THE SIGNATURE OF SHAKESPEARE ON THE LAST PAGE OF HIS WILL.
Mr. Adrian Joline's theory as to the "eternity of interest" in literary autographs receives support from the exceptionally high prices they have commanded from the early days of the collection of MSS., when the signatures of kings and statesmen were almost at a discount. "I shall now," writes the chronicler of autograph prices in 1827, "set poetry, philosophy, history, and works of imagination against sceptres, swords, robes, and big-wigs.... Addison is worth £2 15s., Pope £3 5s., and Swift £3. Thomson has sold for £5 10s. and Burns for £3 10s. Churchill, the abuser of his compatriots, is valued at £1 18s. In philosophy Dr. Franklin reaches £1 17s.; in history, Hume is valued at £1 18s. and Gibbon at only 8s. The sturdy moralist Johnson ranks at £1 16s., the graceful trifler Sterne at £2 2s., Smollett at £2 10s., and Richardson at £1. Scott only yields 8s." In the half-century which intervened between 1827 and 1877 the prices of literary autographs had risen by leaps and bounds. In his catalogue of 1876 Mr. Waller asked £8 10s. for a short Latin essay of Thomas Gray, while Longfellow is priced at £1 18s., George Borrow at £3 3s., and Wordsworth at £1 1s. A fine letter of Schiller's is priced at £2 5s. In the next catalogue (1878) I find the following: Gibbon (a fine A.L.S.) £4 4s.; Voltaire (a 2 pp. A.L.S.) £3 15s.; Rousseau, a series of letters, including one of the philosopher, £3 10s.; five verses by Scott, £4 4s.; William Cowper, A.L.S., £3 7s. 6d.; Gray, a bundle of printed matter including one hundred lines of MS., £6 6s. In the late Mr. Frederick Barker's catalogues of the same period we have Edmund Burke (A.L.S.), £3 3s.; Thomas Hood (A.L.S.), £2 2s.; Voltaire (A.L.S.), £4 4s.; Horace Walpole (A.L.S.), £3 5s.; and a love-letter from John Keats to Fanny Brawne, £28.
In cataloguing the last-named item Mr. Barker says "that one of these celebrated letters realised by auction a short time since no less than £47." He also prices two A.L.S. of Robert Burns at £35 and £32 respectively. It will be remembered that in 1827 the price for a Burns letter was £3 10s. only. For a letter of Schiller (4 pp., 8vo, 1801) Mr. Barker asks £7 7s. In several catalogues of this period I find Keats letters averaging £20 to £30. The interesting catalogue issued by Mr. Barker in 1891 is remarkable for its wealth of literary rariora. Autograph letters are priced in it as follows: Schiller, £10 10s.; Burns, £25; Wordsworth, £3 3s.; Thackeray, £25. The last-named letter is worth describing. It was addressed to Miss Holmes, with a postscript on the inside of the envelope, and on the third sheet a clever sketch of Thackeray and Bulwer Lytton standing behind a lady seated at a piano. The letter itself runs thus:—
There is a comfortable Hotel in this street, kept by a respectable family man, the charges are Beds gratis, Breakfasts, thank you, dinner and tea, ditto, servants included in these charges. Get a cab from the station, and come straightway to No. 13. I dine out with the Dean of St. Paul's (you have heard of a large meeting house we have between Ludgate Hill and Cheapside, with a round roof?). Some night we will have a select T party, but not whilst you are staying here. When you are in your lodgings. Why I will ask Sir Edward George Earle Lytton, Bulwer Lytton himself. Bulwer's boots are very fine in the accompanying masterly design (refer to the sketch), remark the traces of emotion on the cheeks of the other author (the notorious W. M. T.), I have caricatured Dr. Newman (with an immense nose) and the Cardinal too, you ought to know that.
This letter would be now worth quite £50, and some of the fine illustrated Thackeray letters now in possession of Mr. Frank Sabin would probably be cheap at £100 each. Mr. Sabin's collection of the Thackerayana is probably unrivalled both as regards the United Kingdom and America.[46]
In Mr. Barker's 1891 catalogue there are four letters of Shelley, priced at £18 18s., £19 19s., £10 10s., and £9 9s. respectively. There is also a Schiller at £25, and an Alexander Pope covering one page 8vo only at £8. Darwin is already at £1 10s., Disraeli at 18s., and the Dickens letters average about £2. A letter of Dr. Priestley, worth perhaps 5s. in 1827, is now offered at £2 2s.
DEED CONTAINING THE SIGNATURE OF FRANCIS BACON, LORD VERULAM, AND NEARLY ALL THE MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY, TEMP. JAMES I.
(In the collection of Messrs. Ellis.)