Baskett’s Oxford Bible of 1717 is a mine of magnificent errors, the most amusing being that of “the parable of the vinegar,” instead of “vineyard.”
There are three tremendously important American Bibles: the Eliot Indian Bible, the Saur, and the Aitken Bible. John Eliot, Apostle to the Indians, translated the Bible into their language and had it printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1661-63. Thus the first Bible issued on this continent was, appropriately, in the tongue of its natives. And the second was in German, the first in a European language printed in America, from the press of Christopher Saur, at Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1743. The third, at last in English, was printed in 1782 by R. Aitken “at Pope’s Head, three doors above the Coffee House, in Market Street,” Philadelphia. The great demand for early Americana will surely raise these three treasures to heights at present undreamed of in the bookman’s philosophy.
VIII
WHY AMERICA BUYS ENGLAND’S BOOKS
During my frequent visits to England I have often been asked why Americans are so persistent, even voracious, in acquiring the great literary treasures of Great Britain. I have been accused in its public prints of being the greatest offender. I have been likened unto the ogre of ancient times. Perhaps it is pertinent, therefore, to know the reason why Americans are so anxious to obtain, at almost any price, not only the choicest English books and manuscripts, but the outstanding contemporary documents that chronicle so faithfully and so inexorably the political and literary history of England.
According to some of the English newspapers that bewail the loss to England of her great monuments of the past, it is a new thing, this interest in things English on the part of the American public. On the contrary, it has been going on, increasing in volume, it is true, from about the year 1840. Before the Civil War those two farsighted collectors, John Carter Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, and James Lenox of New York, were scouring England for volumes relating to the early history of this country, and incidentally gobbling up such rarities as the first folio of Shakespeare. They were ably assisted in their raids by an American who had taken up his residence in London, Henry Stevens of Vermont, the Green Mountain Boy, who, among the string of titles after his name, included the cryptic letters, BLK BLD, ATHM CLB, meaning “Blackballed by the Athenæum Club!”
It is extremely gratifying to note the extraordinary love of books persisting in one American family for almost a century. In England the Huths and many others have shown the tendency, the collector’s instinct passed on from father to son for many generations. In this country it is rare. The remarkable exception, however, is evidenced by the Browns of Providence. The great library founded by John Carter Brown, with its glittering array of superb volumes—among the finest in the world—bears eloquent testimony to a continual devotion to books and learning. The family of the original founder has never for a moment flagged in its interest, and the volumes added to the collection since its establishment bear silent witness, unequaled in America, of a loving regard for books.
In 1847, James Lenox brought to this country from England the first Gutenberg Bible. The earliest first folio of Shakespeare in America was purchased in London about 1836. Since then they have flowed to us in a constant and ever widening stream, until to-day there are far more of them in the United States than in the British Empire.
England need not complain, however, or consider it such a serious loss, as some of her statesmen do. She has within her narrow boundaries superb volumes that America can never hope to possess. The British Museum and the great libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, to say nothing of the wonderful Spencer collection, now in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, are treasure houses that luckily can never be despoiled. They will be able to resist the American invader and they will remain always at the service of students and scholars. It is not generally known that the libraries of England have left no stone unturned to increase their already stupendous hoards. The British Museum has added constantly to its collections and to-day it is a greater library, in many respects, than the Bibliothèque Nationale, which long held the leadership. I think it is actually the largest and most important library in the world.
Under the able direction of Mr. Alfred W. Pollard, formerly Keeper of Printed Books, the British Museum acquired many books and manuscripts of great intrinsic value, and it is to the extraordinary genius of this man that the British public owes much. Not only is he a bibliographer of remarkable ability, but, when in charge of the books, he developed the rare faculty of finding the very volumes that would complete a certain series; he was, therefore, ever on the alert to secure for the Museum the things that were most needed. And this in the face of American competition! As to the latter, it is worthy of note that the late J. P. Morgan, and his son as well, in forming their memorable collection, whenever possible never bid against the Museum. If the authorities particularly desired a certain manuscript that belonged of right to the Museum, the Morgans gracefully refrained from bidding.