The Romance of Book-Collecting

by J. Herbert Slater

A long and very interesting chapter might be written on 'Inscriptions in Books,' and it must be confessed that a really important signature or comment adds so very appreciably to the sentimental value of the volume in which it is found, that it is not surprising that Oliver Wendell Holmes conjured up a pleasant train of reflection, in his inimitable style, based upon the name of a former owner of his own copy of the 'Colloquies of Erasmus,' which, by the way, my friend is extremely anxious to possess himself of, but will probably never obtain. In this instance the personality of the 'Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table' obscures all else, and gives the book a distinct history of its own—a history that invests it with an importance and value it could never claim of itself. To find out all we can about the former owners of books which we ourselves take pleasure in is no frivolous task, and the pity is that our opportunities for doing so are limited. The book-plate has very nearly put an end to owner's autographs, and being easy to remove, affords little or no guarantee of ownership. And book-plates have been in use in this country for more than 200 years.

No doubt everyone who has anything to do with books, whether as writer, producer, or collector, can call to mind the eccentricities of his neighbours with regard to them. I call it extremely eccentric conduct on the part of any man to persist in collecting odd volumes, and to studiously ignore complete sets. Yet I knew an old gentleman—now dead, and his books littering the stalls of Farringdon Street and elsewhere—who did this, year after year, and for many years, with the inevitable result. He was fond of literature, and the pleasure he derived in reading was part and parcel of his existence.

It was an axiom with him, however, that anything which is worth having, and any knowledge worth acquiring, must be laboriously worked for; and he would instance numerous authorities who have taught this truth by example as well as by precept. He would say, 'If I go out and buy a Bible for £500, because it is old and scarce, do you think I shall derive as much benefit and solace from its pages as if I had invested a trifle with the fixed determination to read what I had acquired and to follow its teachings?'

'No, certainly not,' is the obvious and truthful reply to that; but this would appear to be different from buying one volume of, say, Pope's works when there ought to be twenty, and trusting to enterprise not unmingled with luck to discover the remaining nineteen. To this, however, he would not agree, and, to do him justice, he did not preach one thing and perform another. His theory was that, if the perusal of an odd volume leads the reader to long for the possession of its fellows, it is better that he should search for them until he finds them, than that he should have them to his hand, as it were, ready made.

Carlyle intimated that a man had far better study the title-page of any book worth the trouble of looking at than read the whole text with a vacant mind, and no doubt he was right, though this, too, seems to be an entirely distinct matter from the general principle that nothing can be learned without a maximum of inconvenience. Such a conclusion is rather a straining of the position insisted upon by Nero's tutor, that no one should collect more books than he can read, and that a multitude of books only distracts the mind. Therefore was it that Francis Bissari in the year 1750 designed a plate, which he pasted in the few volumes he possessed, and which consequently is now extremely scarce. 'Ex-Libris civis Francisci Bissari,' he says, 'Distrahit animum librorum multitude, itaque cum legere non possis quantum habueris, sat est habere quantum legas. Seneca. Ep. 2.'

Still, as I have intimated, the old gentleman had his way and his day, and when he died his books were all despatched to the auction rooms. It took three men more than a week to pack them in boxes. There were books under every bed in the house, and every nook and cranny was full of them. There were, altogether, many thousands of volumes, and nearly all were odd. If a series were found to be complete, as sometimes happened, it was sure to be made up of volumes belonging to different editions, and, naturally enough, in different bindings. The auctioneers did what they could, and sold the vast majority in 'parcels' for a mere song, which in truth was all they were worth.

This peculiar form of book-collecting, though apparently strange, is, and always has been, very usual, for the vast majority of readers are poor. One volume will cost less, proportionately, than the complete set of which it forms part; and, moreover, we are again face to face with the argument that it is better to master the contents of one volume than to have a mere superficial knowledge of a dozen or more. The only thing is that, as the world wags at present, the advice is erratic, and the system of buying books in sections one that cannot be recommended. If we could be sure of a hundred years of life, then things might be different. Sed Ars longa, vita brevis est.

And so it happens that the vagaries of book-hunters are often passing strange. Some, like Sir Thomas Phillipps, will buy largely, and never even open the cases in which they arrive. Others will hide them in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, while others again will cut them to pieces, or in some other way destroy them utterly. It is the most usual thing, for me, at any rate, and therefore presumably for others who are known to write about books, or to give the reports of the auction-rooms, to receive a bundle of title-pages as samples of the volumes to which they belong, with a request for information as to how they ought to be bound, and what they are worth. Some collectors—real bonâ-fide collectors these—start life with strong opinions as to the usefulness of books, and, after the manner of Grolier, though without his discretion, open their doors to all sorts and conditions of men, only to close them later with a firm resolve that, come what come may, they will never again allow any friend whomsoever even to gaze upon their store. Some, too, are so deeply immersed in their all-absorbing hobby that they have no clear conception of the difference between meum and tuum. Estimable in every respect but one, and scrupulously honest to a degree in all matters of daily intercourse, they yet fail in this one supreme trial. And yet they are absolved; for these unfortunates are not thieves but eccentrics, who would no more think of selling the objects they have mistaken for their own, than they would of getting wealth by false pretences. Pope Innocent X., when still Monsignor Pamphilio, was found in the possession of a book he could not satisfactorily account for, and the ludicrous part of the matter was that Du Moustier, who claimed that it had been abstracted from his library, was subsequently proved to have stolen it himself. Then, again, Catherine de Medici sequestered the entire library of Marshal Strozzi, and on complaint promised to pay for it by instalments, which, of course, she never did. Hearne hints more than once that Sir Thomas Bodley was eccentric, and when Moore, Bishop of Ely, and father of English Black-Letter Collectors, went to dine with a bibliophile, as was his wont, the latter would, if he were wise, spend the morning in removing out of sight, and, therefore, out of temptation's way, the choicest of his possessions. But the king of all these suspicious characters was Libri, who, as Inspector-General of French Libraries, under Louis Philippe, presented himself, from first to last, with books of the value of more than £20,000, among them a fine MS. of the Pentateuch, which he sold to the late Lord Ashburnham on condition that it was not to be published for twenty years. In 1868 the time expired, and then the matter was traced home, to his memory's shame.

This conduct of Libri in selling what did not belong to him puts him, indeed, on a level, in point of turpitude, with the young divinity student of Chicago commonly called 'The Champion Biblioklept of America.' In vastness of conception the latter was a mere tyro, for he only stole a few hundred books of small value from the Chicago Public Library. The motive of both men was, however, the same, and it was that which, according to some consciences, made them thieves. After all, it is this motive that must be primarily considered in all ethical questions such as those which underlie, to some extent at least, the vagaries of every book-hunter who ever was born to hunger and thirst for Caxton's types, and paper white as snow, bound in a dream by the Gascon's magic touch.

CHAPTER VII.