the most celebrated of all the antiquaries and historians of Scotland,'
was also one of the giant book-collectors of the present century, and
differed from the majority of collectors in being a prolific and
versatile author. At his death his nephew became the possessor of his
extensive library, but on the death of the nephew the books were placed
in the hands of Evans, who sold them in two parts, September, 1841, and
February, 1842, and realized over £4,100. The second part was very rich
in Shakespeariana, and included the 'Sonnets,' 1609, £105; 'Midsummer
Night's Dream,' 1600 (second edition), £105; and many other important
items. In the first part of the sale, Marlowe's 'Tragedie of Richard,
Duke of York,' 1595 (believed to be unique), sold for £131; and the only
perfect copy then known of Patrick Hannay's 'Nightingale,' 1622, from
the libraries of Bindley, Perry, Sykes and Rice, £13 5s. The third part
of Chalmers' library, which consisted for the most part of works
relative to Scotland, particularly in illustration of the History of
Printing in that Country, was also sold by Evans in 1842. Among other
book-collectors of this period we may mention particularly the Rev.
Henry Joseph Thomas Drury, whose library was rich in classics, all for
the most part finely bound; it came under the hammer at Evans's in 1827
(4,729 lots); Dr. Isaac Gosset, who died in 1812, in his sixty-eighth
year, and whose library, comprising 5,740 lots, realized £3,141 7s. 6d.
at Leigh and Sotheby's in 1813; the Rev. Jonathan Boucher (1738-1804),
Vicar of Epsom, who, like George Chalmers, for many years resided in
America, was, also like him, an inveterate book-collector to whom
everything in the shape of a book was welcome: his sale occupied Leigh
and Sotheby thirty-nine days, in 1806, the total being over £4,510.
III.
The history of the second and third quarters of the present century
makes mention of very few collectors of the first rank. Among the more
important of those whose libraries came under the hammer within that
period, we may specially refer to the following: William Upcott, who
started early in life as an assistant to R. H. Evans, but who in 1806
became sub-librarian of the London Institution. He was one of the first
to take up autograph-collecting, of which, indeed, he has been termed
the pioneer. He certainly collected with great advantage and knowledge,
and his vast accumulations were sold at Sotheby's in four batches
during 1846, he having died in September, 1845; John Hugh Smyth Piggott,
whose library, in three portions, was sold at the same place, 1847-54;
W. Y. Ottley, the prolific writer of books on art, 1849; W. Holgate, of
the Post Office, whose library included a number of Shakespeariana,
June, 1846; Hanrott, 1857; Sir Thomas Bernard, 1855; Isaac D'Israeli,
the author of 'Curiosities of Literature,' in 1849, and his unsparing
critic, Bolton Corney, in 1871; S. W. Singer, in four parts, 1860; J.
Orchard Halliwell (afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps), in 1856, 1857, and
1859; and the Rev. Dr. Hawtrey, part of whose books were sold, far below
their worth, in 1853, and the rest nine years later. Many of the
foregoing were literary men, who aimed rather at getting together a
useful library than one of rarities. The sale of all such libraries
makes a very sorry show beside that of the more ostentatious
collections. For instance, the books which Macaulay used with such
brilliant effect, and including among them an extraordinary number of
tracts, many excessively rare, only realized £426 15s. 6d., when sold in
1863 in 1,011 lots. Douglas Jerrold's little library, sold in August,
1859, in 307 lots, only fetched £173 3s. In very strong contrast to
these is the remarkable little library, formed between 1820 and 1830 by
Henry Perkins, of Hanworth Park, Feltham, a member of the brewing firm.
This collection comprised only 865 lots, but when sold at Sotheby's in
June, 1873, the total was found to be close on £26,000! There was a
copy each of the 42-line and 40-line Gutenberg Bible--the former is now
in the Huth Library, and the latter in the Ashburnham Library; several
other very early printed Bibles, including Coverdale's, Matthews', and
Cranmer's, two works printed by Caxton, with many other important books
were sold.
[Illustration: _J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps._]
The late George Daniel (who was born about 1790) may be regarded as the
connecting link between the collectors of the early part of the present
century and those of to-day. When, for example, Perry and Bindley left
off, Daniel commenced. There was no great rush after Shakespeare quartos
in the earlier part of the present century, and book-collecting for a
time ceased to be the pet hobby of wealthy members of the peerage. When
George Daniel, a critic and bibliographer of exceptional abilities,
began to collect, he soon made Shakespeare, as well as the earlier
English poets, objects of solicitude. He resided for many years in the
historic old red-brick tower at Canonbury.[72:A] The sale of Daniel's
extraordinary collection was held at Sotheby's in July, 1864, when a
First Folio, one of the finest in the world--now in the possession of
Baroness Burdett-Coutts--sold for £716 2s., and when twenty of the
Shakespeare quartos realized a total of about £3,000.
[Illustration: _Canonbury Tower, George Daniel's Residence._]
George Daniel is now remembered by but few book-collectors. Mr. W. Carew
Hazlitt knew him very well, and describes him as a retired accountant,
whose idiosyncrasy consisted of _rares morçeaux_, _bonnes bouches_,
uniques--copies of books with a _provenance_, or in jackets made for
them by Roger Payne--nay, in the original parchment or paper wrapper, or
in a bit of real mutton which certain men call sheep. He was a person
of literary tastes, and had written books in his day. But his chief
celebrity was as an acquirer of those of others, provided always that
they were old enough or rare enough. An item never passed into his
possession without at once _ipso facto_ gaining new attributes, almost
invariably worded in a holograph memorandum on the fly-leaf. Daniel was
in the market at a fortunate and peculiar juncture, just when prices
were depressed, about the time of the great Heber sale. His marvellous
gleanings came to the hammer precisely when the quarto Shakespeare, the
black-letter romance, the unique book of Elizabethan verse, had grown
worth ten times their weight in sovereigns. Sir William Tite, J. O.
Halliwell, and Henry Huth were to the front. It was in 1864. What a
wonderful sight it was! No living man had ever witnessed the like.
Copies of Shakespeare, printed from the prompters' MSS. and published at
fourpence, fetched £300 or £400. I remember old Joseph Lilly, when he
had secured the famous Ballads, which came from the Tollemaches of
Helmingham Hall, holding up the folio volume in which they were
contained in triumph as someone whom he knew entered the room. Poor
Daniel! he had no mean estimate of his treasures--what he had was always
better than what you had. Books, prints, autographs--it was all the
same. I met him one morning in Long Acre. I had bought a very fine copy
of Taylor, the Water Poet. "Oh, yes, sir," he said, "I saw it; but not
quite so fine as mine." He went up to Highgate to look through the
engravings of Charles Matthews the elder. They were all duplicates--of
course inferior ones. "Damn him, sir!" cried Matthews afterwards to a
friend; "I should like him to have had a duplicate of my wooden leg."
John Payne Collier, who was born a year before Daniel, but who lived
until 1883, was a collector with very similar tastes. He had been a
reporter on the _Morning Chronicle_, and in all probability imbibed some
of his book-collecting zeal from Perry. His book-buying and literary
career commenced, according to his own account, in 1804 or 1805, when
his father took him into the shop of Thomas Rodd, senior, on which
occasion he purchased his 'first Old English book of any value,' namely,
Wilson's 'Art of Logic,' printed by Grafton, 1551; from this he
ascertained that 'Ralf Roister Doister' was an older play than 'Gammer
Gurton's Needle,' and also that it was by Nicholas Udal, Master of Eton
School. When in Holland, in the winter of 1813-14, Collier purchased
among other books an imperfect copy of Tyndale's 'Gospel of St.
Matthew,' to which, as he says in his 'Diary,' 'the date of 1526 [1525]
has been assigned, and which seems to be the very earliest translation
into English of any portion of the New Testament. Many years
afterwards--I think in the spring of 1832--I happened to show it to
Rodd, the learned bookseller. I was at that time ignorant on the
subject, and Rodd offered me books to the value of two or three pounds
for it. I gladly accepted them.' This fragment, for which Collier paid a
florin, was sold to Mr. Grenville by Rodd for £50, and is now in the
British Museum. Writing in the _Athenæum_, January 31, 1852, he gives an
account of the origin of events which led to one of the fiercest
literary quarrels of modern times: 'A short time before the death of the
late Mr. Rodd, of Newport Street [_i.e._ early in 1849], I happened to
be in his shop when a considerable parcel of books arrived from the
country. He told me that they had been bought for him at an auction--I
think in Bedfordshire. . . . He unpacked them in my presence . . . and
there were two which attracted my attention, one being a fine copy of
Florio's "Italian Dictionary," of the edition of 1611, and the other a
much-thumbed, abused, and imperfect copy of the Second Folio of
Shakespeare, 1632. The first I did not possess, and the last I was
willing to buy, inasmuch as I apprehended it would add some missing
leaves to a copy of the same impression which I had had for some time on
my shelves. As was his usual course, Mr. Rodd required a very reasonable
price for both; for the first I remember I gave 12s. and for the last
only £1 10s. . . . On the outside of one of the covers was inscribed,
"Tho. Perkins, his booke."' Collier was vexed at finding that the volume
contained no leaves which would help him in completing the volume he
already had. He had employed another person to do the collating, and it
was not until some considerable time after, and on examining thoroughly
the volume himself, that he discovered it to contain a large series of
emendations, which Collier included in his 'Notes and Emendations to the
Text of Shakespeare's Plays,' 1853, which set the whole town by the
ears. Collier's library was dispersed at Sotheby's in 1884; it was an
unusually interesting sale, and included many very rare and curious
books.
[Illustration: _Samuel Taylor Coleridge._
From the Portrait by G. Dawe, R.A., 1812.]
Southey, Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Wordsworth, and William Hazlitt were
book-collectors of a type which deserves a niche to itself. Writing to
Coleridge in 1797, Lamb says: 'I have had thoughts of turning Quaker,
and have been reading, or am, rather, just beginning to read, a most
capital book, good thoughts in good language, William Penn's "No Cross,
no Crown." I like it immensely.' Lamb's ideas of book-marking are to be
found in his correspondence with Coleridge, in which he states that a
book reads the better when the topography of its plots and notes is
thoroughly mastered, and when we 'can trace the dirt in it, to having
read it at tea with buttered muffins, or over a pipe.' Lamb's library
consisted for the most part of tattered volumes in a dreadful state of
repair. Lamb, like Young, the poet, dog-eared his books to such an
extent that many of them would hardly close at all. From the
correspondence of Bernard Barton we get a glimpse at Lamb's cottage in
Colebrook Row, Islington--a white house with six good rooms. 'You enter
without passage into a cheerful dining-room, all studded over and rough
with old books.' Barton also writes: 'What chiefly attracted me was a
large old book-case full of books. I could but think how many long walks
must have been taken to bring them home, for there were but few that
did not bear the mark of having been bought at many a bookstall--brown,
dark-looking books, distinguished by those white tickets which told how
much their owner had given for each.'
[Illustration: _Lamb's Cottage at Colebrook Row, Islington._]
In an edition of Donne [? 1669] which belonged to Lamb, Coleridge
scrawled: 'I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you will not
be vexed that I have be-scribbled your book. S. T. C., 2nd May, 1811.'
Lamb was too good-natured to be a book-collector. On one occasion
William Hazlitt[77:A] sent Martin Burney to Lamb to borrow Wordsworth's
'Excursion,' and Lamb being out, Burney took it, a high-handed
proceeding which involved the borrower in a blowing-up. Coleridge at
another time helped himself to Luther's 'Table-Talk,' and this also
called forth a great outcry. A copy of Chapman's Homer, which passed
through the hands of Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge, eventually turned
up in one of Lilly's catalogues. This identical copy is noticed in an
account of Rydal Mount which appeared in the first volume of _Once a
Week_. Coleridge, of course, has made a number of notes in it, and in
one of these he describes the translation as 'an exquisite poem, spite
of its frequent and perverse quaintness and harshnesses, which are,
however, amply repaid by almost unexampled sweetness and beauty of
language.'
[Illustration: _William Hazlitt._]
The difference between a bibliophile and a bibliomaniac has been
described as between one who adorns his mind, and the other his
book-cases. Of the bibliomaniac as here characterized, we can suggest no
better type than Thomas Hill, the original of Poole's 'Paul Pry,' and of
Hull in Hook's novel, 'Gilbert Gurney.' Devoid as Hill was of
intellectual endowments, he managed to obtain and secure the friendship
of many eminent men--of Thomas Campbell, the poet, Matthews and Liston,
the comedians, Hook, Dubois, John and Leigh Hunt, James and Horace
Smith, John Taylor, editor of the _Sun_, Horace Twiss, Baron Field, Sir
George Rose, Barnes, subsequently editor of the _Times_, Cyrus Redding,
and many others. That he was kind-hearted and hospitable nearly everyone
has testified, and his literary parties at his Sydenham Tusculum were
quite important events, in spite of the ponderosity of his well-worn
stories. During the more acute stages of bibliomania in this country at
the latter part of the last century and the beginning of this, 'when the
Archaica, Heliconia, and Roxburghe Clubs were outbidding each other for
old black-letter works . . . when books, in short, which had only become
scarce because they were always worthless, were purchased upon the same
principle as that costly and valueless coin, a Queen Anne's farthing,'
Hill had been a constant collector of rare and other books which were in
demand. That he knew nothing of the insides of his books is very
certain; but he knew how much each copy would bring at an auction, and
how much it had brought at all previous sales. When the bibliomania had
reached its height, Messrs. Longman and Co. determined upon embarking in
such a lucrative branch of the trade; they applied to Hill for advice
and assistance, offering to begin by the purchase of his entire
collection, a proposition which he embraced with alacrity. He drew up a
_catalogue raisonné_ of his books, affixing his price for each volume.
The collection was despatched in three or four trunks to Paternoster
Row, and he received in payment the acceptances of the firm for as many
thousand pounds. From some cause or other, the purchasers soon repented
of their bargain, but the only terms which Horace Smith could obtain for
the Longmans was an extension in the term of payment. Hill declared that
the collection was worth double the price he had been paid for it. For
many years Hill assisted Perry, of the _Morning Chronicle_, in making
selections of rare books for his fine library at Tavistock House,
particularly in the department of facetiæ. After leaving Sydenham, Hill
took chambers in James Street, Adelphi, where he resided until his
death. The walls of his rooms were completely hidden by books, and his
couch was 'enclosed in a lofty circumvallation of volumes piled up from
the carpet.' He was never married, had no relations, and even his age
was a source of mystery to his friends. James Smith once said to him:
'The fact is, Hill, the register of your birth was destroyed in the
Great Fire of London, and you take advantage of the accident to conceal
your real age.' Hook went further by suggesting that he might originally
have been one of the little hills recorded as skipping in the Psalms.
Hill died in 1840, his age being placed at eighty-three years. Horace
Smith said 'he could not believe that Hill was dead, and he could not
insult a man he had known so long; Hill would reappear.'
[Illustration: _Thomas Hill, after Maclise._]
Samuel Rogers, the banker poet, was also a book-collector, but not in
the sense of one who aims at number. His house at 22, St. James's Place,
overlooking Green Park, was for over half a century--he had removed
here from the Temple about 1803--one of the most celebrated
meeting-places of literature and art in London. Byron, in his 'Diary,'
says, 'If you enter his house--his drawing-room, his library--you of
yourself say, This is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a
gem, a coin, a book, thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his
table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the
possessor.' A writer in the _Athenæum_ of December 29, 1855, a few days
after the poet's death, describes the library as 'lined with bookcases
surmounted by Greek vases, each one remarkable for its exquisite beauty
of form. Upon the gilt lattice-work of the bookcases are lightly hung in
frames some of the finest original sketches by Raphael, Michelangelo,
and Andrea del Sarto; and finished paintings by Angelico da Fiesole, and
Fouquet of Tours.' Among the treasures of the library were the MSS. of
Gray, in their perfect calligraphy, and the famous agreement between
Milton and the publisher Simmonds, for the copyright of 'Paradise Lost.'
[Illustration: _Samuel Rogers's House in St. James's Place._]
[Illustration: Sam{l} Rogers]
Tom Moore the poet, and his friend and fellow-countryman, Thomas
Crofton Croker, were both book-collectors. The library of the former
was, in 1855, presented by his widow to the Royal Irish Academy, 'as a
memorial of her husband's taste and erudition.' Croker's books, which
were dispersed after his death, contain an exceedingly curious
book-plate, either indicating the possessor's residence, 'Rosamond's
Bower, Fulham,' or '3, Gloucester Road, Old Brompton,' the various
learned societies to which he belonged, with the additional information
that he was founder and president (1828-1848) of the Society of
Novimagus. Charles Dickens, Thackeray, W. Harrison Ainsworth (the
collection of the last was sold at Sotheby's in 1882, and realized £469
19s. 6d.), and Charles Lever were not book-collectors in the usual sense
of the word.
[Illustration: _Alexander Dyce, Book-collector._]
Among the more notable literary men who were also book-collectors of
this period, whose libraries are still preserved intact, are Alexander
Dyce and John Forster. Their collections, now at South Kensington, are
perhaps more particularly notable for the extraordinary number of books
which were once the property of famous men. Mr. Dyce, who was born in
Edinburgh, June, 1798, and died in 1869, bequeathed to the Museum 14,000
books, whilst the library of his friend and executor, John Forster
(1812-1876), contained upwards of 18,000 books, in addition to a number
of autographs, pictures, etc. The more interesting books of a 'personal'
nature in these two libraries are the following: Drayton's 'Battaile of
Agincourt,' 1627, a presentation copy to Sir Henry Willoughby, with
inscription in Drayton's autograph; a French cookery-book, with Gray's
autograph on the title; Ben Jonson's copy (with his autograph) of the
first collected edition of Marston's plays, 1633; a copy of Steele's
'Christian Hero,' with some verses in his autograph addressed to Dr.
Ellis, Head-master of the Charterhouse when Steele was at school.
Sheridan's plays include a presentation copy of 'The Rivals,' with an
inscription to David Garrick. The foregoing are all in the Dyce
Collection.
[Illustration: Ben: Jonson]
[Illustration:
To
My Lord Tutour D{r}. Ellis
With Secret impulse thus do Streams return
To that Capacious Ocean whence they're born:
Oh Would but Fortune come w{th}. bounty fraught
Proportion'd to y{e} mind w{ch}. thou hast taught!
Till then let these unpolish'd leaves impart
The Humble Offering of a Gratefull Heart
Rich{d}. Steele]
[Illustration: David Garrick Esq{r}.
From The Author.]
That of John Forster includes a copy of Addison's 'Travels in Italy,'
with an autograph inscription by the author: 'To Dr. Jonathan Swift, the
most Agreeable Companion, the Truest Friend, and the Greatest Genius of
his age, this Book is presented by his most Humble Servant the Author.'
Among the many books on America, there is one with John Locke's
autograph. The copy of the fourth edition of Byron's 'English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers,' 1811, is that which was given by the author to Leigh
Hunt, and contains the poet's autograph and many corrections; a
presentation copy of Flatman's 'Poems and Songs,' 1682, to Izaak Walton,
who has inscribed his autograph in it; Gay's copy of Horace; some
proof-sheets of Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets;' a copy of Keats's
'Lamia,' 1820, with an autograph inscription and a sonnet 'On the
Grasshopper and the Cricket,' also in the poet's handwriting; Gray's
copy of Locke's 'Essay concerning Human Understanding,' a copy of the
'Dunciad,' 1729, with the inscription 'Jonath: Swift, 1729, amicissimi
autoris donum'; and Isaac Newton's copy of Wheare's 'Method and Order of
Reading Histories,' 1685.
[Illustration: John Locke]
[Illustration:
Izaak Walton July 3{o}
1682 given me, by
the author.]
[Illustration: E Libris I. Newton.]
Apropos of books of distinguished ownership, the collecting of them
sometimes takes an eccentric turn; for example, the third Lord Holland
brought together all the various copies (now at Holland House) upon
which he could lay hands of Fox's 'History of the Reign of James II.,'
which belonged to distinguished people, and amongst these former owners
were Sir James Mackintosh, Sir Philip Francis, C. E. Jerningham, Rogers,
and General Fitzpatrick; and as many of the copies contained MS. notes,
the interest of the collection will be readily understood.