In the Track of the Bookworm

by Irving Browne

h, why do you elude me so—
Ye portraits that so long I’ve sought?
That somewhere ye exist, I know—
Indifferent, good, and good for naught.
Lucrezia, of the poisoned cup,
Why do you shrink away by stealth?
To view your “mug” with you I’d sup,
And even dare to drink your health.
Oh! why so coy, Godiva fair?
You’re covered by your shining tresses,
And I would promise not to stare
At sheerest of go-diving dresses.
Come out, old Bluebeard; don’t be shy!
You’re not so bad as Froude’s great hero;
Xantippe, fear no law gone by
When scolds were ducked in ponds at zero.
Not mealy-mouthed was Mrs. Behn,
And prudish was satiric Jane,
But equally they both shun men,
As if they bore the mark of Cain.
George Barrington, you may return
To country which you “left for good;”
Psalmanazar, I would not spurn
Your language when ’twas understood.
Jean Grolier, you left many books—
They come so dear I must ignore ’em—
But there’s no evidence of your looks
For us surviving “amicorum.”
This country’s overrun by grangers—
I’m ignorant of their christian names
But my afflicted eyes are strangers
To one I want whom men call James.
There’s Heber, man of many books—
You’re far more modest than the Bishop;
I’m curious to learn your looks,
And care for nothing shown at his shop.
And oh! that wondrous, pattern child!
His truthfulness, no one can match it;
Dear little George! I’m almost wild
To find a wood-cut of his hatchet.
Show forth your face, Anonymous,
Whose name is in the books I con
Most frequently; so famous thus,
Will you not come to me anon?

y way of jest I have inserted an anonymous portrait opposite an anonymous poem, and was once gravely asked by an absent-minded friend if it really was the portrait of the author. One however will probably look in vain for portraits of “Quatorze” and “Quinze,” for which a print seller of New York once had an inquiry, and I have been told of a collector who returned Arlington because of the cut on his nose, and Ogle because of his damaged eye. But there is more sport in hunting for a dodo than a rabbit

It is also a pleasant thing to lay a picture occasionally in a book without setting out to illustrate it regularly, so that it may break upon one as a surprise when he takes up the book years afterward. It is a grateful surprise to find in Ruskin’s “Modern Painters” a casual print from Roger’s “Italy,” and in Hamerton’s books some sporadic etchings by Rembrandt or Hayden. It is like discovering an unexpected “quarter” in the pocket of an old waistcoat. For example, in “With Thackeray in America,” Mr. Eyre Crowe tells how the second number of the first edition of “The Newcomes” came to the author when he was in Paris, and how he found fault with Doyle’s illustration of the games of the Charterhouse boys. He says: “The peccant accessory which roused the wrath of the writer was the group of two boys playing at marbles on the left of the spectator. ‘Why,’ said the irate author, ‘they would as soon thought of cutting off their heads as play marbles at the Charterhouse!’ This woodcut was, I noticed, suppressed altogether in subsequent editions.” Now in my copy—not being the possessor of the first edition—I have made a reference to Mr. Crowe’s passage, and supplied the suppressed cut from an early American copy which cost me twenty-five cents. How many of the first edition men know of the interesting fact narrated by Mr. Crowe? The Illustrator ought always at least to insert the portrait of the author whenever it has been omitted by the publisher

Second: What to illustrate. The Illustrator should not be an imitator or follower, but should strive after an unhackneyed subject. A man is not apt to marry the woman who flings herself at his head; he loves the excitement of courting; and so there is not much amusement in utilizing common pictures, but the charm consists in hunting for scarce ones. It is very natural to tread in others’ tracks, and easy, because the market affords plenty of material for the common subjects. Shakespeare and Walton and Boswell’s Johnson, and a few other things of that sort, have been done to death, and there is fairer scope in something else. Biographies of Painters, Elia’s Essays, Sir Thomas Browne’s “Religio Medici” and “Urn Burial,” “Childe Harold,” Horace, Virgil, the Life of Bayard, or of Vittoria Colonna, or Philip Sidney, and Sappho are charming subjects, and not too common. A ponderous or voluminous work lends itself less conveniently to the purpose than a small book in one or two volumes. Great quartos and folios are mere mausoleums or repositories for expensive prints, too huge to handle, and too extensive for any one ever to look through, and therefore they afford little pleasure to the owners or their guests. An illustrated Shakespeare in thirty volumes is theoretically a very grand object, but I should never have the heart to open it, and as for histories, I should as soon think of illustrating a dictionary. Walton is a lovely subject, but I would adopt a small copy and keep it within two or three volumes. After all there is nothing so charming as a single little illustrated volume, like “Ballads of Books,” compiled by Brander Matthews; Andrew Lang’s “Letters to Dead Authors,” or “Old Friends,” Friswell’s “Varia,” the “Book of Death,” “Melodies and Madrigals,” “The Book of Rubies,” Winter’s “Shakespeare’s England.”

gentleman who published, a good many years ago, a monograph of privately illustrated books in this country, spoke of the work that I had done in this field, and criticised me for my “apparent want of method,” “eccentricity,” “madness,” “vagaries,” “omnivorousness,” and “lack of speciality or system,” and finally, although he blamed me for having illustrated pretty much everything, he also blamed me for not having illustrated any “biographical works.” This criticism seems not only inconsistent, but without basis, for one man may not dictate to another what he shall prefer to illustrate for his own amusement, any more than what sort of a house or pictures he shall buy or what complexion or stature his wife shall have. The author also did me the honor to spell my name wrong, and did the famous Greek amatory poet the honor of mentioning among my illustrated work, “Odes to Anacreon.” Would that I could find that book!