiture. A
photographic copy of a rare portrait in oil is also admissible. Some also
exclude wood-cuts. I am not such a purist as that. They are frequently the
only means of illustrating a subject, and small and fine wood-cuts form
charming head and tail pieces and marginal adornments. One who eschews
wood-cuts must forego such interesting little subjects as Washington and
his little hatchet, God's scales, the skeleton in the closet, and many of
those which I have particularized. I flatter myself that I have made the
margins of a good many books very interesting by means of small wood-cuts,
of which our modern magazines provide an abundant and exquisite supply.
These furnish a copious source of specific illustration.
With their zeal illustrators are sometimes apt to be anachronistic. Every
book ought to be illustrated in the spirit and costume of its time. The
book should not be stuffed too full of prints; let a better proportion be
preserved between the text and the illustrations than Falstaff observed
between his bread and his sack. The prints should not be so numerous as to
cause the text to be forgotten, as in the case of a tedious sermon.
Probably nearly every collector expects that his treasures will be
dispersed at his death, if not sooner. But it is a serious question to the
illustrator, what will become of these precious objects upon which he has
spent so much time, thought and labor, and for which he has expended so
much money. He never cares and rarely knows, and if he knows he never
tells, how much they have cost, but he may always be certain that they
will never fetch their cost. Let us not indulge in any false dreams on
this subject. The time may have been when prints were cheap and when the
illustrator may have been able to make himself whole or even reap a
profit, but that day I believe has gone by. One can hardly expect that
his family will care for these things; the son generally thinks the
Book-Worm a bore, and the wife of one's bosom and the daughter of one's
heart usually affect more interest than they feel, and if they kept such
objects would do so from a sense of duty alone, as the ancient Romans
preserved the cinerary urns of their ancestors. For myself, I have often
imagined my grandson listlessly turning over one of my favorite
illustrated volumes, and saying, "What a funny old duffer grandad must
have been!" Such a book-club, as the "Grolier," of New York, is a
fortunate avenue of escape from these evils. There one might deposit at
least some of his peculiar treasures, certain that they would receive good
care, be regarded with permanent interest, and keep alive his memory.
To augment his books by inserting prints is ordinarily just the one thing
which the Book-Worm can do to render them in a deeper sense his own, and
to gain for himself a peculiar proprietorship in them. Generally he cannot
himself bind them, but by this means he may render himself a coadjutor of
the author, and place himself on equal terms with the printer and the
binder.
After he has illustrated a favorite book once, it is an enjoyable
occupation for the Book-Worm to do it over again, in a different spirit
and with different pictures. "Second thoughts are best," it has been said,
and I have more than once improved my subject by a second treatment.
There is another form of illustration, of which I have not spoken, and
that is the insertion of clippings from magazines and newspapers in the
fly leaves. Sometimes these are of intense interest. My own Dickens,
Thackeray and Hawthorne, in particular have their porticoes and posterms
plentifully supplied with material of this sort. The latest contribution
of this kind is to "Martin Chuzzlewit," and consists in the information
that a western American "land-shark" has recently swindled people by
selling them swamp-lots, attractively depicted on a map and named Eden.
In my Pepys I have laid Mr. Lang's recent letter to the diarist. So on a
fly leaf of Hawthorne's Life it is pleasing to see a cut of his little red
house at Lenox, now destroyed by fire.
IX.
BOOK-PLATES.
A rather modern form of book-spoliation has arisen in the collection of
book-plates. These are literally derived "ex libris," and the business
cannot be indulged, as a general thing, without in some sense despoiling
books. It cannot be denied that it is a fascinating pursuit. So
undoubtedly is the taking of watches or rings or other "articles of
bigotry or virtue," on the highway. But somehow there is something so
essentially personal in a book-plate, that it is hard to understand why
other persons than the owners should become possessed by a passion for it.
Many years ago when Burton, the great comedian, was in his prime, he used
to act in a farce called "Toodles"--at all events, that was his name in
the play--and he was afflicted with a wife who had a mania for attending
auctions and buying all kinds of things, useful or useless, provided that
they only seemed cheap. One day she came home with a door-plate,
inscribed, "Thompson"--"Thompson with a p," as Toodles wrathfully
described it; and this was more than Toodles could stand. He could not see
what possible use there could ever be in that door-plate for the Toodles
family. In those same days, there used to be displayed on the door of a
modest house, on the east side of Broadway, in the city of New York,
somewhere about Eighth Street, a silver door-plate inscribed, "Mr. Astor."
This appertained to the original John Jacob. In those days I frequently
remarked it, and thought what a prize it would be to Mrs. Toodles or some
collector of door-plates. Now I can understand why one might acquire a
taste for collecting book-plates of distinguished men or famous
book-collectors, just as one collects autographs; but why collect hundreds
and thousands of book-plates of undistinguished and even unknown persons,
frequently consisting of nothing more than family coats-of-arms, or mere
family names? I must confess that I share to a certain extent in Mr.
Lang's antipathy to this species of collecting, and am disposed to call
down on these collectors Shakespeare's curse on him who should move his
bones. But I cannot go with Mr. Lang when he calls these well-meaning and
by no means mischevious persons some hard names.
In some localities it is quite the vogue to take off the coffin-plate from
the coffin--all the other silver "trimmings," too, for that matter--and
preserve it, and even have it framed and hung up in the home of the late
lamented. There may be a sense of proprietorship in the mourners, who have
bought and paid for it, and see no good reason for burying it, that will
justify this practice. At all events it is a family matter. The coffin
plate reminds the desolate survivors of the person designated, who is
shelved forever in the dust. But what would be said of the sense or sanity
of one who should go about collecting and framing coffin-plates,
cataloguing them, and even exchanging them?
Book-worms penetrate to different distances in books. Some go no further
than the title page; others dig into the preface or bore into the table of
contents; a few begin excavations at the close, to see "how it comes out."
But that Worm is most easily satisfied who never goes beyond the inside of
the front cover, and passes his time in prying off the book-plates.
I think I have heard of persons who collect colophons. These go to work in
the reverse direction, and are even more reprehensible than the
accumulators of book-plates, because they inevitably ruin the book.
A book-plate is appropriate, sometimes ornamental, even beautiful, in its
intended place in the proprietor's book. Out of that, with rare
exceptions, it strikes one like the coffin-plate, framed and hanging on
the wall. It gives additional value and attractiveness to a book which
one buys, but it ought to remain there.
If one purchases books once owned by A, B and C--undistinguished persons,
or even distinguished--containing their autographs, he does not cut them
out to form a collection of autographs. If the name is not celebrated,
the autograph has no interest or value; if famous, it has still greater
interest and value by remaining in the book. So it seems to me it should
be in respect to book-plates. Let Mr. Astor's door-plate stay on his
front door, and let the energetic Mrs. Toodles content herself in buying
something less invididual and more adaptable.
A book-plate really is of no value except to the owner, as the man says of
papers which he has lost. It cannot be utilized to mark the possessions of
another. In this respect it is of inferior value to the door-plate, for
possibly another Mr. Astor might arise, to whom the orignal door-plate
might be sold. A Boston newspaper tells of a peddler of door-plates who
contracted to sell a Salem widow a door-plate; and when she gave him her
name to be engraved on it, gave only her surname, objecting to any first
name or initials, observing: "I might get married again, and if my
initials or first name were on the plate, it would be of no use. If they
are left off, the plate could be used by my son."