Commonwealth are bound of every book that is printed, to send a copy
into the University Library; and it is impossible for one man to read
all the books in all faculties, to judge of them what worth there is in
them; nor hath every one ability to judge of all kind of sciences what
every author doth handle, and how sufficiently; therefore I would have
at this time of giving accounts, the library keeper also bound to
produce the catalogue of all the books sent unto the University's
library by the stationers that printed them; to the end that every one
of the doctors in their own faculties should declare whether or no they
should be added, and where they should be placed in the catalogue of
additionals. For I do not think that all books and treatises, which in
this age are printed in all kinds, should be inserted into the
catalogue, and added to the stock of the library; discretion must be
used and confusion avoided, and a course taken to distinguish that
which is profitable from that which is useless; and according to the
verdict of that society, the usefulness of books for the public is to be
determined. Yet because there is seldom any books wherein there is not
something useful, and books freely given are not to be cast away, but
may be kept, therefore I would have a peculiar place appointed for such
books as shall be laid aside to keep them in, and a catalogue of their
titles made alphabetically in reference to the author's name and a note
of distinction to show the science to which they are to be referred." It
seems then, that if Dury could have advised Bodley, and Bodley had
listened to him, the Bodleian would have been rich in early
Shakespeares, and might have preserved many publications now entirely
lost.
Dury's second letter on the subject merely repeats the ideas of the
first with less practical suggestion and in a more declamatory style. It
contains a striking passage on the ruin of the library of Heidelberg, a
terrible warning to librarians. It had books, it had manuscripts, but it
had no catalogue, and its candlestick was taken away.
"What a great stir hath been heretofore, about the eminency of the
library of Heidelberg, but what use was made of it? It was engrossed
into the hands of a few, till it became a prey unto the enemies of the
truth. If the library keeper had been a man that would have traded with
it for the increase of true learning, it might have been preserved unto
this day in all the rareties thereof, not so much by the shuttings up of
the multitude of books, and the rareness thereof for antiquity, as by
the understandings of men and their proficiency to improve and dilate
knowledge upon the grounds which he might have suggested unto others of
parts, and so the library rareties would not only have been preserved in
the spirits of men, but have fructified abundantly therein unto this
day, whereas they are now lost, because they were but a talent digged in
the ground."
Well said! and it may be added that one good reason for printing the
catalogue of a great library is that, in the event of its destruction,
it may at least be known what it contained. The greatest library in the
world was within an ace of destruction under the Paris Commune: had it
perished, the very memory of a large part of its contents would have
been lost. Respecting Heidelberg, it should be remarked that the
destruction was not quite so irreparable as would appear from Dury's
passionate outburst. The books and manuscripts to a considerable extent
went not to the Devil but to the Pope, though Dury probably could see
little difference. But even the Pope did not ultimately retain them. No
fewer than eight hundred and ninety MSS. were subsequently carried off
by Napoleon, and being thus at Paris at the entry of the allies, were
reclaimed by the Bavarian Government, and restored to the University of
Heidelberg, with the sanction of the Pope, at the special instance of
the King of Prussia.[188:1]
Appended to the tract is a short Latin account, also by Dury, of the
Duke of Brunswick's library at Wolfenbuttel, famous on many grounds, and
especially for having had Lessing as its librarian. It appears that on
May 21, 1649, it was estimated to contain 60,000 treatises by 37,000
authors, bound in 20,000 volumes, all collected since 1604. It must
therefore have been administered with an energy corresponding to the
demands of Dury, who concludes his enthusiastic account with an
aspiration which every librarian will echo on behalf of the institution
with which he is himself connected:—
"Faxit Deus, ut Thesaurus hic rerum divinarum æternarum sit et ipse
æternus, neque prius quam mundi machina laboret aut intercidat."
It will have been observed that Dury's suggestions have reference solely
to university libraries. The conception of a really popular library did
not then exist, and it may be doubted whether in any case even one so
much in advance of his time could have reconciled himself to the idea of
a collection where every description of literature, embodying every
variety of opinion, should be indiscriminately accessible to every
condition of men. But this very limitation of his views should render
his admonition, and his lofty standard of the librarian's duty, more
interesting and significant to the librarians of the nineteenth century.
For if the advising function was rightly deemed so important in him who
had to consult with university professors, men probably of more learning
than himself, much more is its judicious exercise required in him who
has to aid the researches and direct the studies of the comparatively
ignorant. "The Reformed Library Keeper," therefore, has a message for
our age as well as its own; and we need not regret the half-hour we have
spent with good old John Dury, the first who discovered that a librarian
had a soul to be saved.
FOOTNOTES:
[174:1] Read at the Monthly Meeting of the Library Association, March
1884.
[188:1] See Wilken, "Geschichte der Bildung, Beraubung, und Vernichtung
der alten Heidelbergischen Büchersammlungen" (Heidelberg, 1817).
THE MANUFACTURE OF FINE PAPER IN ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The MS. correspondence of Conyers Middleton with Lord Hervey, acquired
by the British Museum in 1885, contains, incidentally, evidence
respecting the source from which fine paper, suitable for printing
handsome books, was derived by English publishers until nearly the
middle of the eighteenth century. Much of this correspondence relates to
the progress of Middleton's "Life of Cicero," Lord Hervey, to whom the
book was dedicated, and who had been zealous in procuring subscribers,
frequently urging more expedition, and Middleton assigning various
causes for delay. At last, under date of April 6, 1740, Middleton
mentions one which he regards as for the time insuperable. War against
Spain, it should be noticed, had been declared in November 1739, and
Spain had at the time troops in Italy, and considerable naval strength
in the Mediterranean.
"As to Tully," says Middleton, "I am ashamed almost to mention it, on
account of a total cessation of the press from want of paper, occasioned
by the uncertain return of ships from Genoa since the commencement of
the war, during which our large paper is exhausted, and not a sheet of
it to be had in London till a fresh cargo arrives, which is expected,
however, every day. The booksellers did not give me the least hint of
this till it was too late to be remedied, knowing that it would vex me,
as it really has done, yet there is no help but patience. But we may
possibly retrieve this loss of time by employing several presses at once
as soon as we get paper, since I have now finished all my part, and
assure your lordship that there is not a subscriber so desirous to read
as I am to get it out of my hands."
On April 27, Middleton repeats his assurance that "no one is half so
impatient to read as I am to publish." This does not satisfy Lord
Hervey, who writes on May 27: "I cannot, nor ought to conceal from you
the general dissatisfaction and murmuring there is among your
subscribers at the long delay of the publication of your work. I tell
the story of the disappointment you met with in the paper, but am
answered by almost everybody that this need not and should not hinder
your publishing at least the first volume. I could wish that some way
could be contrived, without you or your bookseller running any risk, to
let the first part come out immediately. Could you not do it by a
previous advertisement relating the misfortune of the paper, and saying
whoever was willing to pay the second payment should have the first part
delivered to them?"
Middleton replies on June 3: "As to the publication, all I can say is
that as soon as paper arrives, your lordship shall be master both of the
time and the manner, so far as is in my power; but until we get a
recruit of paper, which has long been wholly exhausted, it is not
possible to publish the first volume, since there are two sections of it
still unprinted."
On June 17, however, he reports a change for the better: "Our paper
arrived in the Downs last week, and is in port probably by this time, so
that we shall now carry on our work with all possible vigour; and if we
cannot publish both the volumes in Michaelmas term, which my managers,
however, promise me to do, I will undertake at least at all adventures
for the publication of the first."
The work still did not progress. Middleton writes on August 24: "I
should sooner have paid my thanks if I had not been tempted to wait
these two or three posts by the daily expectation of being able to send
you some good news from the press, but I have the mortification still to
acquaint your lordship that we have not printed a sheet since I saw your
lordship, and though I wrote to my bookseller above three weeks ago to
know what end we are to expect to this unaccountable interruption, yet I
have not heard a word from him."
But on September 4 he reports himself at the end of his troubles, so far
as concerns the supply of paper: "I could not omit the first opportunity
of acquainting your lordship that we have received a stock of paper at
last from Genoa, sufficient for finishing the first volume, _and have
provided a quantity also of our own manufacture, which is the better of
the two_, for carrying on the second volume at the same time, which I
have ordered to be committed immediately to the press, and hope that we
may be able still to publish both the volumes before Christmas."
The book did, in fact, appear about February, 1741. An examination of
the copies in the King's and Cracherode Libraries, British Museum,
confirms the statements in Middleton's letters. The work is printed on
two different qualities and descriptions of paper. By much the larger
part of the first volume, extending in the King's Library copy to p.
472, sig. Ooo, and in the Cracherode copy to p. 464 (misprinted 264),
sig. Nnn, but not including the dedication, preface, or list of
subscribers, is impressed on a very fine thick paper, without name,
date, or device, except two watermarks, frequently interchanged,
resembling respectively an escutcheon and a _fleur-de-lis_. The
remainder of the volume, and the whole of vol. 2, are executed upon a
good, but thinner and inferior, paper, with no clue to the date or place
of manufacture. The first leaf for which this new paper is employed is
greatly stained in both copies, apparently from contact with the Italian
paper, as the same is the case with the last leaf of the preliminary
matter. Some other leaves are slightly stained, especially near the end.
The leaves in finest condition are those of the dedication to Lord
Hervey and the preface, which were printed last, and with which especial
care would be taken. The portion of the first volume printed on the
English paper is not so considerable as Middleton seems to have at one
time expected, consisting, instead of two sections, of only a portion of
section 6, the last in the volume. It must be supposed that the paper
"in the Downs" proved sufficient to carry the impression on to the point
where the Italian paper fails. The difference between the thickness of
the two papers is such that although vol. 2 has only 36 pages less than
vol. 1, it weighs 11¼ oz. less, or about ⅛.
It appears unquestionable, then, that about the year 1740 English
publishers depended for the execution of fine books upon paper imported
from Genoa, and that the interruption of the supply from this quarter
occasioned great inconvenience for a time, keeping an important book at
a standstill for several months, but soon called the manufacture of fine
paper into activity, as a branch of English industry. It would be
interesting to know how long before 1740 this trade originated, and how
long after that date it continued. It is scarcely likely that it
flourished during the warlike times of Queen Anne; but it probably
revived during the quarter-century of tranquillity which followed the
Treaty of Utrecht. It is not probable that it long survived the
development of the manufacture of fine paper in England. Though inferior
to the Italian, the English paper was quite good enough to displace this
if it had the advantage of superior cheapness, as it certainly must have
had. Ample materials for deciding these questions probably exist on the
shelves of the King's Library.
It should be mentioned that there was an impression of the "Life of
Cicero" on small paper, but the great majority of the splendid list of
subscribers prefixed to the work appear as subscribing for large-paper
copies.
NOTE.—The writer might have remarked that Brian Walton, in
the preface to his superb edition of the Polyglott Bible
(1657) expresses, in a passage afterwards suppressed, his
obligation to the Protector and the Council of State, for
having remitted in his behalf the duty on paper; which is
undoubtedly to be understood of a tax on paper imported from
abroad.
ON SOME COLOPHONS OF THE EARLY PRINTERS[197:1]
The paper to which I am about to invite attention belongs to the class
which Mr. Chancellor Christie has very justly entitled "haphazard
papers," lying outside the proper work of the Library Association, and
contributing little or nothing to promote it. It is written to recommend
a slight literary undertaking which could not possibly find a place in
the programme of our body. It can only plead that a certain variety has
always been thought conducive to the interest of our gatherings; that it
may be well to show that no province of book-lore is altogether too
remote for our attention; and that a prolusion on an out-of-the-way
subject may have, so to speak, a kind of decorative value; as a sprig of
barberries, though nobody wants to eat it, may serve as garnish for a
substantial dish. The little enterprise I have to recommend is the
publishing, in a small volume, of such colophons, or attestations of the
completion of a book by a printer, as belong to the fifteenth century,
and possess individual features of interest, not being mere
matter-of-fact announcements or repetitions from former productions of
the same press.
There are two main sources of interest in the colophon—the biographical
and the personal. Taking the former first, it may be remarked that for a
long time the colophon supplied the place of the title-page. It would be
impossible to give a catalogue of very early title-pages, for very early
books had no title-pages. In his charming and beautifully illustrated
papers on the "History of the Title-Page," recently published in the
_Universal Review_—which I strongly recommend to your perusal—Mr.
Alfred Pollard, of the British Museum, tells us that the first English
title-page is assigned to the year 1491. It had come into use sooner on
the Continent, but the first example, which still requires to be
definitely ascertained, was probably not earlier than 1476, or more than
twenty years subsequent to the invention of printing. It was not until
1490 that title-pages became the rule, or until 1493 that the printer's
or publisher's name began to be given upon the title. Up to this date,
then, even when the book has a title-page, the printer or publisher can
only be ascertained from the colophon, and before 1490 you must
generally go to the colophon even for the description of the book. The
reason is, no doubt, the extent to which the printer was influenced by
the example of his predecessor, the copyist. It was more natural for the
scribe to record the completion of his labours at the end of his
manuscript than to announce their commencement on the first leaf. In
expressing his satisfaction and thankfulness on the last page he would
naturally mention the name of the book he had been engaged upon, and
hence his successor, the printer, inherited the habit of giving all
information about a book not stated in a prologue or table of contents,
at the end instead of at the beginning—in a colophon rather than on a
title-page. The same custom had prevailed in classic times. The ancient
title, when inscribed within the covers of the manuscript, was, says
Rich, "written at the end instead of the commencement, at least it is so
placed in all the Herculanean MSS. which have been unrolled." Sometimes,
however, it was written on a separate label affixed to the roll so as to
hang down outside: and on the same principle it may be conjectured that
when manuscripts came to be bound, much of the inconvenience occasioned
by the want of a title was obviated by the title being written on the
binding.
It must, nevertheless, seem surprising that so simple and useful a
contrivance as a title-page should not have been thought of sooner. In
one respect, however, the employment of the colophon for so long a
period is not to be regretted. If the title-page is more practical, the
colophon is more individual and characteristic. The title-page may tell
us something of the character of the author when it is his own wording,
but as a rule nothing of the printer beyond the bare facts of his
locality and his existence. But into the colophon the early printer has
managed to put a great deal of information about himself. He often
becomes, or at least hires, a poet. He boasts, and generally not without
ground, of his industry and accuracy. He usually records the precise day
when his work was completed, and sometimes the exact time spent upon it.
He sometimes, as in an instance quoted by Mr. Pollard, brings in a
bishop to help his book with a recommendation.
All this is very interesting so far as it helps to make the old printers
real to us. We would fain know more of men to whom we are so greatly
indebted, and who, we are sure, must have been individually interesting.
I will not say that this early age was the heroic age of printing, for
the history of the art is fertile in examples of heroism down to this
day; and perhaps the greatest man who ever exercised it—Benjamin
Franklin—was a modern. But there certainly must have been a romance
about the early days of printing not easily reproduced now. Romantic
circumstances must have attended the flight of the first printers from
the besieged city of Mentz, where the art had been exclusively carried
on for so many years.
When we see how largely these German emigrants settled in Italy and
France, and had almost a monopoly of Spain, we perceive that they must
have been men of great enterprise. How did they overcome the
difficulties that must have beset them as settlers in foreign countries?
Is it not a fair conjecture that the difficulty of language was partly
overcome by their being men of liberal education, and speaking Latin?
Still they would have workmen to direct; did they bring journeymen of
their own country with them, or instruct foreigners? The interest
attaching to this question tempts me to a brief digression into a
subject not properly comprised in my essay; the colophon, so far as I am
aware, throwing no light upon it. It seems probable that foreign
printers were attended in their migrations by bodies of journeymen; for
in the privilege granted by the Venetian Senate in 1469 to Joannes de
Spira, the first Venetian printer, he is said to have come to live in
Venice with his wife, his children, and his entire _familia_. The
_familia_, then, is expressly distinguished from his wife and children;
besides which the word never means in the classical writers, nor, so far
as I can discover, in the mediæval either, family in our sense of
kindred, but only in that of household: and as he is not likely to have
brought domestic servants with him, must be understood to denote here
the troop of workmen of whom he was the head; who had evidently also
immigrated with him. We are also told that a priest, Clemente Patavino,
probably the first Italian who ever exercised the art of printing,
taught himself by his own ingenuity, without having ever seen any one at
work. From this we may infer that the presses were jealously guarded,
and that the workmen were not Italians, or Clemente could not have been
the first Italian to learn the craft. His first book was printed in
1471, several years after the introduction of printing into Italy.
Other interesting questions respecting the early printers remain which
we should much like to have answered. Did they try to keep their art and
mystery secret? Were they their own type-founders? Were their types cast
near the scene of their labours, or transported from great distances?
How did they set about obtaining the favour of the great men who
patronised them? Was their discovery universally welcomed by the
learned? or did some consider that books were low, and manuscripts alone
worthy the attention of a self-respecting collector? Were they stunned
by the objurgations of angry copyists? or endangered by any supposed
connection with the black art? Were they in general their own editors
and proof-correctors? and what were their relations with the scholars
who aided them with annotations, or wrote dedications for their books?
At a considerably later period we obtain most satisfactory insight into
the economy of a great printing establishment from the memoirs of the
house of Plantin, at Antwerp. For these early times, except for such
information as may be derived from the accidental discovery of contracts
and similar documents, we must depend upon hints gleaned from the books
themselves, which are usually found in their colophons.
Neither my time nor yours would admit of my entering into the matter
very deeply at present, but I have selected a few instances, entirely
from books printed at Rome and Venice, which may serve to indicate what
illumination colophons may occasionally contribute to the obscurity of
early typography, and sometimes to that of the manners and ideas of the
times. And here I may remark incidentally, that the history of early
printing is highly creditable to the age which fostered the art, and to
those who exercised it, without, one may almost say, producing a single
frivolous book for fifty years. An account of it mainly from the point
of view of its contact with human life—the books which the early
printers thought worth reproducing, the success of these, as attested by
the comparative frequency of their republication, the proportion in
which studies and professions, arts and trades, respectively benefited
by the new discovery, would make a fascinating story in the hands of a
writer of insight and sympathy. We have materials enough; it is now
required to make the dry bones live.
In a colophon it will naturally be expected that among the sentiments
more frequently finding expression, should be the printer's joy in his
art, and assertion of its claims to admiration. Udalricus Gallus, of
Rome, boasts that he can print more matter in a day than a copyist can
transcribe in a year: "Imprimit ille die quantum non scribitur anno."
The same printer tells the geese that saved the Capitol that they may
keep their quills for the future, as the cock (_Gallus_) has cut them
out. Joannes de Spira, the first printer established at Venice, declares
that his first attempt has so far surpassed the work of the scribes that
the reader need set no bounds to his anticipations; just as an electric
light company might advertise "Gas entirely superseded." He celebrates
his type as more legible than manuscript:
"Namque vir ingenio mirandus et arte Joannes
Exscribi docuit clarius ære libros."
Now the word _docuit_ (_taught_) is not really appropriate to one who
merely exercised an art he had learned from others. The question might
be raised whether the reference is not to the inventor of printing,
Joannes Gutenberg, and whether in this book of 1469 we have not the
earliest testimony to his invention of printing. If so, this is indeed a
precious colophon; but I suppose it must be admitted to be more likely
that Spira was thinking of himself, or that his poet was not
over-discriminating in his praise of his employer. The point, however,
is worth considering. Spira's brother, Vindelinus, enunciates the
excellent maxim that the renown of a printer is rather to be estimated
by the beauty than by the number of his productions:
"Nec vero tantum quia multa volumina, quantum
Qui perpulchra simul optimaque exhibeat."