The Great Book-Collectors Part 6

Among the purchasers at the later sale we may notice the witty Esprit Flechier, who bought several of the lighter Latin poets, being a fas.h.i.+onable versifier himself and a dilettante in matters of binding and typography. In his account of the High Commission in Auvergne, appointed to examine into charges of feudal tyranny, the Abbe tells us how his reputation as a bibliophile was spread by a certain Pere Raphael at all the watering-places, and how two learned ladies came to inspect his books and carried off his favourite Ovid. His library was removed to London and sold in the year 1725; and the occasion was of some importance as marking the beginning of the English demand for specimens from Grolier's library.

Archbishop Le Tellier bought fifteen good examples, which he bequeathed in 1709, with all his other books, to the Abbey of St. Genevieve. His whole collection included about 50,000 volumes, mostly dealing with history and the writings of the Fathers. 'I have loved books from my boyhood,' he said, 'and the taste has grown with age.' He bought most of his collection during his travels in Italy, in England, and in Holland; but perhaps the best part of his store came from his tutor Antoine Faure, who left a thousand volumes to the Archbishop, to be selected at the legatee's discretion.

The most valuable portion of Grolier's library was bought by his friend Henri de Mesmes. This included the long series of presentation copies, printed on vellum, and magnificently bound. De Mesmes was a collector with a love of curiosities of all kinds. He seems to have been equally fond of his early specimens of printing, his Flemish and Italian illuminations, and the Arabic and Armenian treatises procured by his agents in the East. His library became a valuable museum which was praised by all the writers of that age, except indeed by Francois Pithou, who called De Mesmes a literary grave-digger, and mourned over the burial of so many good books in those cold and gloomy sepulchres.

There seems to have been little occasion for this outburst, since the library was open to all who could make a good use of it during the life of Henri de Mesmes and under his son and grandson. Henri de Mesmes the younger, its owner in the third generation, was renowned for his zeal in collecting; he is said to have even procured MSS. from the Court of the Great Mogul, dispatched by a French goldsmith at Delhi, who packed them in red cotton and stuffed them into the hollow of a bamboo for safer carriage. One of the finest things in his whole library was the Psalter which Louis IX. had given to Guillaume de Mesmes: it had come by some means into the library at Whitehall; but on the execution of Charles I.

the French Amba.s.sador had been able to secure it, and had restored it to the family of the original donee.

The Norman family of Bigot rivalled the race of De Mesmes in their ardour for book-collecting. Jean Bigot in 1649 had a magnificent library of 6000 volumes, partly inherited from his ancestors, and partly collected out of the monastic libraries at Fecamp and Mont St. Michel and other places in that neighbourhood. His son Louis-Emeric took the library as his share of the inheritance: its improvement became the occupation of his life; he made many expeditions after books in foreign countries, but when he was at home his library was the general _rendez-vous_ of all who were interested in literature. The books were left to Robert Bigot upon trusts that were intended to prevent their dispersion. A sale, however, took place in 1706, at which the monastic archives and most of the MSS. were purchased by the government.

By some arrangement, of which the history is unknown, the head of the family of De Mesmes was persuaded to allow his books to be included in the Bigot sale. There seems to have been an attempt to disguise the transaction by tearing off the bindings and defacing the coats of arms.

The strangest thing about the sale was the fact that no notice was taken of its containing the finest portion of Grolier's library. The splendid _Aldines_, on vellum, fell into the hands of an ignorant notary with a new room to furnish: and he thought fit to strip off all the bindings, that had been a marvel of Italian art, and to replace them with the gaudy coverings that were more suited to his _bourgeois_ desires.

M. de Lincy remarks that Grolier's books were strangely neglected through a great part of the eighteenth century. At the very end of the period, Count Macarthy had the good taste to include a few of them in his collection of books upon vellum. Mr. Cracherode began, in 1793, to buy all the specimens that came into the market: and the library which he bequeathed to the British Museum contains no less than eighteen fine examples. Eight more were comprised in the magnificent bequest of Mr.

Thomas Grenville's library in 1846. There has been a demand for these books in England for more than a century and a half. But when we look at the catalogues of Gaignat or La Valliere they seem to have been altogether disregarded. When Gaignat died in 1768 his collection was regarded as perfect; it was said that 'no one in the commonwealth of letters had ever brought together such a rich and admirable a.s.sembly.'

Yet he only had one 'Grolier book,' a magnificent copy of Paolo Giovio's book on Roman Fishes, which pa.s.sed to the Duc de la Valliere, and went for a few _livres_ at his sale. There were only two other specimens in the Duke's library; and they seem to have been treated with equal indifference. M. de Lincy was of opinion that the memory of Grolier was almost entirely forgotten, except in his native city of Lyons. The appearance of his books might be admired by an antiquary here and there; but the cla.s.sics had gone out of fas.h.i.+on for a time, and the world gave its attention to old poetry, to mediaeval romance, and even to 'books of _facetiae_.'

Grolier's reputation had mainly depended on his generous patronage of literature. Even the House of Aldus had rejoiced to be the clients of a new Maecenas. The authors of that time were still too weak to go alone. In the absence of a demand for books it was essential to gain the favour of a great man who might open a way to fame and would at least provide a pension. We have all smiled at the adulations of an ancient preface and the arrogance which too often baulked the poor writer's hopes. D'Israeli reminds us that one of the Popes repaid the translation of a Greek treatise with a few pence that might just have paid for the binding, and of Cardinal Este receiving Ariosto's work with the question--'Where on earth all that rubbish had been collected?' This was but a temporary phase, and literature became free from the burden as soon as the public had learned to read. The Houses of Plantin and the Elzevirs required no help in selling out their cheap editions. A good dedication was still a feather in the patron's cap. Queen Christina considered that she was justly ent.i.tled to the patronage of her subjects' works: and Marshal Rantzau, when writers were scarce in Denmark, brought out an anonymous work for the purpose of introducing a preface in which his fame as a book-collector was glorified. But the patron's function was gradually restricted; and at last it was nearly confined to cases where a dedication repaid a.s.sistance given in producing an unsaleable book.

The later renown of Grolier must rest on the fact that he invented a new taste. It would have been nothing to buy a few thousand Aldine books, even if the collection included all the first editions, the papers of all sizes, the copies with uncut edges, and specimens of the true misprints.

The family of Aldus had a large library of this kind, which was dispersed at Rome by its inheritor in the third generation; but it never attracted much attention, and was generally believed to have been merged in a collection at Pisa. Grolier introduced a fas.h.i.+on depending for its success on a multiplicity of details. He bought books out of large editions just issuing from the press; but he chose out the specimen with the best printing, and the finest paper, if vellum were not forthcoming.

The condition was perfect. Like the Count Macarthy he would have no dust or worm-holes: he was as microscopic in his views as the most accurate Parisian bibliophile. The binding was in the best Italian style: a general sobriety was relieved by the brilliancy of certain effects, by the purity of the design, perhaps above all by the perfection of the materials. The book was an object of interest, for its contents, or for historical or personal reasons; but it had also become an _objet d'art_, like a gem or a figure in porcelain. Grolier preserved his dignity as a bibliophile, and his true followers have not degenerated into collectors of _bric-a-brac_. It is sufficient to name such men as M. Renouard, the owner of many of Grolier's treasures, or M. Firmin-Didot 'the friend of all good books,' or the collections of Mr. Beckford and Baron Seilliere which have been in our own time dispersed. No doubt there is a tendency, especially among French amateurs, to regard books as mere curiosities; and M. Uzanne has drawn an amusing picture of the book-hunter as a chrysalis in his library, destined to find his wings in a flight after mosaic bindings, autographs, original water-colours, or plates in early states.

It is possible, however, to prevent the 'book-buying disease' from developing into a general collector's mania. With the world full of books, we must adopt some special variety for our admiration. One person will choose his library companions for their stateliness and splendid raiment, another for their flavour of antiquity, or the fine company that they kept in old times. Montaigne loved his friends on the shelf, because they always received him kindly and 'blunted the point of his grief.' He turned the volumes over in his round tower within any method or design; 'at one while,' he says, 'I meditate, at another time I make notes, or dictate, as I walk up and down, such whimsies as meet you here.' He cared little about the look of their outsides, but thought a great deal about their readiness to divert him; 'it is the best _viatic.u.m_ I have yet found out for this human pilgrimage, and I pity any man of understanding who is not provided with it.' We have omitted the best reason of all. One who has lived among his books will love them because they are his own.

Marie Bashkirtseff expressed the matter well enough in a page of her journal:--'I have a real pa.s.sion for my books, I arrange them, I count them, I gaze upon them: my heart rejoices in nothing but this heap of old books, and I like to stand off a little and look at them as if they were a picture.'

CHAPTER XIII.

LATER COLLECTORS: FRANCE--ITALY--SPAIN.

We have still to notice one or two of Grolier's contemporaries, who may be cla.s.sed as great book-collectors of an old-fas.h.i.+oned type. They knew the whole history of 'the Book,' and were themselves the owners of exquisite treasures, which are now h.o.a.rded up as the choicest remains of antiquity. But their function was not so much to collect books as rare and curious objects as to undertake the duty of saving the records of past history from destruction. They did the work in their day which has now devolved upon the guardians of public and national libraries. No private person could now take their place; but the interests of literature could hardly have been protected in a former age without the personal labour and enthusiasm of Orsini and Petau.

Fulvio Orsini was born in 1529. He began life as a beggar, though for many years before his death he was the leader of Italian learning. A poor girl had been abandoned with her child and was forced to beg her bread in the streets of Rome. The boy obtained a place in the Lateran when he was only seven years old: the Canon Delfini recognised his precocious talents and undertook to find him a cla.s.sical education. The student obtained some small preferment, and succeeded to his patron's appointment. His marvellous acquaintance with ancient books secured him a place as librarian to the Cardinal Farnese, and he received many offers of more lucrative employment: but he found that if he accepted he would have to live away from Rome; and he refused everything that could cause inconvenience to his mother, whose comfort was his constant care. On his death, in the year 1600, he bequeathed his vast collections to the Vatican, and the gift can only be compared to such important events as the arrival of the spoils of Urbino, or the great purchase of MSS. from the Queen of Sweden.

Orsini has been ridiculed for having more books than he could read, and for an excessive devotion to the antique. 'Here is a library like an a.r.s.enal,' said the satirist, 'stored with all the requisites for any campaign. The owner buys all the books that come in his way: it is true that he will not read them; but he will have them magnificently bound, and ranged on the shelves with a mighty show, and there he will salute them several times a day, and will bring his friends and servants to make their acquaintance.' Orsini is rebuked for his admiration of a dusty ma.n.u.script. 'When one of these old parchments falls into his hands, he makes you examine the decayed leaves on which the eye can hardly trace any marks of an ancient pen. 'What is this treasure that we have here?'

he cries, 'and oh! what joy, here we have the delight of mankind, and the world's desire, and pleasures not to be matched in Paradise!'

'There,' says our satirist, 'you have the very portrait of Fulvio Orsini.

Why, he once took a ma.n.u.script _Terence_, full of holes and mistakes, in writing to Cardinal Toletus, and told him that it was worth all the gold in the world'; and, to convince his Spanish Eminence, he said that the book was a thousand years' old. '_Est-il possible?_' replies the Cardinal, 'you don't say so. I can only say, my friend, I would rather have a book hot from the press than all the old parchments that the Sibyl had for sale.'

Jacques Bongars, the faithful councillor and amba.s.sador of Henri Quatre, was the owner of a remarkable library, consisting to a great extent of State papers and historical doc.u.ments, which Bongars had special facilities for collecting during his official visits to Germany. He had studied law at Bourges under the learned Cujacius, of whom it is recorded that when his name was mentioned in the German lecture-rooms, every one present took off his hat. Bongars has described his excitement at purchasing the great lawyer's library. 'My chief care has been to seek out the books belonging to Cujas. I expect that you will have a fine laugh when you think of all that crowd that goes to Court as if it were a fair, to do their business together, and to try to get money out of the King, while a regular courtier like myself rushes off to this lonely spot to spend his fortune on books and papers, all in disorder and half eaten by the book-worms. You will be able to judge if I am an avaricious man.

No trouble or expense is anything to me where books are concerned. Would to G.o.d that I were free, and had time to read them. I should not feel any envy then of M. de Rosny's wealth or the Persian's mountain of gold.'

While residing at Strasburg he bought the ma.n.u.scripts belonging to the Cathedral from some of the soldiers by whom the city was more than once pillaged during the wars of religion.

About the year 1603 Bongars arranged with Paul Petau for the joint purchase of a large collection of ma.n.u.scripts, which had belonged to the Abbey of St. Benoit-sur-Loire, and had been saved by the bailiff Pierre Daniel when the Abbey was plundered. The share of Bongars in this collection was transferred to Strasburg, and pa.s.sed eventually with the rest of his books to the public library of the city of Berne.

Paul Petau was a man of universal accomplishments. He was the rival of Scaliger in the science of chronology; his doctrinal works are praised as 'a monument of useful labour'; 'he solaced his leisure hours with Greek and Hebrew, as well as Latin verse,' and, according to Hallam's judgment, obtained in the last subject the general approbation of the critics. He formed a valuable museum of Greek, Roman, and Gaulish antiquities, with a cabinet of Frankish coins, to which Peiresc was a generous contributor.

His library contained several books that had belonged to Grolier; but it was chiefly remarkable for its MSS., of which several were published by Sirmond and Du Chesne among other materials for the history of France.

Many of them had been acquired from the collection of Greek and Hebrew books formed by Jean de Saint Andre, or out of the ma.s.s of chronicles, romances, and old French poems belonging to Claude Fauchet, and a large portion came, as we have seen, out of an ancient Benedictine Abbey. Paul Petau's books of all kinds were left to his son Alexander. The printed books, comprising a number of finely ill.u.s.trated works on archaeology, were sold at the Hague in 1722; the sale included the old library inherited by Francis Mansard, and the MSS. relating to Roman antiquities that had been the property of Lipsius. A thousand splendid volumes on parchment, the pride of the elder Petau, described by all who saw them in terms of glowing admiration, were sold in his son's lifetime to Queen Christina of Sweden. She had always intended to buy some great collection, and had thought among others of buying up those of Henri de Mesmes, of De Bethune, and the Cardinal Mazarin. She was delighted with her new acquisition, and carried it off to Rome, where she made a triumphal entry with her books amidst the popular rejoicings.

Something may be learned about the Italian collectors in the age that followed Grolier's death, from the story of the strange wanderings of the ma.n.u.scripts of Leonardo da Vinci. Very little was known upon this subject until M. a.r.s.ene Houssaye found an account of what had happened among the papers of the Barnabite Mazenta, who died in the year 1635. 'It was about fifty years ago,' says the memorandum, written shortly before the old monk's death, 'that thirteen volumes of Leonardo's papers, all written backwards in his own way, fell into my hands. I was then studying law at Pisa, and one of my companions in the cla.s.s-room was Aldus Manutius, renowned as a book-collector. We received a visit from one of his relations called Lelio Gavardi; he had been tutor in the household of Francesco Melzi, who was the pupil and also the heir of Leonardo.' Melzi treasured up every line and sc.r.a.p of the great man's works at his country-house in Vaprio; but his sons did not care for art, and left the papers lying about in a lumber-room, so that Gavardi was able to help himself as he pleased. He brought thirteen volumes, well-known in the history of literature, as far as Florence at first, and then to Aldus at Pisa. 'I cried shame on him,' said Mazenta, 'and as I was going to Milan I undertook to return them to the Melzi family. There I saw Doctor Horatio Melzi, who was quite astonished at my taking so much trouble, and gave me the books for myself, saying that he had plenty more of the same sort in his garrets at home.' When Mazenta became a monk the thirteen volumes pa.s.sed to his brothers, who talked so much about the matter that there was a rush of amateurs to Vaprio, and the Doctor was overwhelmed with offers for the great man's books and drawings. 'One of these rascals,' said Mazenta, 'was the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who used to make the bronzes for the Escorial, and he pretended that he would obtain an appointment for Melzi at Milan, if he would get back the thirteen volumes for King Philip's new library in Spain. Leoni got possession of most of the books and kept them in his own cabinet. One of the volumes was presented by Mazenta's brother to the Ambrosian Library and may still be seen there, in company with the huge _Codice Atlantico_, which Leoni made up out of hundreds of separate fragments. At Leoni's death his collection was bought by Galeazzo Arcanati, the ill.u.s.trious owner of an artistic and literary museum. He resisted the proposals of purchase that poured in from foreign Courts; our James I. is said to have offered three thousand gold doubloons for the great volume of designs; and on Arcanati's death the whole collection was transferred by his widow to the Ambrosiana. Some changes had been made in the distribution of the papers since Mazenta so easily acquired his thirteen books. The French took the same number away in 1796; but none of them ever returned, except the famous _Codice Atlantico_.

In Spain there were but few persons interested in books before the foundation of the Escorial towards the end of the sixteenth century. We learn from Mariana that soon after the year 1580 a vast gallery in the palace was filled with books, mostly Greek MSS., which had been a.s.sembled from all parts of Europe; 'its stores,' he said, 'are more precious than gold: but it would be well if learned men had greater facilities for reading them; for what profit is there from learning if she is treated like a captive and traitor?' Arias Monta.n.u.s, the first Orientalist of his age, was appointed librarian by the founder; he was the owner of an immense quant.i.ty of MSS. in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, many of which were used in his edition of the Antwerp Polyglott Bible, and these he bequeathed to the Escorial, while his printed books were left to the University of Seville.

The first book was printed in Valencia as early as the year 1474; but the prospects of literature remained dark until the termination of the Moorish wars. On the capture of Granada it was thought necessary to obliterate the memory of the Koran, and scores of thousands of volumes, or a million as some say, were destroyed by Cardinal Ximenes in a celebrated _auto-da-fe_. About three hundred Arabic works on medicine were preserved for the new library which the Cardinal was founding in his University of Alcala. The Cardinal spent vast sums in gathering materials for his Mozarabic Missal and the great Complutensian Polyglott. It is said that to avoid future criticism he gave his Hebrew originals to be used in the making of fireworks, just as Polydore Vergil was accused in our country of burning the monastic chronicles out of which he composed his history, and as many Italian writers were believed to have destroyed their cla.s.sical authorities. When Petrarch lost his Cicero, it was thought that Alcionio might have stolen it for his treatise upon exile; but we should probably be right in rejecting all these stories together as mere calumnies and 'forgeries of jealousy.'

Antonio Lebrixa, who worked under the Cardinal till his death in 1522, had done much to revive a knowledge of books, and may be regarded as the princ.i.p.al agent in the introduction of the new Italian learning. His pupil Ferdinand Nunez, or Nonnius as he is often called, carried on the good work at Salamanca, and left his great library to the University.

Diego Hurtado de Mendoza was one of the most distinguished students who ever followed the lectures there. As a poet he has been called the Spanish Sall.u.s.t: as the author of the adventures of Lazarillo de Tormes he takes a high place among the lighter authors of romance; and as a patron of learning he will always be remembered for having enriched the Escorial with his transcripts from Mount Athos, and six chests of valuable MSS. which he received in return for ransoming from his captivity at Venice the son of Soliman the Magnificent. Great credit must also be given to Don Ferdinand Columbus for his good work at Seville. The son of the great Admiral and Donna Beatrix Enriquez was one of the most celebrated bibliophiles in Europe. He began making his collections very soon after his father's death. Between 1510 and 1537 he had visited Italy several times, and had travelled besides in England and France, in the Low Countries and in Germany, buying books wherever he went. His great object was to procure illuminated MSS. and early editions of romances and miracle-plays; but he was also fond of the cla.s.sics, and his library at Seville is still possessed of many copies of Latin poets and orators which are full of his marginal notes. At Louvain he became acquainted with Nicholas Clenard, who was lecturing there on Greek and Hebrew, and was just commencing the Arabic studies by which his name became famous.

Don Ferdinand had a commission to bring back professors for the University of Salamanca, where learning was beginning to revive; and Clenard was easily induced to visit a country which might contain the relics of Moorish culture. Ferrari, as we know, was very successful in the next generation in finding rare books in Spain for Borromeo's Ambrosian library. At Bruges, Don Ferdinand met Jean Vasee, a man just suited for an appointment as librarian, and he too was persuaded to accompany the traveller on his return. Don Ferdinand established a large library in his house at Seville. Clenard helped to arrange the books, and Vasee became librarian. The volumes amounted at least to fifteen thousand in number, though the exact amount remains unknown owing to discrepancies in the earliest catalogues.

Don Ferdinand hoped that the library would be kept up by the family of Columbus. With that object he left it to his great-nephew Don Luis, with an annuity to provide for the expenses; if the legacy were refused, it was to pa.s.s to the Chapter of the Cathedral at Seville, with alternative provisions in favour of the Monastery of San Pablo. As events turned out, the succession was not taken up on behalf of his young kinsman, and after some litigation the Fernandina, or 'La Colombina' as it was afterwards called, was adjudged to the Chapter of Seville and placed in a room by the Moorish Aisle at the Giralda. Owing chiefly to the generosity of Queen Isabella and the Duc de Montpensier the library of 'La Colombina'

has been restored to prosperity, although according to Mr. Ford it was long abandoned to 'the canons and book-worms.' It appears that in the middle of the last century three-quarters of the MSS. had been destroyed by rough usage or by the water dripping in from the gutters; the books were in charge of the men who swept the Church, and they allowed the school-children to play with the ill.u.s.trated volumes and to tear out the miniatures and woodcuts. Mr. Harrisse has described with much detail the grandeur and the decline of this celebrated inst.i.tution, and he gives reasons for supposing that it may have suffered even in recent years from the negligence of its guardians. It is satisfactory, however, to find that its most precious contents have pa.s.sed safely through every period of danger; the library still contains some of the books of Christopher Columbus, and especially the _Imago Mundi_ with his marginal notes about the Portuguese discoveries, 'in all which things,' he writes 'I had my share.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. A. DE THOU.]

CHAPTER XIV.

DE THOU--PINELLI--PEIRESC.

It was long a saying among the French that a man had never seen Paris who had not looked upon the books of Thua.n.u.s. The historian Jacques-Auguste de Thou held a leading place in literature, without pretending in any way to rival the greatness of Joseph Scaliger or the erudition of Isaac Casaubon. He was the master of a great store of personal and secret history collected in state papers and records; but he was also famous for the extent of his general scholars.h.i.+p, and for the patronage which he manifested towards all who laboured about books. He was himself a most fastidious collector. He never heard of the appearance of a valuable work without ordering three or four copies on the fine paper manufactured for his private use; and of any such book already issued he would order several sets of sheets to be taken to pieces in order to procure one perfect example. His library was not large. It consisted of about 8000 printed books and 1000 ma.n.u.scripts, chiefly upon historical subjects; but they were all well selected, well bound, and in perfect condition. There is a letter upon this subject by Henri Estienne the printer, in which the high reputation of De Thou's library is contrasted with Lucian's just invective against the illiterate book-hunter: 'The satirist would have honoured a man like you, so learned and so generous in your library: you choose your books with taste, and proportion the cost of binding to the price of the volume; and Lucian, I am sure, would have praised your carefulness in these respects.'

In all matters connected with literature De Thou was helped by his friend 'Pithoeus,' of whom it was said that no one knew any particular author as well as Pierre Pithou knew all the cla.s.sics. By talent and hard work combined Pithou had 'distilled the quintessence of wisdom' out of the garnered stores of antiquity. Upon his death De Thou was inclined to give up his books and the work that had made life pleasant. He wrote in that strain to his a.s.sociate Isaac Casaubon. 'On the loss of my incomparable friend, the partner of my cares and my counsellor in letters and politics, the web that I was weaving fell from my hand, and I should not have resumed my history were it not a tribute to the memory of one who has done so much for me.'

De Thou's end was hastened by the death of his wife. Those who know the look of his books, stamped with a series of his family quarterings, will remember that he was first married to Marie Barbancon, and afterwards to Gasparde de la Chastre. 'I had always hoped and prayed,' he wrote at the commencement of his will, 'that my dearest Gaspara Chastraea would have outlived me.'

Admonished by her loss to set his affairs in order he began to take special pains in providing for the future of his books. He antic.i.p.ated the public spirit of Cardinal Richelieu, to whom the merit is often a.s.signed of having been the first to bequeath the use of his library to scholars. The Cardinal was not particular about the methods by which he ama.s.sed his literary wealth: he is said to have increased his store by all the arts of cajolery, and even by bare intimidation; and he may have wished to make some amends by directing that 'persons of erudition'

should have access to his books after his death. De Thou had an equal love of books, and showed perhaps a kinder feeling about the use of the treasures which his own care had acc.u.mulated. 'It is important,' he wrote, 'for my own family and for the cause of learning that the library should be kept together which I have been for more than forty years collecting, and I hereby forbid any division, sale, or dispersion thereof; I bequeath it to such of my sons as shall apply themselves to literature, and they shall hold it in common, but so that it shall be free to all scholars at home or abroad. I leave its custody to Pierre du Puy until my sons are grown up, and he shall have authority to lend out the MSS. under proper security for their safe return.'

Pierre and Jacques du Puy, the 'two Puteani' as they were often called, were the sons of a distinguished bibliophile, Charles du Puy, who died in 1594, and were themselves the leaders in a curious department of book-learning. Their father was the founder of a library enriched by his care with the best specimens of early printing and a few rare MSS. In the latter cla.s.s he possessed an ancient bilingual copy of St. Paul's Epistles, a Livy in uncial characters, and the precious fragments of the Vatican Virgil, which he gave to Fulvio Orsini in his lifetime. 'On his death,' says M. Guigard, 'the bibliographical succession pa.s.sed to Pierre and Jacques, his younger sons, the first a Councillor of State, the other Prior of St. Sauveur-les-Bray, and both employed as guardians of the books in the Royal Library. No two men were ever more ardently devoted to the interests of learning. They worked in concert at increasing and improving their father's library; but their chief object was to acc.u.mulate and preserve the obscurer materials of history. The _Collection Du Puy_, which has now became national property, comprised more than 800 volumes of fugitive pieces, memoirs, instructions, pedigrees, letters, and all the other miscellaneous doc.u.ments that were cla.s.sed by D'Israeli 'under the vague t.i.tle of State Papers.' It has been said that the object of their 't.i.tanic labour' was to ease the way for the historian De Thou; but it is more likely that the brothers obeyed an instinct for the acquisition of secret history; 'life would have been too short to have decided on the intrinsic value of the ma.n.u.scripts flowing down in a stream to the collectors.' The surviving brother bequeathed these State Papers to the Abbe de Thou (the fourth possessor of the 'Bibliotheca Thuana') who sold them to Charron de Menars; they were eventually purchased by Louis XVI., and were deposited in the Royal Library, where the printed books and certain other MSS. had been already received under a legacy from Jacques du Puy.

When the historian died the brothers jointly undertook the trust that had fallen to Pierre. 'Among all the French scholars,' said Ga.s.sendi,'these two Puteani do most excel; and now, abiding with the sons of Thua.n.u.s, they sustain by all the means in their power the library and the students that have been committed to their care. Francois-Auguste de Thou, the historian's eldest son, became Grand-Master of the King's books; he added considerably to the 'Bibliotheca Thuana,' and his house became the meeting-place of the Parisian _savants_. A brilliant career was cruelly cut short by the malignity of Richelieu.

The young Cinq-Mars was in a plot with the Queen and Gaston of Orleans to overthrow the Cardinal's power. His friend De Thou was aware of the design, but had taken no part in the conspiracy. The Cardinal arrested them both, and dragged them along the Rhone in a boat attached to his own barge; and De Thou was executed as a scapegoat, while most of the leaders saved their lives. The Cardinal died soon afterwards, without having confiscated the library; and it pa.s.sed to Jacques-Auguste, the historian's younger son, who by a tardy act of grace had been restored to the civil rights enjoyed by his brother before his unjust conviction.

He was by all accounts as great a book-collector as his father; and he had the good fortune to marry an heiress, Marie Picardet, who brought with her a large quant.i.ty of books from her father's house in Britanny.

In the year 1677 the 'Bibliotheca Thuana' with all its additions pa.s.sed to the Abbe Jacques-Auguste de Thou, who was soon afterwards compelled to part with it to the President Charron de Menars. St. Simon praised its new owner as a most worthy and honourable nonent.i.ty; but he had the sense to step into the breach and to save the 'Thuana' from destruction. When he sold the library to the Cardinal de Rohan, in 1706, he reserved the _Collection Du Puy_ for his daughters. It is believed that the Cardinal, through the cleverness of his secretary Oliva, obtained the historian's choice examples for less than the price of the binding. We must follow the career of the collection to its melancholy end. The Cardinal left it to his nephew the Prince de Soubise. The world knows him as the inventor of a sauce and as the general in one lost battle; but he had a higher fame among the booksellers for his prowess in the auction-room. He seems to have been the victim of a frenzy for books. He impressed them by crowds, and marshalled them in regiments and myriads. They all fell in 1789 before the hammer of the auctioneer. Dibdin has described the catalogue. It was unostentatious and printed on indifferent material. He hoped, with his curious insistance on the point, that there were 'some few copies on large paper.' It is a mark of the changes in book-collecting that Dibdin praised the index as excellent, 'enabling us to discover any work of which we may be in want'; but it is now regarded as remarkable for its poverty, and especially for the extraordinary carelessness that left eight n.o.ble specimens from Grolier's library without the slightest mark of distinction.

Gian-Vincenzio Pinelli was a celebrated man of letters whose library at Padua formed 'a perpetual Academy' for all the scholars of his day. Born at Naples in 1538, he spent the greater part of his long life at Padua, where he was sent to study the law; but the only sign of his professional labours appears to have been that he rigidly excluded all works on jurisprudence from his magnificent library. His books, says Hallam, were collected by the labours of many years: 'the catalogues of the Frankfort fairs and those of the princ.i.p.al booksellers in Italy were diligently perused, nor did any work of value appear from the press on either side of the Alps which he did not instantly add to his shelves.' Remembering the traditions of the age of Poggio, when the rarest cla.s.sics might be found peris.h.i.+ng in a garret or a cellar, Pinelli was always in the habit of visiting the dealers in old parchment and the brokers who carried off deeds and papers from sales, just as Dr. Rawlinson collected and gave to the Bodleian a ma.s.s of unsorted doc.u.ments, including, as we have seen, even the logs of recent voyages, and the pickings of "grocers'

waste-paper." In each case the industry of the collector was constantly rewarded by the discovery of valuable literary materials, which would have been lost under ordinary circ.u.mstances. The library of Pinelli was augmented by that of his friend Paul Aicardo, the two _literati_ having entered into an undertaking that the survivor should possess the whole fruit of their labours. On Pinelli's death, in 1601, his family determined to transfer his books to Naples. The Venetian government interfered on the ground that, though Pinelli had been allowed to copy the archives and registers of the State, it had never been intended that the information should be communicated to a foreign power. Their magistrate seized a hundred bales of books, of which fourteen were packed with MSS. On examination it appeared that there were about three hundred volumes of political commentaries, dealing with the affairs of all the Italian States; and it was arranged, by way of compromise, that these should remain at Padua in a repository under the charge of an official guardian. The rest of the library was despatched in three s.h.i.+ploads from Genoa. One vessel was captured by pirates, and the cargo was thrown overboard, only a few volumes being afterwards cast ash.o.r.e. The other s.h.i.+ps arrived safely at Naples; but it appears that the new proprietors had little taste for literature. The whole remaining stock was found some years afterwards in a mouldy garret, packed in ninety bales; and it was purchased at last for 3000 crowns by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo, who used it as the basis for the Ambrosian Library which he was at that time establis.h.i.+ng in Milan. Another library was afterwards founded at Venice by members of the Pinelli family engaged in the Levantine trade. On the death of its last possessor, Maffeo Pinelli, in 1787, the collection was sold to a firm of English booksellers. It seems by Dibdin's account to have been in a poor condition, though Dr. Harwood declared that, 'there being no dust in Venice,' it had reposed for some centuries in excellent preservation. This immense body of books was re-sold in London two years afterwards at prices which barely covered the expenses incurred, though a large amount was obtained for a copy of the Polyglott Bible of Ximenes in six folio volumes printed upon vellum.

The praises of the great Pinelli were spread abroad by Scaliger, De Thou, and Casaubon; but his memory, perhaps, has been best preserved by the ardent friends.h.i.+p of Peiresc. He was visited at Padua by the young philosopher in whose mind he found a reflection of his own; and it was generally agreed that the lamp of learning had pa.s.sed into safe hands when it was yielded by Pinelli to the student from Provence. Nicolas Fabry de Peiresc belonged to an ancient family established near Aix. His father had been selected by Louis XII. to share the education of the Princess Renee. A man of learning himself, he spared no expense in the boy's instruction, who became celebrated even in his childhood for the strength of his precocious intellect. The most eminent professors in Italy combined to exalt 'the ripe excellence of his unripe years'; and when Pinelli died it was said that Peiresc had taken the helm of knowledge and was guiding the s.h.i.+p as he pleased. He explored at leisure the riches of Florence and Rome, and afterwards watched the rise of the 'Ambrosiana' at Milan. A letter from Joseph Scaliger, who ruled literary Europe like a King, from his chair at Leyden, sent Peiresc off to Verona, where he hunted up evidence in support of the wild story that the Scaligers were the representatives of the Ducal line of La Scala.

Julius Caesar Scaliger, the father of the great philologist, had amused the world by claiming to be the son of Benedetto and Berenice della Scala, to have been a page of the Emperor Maximilian, and to have fought in the Battle of Ravenna; and he pretended that he had become a Cordelier, so as to rise to the Papal throne and expel the Venetians from his dominions. Peiresc was by no means a believer in this extraordinary romance; but he did his best to collect the coins, epitaphs, and pedigrees, which might please his learned correspondent. Crossing the Alps, we are told, 'he viewed the Lake of Geneva and made a tour through a mult.i.tude of books'; and returned to Aix with a library and cabinet of gems, 'thinking to himself that he would never see such plenty again.'