English Book Collectors Part 12

[Footnote 74: Oldys, _Diary_, London, 1862, p. 3.]

[Footnote 75: Horace Walpole says that the prints sold for the 'frantic sum of 1495, 10s.'--_Letters_, London, 1857-59, vol. v. p. 439.]

[Footnote 76: Nichols states that the books were sold by auction under the name of Messrs. Langford, but actually by Mr. Samuel Paterson, who compiled the catalogue.--_Anecdotes of literature_, vol. vi. p. 345.]

[Footnote 77: West's country residence was Alscot Park, Preston-on-Stour, Gloucesters.h.i.+re.]

BENJAMIN HEATH, 1704-1766

Benjamin Heath, who was born at Exeter on the 20th of April 1704, was the eldest son of Benjamin Heath, a fuller and merchant of that city.[78] He was educated at the Exeter Grammar School, and afterwards studied law, with a view of being called to the Bar; but having inherited a handsome fortune on the death of his father, he abandoned his intention, and devoted himself to literature, and also to the formation of a library, which he had commenced at a very early age. In 1752 Heath was elected town-clerk of Exeter, an appointment he held until his death on the 13th of September 1766. In 1762 the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. He was the author of several works, princ.i.p.ally on the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics and the text of Shakespeare. Heath in his lifetime divided a portion of his fine library between two of his sons, but retained a large part of it. Dibdin in _Bibliomania_ prints an interesting letter, dated Exeter, March 21st, 1738, from Heath to Mr. John Mann of the Hand in Hand Fire Office, London, asking him to superintend the purchase of some books at a sale which was shortly to take place, and appending a list of those he desired, and the prices he was willing to pay for them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 78: Drake, _Heathiana_. London, 1882.]

HORACE WALPOLE, FOURTH EARL OF ORFORD, 1717-1797

Horatio or Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford (he disliked the name Horatio, and wrote himself Horace), was the fourth and youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford, by his first wife, Catherine Shorter, eldest daughter of John Shorter of Bybrook, near Ashford in Kent. He was born, as he himself tells us, on the 24th of September 1717 O.S. In 1727 he was sent to Eton, where he had for his schoolfellows the future poets Thomas Gray and Richard West; and eight years later he proceeded to King's College, Cambridge. Walpole entered the House of Commons in 1741 as Member for Callington in Cornwall, and afterwards sat for the family boroughs of Castle Rising and King's Lynn, but although he took a considerable interest in politics, public life was not congenial to his pursuits and tastes, and in 1767 he resigned his seat in Parliament. In his earlier days he was a Whig with a strong leaning to republicanism, but the public events of his later years greatly modified his views. It has been well said of him that 'he was an aristocrat by instinct and a republican by caprice.' On the death of his nephew, George, the third Earl, in 1791, he succeeded to the earldom, but he never took his seat in the House of Lords, and seldom signed his name as Orford. He died at his house in Berkeley Square on the 2nd of March 1797, and was buried at Houghton, the family seat in Norfolk.

In 1747 Walpole purchased the remainder of the lease of a small house which stood near the Thames 'just out of Twickenham,' popularly called Chopped-Straw Hall, on account of its having been the residence of a retired coachman of an Earl of Bradford, who was supposed to have made his money by starving his master's horses. On the 5th of June 1747 Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann, that although 'the house is so small that I can send it to you in a letter to look at, the prospect is as delightful as possible, commanding the river, the town (Twickenham), and Richmond Park, and being situated on a hill descends to the Thames through two or three little meadows, where I have some Turkish sheep and two cows, all studied in their colours for becoming the view.' This cottage grew into the Gothic mansion of Strawberry Hill, the erection and embellishment of which formed for so many years the princ.i.p.al occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt of Walpole's life. Here he collected works of art and curiosities of every kind--pictures, miniatures, prints and drawings, armour, coins, and china, together with a fine library of about fifteen thousand volumes, chiefly of antiquarian and historical subjects. These he acquired with the emoluments of three sinecure offices which his father had obtained for him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIGNETTE OF STRAWBERRY HILL. Used in books printed at Walpole's Press.]

In 1757 Walpole set up a printing-press in a small cottage adjoining his residence, and this continued in use until his death in 1797. Gray's _Odes_, in a handsome quarto, was the first of a large number of works and fugitive pieces, many from his own pen, which issued from it. An excellent account of the press, by Mr. H.B. Wheatley, F.S.A., will be found in _Bibliographica_, vol. iii., pp. 83-98. Walpole was the author of many works, but his literary reputation now rests mainly on his letters. Mr. Austin Dobson, in his delightful Memoir of Walpole, says of them that 'for diversity of interest and perpetual entertainment, for the constant surprises of an unique species of wit, for happy and unexpected turns of phrase, for graphic characterisation and clever anecdote, for playfulness, pungency, irony, persiflage, there is nothing like his letters in English.' A collected edition of his works, edited by Mary Berry, under the name of her father, Robert Berry, was published in 1798 in five volumes.

Although the library formed by Walpole at Strawberry Hill consisted princ.i.p.ally of works 'which no gentleman's library should be without,'

it also contained some beautiful ma.n.u.scripts, a goodly number of rare books of the Elizabethan and Jacobean times, and an immense collection of interesting papers and letters, prints and portraits. Many of the prints were by the great engravers of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The most notable of the ma.n.u.scripts were a copy of the Psalms of David on vellum, with twenty-one illuminations attributed to Giulio Clovio; a magnificent 'Missal,' executed for Claude, Queen Consort of Francis I., King of France; and a folio volume of old English poetry, written on vellum, from the library of Ralph Th.o.r.esby, the antiquary. Among the more important of the collections of papers and letters were those of Sir Julius Caesar, which contained letters of James I., Henry, Prince of Wales, the King and Queen of Bohemia, and most of the leading n.o.bility and gentry of the time of Elizabeth and James I.; Sir Sackville Crowe's Book of Accounts of the Privy Purse of the Duke of Buckingham in his different journeys into France, Spain, and the Low Countries with Prince Charles; the ma.n.u.scripts bequeathed to Walpole by Madame du Deffand, together with upwards of eight hundred letters addressed by her to him; and Vertue's ma.n.u.scripts in twenty-eight volumes. Sir Julius Caesar's travelling library, consisting of forty-four duodecimo volumes, bound in white vellum, and enclosed in an oak case covered with light olive morocco, elegantly tooled, and made to resemble a folio volume (now in the British Museum); and the identical copy of Homer used by Pope for his translation, with the inscription, 'Finished ye translation in Feb.

1719-20--A. Pope,' and containing a pencil sketch of Twickenham Church by the poet, were among the most interesting printed books in the library. A remarkable and beautiful collection of about forty original drawings, being portraits of Francis the First and Second of France, and the members of their Courts, taken from life in pencil, tinted with red chalk, by Janet; Callot's Pocket Book, with drawings by this master; and fine collections of the works of Vertue and Hogarth also deserve to be mentioned.

After Walpole's death Strawberry Hill and its contents pa.s.sed to the Hon. Mrs. Damer, the sculptress, daughter of his cousin, Field-Marshal Conway, together with two thousand a year for its maintenance. After residing in it for some time Mrs. Damer found the situation lonely, and gave up the house and property to the Countess Dowager Waldegrave, in whom the fee was vested under Walpole's will. In 1842, George, seventh Earl Waldegrave, to whom Strawberry Hill had descended, ordered the contents to be sold by George Robins, the well-known auctioneer. The sale was advertised to occupy twenty-four days, from April 25th to May 21st. The catalogue was badly compiled, and so much dissatisfaction was expressed at the intention of selling some of the collections _en ma.s.se_, that the contents of the seventh and eighth days' sale, which consisted of prints, drawings, and ill.u.s.trated books, were withdrawn, re-catalogued, and disposed of at a sale at Robins's rooms at Covent Garden, which lasted from the 13th to the 23rd of June. The amount realised at the sale at Strawberry Hill was twenty-nine thousand six hundred and twelve pounds, sixteen s.h.i.+llings and threepence; and at that in London, three thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven pounds, fifteen s.h.i.+llings and sixpence. The library, consisting of books, ma.n.u.scripts, prints, etc., sold for about seven thousand seven hundred and forty pounds. The copy of the Psalms, with illuminations ascribed to Giulio Clovio, fetched four hundred and forty-one pounds; the volume of English poetry, two hundred and twenty pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings; the 'Missal'

executed for Queen Claude, one hundred and fifteen pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings; and the ma.n.u.scripts and letters of Madame du Deffand, one hundred and fifty-seven pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings.

RALPH WILLETT, 1719-1795

Ralph Willett, the collector of the famous Merly Library, was born in 1719. He was the elder son of Henry Willett, of the island of St.

Christopher in the West Indies. In 1736 he matriculated at the University of Oxford from Oriel College, but did not take a degree; and in 1739 he was admitted a student at Lincoln's Inn. Willett early developed a taste for books and pictures, and his inheritance of the family estates in the West Indies, on the death of his father in 1740, enabled him to form splendid collections of them. In 1751 he purchased a property at Merly, near Wimborne, Dorsets.h.i.+re, where in 1752 he built a n.o.ble mansion, which later he enlarged by adding two wings, in one of which he constructed a handsome room for a library, which he ornamented with frescoes and arabesque designs. A description of this library, written by Willett in English and French, was printed in 1776 in octavo, and reprinted in 1785 by John Nichols in a large folio volume, with twenty-five ill.u.s.trations of the designs. His London house was in Dean Street, Soho. Willett was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1763, and contributed two papers on _The Origin of Printing_ to the _Archaeologia_, which were reprinted at Newcastle in 1818-20; and a third on _British Naval Architecture_. In 1764 he was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He died on the 13th of January 1795. Willett, who was twice married, but left no issue, bequeathed his property to his cousin John Willett Adye, who took the name of Willett, and was M.P. for New Romney from 1796 to 1806. This gentleman, shortly before his death, which occurred on 26th of September 1815, parted with the collections which had been left to him. The pictures were sold by Peter c.o.xe and Co.

on May 31st, 1813, and two following days, and the books by Leigh and Sotheby on December 6th, and sixteen following days. The same auctioneers also sold the botanical drawings, of which there was a large number, on the 20th and 21st of December; and the books of prints on the 20th of February in the succeeding year. The books were disposed of in two thousand seven hundred and twenty lots, and realised thirteen thousand five hundred and eight pounds, four s.h.i.+llings. The sale catalogue states that the library consisted of 'a most rare a.s.semblage of the early printers, fine specimens of block-printing, old English chronicles, etc., in the finest preservation, likewise an extensive and magnificent collection of books in every department of literature, from the earliest period to the present time. All the books are in the finest condition, many printed on vellum and on large paper, and bound in morocco and russia leathers. Likewise a most splendid missal; and a very choice selection of botanical drawings, by Van Huysum, Taylor, Brown, Lee, etc.'

The block-books in the collection comprised a _Biblia Pauperum_, which realised two hundred and fifty-seven pounds, five s.h.i.+llings; the first and another edition of the _Speculum Humanae Salvationis_, which sold for three hundred and fifteen pounds and two hundred and fifty-two pounds; and the _Apocalypse of St. John_, which fetched forty-two pounds. There were seven Caxtons--the first edition of the _Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_, _Tully of Old Age_, the _Polychronicon_, the second edition of the _Game of the Chesse_, the _Confessio Amantis_, the second edition of the _Mirrour of the World_, and _Diverse Ghostly Matters_.

These realised altogether one thousand three hundred and eighteen pounds, sixteen s.h.i.+llings; the _Dictes_ and the _Confessio Amantis_ fetching the highest prices--three hundred and fifteen pounds, and two hundred and sixty-two pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings.

Some of the many other notable books in the library, and the prices obtained for them, were a copy of the Mentz Psalter of 1459 on vellum, sixty-three pounds; _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ of Durandus (Mentz, 1459), one hundred and five pounds; the _Catholicon_ of Joannes Balbus (Mentz, 1460), sixty pounds, eighteen s.h.i.+llings; the _Const.i.tutiones_ of Pope Clement V. (Mentz, 1460), sixty-six pounds, three s.h.i.+llings; Latin Bible (Mentz, 1462), one hundred and five pounds; the _Officia_ of Cicero (Mentz, 1465), seventy-three pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings; Latin Bible on vellum (Venice, 1476), one hundred and sixty-eight pounds; _Rhetorica Nova_, by Laurentius de Saona (St. Albans, 1480), seventy-nine pounds, sixteen s.h.i.+llings; a vellum copy of the first edition of Homer (Florence, 1488), eighty-eight pounds, four s.h.i.+llings; a nearly complete set of De Bry's collections in seven volumes, one hundred and twenty-six pounds; and a large paper copy of Prynne's _Records_ in three volumes, London, 1665-70, one hundred and fifty-two pounds, five s.h.i.+llings. The 'splendid' ma.n.u.script missal, specially mentioned in the sale catalogue, sold for one hundred and five pounds.

DR. ANTHONY ASKEW, 1722-1774

Dr. Anthony Askew, M.D., was born at Kendal, Westmoreland, in the year 1722. His father was Dr. Adam Askew, an eminent physician of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He received his education at Sedbergh School, the Grammar School of Newcastle, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He took the degree of M.B. in 1745, and that of M.D. five years later. After leaving the University he went to Leyden, where he remained twelve months studying medicine, and then undertook an extensive tour on the Continent, during which he purchased a large number of valuable books and ma.n.u.scripts. Dibdin says he was well known as a collector in most parts of Europe. In 1750, having finished his travels, Askew returned to Cambridge, where he practised for some time as a physician. He afterwards removed to London, where, aided by the patronage and support of his friend Dr. Mead, he soon acquired a considerable reputation, but he is better known as a scholar than a physician. Dr. Parr entertained a very high opinion of his attainments in Greek and Roman literature.

Askew was a Fellow and Registrar of the College of Physicians, and also a Fellow of the Royal Society. He died at Hampstead on the 27th of February 1774.

Dr. Askew was an indefatigable collector, and filled his house from the ground floor to the attics with rare and handsomely bound books. The library, which numbered about seven thousand volumes, was extremely rich in early editions of the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics, and its owner was ambitious that it should contain every edition of a Greek author. It comprised the first editions of the _De Officiis_ of Cicero, the Natural History of Pliny, Cornelius Nepos, the History of Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, the Fables of aesop, the Works of Plato, and of many other Greek and Latin writers; the greater number of them being printed on vellum. A vellum copy of the _Rationale_ of Durandus, printed by Fust and Schoeffer at Mentz in 1459; a first edition of the _Teseide_ of Boccaccio, printed on vellum at Ferrara in 1475; a copy of the _Greek Anthology_, also on vellum, printed at Florence in 1494; _Tully of Old Age_, printed by Caxton, and a fine vellum copy of the _Tewrdannck_, were a few of the other notable books in the collection.

The printed books in the library were sold by Baker and Leigh at their auction rooms in York Street, Covent Garden, on the 13th of February 1775, and the nineteen following days. The lots were three thousand five hundred and seventy in number, and realised three thousand nine hundred and ninety-three pounds and sixpence. Among the purchasers at the sale were King George III., Louis XVI., King of France, Dr. Hunter and the Rev. C.M. Cracherode. The British Museum also acquired a considerable number of the books. The ma.n.u.scripts, and the printed books with ma.n.u.script notes, were sold by Leigh and Sotheby in 1785. The sale took place on March the 7th and the eight subsequent days. There were six hundred and thirty-three lots, which produced eighteen hundred and twenty-seven pounds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REV. C.M. CRACHERODE.]

Askew was the author of a ma.n.u.script volume of Greek and Latin Inscriptions, copied by him during his travels in Greece and the Levant.

The collection is preserved among the Burney Ma.n.u.scripts in the British Museum.

REV. C.M. CRACHERODE, 1730-1799

The Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, to whom the British Museum is indebted for some of its most precious collections, was the son of Colonel Mordaunt Cracherode, who commanded the Marines in Anson's voyage round the world. He was born at Taplow in 1730, and was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, taking the degree of B.A. in 1750, and that of M.A. in 1753. After leaving the University he took holy orders, and for some time was curate of Binsey, near Oxford, but he did not seek any preferment in the Church. On the death of his father he inherited a fortune of about three thousand pounds a year, which enabled him to acquire a library of not less than four thousand five hundred volumes, remarkable for their rarity and beauty; seven portfolios of drawings by the great masters, and a hundred portfolios of prints, many of which were almost priceless; and in addition to these a splendid collection of coins and gems, and a cabinet of minerals. Mr.

Cracherode, who never married, was a shy, retiring man, who lived entirely among his collections, and it is said that he never mounted a horse, nor travelled a greater distance than from London to Oxford. One great drawback to the happiness of his quiet life was the dread that he might possibly be called upon to officiate at a coronation as the King's cupbearer, as his manor of Great Wymondley was held from the Crown subject to the performance of this duty. Dibdin, in his _Bibliographical Decameron_, says of him that he had 'a dash of the primitiveness of the old school about him, and that his manners were easy, polished and engaging. He was a thorough gentleman, and no mean scholar.' He devoted his life to his favourite pursuit, the formation of his collections; and Edwards, in his _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, tells us that--'For almost forty years it was his daily practice to walk from his house in Queen Square, Westminster, to the shop of Elmsly, a bookseller in the Strand, and thence to the still more noted shop of Tom Payne, by the "Mews-Gate." Once a week, he varied the daily walk by calling on Mudge, a chronometer-maker, to get his watch regulated. His excursions had, indeed, one other and not infrequent variety--dictated by the calls of Christian benevolence--but of these he took care to have no note taken.... The ruling pa.s.sion kept its strength to the last. An agent was buying prints, for addition to the store, when the Collector was dying.

About four days before his death, Mr. Cracherode mustered strength to pay a farewell visit to the old shop at the Mews-Gate. He put a finely printed _Terence_ (from the press of Foulis) into one pocket, and a large paper _Cebes_ into another; and then--with a longing look at a certain choice _Homer_, in the course of which he mentally, and somewhat doubtingly, balanced its charms with those of its twin brother in Queen Square--parted finally from the daily haunt of forty peripatetic and studious years.' Mr. Cracherode is also mentioned in the _Pursuits of Literature_, by T.J. Mathias:--

'Or must I, as a wit, with learned air, Like Doctor Dibdin, to Tom Payne's repair, Meet Cyril Jackson and mild Cracherode there?

"Hold!" cries Tom Payne, "that margin let me measure, And rate the separate value of the treasure."

Eager they gaze. "Well, Sirs, the feat is done.

Cracherode's _Poetae Principes_ have won."'

Mr. Cracherode, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, and a Trustee of the British Museum, died at Queen Square on the 5th of April 1799, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He bequeathed the whole of his collections to the nation, with the exception of two books. A copy of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible was given to Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, and a _princeps_ Homer, once the property of De Thou, to Cyril Jackson, Dean of Christ Church; but these volumes ultimately rejoined their former companions in the British Museum.

The library formed by Mr. Cracherode is marvellously rich in choice copies of rare and early editions of the cla.s.sics; a large proportion of them being printed on vellum. The volumes are almost always in faultless condition, and beautifully bound. Many of them were once to be found in such renowned collections as those of Grolier, Maioli, Henry II. of France and Diana of Poitiers, Katharine de' Medici, De Thou, Longepierre, Count von Hoym, etc.; and have bindings by Nicolas and Clovis Eve, Le Gascon, Padeloup, Derome, and Roger Payne. Among them are magnificent copies of the editions of _Pliny_ printed at Venice by Joannes de Spira in 1469, and by Nicolas Jenson in 1476. The latter formerly belonged to Grolier, and the binding bears his well-known motto. A copy of the first edition of _aesop's Fables_, printed at Milan about 1480, and a very beautiful example of the first edition of the _Greek Anthology_, on vellum, printed in capitals by Laurentius de Alopa at Florence in 1494, in the original binding, are also deserving of special notice. Other remarkable and interesting books are the _Greek Grammar_ of Lascaris, printed at Milan in 1476; the _Liber Psalmorum_, printed at Milan in 1481; Maioli's copy of the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, printed at Venice by Aldus in 1499; and a fine copy of Petrarch's _Sonetti e Canzoni_, on vellum, printed by Aldus in 1501, which formerly belonged to Isabella d'Este, wife of Gian-Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This was the first Italian book printed in italic type.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARMORIAL BOOK-STAMP OF THE REV. C.M. CRACHERODE.]

The library contains three Caxtons: _Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae_, the _Mirrour of the World_, and the _Boke of Eneydos_.

A copy of Tyndale's New Testament on vellum, which once belonged to Queen Anne Boleyn, with her arms emblazoned on the t.i.tle-page, and the words 'Anna Regina Angliae' painted in gold on the edges of the leaves, and a handsome Shakespeare first folio, ought also to be mentioned.

Mr. Cracherode's cla.s.sical attainments were by no means inconsiderable, but his only writings were a Latin poem printed in the _Carmina Quadragesimalia_ of 1748, and some Latin verses in the collection of the University of Oxford on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1751.