The extrinsic features in
books--Autographs--Inscriptions--Various classes of them and of
interest in their subject-matter--The Henry VIII. _Prayer-Book_
of 1544--Some account of it--Gabriel
Harvey--Spenser--Evelyn--Milton--Hypothetical _grands
prix_--Classification of
inscriptions--Examples--Dramatists--Poets--Jonson, Massinger,
Drayton, Wycherley, Killigrew--Mere signatures--Shakespeare's
copy of Florio's _Montaigne_, 1603--The Earl of Essex's copy of
Drayton's _Eclogues_, 1593--Humphrey Chetham--Strays from his
library--Beau Nash as a collector--Sir Joshua Reynolds--William
Beckford and his _Vathek_--Foreign autographs and memoranda--A
whimsical note in a copy of Shakespeare's _Passionate Pilgrim_,
1599--Interesting MS. matter in a copy of Stow's _Survey_,
1633--Pepys's binder--Dr. Burney and his verses in _Sandford and
Merton_--Napoleon and Josephine--The Lutheran Testament given by
the latter to General Buonaparte--A charming presentation copy
from Josephine of Voltaire's _Henriade_--What makes the interest
in autographs--Ineptitudes--The reviewer's copy--Latter-day
vandalism--Arms on books--Prefaces and
Dedications--_Imprimaturs_.
WHAT may be treated as the casual accessories of books of nearly all
periods and countries--the autograph inscription testifying to the
ownership or signalising a gift from one possessor to another--have
manifold and diversified elements of interest and attraction. These
features offer a graduated scale of importance, just as it happens.
The question depends on the donor, or the recipient, or the article
given and received; and where all these combine to augment the charm
and to complete the spell, the issue is electrifying. No more
impressive corroboration of this truth could well be desired or
produced than the Henry VIII. _Prayer-Book_ of 1544 on vellum, from
the Fountaine Collection, with the MSS. notes and autographs of the
King, the Princess Mary, Prince Edward, and Queen Catherine Parr. It
fetched about 600 guineas at Christie's in 1894.
In the _Bibliographer_, _Bookworm_, and his own _Collections_, the
writer has formerly assembled together notices of all the most
remarkable examples of English books, both printed and in MS., with
inscriptions, _marginalia_, and other records of prior and successive
possession, brought within his reach during more than thirty years
past. There are not unreasonably people who may not see in an ordinary
copy of a volume much tangible interest, yet who are prepared to
recognise the value, and even importance, of one with the autograph
and memoranda of some illustrious personage, of some great warrior or
statesman, or of a famous man of letters, artist, or sculptor. The
accidental and secondary feature in the work takes precedence of the
rest; he pays for the sentiment and association. The direct human
interest resident in such a relic is apt, in the opinion of many, to
surpass that of the finest binding; for one has here the very
characters traced long ago by the holder; one can imagine him (or her)
seated at the table engaged in the task of leaving to the times to
come this memento. The book is the casual receptacle; perchance in
itself it is of inconsiderable worth; but the manuscript accessions
are as an embalmment and a sanctification. The copy is not as others;
it has descended to us as a part of a precious inheritance, of which
the mere paper and print are the least significant; we are to approach
and touch it reverently, as if the individual to whom it appertained
were standing by, to reprove an ungentle hand and take back the
legacy.
It would be barely possible, were it of essential use, to schedule all
the existing presentation or annotated copies of books in our own and
other literatures, but we shall here make an effort to offer a general
view of what is intended, and what may in some instances become
attainable by watching opportunities:--
Monastic or collegiate literature.
Editions of the Bible.
Editions of the New Testament.
Editions of the Prayer-Book.
Royal Books:--
(i) With autograph notes by the owner.
(ii) With inscription by the giver.
(iii) With both.
(iv) In binding identifiable with a royal personage.
Books which possess the signatures of noble or illustrious
individuals, politicians, statesmen, soldiers.
The same categories apply.
Books with literary inscriptions:--
(i) Presentation copies with author's inscription.
(ii) With his inscription and additional matter by him.
(iii) With inscription by recipient.
(iv) With autographs and MSS. notes by both.
Foreign books:--
Monastic and mediaeval.
With MS. matter of historical or genealogical interest.
Books from royal or noble libraries.
Books of literary interest.
Monastic inscriptions are generally limited in their interest to
casual light shed by them on personages connected with the institution
or on some local circumstance.
Of royal books, genuine and otherwise, the number has had a tendency
to increase through the successive dispersion of old libraries
everywhere, combined with the additional facilities for gaining access
to those which still remain intact. The Henry VIII. _Prayer-Book_ on
vellum is the only copy known in any state of the edition of 1544, and
may not have been publicly issued with this date.
Some of the royal memoranda are of signal interest and curiosity. On
the back of the title, under the royal arms, the king himself says:
"Remember thys wrighter wen you doo pray for he ys yours noon can saye
naye. Henry R." At the passage: "I have not done penance for my
malice," the same hand inserts in the margin: "trewe repentance is the
best penance;" and farther on he makes a second marginal note on the
sentence: "thou hast promysed forgyveness," . . . "repentance beste
penance." This was a sort of family common-place book. Inside the
cover Prince Edward (afterward Edward VI.) writes: "I will yf you
will." The volume, which contains other matter of great historical
value, appears to have been given by Henry VIII. shortly before his
death to his daughter Mary; for on a small piece of vellum inside the
cover he has written: "Myne owne good daughter I pray you remember me
most hartely when you in your prayere do shew for grace to be attayned
assurydly to yr lovyng fader Henry R." The Princess subsequently gave
it to her stepmother, Catherine Parr, and it has a motto and signature
of that lady's second husband, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the Admiral.
The old king, we observe, grew rather nervous about the future just at
the last, and he at all events admitted that there was room for
contrition.
A companion volume and monument was the copy of the Sarum _Horae_ of
1520, printed on vellum, in the second portion of the Ashburnham sale.
This precious book belonged to the Parr family, including the mother
of Queen Katherine Parr, and at any rate contained an inscription in
the hand of the Queen's brother, and of those of members of the Carew,
Vaux, Tailboys, Nevill, and other families, besides being in beautiful
condition; and the same library yielded a second copy of _Hours_,
1512, which had passed through the hands of Henry VIII. himself, as
attested in one place by his autograph memorandum: "Pray yow pray for
me your loving cousin Henry Rex." Such relics appear to bring back
before us the dead players on the human stage, divested of all but
their more redeeming characteristics.
In the British Museum we have the _Great Bible_ of 1540 on vellum,
which enters into the present category by reason of its association
with the same prince, though in a different way. On the reverse of the
fly-leaf occurs: "This Booke is presented vnto your most excellent
highnesse by youre loving, faithfull, and obedient subiect and daylye
Oratour, Anthonye Marler, of London, Haberdassher." Truly a gift
worthy of a king; and there it remains, a precious link with the past
and a splendid memorial of the citizen of London who laid it at his
sovereign's feet.
Propriety and sympathy of costume go very far indeed to establish and
augment the estimation of printed volumes with manuscript tokens of
former proprietorship. The collector who chooses this field of
activity has to weigh the correlation and harmony between the volume
itself and the individual or individuals to whom it once appertained.
We have usually to content ourselves with the interest resident in an
autograph, with or without further particulars; it is a book, perhaps,
which formed part of the library of a distinguished Elizabethan or
Jacobean writer or public character; but, if it were not, its worth
might be nominal. Again, the book is possibly one of great value, and
exhibits an early autograph and MSS. notes; it would be better without
them. Find the copy of _Venus and Adonis_, 1593, given by Shakespeare
to Lord Southampton, the poet's copy of the _Faery Queen_, 1590-96,
Sir Fulke Greville's copy of Sydney's _Arcadia_, 1590, or a book of
Voyages belonging to Drake or Raleigh, and it is worth a library, and
a good one too. The nearest approach we have yet made to this kind of
combination is the first folio Montaigne and the original edition of
Lord Brooke's works, 1633, with the signature of Jonson, and the
Spenser of 1679 with the notes of Dryden, unless the _Paradise Lost_,
1667, with Milton's presentation to a bookbinder at Worcester be
authentic.
We must not omit in the present connection the copy of the prose
story-book of _Howleglas_, given in 1578 with others by Edmund Spenser
to Gabriel Harvey. But an almost equally covetable possession was the
copy just referred to of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, 1667, which
occurred only the other day at a sale, where it was, as too often
happens, mis-described, and brought L70. It bore on a small slip
inlaid in a fly-leaf: "For my loving ffreind, Mr. Francis Rea, Booke
binder in Worcester these," and on another piece of paper: "Presented
me by the Author to whom I gave two doubl sovereigns" = L4, nearly as
much as the poet had for the copyright. The story of the book is
unknown to us; it seems eminently likely that the first memorandum was
written by Milton; but whether it belonged to a wrapper forwarding the
gift, or to a letter accompanying it, is problematical.
Rea of Worcester must be the same individual who is described as
having re-bound in June 1660 the Jolley and Ashburnham copy of
Higden's _Polychronicon_, printed by Caxton, 1482; but there an
earlier owner, Richard Furney, calls him "one Rede of Worcester."
At Trinity, Cambridge, there is the edition of Spenser, 1679, with a
memorandum on the fly-leaf by Jacob Tonson, testifying to the MSS.
notes in the book being by Dryden, and at Wootton formerly was the
_Faery Queen_, 1596, John Evelyn's cypher in gold down the back of the
cover and seventeen lines in his autograph on the fly-leaf.
Among our dramatists, Ben Jonson is conspicuous by the number of
copies of his own performances which he presented to royal and noble
personages or to private friends. Of three gift-copies of his
_Volpone_, 1607, one has an inscription to John Florio, the other to
Henry Lambton of Lambton. The almost unique large-paper one of
_Sejanus_, 1605, in the Huth Collection, was given to the poet's
"perfect friend," Francis Crane. In the Museum are the _Masque of
Queens_ and the _Masque of Blackness and Beauty_ offered to the queen
of James I. But of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and many
others, we have not a single memorial of this kind. Of Massinger there
is one: the copy of his _Duke of Milan_, 1623, received from him by
Sir F. Foljambe. In the case of Taylor the water-poet, the nearest
approach to anything of the sort is the MS. note of the recipient of a
copy of his Works, 1630.
Of two equally prominent poets of the same epoch, Daniel and Drayton,
the latter seems to have had a partiality for inscribing his autograph
in presentation copies of his books, while of Daniel in this way we do
not recollect to have met with a single example.
Very engaging, on account of its manly and cordial tone, is the
autograph epistle by Sir Richard Fanshawe accompanying an extant copy
of his translation of Guarini's _Faithful Shepherd_, 1648. The whole
production may be seen in the Huth Catalogue (p. 633), where we
inserted it as a favourable sample of this kind of poetry or verse.
The lines are headed: "To my deare friend Mr. Tho. Brooke with Pastor
Fido before an entended voyage," and commence:--
"This to the man I most affect I send,
The faithfull Shepherd to as true a friend.
There on each page thou'lt tenderest passion see,
But none more tender than my own for thee."
The volume belongs to the series of memorials, which we possess in not
too ample abundance, of the regard entertained by men of letters of
former days for each other, or for their intimates, and ranks with the
priceless copies of his own books presented by Jonson to some of his
distinguished contemporaries. If he, or any one else, made gifts of
such things to the greatest of them all, every trace of such an
incident has apparently disappeared.
Rarity of occurrence is not by any means an imperative feature in
influencing or determining the value of inscriptions. No examples are
probably more abundant than the books of Izaak Walton, either with an
ordinary note of presentation, or with MSS. notes in the writer's
hand, if not with both; yet they invariably command a liberal price
from the admission of Walton by common acknowledgment into the select
circle of literary men, whose works we love for the sake of the
author.
The following inscription in contemporary MS. occurs on the reverse of
the Old Testament title to a Cranmer's Bible of 1540: "Thys byble ys
John Crogdens, Cytyzen and merchant taylor of London, dwellynge in
Wattlynge Street at y^e syne of Y^e Whyte Horse, 1550."
Occasionally more or less curious personal traits or family clues are
yielded by the memoranda on fly-leaves. A Latin Testament of 1563
bears: "e libris Thomae Northcote e dono Joh. Rolle Armig. de
Stephenstone in agro Devoniensi;" a copy of Jewell's Sermons, 1583,
has "John Willoughby, 1591," and "Amor vincit omnia." In the Savile
copy of Sir Thomas More's Works, 1557, we read: "de dono H. Savile
anno 1600; found by Mary Savile, Dec. 12, 1635, amongst other books at
Metheby: for my daughter Mary Savile."
If the reader will cross over with us into Scotland for a moment or
so, we will introduce him to a very interesting relic in the shape of
a Latin Aristotle of 1526, in which a Cistercian monk of Kinloss
Abbey, Andrew Langland, has enshrined two metrical compositions from
his own pen; an epitaph on the Regent Murray, and an epistle to
Joannes Ferrerius, Professor at Kinloss, 1542, and continuator of
Hector Boece. The epitaph is dialogue-wise between the Bishop of
Orkney, who was absent from the funeral, and Ferrerius, who attended
it.
At the sale of the library of the Duke of Leeds, a large-paper copy of
Wycherley's _Miscellany Poems_, 1704, apparently given by the poet to
Lord Treasurer Danby, produced the outrageous price of L46. A far
more interesting example was that which he presented to Mistress Mary
Twysden, as noticed in the _Bibliographer_. A more important souvenir
was the Latin Testament given by Pope to Bolingbroke in 1728
(Christie's, April 3, 1895, No. 339); and a yet stronger sympathy must
be felt with the Juvenal and Persius, 8vo, Amsterdam, 1684, which once
belonged to T. Killigrew, and subsequently to Pope, whose English
version occupies the interleaves, if the description given by Wake of
Derby be correct, as the book itself we have not seen.
We approach a different class of consideration when we leave behind us
the more or less factitious and artificial attractions of early
bindings and autograph memoranda, and pass to books which owe their
extrinsic interest to a mere signature, as in the case of the copy of
Florio's _Montaigne_, 1603, which belonged to Shakespeare, and
possesses his autograph on the fly-leaf, and of which the
_provenance_, as stated by Madden in his pamphlet, 1838, favours the
authenticity; and again, in that of Mr. Collier's copy of Drayton's
_Shepheard's Garland_, 1593, which bears on the title-page the
signature of Robert, Earl of Essex.
There quite casually fell into our own hands a copy of one of
Archbishop Usher's books, a stray from Manchester, with "Humfrey
Chetham's Booke, 1644," on fly-leaf, and with it came a MS. on vellum,
also formerly Chetham's, of the _Stimulus Conscientiae_ in English
verse. They long lay in a garret at Pennington Hall, Leigh,
Lancashire, the seat of the Hiltons, with whom Chetham was intimate,
if not connected.
We meet with a surprise now and then, as when such a work as the
English _Reynard the Fox_ of 1681-84 carries on its face a proof of
the prior ownership of Beau Nash: "Rich. Nash Arm. Bathoniae, 1761,"
but it is quite natural to find the autograph of Sir Joshua Reynolds
accompanying a series of French plates illustrative of the _Odyssey_,
1639.
In old books, and in new ones too, there are inscriptions and
inscriptions. We are all familiar with the scrawl of the clown, who
has handed down to us his unconsecrated name on the title-page or
fly-leaf of some volume of ours otherwise irreproachable. Just a step
above him is your fellow who writes some objurgatory _caveat_ against
the malappropriator, and brings the Almighty without scruple into the
witness-box, in case any varlet should make free with his property:--
"Hic liber est meus,
Testis est Deus;
Si quis me quaerit,
Hic nomen erit."
"Will. Morsse, 1678."
Of the whimsical entries in old English books the diversity is
endless. On the fly-leaf of a copy of Roger Edgworth's _Sermons_, 4to,
1557, occurs: "Bryen O'rourke his hand and writting by fore God and
man." A singular application of the Holy Scriptures presents itself in
a couple of _IOU_'s written by James Haig of Prettisides in Longwood,
co. Wilts, on the back of the title to a New Testament of 1584. There
is a curious, almost pathetic form of this habit of writing in books,
practised from very early days down to our own, when we may easily
remember how Lamb and Coleridge used to fill the blank leaves of a
work of common interest, as it kept passing to and fro like a
messenger, till the worth of the manuscript matter left that of the
printed far behind indeed. In a mild kind of way this sort of thing
was already going on in the sixteenth century. A copy of the English
version of the _Paraphrase_ of Erasmus on the New Testament, 1548,
passes similarly between two Tudor-period intimates, and there is
this: "Mr. Dunes, I woulde wish you to peruse V. chapter of Marke, and
there you shall finde great comforte to your soules health. Thus fare
you well in the Lorde. Wyllyam Byrde."
In the copy of Shakespeare's _Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599, bound up with
an early edition of _Venus and Adonis_, a former owner represents with
perfect justice, that although he gave three-halfpence for the two
volumes in one, a corner of a leaf was defective; and there has been
furthermore a profound arithmetical computation that if this gentleman
and his heirs or assigns had invested the amount in good securities,
the capital at this moment would have reached the vicinity of L1000.
In a copy of Stow's _Survey_, 1633, which once belonged to Sir Thomas
Davies, Lord Mayor of London in 1676, we encounter a memorandum on the
fly-leaf: "I pray, put in the loose leaues Carefully. John Meriton.
For Mr. Richardson, bookbinder in Scalding Alley." Richardson bound
for Pepys. In an odd volume of _Sandford and Merton_, which fell in
Dr. Burney's way, and which he gave to his daughter--Johnson's "little
Burney"--he wrote:--
"See, see, my dear Fan,
Here comes, spick and span,
Little Sandford and Merton,
Without stain or dirt on;
'Tis volume the second,
Than the first better reckoned;
Pray read it with glee,
And remember C. B.
"April 18, 1786."
Beauty has been said to depend on Variety, and so we ought not to
object to examples selected from widely different sources.
[Illustration: BOOK SALE AT SOTHEBY'S AUCTION ROOMS
_From the original Water-colour Drawing by Thomas Rowlandson,
in possession of Messrs Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, London_]
Horace's _multa renascentur_ comes into our mind when we stumble on a
remark by Wodhull the collector in an _Acta Apostolorum_ printed at
Oxford in 1715: "In May, 1810, Mr. Leigh, auctioneer, told me that a
copy of this edition had lately sold for L20, observing, 'these are
the times to sell books, not to buy them.'" A more notable man,
William Beckford, appears in a copy of the original French _Vathek_,
1787, as the second person of the drama by reason of the written
matter referring to him, and being in the hand of M. Chavannes of
Lausanne. The note occupies the whole of the available space on the
title, and is as follows:--"A la demande de M. Beckford je me suis
charge de corriger son Manuscrit et de le faire imprimer a Lausanne.
M. Beckford en quittant Lausanne se hata de le faire imprimer a Paris
au Prejudice de l'Imprimeur de Lausanne, et je dus menacer M. Beckford
de mettre dans les papiers son infidelite . . . et M. B. se hata de
dedomager l'Imprimeur pour eviter la publicite."
So far as books with the autographs and MSS. notes of men of the
modern school, such as Byron, Coleridge, Lamb, and Shelley, are
concerned, the opportunities for securing specimens have certainly
grown more numerous. We have already in the places specified above
furnished many illustrations of this section, and they might be
readily extended.
In the foreign department there is a perfectly inexhaustible store of
material under a variety of heads: evidences of ownership and descent,
biographical suggestions, historical links and side-lights, dated
armorial _ex libris_. In 1869 the author met with a thick 4to volume,
including the Cologne edition of the _Legenda Sancti Albani Martyris_,
printed about 1475, on the fly-leaf or cover of which was a list of
contents made in 1475; and in the Hopetoun copy of the _Ethica_ of
Aristotle the original owner had established the place of printing,
otherwise unspecified, by a MS. note, dated 1469, in which he stated
that the book was presented to him by its typographer, "Johannes
Mentelin Argentin."
In a copy of the works of Petrarch in Latin, folio, 1501, occurs on
the title: "Liber Antonij kressen juris vtriusq. doctoris emptus
venecijs ligatus nurenberge Mcccccv;" and the noble old volume (now in
the British Museum) is accompanied by a memoir of Kressen, printed
about 1600, of uniform size, with a splendid portrait of the
interesting Nueremberger.
A copy of the Vulgate of 1484 commands attention from the presence of
a coeval MS. note pasted on the first leaf: "Hec Biblia est Petri
Dominici Boninsegnis qui a fratre Cosmo empta fuit Anno MCCCCLXXXU.
xviii. die Februarii." A Latin _Horae_ of the fifteenth century
contains on a fly-leaf the ensuing little family story: "Ces Heures
apartiennent a Damoyselle Michelle Du Dere Femme de M. Loys Dorleans
Advocat en la Court du Parlement et lesquelles luy sont echeues par la
succession de feu son pere M. Jehan Dudere Conseiller du Roy &
Auditeur en sa chambre des comptes 1577. Amour & Humilite sont les
deux liens de nostre mariage." A St. Jerome's _Epistolae_, printed at
Mainz about 1470, is accompanied by the dated book-plate, 1595, of
Christophorus Baro a Wolckhenstain.
In the French series the number of interesting items from a personal
or historical point of view, if not both, is of course great,
although, as a rule, French collectors have been rather sparing as
annotators of their literary possessions. In a copy of De Bure's Sale
Catalogue, 1786, now in the Huth Library, occurs a peculiarly striking
exception, however, in the shape of a MS. note in the handwriting of
Louis XVI., only three years prior to the fall of the Bastille,
"Marquer les livres que je desire pour moi."
In the Duke of Sussex's Library was a New Testament in French
presented by Josephine before her second marriage to Napoleon. She had
inscribed on the spare leaf preceding title: "Au General Bonaparte ce
Testament Lutherain est presente de part la veuve Beauharnois," and
below occurs in the illustrious recipient's hand, _Buonaparte_. An
association fully as historically and personally significant
appertains to the Voltaire's _Henriade_, 1770, in one of the volumes
of which the to-be Empress writes: "Donne part Madame la Viscontesse
de Beauharnois: pensez a elle, aimez-la, n'oubliez jamais qu'elle est
votre amie la plus attachee." Was this an oblation at the same shrine?
But this is a slight digression, warranted by the twofold circumstance
that all these examples have belonged to English collectors, and are
of a class quite as interesting to us as to those with whom they are
more immediately associated by origin. The same may perhaps be said of
the MS. sold in London in 1899, formerly belonging to two persons so
widely different as Marie Antoinette and Robespierre, of the latter of
whom it possessed the autograph. The interest seemed to centre in the
signature of the Revolutionary leader.
The interest and respect with which the presence of handwriting in
books is regarded are indefinitely varied. But the preponderance of
worshippers is no doubt on the side of those who have shone in the
_belles lettres_ and in society. Sovereigns, unless it be Frederic the
Great or Napoleon, Mary of Scotland or Marie Antoinette, generals,
politicians, professional men, do not go for much. The competition is
for the poet, the novelist, the newsmonger, or some _enfant terrible_,
whose autograph is rare to excess. To be on thoroughly good posthumous
terms with collectors, one has no need to have been respectable,
sober, benevolent, or pious; these are rather in the nature of
draw-backs; but one must have possessed a strong personality. That is
the secret. Personality. Schedule the illustrious of the past on this
guiding principle, and you cannot err. Men and women without
infirmities, without vices, why, ask any dealer of repute and
experience, and he will tell you that there is no call for their
signatures or for their correspondence. They have too much character
in one sense and too little in another. An autograph of Dick Turpin or
Claud Du Val would be worth a dozen of Archdeacon Paley or even of
Archbishop Tillotson.
The autograph collector certainly forms a separate _genus_. He does
not buy books. He does not affect MSS. where they exceed the limits of
a fly-leaf or title-page entry. We are accustomed to criticise Master
John Bagford unkindly because he stripped the volumes of their titles
and then cast them away. But he lived a long while ago, when the value
and rarity of many of these things were not so generally understood,
and there were not customers all over the Old and New Worlds as many
as one can tell on one's fingers to take an early book, if it was
offered to them. Even now it not seldom happens that an exceedingly
interesting signature or note accompanies an item worth only so much
per lb., and your connoisseur in the autograph surrenders all but his
portion to its destiny. Who can gainsay him? He shrugs his shoulders;
he is no bookworm; he wants autographs alone.
Exceptions to the governing principle arise, however, and sometimes
they are recognised, sometimes not. The most beautiful examples for
internal condition, binding, even intrinsic interest, are occasionally
sacrificed to this Procrustes--this case-hardened Bagford of our own
day. Not so long since we remarked as a treasure beyond our purse a
copy of Donne's _Sermons_, with a brilliant portrait of the author,
and a long inscription by Izaak Walton presenting the volume to his
aunt. It was in the pristine English calf binding, as clean as when it
left Walton's hands _en route_ for his kinswoman, and such a
delightful signature. What has become of it? It is sad even to commit
to paper the story--one among many. An American gentleman acquired it,
tore the portrait and leaf of inscription out, and threw the rest
away! Why, forsooth, should he keep a folio volume against his
inclination? He left that to whomsoever it might chance to fall--a
mangled corpse!
It is not peremptorily necessary, however, that there should be
witness in black on white to the prior holder of a literary _bijou_;
for the external evidence may prove abundantly adequate to the
satisfaction of the most sceptical. A binding is quite capable of
serving as a voucher and guarantee for the _provenance_ of a printed
book or manuscript, provided that all the links in the chain are
sound. The Prayer-Book of Queen Henrietta Maria, the _Fables_ of La
Fontaine with the arms of Marie Antoinette as Dauphine, an
unquestioned Grolier or Maioli, and still more such a bibliographical
phoenix as that volume bound in gold of Lady Elizabeth Tyrrwhit's
_Prayers_, formerly belonging to Queen Elizabeth, which the late Sir
Wollaston Franks purchased at an incredible price and presented to the
British Museum--these, and many more, speak for themselves. Yet where
a royal or noble personage is not in the case, when it is only some
Shakespeare or some Milton who is concerned, let us preferably have
the written internal passport. We would barter all the books which we
have indicated for the Florio's _Montaigne_ with the poet's signature
on the fly-leaf, albeit it is in no better a covering than its
Shakespearian jacket of shabby old calf.
More than one volume in the earlier range depends very
disproportionately for its interest on the preliminary matter in the
form of a Preface or Dedication. In _Prefaces, Dedications, Epistles_,
1874, the writer drew attention to this point, and furnished a
considerable series of such _prolegomena_ in illustration of the
fact. But there are cases, of course, where the inscription is of a
piece with the book, as in Davenant's _Madagascar_, 1638, where the
poet wrote and printed on the leaf following the title: "If these
Poems live, may their Memories, by whom they were cherish'd, _End.
Porter, H. Jarmyn_, live with them."
The Imprimatur, or License to the Printer, occasionally supplies a
curious literary or biographical side-light. That to Davenant's play
of the _Witts_, 1636, runs: "This Play, called the WITTS, as it was
Acted without offence, may be Printed, not otherwise, 19 Ianuary,
1635. Henry Herbert;" and before Blount's _Jocular Tenures_, 1679, we
find: "I well knowing the Learning and industry of the Author, do
allow the Printing of this Book. Fra. North." Once more there is Sir
Isaac Newton's _Principia_, 1687, with "Imprimatur. S. Pepys."