English Book Collectors Part 15

The library was sold in 1812 by Mr. Evans of Pall Mall in the dining-room of the Duke's house in St. James's Square, and the total amount realised was twenty-three thousand three hundred and ninety-seven pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings and sixpence. The sale, which consisted of nine thousand three hundred and fifty-three lots, lasted forty-two days, commencing on the 18th of May, and ending on the 4th of July. It was followed by a supplementary one of seven hundred and sixty-seven lots, which began on the 13th of July, and lasted till the 16th of the same month. The catalogue was compiled by Mr. George Nicol, bookseller to the King. The sale excited very great interest; and Dibdin, who gives an account of it in his _Bibliographical Decameron_, tells us 'the room was so crowded that nothing but standing upon a contiguous bench saved the writer of _The Bibliographical Decameron_ from suffocation.' The prices obtained for the books were very high. That 'most notorious volume in existence,' the Valdarfer Boccaccio, which cost the Duke of Roxburghe but one hundred guineas, was acquired by the Marquis of Blandford, after a severe struggle with Lord Spencer, for two thousand two hundred and sixty pounds, and Dibdin says that the Marquis declared that it was his intention to have gone as far as five thousand guineas for it. A copy of the _Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_, which once belonged to Elizabeth Grey, wife of Edward IV., was purchased by the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re for one thousand and sixty pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings; while three other books from the press of Caxton, _The Mirrour of the World_, the _Fayts of Arms_, and Gower's _Confessio Amantis_, sold respectively for three hundred and fifty-one pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings, three hundred and thirty-six pounds, and three hundred and thirty-six pounds. The collection of ballads fell to Mr. J. Harding for four hundred and seventy-seven pounds, fifteen s.h.i.+llings. At the sale of Mr. B.H.

Bright's books in 1845 it was secured for the British Museum for the sum of five hundred and thirty-five pounds. The first folio of Shakespeare's Plays fetched one hundred pounds, and his Sonnets twenty-one pounds. The two ma.n.u.scripts mentioned realised three hundred and fifty-seven pounds and four hundred and ninety-three pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings.

A dinner was given, at the suggestion of Dr. Dibdin, to commemorate the sale of the Boccaccio; and Earl Spencer, Dr. Dibdin, and other bibliophiles met on the day of the sale at St. Alban's Tavern, St.

Alban's Street--now Waterloo Place--and then and there formed the Roxburghe Club; Earl Spencer being the first President.

MICHAEL WODHULL, 1740-1816

Michael Wodhull, the translator of the tragedies of Euripides, was born at Thenford, Northamptons.h.i.+re, on the 15th of August 1740. His father was John Wodhull, a descendant of Walter Flandrensis, who held the estates of Pateshull and Thenford in the time of William I. He received his early education under the Rev. William Cleaver of Twyford, Bucks. He was afterwards sent to Winchester, and at the age of seventeen proceeded to the University of Oxford, matriculating from Brazenose College. While still young Wodhull inherited a considerable fortune from his father, and he built a fine mansion on the family estate at Thenford, in which he kept his library. He was High Sheriff of Northamptons.h.i.+re in 1783.

Wodhull married a daughter of the Rev. J. Ingram of Wolford, Warwicks.h.i.+re, by whom he had three children, who all predeceased him.

He died on the 10th of November 1816. In addition to his translations of the tragedies of Euripides, Wodhull was the author of several poems.

From 1764 to his death Wodhull was an indefatigable collector of rare and curious books, and Dibdin says of him that 'a better informed or more finished bibliographer existed not either in France or England.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-STAMP OF MICHAEL WODHULL.]

His splendid library, which was a great consolation and pleasure to him in the solitude of the last years of his life, was particularly rich in early editions of the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics, and in works printed in the fifteenth century. All the books--many of which were bound by Roger Payne--were in fine condition, and some of them had once formed part of the libraries of Francis I., Grolier, Henry II. and Diana of Poitiers, Longepierre, and other famous French collectors, and were bound by such fine craftsmen as Boyet, Derome, Monnier, etc. The covers of the volumes bound for Wodhull are mostly impressed with a stamp of his arms, impaled with those of his wife. A portion of Wodhull's books, princ.i.p.ally duplicates, was sold by Leigh, Sotheby and Son, of York Street, Covent Garden, at two sales in 1801 and 1803. The first sale consisted of a thousand and fifty-nine lots, which realised three hundred and sixty-one pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings; and the second of one thousand six hundred and thirty-nine lots, for which the sum of eight hundred and fifteen pounds was obtained. The remainder of the library appears to have been kept at Thenford until 1886, when Mr. J.E. Severne, M.P., to whom it had descended, determined to part with it, and it was sold by Wilkinson, Sotheby and Hodge on January 11th, 1886, and nine following days. There were two thousand eight hundred and four lots in the sale, which produced the large sum of eleven thousand nine hundred and seventy-two pounds, fourteen s.h.i.+llings and sixpence.

The following are a few of the rarest and most interesting books in this splendid collection, with the prices they fetched:--the _Catholicon_ of Joannes Balbus, printed at Mentz in 1460, three hundred and ten pounds; _Cicero de Officiis_, printed at Mentz in 1466, seventy-one pounds; _Tullius de Senectute et Amicitia_, printed by Caxton in 1481, two hundred and fifty pounds; (a perfect copy of Caxton's _Mirrour of the World_ was sold in the 1803 sale for thirty-eight pounds, seventeen s.h.i.+llings); the first edition of Homer, printed at Florence in 1488, two hundred pounds; _Poliphili Hypnerotomachia_, printed by Aldus in 1499, fifty-three pounds; the Aldine Virgil of 1501, one hundred and forty-five pounds; _Roman de Guy de Warwick_, Paris, 1525, one hundred and thirty pounds; the _New Actes and Const.i.tucionis of Parliament maid by James V., Kyng of Scottis_, printed on vellum at Edinburgh in 1541, one hundred and fifty-one pounds; the _Contes_ of La Fontaine, Amsterdam (Paris), 1762, in two small 8vo volumes, bound in red morocco, ninety-three pounds; Moliere's Works, with plates by Moreau, six volumes, 1773, seventy-seven pounds.

Among the books with historical or fine bindings were Alcyonius, _Medices Legatus de Exsilio_, in aedib. Aldi, Venetiis, 1522, bound for Francis I., with the arms of France, the crowned initial of the king, and the salamander stamped on the covers, fifty-eight pounds; Aristotle, _De Arte Poetica_, Florentiae, 1548, bound for Henry II. of France and Diana of Poitiers, with the devices of the king and his mistress on the covers, two hundred and five pounds; Crinitus, _De Poetis Latinis_, Florentiae, 1505, bound for Grolier, seventy-four pounds; _Irenici Germania_, Hagenoae, 1518, also bound for Grolier, sixty-two pounds; and two works by Giordano Bruno--_s.p.a.ccio de la Bestia Trionfante_, Parigi, 1584, and _La Cena de la Ceneri_, 1584; the former bound in citron morocco, with a red double by Boyet, and the latter in a beautiful mosaic binding by Monnier, realised respectively the large sums of three hundred and sixty pounds and three hundred and sixty-five pounds.

The princ.i.p.al ma.n.u.scripts were a copy of Dante, with a commentary by Joannes de Sarravalle, written in the years 1416-17, which sold for one hundred and fifty-one pounds; and a very beautiful Roman Breviary of the beginning of the sixteenth century, on vellum, illuminated for Francois de Castelnau, Archbishop of Narbonne, for which five hundred and fifteen pounds was obtained.

FRANCIS HARGRAVE, 1741?-1821

Francis Hargrave, the eminent law writer, who was born about 1741, was the son of Christopher Hargrave of Chancery Lane. He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in 1760, and in 1772 he greatly distinguished himself in the Habeas Corpus case of James Sommersett, a negro. Soon afterwards he was appointed one of the king's counsel, and in 1797 he was made Recorder of Liverpool. He was also for many years Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn. In 1813, in consequence of the impaired state of Hargrave's health, his wife pet.i.tioned Parliament to purchase the fine law library which he had ama.s.sed, consisting of a considerable number of printed books and about five hundred ma.n.u.scripts; and on the recommendation of a Committee of the House of Commons the collection was acquired by the Government for the sum of eight thousand pounds, and deposited in the British Museum. Edwards, in his _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, says that 'the peculiar importance of the Hargrave Collection consisted in its ma.n.u.scripts and its annotated printed books. The former were about five hundred in number, and were works of great juridical weight and authority, not merely the curiosities of black-letter law. Their collector was the most eminent parliamentary lawyer of his day, but his devotion to the science of law had, to some degree, impeded his enjoyment of its sweets. During some of the best years of his life he had been more intent on increasing his legal lore than on swelling his legal profits. And thus the same legislative act which enriched the Museum Library, in both of its departments, helped to smooth the declining years of a man who had won uncommon distinction in his special pursuit.' A catalogue of the ma.n.u.scripts was compiled by Sir Henry Ellis, and published in 1818.

Hargrave, among other important legal works, published a new edition of _State Trials from the eleventh year of Richard II. to the sixteenth of George III._, in eleven volumes folio, in 1776-81; _Juridical Arguments and Collections_, in two volumes, in 1797-99; and _Jurisconsult Exercitations_, in three volumes, in 1811-13. He died on the 16th of August 1821, and was buried in Lincoln's Inn Chapel. Lord Lyndhurst, in speaking of Hargrave's great legal knowledge, declared that 'no man ever lived who was more conversant with the law of his country.'

ISAAC REED, 1742-1807

Isaac Reed, the editor of Shakespeare, was born in London on the 1st of January 1742. He was a conveyancer, and had chambers, first in Gray's Inn and afterwards in Staple Inn, where he died on the 5th of January 1807. He was buried at Amwell in Hertfords.h.i.+re. Reed, who was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, collected books for upwards of forty years, and Dibdin says that 'he would appear to have adopted the cobbler's well-known example of applying one room to almost every domestic purpose: for Reed made his library his parlour, kitchen, and hall.' His extensive collection of books, which was rich in works relating to the English drama and poetry, was sold by King and Lochee, 38 King Street, Covent Garden, on Monday, November 2nd, 1807, and thirty-eight following days. The sale consisted of eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven lots, including prints and a few miscellaneous articles, and realised four thousand three hundred and eighty-six pounds, nineteen s.h.i.+llings and sixpence. A copy of the catalogue, with the prices added in ma.n.u.script, is preserved in the Library of King George III. in the British Museum.

SIR JOSEPH BANKS, BART., 1744-1820

The Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., to whom the British Museum, in addition to other bequests, is indebted for one of the finest libraries of books on natural history ever collected, was born in Argyle Street, London, on the 13th of February 1744. He was the only son of William Banks, of Revesby Abbey, Lincolns.h.i.+re, by his wife Sarah, daughter of William Bate. Banks was first educated at Harrow and Eton, and proceeded afterwards to Christ Church, Oxford, which college he entered as a gentleman-commoner in 1760. In 1761 his father died, leaving him a large estate. He left the University in 1763, after having taken an honorary degree, and in 1766 he set out on a scientific voyage to Newfoundland with his friend Lieutenant Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, and brought back a large collection of plants and insects. In 1768 he accompanied Captain Cook's expedition round the world in _The Endeavour_, a vessel which he equipped at his own expense, taking with him his friend and librarian Dr. Solander, two draughtsmen, and several servants. This voyage, which was attended by many dangers and privations, occupied nearly three years, and the specimens which the enterprising collectors brought home with them excited very great and general interest. Banks was anxious to join Captain Cook's second expedition, but owing to some difficulties respecting the fittings of the s.h.i.+p in which he was to have sailed he relinquished his purpose, and in 1772 paid a visit in company with Dr. Solander to Iceland, where he obtained a large number of botanical specimens, and also purchased a collection of Icelandic ma.n.u.scripts and printed books, including the library of Halfdan Einarsson, the literary historian of the island, which he gave to the British Museum on his return to England. Ten years later he presented a second collection to that inst.i.tution. In 1778 Banks succeeded Sir John Pringle as President of the Royal Society, a post he held for upwards of forty-one years. He had been a Fellow since the year 1766. In 1779 he married Dorothea, daughter of William Weston-Hugesson of Provender, in the parish of Norton, Kent, and in 1781 he was created a baronet. In 1795 he received the Order of the Bath, and in 1797 he was sworn of the Privy Council. The National Inst.i.tute of France elected him a member in 1802. He died at his house at Spring Grove, Isleworth, on the 19th of June 1820, leaving a widow but no issue.

Sir Joseph Banks, even when a schoolboy, took great interest in all branches of natural history, and during his residence at Oxford he procured the appointment of a lecturer on natural science in the University. He was always exceedingly generous in his relations with men of science, and the splendid collections in his house in Soho Square were always open to them for study and investigation.

Sir Joseph Banks bequeathed his library, with the exception of some ma.n.u.scripts which he left to the Royal Society and the Mint, his herbarium, drawings, engravings, and other collections to the Trustees of the British Museum, subject to a life interest and a life use in them by his friend and librarian, Mr. Robert Brown, the eminent botanist.

This bequest was accompanied by a proviso that Mr. Brown should be at liberty to transfer the collections to the British Museum during his lifetime, if the Trustees were desirous to receive them, and he were willing to comply with their wishes. An arrangement to this effect was eventually carried out, and in the year 1827 the transfer was effected; Mr. Brown at the same time receiving the appointment of Keeper of the Department of Botany in the Museum, a post he held until his death in 1858.

The number of printed books acquired by the Museum amounted to about sixteen thousand, consisting princ.i.p.ally of works on natural history and the journals and transactions of learned societies. The ma.n.u.scripts numbered but forty-nine, but among them were the log-books of _The Endeavour_, _The Resolution_, and _The Racehorse_, and the journals of Tasman, Carver, Verwey and other navigators.

A catalogue of the library was compiled by Mr. Jonas Dryander, who succeeded Dr. Solander as Sir Joseph's librarian, in five volumes, and published in London in the years 1798-1800.

Sir Joseph Banks was the author of two treatises:--one, _On the Cause of Blight in Corn_, published in 1805; and the other on _Some Circ.u.mstances relative to Merino Sheep_, published in 1809; together with some articles contributed to the journals of learned societies. He evidently intended at one time to publish a work embodying the results of his researches, as the plates were engraved, and the text partly prepared for press, but the death of his librarian Dr. Solander in 1782 appears to have caused him to relinquish his purpose. Kaempfer's _Icones Plantarum_ was published by him in 1791, and he also superintended the issue of Roxburgh's _Coromandel Plants_ in 1795-1819. A statue of Sir Joseph by Sir Francis Chantrey is placed in the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, and a portrait of him by Sir Thomas Lawrence is hung in the board-room of the British Museum. Another portrait of him by Thomas Phillips, R.A., is in the National Portrait Gallery.

Sarah Sophia Banks, the only sister of Sir Joseph Banks, possessed similar tastes to her brother, and ama.s.sed a considerable number of books, coins, objects of natural history, etc. She died at her brother's house in Soho Square on the 27th of September 1818; and after her death a portion of her collections, consisting of sixty-six volumes of ma.n.u.scripts, chiefly relating to heraldic matters, ceremonials, archery, etc., together with several printed books princ.i.p.ally treating of chivalry, knighthood, etc., some of them enriched with her MS. notes, were presented to the library of the British Museum by Lady Banks, the wife of Sir Joseph. Several of the volumes were in very fine bindings.

REV. JOHN BRAND, 1744-1806

The Rev. John Brand, the author of _Observations on Popular Antiquities_, was born on the 19th of August 1744 at Was.h.i.+ngton, in the county of Durham, where his father Alexander Brand was parish clerk.

When fourteen years of age he was apprenticed to his uncle Anthony Wheatley, a shoemaker of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and during his residence in that town he attended the grammar school there. He displayed so much ability and industry that the master of the school, the Rev. Hugh Moises, with the a.s.sistance of some friends, sent him to Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1775. He had been ordained some time previously, and, after filling several curacies, in 1784 he was presented by the Duke of Northumberland to the rectory of the united parishes of St. Mary-at-Hill and St. Mary Hubbard in the city of London.

In the same year he was elected resident secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, an office he held until his death on the 11th of September 1806. He was buried in the chancel of his church. Brand had a very extensive knowledge of antiquities, and he acc.u.mulated a large library, which was very rich in old English literature.

Among the rarer books were the _Knight of the Tower_, printed by Caxton in 1484; the _Dyalogue of Dives and Pauper_, and Arnold's _Chronicle of the Customs of London_, printed by Pynson in 1493 and 1521; _A Plaister for a Galled Horse_, London, 1548; John Byshop's _Beautiful Blossomes_, London, 1577; Thomas Bentley's _Monument of Matrones_, London, 1582; _A Booke of Fis.h.i.+ng with hooke and line_, London, 1600; Mrs. f.a.ge's _Poems_, London, 1637; and _A Juniper Lecture_, London, 1639. The collection also contained some curious works on witches.

After Brand's death, the library was sold in two parts by Stewart of 194 Piccadilly. The first sale took place on May 6th, 1807, and thirty-six following days, 'Sundays, the King's Birthday, and May 21-26 excepted.'

It consisted of eight thousand six hundred and eleven lots of printed books, and two hundred and forty-three of ma.n.u.scripts, which realised four thousand three hundred pounds. The second part, containing duplicates and pamphlets, was sold on February the 8th, 1808, and fourteen following days, 'Sundays and the Fastday excepted.' There were four thousand and sixty-four lots in this portion, and the sum obtained for them was eighteen hundred and fifty-one pounds. _The Knight of the Tower_ was purchased by Mr. Payne the bookseller for Earl Spencer for one hundred and eleven pounds, six s.h.i.+llings; Arnold's _Chronicle_ fetched eighteen guineas; the _Dyalogue of Dives and Pauper_, four pounds, three s.h.i.+llings; Bentley's _Monument of Matrones_, eight pounds, eighteen s.h.i.+llings and sixpence; and Mrs. f.a.ge's _Poems_, five pounds, fifteen s.h.i.+llings and sixpence. A copy of Brand's own work on _Popular Antiquities_, with additions for a new edition, sold, with the copyright, for six hundred and thirty pounds.

In addition to his _Observations on Popular Antiquities_, which appeared in 1777, Brand published a work on the _History and Antiquities of the town and county of Newcastle-upon-Tyne_ in 1789; and in 1775 a poem _On Illicit Love, written among the ruins of G.o.dstow Nunnery, near Oxford_--the place where the celebrated Rosamond, the mistress of Henry II., was buried. He also contributed many papers to the _Archaeologia_ of the Society of Antiquaries.

Nichols, in his _Literary Anecdotes_,[90] says of Brand that 'his manners, somewhat repulsive to a stranger, became easy on closer acquaintance, and he loved to communicate to men of literary and antiquarian taste the result of his researches on any subject in which they might require information.'

JOHN DENT, 1750?-1826

Mr. John Dent was born about the middle of the eighteenth century. His father is said to have been the master of a school in a small town in c.u.mberland. At an early age he entered the banking-house of Messrs.

Child and Co. of London as a clerk, and in 1795 rose to be a partner in the firm. In 1790 he was elected Member of Parliament for the borough of Leicester, and held the seat during five successive Parliaments until the dissolution in 1812. Six years later he was chosen Member for Poole, which he represented till 1826. He died at his residence in Hertford Street, Mayfair, on the 14th of December 1826.

Mr. Dent, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, acc.u.mulated a very fine library, which was very rich in the Greek and Latin Cla.s.sics and early English literature. It also contained some very beautiful ma.n.u.scripts. After his death it was sold in two parts by Mr. Evans of Pall Mall. The first sale, which took place on March the 29th, 1827, and eight following days, consisted of fifteen hundred and two lots, and realised six thousand two hundred and seventy-eight pounds, twelve s.h.i.+llings. The second portion of the books was sold on the 25th of the succeeding month and eight following days.

There were one thousand four hundred and seventy-four lots in this sale, which brought eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-two pounds, seven s.h.i.+llings. The following are a few of the many very rare books which this n.o.ble collection contained, and the prices which were obtained for them:--

Fust and Schoeffer's Latin Bible of 1462, one hundred and seventy-three pounds, five s.h.i.+llings; a vellum copy of the first edition of Livy, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome in 1469, two hundred and sixty-two pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings; the first edition of the _Anthologia Graeca_ on vellum, printed at Florence in 1494, seventy pounds; a perfect copy of Higden's _Polychronicon_, printed by Caxton in 1482, one hundred and three pounds, nineteen s.h.i.+llings; three other imperfect Caxtons, fifty-eight pounds, seventeen s.h.i.+llings and sixpence; Barclay's _Shyp of Folys_, printed by Pynson in 1509, thirty pounds, nine s.h.i.+llings; Bradshawe's _Lyfe of Saynt Radegunde_, printed by Pynson, without date, thirty-two pounds; _The Cronycle of Englonde_, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1502, thirty-eight pounds, seventeen s.h.i.+llings; a copy on vellum of the _Orcharde of Syon_, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1519, sixty-five pounds, two s.h.i.+llings; _Vitruvius de Architectura_, printed on vellum by P. de Giunta in 1513, one hundred and seven pounds, two s.h.i.+llings; the Coverdale Bible, 1535, eighty-nine pounds, five s.h.i.+llings; and Archbishop Parker's _De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae_, 1573, forty pounds. Mr. Dent possessed the first three Shakespeare folios, and a large number of the separate quarto plays. The folios realised respectively one hundred and ten pounds, five s.h.i.+llings, fifteen pounds, and sixty-five pounds, two s.h.i.+llings. The copy of the third folio had many contemporary ma.n.u.script corrections. Of the quarto plays, twenty-six pounds was obtained for the first edition of _Love's Labors Lost_, twenty-two pounds for the first edition of _Oth.e.l.lo_, sixteen pounds for the first edition of _The Merchant of Venice_, and four pounds, ten s.h.i.+llings for the first edition of _Midsummer Night's Dream_.

Several of the ma.n.u.scripts were of exceptional beauty and interest. A Roman Breviary, with illuminations in the finest Flemish style, presented to Queen Isabel of Castile by Francisco de Rojas, sold for three hundred and seventy-eight pounds; a copy of the Gospels in Greek, said to have been written about the end of the eleventh century, for two hundred and sixty-seven pounds, fifteen s.h.i.+llings; an _Office de la Vierge_, written by Nicolas Jarry, the celebrated calligraphist, in 1656 for Anne of Austria, and which afterwards pa.s.sed into the possession of Madame de Maintenon and the Prince de Conti, for one hundred and ten pounds, five s.h.i.+llings; and a copy of the _Westminster Liber Regalis_, written in the fifteenth century, for fifty-five pounds, thirteen s.h.i.+llings. All these ma.n.u.scripts were on vellum. The copies of the Roman Breviary and the Greek Gospels are described by Dibdin in his _Bibliographical Decameron_ (vol. i. pp. clxiii and xcii).