The Book-Hunter at Home Part 19

[Sidenote: Bibles.]

6. The collection of Bibles is perhaps one of the commonest subjects to engage the attention of specialists. There is a numerous bibliography, ranging from Anthony Johnson's little tract 'An Historical Account of the English Translations of the Bible,' printed in 1730, down to the Rev. J.

L. Mombert's 'English Versions of the Bible,' of which a new edition appeared in 1907. You will find the volumes of Anderson, Cotton, Eadie, Loftie, Dore, Darlow and Moule, Stoughton, and Scrivener of a.s.sistance to you here, as well as Westcott's 'General View of the History of the English Bible,' of which a third and revised edition was published in 1905. It contains a useful list of English editions of the Holy Writ. The Huth Collection, that portion of it which was sold in 1911-12, was especially rich in Bibles, as was the Amherst Library, dispersed in 1908-09. This last contained editions from 1455 (the so-called 'Mazarin'

Bible) to King Charles the First's own copy of the 1638 Cambridge edition. The sale catalogues of these will be of value to you.

7. Bibliography is perhaps the subject nearest to the heart of every bibliophile. But since the collection of 'books about books' must of necessity be the stepping-stone by which the book-lover attains his knowledge of the extrinsic attributes of his hobby, I have dealt with this subject at some length in the chapter wherein are treated the 'books of the collector.'

[Sidenote: Biography.]

8. Biography, Memoirs, Diaries: what a flood of names and memories occur to one under this heading! Not only the immortal Boswell and Pepys, but f.a.n.n.y Burney, Alexandre Dumas, Mary Wortley-Montague, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, _et permulti alii_. Also, this heading will comprise that great series of mysterious and 'racy' books ycleped 'Court Memoirs,' and the somewhat less exciting but--to our book-hunter's mind at least--more interesting works which border on the domain of history, such as the Memoirs of Blaise de Montluc and Saint-Simon: works which bring home to us the everyday life of those far-off days more clearly than anything that has ever been written about them since.

How meagre is the stock of valuable historical memoirs with which we may furnish our libraries to-day! There is abundance to be had--after long searching, but the great Memoirs which we may have to hand, such as Froissart and Monstrelet, Waurin and La Marche, must number scarce a couple of dozen. Perhaps some day a philanthropic publisher will give us good editions (unabridged) of Sir James Melvil, Sir Philip Warwick, Edmund Ludlow, Bulstrode Whitlock, Sir Thomas Herbert, Robert Cary, Denzil Lord Holles, and many other valuable contemporary evidences now scarcely to be had, and when found usually in ancient tattered calf. Why is it, too, that the great ma.s.s of French chroniclers who bear witness to English doings in the wars of Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Anjou and Touraine remain still untranslated and almost unprocurable?

There are so many delightful Memoirs to which one would like to have access at will. Jean de Boucicault, Marshal of France, stands out as one of the most interesting figures in mediaeval France and, indeed, Europe.

Nicknamed 'le meingre,' he was Vicomte de Turenne, and bore arms at the age of ten. His father[78] also was a Marshal of France. Few men have lived such a stirring life as this paragon of knightly prowess. At Rosebeque in 1382 (where Philip van Artevelde and 20,000 Flemings were slain), being then a page of honour to Charles VI., he fought at the King's side and acquitted himself so well that he received knighthood at the King's hands. Thenceforward he was fighting continually in Flanders, Normandy, Brittany, Languedoc--in short wherever there was fighting to be done. In 1396, marching with the flower of the French chivalry through Bulgaria against the Turks, he was one of the three thousand knights taken prisoner at the disastrous battle of Nicopoli; but was among the twenty-five whose lives were spared by the savage victor. Four years later he was defending Constantinople for the Emperor against his late captor, and here again he distinguished himself greatly by his bravery.

Not long after this he was appointed Governor of Genoa. In command of the Genoese fleet he undertook to chastise the Cypriots for an outrage on some Genoese gentlemen. But calling at Rhodes on the way, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers persuaded him to try the effect of mediation first of all, and proceeded to Cyprus himself for that purpose. Whereupon the Marshal, 'to beguile the time, and give employment to the fiery spirits on board his squadron' (says a later chronicler) 'ran down at a venture to the Syrian city of Scanderoon, which place he carried by a.s.sault and plundered.' Encouraged by this success, on the Grand Master's return he persuaded that great personage to accompany him on a further expedition, and together they harried the whole coast of Syria, the Hospitaller confining his attention to the Infidels whilst the Marshal razed the factories which the Venetians (enemies to the Genoese) had established at Baruth and other places. Thus pa.s.sing a very pleasant summer.

In Italy he took an active part in the turmoil betwixt Guelphs and Ghibellines, and seized Milan for the former (1409). At Agincourt in 1415 he commanded the vanguard of the French army, and was taken prisoner.

Being sent to England, he remained there until his death six years later.

This great soldier was a man of many accomplishments, an ardent musician as well as a poet; and his leisure was pa.s.sed chiefly in composing ballads, rondeaux, and virelays. Yet his 'Livre des Faicts' remains unenglish'd.

Another truly great man of a later period was that great warrior of saintly life and death, Henri, Duc de Montmorency. After a long and n.o.ble career of arms in the service of his king no less than of his countrymen, he fell a victim to the jealousy of Cardinal de Richelieu. 'Dieu vouloit que sa mort fust aussi admirable que sa vie,' writes his biographer; 'que ses dernieres actions couronna.s.sent toutes les autres; et que ses vertus Chrestiennes jetta.s.sent encor plus d'eclat que n'avoient fait les Heroiques.' Brought to the scaffold he refused to avail himself of the indulgence of having his hands at liberty. 'So great a sinner as I,' he said, 'cannot die with too much ignominy.' Of his own accord he took off his splendid dress. 'How can I,' said he, 'being so great a sinner go to my death in such attire when my guiltless Saviour died naked upon the Cross.' Yet save we are contented to turn to a poorly printed seventeenth-century edition of his Life, there is no place (to my knowledge at least) where we can read of this truly great man, and, of course, no version other than that in the French tongue.

Then there is that great and vivacious chronicle of the house of Burgundy during the fifteenth century, the Memoirs of Messire Olivier, Sieur de la Marche. No historian would write of the Flemish wars, from the Peace of Arras in 1435 to the taking of Ghent by the Archduke Maximilian in 1491, without constant reference to this invaluable work, for la Marche was often an eye-witness of the events which he records. Yet so far it has not been rendered in English, and I know of no complete edition in modern French. It is the same with the memorials of Bouchet, Chartier, de Coussy, Crillon, Olivier de Clisson, and many other great soldiers, all of whom have much to say of the wars 'contre les Anglois.' The famous history of Bertrand du Guesclin[79] contained in 'Le Triomphe des Neuf Preux' does not seem to have been reprinted after its second appearance in Spanish at Barcelona in 1586, and there is no English version.

Why is it that biography has such a peculiar fascination for most men? Is it but curiosity to know how others have pa.s.sed their lives, mere idle inquisitiveness? Or is it that we may store up in our minds what these great ones said and did upon occasions that may occur to us some day?

This is, perhaps the more likely; for women dislike biographies, and women, we are told, care not a fig for examples, but act upon their native intuition. Be the reason what it may, the fact remains that for one man who looks to the future there are fifty who look to the past.

Moreover the sages of all times encourage us to seek examples in the lives of other men, and examples are certainly of more value than idle speculations. 'With what discourses should we feed our souls?' asked one of that pleasant philosopher Maximus of Tyre. 'With those that lead the mind [Greek: epi ton prosthen chronon]--towards former times,' replied the sage--those that exhibit the deeds of past ages.

Possibly it would be better to include biographical dictionaries under this heading than under 'Dictionaries.' Oettinger's 'Bibliographie Biographique Universelle,' published first in quarto at Leipzig, 1850, describes some 26,000 biographies, under their subjects' names. A second edition appeared in two octavo volumes at Brussels four years later.

There is a useful catalogue of 174 biographical dictionaries in all languages at the end of the third volume of John Gorton's 'General Biographical Dictionary,' the 1833 edition.

[Sidenote: Famous Authors and Books.]

9. Celebrated Authors and Books. How interesting it would be to know which individual work, after the Bible, has pa.s.sed through the greatest number of editions. 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'The Decameron,' 'The Compleat Angler,' 'Paradise Lost,' all these must have been reprinted an immense number of times; while others such as 'Gil Blas' and 'Don Quixote' would not be so very far behind. Then there are the ancients, such as Homer, Horace, Virgil, with the great host of cla.s.sics of the old world. Perhaps, however, the palm would be awarded to the 'Imitatio Christi' of the saintly Thomas a Kempis. The editions of it, from the presses of almost every country in the old and the new worlds, run well into four figures. An English collector, Edmund Waterton, succeeded in ama.s.sing no less than thirteen hundred, and at his death the British Museum acquired all those of his treasures which were not already upon its shelves.

There is another name to couple with this, though (I hasten to add) from a purely bibliographical standpoint--that of the great Dominican Giacomo di Voraggio, or Jacobus de Voragine. Except to the student of Early Fathers, the hagiologist, and the bibliophile, his very name has almost sunk into oblivion; but to these savants he stands forth as the compiler of that marvellous collection of the Lives of the Saints, known as The Golden Legend. The first Latin edition of his great work was printed in folio at Cologne in 1470, and six years later it appeared in French at Lyons and in Italian at Venice. Caxton translated and published an English version, and from that time to the middle of the sixteenth century it is said to have undergone more impressions than any other contemporary work.[80]

It is not only editions of individual works, however, that this heading comprises. Upon reading a book which pleases us greatly it is but natural to seek other works by the same author; and with the book-collector this tendency often becomes the basis of a definite plan of campaign. Who has yet formed a complete collection of the works and editions of Defoe, of Alexandre Dumas, or even of that indefatigable Jesuit antiquary Claude Francois Menestrier? There are bibliographies of all three, but I do not know of any library that possesses a complete collection of either. Every year sees the addition of bibliographies upon this subject, and we have now excellent accounts of the publications of Bunyan, Cervantes, Defoe, Milton, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Isaac Newton, Isaac Walton, and many other famous men.

Under this heading also is included the collection of books dealing with a particular author or book, such, for example, as the many published works upon the authors.h.i.+p of the 'Imitatio Christi,' the 'Eikon Basilike,' or the Letters of Junius, and--commonest sub-heading of all--'Shakespeareana.' The British Museum authorities have issued a bibliography (large quarto, 1897), of books in that library relating to Shakespeare, which you may have for a few s.h.i.+llings. If this be your hobby, however, perhaps the first book which you will acquire, at the very outset of your career, will be Sir Sidney Lee's monumental 'Life of William Shakespeare,' which has become a cla.s.sic in itself. Of this, the first edition appeared in 1898, but a new edition (the seventh) rewritten and greatly enlarged, was published in 1915. It is, at the time of writing, the fullest and best, so is much to be preferred. It contains a full account of the earliest and subsequent editions and editors of the immortal writer. Mr. A. W. Pollard published in 1909 a bibliographical account of 'Shakespeare Folios and Quartos,' and you will find a lengthy list of books upon this subject in Appendix I of Sir Sidney Lee's work (1915). Mr. William Jaggard's 'Shakespeare Bibliography' purports to be 'a dictionary of every known issue of the writings of our national poet and of recorded opinion thereon in the English language.' It was published at Stratford-on-Avon in 1911, a thick octavo volume of more than 700 pages. The fifth volume of the 'Cambridge History of English Literature' contains some 47 pages of Shakespeareana in the bibliographies to Chapters VIII. to XII.

[Sidenote: Famous Presses.]

10. Celebrated Presses. Of all the famous printers this world has seen, there are two in particular whose productions have engaged the attentions of collectors continually, namely, the Manuccios ('Aldines') and the Elzeviers. The reason for this is not far to seek. Unlike the productions of Caxton or de Worde (whose works, mostly in the vernacular, have usually engaged the attentions of English collectors only), the volumes issued by these two great foreign houses stand out for their conspicuous merit both as specimens of book-production and as examples of scholarly editing. Should you decide, however, to confine your attention to some other of the great printers, then a delightful hobby will be yours; for the field is narrow, and your collecting must take the form of a personal inspection of each volume purchased. It will be book-hunting with a vengeance; the booksellers' catalogues (which rarely give the printers) will be of little use to you except as regards certain specimens with which you are acquainted, and each volume that you acquire will have been unearthed by your own hands. It is a subject which has been chosen so frequently by specialists that there are bibliographies of almost all the well-known printers, most of them, it were needless to add, in French.

For a list of them, you must consult the work of Bigmore and Wyman, as well as that of Mr. W. P. Courtney.

There is a chance here, also, for the public librarian. How many of the public libraries in this country possess a collection of books ill.u.s.trating the history and progress of printing in their particular towns? Most provincial public libraries now possess collections of books relating to the history and topography of their localities; and it should not be difficult to form similar collections of locally-printed books. It would be an interesting hobby for the private collector too, and such a collection would be of the greatest interest and value from the bibliographical standpoint. Similarly it would not be difficult to form a small collection of books printed by, say, the French or German or Italian printers before 1500, or the Paris or Venetian printers up to 1600. There is a considerable field for the collector here.

[Sidenote: Ballads and Broadsides.]

11. Chapbooks, Broadsides, and Ballads: a curious byway of book-collecting this, for the knowledge to be gleaned from these _curiosa_ is not probably of great value. Nor can a great deal be said in favour of their utility. Perhaps, however, the first two would be cla.s.sed more properly with No. 22--Facetiae and Curiosa, leaving Ballads only under this heading. The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres' 'Bibliotheca Lindesiana: a Catalogue of a Collection of English Ballads of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, printed for the most part in Black Letter' was printed privately in small quarto in 1890. It is undoubtedly the finest collection of this kind in the world. Ritson's 'Ancient Songs and Ballads' was revised by Hazlitt in 1877. Then there are such volumes as Payne Collier's 'Ill.u.s.trations of English Popular Literature,'

published in 1863-66, Huth's 'Ancient Ballads and Broadsides published in England in the Sixteenth Century' (1867), and others which will be mentioned when discussing Facetiae (22) and Pamphlets and Tracts (45).

Lemon's 'Catalogue of a Collection of Printed Broadsides in the Possession of the Society of Antiquaries of London' (1866) and Lilly's 'Black Letter Ballads and Broadsides,' (1867) will also be of use to you here, as will the publications of the Percy, Ballad, and Philobiblon Societies. In 1856 J. Russell Smith, the antiquarian publisher of Soho Square, issued a 'Catalogue of a Unique Collection of Four Hundred Ancient English Broadside Ballads, Printed Entirely in the Black Letter'

which he had for sale--a small octavo volume with notes and facsimiles.

It is a valuable little book and somewhat hard to obtain. For other reference-books upon this subject, you must turn to the headings 'Ballads' and 'Broadsides' in Mr. W. P. Courtney's valuable 'Register of National Bibliography.'

This heading also includes the collection of proclamations and single sheet posters of all kinds. There is a fine collection of Royal Proclamations in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries, probably the most perfect in existence. 'Bookes' of Proclamations were issued by R.

Grafton in 1550 (8vo), R. Barker in 1609 (folio), Norton and Bill in 1618 (folio)--all in black letter--and by several other the king's printers during the seventeenth century. For the purposes of the historian they are simply invaluable. The (26th) Earl of Crawford and Balcarres has printed a bibliography of proclamations, vols. v. and vi. of his 'Bibliotheca Lindesiana.'

[Sidenote: Civil War and Commonwealth.]

12. Civil War and Commonwealth is properly speaking a sub-heading of No.

30--History; but it is a favourite subject with book-collectors, and the volumes issued during this period are _sui generis_ and mostly of considerable interest. With the abolition of the Star Chamber in 1641 the drastic repression of the printers disappeared, and, freed from all control, the presses now poured forth political tracts and volumes of every description. Needless to say a great number of the books thus issued were anonymous publications. But two years later an Order for the Regulating of Printing came into force, and Cromwell's censors.h.i.+p was reinforced by a further Act in 1649. Nevertheless a large ma.s.s of political matter continued, throughout the interregnum, to make its appearance on the stalls and in the shops. What would not Cromwell have given to suppress 'Killing no Murder'! Edwards' 'Catalogue of the Great Rebellion Tracts in the British Museum' was included in his 'Memoirs of Libraries,' which appeared in 1859. George Thomason's famous collection of Royalist tracts will be dealt with under the heading 'Pamphlets.'

[Sidenote: Cla.s.sics.]

13. Of all the subjects in our list perhaps none comprises volumes of greater beauty and printed with greater distinction than this--the Cla.s.sics of the Old World. It is a rare field for the scholar to-day, for the time when no library could be considered complete without editions of most of the old masters of Greece and Italy is long past; and there is nothing like the compet.i.tion nowadays to secure the well-known editions which formerly adorned the shelves of our grandfathers. Not long ago our book-hunter witnessed the sale of a sixteenth-century folio Isocrates, bound in ancient green morocco, for seven and sixpence; and similar volumes are described continually in the modern booksellers' catalogues.

There is more scope here for the collection of masterpieces of typography than in any other heading in our list. Aldines, Estiennes, Elzeviers, Plantins, Baskervilles, Barbous--all are within the reach of the most modest purse. You need not trouble to study Dibdin's 'Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Cla.s.sics': if you are sufficiently fond of immortal books and beautiful printing to make this subject your hobby, your own eyes and hands will guide you in the choice of editions--from the bibliographical standpoint.

[Sidenote: Cookery Books.]

14. The Collection of Cookery Books offers a wider field for the book-collector's activities than would appear at first sight. Besides the considerable number of works of a purely culinary nature, there are many sources whence we can learn much concerning the dietary and table customs of our ancestors. Caxton's (or rather de Worde's) 'Book of Curtesye' is a primer of good manners for a small boy at table and elsewhere, and it may well find a place, in modern shape, on the shelf beside other volumes on household economy. 'Don't dip your meat in the salt-cellar,' the wise man tells Master Jackie, 'lest folk apoynte you of unconnyngnesse.' He must be careful, also, not to expectorate across the table,

'ne at the borde ye shall no naylis pare ne pyke your teth with knyf.'

Injunctions that are, perhaps, unnecessary nowadays; but all must agree with the great printer that

'it is a tedyous thynge For to here a chylde multeplye talkyng.'

Are books on table-manners published nowadays? The latest I remember to have seen is Trusler's 'The Honours of the Table, or Rules for Behaviour during Meals, with the Whole Art of Carving,' which appeared in 1788. It has woodcuts by Bewick, and is a curious and scarce little volume.

Even such unlikely volumes as Dugdale's 'Origines Juridiciales' (folio, London 1680), the Egerton and Rutland Papers, and other volumes of household accounts issued by the learned societies contain menus and long lists of foodstuffs and drinks consumed at various feasts. W. C.

Hazlitt's account of some 'Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine'

appeared in 12mo in 1886. It has a list of some of the older works. There is also a bibliography of books upon this subject in Dr. A. W. Oxford's 'Notes from a Collector's Catalogue' which appeared in 1909. His 'English Cookery Books to the Year 1850' was published in 1913. You will find a useful paper upon old English cookery in the 'Quarterly Review' for January 1894. M. Georges Vicaire's 'Bibliographie Gastronomique,' a handsome octavo volume with facsimiles, appeared at Paris in 1890.

Then there are such books on dieting as Cornaro's 'Discorsi della Vita Sobria' and Lessius on the Right Course of Preserving Health, both english'd in 1634 and printed at Cambridge in a tiny volume ent.i.tled 'Hygiasticon'; also Tryon's 'Way to Health,' Sir Thomas Elyot's 'Castel of Helth,' and other works of this nature. 'The Forme of Cury,' compiled about 1390 by the master cook of Richard II., was published by Samuel Pegge in 1780; and the 'Libre Cure Cocorum,' about 1440, was issued by the Philological Society in 1862. The 'Boke of Cookery' printed by Pynson in 1500, and b.u.t.tes' 'Dyets Dry Dinner,' 1599, you will probably have to go without unless your purse be a deep one; indeed so far as I am aware no duplicate is known of the first-mentioned!

[Sidenote: Costume.]

15. Books on Costume, like works on Architecture and the Fine Arts, are _de natura_ 'art books.' During the first few decades of the nineteenth century there were published a number of folio volumes containing fine coloured plates, depicting the costumes of various foreign countries.

Numerous books of travels issued during the same period also were embellished with similar plates; whilst of late years monographs have appeared on the history of various articles of attire, such as shoes, gloves, hats, etc. It is not a large field for the specialist, and at present I am unaware of any modern bibliography upon this subject. There are lists of costume books in Fairholt's 'Costume in England' (1896 edition), 'The Heritage of Dress' by Mr. W. M. Webb (1907), and a paper on them by Mr. F. W. B. Haworth in the Quarterly Record of the Manchester Public Library for 1903 (vol. vii. pp. 69-72).

Some of the older works on costume are extremely interesting for their curious engravings. For the most part they are valuable works. 'Le Recueil de la diversite des Habits, qui sont de present en usage, tant es pays d'Europe, Asie, Afrique et Isles Sauvages, le tout fait apres le naturel' was put forth by Richard Breton, a Paris printer, in 1564, octavo. It contains 121 full-page wood-engravings of costume; it is a little difficult, however, to see why the 'sauvages' should be included in a book of costume. But perhaps they are covered by the phrase 'apres le naturel.' Beneath each engraving is a rhyming and punning quatrain.

Here is the one beneath the portrait of a young lady of demure appearance, ent.i.tled 'L'Espousee de France':

'L'espousee est coiffee, aussi vestue Comme voyez, quant elle prent mary, A demonstrer sa beaute s'esuertue, En ce iour la, n'ayant le cueur marry.'