English Book Collectors Part 1

English Book Collectors.

by William Younger Fletcher.

PREFACE

My princ.i.p.al object in compiling this work on English Book Collectors has been to bring together in a compact and convenient form the information respecting them which is to be found scattered in the works of many writers, both old and new. While giving short histories of the lives of the collectors, and some description of their libraries, I have also endeavoured to show what manner of men the owners of these collections were. In doing this I have sought, where practicable, to let the accounts be told as much as possible in the words of their biographers, as their narratives are often not only full of interest, but are also couched in delightfully quaint language. As it would not be possible in a volume of this size to furnish satisfactory notices of all the Englishmen who have formed large libraries, I have selected some of those who appear to possess special claims to notice, either on the ground of their interesting personality, or the exceptional importance of their collections. I have not given any account of the collectors who lived prior to the reign of Henry VII., for until that time libraries consisted almost entirely of ma.n.u.scripts; and I have also excluded men who, like Sir Thomas Bodley, collected books for the express purpose of forming, or adding to, public libraries.

My friend, Mr. Walter Stanley Graves, has in an appendix to this volume compiled a list of the princ.i.p.al sales of libraries in this country from an early period to the present time, which will be found to supply useful information about many of those collectors who are not otherwise mentioned in the book.

Mr. Locker-Lampson in the introduction to the catalogue of his library very pertinently remarks: 'It is a good thing to read books, and it need not be a bad thing to write them; but it is a pious thing to preserve those that have been some time written.' To collectors scholars owe a deep debt of grat.i.tude, for innumerable are the precious ma.n.u.scripts and rare printed books which they have rescued from destruction, and not a few of them have enriched by their gifts and bequests the public libraries of their country. Every lover of books must feel how greatly indebted he is to Archbishops Cranmer and Parker, the Earl of Arundel, Lord Lumley, Sir Robert Cotton, and other early collectors, for saving so many of the priceless ma.n.u.scripts from the libraries of the suppressed monasteries and religious houses which, at the Reformation, intolerance, ignorance, and greed consigned to the hands of the tailor, the goldbeater, and the grocer. A large number of the treasures once to be found in these collections have been irrecoverably lost, but many a volume, now the pride of some great library, bears witness to the pious and successful exertions of these eminent men.

A love of book-collecting has always prevailed in this country, and since the end of the seventeenth century it has become very widely diffused. In the early days of the eighteenth century the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, the Earls of Oxford and Sunderland, and several other collectors, employed themselves during the winter months in rambling through various quarters of the town in search of additions to their libraries, and with some of these collectors the acquisition of books became a positive pa.s.sion. In 1813 Dr. Dibdin thought that the thermometer of bibliomania had reached its highest point, and it would certainly appear to have been very high indeed, judging from the prices obtained at the Roxburghe and other sales of the time. For some years there was a period of depression, which perhaps was at the lowest between 1830 and 1850, but the desire to acquire rare books appears never to have been greater than at the present day, and for the choicest examples collectors are willing to give sums which dwarf into insignificance the prices which excited the astonishment of our fathers.

These high prices may possibly be somewhat due to the spirited bidding of the great bookseller we have recently lost, and to the compet.i.tion of our American cousins; but they are also distinct evidences that the beautiful and interesting volumes which issued from the presses of the old printers have not lost their charm for the bibliophiles of our own time. They have the advantage, too, of causing these treasures to be more valued, and consequently better treated, for it has been well said that nothing tends to the preservation of anything so much as making it bear a high price.

A chronological arrangement of the collectors has been adopted for several reasons as the preferable one, but an alphabetical list of their names will be found at the beginning of the volume. It ought also to be observed that accounts of the different libraries rarely mention the number of books contained in them, but when they have been sold by auction I have found by a careful examination of the sale catalogues that on an average each lot may be reckoned as consisting of about a volume and a half.

'For out of the olde feldes, as men saythe, Cometh al this newe come fro yere to yere, And out of olde bokes, in good faythe, Cometh al this newe science that men lere.'

CHAUCER.--_Parlement of Foules._

W.Y.F.

ROYAL COLLECTORS

Although various books are incidentally mentioned in the Wardrobe Accounts of the first, second, and third Edwards, there is no good reason to believe that any English king, save perhaps Henry VI., or any royal prince, with the exception of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and possibly of John, Duke of Bedford, possessed a collection large enough to be styled a library until the reign of Edward IV. In the Wardrobe Accounts of that Sovereign, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the library of the British Museum, mention is made of the conveyance, in the year 1480, of the King's books from London to Eltham Palace. It is stated that some were put into 'the kings carr,' and others into 'divers cofyns of fyrre,' Several entries also refer to the 'coverying and garnyss.h.i.+ng of the books of oure saide Souverain Lorde the Kynge' by Piers Bauduyn, stationer. Among the books mentioned are the works of Josephus, Livy, and Froissart, 'a booke of _the holy Trinite_,' 'a booke called _le Gouvernement of Kinges and Princes_,' 'a booke called _la Forteresse de Foy_,' and 'a booke called the _bible historial_.' The price paid for 'binding, gilding, and dressing' the copy of the _Bible Historiale_ and the works of Livy was twenty s.h.i.+llings each, and for several others sixteen s.h.i.+llings each. Other entries show that the bindings were of 'Cremysy velvet figured,' with 'Laces and Ta.s.sels of Silk,' with 'Blue Silk and Gold Botons,' and with 'Claspes with Roses and the Kings Armes uppon them.' 'LXX Bolions coper and gilt,' and 'CCC nayles gilt' were also used.

The first English king who formed a library of any size was Henry VII., and many entries are found in his Privy Purse Expenses relating to the purchase and binding of his books. The great ornament of his collection was the superb series of volumes on vellum bought of Antoine Verard, the Paris publisher, which now forms one of the choicer treasures of the British Museum. Henry's princ.i.p.al library was kept in his palace at Richmond, where, with the exception of some volumes which seem to have been taken to Beddington by Henry VIII., it appears to have remained for more than a century after his death, for Justus Zinzerling, a native of Thuringia, and Doctor of Laws at Basle, states in his book of travels, ent.i.tled _Itinerarium Galliae, etc._, Lyons, 1616, that 'the most curious thing to be seen at Richmond Palace is Henry VII.'s library.' It was probably removed to Whitehall, for the only book in the library mentioned by Zinzerling, a _Genealogia Rerum Angliae ab Adamo_, appears in a catalogue of Charles II.'s MSS. at Whitehall, compiled in 1666.

Henry VIII. inherited the love of his father for books, and added considerably to his collection. Besides the library at Richmond, Henry had a fine one at Westminster, a catalogue of which, compiled in 1542 or 1543, is still preserved in the Record Office. He had also libraries at Greenwich, Windsor, Newhall in Ess.e.x, and Beddington in Surrey. Some of his books were also kept at St. James's, for in the inventory of his furniture at that palace, entries occur of a _Description of the hollie lande_; 'a boke covered with vellat, embroidered with the Kings arms, declaring the same, in a case of black leather, with his graces arms'; and other volumes. Of these libraries the largest and most important appears to have been that at Westminster. It was fairly rich in the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics, and in the writings of French and Italian authors. The English historians were well represented, but the princ.i.p.al feature of the collection was the works of the Fathers, which were very numerous. The library also contained no less than sixty primers, many of them being bound in 'vellat,' or in 'lether gorgiously gilted.' In the succeeding reign this library was purged 'of all ma.s.sebookes, legendes, and other superst.i.tiouse bookes' by an Order in Council, which also directed that 'the garnyture of the bookes being either golde or silver'

should be delivered to Sir Anthony Aucher, the Master of the Jewel House.

The library at Greenwich contained three hundred and forty-one printed and ma.n.u.script volumes, besides a number of ma.n.u.scripts, kept in various parts of the palace. An inventory, taken after the King's death, mentions among other books 'a greate booke called an Herballe,' 'twoo great Bibles in Latten,' and 'a booke, wrytten on parchment, of the processe betweene King Henry th' eight and the Ladye Katheryne Dowager.'

The Windsor and Newhall libraries were smaller; the first comprising one hundred and nine, and the second sixty volumes. At Beddington were some remarkably choice books, including many beautiful editions printed for Antoine Verard, probably some of those purchased by Henry VII. Among these was 'a greate booke of parchment, written and lymned with gold of gravers worke, _de confessione Amantis_.'

Edward VI. and Mary during their short reigns added comparatively few books to the royal collection, nor are there many to be now found in it which were acquired by Elizabeth. It is difficult to say what became of this Queen's books, of which she appears to have possessed a considerable number; for Paul Hentzner tells us in his _Itinerary_ that her library at Whitehall, when he visited it in 1598, was well stored with books in various languages, 'all bound in velvet of different colours, although chiefly red, with clasps of gold and silver; some having pearls and precious stones set in their bindings.' Probably the richness of the bindings had much to do with the disappearance of the books.

James I. is undoubtedly ent.i.tled to a place in the list of royal book-collectors, and the numerous fine volumes, many of them splendidly bound, with which he augmented the royal library, testify to his love of books. When but twelve years of age he possessed a collection of something like six hundred volumes, about four hundred of which are specified in a ma.n.u.script list, princ.i.p.ally in the handwriting of Peter Young, who shared with George Buchanan the charge of James's education.

This list is preserved in the British Museum, and was edited in 1893 by Mr. G.F. Warner, a.s.sistant-Keeper of Ma.n.u.scripts, for the Scottish History Society. After the death of the learned Isaac Casaubon, the King, at the instigation of Patrick Young, his librarian, purchased his entire library of his widow for the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds.

If James I. is ent.i.tled to be regarded as a collector, his eldest son Henry has even a better claim to the t.i.tle. This young prince, who combined a great fondness for manly sports with a sincere love for literature, purchased from the executors of his tutor, Lord Lumley, the greater portion of the large and valuable collection which that n.o.bleman had partly formed himself, and partly inherited from his father-in-law, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, the possessor of a fine library at Nonsuch, comprising a number of ma.n.u.scripts and many printed volumes which had belonged to Archbishop Cranmer. Henry's first care after the acquisition of the books was to have them catalogued, and in his Privy Purse Expenses for the year 1609 we find the following entry: 'To Mr.

Holc.o.c.k, for writing a Catalogue of the Library which his Highness hade of my Lord Lumley, 8, 13s. 0d.' He also unfortunately had the volumes rebound and stamped with his arms and badges, a step which must have destroyed many interesting bindings. Henry only lived three years to enjoy his purchase, but during that time he made many additions to it.

Edward Wright, the mathematician, who died in 1615, was his librarian, and received a salary of thirty pounds a year. As Henry died intestate his library became the property of his father, and pa.s.sed into the royal collection which was given to the British Museum by George II.

Prince Rupert also appears to have inherited to some extent the love of books possessed by his grandfather James I. and his uncle Prince Henry, for he formed a well-selected library of about twelve hundred volumes, of which a catalogue is preserved among the Sloane ma.n.u.scripts in the British Museum.[1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES.]

King Charles I., although he bought some books, and had a number of valuable volumes given to him by his mother, can hardly be cla.s.sed with the royal book-collectors. He had a greater inclination to paintings and music than to books, and it is said that he so excelled in the fine arts, that he might, if it were necessary, 'have got a livelihood by them.' One very precious addition to the royal library was, however, made during his reign: the famous _Codex Alexandrinus_, which Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, in 1624 placed in the hands of Sir Thomas Roe, the English amba.s.sador to the Porte, as a gift to King James, but which did not reach England till four years later, when that sovereign was no longer alive. The royal library, which had narrowly escaped dispersion in the Civil War, was largely increased during the reign of Charles II., and at his death the works in it amounted to more than ten thousand. A love of books can scarcely be attributed to Charles, and although he certainly caused some important additions to be made to the collection--notably a number of valuable ma.n.u.scripts which had belonged successively to John and Charles Theyer--the greater part of the increase may be ascribed to the operation of the Copyright Act, which was pa.s.sed in the fourteenth year of this reign, and enabled the royal library to claim a copy of every work printed in the English dominions. From the death of Charles until the library was given to the nation by George II. in 1757 little interest was taken in it by the kings and queens who reigned in the interval.

Although George III. was a man of somewhat imperfect education, he keenly regretted the loss of the royal collection, and no sooner was he seated on the throne than he began to ama.s.s the magnificent library which has now joined its predecessor in the British Museum. In this labour of love he was a.s.sisted by the sympathy and help of his Queen, who, Dr. Croly tells us, was in the habit of paying visits, with a lady-in-waiting, to Holywell Street and Ludgate Hill, where second-hand books were offered for sale. The King commenced the formation of his collection in 1762 by buying for about ten thousand pounds the choice library of Mr. Joseph Smith, who for many years was the British consul at Venice, and 'for seven or eight years the shops and warehouses of English booksellers were also sedulously examined, and large purchases were made from them. In this labour Dr. Johnson often a.s.sisted, actively as well as by advice.'[2] It is said the King expended during his long reign, on an average, about two thousand pounds a year in the purchase of books. In 1768 he despatched his illegitimate half-brother, Mr. Barnard, afterwards Sir Frederic Augusta Barnard, whom he had appointed his librarian, on a bibliographical tour on the Continent, during which so many valuable acquisitions were obtained for the library, that it at once took its place amongst the most important collections in the country, and after the death of the King, when the books it contained were counted by order of a select committee of the House of Commons, they were found to number 'about 65,250 exclusive of a very numerous a.s.sortment of pamphlets, princ.i.p.ally contained in 868 cases, and requiring about 140 more cases to contain the whole.' These tracts, which number about nineteen thousand, have since been separately bound. The ma.n.u.scripts belonging to the library amount to about four hundred and forty volumes, and there is also a magnificent collection of maps and topographical prints and drawings. The library is very rich in bibliographical rarities as well as in general literature. The Gutenberg Bible, the Bamberg Bible, the first and second Mentz Psalters (the first, a superb volume, is kept at Windsor Castle), and no less than thirty-nine Caxtons are among the most conspicuous of the many treasures of this splendid collection. The Caxtons were princ.i.p.ally purchased at the sales of the libraries of James West in 1773, John Ratcliffe, the Bermondsey s.h.i.+p-chandler, who had acquired the remarkable number of forty-eight, in 1776, and of Richard Farmer in 1798. Edwards, in his _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, informs us that 'Ratcliffe's forty-eight Caxtons produced at his sale two hundred and thirty-six pounds, and that the king bought twenty of them at an aggregate cost of about eighty-five pounds. Amongst them were _Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae_, the first editions of _Reynard the Foxe_ and the _Golden Legende_, the _Curial_, and the _Speculum Vitae Christi_.

The _Boethius_ is a fine copy, and was obtained for four pounds six s.h.i.+llings.'

George III.'s library was first kept in the old Palace of Kew, which was pulled down in 1802, and afterwards in a handsome and extensive suite of rooms at Buckingham House; the site which at one time had been proposed for the British Museum. Scholars and students were at all times liberally permitted by the King to consult the books, and he also showed his kindly consideration for them by instructing his librarian 'not to bid either against a literary man who wants books for study, or against a known collector of small means.' A handsome catalogue of the library was compiled by Sir F.A. Barnard, who had charge of the collection from its commencement to the time when it was acquired by the nation. He died on the 27th of January 1830, aged eighty-seven.

The library in which George III. took so keen an interest was regarded by his successor as a costly burden, and there is little doubt he intended to dispose of it to the Emperor of Russia, who was very anxious to obtain it. The design of the King having become known to Lord Farnborough and Richard Heber, the collector, they communicated intelligence of it to Lord Liverpool and Lord Sidmouth, who were fortunately able to prevent the proposed sale of the books by offering the King an equivalent for them, the amount of which has not transpired, out of a fund known as the Droits of the Admiralty. On the completion of the bargain, George IV. addressed to Lord Liverpool a letter, dated January 15th, 1823, in which occur the following words: 'The King, my late revered and excellent father, having formed during a long series of years a most valuable and extensive library, consisting of about 120,000 volumes, I have resolved to present this collection to the British Nation.' This letter, printed in letters of gold, is preserved in the British Museum. In addition to the first edition of the Mentz Psalter; the Aldine Virgil of 1505, the Second Shakespeare folio which once belonged to Charles I., four Caxtons forming part of the collection, viz., _The Doctrinal of Sapience_, on parchment, _The Fables of aesop_, _The Fayts of Arms_, and the _Recueil des Histoires de Troye_, with a few other volumes, were retained at Windsor.

Of the sons of George III., the Duke of Suss.e.x alone appears to have inherited his father's love of collecting books, and he formed a magnificent library in his apartments at Kensington Palace. The collection consisted of more than fifty thousand volumes, twelve thousand of which were theological. It included a very considerable number of early Hebrew and other rare ma.n.u.scripts, and about one thousand editions of the Bible. An elaborate catalogue of a portion of it, ent.i.tled _Bibliotheca Suss.e.xiana_, was compiled by Dr. T.J.

Pettigrew, the Duke's librarian, in two volumes, the first of which was printed in 1827, and the second in 1839.

After the Duke's death his books were sold by auction by Evans of Pall Mall. They were disposed of in six sales, the first of which took place in July 1844, and the last in August 1845; and they occupied altogether sixty-one days. The number of lots was fourteen thousand one hundred and seven, and the total amount realised nineteen thousand one hundred and forty-eight pounds.

The Duke of York possessed a good library, which was sold by Sotheby in May 1827, but it consisted almost entirely of modern books, and the Duke could hardly be considered a collector.

On his succession to the throne William IV., as he remarked, found himself the only sovereign in Europe not possessed of a library, and speedily took steps to acquire one. He did more than this, for in July 1833 he caused a special codicil to his will to be drawn up which sets forth that 'Whereas His Majesty hath made considerable additions to the Royal Libraries in His Majesty's several Palaces, and may hereafter make further additions thereto, Now His Majesty doth give and bequeath all such additions, whether the same have been or may be made by and at the cost of His Majesty's Privy Purse or otherwise unto and for the benefit of His Majesty's successors, in order that the said Royal Libraries may be transmitted entire.'

When on November 30th, 1834, the King signed this doc.u.ment, he made it yet more emphatic by the autograph note: 'Approved and confirmed by me the King, and I further declare that all the books, drawings, and plans collected in all the palaces shall for ever continue Heirlooms to the Crown and on no pretence whatever be alienated from the Crown.'

Thus explicitly protected from the fate which befell its two predecessors, this third Royal Library throve and prospered under Queen Victoria till it fills a handsome room at Windsor Castle. The few books reserved by George IV. give it importance as an antiquarian collection; but its development has been rather on historical and topographical than on antiquarian lines, though it possesses sufficient fine bindings to have supplied materials for a handsome volume of facsimiles by Mr.

Griggs, edited with introduction and descriptions by Mr. R. R. Holmes, M.V.O., the King's Librarian at Windsor.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Sloane MSS. 555.]

[Footnote 2: Edwards, _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, p.

469.]

JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, 1459?-1535

John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was born at Beverley in Yorks.h.i.+re, and was the eldest son of Robert Fisher, a mercer of that town. The date of his birth is uncertain, some of his biographers placing it as early as 1459, and others as late as 1469. He was educated in the school attached to the collegiate church of his native place, and afterwards at Michael House, Cambridge (now incorporated into Trinity College), of which he became a Fellow in 1491, and Master in 1497. In 1501 he was elected Vice-Chancellor, and in 1504 Chancellor of the University. The respect in which Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., held him, induced her to appoint him her chaplain and confessor, and it was princ.i.p.ally through his exertions that the Countess's designs for founding St. John's College, Cambridge, were carried out, Fisher himself subsequently founding several fellows.h.i.+ps, scholars.h.i.+ps, and lectures.h.i.+ps in connection with the college. He was appointed the first 'Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity' in the University of Cambridge in 1503, and in 1504 was consecrated Bishop of Rochester. The firmness with which he opposed the royal supremacy, and the divorce of Henry VIII., brought on him the displeasure of the King, and in 1534, having given too ready a credence to the 'revelations' of Elizabeth Barton, 'the nun of Kent,' he was attainted of misprision of treason, and soon afterwards, on his refusal to acknowledge the King's supremacy and the validity of his marriage with Anne Boleyn, was committed with Sir Thomas More to the Tower. During his imprisonment Pope Paul III. created him a cardinal, an act which greatly increased the irritation of the King against him, and on the 22nd of June 1535 Fisher was beheaded on Tower Hill.

Bishop Fisher, who was the author of a considerable number of controversial tracts, was a man of great learning, and is said to have possessed the finest library in the country. In an account of his life and death first published in 1665, which was professedly written by Thomas Baily, a royalist divine, but is said to have been really the work of Dr. Richard Hall of Christ's College, Cambridge, who died in 1604, a relation is given of the seizure of his goods and books after his attainder. 'In the meantime lest any conveyance might be made of his goods remaining at Rochester, or elsewhere in Kent, the King sent one Sir Richard Moryson, of his Privy Chamber, and one Gostwick, together with divers other Commissioners, down into that Countrey, to make seisure of all his moveable goods that they could finde there, who being come unto Rochester, according to their Commission, entred his house; and the first thing they did was, they turned out all his Servants; then they fell to rifling his goods, whereof the chief part of them were taken for the Kings use, the rest they took for themselves; then they came into his Library, which they found so replenished, and with such kind of Books, as it was thought the like was not to be found againe in the possession of any one private man in Christendom; with which they trussed up and filled 32 great vats, or pipes, besides those that were imbezel'd away, spoyl'd and scatter'd; and whereas many yeares before he had made a deed of gift of all these books, and other his household stuffe to the Colledge of St John in Cambridge, ... two frauds were committed in this trespa.s.se; the Colledge were bereaved of their gift, and the Bishop of his purpose.' An account of his library and its confiscation is also to be found in a ma.n.u.script treatise concerning his life and death, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum.

'He had ye notablest Library of Books in all England, two long galleries full, the Books were sorted in stalls & a Register of ye names of every Book at ye end of every stall. All these his Books, & all his Hangings, plate, & vessels for Hawl, Chamber, b.u.t.try, & Kitchin, he gave long before his death to St Joh: College, by a Deed of gift, & put them in possession thereof; & then by indenture did borrow all ye sd: books & stuff, to have ye use of ym during his life, but at his apprehension, the Lord Crumwell caused all to be confiscated, which he gave to Moryson, Plankney of Chester, and other that were about him, & so ye College was defrauded of all this gift.'

Erasmus represents Fisher as a man of the greatest integrity, of deep learning, incredible sweetness of temper, and grandeur of soul; and Sir Thomas More declared that there was 'in this realm no one man, in wisdom, learning, and long approved vertue together, mete to be matched and compared with him.'

An excellent portrait of Fisher is preserved among the Holbein drawings at Windsor Castle, and others are to be found in several of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge.