Nor dares the browzing goat in vent’rous leap
To spring, as erst, from dizzy steep to steep;”
the moral, which father Zachary failed to detect, being that these intelligent brutes had much more foresight than mere Man, and had wisely decided that a volcano in eruption was “no place for them”.
Poor as prize poems may be as poetry, some famous men have not disdained to enter into the competitions. Lord Selborne’s effort gained for him the Newdigate prize in 1832, and was deemed worthy of publication in Blackwood. The list of prize winners in the two great Universities might well be worth studying, even if the poetry came from the machine and not from inspiration. Byron’s Address on the opening of the new Drury Lane has not survived, but the “Rejected Addresses”, spontaneous and hors concours, will never be wholly forgotten. Indeed a grave personage is recorded as saying of them that he did not understand why they should have been rejected, as some of them were very good.
A book-lover may think that he has an affection for all books, but he surely must draw the line at law-books, books of theology and medical treatises. So many people who have a notion that a book is valuable to a collector merely because it is old, will insist on bringing to me, in the kindness of their hearts, ancient theological tomes, for example, which are in fact less desirable than old Directories and not for a moment to be compared with old Almanacs. I have a friend who is enamored of school-books and books on mathematics; a mania that has method in it and I can understand the merit of it better than I can the pursuit of first editions of Trollope. He has a remarkable collection and has printed a catalogue in two volumes, not only complete in all details but a handsome specimen of book-making. He showed me a copy once, and in a moment of hallucination I thought that he was going to give it to me, but he carried it away. I am not sure that I would be interested in the collection, and he cares as little for my autographs as I do for his arithmetics. I was silly enough to speak of my hobby while he was fussing with his catalogue and I saw his eyes assume that far-away look which meant that he heard me and that was all. When any one with feigned interest says, “I would like so much to see your autographs”, I smile inwardly, if such a feat is possible, and I know that it is only one of those polite fictions which go so far towards making life pleasant. Very few people, especially those with a pet hobby of their own, care a straw about other people’s collections, except perhaps in the matter of paintings, which, to use an abominable but familiar phrase, is “altogether a different proposition”. The other man’s collection seldom assumes importance until the auctioneer falls heir to it. For collectors seldom have much sympathy with collectors who occupy different fields from theirs: indeed I have found more true sympathy between collectors and non-collectors. Steele in one of the numbers of the Tatler deals with the mania of collecting and makes much poor fun of one Nicholas Gimcrack, an entomologist, who spent a fortune in accumulating insects; but entomologists have their uses and perhaps Gimcrack, if such a person ever lived, might have retorted that his spiders were as well worth having as Sir Richard’s unparalleled collection of unpaid bills. There are useful features of postage-stamp collecting; there are attractions about the hoards of numismatists; one can see why even game-chickens may be profitably “collected”; but I fancy that the hobby of a lady of my acquaintance—the collecting of pianos—might be attended with inconveniences. I fear that the hapless being who confesses that he is an autograph collector receives the most general condemnation. I once had a notion of bringing together what might be called the by-products of autograph-collecting,—a collection of all the ill-natured and abusive things ever written or printed about autograph collectors from the beginning of the world to the present day, but it would probably fill a book as big as my Boydell Shakespeare, which is so unwieldy that I have had serious thoughts of hiring the tower of the Metropolitan Life Building to hold it. Yet how kind some of our busiest and greatest men have been to the wretches who “write for autographs”; the record of their long-suffering patience would fill another large volume.
There are other manifestations of the autograph fever almost as troublesome as the familiar prayer for the signature of the person addressed; there is, for example, the begging of autographs of other people which the victim is supposed to possess. Hawthorne, when applied to in this manner, became quite fierce and intimated with some vigor that the letters of his friends were valuable to him and not to be parted with. The venerable Bishop White was more gentle, when beset by that pioneer of American collectors, Doctor William B. Sprague. There is a pleasant, old-fashioned dignity about the Bishop’s letter which tempts me to reproduce it from the original now lying on the library table. It is a model, and if I ever wrote to men soliciting gifts of that order—which heaven forbid!—it is just the sort of reply that I would like to receive. The Bishop’s portraits always make me think of what Aldrich said of Wordsworth—that he gave him the impression of wanting milk: with his benign placidity it is no wonder that he lived until his eighty-ninth year.
“Philada, Feb. 12, 1823.
Revd & dear Sir:—
I have received your Letter of ye 23d of January, & am disposed to take Measures for compliance with your Request. I suppose that I can furnish you with some signatures, which may be embraced in your design; but, as it will require considerable examination, to distinguish between interesting Letters of former correspondents, & others which I can have no particular Reason to retain, I must defer ye Work, until I have less of pressing Business on my Hands than at present.
In ye mean Time, I am, respectfully