in their volumes, either yearly or half-yearly; but it often happens
that a magazine is bought for a single article, and many of these
accumulating, it is quite easy for such articles as are of special
interest to be taken from the remainder, and treated as pamphlets. In
the case of magazines and scientific periodicals of importance, it is
well to keep the covers and bind them at the end of each volume. Music
should be bound in limp roan in preference to limp calf, because the
latter would sooner show scratches and marks, particularly as a large
surface is exposed.
If you want your pamphlets and novels to look nice, beware of your
binder using what he calls his odd pieces, generally monsters of
ugliness.
Family papers, autograph letters, and MS. matter of all kinds should be
placed in the hands of an expert, with instructions to calendar them,
viz., catalogue them, giving a _précis_ of the contents of each one.
They should then be mounted and bound up in volumes, with abstract of
contents in front of the volume. It will be well to consider the
advisability of having typed copies made of the whole wherever
unpublished records exist.
Much, very much, more might be written about practical details in
bookbinding, but nothing is so valuable as experience, and a few
mistakes will be the best teacher. Remember that morocco is the best
material, whether it be half or whole morocco, pigskin is second, calf
is third, vellum is fourth, roan is fifth, buckram is sixth, though it
may frequently take the place of calf.
_Book Hobbies._
It has been remarked that only an auctioneer admires all schools of
literature. I think it is certain that the way to get most enjoyment
from books is to specialise a little. Mr. Pepys, it will be remembered,
collected Black Letter Ballads, Penny Merriments, Penny Witticisms,
Penny Compliments, and Penny Godlinesses, and what Pepys paid a penny
for are now worth much gold. Lord Crawford is, I believe, one of the
most enthusiastic among present day collectors, and I am told that he
spends many hours in arranging and cataloguing his extensive and curious
collection. As far as I can gather from the printed catalogues which
have been issued of Lord Crawford's library, he is rivalling Pepys in
his collection of ballads. Other subjects which he has taken up are
proclamations and Papal bulls. I cannot omit saying that if Lord
Crawford's example were followed by a few more rich men, they would find
therein very amusing hobbies. The catalogues of the Ballads and the
Proclamations in the Library at Haigh Hall have been compiled by Lord
Crawford's own hand, and there are no better catalogues of a private
collection in existence. The late Lord Braybrooke collected County
histories, and got together a most valuable and interesting collection.
But, judging from his own account of his collection,[26] it was too
general to be very interesting. There is hardly a more useful or
profitable book hobby than the collecting of Topographical books, but
each one should confine himself to one County, or at most two, and even
with discrimination in buying, a single County collection soon becomes
extensive. What should be aimed at in such a collection is the putting
together whatever will illustrate the archæology, general history, folk
lore, dialect, and natural history, of a district or County, and
wherever there is a Church and a Manor, there is a history. Each parish
history is the unit of the history of the nation, and any one
investigating the parochial history of a single parish will find much
national history written in between the lines. With regard to
topographical and genealogical books, I may say that the prices of these
are rapidly rising, and will continue to rise, owing largely to the
increasing competition in America for these books.
Sir Walter Gilbey has, it is well known, a fine collection of sporting
books. There is no sport but what has its literature, and if there is
one subject more than another, upon which the English mind is
unchanging, it is sport, and this being so, sporting books will always
offer a fine field for collectors. As the coaching age recedes farther
back, so it will be found that an increasing number of men will want to
read about what they no longer can hear _viva voce_. All out-door
subjects are good hobbies. Flower culture and the laying out of grounds,
birds and natural history generally are good subjects, but it must be
understood that no one can find another a subject, one can only
_suggest_, and that is all I propose to do here. Books offer a very
endless variety of hobbies. So I have merely named one or two highways,
and there is an endless maze of bypaths which offer delightful hunting
grounds. Dr. Johnson, it may be remembered, expressed a very sound
commonsense view of this matter to Boswell:
'When I mentioned that I had seen in the King's Library fifty-three
editions of my favourite _Thomas à Kempis_ . . . . in eight languages
. . . . Johnson said he thought it unnecessary to collect many editions of
a book which were all the same except as to paper and print. He would
have the original, and all the translations, and all editions having
variations in the text. He approved of the famous collection of the
editions of Horace by Douglas, and, he added, "Every man should try to
collect one book in that manner. . . . ."'
FOOTNOTE:
[26] _Murray's Magazine_, September, 1889.
_Old Country Libraries._
The library of Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford, which represented about the
maximum that an ordinary student would possess, consisted of
'A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,'
and these he kept 'at his beddes hed.'
Dr. Jessopp, in one of his learned papers,[27] has pointed out that in
the thirteenth century the number of books in the world was, to say the
least, small. A library of five hundred volumes would, in those days,
have been considered an important collection, and after making all due
allowances for ridiculous exaggerations, which have been made by
ill-informed writers on the subject, it may safely be said that nobody
in the thirteenth century--at any rate in England--would have erected a
large and lofty building as a receptacle for books, simply because
nobody could have contemplated the possibility of filling it. Here and
there amongst the larger and more important monasteries there were
undoubtedly collections of books, the custody of which was entrusted to
an accredited officer, but the time had not yet come for making
libraries well stored with such priceless treasures as Leland, the
antiquary, saw at Glastonbury, just before that magnificent foundation
was given as a prey to the spoilers. A library, in any such sense as we
now understand the term, was not only no essential part of a monastery
in those days, but it may almost be said to have been a rarity.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries we rarely meet with any
indications of a literary taste among the laity; the books they
purchased were more for ornament than use. But in the fifteenth century
we find books mentioned in a manner which would seem to indicate that
the laity were enabled to use them with pleasure. In 1395, Alice, Lady
West, left to Joan, her son's wife, 'all her books of Latin, English,
and French;' and from the memoranda of Sir John Howard, we learn that
that worthy knight could read at his leisure 'an Englyshe boke, callyd
_Dives et Pauper_,' for which, and 'a Frenshe boke,' in 1464, he paid
thirteen shillings and fourpence. The library of this member of the
Howard family was sufficiently extensive to enable him to select
therefrom, on the occasion of his going to Scotland, thirteen volumes
for his solace and amusement on the voyage.[28] In the Paston _Letters_
will be found a catalogue of the library of one of the members of this
fifteenth century family. In the monasteries books were, of course, used
and treasured long before they became part of the household goods of
rich laymen. The catalogue of the House of the White Canons, at
Titchfield, in Hampshire, dated 1400, shows that the books were kept in
a small room on shelves, and set against the walls. A closet of this
kind was evidently not a working place, but simply a place of storage.
By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the larger monasteries had
accumulated many hundred volumes, and it began to be customary to
provide for the collections separate quarters, rooms constructed for the
purpose. The presses in the cloisters were still utilised for books in
daily reference.[29] Duke Humphrey was a great book collector and patron
of letters, and presented to the University of Oxford many of the
illuminated treasures which he had collected. The magnificent collection
of Charles V. of France, also a great bibliomaniac, was brought by the
Duke of Bedford into England. This library contained 853 volumes of
great splendour, and the introduction of these books into England
stimulated a spirit of inquiry among the more wealthy laymen. Guy
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, collected a very fine library of early
romances, which about 1359, he left to the monks of Bordesley Abbey, in
Worcestershire. A list of this library will be found in Todd's
_Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer_.
Mr. J. W. Clark has, with quite wonderful learning, drawn a picture of
student-life of the past with such graphic vigour that we can almost
reinstate Colet, Casaubon, and Erasmus, and picture them exactly as they
worked among their books. In Macaulay's chapter upon _The State of
England in 1685_, are given numerous facts about the difficulty the
clergy had in getting books, and the little desire there was among the
squires to possess libraries. Few knights of the shire had libraries so
good as may now perpetually be found in a servants' hall, or in the back
parlour of a small shopkeeper. An esquire passed among his neighbours
for a great scholar if _Hudibras_ and _Baker's Chronicle_, _Tarleton's
Jests_, and the _Seven Champions of Christendom_, lay in his hall window
among the fishing rods and fowling pieces. No circulating library, no
book society, then existed, even in the capital; but in the capital
those students who could not afford to purchase largely had a resource.
The shops of the great booksellers, near St. Paul's Churchyard, were
crowded every day and all day long with readers. In the country there
was no such accommodation, and every man was under the necessity of
buying whatever he wished to read. Macaulay further points out that
Cotton seems, from his _Angler_, to have found room for his whole
library in his hall window; and Cotton was a man of letters. In the
_Life of Dr. John North_ there is an account of that delightful person's
dealings with Mr. Robert Scott, of Little Britain, a very famous
bookseller in the seventeenth century.
Dr. John North is really a fascinating personality.[30] His soul was
'never so staked down as in an old bookseller's shop, for, having taken
orders, he was restless till he had compassed some of that sort of
furniture as he thought necessary for his profession.
'I have borne him company,' says his biographer, 'at shops for hours
together, and, minding him of the time, he hath made a dozen proffers
before he would quit. By this care and industry he made himself master
of a very considerable library, wherein the choicest collection was
Greek.'
Pepys wished that his name should go down to posterity as a man fond of
books. The arrangements for the settlement of his library after death
prove this. The numerous references throughout the _Diary_ show that he
had a passion for collecting, and showed good judgment in what he got
together. Pepys, like Dr. John North, dealt of Robert Scott, who, when
sending his distinguished customer four scarce books, the total cost of
which was only 1_l._ 14_s._, writes, 'Without flattery I love to find a
rare book for you.'[31]
R. SCOTT, the bookseller, to Mr. PEPYS.
'_June 30th, 1688._
'SIR,--Having at length procured Campion, Hanmer, & Spencer's Hist. of
Ireland, fol. (which I think, you formerly desired) I here send itt
you, with 2 very scarce bookes besides, viz. Pricaei Defensio Hist.
Britt. 4to, and old Harding's Chronicle, as alsoe the Old Ship of
Fooles, in old verse, by Alex. Berkley, priest; which last, though nott
scarce, yett soe very fayre and perfect, that seldome comes such
another; the Priceus you will find deare, yett I never sold it under
10_s._, and att this tyme you can have it of a person of quality; butt I
love to find a rare book for you, and hope shortly to procure for you a
perfect Hall's Chronicle.
'I am, Sir,
'Your Servant to command,
'ROBERT SCOTT.'
Campion, Hanmer, & Spencer fol. 0:12:0
Hardings Chronicle, 4to. 0: 6:0
Pricaei Defens. Hist. Britt. 0: 8:0
Shipp of Fooles, fol. 0: 8:0
------
1:14:0
======
The contents of Pepys' famous collections of Manuscripts, Books and rare
single-sheet literature are known more or less to students, and are
found by them to be of the utmost value. It is amusing to notice how
careful Pepys was not to admit into his library any 'risky' books.
Little did he think that the key to the diary would be one day
discovered. When he bought in the Strand 'an idle, rogueish, French
book, _L'Escholle des Filles_,' he resolved, as already stated, as soon
as he had read it, to burn it, 'that it might not stand in the list of
books, nor among them, to disgrace them, if it should be found.' He was
equally solicitous about Rochester's _Poems_.
Pepys' books were numbered consecutively throughout the library, and
therefore, when rearranged, they needed to be all renumbered. This was
done by Pepys himself, his wife, and Deb Willett, who were busy until
near midnight 'titleing' the books.
With so many references to Pepys and his book-collecting as we find in
the _Diary_, it is puzzling to read, under date, October 5, 1665, after
references to 'Sister Poll,' 'I abroad to the office, and thence to the
Duke of Albemarle, all my way reading a book of Mr. Evelyn's translating
and sending me as a present, about directions for gathering a library,
_but the book is above my reach_.' Pepys, one would think, had by this
time gone far enough in himself gathering a library to understand the
little pamphlet by Naudeus, librarian to Cardinal Mazarin, which Evelyn
translated, and which was issued in 1661, and which is now very rare.
There is a charming letter from Evelyn to Pepys, dated 12th August,
1689, giving very many interesting details of the private libraries of
the seventeenth century, and which goes a very long way to modify
Macaulay's rather overdrawn picture of the scarcity of books and private
libraries in 1685. This letter of Evelyn's might be compared with
Addison's picture of 'Tom Folio' in the _Tatler_.[36] Tom Folio stood
for a great book collector, Thomas Rawlinson.
The eighteenth century produced a host of great book collectors. William
Oldys, Humphrey Wanley, and Thomas Rawlinson just mentioned. These men
were great experts, who infected with enthusiasm many great patrons of
letters, such as Charles, Earl of Sunderland, the Earl of Pembroke, Lord
Somers, Lord Oxford, Topham Beauclerk, Colonel Stanley, and George Earl
Spencer, whose famous Library now at Manchester has been called the
finest private library in Europe. In his _Life of Sir Walter Scott_,
Lockhart has inserted a visitor's impression of the library at
Abbotsford. 'The visitor might ransack a library, unique, I suppose, in
some of its collections, and in all departments interesting and
characteristic of the founder. So many of the volumes were enriched with
anecdotes or comments in his own hand, that to look over his books was,
in some degree, conversing with him.' The catalogue of the Abbotsford
library was printed by the Maitland Club in 1838, and is one of the best
catalogues of a private collection ever printed.
FOOTNOTE:
[27] _Nineteenth Century_, January, 1884.
[28] Parker, _Domestic Architecture_.
[29] Putnam, _Books and their Makers_, vol. i.
[30] See _ante_, p. 8.
[31] Many interesting references to Pepys' Collections are found in Mr.
H. B. Wheatley's _Pepys, and the World he Lived in_. The following
extracts are taken from the same writer's new and final edition of the
_Diary_:--
_May 15, 1660._--'After that to a bookseller's and
bought for the love of the binding three books:
the French _Psalms_ in four parts, Bacon's
_Organon_, and Farnab. _Rhetor_.'[32]
_Dec. 26, 1662._--'Hither come Mr. Battersby; and
we falling into a discourse of a new book of
drollery in verse called _Hudebras_,[33] I would
needs go find it out, and met with it at the
Temple: cost me 2_s._ 6_d._'
_July 8, 1664._--'So to Paul's Churchyarde about
my books, and to the binder's, and directed the
doing of my _Chaucer_,[34] though they were not
full neate enough for me, but pretty well it is;
and thence to the clasp-maker's to have it clasped
and bossed.'
_Jan. 18, 1664-65._--'Up and by and by to my
bookseller's, and there did give thorough
direction for the new binding of a great many of
my old books, to make my whole study of the same
binding, within very few.'
_Aug. 24, 1666._--'Up, and despatched several
businesses at home in the morning, and then comes
Sympson to set up my other new presses[35] for my
books, and so he and I fell into the furnishing of
my new closett, and taking out the things out of
my old, and I kept him with me all day, and he
dined with me, and so all the afternoon till it
was quite dark hanging things, that is my maps and
pictures and draughts, and setting up my books,
and as much as we could do, to my most
extraordinary satisfaction.'
_Dec. 17, 1666._--'Spent the evening in fitting my
books, to have the number set upon each, in order
to my having an alphabet of my whole, which will
be of great ease to me. This day Captain Batters
come from sea in his fireship and come to see me,
poor man, as his patron, and a poor painful wretch
he is as can be. After supper to bed.'
_Dec. 19, 1666._--'Home full of trouble on these
considerations, and, among other things, I to my
chamber, and there to ticket a good part of my
books, in order to the numbering of them for my
easy finding them to read as I have occasion.'
_Jan. 8, 1666-67._--'So home and to supper, and
then saw the catalogue of my books, which my
brother had wrote out, now perfectly
alphabeticall, and so to bed.'
_Feb. 4, 1666-67._--'Mightily pleased with the
play, we home by coach, and there a little to the
office, and then to my chamber, and there finished
my catalogue of my books with my own hand, and so
to supper and to bed, and had a good night's rest,
the last night's being troublesome, but now my
heart light and full of resolution of standing
close to my business.'
_Feb. 8, 1667-68._--'Thence away to the Strand, to
my bookseller's, and there staid an hour, and
bought the idle, rogueish book, _L'escholle des
filles_, which I have bought in plain binding,
avoiding the buying of it better bound, because I
resolve, as soon as I have read it, to burn it,
that it may not stand in the list of books, nor
among them, to disgrace them if it should be
found. Thence home, and busy late at the office,
and then home to supper and to bed.'
[32] _Index Rhetoricus_, of Thomas Farnaby, was a book which went
through several editions. The first was published at London, by R.
Allot, in 1633.
[33] The first edition of Butler's _Hudibras_ is dated 1663, and it
probably had only been published a few days when Pepys bought it and
sold it at a loss. He subsequently endeavoured to appreciate the work,
but was not successful. The edition in the Pepysian Library is dated
1689.
[34] This was Speght's edition of 1602, which is still in the Pepysian
Library. The book is bound in calf, with brass clasps and bosses. It is
not lettered.
[35] These presses still exist, and, according to Pepys' wish, they are
placed in the second court of Magdalene College, in a room which they
exactly fit, and the books are arranged in the presses just as they were
when presented to the college.
[36] _Tatler_, No. 158.
_Weeding Out._
It is necessary that a large country-house library should occasionally
be weeded out and overhauled. The libraries which were formed in past
generations cannot be expected to suit present-day requirements. In a
great many country-house libraries there is little else than a great
mass of turgid theology, but very often buried among these are really
valuable books. Upon the death of the head of a family, the library
should be carefully gone over in order that the new owner may get an
idea of the books--a collection which he may be excused from knowing
much of as he did not collect it. The books should then be re-arranged
to suit the views of those who are most likely to use them, and certain
rejected volumes should be disposed of and others put in their places.
How much this is necessary might be illustrated by many anecdotes.
_The Catalogue._
I have said, under the heading 'Classification,' that it is not
advisable or necessary to attempt any rigid classification upon the
shelves. One good reason for this is that by so doing you are trying to
do what can so much better be done by a catalogue. No one who uses books
very much but sooner or later becomes grateful for the existence of an
alphabet and an arrangement by A B C. Carlyle once said, 'A library is
not worth anything without a catalogue; it is a Polyphemus without any
eye in his head, and you must confront the difficulties, whatever they
may be, of making proper catalogues.'
'The classification of Pepys' library was to be found in the catalogues,
and as Pepys increased in substance he employed experts to do this work
for him.'[37]
No catalogue is of any use unless you can tell from it (1) All that the
library possesses of the known books of a known author at one view, as
well as (2) All that it possesses, by whomsoever written, on a known and
definite subject.
The old catalogues were mostly very bad. Old methods have now given way
to newer and better bibliographical systems, and, to take the case of a
large country house, where books are scattered about in many rooms, a
catalogue is most essential. The catalogue should, in most cases, be in
MS., and not typewritten. Such an arrangement admits of additions being
made more easily. The printed catalogue is adopted where the library is
of special value, or if it has any particular class of books
predominating to make it of use as a bibliography of a special subject.
Lord Crawford's sectional catalogues of his library, already referred
to, are the most valuable lists I know of for student purposes, but I
believe very few people have ever seen them.
The catalogue of Lord Crawford's Proclamations, at Haigh Hall, is a
marvel of industry and accuracy. Mr. Locker Lampson's Rowfant Library
was catalogued, and the catalogue printed and sold, because it had
special value as a collection of Elizabethan poetry. Mr. Edmund Gosse's
Library catalogue was printed because it contained special collections
of seventeenth-century literature. Whether the library be a student's
library or a general library, a catalogue is essential. Gibbon had a
catalogue of his books. I have seen so many amateur attempts at
cataloguing private libraries that I am bound to say I do not think the
plan of cataloguing one's own books in any way answers. Any catalogue
may be better than no catalogue, but, if a catalogue is to be done, it
is better by far to call in the assistance of some one whose work it is.
It frequently happens that a family inherits a large library, and the
inheritors, not having formed the collection, naturally can know but
little, if anything, of its contents. Now, in such a case, and in many
other cases, the best plan is to have your books overhauled, sifted,
certain volumes weeded out, if necessary, others rebound, and the whole
remainder carefully catalogued and described, the cases being numbered
and the shelves lettered.