Spoliation of public libraries in past times--Denouncers of the
robbers of books--Schedule of public libraries in the United
Kingdom--View of the chief features of some of these--Cathedral
libraries--Public libraries on the Continent and in
America--Early English books in foreign collections--Difference
in the constitution of public collections--Private
libraries--Their classification--The writer's _Rolls of
Collectors_--The Harleian Library--The idea borrowed from
abroad--Formation of a new English School of Collecting--The
Roxburghe sale in 1812--Richard Heber and his vast library--His
services to literature--His scholarship--The Britwell Library.
IT hardly falls within the province of a manual for the book-collector
to dwell on the character and relative merits of the purely public
libraries at home and abroad, or even on the bibliographical
possessions of private personages which are not available for
purchase. Recent experience, however, teaches us that we are not
entitled to count any longer on the intact preservation of the books
of any individual or family, as the sale by auction has almost become
fashionable. At any rate, there can be no harm in introducing a few
remarks on this aspect and branch of our subject, particularly seeing
that the effect of throwing on the market thousands of rare books,
which were once thought to be hopelessly unattainable, has contributed
to improve the prospects and opportunities of purchasers.
The spoliation of public libraries at home and abroad is an aspect of
the question or subject neither very agreeable nor very flattering. In
England and other parts of the Empire, within the last century,
numerous examples have occurred where valuable or unique books have
been stolen or mutilated. The national collection in Great Russell
Street has perhaps suffered the least, and whatever may be said about
the system on which it was formerly conducted and managed, sufficient
care seems always to have been exercised to guard against depredators
of various kinds. So far as is publicly known, petty thefts of
articles more or less easily replaceable are all that we have to
regret. It is notorious that the Bodleian has lost several important
volumes, and no one will probably ever arrive at any definite
information of the extent to which the libraries at Cambridge and the
other minor collections at the sister Universities of Oxford,
Edinburgh, and Dublin have been pillaged and impoverished.
It has been the same all over the Continent. The Bibliotheque
Nationale at Paris, and many of the leading provincial libraries of
France, have been robbed wholesale in former times, and in some cases
annihilated. One has only to read the observations and evidence of M.
Achille Jubinal accompanying a (then) inedited letter of Montaigne
(8vo, Paris, 1850), to form an idea of the ravages which have been
made through neglect of officials and dishonesty of visitors; and what
must the fact be in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere? The
denunciations against robbers of books and libraries date, however,
from the remotest period, and were at first highly necessary as a
means of safeguarding the treasures of monasteries and churches. Isaac
Taylor, in his _History of the Transmission of Ancient Books to Modern
Times_, 1875, p. 246, prints an anathema of this kind: "Whosoever
removeth this volume from this same mentioned convent, may the anger
of the Lord overtake him in this world, and in the next to all
eternity. Amen." Let the energetic explorers who have transferred so
many hundreds of such MSS. to the Vatican and the British Museum look
to it; and what are His Holiness and the Trustees in Great Russell
Street but palpable accessories after, if not before, the fact! A
common peril hangs over them all.
A visit to a library such as the British Museum or the Bodleian, or
even to those of some of the Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, is apt
to instil a feeling of reverential affection for the founders and
benefactors of such institutions; the existing functionaries seem to
withdraw into middle distance, and one enters into communion with the
spirits of the departed.
From the private collector's point of view these great public
libraries are mainly serviceable for purposes of reference and
comparative study. These storehouses of bibliographical and literary
wealth may be classified into--
(i) National or quasi-National Collections:--
The British Museum
Guildhall Library
South Kensington Museum (Dyce and Forster and General Fine Art Collections)
Society of Antiquaries
Dr. William's Library, Gordon Square
Chetham Library, Manchester
Spencer-Rylands Library, Manchester
Bodleian
University Library, Cambridge
University Library, Edinburgh
Advocates' Library, Edinburgh
Signet Library, Edinburgh
Hunterian Library, Glasgow
Trinity College, Dublin
The British Museum readily divides itself, of course very unequally,
into the Printed Book and Manuscript Departments, and each of these
has been periodically enriched by large donations or purchases _en
bloc_, the former more especially by the gift of the Grenville books,
and the latter by the Cottonian, Harleian, Lansdowne, Stowe, and
Hardwicke MSS. The Bodleian would fall far short of what it is, had it
not been for the bequests of Tanner, Selden, Burton, Crynes, Gough,
Malone, and Douce, and so with the University Library at Cambridge,
which owes so much to Bishop Moore's books, and Trinity, Dublin, to
Archbishop Marsh's.
(ii) College Libraries:--
Sion College
Dulwich College
Eton College
Winchester College
Stonyhurst College
St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw
Cambridge Colleges
Oxford Colleges
Sion College preserves a few items of the rarest and most precious
class--Shakespeare's _Lucrece_, 1594, Barnfield's _Affectionate
Shepherd_, 1594, the _Phoenix Nest_, 1593, Drayton's _Matilda_,
1594, and others; but a few specified in the old catalogue have
disappeared. Many of the most valuable volumes bequeathed by Edward
Alleyn to Dulwich are now among Garrick's books in the British Museum,
or among Malone's at Oxford, _by conveyance_; but a few yet remain.
Eton College Library contains a small number of early printed books
(including Caxton's _Book of Good Manners_) and the unique copy of
Udall's _Ralph Roister Doister_. At Winchester they have a volume or
two of very rare poetical tracts of Elizabeth's and James I.'s time.
Stonyhurst is solely remarkable for MSS. and printed works of Robert
Southwell and other Romish writers.
Of the subordinate libraries at Oxford and Cambridge the treasures are
innumerable. Those which belong to the printed department are very
fully registered in special catalogues and by Hazlitt, except,
perhaps, the very recent legacy to Trinity College, Cambridge, of the
library of the late Mr. Samuel Sandars, rich in early English
typography, and the result of life-long researches.
Outside these fall the Royal Library at Windsor, which includes the
unique perfect AEsop, and one of the two books on vellum (the
_Doctrinal of Sapience_) printed by Caxton; the Archiepiscopal one at
Lambeth, rich in rare early printed books and MSS., and the Chetham
and Rylands foundations at Manchester, the latter comprehending the
Althorp treasures _en bloc_. Humphrey Chetham also established the
Church Libraries at Turton and Gorton, bibliographical notices of
which have been printed by Mr. Gilbert French, 4to, 1856; and a few
strays from the Chetham collection will be incidentally mentioned
hereafter.
A reference to the writer's _Collections_, where such facts are not
matters of familiar knowledge, will show that the majority of this
section is more remarkable for the possession of a few rarities, or
even unique items, than for a systematic representation of classes and
periods. Yet some are very strong in specialities: Christ Church,
Oxford, in music; Magdalen, Cambridge, in early English books
(Pepys's); Corpus, Cambridge, in MSS. (Archbishop Parker's); the
Bodleian, in Shakespeariana, early popular books, Elizabethan poetry,
&c. (Malone's, Douce's, Selden's, Burton's), and so forth.
(iii) Cathedral Libraries:--
St. Paul's, London
Canterbury (Christ Church)
York Minster and Chapter
Peterborough
Lichfield
Lincoln
Hereford
At Lincoln there was formerly the precious Honeywood bequest,
improperly sold to Dibdin for 500 guineas; but the library still
contains about 5000 volumes, to which the Dean and Chapter make
additions from time to time; and there is a paid custodian, who is one
of the minor canons. York Minster and Chapter are rich in early
typography and Yorkshire books. The Cathedral library is under the
charge of a canon as librarian and a vicar-choral as sub-librarian,
who receive no salary. It is open to the public on three days in
summer and on two days in winter in each week. There is no fund for
the support or improvement of the library, except the interest of L400
and a few voluntary subscriptions. Hereford possesses a remarkable
assemblage of chained volumes. To the present group most properly
appertains the library at Westminster Abbey, founded by Lord-Keeper
Williams, while he was Dean of Westminster.
(iv) Public Libraries on the Continent or in America:--
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
French Institute (the gift of the late Duc d'Aumale), Chantilly
Vatican Library, Rome
Royal Library, Naples
Medicean Library, Florence
St. Mark's Library, Venice
Royal Library, Turin
Imperial Library, Vienna
Imperial Library, St. Petersburg
Royal Library, Berlin
Library of Electors and Kings of Bavaria, Muenich
Library of the Dukes and Kings of Saxony, Woelfenbuettel
Landerbibliothek, Cassel
Public Library, Hamburg
Public Library, Goettingen
Public Library, Zuerich
Archiepiscopal Library, Eichstadt
Archiepiscopal Library, Salzburg
Archiepiscopal Library, Worms, &c.
Plantin Museum, Antwerp
University Library, Upsala
Royal Library, Copenhagen
Lenox and Carter Brown Libraries, New York
The two last named, as it may be at once concluded, are principally
English and Anglo-American in their character. Our collectors do not,
as we are aware, by any means restrict themselves to the literature of
the mother country so exclusively as their Transatlantic
contemporaries; and for them therefore it becomes of importance and
interest to acquire through catalogues a familiarity with the contents
of the leading assemblages of foreign and classical literature in
Continental hands. But there are very few of the great public
libraries abroad which have not casually or otherwise acquired English
books, and those of the rarest description. At Goettingen they have,
from an auction at Lueneburg in 1767, the _C. Merry Tales_ of 1526; at
Cassel, Marlowe's _Edward II._, 1594; and at Hamburg the Elizabethan
edition of _Blanchardine and Eglantine_, 1597, all unique or most
rare; and this is only by way of instance or sample. The Huth copy of
Shakespeare's _Sonnets_, 1609, was obtained from Zuerich.
The private amateur does well if he keeps before him the salient
features connected with his pursuit from this point of view. It is to
be deeply regretted that the Government of the Netherlands did not
take steps to preserve intact the Enscheden collection at Haarlem, in
the same manner that that of Belgium did the Plantin heirlooms.
The late Mr. Quaritch narrated an amusing and characteristic anecdote,
commemorative of his participation in the Enscheden sale, where the
agent of the British Museum waited till the morning to bid at the
table for the _Troy-Book_, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1502, and he
bought it privately over-night of the auctioneer.
There is, it must be noted, a fundamental difference in the
constitution of public libraries in Great Britain and America as
compared with those on the Continent. The latter, if they do not
restrict themselves, in principal measure, to the literature of their
own country, or at least tongue, very seldom go far outside those
limits otherwise than by accident or for works of reference. On the
contrary, the English and American collections are cosmopolitan, like
those who have formed them. At the British Museum a volume in
Icelandic, Chinese, Hawaian, or any other character is welcomed nearly
as much as one in the vernacular. In Germany, at all events at Berlin
and Vienna, English books of importance are recognised. But at the
Bibliotheque in Paris it is not so. The French collect only the
classics and their own literature, just as they ignore in coins all
but the Greek and Roman and national series.
Within their own lines, however, it is wonderful, looking at all the
political convulsions which the country and capital have undergone,
what vast treasures remain in France--treasures of all epochs and in
every class, from the rise to the fall of the monarchy, from volumes
written for the Carolingian, if not Merovingian kings, to volumes
bound for Marie Antoinette.
Some interesting and instructive notices of our own public libraries,
and of a few private collections of former times, may be found in the
later volumes of the _Retrospective Review_.
The two _Rolls of Collectors_ before mentioned are capable of making a
not inconsiderable volume; but they are classifiable in groups and
periods, and certain individuals may be taken as the central figures
in the successive onward movements. Our immediate concern is with
printed monuments, and consequently we do not hearken back beyond the
men who witnessed the introduction of typography. Nor does there
appear, while the purchasing power of money for literary possessions
or the book-closet was high, to have been any _esprit de corps_ or
emulation tending to constitute schools or _coteries_, and to raise
certain books or series to an artificial standard. Men at first
acquired at random what happened to fall in their way; booksellers
there were few or (except at London or in the Universities) next to
none; and auctions were long unknown. Except for topography and the
classics, there was, down to the middle of the eighteenth century, no
active competition. The bulk of the Harleian Library was probably
obtained without extravagant outlay, though not without labour and
time; not those divisions which we should now prize would be the most
expensive, unless we include the manuscripts for which Lord Oxford had
even then to pay a price.
We have drawn the line where it appears that the principle of forming
libraries, in the modern sense of the word, commenced in this
country. Down to the Harleian epoch, when the Continental system began
to influence us, the shelf of books which we observe in many old
prints was the limit of nearly all collectors: not necessarily of
their resources, but of their views and of the feeling of the time.
Men acquired a handful or so of volumes, which came into their hands
by gift or otherwise; from the absence or paucity of public
institutions there were few individuals of any culture whatever
without a few books besides the family Bible and _Pilgrim's Progress_;
but such a colossal accumulation as was formed under the auspices of
the second Lord Oxford, and still more that of Richard Heber, was as
undreamt of as the vast and multifarious contents of the building in
Great Russell Street as it now exists. A study of early correspondence
and other sources of original information on the present point will be
found to corroborate such a view of the average private collection in
these islands anterior to the last century.
It was not till many years after the dispersion of that noble Harleian
memorial of generous ardour among the public and private collections
of England and the Continent (Dr. Johnson in his letter to Sir F.
Barnard, 1768, says that many books passed direct into the
_Bibliotheque du Roi_ at Paris), that the Shakespeare revival led to
an inquiry, on the one hand, into the literature connected with the
Elizabethan period, and on the other to a partial discovery of how
much of it had perished. That epoch may be regarded as the true
Hegira from which we have to date the modern annals of collecting; the
antecedent time was in a sense pre-historic, for the most precious
remains of our national literature were unheeded and uncalendared; the
means of forming a comprehensive estimate of the printed stores in
actual existence were yet latent or unknown, and the almost undivided
attention of students and purchasers was directed to the ancient
classics and foreign typography. It must be conceded, we think, that
whatever the importance of those branches of inquiry may be, the cause
of British letters is more closely and permanently bound up with our
own classics and the products of our own soil; and we repeat that the
movement which first gave a stimulus to a sort of revolt from the
Continental school and to the formation of a native one was the
persuasion, on the part of a few scholars, that something more was to
be done towards popularising the plays of Shakespeare and his more
eminent contemporaries, and elucidating their writings by the help of
those who lived amid the same scenes and habits of thought and under
the same institutions.
Leigh Hunt used to speak to me of having attended the great Roxburghe
sale in 1812 just for the sake of gaining an idea of what such an
affair was. It was, no doubt, a fine collection which the noble owner
and his predecessors (particularly John, Earl of Roxburghe in the time
of Queen Anne) had acquired, mainly in the preceding century, at very
moderate prices; and the result must have been highly satisfactory to
the estate. But many things have happened since then; the Heber
Library, the most extensive, most valuable, and most ill-fated in its
realisation: the grandest and proudest bibliographical monument of the
nineteenth or any other century, has been completed and scattered; and
yet to-day, if the general reader were asked, he would probably be of
the belief that the first rank was due to the earlier personage and
collection. There is somehow a prestige about the Roxburghe sale which
time seems incapable of weakening; yet in comparison with its
successor it was a mere handful; and in fact the accumulations even of
Harley, the second Earl of Oxford, vast and precious as they may have
been, were not equal in magnitude or in value to those of Heber, of
whom the most surprising and most interesting trait is his conversance
with the interiors of so many of his treasures; nor should we ever
forget his generosity in lending them to literary workers. The Rev.
Alexander Dyce, who so ably edited our elder dramatists and poets,
could never have accomplished his projects, if Heber had not come to
his assistance with the rare, or even unique, original editions.
We have taken elsewhere an opportunity of recording the probable
obligation under which we all lie to Heber for his offices in
prevailing on the Government under the Regency to arrange the
so-called gift to the country of the library of George III. What an
inestimable boon and advantage it would have been, had he left us his
own magnificent gatherings, with the liberty of exchanging duplicates!
To how many a subsequent collection would such a step have been the
deathblow or rather an insuperable bar! The Britwell and Huth
libraries would have been robbed of half their gems, and the Daniel
sale could not have proved the singular _coup_ and sensation which it
was, had the Heber element been absent.
The flyleaves of an enormous proportion of Heber's books are found
enriched by his scholarly and often very interesting memoranda; they
usually bear a stamp with BIBLIOTHECA HEBERIANA, but never an _ex
libris_. That distinction the accomplished owner resigned to minor
luminaries. The notes are always pertinent and occasionally numerous;
and the pages of the sale catalogue, of which we have no fewer than
thirteen parts, are lifted above mechanical common-place by the
curious and varied matter interspersed from this source, as well as to
a certain extent from the pen of John Payne Collier, who edited the
early poetical and dramatic portions, and attended the auction to
secure some of the rarest old plays for his friend the Duke of
Devonshire.
Heber had, in the course of a not very prolonged life (he died at
sixty), absorbed by degrees mainly all that fell within his reach,
both at home and abroad; and he acquired much which never came to
England, but was warehoused at Antwerp or elsewhere on the Continent,
pending future arrangements, which he did not live to make. The
library is said to have cost L150,000, and to have fetched about a
third of that sum. As the owner had built it up from the ruins of
others, so some more recent collectors found there their opportunity.
A good deal of interesting information about this once conspicuous
figure in book-collecting circles may be found in Dibdin's
_Reminiscences_. Heber seems to have inherited some shares in
Elliott's brewery at Pimlico, and a residence within the precincts.
How far this fortune contributed to enable him to devote so large an
amount to the purchase of books and MSS., we hardly know; it was said
that he derived advantage from the slave trade, but perhaps this was a
calumny. At any rate, there was trouble which saddened his later
years.
Mr. William Henry Miller of Craigentinny bought nearly the whole of
the early English poetry, and made the Britwell Library what it was
and is; and George Daniel of Canonbury carried off, at what might have
then seemed exorbitant prices, the Shakespeare quartos, to have the
enjoyment of them for thirty years, and then leave them as a valuable
inheritance to his family; for his death just occurred, when Henry
Huth had begun to compete more courageously for this class of books,
and when the National Library was in a better position to offer tall
figures for really vital acquisitions. It was in 1864, and the
struggle for the quartos and a few other prizes was principally
between the British Museum, Mr. Huth, and Sir William Tite.
At the present moment the Britwell collection is probably, on the
whole, the finest private library in the kingdom; the founder of it
was a solicitor in Edinburgh, whose name already meets the eye as a
purchaser in 1819, when the Marquis of Blandford's books were sold at
White-Knight's, and it passed by bequest to the Christy family, in
whose hands it now remains.
Had it not been for Heber and for the bibliophobia which prevailed,
when his possessions came to the hammer in 1834, it is doubtful
whether Miller of Craigentinny could have achieved the extraordinary
_coup_, which he did by transferring to his own shelves at one swoop
the harvest of a lifetime--a lifetime almost dedicated to a single
object.