buried again, for it is to be hoped that we shall hear no more of it.
It is perhaps not so well known as many of the rest, but in any case
would not be mentioned here except as an almost unique illustration of
the vicissitudes to which any book, however scarce and valuable it may
be, is occasionally liable. It is, stripped of its glosses, to the
following effect: When the library at Thorneck Hall was weeded of its
superfluous books, the butler, who superintended the operation, came
across a perfect copy of Dame Juliana Berners' 'Boke of St. Albans,'
printed by an unknown typographer in 1486. One would have thought that
the quaintness of the type, to say nothing of the extraordinary
character of the coloured coats of arms and other illustrations, would
at least have prompted inquiry; but no! it was thrown lightly aside, and
in due course disposed of to a pedlar for ninepence. He in his turn
sold it to a chemist at Gainsborough for four times the amount, and the
chemist got L2 for his bargain from a bookseller, who, notwithstanding
the fact that a very imperfect copy had been disposed of at the Duke of
Roxburghe's sale many years before, positively sold it to another
bookseller for L7. He, at any rate, was somewhat better informed,
though not much, for once more the volume changed hands, this time to
Sir Thomas Grenville, for L80. These transactions did not take place in
the Middle Ages, but in the forties of the present century, and the
wonder is that anyone with the slightest knowledge of books could have
flown in the face of Dibdin's valuation of L420, which was at the time a
matter of common knowledge. The butler may be honestly forgiven, and
the pedlar commiserated with, the chemist even excused; but the two
booksellers have no hope of redemption. The imperfect Roxburghe copy
brought L147, and was resold at the White Knights sale for L84. In 1882
a perfect copy made its appearance at Christie's, and was knocked down
for L630, being about a third less than the purchaser had made up his
mind to pay for it had circumstances compelled. The life of a book is
more often than not like the life of a horse. You use it, and little by
little strip it of its value till it becomes a wreck and can be used no
more. The 'Boke of St. Albans,' in company with many other treasured
volumes, is not, however, for use, but a thing of sentiment, with a
value that will probably continue to increase, till the leaves crumble
before the touch of time.
Stories such as this are the book-man's tonic; they pick him up from the
despondency into which he has fallen through lack of sustenance, and
encourage him to believe that extreme scarcity is not always the reason
of failure, but rather that all things come at last to him who can work
and can wait, as indeed they do, for instances of good luck in the
matter of discovering books, though perhaps not numerous when personal
experience alone is considered, are common enough in the aggregate.
Here is a comparatively recent instance of good fortune:
In the summer of the year 1893 a London bookseller, who must be
nameless, was offered a small library, then stored in a provincial town
some thirty miles away. The owner copied the title-pages of a few of
the books, and these were of such a character that the bookseller went
over and eventually paid the price asked. What that amount was I am
unable to state, but have good reason to suppose that it was less than
L50. The majority of the volumes were, as is usually the case with
old-fashioned and not particularly noticeable libraries, almost
worthless. There were sermons preached in the long-ago to sleeping
congregations, tracts and pamphlets on nothing in particular, an old and
well-thumbed Prayer-Book or two of no importance, and the usual
ponderous family Bible in tarnished gilt. On a casual survey, the whole
of the books might have passed muster at a third-rate auction, and yet
the bookseller was only too glad to see them safely housed in London.
The reason was this: Among the refuse were _Americana_, some of extreme
rarity, such as those who deal in such books are perpetually on the
look-out for, and rarely find, even at their full value. As these books
were publicly sold the following December, we are in a position to see
what the bookseller got in return for his money, which, as I have said,
was probably less than L50. The prices realized are given, so that
there may be no mistake about the matter:
1. An Act for Exportation of Commodities, Incourage Manufactures, Trade,
Plantations, four sheets, printed on one side only, in Black Letter,
1657, 8vo. L1 10s.
2. Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries
of the English Nation, 3 vols. in 2, Black Letter, 1599-1600, folio. L6
5s.
3. Josselyn's Account of Two Voyages to New England, 1674, 12mo. L6
15s.
4. Gabriel's Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and
Country of Pennsilvania, and of New Jersey, 1698, 12mo. L31.
5. The Book of the General Lawes and Liberties concerning the
Inhabitants of Massachusetts, 1658. Printed according to the order of
the Court, Cambridge (Mass.), 1660, small folio. L109.
6. Heath's A Journal of Travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck, on the
Continent of North America, 1706, 4to. L5 15s.
7. Frampton's Joyfull Newes out of the New-found Worlde, 1596, 4to. L4
15s.
8. Brereton's Briefe and True Relation of the Discoverie of the North
Part of Virginia, 1602, 4to. L179. This copy had a few leaves mended.
9. Captain John Smith's Description of New England, 1613, 4to. L5.
10. Mourt's Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the
English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England, 1622, 4 to. L40.
Title and corner of the first leaf mended.
11. A Briefe Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England,
1622, 4to. L40.
12. Captain Thomas James's Strange and Dangerous Voyage in his intended
Discovery of the North-West Passage, 1633, 4to. L17.
13. A Relation of Maryland, together with a Map of the Country. These
Bookes are to be had at Master William Deasley, Esq., his house on the
back side of Drury Lane, neere the Cockpit Playhouse; or, in his
absense, at Master John Morgan's House in High Holborne, over against
the Dolphin, London, Sept. 8, A.D. 1635. L76. This copy had the rare
map.
14. Captain Luke Fox. North-West Fox, or Fox from the North-West
Passage, 1635, 4to. L18.
15. Castell's A Short Discoverie of the Coast and Continent of America,
1644, 4to. L17.
16. Morton's New England's Memorial, printed at Cambridge (Mass.), 1669,
4to. L47.
17. Lederer's Discoveries in Three Several Marches from Virginia to the
West of Carolina, 1672, 4to. L36.
And a few others, realizing a grand total of L658 odd for twenty-four
works.
This remarkable collection of books of American interest is probably the
most important that has ever been met with in such a way. It may have
been formed a couple of centuries ago by someone who took a burning
interest in the 'New-found Worlde,' as old Frampton calls America, and
for various reasons was unable to go there. Or it may be that it was
got together at a later date, as the presence of Heath's 'Journal of
Travels' seems to suggest, by some bookish prophet, with an eye to the
main chance. If so, it is a pity that he did not live long enough to
reap the reward of his foresight and energy, though, after all, even had
he done so, _cui bono_? Suppose he gave L5 for the whole collection a
hundred years ago--and surely this is on the right side, for Hakluyt's
'Principal Navigations' would itself be worth as much in those
days--even then he would be woefully out of pocket for his pains, for
his L5 would, at compound interest, have increased to the best part of
L2,500. It is this little matter of interest that upsets all
calculations, and makes us all lying prophets, so far as money is
concerned.
Another extremely fortunate find was made, in 1896, in Hampshire. Can
such things be? Can any man be born to such a heritage of luck? It
seems that Mr. M. H. Foster, who recently bought the Cams Hall estate in
the county named, took it into his head to explore the mansion, and in
doing so came across a number of old volumes which had been abandoned by
the late proprietor. They lay, dusty and cobwebbed, in an old cupboard,
and instead of consisting of forgotten ledgers and day-books, as would
have been the case if any less fortunate gentleman had been concerned,
proved to be of the greatest value. There was Caxton, writ large, among
them--several Caxtons in fact, one being 'Justinian's Law,' such an
exceedingly scarce book that a later edition once sold in London for
L1,000--so at least it is said, though I have no record of the
circumstance. At any rate, there is very little doubt that the volume
in question would bring that amount or near it, and again let it be
asked, Can any mortal living enjoy such favour from the gods? As in the
case of the Thorneck Hall 'Boke of St. Albans,' so in that of the Cams
Hall 'Justinian's Law '; how can such books be overlooked? Their very
type betrays them sufficiently, one would think, to make it impossible
for anyone, however careless, to pass them by.
Wholesale and very valuable discoveries like these are naturally of such
infrequent occurrence that when one is made the news of it is
disseminated far and wide, and commented upon in all the newspapers,
which are nothing now if not literary, at least to some extent.
Isolated finds, the picking up of some single object of interest or
value, is the most the book-man reasonably hopes for in these days, and
so long as he confines his desires within such narrow bounds it is hard
indeed if he never reap an occasional success, such as that reported of
a Melbourne gentleman, who only a few months ago picked out of a box
labelled 'Fourpence each' a first edition of 'Sordello,' with an
inscription in the handwriting of the author himself. Browning had
written on the flyleaf, 'To my dear friend, R. H. Horne, from R. B.,'
which, though certainly autographically less important than if he had
signed his name in full, is yet a very pretty and cheap souvenir of an
eminent poet. This R. H. Horne, who was himself a versifier, and once
celebrated as the author of 'Orion,' emigrated to Australia in 1852, and
became a Goldfields Commissioner at Ballarat. When he left there and
came to England again, the book must have been left to the mercies of
the Melbourne streets, in which presumably it existed till rescued from
the low depth of misery which the miscellaneous box is supposed to
imply.
Amongst a lot of old paper recently received at a mill in Andover,
Connecticut, was a Bible which some Goth had sold by weight. In it was
an inscription, 'This Bible was used in the pulpit by Rev. Stephen West,
pastor in Stockbridge, Mass., from 1759 to 1818.' This book was perhaps
not so important from a worldly point of view as 'The Art of Cookery
made Plain and Easy; By a Lady,' which the late Mr. Sala rescued from
oblivion in the Lambeth Marshes, as will shortly be related; but the
Rev. Stephen West was a very noted personage in his day, and there are
hundreds of people, more particularly in America, who would be very glad
to possess a memorial of him. He was the author of the well-known
'Essay on Moral Agency,' 1794, the 'Sketches of the Life of the Rev. S.
Hopkins,' 1805, and other books which in their day enjoyed a very
extensive circulation.
Mr. Sala's discovery of Mrs. Glasse's cookery-book was due to his habit
of prowling round the old bookstalls of the Metropolis, particularly
those which line the narrow streets of Lambeth Marshes and the New Cut.
On a Sunday morning these places are like a fair, and, literally, scores
of peripatetic booksellers, who for the most part follow another
occupation the remaining days of the week, take their stand with barrows
piled high with lore. The mob pull the volumes about, and haggle over
the prices, so that the stock displayed is not, on the whole, in the
best possible condition. Still, sometimes you do meet with a
well-preserved rarity, as Mr. Sala did when he purchased 'The Art of
Cookery made Plain and Easy,' 1747, thin folio, for six humble pennies.
He had the book bound by a first-rate craftsman, and when it came at
last to the inevitable hammer some two or three years ago, it sold for
L10, and was reasonably worth considerably more. Only five or six
copies of this edition are known to be in existence, but of the second
edition, which also appeared in 1747, only one copy is known, according
to the Rev. Richard Hooper, whose unique specimen contains an
inscription worth reproducing. It runs as follows:
'Steal not this Book my honest Frend for Fear
the Galowss should be your hend and when
you Die the Lord will say and wares that Book
you stole away.'
Cooks are proverbially greasy people, and a book passing through their
hands is apt to return like 'Tom and Jerry' from those of a
prize-fighter or sporting publican. Still, 201 persons subscribed to
the first edition of Mrs. Glasse, and 282 to the second, and some were
neither cooks nor publicans, but members of the aristocracy, who might
be expected to treat their books with some show of respect. But perhaps
they expressly bought them for the use of their cooks, and handed them
over to the kitchen authorities, in which case their rarity is accounted
for. All old cookery-books, and not merely Mrs. Glasse's famous work,
are rare, because they are books of practical utility meant to be
consulted in a republic of pots and pans, and grease and litter; but
Mrs. Glasse's guide is more desirable than most other English books of
the kind, because there is a sentiment hanging around it like a halo, by
reason of words which are not to be found therein, 'First catch your
hare.'
For my part, whenever I see a cookery-book flaunting it on a street
barrow, I rescue it at once, for I have a belief, rightly or wrongly,
that some of these days there will be a very great demand for old works
of the kind. There is a present disposition to return to ancestral
dishes which means the resuscitation of 'The Skilful Cook,' 'The Good
Housewife's Jewel,' 'The Queen's Closet Opened,' 'The Ladies' Practice,'
and many other volumes where the necessary recipes are to be found. For
some time past, indeed, recipe-books of all kinds have practically
disappeared from the stalls where once they were so numerous. 'They're
miking a lot of 'em hup at the West Hend,' said a stall proprietor,
jerking his thumb in the direction of Belgravia, from which it must be
understood, not that any manufactory of forgeries is as yet established
there, but merely that the upper ten think a great deal of old
recipe-books, and are buying them up for their cooks to practise with.
It is sadly to be feared that the paper-mills grind many good books
exceeding small at times. This is to be conjectured by reason of the
fact that every now and then a consignment is stopped and rescued just
as it is about to be transformed into pulp. What happens once, is, we
may be sure, repeated at intervals, though direct evidence may be
wanting to convict the paper-maker. Evidence of this character is,
however, occasionally forthcoming, as, for example, in the case of the
sixth volume of Dr. Vallancey's 'Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis,' which
was published in two divisions in 1804. The previous five volumes are
comparatively common, but both parts of volume six are very scarce,
nearly all the copies having been accidentally sold for waste-paper, and
treated as such. Charles Dickens's 'Village Coquettes' and also
Swinburne's 'A Song of Italy' were once much rarer books than they are
now, and commanded a great deal more money in the market. Neither book
sold well when published, and a very considerable 'remainder' was
stacked in quires in the publishers' cellars. One day these Augean
stables were cleaned out, and the 'Village Coquettes' and 'A Song of
Italy' were saved from the mill by the merest of accidents, with the
result that the former book went down fifty per cent. in the market, and
the latter to next to nothing. These finds were noised abroad, with the
result that they were robbed of most of their importance. Imagine, if
we can, a great discovery of a hundred copies of Shakespeare's first
folio. And imagine also a journal of credit getting hold of the news
and noising it abroad, as it would do when it had satisfied itself that
there was at least a substratum of truth in the story. The result we
know. Half the value of the find would vanish away on the instant, and
rightly so, too, as a strict moralist would doubtless insist.
Sometimes, though not often, some of the literary auctioneers will make
a mistake, and in the most unaccountable manner include a rarity in a
'parcel' of rubbish. A good copy of the first edition of Cocker's
'Decimal Arithmetic,' 1685, was picked up in this way a short time ago,
though not in London, and at Leeds a dealer bought an original and very
interesting letter in Shelley's autograph, which had somehow or other
slipped among a number of school-books of trifling value. It is the
easiest thing in the world to make a mistake where books are concerned,
more particularly when they consist of pamphlets and other works which
lie in a small compass. Folios can take care of themselves, but a man
needs to have a first-rate all-round knowledge who would essay to
catalogue a good old-fashioned miscellaneous library.
In France, sale-catalogues are prepared by experts, who are called in to
assist the auctioneers; in London the auctioneers keep their own
cataloguers, and in the country towns they seek the assistance of
booksellers, or do the work themselves. If a sale is advertised to be
held at a house where furniture is the chief attraction, the presence of
a comparatively small number of books acts like a magnet, and people are
attracted from far and near in the hope that something good will fall to
their share. Sometimes they are rewarded, more frequently not; for what
everybody is looking for is almost sure to be detected by several, if it
exist at all, and then, of course, the price is run up. Still,
occasionally, a whole roomful of experts will miss a bargain which
stares them in the face. Unaccountable as it may seem, I myself once
bought for L1 a first-rate copy of Alken's 'National Sports of Great
Britain,' 1821, a scarce folio book full of coloured plates. It was
wedged in among a quantity of furniture, and had escaped observation,
although there were several booksellers in the room.
The highest form of genius to be met with in book-men is, however, the
capacity possessed by a very few of them to detect the author of an
anonymous book by reference to the style in which it is written. If we
happened to meet with 'Swellfoot the Tyrant' for a trifling sum, and
passed it by, we should deserve our fate, for the authorship is so
generally and widely known that there is no excuse for any book-man who
is unacquainted with the facts surrounding it. But were we to discover
another poem by Shelley, which no one had ever heard of before, and also
be able to prove conclusively that he must, _ex necessitate_, have been
the author of it, that indeed would be a triumph of skill. Some few
books have been rescued in this way, 'Alaric at Rome,' for instance,
which was discovered and assigned to Matthew Arnold simply and solely by
reference to the style. 'Alaric at Rome' made a sensation when the
authorship came to be known, and book-hunters were searching high and
low, and giving commissions in hot haste. A few copies were unearthed
in this way, but the number was exceedingly small, not more than two or
three, I believe, and the pamphlet, for it is nothing more, is at this
moment an object of deep interest to the few, who are in reality very
many, when we come to reflect that none but perhaps half a dozen can
ever hope to possess it.
When we get into bookland, more particularly into that secluded corner
of it where specialists assemble to compare notes and exhibit their
treasures, confusion springs up on the instant. The specialist cannot
always know his business thoroughly. If you mention a particular book
which comes within his purview, he will probably tell you how many
copies of it are known to exist, and where they are, how many of the
total number are cropped, and to what extent, and whether the titles
have been 'washed' or otherwise renovated. He knows accurately the
original cost in money of each, and how much each would be likely to
sell for in case it were brought to the hammer. All this is, of course,
good and solid information, but it is too microscopically minute and
exact to interest anyone outside a very small circle. To most of us
these details are unimportant, and yet every lucky find must pass some
specialist, who assigns to it its proper position in point of
excellence, and makes it keep its place. For this reason I have been
charged with the offence of speaking about him as though he were a
common bookworm, ready to feed on anything that came in his way, which
is, of course, flat treason, not by any means to be silently borne by
the elite.
*CHAPTER IV.*
*THE FORGOTTEN LORE SOCIETY.*
Common-sense tells us that 'finds,' as they are popularly called, must
necessarily be made by the purest of accidents. Valuables of any kind,
though frequently lost or mislaid, seldom remain unappropriated for
long, and to search for them with intent is to be too late in such a
large preponderance of cases that it is not worth while to go to the
trouble of doing so. A 'find,' as I take the word to mean in a popular
sense, is the discovery of something of special interest or value,
followed by its acquisition at a price which is, at market rates, very
much less than it is worth. The price paid is the gist of the find in
the popular eye, though there is no denying that, in the case of genuine
literature, this is about the most unsatisfactory view that can be taken
of the matter.
If an extremely scarce or interesting book, for which one has, perhaps,
been searching for years, is at last acquired at any price whatever, the
'find' is none the less real, merely because the cost is great, though
we should have hard work to convince the ordinary book-buyer that this
is so. He is of opinion that money can buy anything, books not
excepted, and in that he is assuredly wrong, for there are many books
which are not to be procured at any price, simply because they have
disappeared as though they had never been. We know they once lived,
because they are referred to by name in contemporary reviews, or have
perhaps been reprinted; but now they are as dead as the 'Original
Poetry' of Victor and Cazire, which can be traced to the pages of the
_Morning Chronicle_ of September 18, 1810, and to a couple of reviews of
the day, but of which no copy is now known.
It was this 'Original Poetry' that first suggested the idea of a society
to promote the systematic search for 'rare and curious volumes of
forgotten lore,' as Edgar Poe felicitously has it. These poems were the
production of Shelley and a friend--probably his cousin, Harriet
Grove--but had hardly been published a week when Stockdale, the
publisher, inspecting the book with more attention than he previously
had leisure to bestow, recognised one of the pieces as having been taken
bodily from 'The Monk.' Shelley then suppressed the entire edition in
disgust, but not before nearly a hundred copies had been put into
circulation. The question is, Where are these derelicts now? It is
incomprehensible that all can have been consigned to the flames or torn
to pulp. Most probably one at least has survived the wrack of time and
neglect, and may be lying perdu in the garret or rubbish-heap of some
old farmhouse, in which Shelley is but little known, and 'Victor' and
'Cazire' absolute strangers both. And if this particular book, why not
many others, which, though not absolutely lost, are yet so very rarely
met with that it is the ambition of every book-hunter, great or small,
to track them down?