The collection was indeed a curious one, and might well be envied by an
amateur. Yet it was not collected at the enormous prices of modern
times, which are sufficient to have appalled the most determined as well
as earliest bibliomaniac upon record, whom we take to have been none
else than the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha, as, among other slight
indications of an infirm understanding, he is stated, by his veracious
historian, Cid Hamet Benengeli, to have exchanged fields and farms for
folios and quartos of chivalry.... Mr. Oldbuck did not follow these
collectors in such excess of expenditure; but, taking a pleasure in the
personal labour of forming his library, saved his purse at the expense
of his time and toil.... 'Davy Wilson,' he said, 'commonly called Snuffy
Davy, from his inveterate addiction to black rappee, was the very prince
of scouts for searching blind alleys, cellars, and stalls, for rare
volumes. He had the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap of a
bull-dog. He would detect you an old black-letter ballad among the
leaves of a law-paper, and find an _editio princeps_ under the mask of a
school Corderius.' ... 'Even I, sir,' he went on, 'though far inferior
in industry and discernment and presence of mind to that great man, can
show you a few--a very few things, which I have collected, not by force
of money, as any wealthy man might,--although, as my friend Lucian says,
he might chance to throw away his coin only to illustrate his
ignorance,--but gained in a manner that shows I know something of the
matter. See this bundle of ballads, not one of them later than 1700, and
some of them a hundred years older. I wheedled an old woman out of
these, who loved them better than her psalm-book. Tobacco, sir, snuff,
and the _Complete Syren_, were the equivalent! For that mutilated copy
of the _Complaynt of Scotland_, I sat out the drinking of two dozen
bottles of strong ale with the late learned proprietor, who, in
gratitude, bequeathed it to me by his last will. These little Elzevirs
are the memoranda and trophies of many a walk by night and morning
through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Bow, Saint Mary's
Wynd,--wherever, in fine, there were to be found brokers and traders,
those miscellaneous dealers in things rare and curious. How often have I
stood haggling on a halfpenny, lest, by a too ready acquiescence in the
dealer's first price, he should be led to suspect, the value I set upon
the article!--how have I trembled, lest some passing stranger should
chop in between me and the prize, and regarded each poor student of
divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall, as a rival
amateur, or prowling bookseller in disguise!--And then, Mr. Lovel, the
sly satisfaction with which one pays the consideration, and pockets the
article, affecting a cold indifference, while the hand is trembling with
pleasure!--Then to dazzle the eyes of our wealthier and emulous rivals
by showing them such a treasure as this' (displaying a little black
smoked book about the size of a primer); 'to enjoy their surprise and
envy, shrouding meanwhile, under a veil of mysterious consciousness, our
own superior knowledge and dexterity;--these, my young friend, these are
the white moments of life, that repay the toil, and pains, and sedulous
attention, which our profession, above all others, so peculiarly
demands!' ...
Here were editions esteemed as being the first, and there stood those
scarcely less regarded as being the last and best; here was a book
valued because it had the author's final improvements, and there another
which (strange to tell!) was in request because it had them not. One was
precious because it was a folio, another because it was a duodecimo;
some because they were tall, some because they were short; the merit of
this lay in the title-page--of that in the arrangement of the letters in
the word Finis. There was, it seemed, no peculiar distinction, however
trifling or minute, which might not give value to a volume, providing
the indispensable quality of scarcity, or rare occurrence, was attached
to it.--SIR W. SCOTT. _The Antiquary._
I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a
king who did not love reading.--LORD MACAULAY.