Some hand their orders direct to the auctioneer, and this may be done within certain limits; but if the practice becomes too habitual, the dealers retaliate by bidding against the rostrum. "All is fair in love and war."

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Now in the British Museum by the munificence of the late Sir Wollaston Franks (Department of Antiquities).

[5] Said to have been purchased for Lord Amherst.



CHAPTER XVI

Foundations of bibliography—Commencement of advertising books through catalogues and lists at end of other publications—Classes of literature principally in demand—Origin of sales by public competition—A book-lottery in 1661—The book-auction in London makes a beginning—The practice extends to the provinces and Scotland (1680-95)—First sale-catalogue where Caxtons were separately lotted (1682)—Catalogue of a private library appended to a posthumous publication (1704)—Mystery surrounding the sources whence the Harleian Library was supplied with its early English rarities—An explanation—Indebtedness of the Heber Collection to private purchasers on a large scale—Vast additions to our knowledge since Heber's time—The modern auction-marts—Penny and other biddings at auctions—An average auction-room—Watching the Ashburnham sale—The collector behind the scenes—Key to certain prices—The Frost and the Boom—Difficulty of gauging quotations without practical experience—The Court of Appeal—The Duke of Wellington pays L105 for a shilling pamphlet—A few more words about the Frere sale in illustration of the Boom and something else—The Rig.

THE earliest method of communication between holders and vendors of books and probable buyers of them related to the issue of new works, or, at most, to such as were not out of date. Maunsell's celebrated folio, of which he was not apparently encouraged to proceed with more than certain sections, and which did not comprise the subjects most interesting to us, came out in 1595 in two parts, and was, notwithstanding its imperfect fulfilment, the most comprehensive enterprise of the kind in our language down to comparatively recent times. These matters usually took the form of notices, accompanying a published volume, of others already in print or in preparation by the same firm. No possessor or observer of old English books can fail to have met with such advertisements; but, as we have said, they limit themselves, as a rule, to current literature and the ventures of the immediate stationer or printer. To some copies of Marmion's Antiquary, 1641, we find attached a slip containing an announcement by Thomas Dring of old plays on sale by him at the White Lion in Chancery Lane, and inserted posterior to the issue of this particular drama, which does not bear Dring's name; and we all know the list of dramatic performances appended to Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1661, and probably emanating from Kirkman the bookseller, where we discern items belonging to an earlier period—of some of which we know nothing further. This catalogue, the material for which Kirkman had personally brought together by the expenditure of considerable time and labour, was re-issued in 1671, and from about that time Clavell and other members of the trade circulated periodical accounts of all the novelties of the season, but almost entirely in those classes which seem to have then appealed to the public: Law, Science, and Divinity—just the sections with which Maunsell in 1595 began and ended.

The absence of the machinery supplied by the auction long necessitated a practice which not only survived sales by inch of candle and under the hammer, but which still prevails, of disposing of libraries and small collections en bloc to the trade, and the dedication by the particular buyer of a serial catalogue to his purchase. Executors and others long possessed no other means of realisation; the Harleian printed books were thus dispersed; and even those of Heber, almost within our own memory, engrossed the resources of two or three firms of salesmen. The conditions under which a library was accumulated in former days were not less different than those under which it passed into other hands; the possibilities of profit were infinitesimal; a heavy loss was almost a certainty. But then men bought more generally for the mere love of the objects or for purposes of study. The speculative element had yet to arise.

Evelyn, in his famous letter to Pepys, August 12, 1689, speaks of Lord Maitland's library as certainly the noblest, most substantial, and accomplished, that ever passed under the spear. This was within two decades or so of the commencement of the system of selling literary effects by auction. We are aware that in the Bristol records of the fourteenth century the trumpet, introduced from France, is mentioned as a medium for the realisation of property in the same way; and there was the much later inch-of-candle principle—a perhaps unconscious loan from King Alfred's alleged time-candles, which are referred to by his biographer Asser—a work suspected of being unauthentic, yet on that account may have none the less suggested the idea to some one.

Abroad the trumpet or the cry appear among the commercial states of the Middle Ages to have been the usual forms. In the particulars of a sale of galleys by auction at Venice in 1332,[6] the property was cried beforehand on behalf of the Government, and the buyer, till he paid the price reached, furnished a surety. This process was known as the incanto; and it is curious enough that in the sale-catalogue of Francis Hawes, Esq., a South Sea Company director, in 1722, the goods are said to be on sale by cant or auction. But the modern Italian still speaks of an auction as an asta (the Roman hasta). Some of these types are illustrated by Lacroix in his Moeurs et Usages. In France they anciently had the bell and the crier (the Roman praeco).

In London, firms of commercial brokers long continued to hold their sales of goods by inch of candle; but the Roman practice seems to have survived down to comparatively modern days in Spain and Portugal, if not in France and Italy. In 1554, Junius Rabirius, a French jurist, published at Paris, with a metrical inscription to Henry II. of France, a Latin treatise on the origin of Hastae and Auctions, in which he enters at some length into the system pursued by the ancients, and still retained in the sixteenth century by the Latin communities of Europe. This is probably the earliest monograph which we possess on the present branch of the subject. It is a tolerably dull and uninforming one.

Some of us are aware by practical experience how deplorably tedious a normal modern auction under the hammer is, although it extends only at the utmost from one to five or six in the afternoon. But, like some of the Continental sales of to-day, the old-fashioned affair spread, with a break for refreshment, over twice the space of time, and was conducted, previous to the introduction of the hammer, by inch of candle. This system was somewhat less inconvenient than it at first sight strikes us as being, since the property was lotted to a much larger extent in parcels and bundles, and the biddings were apt to be comparatively fewer. Another way of saying that the early auction appealed less to private than to professional buyers, and not merely in that, but in every aspect. The same remark still applies to the dispersion of all miscellaneous collections of secondary importance, unless an amateur chooses to compete for a dozen articles, which he does not want, for the sake of one, which he does.

The steadily accumulating volume of literary production in the seventeenth century inspired two successive movements, which we regard to-day as peremptory necessities and matters of course, but which, so long as books were scarcer, and the demand for them correspondingly restricted, failed to strike any one as likely to prove popular and advantageous. These movements were the second-hand department and the auction-room. It is a sufficiently familiar fact that during the reign of Charles II. both sprang into existence, although among the Hollanders the usage of putting up books to public competition had commenced three-quarters of a century prior; but in 1661 there do not appear to have been any facilities for disposing of libraries or collections, as in that year John Ogilby, the historian, arranged to sell his books—the remainder of his own publications—through the medium of a lottery. It was within a very brief interval, however, that the sale by auction is shown to have become an accomplished fact. The earliest of which an actual catalogue has come down to us is that of Dr. Lazarus Seaman, sold by Cooper in 1676; but there were in all probability anterior experiments, and side by side with the auctioneer grew up the professional ancestor of the Thorpes and the Rodds—the men who supplied Burton, Drummond, Evelyn, Pepys, Selden, and many more, with the rarities which are yet associated with their names. The system of selling under the hammer in its various stages of development and different ramifications is not an unimportant factor in our modern social and commercial life; it did not require many years from its introduction into the metropolis to recommend it to the provinces and to Scotland; and we possess catalogues of libraries or properties dispersed in this manner at Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and elsewhere in the last quarter of the last but one century; and in one case at least of this kind of property being offered at a fair.[7] Occasionally, as in the case of Secondary Smith, 1682, a precocious feeling for the early English school reveals itself; but, for the most part, the articles accentuated by the old-fashioned auctioneer are foreign classics, history, and theology—the literary wares, in fact, in vogue. Annexed to the Memoirs of Thomas (or Tom) Brown, 1704, is a very unusual feature—a catalogue of his library.

Within about five-and-twenty years of the supposed starting-point of the auction, the modern practice of the London auctioneer being engaged to conduct sales in the country, even in important provincial towns, seems to have fairly commenced, for in 1700 Edward Millington of Little Britain sold at Cambridge the library of Dr. Cornwall of Clapton in Northamptonshire. In the preliminary matter attached to the catalogue, Millington remarks that "he always esteems it a privilege to exercise his lungs amongst his friends."

A glimpse of the method of collecting by the Hon. John North, one of the sons of Lord North of Kirtling, and born in 1645, is afforded by his brother and biographer, Roger North, who says that he gradually accumulated, commencing about 1666, a large collection of books, principally Greek, and generally bought them himself, spending much time in company with his relation in booksellers' shops, and not objecting to possess duplicates, if other copies in better condition were found or were presented to him by friends. Mr. North flourished during the halcyon days of the classics. The literature of his own country probably interested him little. North, however, was so far a true book-lover, inasmuch as he sought what pleased himself.

It affords a pleasanter impression of the pursuit when one perceives individuals of all ranks and callings buying themselves personally, either at the book-shop or the saleroom, in the selection of their periodical acquisitions. The marked copies of the older auction catalogues are distinguished by the names of some of our most eminent collectors, but at present gentlemen prefer to give their commissions to their booksellers from want of leisure or other motives.

I have alluded to the sale by auction of Dr. Seaman's library in 1676, which took place at his house in Warwick Court, Warwick Lane. The address to the reader, presumably by Cooper, commences:—

"It hath not been usual here in England to make sale of Books by way of Auction, or who will give most for them: But it having been practised in other Countreys to the Advantage both of Buyers and Sellers; It was therefore conceived (for the Encouragement of Learning) to publish the Sale of these Books this manner of way." The Catalogue is not divided into days, but the fifth condition says, "That the Auction will begin the 31st of October, punctually at Nine of the Clock in the Morning, and Two in the afternoon, and this to continue daily until all the Books be Sold; Wherefore it is desired, that the Gentlemen, or those deputed by them, may be there precisely the Hours appointed, lest they should miss the opportunity of Buying those Books, which either themselves or their Friends desire."

In 1682 Thomas Parkhurst, in offering for sale the libraries of several eminent men, announces that the catalogues might be had gratis at the Bible on London Bridge (his place of business as a bookseller), and he takes occasion to introduce (perhaps for the first time) that courageous form of statement so popular to this day among the fraternity as to the collection being the finest ever sold or to be sold, and the opportunity by consequence being one which would never probably recur.

But the present writer does not enter minutely into this branch of the subject, which Mr. Lawler has made his own.

It has always been, and must always remain, a mystery whence the Harleian exemplars of a large number of unique or almost unique volumes belonging to the early vernacular literature of Great Britain were obtained. In some cases they are traceable to anterior owners and catalogues; but a considerable residue first come to the front here, and the explanation seems to be that the practice of registering unregarded trifles, as they were then deemed to be, in large parcels was necessarily fatal to individuality and to the survival of clues. To a certain extent the same disappointment awaits us in more recent days, till, in fact, the demand for old poetry, romances, and plays made the few extant copies objects of interest to the trade sufficient to entitle them to prominence in their lists and in those published by the auctioneers. It may have been the catalogue of Joseph Ames, 1760, which was among the earliest to raise such items to the dignity of separate lots, thought by the purchasers at the time worth a shilling or two; but the noted sale of Mr. West in 1773 is entitled to rank as the foremost in those days, where the books and tracts, long since discovered to be represented by one or two accidental survivors, and grown dearer than gold a hundredfold, began to draw figures indicative of increased curiosity and appreciation.

The most eminent of the earlier race of auctioneers in London, who confined their attention to properties belonging to the fine arts, were William Cooper, a man of considerable literary taste and culture, whom we have seen disposing of Dr. Seaman's books in 1676; Edward Millington, Robert Scott, and John Dunton, of whom we know more than of his predecessors and contemporaries through his publications, and especially his Life and Errors. Commercial rivalry and jealousy arose among the members of the fraternity before the institution had grown at all old, and complaints were also made against gentlemen-bidders. In the preface to the catalogue of a French library, where he takes occasion to animadvert severely on his contemporary and confrere Scott, Millington refers to the third condition of sale, requiring all buyers to give in their place of abode, "to prevent the inconveniences that have more or less hitherto attended the Undertakers, and also the Purchasers, by reason that several persons, out of Vanity and Ostentation, have appeared and bought, to the damage and disappointment of the Parties they outbid, and have not been so kind to their own Reputation, or just to the Proprietors, as to pay for and fetch them away." This was in 1687.

It seems to have been a considerable time after the first institution of the auction before a fixed place of business was appointed for the sale of literary and artistic properties consigned to a particular party for realisation. We find taverns and coffee-houses much in request for this purpose during the former half of the last century. The library of printed books and MSS. belonging to Thomas Britton, "small-coal man," were sold about 1720 at Tom's Coffee-House, and about the same date portions of Thomas Rawlinson's stupendous collections, of which the dispersion extended over a dozen years, came to the hammer at the Paul's Head Tavern in Carter Lane.

It is improbable that any early auction catalogue of consequence has disappeared, and looking at those which we have, say, from the outset to 1700, we at once perceive the comparatively limited business transacted in this direction during a lengthened term of years, and the numerous instances where a not very considerable catalogue embraces three or four properties. Collections were, as a rule, made on a smaller scale prior to the Harley epoch.

The practice of publishing booksellers' and auctioneers' catalogues, rudimentary as it was at the outset, succeeded by the more systematic descriptive accounts of public and private collections, gradually extended the knowledge of the surviving volumes of early literature, and laid the foundation of a National Bibliography. We shall probably never fully learn our amount of obliged indebtedness to Richard Heber, who in his own person, from about 1800 to 1833, consolidated and concentrated an immense preponderance of the acquisitions of anterior collectors, and with them gained innumerable treasures, which came to him through other channels. His marvellous catalogue must have proved a revelation at the time, and to-day it is a work of reference at once instructive and agreeable.

What must strike any one who has attentively considered the Heber library, even if it is not a case of having had the catalogue at his elbow, as I have, in a manner, all his life, is the presence there of so large a number of items of which no trace occurs in earlier lists, and of which no duplicates have since presented themselves. It is perfectly marvellous how Heber accumulated the vast bibliographical treasures brought to light, and of which his catalogue is the record achievement; he must have been not only indefatigable in his own person, but must have furnished encouragement to many others, who met with rare books, to afford him the first refusal.

On the other hand, hundreds of early English books and tracts which this indefatigable and munificent of collectors never succeeded in obtaining, items and authors whose titles and names were hitherto utterly unknown, have within the last two generations come piecemeal into the market, to delight alike, yet in a different way, the bibliographer and the amateur. The accidental and almost miraculous survival of literary relics of past ages is curious on account of the purely casual manner in which they present themselves from season to season, as well as from the strange hands in which many of them are found—often persons of obscure character and in humble life, who have one, two, or half-a-dozen books of which all had somehow eluded the researches of every collector. Cases are known in which a single article has come to light in this manner, a unique publication of the Plantagenet or Tudor era, maybe in sorry state, maybe just as it left the press two or three centuries ago, but anyhow a monument and a revelation.

The almost exclusive sources of intelligence on these questions are the correspondence of the period, a portion of which is printed in the volumes of 1813 devoted to Aubrey's Collections, and another in Nichols's Anecdotes. There we perceive that Lord Oxford was indebted for many rarities to John Bagford and other private purveyors of printed books as well as MSS. In a letter of 1731 to Hearne, his Lordship mentions his impression that he had forty-two Caxtons at that date. He seems to have possessed seventy-three examples of Wynkyn de Worde.[8]

With respect to some of the college libraries at Oxford, Cambridge, and even Dublin, it is easier to arrive at the facts, so far as they go, or, in other words, many of the rare and important acquisitions of those institutions came to them at a period anterior to what may be termed the bibliographical era, and were often contemporary gifts from the authors of the volumes or from early owners of them.

The value of the auction became manifest at a comparatively early date, when a clear demand for certain descriptions of literary property had set in, particularly when the formation of the Harleian library was in progress. In 1757 the representatives of Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls under James I., proposed to sell his MSS., and eventually negotiated with a cheesemonger, who offered L10 for the collection as waste paper. Paterson, the auctioneer, fortunately heard of the affair, dissuaded the family from it, and prepared a careful catalogue of the articles, by which he realised to the owners L356. Take another case. In 1856 the Wolfrestons decided on parting with a lot of old books and pamphlets which an ancestor had collected under the Stuarts, or even earlier, and would, as one of them informed us, have gladly accepted L30 for the whole. But they were sent to Sotheby's, and realised L750.

On the other hand, instances are by no means unknown, in spite of what the auctioneers may assert, where it has suited a bookseller to give for a library or a parcel of books a sum at all events sufficient to tempt the owner, who has always before his eyes, in the case of a sale under the hammer, a variety of risks and draw-backs, which an immediate cheque, even for a lower amount, at once removes.

After all, the book-lover must, as a rule, be satisfied with the pleasure attendant on temporary possession.

Of the houses which lend themselves in our own day, and have done so during the last hundred or hundred and fifty years, to the incessant redistribution of literary acquisitions, and have gradually reduced an originally rather rudimentary principle to a sort of fine art, so much has been written by a succession of gentlemen interested in these specialities that we could hardly add much that was new, or treat this aspect of the topic without repeating others or ourselves.

A point which merits a passing mention, however, is the history of the bidding at these scenes of competition. It has been remarked as a singular circumstance that in the seventeenth century penny biddings were usual; but it was the silver penny of those days, and we have to remember the higher purchasing value of money. Twopenny and threepenny advances succeeded, and although these have long ceased in London, they yet survive in the provinces, where the lots are less important. Some of the principal houses now decline even sixpence, a shilling being the minimum offer entertained. The twopenny bidding still prevailed in 1731, as a priced copy of the sale catalogue of Robert Gray, M.D.,[9] shows. An offer of threepence is still not unknown in the provinces, as we have intimated above in our notice of an episode in Lincolnshire—not the Spalding one, but a second about the same point of time.

One of the not least interesting and curious aspects of the auction system is the diversity of motives inducing owners to part with their property. A study of the title-pages or covers of catalogues admits us ostensibly to the confidence of this or that collector. We should not otherwise become aware that some fairly obscure gentleman or lady was leaving his or her actual abode, that Balbus was changing the character of his library, that his friend so-and-so, owing to a failure of health, had found it necessary to settle in a more genial climate, or that "a well-known amateur," of whom we never heard before, was selling his duplicates. What does it signify? Literary acquisitions, in common with everything else, are constantly passing from one hand to another. Of course, if the last proprietor is deceased, if it is an executor's affair, it is just as well to mention the fact, as it places the operation on a clearer footing, and there is little, if any, suspicion of nursing; but with ordinary lots of books, where the party or parties interested may be living, it seems preferable to describe the objects of competition purely and simply as so many items for sale. The reason for the step is immaterial, more especially as there is a proneness to receive the one tendered, if not with indifference, with incredulity.

A singular entry in one of the sale catalogues of Edward Jeffery, of Warwick Street, Golden Square, under 1788, is a property described as "the lounging books of a gentleman," in the near vicinity of which we come across "the Parliamentary and constitutional library of a man of fashion."

Of course, where a famous or capital assemblage of literary treasures is for sale, it is quite proper and expedient on every account to connect with it the name on which it confers, and which may even confer on it, distinction. But it is different when Mr. Jones is changing his lines, or Mr. Brown is removing into the country or out of it, or the executors of the late Mr. Robinson have given instructions for the submission of his effects to the hammer. Qu'importe? Who cares?

The composition of an average auction-room, where the property is miscellaneous, is a curious and not unedifying study. One beholds a large, closely-packed room, where the atmosphere is not too salubrious, and yet the names which the auctioneer proclaims as those of the buyers are not numerous, are not even in all cases the names of persons present. The reason is that booksellers or their representatives often attend sales for the sake of watching the market or of noting the prices, and are on the spot when a lot occurs which suits them, or for which they have a commission. It is not perhaps too much to say that if the company should be reduced by 75 per cent. the quotations would remain unaltered, for a certain proportion are dummies beyond a moderate figure, and a certain proportion never open their mouths. The latter are spectators, or proprietors, or individuals whose biddings are given from the rostrum by proxy. An experienced dealer will probably guess for whom the salesman or his clerk is acting, and will be guided by such a hint in his own course of proceeding.

Where the goods on sale are of a prevailingly low standard, the scene varies in compliance with the circumstances, and the purchasers' names in the priced catalogue are almost without exception the names of booksellers, who make their account by going in for heavy lots and rough stuff—an excellent vocation thirty years ago, but now a fairly forlorn hope and quest. The bargain is no longer to the man who can buy for a shilling and sell for a pound, but to him who has the courage and means to buy for fifty pounds what he can sell for five times fifty by virtue of his knowledge and connection.

To watch carefully and studiously a big sale such as that of the Ashburnham library, of which two out of three portions are now scattered, is a bibliographical, if not a commercial, education in little. We attended in person throughout, and observed with interest and profit the curious working, unappreciable to those not practically versed in books, and acquainted with the result only through paragraphs in the newspapers. A spectator with some preparatory training could see how and why certain lots fetched such and such abnormal figures; and a leading agency in this direction was the unfortunate employment—unfortunate for himself, not for the owner or the auctioneer—by a leading buyer of an agent who had to win his purchases from men stronger than himself. Thus the Caxton's Jason, instead of bringing perhaps L1000, ran up to more than twice that sum, while, if it was re-sold under different conditions, it might not even reach the lower amount. Still more striking were the offers for such things as the first English edition of More's Utopia (L51), a volume which has repeatedly sold for a couple of guineas; while, on the other hand, a handsomely bound copy of Bourrienne's Memoires in ten volumes went for 11s., and other ordinary works in proportion.

The names in the booksellers' ledgers and in the auctioneers' catalogues as buyers of old or scarce literature are not by any means necessarily always the names of collectors. They are often those of middlemen, through whose hands a volume passes before it reaches its ultimate destination—passes in many cases from one of these channels to another. This is, of course, another mode of saying that the number of actual book-holders on their own permanent account is comparatively limited, and so it is. A call on the part of two or three persons for a particular class of work or subject immediately puts the whole trade on its mettle; everything directly or indirectly connected with the new topic is bought up or competed for with extraordinary and abrupt eagerness; the entire fraternity is bent on supplying the latest demand; and prices rise with proportionate rapidity to an extravagant height. The market consists of a couple or trio of individuals, who might be insensible to the excitement which they have occasioned if it were not for the offers from all sides which pour in upon them from day to day; and in a season or so it is all over; quotations are as before; and the running is on something different. Books of Emblems, Catholic Literature, Gardening and Agriculture, Occult Sciences, Early Poetry, Old Plays, Americana, Bewick, Cruikshank, the modern novelists, have all had their day. But the cry and the want are largely artificial. The customers are few; the caterers are many. Such a criticism applies only to the rarer and costlier desiderata.

The characteristics and frequent surprises of auction figures largely proceed from the pressure brought to bear from without by bidders who are in the background, who often possess slight bibliographical knowledge, and whose resources enable them to furnish their representatives with generous instructions. These competitors are usually restricted to prominent sales, where the capital items are numerous, and the name of the proprietor is that of a departed celebrity, or at all events, where certain copies, whether of manuscripts or printed books, are submitted to public competition after a lengthened period of detention in the hands of the late holder. The Ashburnham sale (now completed) afforded abundant proof of the influence on the market of a collector who began to form his library before many of us were born, and who succeeded not only in securing many treasures at present almost beyond reach, but in doing so at fairly moderate prices. But even when the late Lord Ashburnham went to what was in his time considered an extreme figure, he or his estate generally gained. For example, his Parzival and Titurell, 1477, which cost Mr. Quaritch L30, and was sold to his Lordship for L45 or less (Lord Ashburnham did not object to a discount), was reacquired by the former for L81, and the set of Walton's Angler, which is understood to have cost L200, realised four times that amount.

The auction mart, where literary property of all kinds changes hands, possesses its slang vocabulary, and knows alike the Frost and the Boom—not to mention the Fluke. In the notices which occur in the press the public sees only one side, only the high quotations. The public are of course, as a rule, destitute of bibliographical knowledge, and so is the normal journalist. He marches into the room after some sale, asks for the priced catalogue, scans the pages, and makes notes of the highest figures, which are as often as not misprinted by him in the organ by which he is employed. He does not say that a lot which was worth L20 went for L2, or that one which would usually fetch L2, brought L20 by reason of some mentioned technicality, because he does not know. A man who has devoted his life to the study of books and prices is aware that there are occasions when very ordinary property realises silly prices, and that there are others when the rarest and most valuable articles are given away. Sometimes, again, the company is not unanimous enough, and a sovereign's worth may go for more than a sovereign, or, if there is perfect friendship among those present, a first folio Shakespeare may drop at a dozen pounds; but then there is, you know, the court of appeal, which reassesses the amount to be finally paid. Not invariably. We have our very selves not so long since, on a hot Saturday afternoon, sat at the auctioneer's table, and made nearly a clean sweep of a library of old English plays, where the maximum bid was eighteen pence, and there was a buzz through the room when one, no better than the rest, was accidentally carried to 14s.

But to the artificial inflation of prices in our salerooms there is more than one side and one key. There was not so long since an instance at Christie's, and a second at Sotheby's, where the high quotations were entirely due to the competition of a so-called interloper, who bade, as he thought, on the judgment of the room, and was signally handicapped. Again, something has ere now been carried to a prodigious figure owing to an unlimited commission inadvertently given to two agents. The old Duke of Wellington once gave L105 in this way for a shilling pamphlet, and even then the bidding was only stopped by arrangement. However, of all the miraculous surprises, the most signal on record was one of the most recent—the Frere sale at Sotheby's in 1896, already alluded to, where the prices realised for books in very secondary preservation set all records and precedents at thorough defiance. The phenomenon, if it could be referred to any cause, arose from the peculiar atmosphere and surroundings; it was a bona fide old library, formed partly by the Freres of Roydon Hall, Norfolk, and partly by their relative Sir John Fenn, editor of the Paston Letters, and a rather noted antiquary of the eighteenth century. It was all straight and fair, so far as one could see; there was no "rigging," and the competition was simply insane. A portion of the Paston Correspondence struck us as cheap by comparison at L400; it was that which was offered at Christie's some time since, and bought in at about the same figure.

There were one or two singular errors in the catalogue. An Elizabethan edition of Sir John Mandeville's Travels was ascribed to 1503 and the press of Wynkyn de Worde, and the Tylney Psalter, belonging to the fifteenth century, was stated in a note by a former possessor to be of the age of Richard Coeur de Lion. One of the most unaccountable blunders in an auctioneer's catalogue which we can call to mind was the description of a Sarum service book as a grammatical treatise. But solecisms of various kinds are periodical. A German book is said to be printed at Gedruckt, and a copy of Sir John Mandeville in Italian is entered as Questo, that being its compiler's frugal method of giving the title (Questo e il libro).

One striking feature in the Frere sale was that it was only a part of the library, and that not the part which the auctioneers' representative saw at Roydon. Some further instalments occurred at another saleroom a few months later; and perhaps there is yet more to come. But in a bibliographical respect the dispersion proved of interest, as many of the items, formerly Sir John Fenn's, had remained imperfectly known and described; and it was not absolutely certain that they survived.

An element in the modern auctions which is patent to all fairly conversant with such mysteria, and has become one not less indispensable than normal, is what is commonly known as the Rig. A Rig is a sale which departs or declines from the strict line of bona fides so far as not to be precisely what the forefront of the catalogue avouches it, and by one or two houses it is discountenanced. Nevertheless it exists, and will continue from the nature of things to do so; and we observe in the very opening decade of auctions, in the very infancy of the system, a trace or germ of this commencing impurity or abuse. For some of the catalogues, so far back as 1678, purport to register within their covers the libraries of certain noblemen or gentleman "and others" (aliorumque, in the Latin diction then so much in favour), and so it has been ever since. When we go to the rooms and lift up our voices, we do not always know whose property we are trying to secure; nor, if our own judgment is worth anything, does it greatly signify.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Hazlitt's Venice, 1860, iv. 431.

[7] The library of James Chamberlain, sold at Stourbridge Fair in 1686.

[8] See Catalogue of Early English Miscellanies formerly in the Harleian Library, by W. C. Hazlitt, 1862.

[9] See besides, Hazlitt's Memoirs, 1896, chaps. vii, viii, ix; and Hazlitt's Confessions of a Collector, 1897, p. 150 et seq.



ADDITIONAL NOTES

P. 5. Of the public collections in England, those of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, at Oxford, of which very little remains, and of Sir John Gyllarde, Prior of the Calendaries' Gild in Bristol (founded before 1451), appear to be the pioneers. For the latter the Bishop of Worcester is said to have provided, in 1464, a receptacle or building; but the collection was destroyed by fire in 1466.

P. 5. Illuminated MSS.—A great store of information is capable of being collected on the subject of the embellishing and finishing processes which MSS. underwent when the scribe had done his part. Among the Paston Letters occurs a bill from Thomas (the) Limner of Bury St. Edmunds to Sir John Howard, afterward Duke of Norfolk, in 1467, for illuminating several books, and we have also one of Antoine Verard of Paris, "Enlumineur du Roy," in 1493 for similar work executed for the Comte d'Angouleme by artists in the printer's employment.

P. 7. Circulating Libraries.—There was a library of this class at Dunfermline in 1711 and at Edinburgh in 1725. When Benjamin Franklin came to London, there was nothing of the kind. A bookseller named Wright established one about 1740, and it was kept up by his successors. Sion College was limited in its lending range to the London clergy.

P. 9. Add the Le Stranges of Hunstanton to the East Anglian collectors.

P. 9. Kent as a Hunting-ground for Books in Old Days.—Flockton of Canterbury it was who once sold Marlowe's Dido, 1594, for 2s. He was a contemporary of William Hutton, the Birmingham bookseller. This may have been the very copy which formerly belonged to Henry Oxinden of Barham, near Canterbury, and passed in succession into the hands of Isaac Reed, George Steevens, the Duke of Roxburghe, Sir Egerton Brydges, and Mr. Heber. The price charged by Flockton, however, was fairly extravagant in comparison with that given by John Henderson, the actor, for the copy which subsequently belonged to J. P. Kemble and the Duke of Devonshire—fourpence—probably the original published price.

P. 10. Bristol Houses.—Add Strong. Strong's catalogues for 1827-1828 are now before me, and describe 10,000 items. No such stock has been kept at Bristol since. Jefferies had in former days some very remarkable books on sale—Caxtons included; and Kerslake and George could shew you volumes worth your notice and money, whoever you might be. Now, alas! you have to leave the city as empty as you entered it.

P. 18. Loss of Old Books.—The fate of a heavy percentage of our earlier books—of the earlier books of every people—is curiously and mournfully readable in the illiterate bucolic scrawls, doing duty for autographs and inscriptions, which tell, only too plainly, how such property slowly but surely passed out of sight and existence.

P. 19. Old Libraries.—Add Fraser of Lovat, Boswell of Auchinleck, and Fountaine of Narford.

P. 25. Rolls of Book-Collectors.—Rather say 5000 names.

P. 29. Spoliation of Libraries.—A precious volume of early English tracts was not very long since offered at an auction, which had been stolen from Peterborough Cathedral, and another, which constituted one of the chief treasures of Sion College.

P. 32. The bulk of the books of Mr. Samuel Sandars were left to the University Library, Cambridge, which has since acquired those of the late Lord Acton.

P. 33. Lincoln Cathedral Library.—Besides the Honeywood books sold to Dibdin, the Dean and Chapter have suffered others to stray from their homes. A notice is before me of one, a large folio on vellum, containing tracts of a theological complexion, chiefly by an Oxford doctor, Robert of Leicester, which was presented, as a coeval inscription apprises us, by Thomas Driffield, formerly Chancellor of the Diocese, in 1422 to the new library of the cathedral.

P. 34. Provincial Libraries.—Of the books at Bamborough Castle, a catalogue was printed at Durham in 1799. Some of the books at York Minster appear to have been gifts from Archbishop Mathews. At Colchester they are fortunate in possessing the library of Archbishop Harsnet.

P. 35. Marlowe's Edward II., 1594.—Possibly obtained by the Landgraf of Hesse during his visit to London in 1611. This is mentioned by me in my Shakespear Monograph, 1903.

P. 37. Private Libraries.—In the case of private collections, we have to distinguish between those of an ancestral character, insensibly accumulated from generation to generation without any fixed or preconcerted plan, and such as have been formed by or for wealthy individuals in the course of a single life, if not of a few years, on some general principle, with or without an eye to cost. Under either of these conditions the motive is usually personal, and the ultimate transfer in some instances to a public institution an accident or afterthought.

P. 38. Harleian Library.—The taste of the Harley family for books dated from the time of Charles I. Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton Castle, is credited with the possession of "an extraordinary library of manuscript and printed books, which had been collected from one descent to another." The house was besieged and burned in 1643, and these literary and bibliographical treasures probably perished with it. But his grandson, the first Earl of Oxford, restored the library; and we all know that the second earl, who survived till 1741, elevated it to the rank of the first private collection in England, while he unconsciously sacrificed it to the incidence of a languid and falling market.

P. 42. Mr. William Henry Miller of Craigentinny was originally a solicitor in Edinburgh.

P. 65. Books of Emblems.—Besides those described is the translation executed by Thomas Combe, and licensed in 1593, of the Theatre des Bons Engins of Guillaume de la Perriere, of which no perfect copy of any edition had been seen till the writer met with one of 1614 among the Burton-Constable books.

P. 103. Books Appreciable on Special Grounds.—Among these are—Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 1769, and White's Selborne, 1785. Everybody is aware that there are better works on Scotland than Pennant's, and better accounts of birds, those of Selborne included, than White's. But we desire the two heirlooms, as their authors left them, pure and simple. We prefer not to have to disentangle the two pieces of eighteenth century workmanship from the editorial and artistic improvements which have overlaid them. A much-edited writer becomes a partner in a limited company without a vote. His pages are converted by degrees into an arena where others commend him above his deserts, or what might have been his wishes, while here and there he finds a commentator, whose aim is to convince you how superior a job he would have made of it had it been left to him.

P. 109. Translations.—It is remarkable that Aulus Gellius makes the same complaint as is embodied in the text, about the lame versions of Latin writers from the Greek.

P. 117. Howell's New Sonnets and Pretty Pamphlets.—The Huth fragment seems as if it would complete the unique, but imperfect, Capell copy.

P. 119. A Hundred Merry Tales.—Besides the Huth mutilated copy and the Goettingen complete one (of 1526) there is a fragment at the Birthplace Museum, Stratford. I saw it there, but did not note to what impression it belonged.

P. 122. Four Sons of Aymon, 1504.—A fine copy is offered at 15s. in a catalogue about 1760. Of the Famous history of the vertuous and godly woman Judith, 1565, all that is so far discoverable is that it is a translation in English metre by Edward Jenynges. A title-page, preserved among Ames's collections at the British Museum, is copied by me in Bibl. Coll., 1903, pp. 210-11.

P. 125. Destruction of Books.—Untold numbers of volumes have also been sacrificed to the accumulation of material on special lines. Tons of the Annual Register, Gentleman's Magazine, Notes and Queries, and the like, have been lost, if it be a loss, in this way. A few pages, maybe, are all that survive of a book, and when the library of the specialist is sold, the rest shares the same fate at the hands of an unsympathetic purchaser.

P. 126. Unique copies.—The play of Orestes, 1567, came to light at Plymouth about forty years ago with an equally unique issue of one of Drayton's pieces. Of such things the present writer has met in the course of a lengthened career with treasures which would make a small library, and has beheld no duplicates.

P. 128. Fragments.—The Fragment has within the last twenty or thirty years come into surprising evidence, and in my latest instalment of Bibliographical Notes, 1903, I have been enabled to supply numerous deficiencies in existing records even of modern date from a variety of sources not ostensibly connected with Bagford, Fenn, or any other culprit of this type, shewing that the process of disappearance was in universal operation, and that mere chance arrested it here and there just in the nick of time.

P. 128. Capital Books.—It is perhaps not unfair to add that although Milton's Poems, 1645, is not a rare book, it is eminently so in an irreproachable state, to say nothing of such a copy as the Bodleian one presented by the poet himself, which one of the earlier officials, a Dr. Hudson, thought might be thrown away without detriment to the library.

P. 171. Early Prices of Binding.—The books or pamphlets issued at one penny, that is, a silver penny of the day, were usually stitched or sewn.

The edition of the Book of Common Prayer, 1552, was sold, bound in parchment, at 3s. 4d., and in leather, paper boards, or clasps, at 4s. But in the next impression, it being in contemplation to suppress certain matter, the price was to be reduced in proportion.

P. 183. There has been recently added to Cohen's work a companion one on the French illustrated literature of the nineteenth century.

Books like Bewick's Birds and Quadrupeds, and indeed all works of the modern side in request, are best liked in the original boards with labels inviolate.

P. 191. Cloister Life of Charles V.—The Keir illustrated copy was long at Leighton's in Brewer Street, while the late Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell was known as Mr. Stirling.

P. 198. Henry VIII., Prayers, 1544.—This exists in later impressions in English, and of the date 1544 in Latin.

P. 200. Special Copies.—To the list given may be added the extraordinary volume of tracts formerly in the possession of Edmund Spenser and Gabriel Harvey, a MS. note in which throws an entirely new light on the earlier life of Spenser, as first pointed out by me after my purchase of the book at an auction, where its importance was overlooked.

P. 205. Shakespear's Copy of Florio's Montaigne, 1603.—In my Monograph on Shakespear, 1903, I have adduced new evidence in support of the authenticity of this and other signatures of the poet.

P. 206. Books with MSS. Notes.—There is yet another category of remains among the older literature of all countries, and it is that, in which an acknowledged judge or master of a subject, though himself perhaps a person of no peculiar celebrity, has rendered a copy of some book the medium for preserving for future use matter overlooked by the author or editor or correcting serious errors, and the lapse of time exercises its influence in the appreciation of such adversaria. A living scholar may be capable of going far beyond his predecessors in enriching margins and flyleaves; but there is the caveat that he is our contemporary. The privilege of the grave appertains to the man who laid down his pen ever so long ago. We may know much more than Langbaine or Oldys about the drama, and than Johnson or Malone about Shakespear; yet, depend upon it, their notes are more wanted than ours.

P. 208. Autographs in Books.—In his copy of Slatyer's Palaealbion, 1621, the poet Earl of Westmorland wrote on a flyleaf: "Solus Deus Protector Meus. W. Ex dono Danielis Beswitch servi mei fidelis, 1654."

Among his books Robespierre possessed a MS. Account of the Glorious Achievements of Louis XIV. with illustrative drawings, and did it the honour of attaching his autograph—an operation seldom so harmless.

P. 218. Books on Vellum.—The Horae of the Virgin in the ancient impressions on vellum are commoner than those on paper, though, as the late Mr. Huth quietly observed to me, the vellum copies may be more desirable.

The material, on which the Gwynn and Methuen copy of Helyas, 1512, was printed, was unusually coarse, and this criticism applies to other early English books taken off on that substance. They are a powerful contrast to the Italian productions of the same class.

P. 232. A good deal of information has gradually accumulated respecting the Venetian school of binding; but undoubted examples of early date remain singularly scarce. See my Venetian Republic, 1900, ii. 663, 728. The older school of French binding resembled that of the finer porcelain of Chantilly and Sevres, where on a choice piece of the Louis XV. period are found, side by side, the separate marks of maker, painter, and gilder.

P. 244-5. English Binders. Add:—

Edmond Richardson of Scalding Alley. Matthews. (Binder of the Hibbert, Wilkes, Gardner, and Huth copy of Shakespear, 1623.) Hayday. (Worked for W. Pickering.) Leighton. J. & J. Leighton. (This firm still does business in Brewer Street.) Douglas Cockerell. J. Larkins. Miss Prideaux. Sir Edward Sullivan.

R. Montague (1730-40), bookseller, publisher, and binder, had a place of business in 1732 at the corner of Great Queen Street, Drury Lane, and in 1740 in Great Wyld Street. He undertook to gild and letter books at his customers' own houses. John Bancks of Sunning was his journeyman. It was the late Mr. Huth who expressed to me the opinion that Bedford's brown calf should have been left to acquire a natural tone.

P. 248. Books with Painted and Goffered Edges.—I have seen volumes belonging to the first quarter of the sixteenth century with the leaves goffered and ornamentally inscribed; but the painted edge, as we know it, was then already in existence in Italy, and the most eminent artists did not disdain to execute this kind of embellishment. One family at Belluno long possessed numerous examples enriched by the hand of Cesare Vecellio. See my Venetian Republic, 1900, ii. 728. The major part of a sale at Sotheby's a year or so ago consisted of books treated on this principle by the owner; and the commercial result was not joyous.

P. 253. French and other Binders. Add:—

Brodel Aine et fils. Bisiques. (Famous for his Turkey leather.) Thouvenin. L. Muller. (Thouvenin's successor.)

The house of Marius-Michel combined binding and gilding. Among the Rothschild MSS., now in the British Museum, is a Boccaccio bound by Thomas Berthelet before 1552 for the Protector Somerset. It is in gilt calf with the motto: Foy povr Debvoir.

P. 263. The catalogue of the Early English Books in the British Museum was mainly the work of Mr. Eccles, a late member of the staff. A new, enlarged, and much improved edition by Mr. Pollard is in progress.

P. 271. That fairly familiar term, Unique, has been very badly entreated. A late eminent auctioneer, who was not shy of using it, tried to bring into vogue the variant form, Uni Que.

P. 274. Huth Catalogue.—My copy is full of corrections, the text abounding with errors, some of a very serious character. The late Mr. F. S. Ellis was the responsible editor, and omitted at his discretion much interesting matter.

P. 275. Bibliographical Works of Reference.—One of the best is Dickson and Edmond's Annals of Scotish Printing, 1890. The Rylands Catalogue proved a fiasco.

P. 298. Of course the notification in the press of a signally high price at an auction for a really important lot overwhelms the vendors with inquiries and offers—offers of similar treasures, which are extremely the reverse.

P. 307. Mr. Robert Hoe acquired the bulk or whole of Mr. Pope's books after his death, including the Caxton Arthur, 1485, and this gentleman continues to buy some of the most important items which occur for sale in London.

After all said, much as we at home here in Britain need to be better instructed in the art of Book-Collecting, our American cousins are still farther from having completed their education in this way—a few have not commenced it, I fancy. It is not generally realised in England that the American collector of loftier range is a type entirely distinct from the normal book-collector, whose limit is quickly reached. Those who buy books in the United States are by no means all Hoes and Morgans.

P. 311. Early Catalogues of old Plays.—I should have added the so often quoted one annexed to the Old Law, 1656.

P. 314. Inch of Candle.—This practice survived down to modern times both in France and England in the disposal or transfer of real property.

P. 315. Lazarus Seaman.—This gentleman was a member of the Assembly of Divines, and at one time chaplain to the Duke of Northumberland. He held the living of All Hallows, Bread Street, and became Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. But he lost his clerical preferment at the Restoration, and chiefly resided in his later days in Warwick Lane, London, where he died in 1675.

P. 317. Book Auctions.—It is at present, I believe, at the discretion of the auctioneer to postpone a sale, when the company is too small to promise a satisfactory result, yet I have known one carried out when not more than two influential bidders were present. In a catalogue of 1681, however, there is a proviso that at least twenty gentlemen must attend.

P. 323. It is a powerful exemplification of the contrast between old times and ours, that Mr. Pierpont Morgan is credited with having acquired forty Caxtons at one swoop.



ERRATA[10]

P. 5, l. 8, for depends read depend. P. 7, l. 3, for Warm Well read Warmwell. P. 9, l. 8 from foot, for Oxendens read Oxindens. P. 31, l. 8, read Dr. Williams's Library, Gordon Square. P. 35, l. 4 from foot, read The late Mr. Quaritch narrated. P. 40, l. 14, read the second Earl of Oxford. P. 54, l. 5 from foot, read such as the Dyce. P. 54, l. 6, read Auchinleck (Boswell). P. 107, l. 22, read St. John's (J. A.). P. 107, l. 26, read —— (Bayle) Montaigne the Essayist. P. 114, l. 4 from foot, read Malden. P. 120, l. 3, read Oxinden. P. 145, l. 3, read eighteenth century. P. 152, l. 15, read which falls. P. 155, l. 3 from foot, read Makellar. P. 156, l. 2 from foot, read sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. P. 160, l. 12, read Stevens. P. 168, l. 20, read twentieth century has well opened. P. 180, bis, read Basiliologia. P. 181, l. 4 from foot, read we may place. P. 210, l. 14, read Dere. P. 221, l. 2 from foot, read Concubranus. P. 245, l. 11, read Charles Lewis the younger. P. 251, l. 3, read genere. P. 262, l. 13, read 1867-1903. P. 277, l. 21, read Inglis copy. P. 283, l. 20, read last century. P. 297, l. 5, read the right one. P. 300, l. 3, read Watson, Barnfield. P. 303, l. 21, read descended a little. P. 322, l. 4 from foot, read Nichols's Anecdotes. P. 323, last line, read W. C. Hazlitt. P. 325, l. 6, read priced copy. P. 326, l. 4, read to describe. P. 326, l. 12, read books of a gentleman. P. 332, l. 10 from foot, read eighteenth century. P. 333, l. 5 from foot, read bona fides.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Owing to circumstances for which neither the writer nor the printers are responsible, some sheets were worked, before the corrections had been carried out.



INDEX

ACTON, LORD, 57-58 Adam Bel, 121 Addington, S., 45 Advice in the formation of a catalogue, 277 Advice in the formation of a library, 275-276 Advice to collectors, 255-256, 282 Aldenham, Lord (H. H. Gibbs), 56-57, 58 Alexander de Villa Dei (Ville Dieu), 217 Alleyn, Edward, 32 Althorp Library, 48 Amateur binding, 249-250, 340 American laws, bibliography of, 279 American libraries, 34, 36, 341 American literature, 72-73 American market, 13, 36, 70-72, 145, 151, 158-160, 213, 257, 304-307 American reprints of English books, 158 Amherst, Hon. Alicia, 25 Anathema against book-thieves, 30 Ancient bindings, 209-210 Anglo-American literature, 158 Anglo-French collectors, 27, 173, 192-194 Anne, Queen, 39 Arthur, Romance of, printed by Caxton, 301, 305 Arundel Books and MSS., 4, 55 Ashburnham Library, 5, 47, 49-51, 275, 328, 330 Ashburton, Lord, 27 Aubrey, John, 19 Auctions, 141-142, 310 et seqq., 5, 323, 342 Auctions, catalogues of, 318, 332 Auctions, provincial, 315 Aulus Gellius, 104, 337 Autographs in books, 195 et seqq. Autographs in French books, 210-211 Aymon, Four Sons of, 338

BAGFORD, JOHN, 24, 122, 322 Baker, Thomas, 221 Ballads, 45, 78 Bamborough Castle, 336 Barclay's Ship of Fools, 222 Bargains, 20, 287 Barnard, Sir F., 38 Barretts of Lee, 9 Bay Psalm Book, 159 Bayle's Dictionary, 94 Beckford, W., 56, 208-209 Bedford Missal, 248 Bewick, W., 184 Bibles, 68-69, 199, 204, 223, 299-301, 304 Biblioclasts, 123-124 Bibliomania, 19-20 Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, 29, 38 Biddings, low, 324-325 Binding, 220 et seqq., 338, 340 Blanchardine and Eglantine, 35 Blenheim Palace library, 43 Blount's Jocular Tenures, 215 Bolingbroke, Lord, 205 Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, 57 Book of St. Albans, 303 Book-Clubs, 7, 257, 280 Book-collecting centres (old), 33 Book-lovers, 15-17, 88, 94 Book-market (1810-1870), 46 Book-recipients, 90 Book trade, 293 Books of reference, 262-263 Books, which are books, 94-108 Bradshaw, Henry, 52, 158 Breton, Nicholas, 80, 149-151 Bridgewater library, 56, 58, 272 Bright, B. H., 5, 47 Bristol, 335 Bristol booksellers, 10, 336 British Museum, 4, 31, 42, 53, 121, 263, 270, 341 Britton, Thomas, 320 Britwell Library, 25-26, 41-43, 277 Brooke, Thomas, 203 Brown, Tom, 316 Brydges, Sir Egerton, 335 Bunburys of Bury, 9 Burneys, the, 208 Burns, R., 305 Bury, 8-9, 335 Bute, Earls and Marquises of, 56

CAESAR, Sir JULIUS, 323 Calendaries' Gild at Bristol, 335 Cambridge, 10-11, 30-33, 65, 77, 201, 275, 316, 336 Capell's Shakespeariana, 275 Capital books, 296, 338 Carew MSS., 5 Carleton, Sir Dudley, 151 Catalogues of libraries, 46, 57-58, 310 Caveat Emptor, 282 Cavendish, Henry, 57 Caxton, W., 21, 24, 77, 201, 232, 301, 328 Cervantes, 113 Chained books, 34 Chamberlain, John, 150 Changes of taste, 135, 139 Chap-books, 76 Characters, books of, 65 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, printed by Caxton, 5, 301, 306 Cheap literature, 111 Chetham, Humphrey, 33, 205 Church libraries, 33 Circulating libraries, 6-7, 335 City Companies, 200, 204 Civil War tracts, 65 Classification of libraries, 59-91 Colchester, 336 Coleridge, S. T., 15, 207 Collections, English, 54 Collectors of MSS., 4-5 Collier, John Payne, 41, 57, 270 Collins, William, 8 Colonial (North American) literature, 158-160 Combe, Thomas, 337 Commission system, 307-309 Concubranus, 221, 343 Continental libraries, 34 Cooper, William, 319 Copper-plates, 182 Copyright, 176 Correction of the press, 177 Corser, Rev. Thomas, 14, 47, 273 Cotton, Sir Robert, 4 Counterfeit bindings, 256 Crawford, Earl of, 274 Crichton, James, 68 Cuisinier Francois, 22 Cunliffe, Henry, 47 Currer, Miss Richardson, 25, 47-48

DANBY, LORD TREASURER, 205 Daniel, George, 20, 42, 45-47, 272 Daniel, Samuel, 20, 28, 45-47 Davenant, Sir W., 215 Davies, Sir Thomas, 207 Day, Stephen, printer at Cambridge (N.E.), 159 Dedications, 214-215 D'Eon, Chevalier, 21-24 Derings of Surrenden, 5 Destruction of books, 18, 125, 338 Devonshire, Duke of, 41, 57 Diane de Poitiers bindings, 231 Dickens, Charles, 7 Dilettanti, 82 Doran, Dr., 89 Dorat, 187-188 Drayton, Michael, 202, 205, 338 Driffield, Thomas, 336 Dryden, John, 201-202 Dulwich College, 32 Dunfermline, 335 Dunton, John, 7, 319 Durham and Winchester bindings, 222 Dyce, Rev. A., 40, 54, 79

EARLE, Mrs., 24 Earliest productions of the press, 18 Early English literature, 144 et seqq. East Anglia, 9, 335-336 Edge-painting, 248 Edinburgh, 335 Edition de Luxe, 191 Edwards of Halifax, 244, 248 Elements of interest in books, 296 Elizabeth's (Queen) Prayer Book, 249 Elizabethan literature, 143 et seqq. Ellenbog, Udalric, 226 Elliott's Brewery at Pimlico, 42 Emblems, Books of, 64-65, 337 English and foreign presses, 67-68, 153 English binders, 201, 208, 220 et seqq., 242, et seqq., 340 English books abroad, 35 English collectors, 4-5, 8-9, 11, 14-16, 54-58 English lists of, 244, 246 English presses, 153-154 English series, 149 Enscheden collection at Haarlem, 35 Ephemeral schools of writers, 173 Esprit in binding, 228 Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of, 205 Evelyn, John, 9, 312, 315 Eves, the two, 251

FANSHAWE, Sir R., 202 Farrer of Little Gidding, 247 Fenn, Sir John, 9, 123, 151, 295, 332 Fictitious imprints, 153-154 First editions, 174-176, 178 FitzGerald, Edward, 88 Flockton, bookseller at Canterbury, 335 Florio, John, 202, 205, 214, 339 Foljambe, Sir F., 202 Foreign liveries for English books, 249 Foreign presses for the same, 153 Forster, John, 54, 65 Fountaine Collection, 196, 336 Four Sons of Aymon, 122, 338 Fragments of books, 115-119, 122, 338 Franklin, Benjamin, 335 Franks, Sir Wollaston, 214 Fraser of Lovat, 336 Free libraries, 7, 161-163 French binders, 234, 236, 238, 251, et seqq., 341 French list of, 252 French books, 186-187, 192-194 French collectors, 22, 192-194 French taste in collecting, 36 French works of reference, 278 Frere sale, 295, 332 Freres, The, 9

GARLANDS, 77 George III., 40 Gilding of books, 234 Goffering, 340 Gold binding, 214 Grenville, Thomas, 15, 46, 271 Grolier bindings, 226, 230-231 Grolier Club, 257 Guarini, B., 203

HAILSTONE, EDWARD, 81 Ham House, 55 Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 80 Hanmers of Mildenhall, 9 Hardwicke MSS., 4 Harleian Library, 4, 37-38, 40, 55, 312, 318, 321-322, 337 Harleian Miscellany, 79 Harvey, Gabriel, 201 Hasta, 312-313 Hawes, Francis, 313 Hazlitt, W., 80, 158, 165 Hearne, Thomas, 21, 135, 221 Heber, Richard, 4-5, 38, 40-43, 46, 81, 267, 269, 270-271, 321, 335 Helyas, 1512, 340 Henri Deux binding, 231 Henrietta Maria, 214 Henry VIII., 196, 198, 339 Heriot, George, 234 Herveys of Ickworth, 9 Hesse, Landgraf of, 336 Highest prices realised for books, 299-304 Hill, Thomas, 268 Hoe, Robert, 341-342 Hogarth, 181 Honeywood bequest to Lincoln, 33, 336 Horae, 63, 199, 210, 339 Howard, Sir John, first Duke of Norfolk, 335 Howell, Thomas, 337 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 335 Hundred Merry Tales, 1526, 35, 338 Hunt, Leigh, 39, 80, 158, 165 Huth, Henry, 6, 15, 21, 25, 41-46, 64, 274, 341 Hutton, W., 335

ILLUMINATED MSS., 335 Illustrated Books, 178 et seqq., 278, 339 Illustrated copies, 189-191 Imitatio Christi, 64, 111 Imperfect books, 134 Incanto, 313 Inch of candle, 314, 341 Inglis library, 54, 56 Inns of Court, 11 Irish collectors, 158 Irish presses, 157 Irish series, 156-158

JENYNGES, EDWARD, 338 Jermyn, Henry, 215 Johnson, Dr., 38, 55, 103, 339 Johnsons of Spalding, 19, 51-53 Jolley, Thomas, 81 Jonson, Benjamin, 202 Josephine, the Empress, 211 Jubinal, Achille, 29 Judith, History of, 1565, 338

KEIR LIBRARY, 191 Kentish collectors, 9 Killigrew, T., 205 Kinloss Abbey, 204 Kirkman, F., 311 Knight, Charles, 7 Kressen, Anton, of Nuernberg, 210

LAING, DAVID, 11 Lamb, Charles, 6, 15, 88, 139, 158, 207, 209, 240 Lambeth Library, 5 Lambton, Henry, 202 Langbaine, Gerard, 339 Langland, Andrew, 204 Laycock, W., 79 Lee-Warlys, the, 9 Leigh, George, auctioneer, 24, 208 Le Houx, Jean, 112-113 Le Neve, P., 5 Le Stranges of Hunstanton, 335 Levant morocco, 225, 250 Libraries, Cathedral, 33 Libraries, College, 31 Libraries, Foreign, 34 Libraries, National, 31 Libraries, Provincial, 336 Libraries compared, 15-17, 38 Lichfield, William, 121 Limited market for rarer books, 138 Lincoln Cathedral, 33, 336 Lincoln Nosegay, 269 Lincolnshire, two give-away sales in, 133 Little Gidding bindings, 247 Liturgies, 63, 68 Locker-Lampson, F., 45, 58 Longleat library, 56 Lost books, 120-128, 130, 133 Louis XV., 230 Louis XVI., 211 Lounging Books of a Gentleman, 1788, 326 Lovelace's Lucasta, 129 Luttrell, Narcissus, 21, 77 Lydgate's Troy-Book, 35-36 Lyonnese calf, 225, 249

MACAULAY, LORD, 6 M'Culloch, J. R., 3-4 Maidment, James, 11 Maioli bindings, 231 Maitland, Lord, 312 Malone, Edmond, 21, 339 Manesse Liderbuch, 304 Manuscript Notes in Books, 206, 339 Manuscripts, 4-5 Marie Antoinette, 36, 187, 211 Marler, Anthony, 200 Marlowe, Christopher, 35, 89, 284, 336 Maroquin de Constantinople, 225 Martin of Palgrave, T., 5, 9, 123 Massinger, Philip, 202 Materials in which books have been bound, 223 et seqq. Materials on which books have been printed, 137, 216-220, 339 Mazarin or Gutenberg Bible, 44-45, 69, 300-301 Medical literature, 73 Mentelin, Johann, 209 Mesdames de France, 230 Middle-Hill Library, 80 Millers of Craigentinny, 42-43, 337 Millington, Edward, 316, 319 Milton, John, 201 Miscellaneous collectors, 80 Missae Speciales, 299 Mitford, Rev. John, 9 Modern side in collecting, 161 et seqq. Moliere, 254 Monastic binding, 221 Monastic writers, 66 Monographs, 279 Montague, R., 340 Montaigne, 29, 101, 106, 109, 111, 200, 339 Moore, John, Bishop of Ely, 123 More, Sir T., 204 Morgan, Pierpont, 341-342 Morocco bindings (early), 223, 253 Motives for selling libraries, 325 Murray, Regent, 204

NAPOLEON, 211-212 Nash, Richard, 206 Newcastle, Duchess of, 15 Newton, Sir Isaac, 215 Norfolk, Duke of, library given to Royal Society, 55 North family, 316 Northcote family, 204

OBSOLETE books of reference, 263-265, 266-267 Occult Literature, 74 Ogilby, John, 315 Oldys, W., 339 Old-fashioned English libraries, 38 Orestes, 1567, 338 Osterley Park library, 55, 301 Over-production of books (former), 13 Oxford, 4-5, 11, 30-32, 65, 77, 114, 153, 275, 335 Oxford Harleys, Earls of, 37-38 Oxindens of Barham, 9, 335

PALSGRAVE, JOHN, 178 Parkhurst, Thomas, 318 Parr family, 199 Parzival and Titurell, 330 Paston Letters, 332 Patmore, Coventry, 218 Paul's Head Tavern in Carter Lane, 320 Pennant, Thomas, 337 Pepys, S., 24, 33, 76-77, 208, 215, 284, 286, 312, 315 Peterborough Cathedral, 336 Petre, Lord, 9 Petrarch, 209-210 Phillipps, Sir T., 5, 81 Picas of Salisbury use, 77 Pilgrim Fathers, 72, 159 Pirkheimer Library, 55 Plantin Museum, 35 Playing-cards, 279 Plymouth, 338 Pope, A., 205 Porter, Endymion, 215 Prices of books, 20-21, 170-171, 285 et seqq. Prices of binding, 171, 338 Prideaux, Miss, 250, 340 Provincial bindings, 247 Provincial booksellers, 8-11 Psalters of 1457 and 1459, 299-300, 304 Public libraries, 29-36 Pyne, Henry, 70, 89-90

QUARITCH'S catalogue of bindings, 1888, 257 Quaritch's General catalogue, 255-256

RABIRIUS, JUNIUS, 313 Randolph, Thomas, 147 Rarities in early English series, 149 Rawlinson, Thomas, 320 Rea or Rede, Francis, bookbinder, 201 Reed, Isaac, 89, 335 Reference books, 165, 259 et seqq., 292 Reference libraries, 7 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 3, 206 Richard Coeur de Lion, 1509, 49 Richards, John, a Dorsetshire farmer, 7 Richardson, Edmond, 208, 340 Rig, the, 333-334 Rimbault, Dr., 80 Risks of realisation, 140-142 Robert of Leicester, 336 Robespierre, 211, 339 Rodd, Thomas, 20 Rolle of Hampole, Richard, 205 Rolls of collectors, Hazlitt's, 6, 25, 37, 86, 90, 336 Romish literature, 67 Roxburghe, John, Earl of, 39 Roxburghe Library, 11, 39, 40, 46, 335 Royal books, 198-200 Rylands, Mrs., 25, 48

SANDARS, SAMUEL, 32, 54, 336 Sanderson, Cobden, 250 Savile family, 204 Schreiber, Lady Charlotte, 48 Scotland, 7, 11, 19, 149, 204 Scotish binders, 244-246 Scotish collectors, 11, 19, 155, 204, 229, 336 Scotish presses, 155 Scotish series, 149 Scott, Robert, 319 Seaman, Lazarus, 315, 317, 342 Separation of sets of books, 235 Service-books, 63, 148 Shakespear, W., 13, 20-21, 22, 35, 38, 80, 100, 170, 205, 207, 214, 233, 275, 302-303, 339 Ship of Fools, 222 Simeon, Sir John, 81 Sion College, 32, 335 Skene of Skene, 19 Slatyer's Palaealbion, 1621, 339 Smith, George, 274 Smith, Richard, 316 Smollett, T., 246 Solly, Edward, 81 Somers Tracts, 79 Southey's Cottonian Library, 249 Spanish binding, 230, 267-268 Special collections in public libraries, 33 Special copies of books, 200 Specialists, 60 et seqq., 79-80 Spencer, Lord, 49, 271 Spenser, Edmund, 128, 201, 233, 241 Spoliation of public libraries, 29, 336 Steevens, George, 89, 335 Stirling-Maxwell, Sir W., 191, 339 Subjects or Lines, choice of, for libraries, 59-91 Sullivan, Sir Edward, 250, 340 Superabundance of books, 13 Surrey collectors, 9 Swinton, General, 11 Sydneys of Penshurst, 9

TAYLOR, JOHN, 202 Technical treatises, 75 Thomason the stationer, 65, 194 Thomas Limner of Bury, 335 Thorold, Sir John, 56 Thorpe, Thomas, 45 Thought or mind in binding, 228 "Three-halfpenny ware," 150 Tite, Sir W., 43 Toledo Missal, 303 Tollemaches, the, 9, 45 Tom's coffee-house, 320 Tonson, Jacob, 201 Translations, 109-114, 337 Turbervile, George, 233 Turner, Dawson, 9 Turner, J. M. W., 181 Turner, R. S., 27 Twopenny biddings, 325 Twysden, Mary, 205 Types of collectors, 88-91 Tyrrwhitt, Lady Elizabeth, 214

UNIQUE BOOKS, 338, 341 Unique English books abroad, 35 Universities, 10-11, 65, 77, 336 Usher, Archbishop, 205

Vaux de Vire, 112-113 Venetian school of binding, 246, 340 Venice, 34 Verard, Antoine, 335 Vocabulary of auctions, 330 Voyages and travels, 70

WALTON, Isaak, 203, 213, 233 Warton, Thomas, 8, 20 Weale, Jacobus, 53, 64 West of England, 10, 336, 338 Westminster Abbey, 34 Westmorland, Earl of, 339 White, Gilbert, 108, 337 Williams, Lord-Keeper, 34 Willoughby family, 204 Wodhull, Michael, 208 Wolfreston books, 323 Wycherley, W., 204-205 Wynns of Peniarth, 57

ZUeRICH, 34-35

THE END

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

2. Errata have been applied.

3. Corrections:

Page 98, "procelain" changed to "porcelain" Page 234, "Dore" changed to "Dore" Page 239, "desole" changed to "desole" Page 252, "Pre" changed to "Pre" Page 335, "d'Angouleme" changed to "d'Angouleme" Page 340, "Sevres" changed to "Sevres" Page 341, "Aine" changed to "Aine" Page 350, "Moliere" changed to "Moliere"

THE END