CHAPTER V
AUCTION SALES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The exact date of the first introduction into England of the convenient plan of selling books by auction is known to us through the amiable weakness of the auctioneers for writing prefaces to the sale catalogues; and this history, therefore, is singularly unlike that of most other inventions and customs, the origin of which is usually open to doubt, because the originators have not thought it worth while to explain that they were doing some new thing. The auctioneers, on the other hand, tell us which was the first sale, and which were the second, the third, and the fourth. After this the freshness may be said to be exhausted, and we are contented with less exact particulars.
The custom was prevalent in Holland in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the honour of introducing it into England is due to William Cooper, the bookseller of Little Britain, about whom some notice has been given in a former chapter. He was largely interested in alchemy, and three years before he sold his first sale he published a “Catalogue of Chemical Books.”
We must not, however, suppose that this was the introduction of auctions into England, for sale by inch of candle had long been practised here, a plan adopted by the Navy Office for the sale of their old stores.
The earliest use of the word auction, quoted by Dr. Murray in the “New English Dictionary,” is from Warner’s translation of Plautus, 1595: “The auction of Menæchmus, ... when will be sold slaves, household goods,” &c.; and the next quotation is from the Appendix to Phillip’s Dictionary, 1678: “Auction, a making a publick sale and selling of goods by an outcry.” We shall see that the word was far from familiar to the general public, as the auctioneers considered it wise to explain the word, thus: “Sale of books by way of auction, or who will give most for them.” The more usual words in old English were outcry, outrope (still familiar in Scotland as roup, cf. German ruf) and port sale.
The first sale by auction was that of the library of Lazarus Seaman, a member of the Assembly of Divines, and chaplain to the Earl of Northumberland. He was also minister of All Hallows, Bread Street, and Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. In the latter college a Diary written by him between 1645 and 1657 is preserved. He seems to have been an active man on his own side in politics, and we find that he was a member of the Committee for ejecting Scandalous Ministers for London and the Counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon. It is therefore not surprising to find that at the Restoration he was ejected both from his living and from the Mastership of Peterhouse. He died at his house in Warwick Court, London, in September 1675, and in the following year his library was sold in his house by Cooper, who makes the following interesting remarks in his preface—
“Reader, 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, and it is hoped that this will not be unacceptable to Schollers....”
Mr. Alfred W. Pollard, in a very valuable article on English Book Sales, 1676-80 (Bibliographica, vol. i. p. 373), quotes an interesting letter from David Millington to Joseph Hill, an English Nonconformist minister in Holland, dated June 1697, and now preserved in the British Museum (Stowe MS., 709), in which the writer tenders to the divine his thanks for the “great service done to learning and learned men in your first advising and effectually setting on foot that admirable and universally approved way of selling librarys amongst us;” and distinctly states that it was Hill who “happily introduced the practice into England.” Mr. Pollard goes on to say that “Hill, who from 1673 to 1678, owing to his publication of a pamphlet which gave offence to the Dutch Government, was resident in England, must have advised the executors of Dr. Seaman, a theologian of principles not widely different from his own, to adopt this method of selling his friend’s library to the best advantage.” Seaman was the author of “A Vindication of the Judgement of the Reformed Churches, &c., concerning Ordination, &c.,” 1647, and the chief class of books in his library was what we might expect to find, viz., theological works that he required in his vocation. Some few books (such as the Eliot Bible of 1661-63, nineteen shillings) fetched small prices as compared with their present value, but Mr. Pollard says that “nine-tenths of the books sold for more than they would at the present day.”
The library was a large one, and the lots numbered between five and six thousand, and the amount realised by the sale was a little over £700, which may be roughly estimated at about £3500 of our present money.