for the most part by men who lived in London--have been dispersed during
the past dozen years will not be without interest; those which have been
already referred to are, of course, omitted here. James Comerford,
F.S.A., by profession a notary public, who inherited from his father a
love of books, and also a considerable collection, had an exceedingly
fine library, which consisted for the most part of topographical works,
many of them on large paper with proof-plates. He was in his
seventy-sixth year when he died, and his books, which were sold at
Sotheby's in November, 1882 (thirteen days), realized a total of £8,327
13s. Frederic Ouvry, who died in June, 1881, was partner in the firm of
Farrer, Ouvry, and Co., of Lincoln's Inn; he was elected a Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries in 1848, and for twenty years was the society's
treasurer, and succeeded Earl Stanhope as president. He was a man of
considerable means, and formed one of the most interesting and most
choice of modern libraries. Many of his books fetched far higher sums
than he had paid for them; for example, Drummond of Hawthornden's 'Forth
Fasting,' 1617, cost him in 1858 £8 15s.--at his sale it fetched £60;
and Lodge's 'Rosalynd,' 1598, advanced from £5 10s. to £63. Mr. Ouvry
was an intimate friend of both Mr. Gladstone and Charles Dickens; a copy
of the former's 'Gleanings of Past Years' was a presentation one from
the author, and had the following inscription, 'Frederic Ouvry, Esq.,
from W. E. G., in memory of the work we have done together for fourteen
years in full harmony of thought and act.' There were 177 autograph
letters from Dickens, which sold for £150. The four folio Shakespeares
sold for £420, £46, £116, £28; a copy of the first edition of Spenser's
'Faërie Queene,' 1590-96, £33; a copy of Daniel's 'Delia,' 1592, with
corrections, supposed to be by the author, £88. The total of the six
days' sale was £6,169 2s.
A very remarkable library came under the hammer at Sotheby's on March
21-25, 1884, when the unique collection of the late Francis Bedford, the
eminent binder, was sold. The beauty of the bindings was naturally the
most striking feature of the library, but there were many books which
were rare or historically interesting apart from their coverings. For
example, there was the identical Prayer-Book that was found in the
pocket of Charles I. immediately after his execution; a copy of the
Breeches Bible printed in Scotland, 1579; one of the Pearl Bible, 1653;
a very fine copy of the 'Chronicon Nurembergense,' 1493. Bedford's own
_chef d'oeuvre_, a magnificent copy of Rogers' 'Italy' and 'Poems,' in
olive morocco, super extra, realized £116, whilst the total of the five
days' sale was £4,867 6s. 6d.
Among the more notable collections sold during 1885-7, that of the late
Leonard Laurie Hartley, at Puttick's, may be mentioned, containing as it
did some important books. Mr. Hartley has been described as a voracious
collector, and would buy almost anything the dealers offered him, and
almost at any price; hence he speedily became known as a good client,
and doubtless paid 'through the nose' for very many articles. The
extraordinarily extensive collection of books and manuscripts formed by
the late Sir Thomas Phillipps (who died in 1867), of Middle Hill,
Worcestershire, and Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham, commenced selling at
Sotheby's in 1886, and the supply is not yet by any means exhausted. Up
to March, 1895, seven portions had been dispersed, the total being
£15,766. Perhaps the most interesting item in this vast collection was
the original autograph manuscript of Sir Walter Scott's 'Life of Swift,'
which realized £230 in June, 1893.
During 1886 and 1887 the collections of two of the most genuine
book-hunters that ever lived came under the hammer. Professor Edward
Solly's extensive library of about 40,000 volumes, and comprising many
rare books on Defoe, Pope, Swift, Dryden, Samuel Butler, Johnson, Gray,
Cobbett, Paine, and also books of topography, biography, history,
travel, antiquities, bibliography, etc., only realized the total of
£1,544 13s. 6d. (November, 1886). The equally interesting library of the
late W. J. Thoms, founder of _Notes and Queries_, and Deputy-Librarian
of the House of Lords, realized two months after Mr. Solly's sale £1,094
9s. Mr. Thoms' library was considerably smaller than that of his friend
Mr. Solly, but they ran on very similar lines, Mr. Thoms' being
particularly strong in quaint and out-of-the-way books relating to Pope,
Junius, George IV., Queen Caroline, Princess Olive of Cumberland,
Reynard the Fox, and Longevity. The first part of the library of another
indefatigable book-hunter, Cornelius Walford, came under the hammer at
the same place (Sotheby's) in February, 1887. Some interesting books
were included in the four days' sale of the library of Sir William
Hardy, F.S.A., late Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records (December,
1886), but the books were chiefly first editions of modern authors.
[Illustration: _W. J. Thoms, Book-collector._
Founder of _Notes and Queries_.]
But the two great collections of books, equally celebrated in their way,
with, however, little in common, which give to the year 1887 a most
special importance, were those of the Earl of Crawford, and the first
portion of the late James T. Gibson Craig's (of Edinburgh), both of
which were dispersed in June, each occupying Messrs. Sotheby ten days in
the dispersal. The Crawford sale of 2,146 lots realized a total of
£19,073 9s. 6d., or an average of over £8 17s. per lot, whilst the
Gibson Craig sale of 2,927 lots produced only £6,803 8s., or an average
of a little over £2 6s. The former included, however, a perfect copy of
the Mazarin or Gutenberg Bible, which realized £2,650, and a copy of
Fust and Schoeffer's Bible, 1462, which sold for £1,025. Coverdale's
Bible realized £226, and Tyndale's Bible £255, whilst Tyndale's New
Testament, printed at Antwerp by Emperour, brought £230. The celebrated
block-book, the Apocalypse of St. John, generally regarded as the second
attempt in xylographic printing, realized £500. Sir Philip Sidney's
'Arcadia,' 1590, first edition, sold for £93. (It may be here mentioned
that the second portion of the Crawford library was sold in June, 1889,
when 1,105 lots realized £7,324 4s. 6d.--three Caxtons produced a total
of £588; Cicero, 'Old Age,' 1481, etc., £320; Higden's 'Policronicon,'
1482, £33; and 'Christine of Pisa,' 1489, £235.) The Gibson Craig
collection was essentially a modern one, and included a number of finely
illustrated books. One of the chief rarities was a copy of the first
edition of 'Robinson Crusoe,' which fetched £50. There were also a
number of autograph letters and MSS. of Sir Walter Scott, the most
important of which was the MS. of the 'Chronicles of the Canongate,'
£141. The second and third portions of the Gibson Craig library were
sold in March and November, 1888, the total of the three sales being
£15,509 4s. 6d. The library of the Earl of Aylesford was sold at
Christie's, March 6-16, 1888; and in June and November of the same year,
the extensive collection of the late R. S. Turner, of the Albany,
occupied Messrs. Sotheby twenty-eight days, 7,568 lots realizing a total
of over £16,000. A previous sale of 774 items of his books occurred in
France in 1878, and realized 319,100 francs. Turner's books included
many exceedingly choice volumes bound by the most eminent craftsmen,
such as Clovis Eve, Deseuil, Bozet, Derome, Padeloup, Capé,
Trautz-Bauzonnet, Roger Payne, Bedford, and Rivière. Turner was born in
1819, and died in June, 1887. Perhaps the great book sensation of 1888
occurred in the sale at Christie's when a portion of the library of the
late Lord Chancellor Hardwicke ('The Wimpole Library') was sold, and
when a dozen tracts relating to America, bound together in a quarto
volume, realized the unheard-of sum of £555. In the same sale also there
were three Caxtons: the 'Game and Play of Chesse,' 1475-76, first
edition, but not quite perfect, £260; and 'The Myrrour of the Worlde;'
and Tullius 'De Amicitia,' both imperfect, in one volume, £60.
We can only briefly allude here to some of the more important
collections which have been sold in London during the past six years. In
the majority of instances they were the possession of deceased
individuals, who for the most part lived out of London. In February,
1889, the Hopetoun House Library, the property of the Right Hon. the
Earl of Hopetoun, was sold at Sotheby's, 1,263 lots realizing £6,117
6s., the most important items in the sale being a copy of the
Gutenberg-Fust Latin Bible, 1450-55, £2,000, and the _editio princeps_
Virgil, 1469, £590. The library of Mr. John Mansfield Mackenzie, of
Edinburgh, sold at the same place in the following March (2,368 lots =
£7,072), was one of the most important collections dispersed in recent
years; it was especially rich in first editions of modern writers, in
_curious_ books, and in literature relating to the drama; it included an
exceedingly extensive series of Cruikshankiana, many of which realized
prices which have not since been maintained. The most important lots in
the sale of a selection from the library of the Duke of Buccleuch, at
Sotheby's, March 25-27, 1889, were five Caxtons, viz.: 'Dictes and
Sayengis of the Philosophirs,' 1477, first edition, £650; 'The
Chronicles of England,' first edition, 1480, £470; the same, second
edition, 1482, £45; Higden's 'Descripcion of Britayne,' 1480, £195; and
the 'Royal Book, or Book for a King' (? 1487), £365.
[Illustration: _Hollingbury Copse, the Residence of the late Mr.
Halliwell-Phillipps._]
Many interesting items occurred in the sale (July, 1889) of the library
of the late J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps (one of the most distinguished of
London book-hunters), which occurred a few months after the venerable
owner's death. The amount realized for 1,291 lots was £2,298 10s. 6d.;
and among them were several Shakespeare quartos, in all instances
slightly imperfect. By far the most important feature of the
Shakespearian rarities, drawings and engravings, preserved at
Hollingbury Copse, near Brighton--'that quaint wigwam on the Sussex
Downs which had the honour of sheltering more record and artistic
evidences connected with the personal history of the great dramatist
than are to be found in any other of the world's libraries'--still
remains intact, according to the late owner's direction. It was offered
to the Corporation of Birmingham for £7,000, but without avail. The
collection comprises early engraved portraits of Shakespeare, authentic
personal relics, documentary evidences respecting his estates and
individuals connected with his biography, and artistic illustrations of
localities connected with his personal history. The most important of
the several hundred items is perhaps the unique early proof of the
famous Droeshout portrait, for which Halliwell-Phillipps gave £100, and
for which an American collector offered him £1,000. A calendar of this
extraordinary assembly was very carefully edited by Mr. E. E. Baker,
F.S.A., in 1891, and the collection is still intact. Writing in June,
1887, Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps himself tells us that for nearly half a
century he had been an ardent Shakespearian collector, 'being most
likely the only survivor of the little band who attended the sale of the
library of George Chalmers somewhere about the year 1840. But for a long
time, attempting too much in several directions with insufficient
means, and harassed, moreover, by a succession of lawsuits, including
two in the Court of Torture--I mean Chancery--I was unable to retain my
accumulations; and thus it came to pass that bookcase full after
bookcase full were disposed of, some by private contract, many under the
vibrations of the auctioneer's hammer. This state of affairs continued
till February, 1872, but since that period, by a strict limitation of my
competitive resources to one subject--the Life of Shakespeare--I have
managed to jog along without parting with a single article of any
description.'
A much more important collection of Shakespeariana than that which
appeared in the Halliwell-Phillipps sale came under the hammer at the
same place a few days afterwards, when the late Frederick Perkins's
library was dispersed (2,086 lots realized £8,222 7s.). The sale, in
fact, was the most important in this respect since that of George Daniel
in 1864, to which, however, the Perkins Collection was considerably
inferior. Mr. Perkins had spent many years of search and a large sum of
money in collecting early editions of Shakespeare, but during the past
thirty years not only has their value gone up in an appalling degree,
but they are for the most part positively unprocurable. Under these
depressing conditions, Mr. Perkins managed nevertheless to obtain
eighteen first or very early quarto editions of Shakespeare's plays; and
poor as is this show when compared with that of George Daniel, it is
doubtful whether a sale so extensive from the particular point of view
under consideration as that of Mr. Perkins can be expected until well
into the next century. The highest price was paid for 'The Second Part
of Henrie the Fourth,' 1600, £225; 'Romeo and Juliet,' 1599, fetched
£164; the 'Merchant of Venice,' 1600 (printed by J. Roberts), £121;
'Henry V.,' 1608, third edition, £99. The First Folio fetched £415.
The dispersals of book-collections in 1890 included a few of
considerable note. The exceedingly extensive one, for example, of the
late Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart., Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was highly
interesting as illustrating a phase of book-collecting which is now all
but obsolete. It was rich in the classics, which three-quarters of a
century ago would have created the greatest excitement. It occupied
twenty-one days (May-June), when 6,919 lots realized a total of £10,982
3s.--a highly satisfactory result, when the general depreciation in the
market value of the classics is considered. The extensive library of Mr.
Thomas Gaisford (2,218 lots, £9,182 15s. 6d.), which was sold in April,
1890, included not only some fine editions of the classics, but a
remarkable series of Blake's works, first editions of Keats, Byron,
Shelley, Swinburne, the four folio editions of Shakespeare, and a few
quartos, notably the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' 1602, £385; 'Love's
Labour Lost,' 1598, £140; and 'Much Adoe about Nothing,' 1600, £130, all
first editions. Some very interesting and rare Shakespeare items
occurred also in the sale of the library of the late Frederick William
Cosens, 1890, _e.g._, 'Merchant of Venice,' 1600, £270; and the 'Poems,'
1640, £61. The dramatic library of the late Frank Marshall (Sotheby's,
June, 1890, £2,187 14s. 6d.), and the angling books of the late Francis
Francis (Puttick's, July, 1890), were interesting collections in the way
of special books.
The most noteworthy collections dispersed in 1891 included the Walton
Hall library of the late Edward Hailstone, who was D.L. of the West
Riding, Yorkshire (sold in February and April, 5,622 lots, £8,991 5s.
6d.), among which were many books of an exceedingly curious character;
and the 'Lakelands' library of the late W. H. Crawford, of Lakelands,
co. Cork (3,428 lots, £21,255 19s. 6d.), remarkable on account of its
copy of the Valdarfer Boccaccio, 1471, £230; a copy (? unique) of
Caviceo, 'Dialogue treselegant intitule le Peregrin,' 1527, on vellum,
with the arms of France, £355; the Landino edition of Dante, 1481, with
the engravings by Bacio Baldini from the designs by Botticelli, £360;
Shakespeare's 'Lucrece,' 1594, £250, and 'Merchant of Venice,' 1600,
£111; and the 'Legenda Aurea,' printed by Caxton, 1483, £465. The
topographical and general library of the late Lord Brabourne was sold in
May, 1891, also at Sotheby's; whilst the remainder of this library was
sold at Puttick's in June, 1893. The collections scattered in 1892
included few of note, but we may mention those of the late Joshua H.
Hutchinson, G. B. Anderson, and R. F. Cooke (a partner in the firm of
John Murray, the eminent publisher) as including many first editions of
modern authors; whilst those of John Wingfield Larking and Edwin Henry
Lawrence, F.S.A., included a number of rare books, as may be gathered
from the fact that the library of the former comprised 946 lots, which
realized £3,925 13s., and that of the latter, 860 lots, £7,409 3s. The
most interesting collection sold in 1893 was the selected portions from
the books, MSS., and letters collected by William Hazlitt, his son, and
his grandson; of the first importance in another direction was the sale
of the Bateman heirlooms (books and MSS.).
The late Rev. W. E. Buckley, M.A., formerly Fellow and Tutor of
Brasenose College, Oxford, and late Rector of Middleton-Cheney, Banbury,
and vice-president of the Roxburghe Club, was a veritable Heber in a
small way. Besides the enormous quantity of books sold in two portions
(twenty-two days in all) in February, 1893, and April, 1894, several
vanloads were disposed of locally, as not being worth the cost of
carriage to London. His library must have comprised nearly 100,000
volumes, of which only a small proportion had any commercial importance.
He managed, however, in his long career, to pick up a few bargains,
notably the Columbus 'Letter' ('Epistola Christofori Colom.,' four
leaves, 1493, with which was bound up Vespucci, 'Mundus novus Albericus
Vesputius,' etc., 1503, also four leaves), which cost him less than £5,
and which realized £315; he also possessed a first edition of
Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield,' 1766, £39 10s.; Keats's 'Poems,' first
edition, 1817, in the original boards, £23 10s.; Fielding's 'Tom Jones,'
1749, first edition, uncut, in the original boards, £69. The two
portions of the Buckley library sold at Sotheby's realized £9,420 9s.
6d. The smallest, as well as the choicest, library sold in 1894 (June
11) comprised the most select books from the collection of Mr. Birket
Foster, the distinguished artist. The first, second, third, and fourth
folio Shakespeares sold for £255, £56, £130, and £25 respectively; the
quarto editions of the great dramatist included 'A Midsummer Night's
Dream,' 1600, large copy, £122; 'Merchant of Venice,' 1600, £146; 'King
Lear,' 1608, £100. Mr. Foster also possessed John Milton's copy of
'Lycophronis Alexandra,' which realized £90; an incomplete copy of
Caxton's 'Myrrour of the World,' 1491, £77. The valuable and interesting
dramatic and miscellaneous library of the late Frederick Burgess, of the
Moore and Burgess minstrels, was sold at Sotheby's, in May-June, 1894,
and included many choice editions of modern authors.
The late Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte was a giant among
book-collectors, but his books were almost exclusively philological. Mr.
Victor Collins, who has compiled an 'Attempt' at a catalogue, in which
there are no less than 13,699 entries, states that 'as a young man the
Prince was fond of chemistry, and on one occasion he was desirous of
reading a chemical work that happened to exist only in Swedish. He
learned Swedish for the purpose, and this gave him a taste for
languages, very many of which he studied. His object in forming the
library was to discover, rather perhaps to show, the relationship of all
languages to each other. Nor was it only distinct languages he included
in his plan, but their dialects, their corruptions, even slang, thieves'
slang--slang of all kinds. In carrying out his idea the Prince had of
course the advantages of exceptional abilities, and, until the fall of
the Empire, of unlimited money. Some of the bindings are very beautiful.
As to the printing, the Prince for long had a fully-fitted
printing-office on the basement floor of his house in Norfolk Terrace,
Bayswater. The Prince being a Senator of France, a cousin of Louis
Napoleon, and a well-known philologist, people brought him all sorts of
interesting books. Therefore it is not surprising to find that the
library includes rare works not present, for instance, in the British
Museum. There are three early German Bibles which Mr. Gladstone,
visiting the Prince once, thought should be presented to the British
Museum. To the best of Mr. Gladstone's knowledge, one of the three did
not exist anywhere else, and either of the three would be worth about
£500. They are remarkable specimens of early German printing, and are
profusely illustrated.' Mr. Collins calculates that there are at least
25,000 volumes in the collection, and that fully thirty alphabets are
spread through them. This extraordinary collection, like the
Shakespearian one formed by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, is still awaiting a
purchaser (see the _Times_, July 25, 1895).
The collection, also a special one, of a recently-deceased
book-collector may be mentioned here, and for the following particulars
we are indebted to Mr. Elliot Stock: 'Edmund Waterton, the son of
Charles Waterton, the naturalist, lived at first at Walton Hall, his
father's residence. He sold this, and bought a house at Deeping,
Waterton, where his ancestors formerly lived. He had a large old
library, a great part of which he inherited from his father. His great
pleasure was in his "Imitatio Christi" collection. He succeeded in
gathering together some 1,500 different editions, printed and MS. He had
given commissions to booksellers all over Europe to send him any edition
they might meet with, and one of the pleasures of his life was to see
the foreign packets come by post. I sent him a seventeenth-century
edition which I came across accidentally for his acceptance on "spec."
It turned out it was one he had been looking for for a long time, and
his letter describing his glee when it was brought up to his bedroom in
the morning with his breakfast was very comic. He kept an oblong volume
like a washing-book, with all the editions he knew of, some thousands in
all, and his delight in ticking one more off the lengthy _desiderata_
was like that of a schoolboy marking off the "days to the holidays."
Edmund Waterton had a number of rare books besides those in his
"Imitation" collection; notably a very tall First Folio Shakespeare,
with contemporary comments made by some ancestor, who had also made good
some of the missing pages in MS. He was a lineal descendant of Sir
Thomas More, on his mother's side, and possessed Sir T. More's clock,
which still went when I stayed with him. It was apparently the same
clock that hangs on the wall at the back of Holbein's celebrated
picture of Sir Thomas More and his family. Waterton had one of the
longest and clearest pedigrees in the country, tracing back to Saxon
times without break; his family were Catholics, and seem to have lost
most of their property in the troublous times of the Reformation. Anyone
who was interested in the "Imitation," whether as a collector or not,
always met with kindness, and almost affection, from him. The first time
I met him--which arose from my making the facsimile of the Brussels
MS.--he showed his confidence and goodwill by lending me, for several
days, his oblong record of editions to look over.'
Mr. Waterton's collection of the 'Imitation' came under the hammer at
Sotheby's in January, 1895, in two lots. The first comprised six
manuscripts and 762 printed editions, ancient and modern, in various
languages, of this celebrated devotional work, arranged in languages in
chronological order. It realized £101. The second lot comprised a
collection of 437 printed editions, a few of which were not included in
the former, and sold for the equally absurd amount of £43. The British
Museum had the first pick of this collection, and the authorities were
enabled to fill up a large number of gaps in their already extensive
series of editions. The six MSS. and over 250 printed editions passed
into the possession of Dr. Copinger, of Manchester, through Messrs.
Sotheran, of the Strand, who, indeed, purchased the two 'lots' when
offered at Sotheby's.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[47:A] 'In a small gloomy house within the gates of Elliot's
Brewery, between Brewer Street, Pimlico, and York Street,
Westminster.'--Wheatley's edition of Cunningham's 'London.'
[55:A] The library of Beauclerk (who is better remembered as an intimate
friend of Dr. Johnson than as a book-collector) comprised 30,000
volumes, was sold by Paterson in 1781, and occupied fifty days. It was a
good collection of classics, poetry, the drama, books of prints,
voyages, travels, and history.
[61:A] Among the absentees were his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, who
was prevented attending the anniversary by indisposition, the Marquis of
Blandford, and Sir M. M. Sykes, Bart.
[62:A] The name really employed was Bannatyne.
[64:A] Thorpe suspected this, and secured the volume, thinking to do his
friends of the Roxburghe Club a good turn. Writing to Dibdin, Thorpe
said: 'I bought it for £40 against the editor of the _Athenæum_, who, if
he got it, would have shown the club up finely larded.' But Dibdin did
not jump at paying so heavy a price for silence, and Thorpe wisely
consoled himself with Mr. Dilke's £50.
[68:A] Heathcote dispersed two portions of his books at Sotheby's, first
in April, 1802, and secondly in May, 1808. Some of the books which Dent
obtained for him, with additions, were sold at the same place in April,
1808.