The Book-Collector Part 3

AS books, in a ma.n.u.script or printed shape, are far more numerous and varied than any other species of property, and are also more largely sought for purposes of direct study and instruction, there exists the greater difficulty in attempting to advise collectors as to the line which it is best, wisest, or safest to embrace.

The cla.s.s of persons who engage in this attractive pursuit are:--

(i) Pure amateurs, without any eye to the financial question.

(ii) Specialists of more than a single kind.

(iii) Students.

(iv) Speculators.

(v) Miscellaneous or casual buyers.

The normal amateur starts, in general, without any well-defined scheme before him. He has seen in the hands of a friend, perhaps, a curious book; and the notion takes possession of him, rather stealthily, yet rather languidly too, that it might be a "nice" thing to have oneself--that or such another. The spirit of collecting, like a delicate germ, is at first easily extinguished; but an incident as trivial and fortuitous as the one just suggested has ere now const.i.tuted the _nucleus_ and starting-point of a large library. It may, indeed, be a favourable symptom and augury when a man begins circ.u.mspectly and deliberately; he is more apt, other circ.u.mstances favouring, to prosecute his scheme to the end, and to prove a valuable friend to the trade.

We have mentioned that the Specialist may be of more than one sort. He may, in short, be of ten thousand sorts; and the Student, after all, may be bracketed with him; for both equally devote their exclusive attention to a prescribed cla.s.s of works or branch of inquiry for a more or less definite term.

The subjects which princ.i.p.ally engage the notice of specialists are:--

Ancient Typography (including Xylographic works).

English, Scotish, and Irish History.

English Topography.

English Genealogy and Family History.

Liturgies and Prayer-Books.

Books of Hours.

Bibles.

Roman Catholic books.

English books printed abroad.

Voyages and Travels.

Irish Literature.

Scotish Literature.

Early ill.u.s.trated books.

Modern ill.u.s.trated books.

French ill.u.s.trated books.

Books of Emblems.

Books of Engravings.

Early English Poetry.

Early Romances.

Early Music.

Spanish Romances.

Italian Romances.

Dantesque Literature.

Cromwell Literature.

Civil War and Commonwealth tracts.

Editions of the _Imitatio Christi_.

Editions of the _Pilgrim's Progress_.

Occult Literature.

Folk-lore.

Tobacco.

Educational books.

Caricatures in book form.

Miracles and phenomena.

Broadsides.

Chap-books.

There is probably not much of consequence to be suggested outside this calendar from which an intending collector may make his choice. Each of the topics indicated is, for the most part, susceptible of being subdivided and subdivided again.

_Ancient Typography_ is not only a large, but a difficult and costly field. It is, notwithstanding, a not unusual circ.u.mstance for a beginner, and not a rich one, to start by making himself master of a few examples of our first printers; and this arises from the fact that among the remains in such a line of collecting are pieces of no high interest or character, and copies whose condition does not attract the riper connoisseur. At the same time it arises from the feeling of the period which witnessed the dawn of the art, that a heavy percentage of the output of the printers of all countries amounts to little more than typographical curiosities, which may be substantially possessed in the form of an example of moderate cost. The novice generally selects books and tracts of foreign origin, and of a theological or technical complexion. Perhaps he goes further--even so far as to discard his earlier purchases; perhaps he does not. It is a matter of taste and money. If he does not seek the finest and rarest specimens, especially in the English series, it is not too much to say that 500 spread over a career would suffice to procure one a fair representation in which Fust and Schoeffer, Gutenberg, Mentelin, and Caxton might appear in the form of a leaf--possibly a damaged one. Yet there would be a chronological view in actual originals of the art of printing from the commencement in all countries. We go for our facts on this subject to Panzer, Hain, Brunet, the British Museum Catalogue, &c.

_British History_ and _Topography_ are alike departments which can scarcely be regarded as specialities without questionable fitness. For when we survey the catalogues of those who have professedly restricted their aim to these two ranges, and reflect that all such collections are, by the light of bibliographical authorities, more or less tentative and imperfect, we are brought to the conclusion that there would be, in a thoroughly exhaustive treatment of the matter, less left outside than could be found within. Of the divisions which present themselves above so much is capable of being drawn into the two other series. Numerically an a.s.semblage of ancient and modern books in these cla.s.ses would be by possibility immense. But the attendant outlay, unless certain signal rarities were included, or it was deemed necessary to comprise all the poetical relics with a historical or a topographical side, ought not to be relatively so high as that on the preceding category, particularly if the acquirer were satisfied here and there with trustworthy reproductions of three-and-four-figure items. From 1000 to 1500 will go a long way in supplying a collection with that qualifying proviso; without it, four times the amount would barely cover you. The Hartley and Phillipps catalogues should be consulted, as well as Upcott and other older authorities.

_Liturgies_ form one of the tastes and objects of pursuit of persons who have left behind them the fancies of their novitiate, and possess the means of purchasing a description of literature which is abnormally costly, and might prove more so, were the buyers more numerous. The editions of the Prayer-Book fall under this section, and are almost innumerable, being tantamount to _Annuals_, and of many years we possess more than one issue.

The printed _Books of Hours_ might, from their extent, as regards subordinate variations arising from the different uses and occasional changes in portions of the ritual, const.i.tute in themselves a life's study and absorb a fortune. There is great disparity in their typographical and artistic execution, no less than in their commercial value. A tolerably full description of the series occurs in Brunet, Lowndes, Maskell, the British Museum Catalogue, and in those of the princ.i.p.al collectors on these lines. Of those adapted to English or Scotish uses there is an account in Hazlitt's _Collections_; but we may look in the early future for an exhaustive monograph from the pen of Mr. Jacobus Weale.

The British Museum is singularly rich in editions in all languages of the _Imitatio Christi_, having enjoyed the recent opportunity of supplying wants from an enormous collection sold by public auction _en bloc_. The Offor Catalogue is considered an authority on the _Pilgrim's Progress_ and other works of Bunyan; but the National Library contains a large proportion of these books, and the Huth Catalogue and Hazlitt's _Collections_ must not be overlooked.

The authorities just cited, the Corser Catalogue, and the publications of the Holbein Society, will prove useful guides to any one desirous of studying the EMBLEM Series, which was some time since in marked request, but has sustained the customary relapse, and is what booksellers term rather _slow_ just now. Our own literature is not particularly wealthy in these productions; there is nothing of consequence beyond Whitney, Peacham, _The Mirror of Majesty_, 1618, Wither, Quarles, and Harvey (_School of the Heart_). But if the collector goes outside the national frontier, he meets with works of this cla.s.s in even bewildering abundance in regard to number, variety of type and treatment, and degree of artistic and literary merit.

Moreover, among the works of this species just enumerated as of national origin, four of the six were more or less heavily indebted to the Continent; the Whitney was printed at Leyden, and Wither, Quarles, and Harvey did little more than write English letterpress to sets of foreign plates.

_Books of Characters_, of which perhaps Earle's _Microcosmography_, 1628, is the most familiar, have attracted attention from more than one of our book-fanciers; they const.i.tute a somewhat extensive series, and we gain a fair _apercu_ of it in the catalogue of the library of DR. BLISS, of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, 1858. It was Bliss who reprinted Earle in 1811, and inserted a bibliography of publications on similar lines.

The above-mentioned gentleman also lent himself to two other paths of collecting: one suggested by local a.s.sociations, and consisting of works printed at Oxford, the second dealing with those which appeared just prior to the Great Fire of London in 1666.

One of Bliss's Oxford friends, DR. BANDINEL, Bodley's librarian, made it his speciality to bring together as many of the fugitive publications as possible relative to the Civil War Period and the Commonwealth, and MR. JOHN FORSTER did the same. The Bandinel Catalogue, 1861, is an excellent guide on this ground, although it is almost unnecessary to state that it is very incomplete. The best and most exhaustive a.s.semblage of the literature of the Troubles and Interregnum (1640-59) is the descriptive list of the King's pamphlets in the British Museum formed by Thomason the stationer.

The interest and profit attendant on the study of the monastic and patristic writers, who may be said to be less strictly national and more cosmopolitan than those of later schools, are, as a rule, casual and slender for the merely literary consulter or peruser, supposing the rather extreme case, where such a person is sufficiently courageous and robust to engage in anything approaching a serious examination of these families of books. The authors were true enthusiasts, labouring to their lives' last thread in some obscure cell or dim closet, where pride of authors.h.i.+p, as we may feel and enjoy it, there was none, when beyond the walls of a convent or those of a native town their names were unknown, their personality unrecognised. Except to the theologian or ritualist how repellent and illegible this ma.s.s of printed and ma.n.u.script matter must ever seem!

How deficient in human sympathy and pertinence! These treatises, so erudite, so prolix, and so multifarious, were composed by men (Universal, Irrefragable, or Seraphic Doctors), and after a certain date by women too (Angelical Sisters), who had no knowledge of the world, of society, of human nature, or of real philosophy. Yet they were, and long remained, the cla.s.s of literature most cultivated, most studied, and most multiplied; and to this hour, notwithstanding the destruction of millions of them, they abound in our national, cathedral, and college libraries, and in private collections dedicated to that particular side of inquiry and learning. In the booksellers'

catalogues we sometimes meet with examples, which are recommended to the curious buyer by their ill.u.s.trations of conventual life, and their exposure of those vices which a state of celibacy is calculated to promote in both s.e.xes. The chained book is not an uncommon feature in the ancient ecclesiastical repositories, and even in certain churches; and apart from the Scriptures, it almost invariably enters into the department of early divinity or polemics.

Whatever may be thought of this branch of the theological library, there is an undoubted market for it, or some portions of it, as stocks are kept both here and abroad, although on a more restricted scale, perhaps, than formerly. It is extremely probable that, if any one who was learned enough and dexterous enough should make a decoction of all the uncountable folios which exist up and down the globe, the result might be a single volume of not very ample dimensions, affording its share of insight and edification.

The call on the part of a narrow coterie of churchmen for the Catholic literature of the sixteenth and succeeding centuries, more especially the books produced at Continental presses, necessarily resulted in the rapid inflation of the value, while it brought to light from numberless recesses a vast a.s.semblage of works previously undescribed and unknown. Many of these works were produced at obscure localities in France and the Netherlands; but Paris, Douay, Brussels, Antwerp, Mecklin, Tournai, Bruges, Ghent, Breda, are responsible for a majority. Besides the purely religious publications, quite a large number of secular books, and those of permanent and striking interest, owed their origin to the same region, particularly to Amsterdam, the Hague, Middelburg, Dort. The source of all this foreign production was mainly either the employment of Englishmen and Scots abroad on military service, or their residence there in exile or for other purposes. Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and even Poland, lent their presses to the British author; the scarce tracts by James Crichton (the Admirable) proceeded from Milan or Venice. We know what important centres for English controversial divinity and political pamphleteering were Geneva, Basle, and Zurich, and the last-named place is particularly a.s.sociated with the name of Christopher Froschover, printer of the Bible of 1550. A distinct feature in this vast body of Continental typography connected with us is the curious and often unique light which it incidentally throws on the lives of our countrymen and countrywomen, segregated by their employments or opinions from their compatriots at home, and obliged to resort to printers ignorant of the language which they committed to type. A tolerably exhaustive estimate may be found of this branch of the subject by a reference to the _General Index_ of Hazlitt's COLLECTIONS (1867-91).

To the Duke of Suss.e.x's Catalogue, and those of Lea Wilson, George Offor, Francis Fry, William Maskell, W. J. Loftie, W. J. Blew, Farmer-Atkinson, Lord Ashburnham, and the Rev. W. Makellar of Edinburgh, we must go for the means of bibliographically estimating the editions of the Scriptures and the Prayer-Book; and the Huth and Caxton Exhibition Catalogues should be consulted. The ordinary English and American collector seldom goes beyond English, French, German, and Latin Bibles. Of all these, not even excepting the Fust and Gutenberg or Mazarin, the original impression of the Scriptures in French, published at Paris and Antwerp in six volumes between 1523 and 1528, is by far the rarest; and the next place or rank is perhaps due to the German one, printed at Zurich in the same number of volumes, 1527-29, of which an imperfect copy is in the Huth Library. The Mazarin Bible has grown rather commoner of late years. It is certainly much more so than Coverdale's English one of 1535 in a perfect state, or Tyndale's New Testament of 1526. It is a point about it not generally known, that the extant copies on vellum and on paper differ.

For History, Genealogy, Topography, and well-nigh all other branches of human science, the student finds himself referred to the Middle-Hill Library, now in course of gradual dispersion; but this is far richer in the ma.n.u.script than in the printed book department. He may also profitably consult the catalogues of Mr. Hartley and Mr.

Tyrrell (City Remembrancer), of whom the second collected largely on London.

Mr. Bolton Corney, Mr. Grenville, and Mr. Jadis made voyages and travels, books relating to America, and the first-named literary _adversaria_, distinct features in their enormous aggregate of volumes.

Information on early English poetry and the drama may be sought in the catalogues of Sykes, Perry, Caldecott, Heber, Chalmers, Jolley, Wolfreston, Way, Daniel, Corser, Collier, Frere, Bliss, Bright, Mitford, Ouvry, Bandinel, Halliwell-Phillipps, and of course Huth.

Mr. Brook Pulham concentrated his attention on the writings of George Wither, Mr. Bragge on works ill.u.s.trative of Smokers and Tobacco, and Major Irwin on the occult and supernatural.

Mr. Henry Pyne during a long series of years made an extensive collection, restricted to English books dated prior to the year 1600, and as a rule, it must be added, to the commoner cla.s.s of publications.

CHAPTER V

Voyages and travels--Their strong American interest--Maryland and Pennsylvania--New Plymouth--Sir John Mandeville--Columbus and Vespucci--Early medical literature--Harvey and the circulation of the blood--Occult literature--Phenomena--Technical works--The paddle-wheel--Books printed in a special manner--Chapbooks--Garlands--Ballads--Broadsides--Street advertis.e.m.e.nts--General or miscellaneous collections--Omnivorous buyers--Richard Heber, Sir Thomas Phillipps, James Crossley--A moral deduced--Most interesting types of collector--Advantages connected with restriction to personal tastes or wants--Dangers of emulation and servility--Mr. Quaritch's _Dictionary of Collectors_--Various sorts of genuine collector.