would have been much more serious but for the labours of one of our
earliest antiquaries and book-lovers, John Leland. 'The laboryouse
Journey and serche of Johan Leylande for Englandes Antiquities geven of
hym as a newe yeares gyfte to kynge Henry the viii in the xxxvij yeare
of his Reygne,' 1549, is a remarkable publication, of great interest to
the book-hunter and the antiquary.
But the fruits of Leland's researches cannot now be fully known, for he
was too intent on accumulating material to draw up an adequate
inventory. Much that he preserved from destruction is now in the British
Museum, and some is in the Bodleian at Oxford. Some of the fragments
which he had saved from the general destruction had been placed in the
King's own library in Westminster.
The dissolution of the monasteries had among its many effects the
creation, so to speak, of a large number of collectors. One of the most
famous of the early sixteenth-century collectors, Sir Thomas More,
however, died (in 1535) before he could have availed himself of the many
treasures scattered to all quarters of the earth.
Dibdin records a bibliomaniacal anecdote which is well worth repeating
here, as it shows how More's love of books had infected even those who
came to seize upon him to carry him to the Tower, and to endeavour to
inveigle him into treasonable expressions: 'While Sir Richard Southwell
and Mr. Palmer weare bussie in trussinge upp his bookes, Mr. Riche,
pretending,' etc., 'whereupon Mr. Palmer, on his deposition, said, that
he was soe bussie ab{t} the trussinge upp Sir Tho. Moore's bookes in a
sacke, that he tooke no heed of there talke.'
Henry, Earl of Arundel, was not slow to seize upon the advantages which
the dissolution placed before everyone. At Nonsuch, in Surrey, he formed
a library, which is described in a biography of him, written shortly
after his death, as 'righte worthye of remembrance.' Besides his
numerous MSS. and printed books, he acquired a considerable portion of
the library of Cranmer, which was dispersed at the death of the
Archbishop. His books passed to his son-in-law, Lord Lumley, at whose
decease they were purchased by Henry, Prince of Wales, and are now in
the British Museum. The Earl of Arundel's books are handsomely bound,
and are known by his badge of the white horse and oak branch which
generally occurs on the covers.
[Illustration: _Earl of Arundel's Badge._]
In Jeremy Collier's 'Ecclesiastical History' (vol. ii. 307) we get a
glimpse of book-matters in London in the middle of the sixteenth
century. At the end of February, 1550, we learn that the Council book
mentions the King's sending a letter for the purging of the library at
Westminster. The persons are not named, but the business was to cull out
all superstitious books, as missals, legends, and such-like, and to
deliver the garniture of the books, either gold or silver, to Sir
Anthony Archer. These books were many of them plated with gold and
silver and curiously embossed. This, as far as we can collect, was the
superstition that destroyed them. 'Here avarice had a very thin
disguise, and the courtiers discovered of what spirit they were to a
remarkable degree.' Here is another picture of an almost contemporaneous
event, equally vivid in its suggestiveness: 'John Tyndale, the
translator's brother, and Thomas Patmore, merchants, were condemned to
do penance by riding with their faces to their horses' tails, with their
books fastened thick about them, pinned, or tacked, to their gowns or
clokes, to the Standard in Cheap; and there with their own hands to
fling them into the fire, kindled on purpose to burn them.'
As a book-collecting period the sixteenth century, from the accession of
Henry VIII.--when books became the organs of the passions of mankind--to
the death of Elizabeth, is full of intense interest. The old order had
changed; the world itself had made an entirely fresh start. Men and
events of the previous two or three centuries were almost as antique
then as they are to-day, and perhaps in many respects they were
infinitely less clearly understood. As the century grew in age, so the
number of book-collectors increased. The hobby became first a passion
with the few, and then the fashion with the many. Henry VIII. was
perhaps a passive rather than an active collector, with a distinct
leaning in favour of beautiful books. His three children, who followed
him on the throne of England, were collectors of books, and the majority
of their purchases must have been made in London. Many of these books
have, at some time or other, drifted from private hands into the
sale-rooms, but perhaps the majority of those now existing are to be
found within the walls of our public institutions. For example, at the
sale of Dr. Askew's MSS., in 1775, a very interesting item was purchased
by a Mr. Jackson, a Quaker, and a dealer in wine and spirits, with whom
book-collecting was a passion. The MS. proved to be in the handwriting
of Edward VI.; it was in French, and dealt with his opinion of his right
to the title of Supreme Head of the Church. At Jackson's sale the MS.
became the property of the British Museum. As another illustration, we
may refer to the copy of the 'Flores Historiarum per Matthæum
Westmonasteriensem,' etc., 1570, in the British Museum (Cracherode
Collection) which is the identical one presented by Archbishop Parker
(by whose authority it was published) to Queen Elizabeth. It afterwards
fell into the hands of Francis, Earl of Bedford, who bequeathed it, with
the furniture of a little study, to his secretary. It was subsequently
in the possession of Ritson. And yet again, in the Eton College Library,
there is a copy of the 'Missale Romanum,' printed at Paris by Hardouyn,
1530, which belonged to Mary, with a sentence in her handwriting; this
volume afterwards came into the possession of Mary of Este, Queen of
James II., and subsequently into the hands of a London bookseller, from
whom it was purchased for fifty-three shillings by Bishop Fleetwood, and
presented to the college library. Indeed, a large volume might be
compiled on the Adventures of Some Famous Books.
Interesting and important as is the phase of book-collecting which
relates to royal personages, it falls into insignificance beside that of
men who have achieved greatness through their own abilities. The books
collected by Thomas Cranmer, for example, quite overshadow in interest
anything which the whole reign of the Tudors could produce. It has been
well said that his knowledge of books was wide, and his opportunities
for acquiring them unrivalled. Cranmer was a generous collector, for his
library was quite open for the use of learned men. Latimer spent 'many
an hour' there, and has himself told us that he met with a copy of
Dionysius 'in my Lord of Canterbury's library.' We have already seen
that many of Cranmer's books passed into the possession of the Earl of
Arundel, but many were 'conveyed and stolen awaie.' Cranmer's books have
found an enthusiastic historian in Prebendary Burbidge, who has almost
rehabilitated the great ecclesiastic's library in the first part of Mr.
Quaritch's 'Dictionary of English Book-collectors.' Another
book-collector of a very different type was amassing an extensive
library at a somewhat later period than Cranmer: Dr. Dee, the famous
necromancer, had collected '4,000 volumes, printed and unprinted, bound
and unbound, valued at 2,000 lib.,' of which one Greek, two French and
one High Dutch volumes of MSS. alone were 'worth 533 lib.' It occupied
forty years to form this library. Most of his books passed into the
possession of Elias Ashmole--who was another collector with an
insatiable appetite--and now form a part of the Ashmolean Museum. Some
of Dee's singular MSS. were found, long after his death, in the secret
drawer of a chest, which had passed through many hands undiscovered.
Reverting for a moment to Ashmole, he himself tells us that he gave
'five volumes of Mr. Dugdale's' works to the Temple Library. And
further: 'My first boatful of books, which were carried to Mrs.
Tradescant's, were brought back to the Temple.' In May, 1667, he bought
Mr. John Booker's study of books, and gave £140 for them. In 1681 he
bought 'Mr. Lilly's library of books of his widow, for £50.'
A very distinguished book-collector of the Elizabethan period was Sir
Francis Drake, the great Admiral. It did not seem to be at all known
that the distinguished naval hero was also a bibliophile until 1883,
when the collection of books was brought from the old residence of the
Drakes, Nutwell Court, Lympstone, Devon, to Sotheby's. The sale
comprised 1,660 lots, representing several thousand volumes, the total
being £3,276 17s. 6d. It was especially rich in books and old tracts of
the early seventeenth century relating to the English voyages to
America, and some of these realized very high figures. Although the
library was undoubtedly founded by Drake, it was evidently continued by
his descendants. Bacon, Baron of Verulam, was a distinguished
book-collector, as the shelves of his chambers in Gray's Inn would have
testified. Archbishop Parker, than whom 'a more determined book-fancier
never existed in Great Britain,' and Gabriel Harvey, the friend of
Spenser, and the object of Tom Nash's withering scorn, were among the
most inveterate book-collectors of Elizabethan London. Had Harvey--whose
books usually contain his autograph on the title-page, and not a few of
which were given him by Spenser--studied his books less, and the proper
study of mankind a little more, he might have shown his talents off to a
better advantage than in his conflicts with Nash. In the Bodleian there
is a set of old tales and romances which Spenser lent Harvey, taking as
a hostage, apparently, Harvey's copy of Lucian in four volumes. Harvey
had a very poor opinion of such 'foolish' books, but he does not seem to
have returned them to their rightful owner. The fire which destroyed Ben
Jonson's MSS. undoubtedly consumed many of his printed books, but
examples from his library, with 'Sum Ben Jonson' inscribed, are
sometimes met with. Shakespeare may have had a library, but we have no
evidence that he possessed even a copy of his own plays in quarto. The
Elizabethan poets and dramatists were prodigious contributors to the
press, but very poor patrons of booksellers. From various sources we get
some highly-coloured and unflattering pictures of the typical
booksellers of the period. Tom Nash has limned for us a vivid little
portrait in 'Pierce Penilesse' (1592), in which he declares that if he
were to paint Sloth, 'I swear that I would draw it like a stationer that
I know, with his thumb under his girdle, who, if ever a man come to his
stall to ask him for a book, never stirs his head, or looks upon him,
but stands stone still, and speaks not a word, only with his little
finger points backward to his boy, who must be his interpreter; and so
all day, gaping like a dumb image, he sits without motion, except at
such times as he goes to dinner or supper, for then he is as quick as
other three, eating six times every day.'
II.
From start to finish the Stuart dynasty ruled England for close on
three-quarters of a century. That book-collecting should have existed at
all under it is a marvel. But the hobby no longer depended upon the
patronage of courts and courtiers. From the Wise Fool, James I., to the
Foolish Fool, the second James, collectors pursued their hobby in London
and out of it. James I. began to collect books at a very early age, and
a list of his library was published for the first time in the _Athenæum_
in 1893. It has, however, but little interest to us in this place, for
doubtless most of the books were imported into Scotland from the great
book centre, Paris. The library which he acquired after his accession to
the throne of England is of little consequence, for he was not the
person to purchase books when he had the means, and doubtless many of
his bookish possessions were gifts. In the library at Eton College there
is his copy of Captain John Smith's 'History of Virginia,' 1624, which
was rescued by Storer from a dirty bookseller's shop in Derby, and the
existence of many others might be traced. It is certain that 'he gave
them shabby coverings, and scribbled idle notes on their margins.' Had
his son Henry lived, he might have developed into a respectable
book-collector. We know for certain that he 'paid a Frenchman that
presented a book, £4 10s.'; and that he paid 'Mr. Holyoak for writing a
catalogue of the library which the Prince had of Lord Lumley, £8 13s.
4d.' Charles II., like his forbears, was not a book-buyer, and so far as
he is concerned we must content ourselves with repeating a little
anecdote after Dibdin, who refers to an 'old and not incurious library
at Workingham, in Suffolk,' where there was a very fine ruled copy of
Hayes's Bible, published at Cambridge, 1674, in two volumes folio; on
the fly-leaf it contains the following memorandum: 'N.B.--This Bible
belonged to K. Charles IId. and [was] given by him to Duke Lauderdale
and sold by auction w{th} y{e} rest of his Books.' In a comparatively
modern hand, below, is written in pencil:
'Hark ye, my friends, that on this Bible look,
Marvel not at the fairness of the Book;
No soil of fingers, nor such ugly things,
Expect to find, Sirs, for it _was the King's_.'
[Illustration: _Sir Robert Cotton._]
The most distinguished Metropolitan book-collector of the period was Sir
Robert Cotton, who began as early as 1588, and who had assistance from
such antiquaries as William Camden and Sir Henry Spelman. This library,
after being closed on account of the treasonable character of the
documents contained in it, passed into the possession of Cotton's son,
Sir Thomas, whose house was almost adjoining Westminster Hall. Anthony à
Wood gives a curious account of a visit he paid it, when he found its
owner practising on the lute. The key of the library was in the
possession of one Pearson, who lodged with a bookseller in Little
Britain. Wood was 'forced to walk thither, and much ado there was to
find him.' This library was removed to Essex Street, and again back to
Westminster to Ashburnham House in Little Dean's Yard, where it suffered
greatly from a fire in 1731, and what remains of it is now in the
British Museum. Sir Thomas Bodley was another collector, but few of his
accumulations appear to have come from London. The extraordinary
collection of pamphlets got together by Tomlinson, and now stored in the
British Museum, is too well known to need more than a passing reference.
It is not so generally known that Narcissus Luttrell was a very
voracious collector of broadsides, tracts, and so forth. To nearly every
one of the items he affixed the price he paid for it. In 1820, at the
Bindley sale, this extraordinary collection, ranging in date from 1640
to 1688, and comprising twelve volumes, realized the then large amount
of £781.
[Illustration: _Sir Julius Cæsar's Travelling Library._]
Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls under James I., was a
book-collector of the right sort, and his box of charming little
editions of the classics, with which he used to solace himself on a
journey, is now in the safe keeping of the British Museum. Sir Julius
was born in 1557, and died in April, 1636; he possessed a fine
collection of highly interesting manuscripts, which had the narrowest
possible escape from being destroyed at the latter part of the last
century. The collection was rescued in time by Samuel Paterson, the
auctioneer, and it is now in the British Museum.
Robert Burton (the author of the 'Anatomy of Melancholy') was, like
Luttrell, also a great collector of tracts, and his library, now in the
Bodleian, is peculiarly rich in historical, political, and poetical
pamphlets, and in miscellaneous accounts of murders, monsters, and
accidents. He seems to have purchased and preserved a copy of everything
that came out. 'There is no nation,' says Johnson, 'in which it is so
necessary as in our own to assemble the small tracts and fugitive
pieces.' 'The writers of these' frequently have opportunities 'of
inquiring from living witnesses, and of copying their representations
from the life, and preserve a multitude of particular incidents which
are forgotten in a short time, or omitted in formal relations, and yet
afford light in some of the darkest scenes of state.' 'From pamphlets,'
says the same writer, 'are to be learned the progress of every debate,
and of every opinion.' And he compares the impression produced on the
mind of him who shall consult these tracts, and of another that refers
merely to formal historians, to the _difference of him who hears of a
victory, and him who sees the battle_. Archbishop Laud collected from
far and wide. John Selden, like Laud, had a distinct weakness for
learned books, and consequently could have found little to satisfy his
cravings in London. Selden, when disturbed, put his spectacles into the
book he was busy with by way of marking the place; and after his death
numbers of volumes were found with these curious book-markers. John
Felton, who murdered Buckingham, was also a book-collector in a small
way. In Lilly's catalogue for 1863 there was a copy of Peacham's
'Compleat Gentleman,' 1622, with the following on the fly-leaf: 'John
Felton, vicessimo secundo die Junii, 1622.'
A few glances, at this point, at the more material phases of
book-collecting may not be without interest. The following is one of the
earliest bookseller's statements of accounts with which we are
acquainted. It was rendered to 'the Right Honourable the Lord Conway,'
on May 31, 1638, by Henry Seile, whose shop was at the sign of the
Tiger's Head, Fleet Street:
1 Nash's Ha' wee you to Saffron Walden 00 02 06
1 Greene's Arcadia } {
1 Farewell to Folly } {
1 Tullies' Love } These nine Bookes {
1 Lady Fitzwater's Nightingale } were delivered to { 00 10 0
1 Mamilia } your Lordship at {
1 Never too Late } Xs. {
1 Groatesworth of Wit } {
1 Mourning Garment } {
1 Peers pennylesse supplication } {
In a letter addressed to Evelyn by Dr. Cosin (afterwards Bishop of
Durham) during his exile, and dated July 18, 1651, we get a delightful
glimpse of two book-lovers doing 'a deal.' Mr. Evelyn was apparently a
man who could drive a bargain with Hebraic shrewdness. 'Truly, sir,'
expostulated mildly the excited ecclesiastic, 'I thought I had prevented
any further motion of abatement by the large offer that I made to
you. . . . If you consider their number, I desire you would be pleased
to consider likewise, that they are a choice number, and a company of
the best selected books among them all. . . . There is in your note
Pliny's "Natural History" in English, priced at 36s., which is worth £3;
Camden's "Errors," priced at 5s. 6d., for which I have seen £1 given;
Paulus Jovius at £1, which sells now in Paris at 4 pistoles; and Pol.
Virgil at 10s., which sells here for £10; William of Malmesbury at 15s.,
for which they demand here £30, and Asser Menev, etc., at 14s., which
they will not part with here nor elsewhere abroad for £20.'
It is highly probable that the book-market was never so bad in London
as during this period; for, in addition to the above illustration, and
at about the same time, Isaac Vossius came over to this country with a
quantity of literary property, some of which had belonged to his learned
father, in the hopes of selling it; but he 'carried them back into
Holland,' where 'a quicker mercate' was expected.
III.
[Illustration: _Archbishop Usher._]
_Sic transit gloria mundi_ might well be the motto of a History of
Book-Collectors, for in by far the majority of cases great private
libraries have been formed in one generation by genuine bookworms, only
to be scattered in the next by needy legatees or in consequence of
impoverished estates. There can be no doubt that several famous
libraries have derived their origin from the mere vanity of emulating a
fashionable pursuit. Into this matter, however, it is not necessary for
us to enter, except to hazard the suggestion that if the money had not
been spent in that direction it would doubtless have been squandered in
some less worthy and enduring manner. One of the most interesting and
valuable contributions to the history of private collections of the
seventeenth century is embedded in the long and entertaining letter
which John Evelyn addressed to Mr. Pepys in August, 1689. This letter is
so accessible that it may seem superfluous to quote any part of it; but
a few of the leading points are necessary to the proper sequence of our
story. 'The Bishop of Ely has a very well-stored library, but the very
best is what Dr. Stillingfleet has at Twickenham, ten miles out of
town. . . . Our famous lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, purchased a very choice
library of Greek and other MSS., which were sold him by Dr. Meric
Casaubon, son of the learned Isaac; and these, together with his
delicious villa, Durdens, came into the possession of the present Earl
of Berkeley from his uncle, Sir Robert Cook. . . . I have heard that Sir
Henry Savill was master of many precious MSS., and he is frequently
celebrated for it by the learned Valesius, almost in every page of that
learned man's Annotations on Eusebius, and the Ecclesiastical
Historians published by him. The late Mr. Hales, of Eton, had likewise a
very good library; and so had Dr. Cosin, late Bishop of Duresme [and
afterwards of Durham], a considerable part of which I had agreed with
him for myself during his exile abroad, as I can show under his own
hand; but his late daughter, since my Lady Garret, thought I had not
offered enough, and made difficulty in delivering them to me till near
the time of his Majesty's restoration, and after that the Dean, her
father, becoming Bishop of that opulent See, bestowed them on the
library there. But the Lord Primate Usher was inferior to none I have
named among the clergy for rare MSS., a great part of which, being
brought out of Ireland, and left his son-in-law, Sir Timothy Tyrill, was
disposed of to give bread to that incomparable Prelate during the late
fanatic war. Such as remained yet at Dublin were preserved, and by a
public purse restored and placed in the college library of that
city. . . . I forbear to name the late Earl of Bristol's and his
kinsman's, Sir Kenelm Digby's, libraries, of more pompe than intrinsic
value, as chiefly consisting of modern poets, romances, chymical, and
astrological books. . . . As for those of Sir Kenelm, the catalogue was
printed and most of them sold in Paris, as many better have lately been
in London. The Duke of Lauderdale's[27:A] is yet entire, choicely
bound, and to be sold by a friend of mine, to whom they are pawned; but
it comes far short of his relation's, the Lord Maitland's, which was
certainly the noblest, most substantial and accomplished library that
ever passed under the speare, and heartily it grieved me to behold its
limbs, like those of the chaste Hippolytus, separated and torn from that
so well chosen and compacted a body. The Earl of Anglesey's, and several
others since, by I know not what invidious fate, passed the same
fortune, to whatever influence and constellation now reigning malevolent
to books and libraries, which can portend no good to the future age.'
[Illustration: _Wotton House in 1840._]