Aids to the formation of a library: (i.) Personal observation;
(ii.) Works of reference--Rarity of taste and
judgment--Dependence of some booksellers on want of knowledge in
their clients--Trade catalogues--Principal modern books of
reference criticised--Those for the (i.) Bibliography; (ii.) for
the Prices--Unsatisfactory execution of _Book Prices Current_,
&c.--The British Museum Catalogue of Early English
books--Obsolete authorities--Their unequal demerit--British
Museum _General Catalogue_ and Mr. Quaritch's _New General
Catalogue_--The former not implicitly trustworthy--Source of the
value of the latter--The labours of Sir Egerton Brydges, Joseph
Haslewood, and others--Tribute to their worth--_Bibliotheca
Anglo-Poetica_--The Heber Catalogue--Its magnitude and immense
value and interest--Where Heber obtained his treasures--His
library the most splendid ever formed in any country--Its
absorption of all preceding collections--And the vital
obligations of every succeeding collection to it--The Grenville
Catalogue--George Daniel--His fly-leaf _canards_--Collier's
_Bibliographical Catalogue_--Corser's _Collectanea_--Unequal
value of the posthumous parts--The Huth Catalogue--Testimony to
its character--Several monographs--Lord Crawford's
Broadsides--Lists of the College libraries at Oxford and
Cambridge--Catalogues of the Dyce and Forster Bequests to South
Kensington--Halliwell-Phillipps's _Shakespeariana_--Blades's
_Caxton_--Botfield's _Cathedral Libraries_--A new catalogue of
the Althorp-Rylands books in preparation--Mr. Wheatley's scheme
for cataloguing a library--Redundant cataloguing
exemplified--Differences in copies of the same book and
edition--French books of reference--Brunet, Cohen, Gay--Special
treatises on Playing-cards, Angling, Tobacco: Bewick, Bartolozzi:
Tokens, Coins and Medals, and Americana--Tracts relating to
Popery--The Printing Clubs and Societies--Errors in books of
reference liable to perpetuation--Heads of advice to collectors
of books with supplements, extra leaves, &c.
THE two principal aids to the formation of a library, great or small,
general or special, are Personal Observation and Works of Reference.
The first is obviously an uncertain quantity, and may be restricted to
an ordinary mechanical experience, or may comprise the finest
commercial and literary instinct. We have had among us ere now
amateurs who possessed the highest qualifications for assembling round
them gratifying and valuable monuments of their taste and judgment,
with the harmless satisfaction of feeling tolerably sure that the
investment, if not a source of profit, would not form one of serious
loss. This is a fair and legitimate demand and expectation; but such
characters are far rarer than the books which they collect; and if it
were otherwise, the large industry which lies in the purchase and
re-sale of literary property could not exist. The buyer whose
knowledge is in advance of that of the salesman is a party whom Mr.
---- and Mr. ---- and the remainder of the alphabet pharisaically
admire, while they privily harbour toward him sadly unchristian
feelings and views.
The second and remaining auxiliary, the Book of Reference, has become
a wide term, since it has so enormously developed itself, and formed
branches, so as to constitute a library within a library, and to call
for its own bibliographer. So far as the current value and general
character of literary works are concerned, all the older authorities
are more or less untrustworthy, and the same is to be predicated of a
heavy proportion of auctioneers' and booksellers' catalogues, where
the first and sole object is to realise the maximum price for an
article. The system pursued by the former class of vendors of late
years renders it far more hazardous to bid on the faith of the printed
descriptions, and there is, in fact, greater danger for the novice in
the elaborate rehearsal of the title and the accompanying fillip in
the shape of a note (usually erroneous) than the good old-fashioned
plan of setting out the particulars briefly--even illiterately; for in
the latter case the burden of discovering the exact truth is thrown on
the customer or acquirer. We must say that few things are less
satisfactory than trade-catalogues with certain honourable exceptions,
which it might be invidious to particularise; and the book-buyer has
to depend almost exclusively on his own discernment and the
bibliographers. Of what he reads in the catalogues he may believe as
much or as little as he likes.
Nothing could be more ungracious than to speak disrespectfully of the
publications of those laborious and earnest workers who have preceded
us, and who for that very sufficient reason did not know quite so much
as we do. We admire their industry, on the contrary, their taste and
their devotion; we buy their volumes because it is pleasant to have
them at our side; and ever and anon we dip into this one or that, and
meet with something which had escaped us. Seriously, however, they
are, on the whole, not merely of slight use, but of a misleading
tendency. For the gods of our forefathers, Ware, Tanner, Ames,
Herbert, Oldys, Dibdin, Brydges, Watt, Park, Haslewood, the compilers
of the _Bibliotheca Grenvillana_, _Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica_, and
_Biographia Dramatica_, and scores besides, before and even since, we
have substituted others, assuredly more complete, perhaps constructed
on truer and more lasting principles. We have on our shelves (i.) for
the _Bibliography_, the Heber, Collier, Corser, and Huth catalogues
(1834-80), and the writer's own _Collections_ (1867-1903),
_Bibliographica_ and the _Transactions of the Bibliographical
Society_: (ii.) for the _Prices_, _Book Prices Current_ and _Book
Sales_. Unfortunately the two latter undertakings are little better
than mechanical transcripts from the auctioneers' extremely
treacherous catalogues by outsiders. The peculiar class of information
purporting to be supplied by such catalogues is often in need of some
qualifying criticism or admonition, which it is not easy, if possible,
for any one not on the spot and behind the scenes to offer. No mere
reference to the catalogue after the event is capable of initiating
one into these _arcana_; and the same has to be said of the quotations
in the ordinary periodicals. This is a species of employment for which
there must be either a long training or a unique instinct.
_Book Prices Current_ and _Book Sales_ cannot be trusted as an
authority or a guide by any person who does not approach them with a
certain measure of experience. Where an editor cites a common and
comparatively worthless volume as selling for a high sum, and omits to
mention that on the title there is a valuable autograph, the mischief
is obvious; and this and allied forms of error are habitual. Such
empirical attempts do more harm than good.
The Account printed by the Trustees of the Early English books in the
British Museum is not without its value, although it is almost
everything that it ought not to have been; and there are several
monographs of importance dealing with special items in public or
private collections. It is to be hoped that in course of time we may
see a creditable catalogue of the Britwell Library, and that the
Spencer books at Manchester will be done over again by a competent
hand. If money is expended on these objects, it is distressing to find
that the task has been confided to a gentleman whose best credentials
are his personal acquaintance with the owner.
We do not add to existing authorities: (i.) for the printers, Ames,
Herbert, and Dibdin, or (ii.) for general information Lowndes's
_Manual_ by Bohn and his coadjutors, because we are afraid that there
is almost greater danger of being misled by them than being helped or
enlightened. Both Ames and Herbert, however, we emphatically pronounce
conscientious, and accurate in the highest degree in their respective
days; but these days were long ago, and the present state of knowledge
has rendered a considerable proportion of their texts obsolete and
unreliable. Dibdin has certainly added to Herbert, but he has not, on
the contrary, in all cases faithfully reprinted him; if his book had
been as great an advance on his predecessor as Herbert's was on Ames,
it would have been a treasure indeed. A new Lowndes is said to be in
the hands of a syndicate. I know nothing about it; but I shall rejoice
if it should prove worthy of the subject, and as unlike Lowndes or
Lowndes by Bohn as possible. I labour, however, under the gravest
apprehension that it will prove one of those undertakings which will
just be advanced enough to block the right book without being
relatively anything approaching even to an English Brunet. At least
five-and-twenty annotated copies of Lowndes must exist. Will the
promoters deem it necessary to acquire or to borrow them? Probably
not. There must be thousands of additions and corrections in the
writer's alone. It is estimated that the enlarged Lowndes contains
about 10 per cent. of the literature which ought to find a place, not
reckoning the earlier English books, tracts, or broadsides, and that
of that proportion about 71/2 per cent. are misdescribed. The anecdote
of Pope and the wag who retorted to his habitual exclamation, "_God
mend me!_" "It would take less to make a new one," appears to apply in
the present case.
The original Lowndes in 1834 was a poor affair; but Bohn's recension
twenty years or so later was by comparison a still poorer one, for
there was the opportunity, in the presence of innumerable discoveries
and a large body of new bibliographical material in various shapes, of
rendering the new edition a really creditable performance. The name of
the publisher, however, was a sufficient guarantee for this not being
the case, and where the second impression is superior to the first, is
where Bohn happened to have an interest in mentioning certain works,
or information was communicated to him by others.
The sole comfort for us is, that Brunet has passed through five
editions, and yet remains deplorably imperfect and inaccurate.
There are three prominent publications, each in its way of signal
value and merit: the British Museum and Bodleian Catalogues of Printed
Books, and Mr. Quaritch's New General Catalogue. The two former, of
course confine themselves to the contents of the respective libraries;
they are consequently far from exhaustive. They have been compiled by
human beings; they are consequently far indeed from faultless. They
express, as a rule, no opinions, and of commercial estimation very
properly take no cognisance. But the Oxford collection has always been
differently situated from the National Library in not having any
adequate means of purchasing deficiencies, while it is rich in its own
very interesting way by reason of bequests of unique value, making it
the possessor of numerous priceless volumes not to be found in Great
Russell Street or anywhere else. The Quaritch Catalogue (including the
_Typographical Supplement_, 1897), a noble monument to the energy and
courage of the _grand marchand_ whose name it bears, is a good deal
more than even a bookseller's advertising medium on a large or the
largest scale. It is, in fact, a literary performance; and it is an
open secret to whom we owe it. The collector, apart from the question
of purchase, will find it replete with useful, instructive, and
trustworthy information, so far as bibliography is concerned.
The highly honourable and equally laborious publications of Sir
Egerton Brydges, Joseph Haslewood, Thomas Park, E. V. Utterson, and
others, if they are of minor substantial value to us at present,
demonstrate the keen appetite for bibliographical information and
anecdote in the first quarter of this century. The _Censura
Literaria_, extending to ten octavo volumes, passed through two
editions, and, in common with other similar works, till recently
commanded a heavy price. That they have fallen into neglect is due to
the necessity, on the part of buyers and sellers of early literature,
of studying only the latest authorities.
At the same time, from a literary point of view, the _Restituta_ and
_Censura Literaria_ (2nd edit. 1815) of Brydges, and many members of
the same group and period, will always be worth consulting, and will
be found to yield a vast store of interesting and instructive matter.
Such works may at present be sterile enough, but yet we are bound to
recollect on their behalf that on their first appearance they were
revelations and pioneers. It is where a book at the outset is behind
the knowledge of the day, or indeed rather not in advance of it, that
it seems to be disentitled to respect.
Not only have more modern labours superseded the Brydges, Park,
Haslewood, and other series, which till of late years held the market
firmly enough, but the Rev. Dr. Dibdin, whose sumptuously printed and
illustrated productions long remained such prime favourites at heavy
prices, both at home and in the United States, has been overtaken by a
general neglect, and the Americans, who were once so enthusiastic and
generous as bidders for these books, will at present scarcely agree to
acquire them at a fifth of their appreciation in the height of the
Dibdinomania.
Many of the gems which have passed through the hands of successive
owners are known to have once formed part of the _Bibliotheca
Anglo-Poetica_, a famous--almost historical catalogue of old
literature on sale in 1815 by Longmans, when that firm dealt in such
commodities, and imported largely from the Continent in response to
the keen and hungry demand on the part of the school created by the
Roxburghe sale and the Roxburghe Club, Heber its greatest disciple and
ornament, Heber a colossus in himself. Many are the traditional
anecdotes of the wonderful bargains which Longmans' agent secured for
his principals in all sorts of places, whither he resorted in quest of
prey--of the romances in folio in the virgin stamped Spanish
bindings, which they might have worn since they lay on the shelves of
Don Quixote or the Licentiate, brought for sale, as it were haphazard,
to some market-place in Seville or Valladolid in wine-skins. But the
contents of the above-mentioned _Bibliotheca_ were purely English. It
was a small but choice assemblage of old poetry formed by Mr. Thomas
Hill, otherwise Tommy Hill, otherwise Paul Pry, which he offered to
Longmans on the plea of failing health, and for which the purchasers
elected, looking prophetically at his moribund aspect, to grant him an
annuity in preference to a round sum. Mr. Hill's apprehensions,
however, were premature, as the transaction had the effect of
restoring his spirits; and the booksellers scored rather
indifferently. How pleased they must have been to see him coming for
his pension year after year!
Even the outrageous prices asked for the articles, of which the
condition was ordinarily poor, could not have brought Longmans
anywhere near home; and the catalogue was expensively printed. Yet one
would like, very much indeed like, to put down thirty golden
sovereigns for _Shakespeare's Sonnets never before imprinted_, 1609,
and fifty for Anthony Munday's _Banquet of Dainty Conceits_, 1588. The
Rev. J. M. Rice obtained the latter in 1815; it was sold at his
auction in 1834 for eighteen guineas, and when it next occurred among
George Daniel's books in 1864, was bought by Mr. Huth against Sir
William Tite for L225. The _Sonnets_ of 1609 would at present be
worth L250. As regards the bulk of the lots, however, one might almost
read shillings for pounds. Sir Francis Freeling had an interleaved
copy, in which he entered acquisitions. Through his official
connection with the Post-Office he procured many prizes from the
country districts. Dick of Bury St. Edmunds stood him in good stead.
What Dibdin euphemistically christened the _Lincoln Nosegay_ was a
second pair of bellows applied about the same date to the reddening
flame of bibliographical ardour. It was a descriptive list of certain
books which the Doctor had prevailed on the Dean and Chapter of the
Cathedral to sell to him for five hundred guineas, and which he
divided between Mr. Heber and Lord Spencer. The collection was part of
the benefaction of Dean Honeywood, and it was a shameful betrayal of
trust. Our cathedral libraries still retain a host of treasures,
notwithstanding all this sort of pillage; and the dim religious light
which is shed around lends an air of sanctity to the spot sufficient,
one might have thought, to arrest the hand of the marauder.
This was the height of the Bibliomania. Dibdin had in 1811 brought out
his work so called. Perhaps it was hardly wise so to accentuate the
passion on paper. He lived to publish the _Bibliophobia_.
The _Bibliotheca Heberiana_, in thirteen parts, 1834-36, which in its
realisation showed a strong revulsion, or at least a marked decline,
from the cometary period, 1812-25, is the most stupendous assemblage
of literary treasures and curiosities ever brought together by an
individual in this country. Heber was a scholar and a reader of his
books; he has made memoranda on a large number of the fly-leaves; and
these have been occasionally transferred to the catalogue, of which
the Early English poetical portion, a singularly rich one, was edited
and annotated by John Payne Collier. In using the Heber Catalogue, its
mere extent and diversity ought to suffice as a warning that the
prices are not in the least degree trustworthy; the classics and some
of the early typography went pretty high; and the Early English books
were only saved from being given away by the active competition of Mr
W. H. Miller, who secured nearly everything of account at very
moderate figures, and by the commissions held by Collier for the Duke
of Devonshire, who bought the rarest of the old plays. The British
Museum was scarcely in evidence there. It was enjoying one of its
periodical slumbers.
The poetical section of the library embraced not only the lion's share
of all the rarest books of the class offered for public sale in
Heber's time, but an immense assortment of articles which he acquired
privately from Thorpe, Rodd, and others, of whom he was the infallible
resource whenever they fell in with books or tracts or broadsides
which he did not possess, or of which he perhaps possessed _only one
copy_.
It was not merely that Heber distanced all that went before him or
have succeeded him, so far as the extent and variety of his
collections go, but that with his insatiable acquisitiveness he
combined so much of the bibliographer and _litterateur_. It was fairly
easy for certain men with more limited means and views, such as
Malone, Steevens, Douce, Brand, Chalmers, Bright, Bliss, Laing,
Bandinel, Turner, Locker, Corser, and a legion more, to pose as judges
of the merits of their possessions; but how comparatively little was
theirs to grasp! In the case of Heber the range of knowledge was
immense; and he was equally at home with all departments and all
periods. He had his modern side and his interest in current affairs,
and a scholarly insight into the vast literary and bibliographical
accumulations which it was his bent and pride to form, beyond any one
whom we can call to mind. We do not include in this sort of category
the Harley, Roxburghe, Grenville, Spencer, Blandford, Ashburnham, and
Huth libraries, whose owners were collectors pure and simple.
Of the Grenville Catalogue, as an independent work, it is less usual
to think and speak, because the library which it describes has long
formed part of the British Museum, and very few are now living who can
remember it under the roof of its excellent founder in Hamilton Place.
The books have now during some years constituted an integral part of
the New General Museum Catalogue; there is scarcely any department of
literature in which they did not contribute importantly to enrich and
complete the national stores. But Mr. Grenville was particularly
strong in early typography and Irish and English history.
The catalogue of Mr. George Daniel's singular and precious collection,
disposed of in 1864, was an ordinary auctioneer's compilation; except
that many of the owner's MSS. notes written on the fly-leaves were
introduced by way of whetting the appetites of competitors; and to say
that a vein of hyperbole pervaded these remarks is a mild expression;
they emanated, we have to remember, from an accountant. The books,
however, spoke for themselves. The printed account of them, viewed as
a work of reference, must be read _cum grano salis_--_cum multis
granis_. The sale was the starting-point of a new epoch and school in
prices. Nothing of the kind on so extended a scale in that particular
way had so far been seen before.
Collier's _Bibliographical Catalogue_, 1865, is an enlargement of his
Bridgewater House Catalogue, 1837, without the illustrations. The two
volumes are full of curious and readable matter, and as they usually
deal with the _libri rarissimi_, we have to accept the accounts and
extracts in the absence of the originals. To many this may be
indifferent; to a few it may be a serious drawback, since, rightly or
wrongly, the fidelity and accuracy of the editor have been more than
once called in question. Mr Collier's book, however, is merely
serviceable as a guide to the character of the works described; he
does not offer an opinion on the selling values, nor does he always
render the titles correctly. One signal fault distinguishes the
undertaking from what may be regarded as a commercial point of view;
and it is the refusal or failure to recognise the momentous changes in
the bibliographical rank of a number of books through the discovery
between 1837 and 1865 of additional copies. Like most of us when we
are advanced in life, he thought more of what was true when he was
young, than of what was so at the time of writing.
The _Collectanea Anglo-Poetica_ of the Rev. Thomas Corser, in eleven
parts, of which some were posthumous, constitutes a very proud
monument to the memory of an accomplished clergyman of limited
resources, who during the best part of his life devoted his thought
and surplus money to the acquisition of one of the richest assemblages
of Early English Poetry ever formed by any one, as he succeeded in
obtaining many works in this extensive series not comprised even in
the Heber Catalogue. Mr. Corser bought much privately; but he was
largely indebted for his bibliographical good fortune to such sales as
those of Jolley, Chalmers, Bright, and Wolfreston (1844-56). Of his
catalogue as an authority and guide the value is unequal; the portions
edited by himself are excellent and exhaustive, but it is not so with
those which Mr. James Crossley superintended. A complete copy of the
sale catalogue is a _desideratum_ for the follower in this gentleman's
footsteps; but he would have to spend more money than Mr. Corser did
by some thousands.
Of the Huth Catalogue, 1880, we can only say that it is a splendid
gathering in a comparatively short period of various classes of books
obtained from the sales in London and elsewhere, and from private
sources, and selected on account of condition and interest rather than
with a view to completeness. In its character it is emphatically
miscellaneous; but is very strong in Early English literature, owing
to the opportunities which the founder enjoyed through the dispersion
in his time of so many fine libraries of that class, especially those
of Daniel and Corser, and perhaps we may add of George Smith the
distiller. But there was scarcely any sale here or on the Continent
from which Mr. Huth was not enabled to add to his stores. He was a
very rich man; but he was not a book-hunter, and he was both
inconsistent and capricious. He had, in fact, no definite plan, and
took each purchase on its own merits. His Catalogue, which he did not
live to see completed, is unusually free from errors, but not quite so
much so as he anticipated and desired. Nevertheless, it will always be
an useful guide and an honourable memorial.
Several monographs, dealing in a brief or cursory way with an entire
library, or more fully with a section of it, may be noticed. The
Ashburnham hand-list, 1864, now (1897-98) supplemented by the sale
catalogue; the Chatsworth Catalogue, which does not include the books
at Devonshire House, and Lord Crawford's catalogue of his Ballads and
Broadsides. There are special accounts of several of the College
Libraries at Oxford and Cambridge, as well as Hartshorne's _Book
Rarities_, 1829, a disappointing yet suggestive volume. We ought to
remind the reader that the catalogue of Trinity, Cambridge, embraces
Capell's _Shakesperiana_, and that there are separate hand-lists of
Malone's and Douce's books at the Bodleian, of the Dyce and Forster
bequests at South Kensington, of the Society of Antiquaries'
Broadsides, and of the Shakespearian treasures formerly at Hollingbury
Copse. We have two editions of Blades's book on Caxton's press,
Maitland's two Lambeth Catalogues, Botfield's _Cathedral Libraries_,
and Edmond's Lists of the Aberdeen printers, 1886.
It is eminently likely that of the Rylands-Spencer library we shall
have in the fulness of time a new catalogue, superseding Dibdin's
publications, and of course embracing all the personal acquisitions of
Mrs. Rylands, apart from the grand Althorp lot. In the capable hands
of Mr. Duff it ought to turn out well.
In the _Book Lover's Library_, Mr. H. B. Wheatley has dedicated two or
three volumes to the topic of forming and cataloguing a library. The
object of these technical undertakings is clearer, perhaps, than their
general utility; for, as a rule, a man likes to follow his own plan,
and scarcely two normal collections of the average kind resemble one
another, or are susceptible of similar treatment. The idea broached by
Mr. Wheatley was, of course, not a new one. Gabriel Naude, librarian
to Cardinal Mazarin, and subsequently keeper of the Royal Collection,
printed a sketch of what in his opinion was necessary to constitute a
library, and this our Evelyn put into an English dress in 1661, and
dedicated to Lord Clarendon. The plan of Naude was naturally that of a
Frenchman accustomed to extensive assemblages of literary monuments,
and was not suited to the English taste, unless it might be in the
case of a rich nobleman, to whom space and cost were alike
indifferent. It was not likely to meet with adoption even by Evelyn
himself, of whose acquisitions we know enough to judge that he
followed his own personal sentiments rather than professional or
technical advice. It rarely occurs that in the less ambitious types of
library there are any bibliographical details likely to prove
serviceable to the public; and the extent of knowledge gained by the
owner in the course of his own experience should suffice to qualify
him to become, where time is presumably not an object, his own
cataloguer. For all that can be required is a hand-list on the scale
of the Douce or Malone separate catalogues, where a title seldom
occupies more than a single line. Plentiful illustrations of our
meaning will be found by any one who opens the Grenville or Huth
Catalogue, and perceives the wide discrepancy between the essential
information and the descriptive and critical accounts. The primary
motive in drawing up a view of the contents of ninety-nine libraries
out of a hundred is the facilitation of reference, combined with an
excusable personal pride; but a great deal of repetition and
redundancy and useless expense are incurred by the literal transcript
of the titles of books more or less familiar to all who are interested
in them.
A very heavy proportion of the Early English entries in the Huth
Catalogue are duplicates of those in the writer's _Collections_, and
the same would be the case if the long-expected book on the Britwell
heirlooms were to make its appearance. It would be, to a large extent,
_bis cocta_.
In a private catalogue detailed explanation is required in the
interest of bibliography, only where (i.) the owner happens to possess
an unrecorded book; or (ii.) an unknown impression; or (iii.) a
variant copy. Defects in important items should be particularised; in
others the word _imperfect_ is sufficient; and it is best to indicate
from what source they have come to the immediate repository. Take a
few instances:--
Reynard the Fox, 1st edit. The Inglis copy. Folio, W. Caxton,
Westminster, 1481.
Hannay (Patrick), Poems. The Huth copy. 8vo, London, 1622.
Holinshed (Raphael), Chronicles, 2 vols. The Sunderland copy.
Wants the plan of Edinburgh Castle. Folio, London, 1577.
Shakespeare (W.), Plays, 1st edit. The Napier copy, wanting the
verses. Folio, London, 1623.
The notation of differences in copies of the same book, even if it is
not one of supreme value, is always apt to be useful. Of literary
comment the supply is discretionary, so long as it is new, pertinent,
and interesting. The transfer to the catalogue of any inedited
manuscript matter on the fly-leaves or margins, or of any proprietary
marks, is eminently desirable.
For French literature, which is so largely collected in England, the
_Manuel du Libraire_, &c., of Brunet, 7 vols. 8vo, 1860-78, with the
works of Cohen and Gay, is the standard authority. The two latter, so
far as they go, are more exhaustive than the _Manuel_, which is nearly
as incomplete as our Lowndes, and not much more accurate. A new
edition has been mooted; it is a clear _desideratum_. For value Brunet
is scarcely more serviceable than its English analogue, and the book
is, curiously enough, particularly unsafe in such a field as the
French books of former times, where so much depends on factitious
conditions barely intelligible to an ordinary English or American
consulter.
Two books which perhaps equally appeal to the English and Continental
collectors are those just mentioned: Cohen, _Guide de l'Amateur de
Livres a Gravures du XVIII^th siecle_, 5^me ed. 8^o, 1886-90, and
Gay, _Bibliographie des Ouvrages relatifs a l'Amour, aux Femmes, au
Mariage, et des Livres Facetieux_, 3^me ed. 12^o, 1871, 6 vols.
Both, but especially the first, are essential for guidance in the
choice of a class of publication of which the innumerable variations
and the artificial prices necessitate the utmost caution on the part
of an intending buyer.
There are, in fact, no topics to which an amateur or student can
direct his notice or limit himself where he will not have been
preceded, so to speak, by a path-finder; nor does the narrowness of
the range always ensure brevity or compactness of treatment, since the
Schreiber _Playing Cards of all Countries and Periods_, which to a
certain extent enter into the literary category, occupy in the Account
by Sir A. W. Franks three folio volumes; but a satisfactory view of
the subject is to be gained from the works by Singer and Chatto,
1816-48. As a rule, editors of this class of publication are more
modest and compressed. There are the bibliographies on Angling by J.
R. Smith and Westwood; on Tobacco, by Bragge (1880); on Dialect books,
by J. R. Smith (at present capable of great expansion); on Bewick, by
Hugo; on Bartolozzi, by Tuer; on Tokens, by Williamson and by Atkins;
on Coins and Medals, by a numerous body of gentlemen specified in a
section of the writer's _Coin Collector_, 1896. In the English and
American series are the well-known volumes by Henry Stevens and by
Sabin, and the sumptuous catalogue of the early Laws and Statutes by
Mr. Charlemagne Tower. In the Chetham Society's series, Mr. Jones,
late Chetham's Librarian, printed an elaborate list of all the old
English books and tracts relating to Popery.
There are many ways in which compilers of works of reference are in
danger of perpetuating mistakes as to books, where they rely on
secondary authorities. No account of an old book is, in the first
place, entitled to credence unless it has been drawn up by the
describer with the book itself before him; and when it is considered
that not one individual in ten thousand can even then be trusted to
copy what is under his eyes, and that there are, and always have been,
those who have thought fit to exercise their ingenuity by falsifying
dates and other particulars, there cannot be much room for surprise
that our bibliographies, and those of every other people, are partly
made up of material which never existed. Errors are heirlooms, of
which it is hard to get rid.
The extent to which rare books are multiplied, as regards varieties of
impression, by misdescriptions in catalogues, is remarkable and
serious, and the bibliographer is not unfrequently confronted with
statements of his ignorance of copies in sales of which he has not
thought it worth while to indicate the true facts. But it is our
individual experience that it is impossible to be too minute in
pointing out snares for the unwary, and indeed for all who work at
second-hand.
The Club or Society for the communication to members, and through them
to the public generally, of literary and archaeological material
previously existing only in MS. or in unique printed copies, was at
the outset very restricted in its zone and its scope; but, in spite of
the circumscribed interest felt by general readers in the more
abstruse or obscure provinces of research, the movement, at first
confined to scholars and patrons of literature, at length became
universal in its range and distribution. There is no country
pretending to culture without several of these institutions. In Great
Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland,
they have long abounded. They have rendered accessible an enormous
body of inedited or unknown material for history, archaeology, and
biography; and after all deductions for indiscretion and dilettantism,
they may be pronounced the medium for having shed new and precious
light on well-nigh all branches of human science. To the
book-collector they appeal less in a possessory sense than as works of
reference. Where they enter into his plan is in the practice, which
some of them have followed, of striking off on vellum or other special
substance half a dozen copies, which from their _presqu' uniquity_
(this is as good a phrase as _rarissime_) have ere now bred
unchristian sentiments among competitors for the _bijoux_ in the
_belles lettres_. The book-hunter's motto is _Pulchra quae difficilia_;
he reverses the common saying.
There is so far no exhaustive Guide to the Club literature, but the
supplementary volume to Bohn's _Lowndes_ contains a fairly complete
view of it down to 1869. The additions since that date have been
incessant and almost innumerable. The British Museum General Catalogue
registers them all under the mediaeval heading of _Academies_.
It is right and necessary that the inexperienced collector should be
put on his guard against the reprehensible and dishonest practice of
some professional vendors in advertising or offering for disposal
books of which the leaves are not entirely genuine, which are
deficient in supplemental matter recognised as part of the work, or
whose bindings are sophisticated in a manner only capable of detection
by a connoisseur or a specialist. There are wily persons who
systematically and habitually insert in their catalogues items which
they have acquired with the distinct proviso that they were defective,
and have naturally acquired at a proportionate price. The forms of
deception are infinitely various; but the leading points demanding
attention and verification are apt to be:--
The Frontispiece.
The Portrait.
The Half-title.
The Errata.
Supplement or Postscript.
Starred pages.
Extra sheets inserted.
Plates.
Extra Plates.
The intending purchaser must take care to satisfy himself that there
are no facsimile or reprinted leaves, no catchword erased to cancel a
deficiency, no mixture of editions, and no wrong or re-engraved
portrait or frontispiece, or false date inserted or inconvenient one
erased; and that the copy has not been unskilfully cleaned. It is
_caveat emptor_ indeed.
The most surprising pains are undertaken by certain persons to mislead
the collector who is not very much indeed on his guard, and who yearns
for the possession of some current prize. A case lately occurred in
which the well-known copy of the scarce portrait of Milton, with the
famous verses beneath it, attached to the first edition of the _Poems_
in 1645, had been actually split and laid down on old paper to make it
resemble the original print, and in the same way a plate belonging to
Lovelace's _Lucasta_, 1649, representing Lucy Sacheverell, being
frequently deficient, and making a good deal of the value of the book,
has been ere this soaked off from the modern reproduction in Singer's
_Select Poets_, and "lined" to communicate to it the aspect of a
genuine impression mounted.
Other forms of deception and danger lie in the exact reproduction of
ancient or early books, not always with any mischievous or fraudulent
intention. Such a piece of _supercherie_ as the _History of Prince
Radamanthus_, professedly re-printed from a unique copy by Wynkyn de
Worde, or the _Life and Death of Mother Shipton_, dated 1687, and
actually issued in the latter half of the last century, are scarcely
apt to impose on any but the most unobservant. It stands differently,
however, with the _Declaratioun of the Kings maiesties intention and
meaning toward the lait acts of parliament_, 1585, republished in 1646
in facsimile: with Marlowe's _Ovid_, originally printed in 1596, and
repeatedly brought out without any change in the text down to 1630:
with Sir John Hayward's _Life of Henry IV._, 1599, similarly
reproduced, and (in French literature) with the eighteenth-century
edition of the works of Rabelais, purporting to have come from the
Lyons press in 1558. These difficulties require on the part of buyers
one of two things: an experienced eye or a trustworthy counsellor. The
version of Ovid's _Elegies_ by Marlowe in a re-issue of no value is
constantly sold for the right one, suppressed by authority, although
Dyce, in his edition of the poet, 1850, points out the differences.
One has to study not merely the external characteristics of an old
book, but the paper, water-mark, type. It is scarcely conceivable that
the reprint by Pepys of the _Order of the Hospital of St.
Bartholomew_, 1557, could be mistaken for the genuine impression; the
paper and type alike betray it.
A curious and long-lived misapprehension prevails respecting certain
works from the press of Thomas Berthelet, at the foot of the
title-pages of which we find the date 1534; but the latter forms part
of the woodcut in which the letterpress is enclosed, and was retained
in publications posterior to the year named, and the same is, to a
slighter extent, the case with Robinson's _Reward of Wickedness_,
where the figures 1573 occur at the end within an engraved border
employed for other purposes, the particular production by one of the
guards set over Mary, Queen of Scots, having probably appeared some
years after.