Music.
39. Books on Music may be divided conveniently into the numerous sub-headings which treat of particular instruments, songs, printed music generally, and accounts of the early musicians and their works. Treatises upon the violin are fairly numerous;[85] but I do not remember having come across many works on the Jew's harp or ocarina. There are interesting old books on the virginals, harpsichord, and spinet. Before the end of the fifteenth century a number of Missalia, Gradualia, Psalteria, and Libri Cantionum ('quas vulgo Mutetas appellant') had appeared from the press. The 'Theoricum Opus Musice Disciplina' of Franchino Gafori, or Gaffurius (which, by the way, is merely an abridgment of Boethius), is said to be the earliest printed treatise on music. It was printed first at Naples in 1480. Antiphonals and Troparies must also be included here.
A new edition of Grove's 'Dictionary of Music and Musicians,' by Mr. J. A. Fuller-Maitland, appeared in 1904. Dr. Charles Burney's 'General History of Music' occupied that great English musician between 1776 and 1789—four quarto volumes. 'The Literature of Music,' an octavo by Mr. J. E. Matthew, was put forth in the series known as the Booklovers' Library in 1896; whilst the 'Oxford History of Music,' edited by Dr. W. H. Hadow, appeared in six volumes between 1901 and 1905. M. Henry de Curzon's valuable work, 'Guide de l'Amateur d'Ouvrages sur la Musique,' was printed at Paris in 1901. For a bibliography of operas you must turn to the 'Dictionnaire des Opéras,' of MM. Clement and Larousse. Rimbault's 'Bibliotheca Madrigaliana,' which is a bibliographical account of the musical and poetical works published in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, appeared in 1847; and you will find a list of early songs, madrigals, and 'ayres' in the fourth volume of the 'Cambridge History of English Literature,' pages 463-6. Hazlitt's 'Catalogue of Early English Music in the Harleian Library,' was published in 1862. There are useful articles on early music printing, by Mr. R. Steele, in the Bibliographical Society's Journal for 1903, and by Mr. Barclay Squire in the third volume of 'Bibliographica.'
Napoleon.
40. The collector of books dealing with Napoleon i. has a somewhat narrow field to range in. There is a large number of English tracts and pamphlets that deal with the great man and his proposed invasion of England, as well as biographies, memoirs, and diaries concerning him. A collection of such works was formed in the later years of the nineteenth century by an insatiable Grangerite named Broadley, and in due time his library came under the hammer at Hodgson's. It was a remarkable collection: anything that concerned 'Boney,' however remotely, was grist to this collector's mill. A catalogue of his library was compiled and published by Mr. W. V. Daniel in 1905. M. Gustave Davois' 'Bibliographie Napoléonienne Française' to 1908 was printed in three octavo volumes at Paris, 1909-11. Of M. Kircheisen's 'Bibliographie du Temps de Napoléon,' two quarto volumes, published at Geneva in 1908 and 1912, have appeared up to the time of writing.
Natural History.
41. The early books on Natural History would probably be regarded by the modern zoologist as bibliographical curiosities rather than intelligent text-books; and truly the accounts of even the larger mammals given by these early observers of nature are extraordinary. Most of us will remember reading Caesar's description of the elks in the Hercynian forest, which slept leaning up against the trees because they had no joints in their legs. The inhabitants, cunning fellows, sought out the favoured trees and sawed them nearly through; so that when the unfortunate elks settled themselves to sleep, the booby-traps came into operation. Having no joints in their legs, the poor beasts were unable to rise, and so became an easy prey to the savage Teuton. Herodotus, too, was somewhat credulous in the matter of animals; Sir John Mandeville was not always to be trusted; and even Bernard von Breydenbach, who made a journey to the Holy Land about 1485, beheld strange beasts, like Spenser's giaunts, 'hard to be beleeved.' But perhaps the palm among these mediæval monsters is held by the eale, or, as it became later, the yale or jall; that strange beast which has survived—in effigy at least—unto our own times.
It appears that Pliny was the first to discover this singular animal, and his description of it is recorded in many of those quaint mediæval natural history volumes known as 'Bestiaries.' The Reverend Edward Topsell, in his 'Historie of Foure-footed Beasts' (folio, 1607) thus describes it:
'There is bred in Ethiopia a certain strange beast about the bignesse of a sea-horse, being of colour blacke or brownish: it hath the cheeks of a Boare, the tayle of an Elephant, and hornes above a cubit long, which are moveable upon his head at his owne pleasure like eares; now standing one way, and anone moving another way, as he needeth in fighting with other Beastes, for they stand not stiffe but bend flexibly, and when he fighteth he always stretcheth out the one, and holdeth in the other, for purpose as it may seeme, that if one of them may be blunted or broken, then hee may defend himselfe with the other. It may well be compared to a sea-horse, for above all other places it loveth best the waters.'
Unfortunately no specimen has been seen by travellers for some years now, so probably it is quite extinct. Certainly you will not find a jall in the Zoo, or even at South Kensington, though you may see a very excellent statue of him on King Henry viii.'s bridge at Hampton Court.