Judge Methuen tells me that he fears what I have said about my
bookseller will create the impression that I am unkindly disposed
toward the bookselling craft. For the last fifty years I have had
uninterrupted dealings with booksellers, and none knows better than the
booksellers themselves that I particularly admire them as a class.
Visitors to my home have noticed that upon my walls are hung noble
portraits of Caxton, Wynkin de Worde, Richard Pynson, John Wygthe,
Rayne Wolfe, John Daye, Jacob Tonson, Richard Johnes, John Dunton, and
other famous old printers and booksellers.
I have, too, a large collection of portraits of modern booksellers,
including a pen-and-ink sketch of Quaritch, a line engraving of Rimell,
and a very excellent etching of my dear friend, the late Henry
Stevens. One of the portraits is a unique, for I had it painted
myself, and I have never permitted any copy to be made of it; it is of
my bookseller, and it represents him in the garb of a fisherman,
holding his rod and reel in one hand and the copy of the "Compleat
Angler" in the other.
Mr. Curwen speaks of booksellers as being "singularly thrifty, able,
industrious, and persevering--in some few cases singularly venturesome,
liberal, and kind-hearted." My own observation and experience have
taught me that as a class booksellers are exceptionally intelligent,
ranking with printers in respect to the variety and extent of their
learning.
They have, however, this distinct advantage over the printers--they are
not brought in contact with the manifold temptations to intemperance
and profligacy which environ the votaries of the art preservative of
arts. Horace Smith has said that "were there no readers there
certainly would be no writers; clearly, therefore, the existence of
writers depends upon the existence of readers: and, of course, since
the cause must be antecedent to the effect, readers existed before
writers. Yet, on the other hand, if there were no writers there could
be no readers; so it would appear that writers must be antecedent to
readers."
It amazes me that a reasoner so shrewd, so clear, and so exacting as
Horace Smith did not pursue the proposition further; for without
booksellers there would have been no market for books--the author would
not have been able to sell, and the reader would not have been able to
buy.
The further we proceed with the investigation the more satisfied we
become that the original man was three of number, one of him being the
bookseller, who established friendly relations between the other two of
him, saying: "I will serve you both by inciting both a demand and a
supply." So then the author did his part, and the reader his, which I
take to be a much more dignified scheme than that suggested by Darwin
and his school of investigators.
By the very nature of their occupation booksellers are broad-minded;
their association with every class of humanity and their constant
companionship with books give them a liberality that enables them to
view with singular clearness and dispassionateness every phase of life
and every dispensation of Providence. They are not always practical,
for the development of the spiritual and intellectual natures in man
does not at the same time promote dexterity in the use of the baser
organs of the body, I have known philosophers who could not harness a
horse or even shoo chickens.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once consumed several hours' time trying to
determine whether he should trundle a wheelbarrow by pushing it or by
pulling it. A. Bronson Alcott once tried to construct a chicken coop,
and he had boarded himself up inside the structure before he discovered
that he had not provided for a door or for windows. We have all heard
the story of Isaac Newton--how he cut two holes in his study-door, a
large one for his cat to enter by, and a small one for the kitten.
This unworldliness--this impossibility, if you please--is
characteristic of intellectual progression. Judge Methuen's second
son is named Grolier; and the fact that he doesn't know enough to come
in out of the rain has inspired both the Judge and myself with the
conviction that in due time Grolier will become a great philosopher.
The mention of this revered name reminds me that my bookseller told me
the other day that just before I entered his shop a wealthy patron of
the arts and muses called with a volume which he wished to have rebound.
"I can send it to Paris or to London," said my bookseller. "If you have
no choice of binder, I will entrust it to Zaehnsdorf with instructions
to lavish his choicest art upon it."
"But indeed I HAVE a choice," cried the plutocrat, proudly. "I noticed
a large number of Grolier bindings at the Art Institute last week, and
I want something of the same kind myself. Send the book to Grolier,
and tell him to do his prettiest by it, for I can stand the expense, no
matter what it is."
Somewhere in his admirable discourse old Walton has stated the theory
that an angler must be born and then made. I have always held the same
to be true of the bookseller. There are many, too many, charlatans in
the trade; the simon-pure bookseller enters upon and conducts
bookselling not merely as a trade and for the purpose of amassing
riches, but because he loves books and because he has pleasure in
diffusing their gracious influences.
Judge Methuen tells me that it is no longer the fashion to refer to
persons or things as being "simon-pure"; the fashion, as he says,
passed out some years ago when a writer in a German paper "was led into
an amusing blunder by an English review. The reviewer, having occasion
to draw a distinction between George and Robert Cruikshank, spoke of
the former as the real Simon Pure. The German, not understanding the
allusion, gravely told his readers that George Cruikshank was a
pseudonym, the author's real name being Simon Pure."
This incident is given in Henry B. Wheatley's "Literary Blunders," a
very charming book, but one that could have been made more interesting
to me had it recorded the curious blunder which Frederick Saunders
makes in his "Story of Some Famous Books." On page 169 we find this
information: "Among earlier American bards we instance Dana, whose
imaginative poem 'The Culprit Fay,' so replete with poetic beauty, is a
fairy tale of the highlands of the Hudson. The origin of the poem is
traced to a conversation with Cooper, the novelist, and Fitz-Greene
Halleck, the poet, who, speaking of the Scottish streams and their
legendary associations, insisted that the American rivers were not
susceptible of like poetic treatment. Dana thought otherwise, and to
make his position good produced three days after this poem."
It may be that Saunders wrote the name Drake, for it was James Rodman
Drake who did "The Culprit Fay." Perhaps it was the printer's fault
that the poem is accredited to Dana. Perhaps Mr. Saunders writes so
legible a hand that the printers are careless with his manuscript.
"There is," says Wheatley, "there is a popular notion among authors
that it is not wise to write a clear hand. Menage was one of the first
to express it. He wrote: 'If you desire that no mistake shall appear
in the works which you publish, never send well-written copy to the
printer, for in that case the manuscript is given to young apprentices,
who make a thousand errors; while, on the other hand, that which is
difficult to read is dealt with by the master-printers.'"
The most distressing blunder I ever read in print was made at the time
of the burial of the famous antiquary and litterateur, John Payne
Collier. In the London newspapers of Sept. 21, 1883, it was reported
that "the remains of the late Mr. John Payne Collier were interred
yesterday in Bray churchyard, near Maidenhead, in the presence of a
large number of spectators." Thereupon the Eastern daily press
published the following remarkable perversion: "The Bray Colliery
Disaster. The remains of the late John Payne, collier, were interred
yesterday afternoon in the Bray churchyard in the presence of a large
number of friends and spectators."
Far be it from the book-lover and the book-collector to rail at
blunders, for not unfrequently these very blunders make books valuable.
Who cares for a Pine's Horace that does not contain the "potest" error?
The genuine first edition of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" is to be
determined by the presence of a certain typographical slip in the
introduction. The first edition of the English Scriptures printed in
Ireland (1716) is much desired by collectors, and simply because of an
error. Isaiah bids us "sin no more," but the Belfast printer, by some
means or another, transposed the letters in such wise as to make the
injunction read "sin on more."
The so-called Wicked Bible is a book that is seldom met with, and,
therefore, in great demand. It was printed in the time of Charles I.,
and it is notorious because it omits the adverb "not" in its version of
the seventh commandment; the printers were fined a large sum for this
gross error. Six copies of the Wicked Bible are known to be in
existence. At one time the late James Lenox had two copies; in his
interesting memoirs Henry Stevens tells how he picked up one copy in
Paris for fifty guineas.
Rabelais' printer got the satirical doctor into deep water for
printing asne for ame; the council of the Sorbonne took the matter up
and asked Francis I. to prosecute Rabelais for heresy; this the king
declined to do, and Rabelais proceeded forthwith to torment the council
for having founded a charge of heresy upon a printer's blunder.
Once upon a time the Foulis printing establishment at Glasgow
determined to print a perfect Horace; accordingly the proof sheets were
hung up at the gates of the university, and a sum of money was paid for
every error detected.
Notwithstanding these precautions the edition had six uncorrected
errors in it when it was finally published. Disraeli says that the
so-called Pearl Bible had six thousand errata! The works of Picus of
Mirandula, Strasburg, 1507, gave a list of errata covering fifteen
folio pages, and a worse case is that of "Missae ac Missalis Anatomia"
(1561), a volume of one hundred and seventy-two pages, fifteen of which
are devoted to the errata. The author of the Missae felt so deeply
aggrieved by this array of blunders that he made a public explanation
to the effect that the devil himself stole the manuscript, tampered
with it, and then actually compelled the printer to misread it.
I am not sure that this ingenious explanation did not give origin to
the term of "printer's devil."
It is frightful to think
What nonsense sometimes
They make of one's sense
And, what's worse, of one's rhymes.
It was only last week,
In my ode upon spring,
Which I meant to have made
A most beautiful thing,
When I talked of the dewdrops
From freshly blown roses,
The nasty things made it
From freshly blown noses.
We can fancy Richard Porson's rage (for Porson was of violent temper)
when, having written the statement that "the crowd rent the air with
their shouts," his printer made the line read "the crowd rent the air
with their snouts." However, this error was a natural one, since it
occurs in the "Catechism of the Swinish Multitude." Royalty only are
privileged when it comes to the matter of blundering. When Louis XIV.
was a boy he one day spoke of "un carosse"; he should have said "une
carosse," but he was king, and having changed the gender of carosse the
change was accepted, and unto this day carosse is masculine.
That errors should occur in newspapers is not remarkable, for much of
the work in a newspaper office is done hastily. Yet some of these
errors are very amusing. I remember to have read in a Berlin newspaper
a number of years ago that "Prince Bismarck is trying to keep up honest
and straightforward relations with all the girls" (madchen).
This statement seemed incomprehensible until it transpired that the
word "madchen" was in this instance a misprint for "machten," a word
meaning all the European powers.
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