THE LATE HENRY STEVENS, F.S.A.[325:1]
With the exception of the death of the late Henry Bradshaw, taken away so nearly at the same time, the Library Association could have sustained no loss more sincerely regarded by its members in the light of a personal bereavement than that which it has suffered by the death of Henry Stevens, on February 28. Mr. Stevens's interest in the Association has been so warm, his counsel so valuable, his genial presence and witty discourse such recognised features of attraction at its gatherings, that his loss must be felt as one almost impossible to supply. It must be long indeed before any one can fill Mr. Stevens's place as a link between the librarians of Europe and America, and it may be much longer yet before the happy union of bibliographical attainments with social qualities is witnessed to a like extent in the same individual.
Henry Stevens was born August 24, 1819, at Barnet, Vermont, U.S., hence the initials, G.M.B. (Green Mountain Boy), prized by him, there is reason to surmise, above his academical and antiquarian distinctions. He was sixth in descent from Cyprian Stevens, who had emigrated in the days of
Charles I. The family came originally from Devonshire. It had had its share of colonial celebrity and adventure; one ancestor had successfully defended a fort against the French; another had been stolen by the Indians, and ransomed for a pony. After receiving a fair ordinary education at the school of his native village, and two local seminaries, Mr. Stevens, at the age of seventeen, began to teach with a view of obtaining means to take him to college. He received from twelve to sixteen dollars a month, boarding with his pupils' families, "three days to a scholar, except when the girls were pretty, and in that case four." In October 1838 he proceeded to Middlebury College, defraying his travelling expenses by peddling cheeses contributed for that purpose by his excellent mother. His father, a man of literary tastes and culture, founder and President of the Vermont Historical and Antiquarian Society, seems to have been always behindhand with the world, and to have been unable to aid his son to any material extent. It was customary for students thus destitute of support from home to defray their college expenses by teaching in the winter months. Stevens obtained leave to try his fortune at Washington, relying on the patronage of Governor Henry Hubbard, then Senator for New Hampshire. He called upon him accordingly, and though he was a Whig and the Senator a Democrat, he found himself, as if by magic, clerk in the Treasury Department "in charge of the records and correspondence of the Revenue Cutter Service," with a salary of a thousand dollars a year.
He was soon afterwards transferred to a clerkship in the Senate, where after a while he was employed as clerk to the Senate branch of the Joint Committee of the Congress for investigating the claims of Messrs. Clark & Force under a contract for publishing the American Archives, which it was desired to terminate. Much time and labour had been expended upon the volumes already printed, but it was generally surmised that the contract would be broken, because, as a Democrat remarked, "it would cost more than the building of the Capitol, and, what was worse, both the editor and the printer were Whigs." The Committee, who seem to have had no taste for literary drudgery, turned the task of digesting the papers entirely over to Mr. Stevens, who on his part, finding the documents intrusted to him insufficient, scraped acquaintance with Colonel Peter Force himself, and extracted abundant information from him without divulging his official position. At length the digest was ready, and the Committee, convoked for the purpose, heard their officer read the whole, up to the entirely unexpected and unwelcome conclusion, "Resolved, that this contract cannot be broken." Stevens was severely taken to task for his presumption, when Daniel Webster, a member of the Committee, interfered on his behalf, and advocated his view with such effect that "the Committee was discharged from further consideration of the subject." The contract was shortly afterwards rescinded. The service Stevens had nevertheless rendered to Force had an important influence on
his subsequent career. Quitting Washington, as he had always intended to do, and repairing to complete his education at Yale College, he took with him a commission from the Colonel to collect books, pamphlets, and MSS. in aid of the American Archives, which not only helped to provide the expenses of his University course, but endowed him with knowledge, tastes, and aptitudes qualifying him for future eminence as book-hunter and bookseller. Another main source of income was his fine penmanship, both as transcriber and teacher. He took his B.A. degree in 1843, and in 1843-44 studied law at Harvard under Justice Story, continuing to act as agent for Colonel Force, and forming connections with other collectors. At length, in 1845, he determined to visit England on literary errands, not expecting to be absent more than one or two years. Fortified by introductions from Francis Parkman and Jared Sparks, he took his departure, and in July 1845 found himself at the North and South American Coffee-House, the bearer of a huge bag of despatches for the United States Minister, Mr. Everett, and of a tiny one of forty sovereigns of his own. Mr. Everett's influence opened the State Paper Office to him; and ere the sun set on his first day in London he had visited the four great second-hand dealers of the day, Rodd, Thorpe, Pickering, and Rich. The last-named had just acquired the valuable library of M. Ternaux-Compans, and Mr. Stevens immediately purchased £800 worth on behalf of Mr. John Carter Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, from whom he
had a general commission to forage, and who showed wisdom as well as spirit in ratifying his agent's decided action. Those were the golden days of speculation in books relating to America, when rarities could be obtained for hardly more shillings than they now cost pounds. Mr. Stevens probably contributed more than any other man to terminate this happy state of things. While, on the one hand, he ransacked the chief European capitals as agent for wealthy American collectors, on the other hand he drained America on behalf of the British Museum, then for the first time entering into the market to any considerable extent. Mr. Panizzi had just prepared his celebrated report on the deficiencies of the Museum Library, in which he had said: "The expense requisite for accomplishing what is here suggested—that is, for forming in a few years a public library containing from 600,000 to 700,000 printed volumes, giving the necessary information on all branches of human learning, from all countries, in all languages, properly arranged, substantially and well bound, minutely and fully catalogued, easily accessible and yet safely preserved, capable for some years to come of keeping pace with the increase of human knowledge—will no doubt be great; but so is the nation which is to bear it. What might be extravagant and preposterous to suggest to one country may be looked upon not only as moderate, but as indispensable in another." With such views on Panizzi's part, he and Stevens fortunately encountered. Ere they had been long acquainted, a proposal came from the former,
that Stevens should undertake the agency for the supply of American books. Stevens at first hesitated; he had not contemplated remaining in Europe. He soon saw his way to accept it, and, in his words, "an exodus of American books to the British Museum commenced that has not ceased at the present time."
It would be impossible within the limits of this notice to enumerate all the important transactions in which Mr. Stevens was engaged, or the numerous instances in which his ready and inventive intellect was exerted for the furtherance of bibliography. One of his most important enterprises was the purchase of Humboldt's library, which resulted in disappointment. The Civil War supervening, his American patrons "shut up like clam shells," and most of the books were ultimately destroyed by fire while warehoused in London. A portion, however, had been previously separated, and the British Museum possesses numerous presentation copies to Humboldt, with the autographs of the authors. Members of the Library Association who were present at the Liverpool meeting will long remember Mr. Stevens's humorous account of his dealings with Mr. Peabody, and of his dismay when the collection formed by the philanthropist for presentation to his native town, at an average cost of one shilling a volume, was described in the local paper as the special selection of that intelligent bibliographer, Henry Stevens, Esq. Mr. Stevens's relations with the most important of all his customers, Mr. James Lennox, have been so recently