Over the chimney-piece was a portrait, in pencil, of his late uncle: done from the life. It was the only one extant. It struck me indeed as singularly indicative of the keen, lively, penetrating talents of the original. On the back of the portrait were the lines which are here subjoined:
Dès sa plus tendre enfance aux études livré,
La soif de la science l'a toujours dévoré.
Une immense lecture enrichit ses écrits,
Et la critique sure en augmente le prix.
These lines are copied from the Journal des Savans for October 1779. Iean Joseph Rive was born at Apt, in 1730, and died at Marseilles in 1791. He had doubtless great parts, natural and acquired: a retentive memory, a quick perception, and a vast and varied reading. He probably commenced amassing his literary treasures as early as his fourteenth year; and to his latest breath he pursued his researches with unabated ardour. But his career was embittered by broils and controversies; while the frequent acts of kindness, and the general warmth of heart, evinced in his conduct, hardly sufficed to soften the asperity, or to mitigate the wrath, of a host of enemies--which assailed him to the very last. But Cadmus-like, he sowed the seeds from which these combatants sprung. Whatever were his defects, as a public character, he is said to have been, in private, a kind parent, a warm friend, and an excellent master. The only servant which he ever had, and who remained with him twenty-four years, mourned his loss as that of a father. Peace to his ashes!
From bibliography let me gently, and naturally, as it were, conduct you towards BIBLIOPOLISM. In other words, allow me to give you a sketch of a few of the principal Booksellers in this gay metropolis; who strive, by the sale of instructive and curious tomes, sometimes printed in the black letter of Gourmont and Marnef, to stem the torrent of those trivial or mischievous productions which swarm about the avenues of the Palais Royal. In ancient times, the neighbourhood of the SORBONNE was the great mart for books. When I dined in this neighbourhood, with my friend M. Gail, the Greek Professor at the College Royale, I took an opportunity of leisurely examining this once renowned quarter. I felt even proud and happy to walk the streets, or rather tread the earth, which had been once trodden by Gering, Crantz, and Fiburger.[122] Their spirits seemed yet to haunt the spot:--but no volume, nor even traces of one--executed at their press--could be discovered. To have found a perfect copy of Terence, printed in their first Roman character, would have been a trouvaille sufficiently lucky to have compensated for all previous toil, and to have franked me as far as Strasbourg.
The principal mart for booksellers, of old and second hand books, is now nearer the Seine; and especially in the Quai des Augustins. Messrs. Treuttel and Würtz, Panckoucke, Renouard, and Brunet, live within a quarter of a mile of each other: about a couple of hundred yards from the Quai des Augustins. Further to the south, and not far from the Hotel de Clugny, in the Rue Serpente, live the celebrated DEBURE. They are booksellers to the King, and to the Royal Library; and a more respectable house, or a more ancient firm, is probably not to be found in Europe. Messrs. Debure are as straight-forward, obliging, and correct, in their transactions, as they are knowing in the value, and upright in the sale, of their stock in trade. No bookseller in Paris possesses a more judicious stock, or can point to so many rare and curious books. A young collector may rely with perfect safety upon them; and accumulate, for a few hundred pounds, a very respectable stock of Editiones principes or rarissimæ. I do not say that such young collector would find them cheaper there, or so cheap as in Pall-Mall; but I do say that he may rest assured that Messieurs Debure would never, knowingly, sell him an imperfect book. Of the Debure, there are two brothers: of whom the elder hath a most gallant propensity to portrait-collecting--and is even rich in portraits relating to our history. Of course the chief strength lies in French history; and I should think that Monsieur Debure l'ainé shewed me almost as many portraits of Louis XIV. as there are editions of the various works of Cicero in the fifteenth century.[123] But my attention was more particularly directed to a certain boudoir, up one pair of stairs, in which Madame Debure, their venerable and excellent mother, chooses to deposit some few very choice copies of works in almost every department of knowledge. There was about one of the best editions in each department: and whether it were the Bible, or the History of the Bucaineers--whether a lyrical poet of the reign of Louis XIV. or the ballad metres of that of François Premier ... there you found it!--bound by Padaloup, or Deseuille, or De Rome. What think you, among these "choice copies," of the Cancionero Generale printed at Toledo in 1527, in the black letter, double columned, in folio? Enough to madden even our poet-laureat--for life! I should add, that these books are not thus carefully kept together for the sake of shew: for their owner is a fair good linguist, and can read the Spanish with tolerable fluency. Long may she yet read it.[124]
The Debure had the selling, by auction, of the far-famed M'CARTHY LIBRARY; and I saw upon their shelves some of the remains of that splendid membranaceous collection. Indeed I bought several desirable specimens of it: among them, a fine copy of Vindelin de Spira's edition (1471) of St. Cyprians Epistles, UPON VELLUM.[125] Like their leading brethren in the neighbourhood, Messieurs Debure keep their country house, and there pass the Sabbath.
The house of TREUTTEL and WURTZ is one of the richest and one of the most respectable in Europe. The commerce of that House is chiefly in the wholesale way; and they are, in particular, the publishers and proprietors of all the great classical works put forth at Strasbourg. Indeed, it was at this latter place where the family first took root: but the branches of their prosperity have spread to Paris and to London with nearly equal luxuriance. They have a noble house in the Rue de Bourbon, no. 17: like unto an hotel; where each day's post brings them despatches from the chief towns in Europe. Their business is regulated with care, civility, and dispatch; and their manners are at once courteous and frank. Nothing would satisfy them but I must spend a Sabbath with them, at their country house at Groslai; hard by the village and vale of Montmorenci. I assented willingly. On the following Sunday, their capacious family coach, and pair of sleek, round, fat black horses, arrived at my lodgings by ten o'clock; and an hour and three quarters brought me to Groslai. The cherries were ripe, and the trees were well laden with fruit: for Montmorenci cherries, as you may have heard, are proverbial for their excellence. I spent a very agreeable day with mine hosts. Their house is large and pleasantly situated, and the view of Paris from thence is rather picturesque. But I was most struck with the conversation and conduct of Madame Treuttel. She is a thoroughly good woman. She has raised, at her own expense, an alms-house in the village for twelve poor men; and built a national school for the instruction of the poor and ignorant of both sexes. She is herself a Lutheran Protestant; as are her husband and her son-in-law M. Würtz. At first, she had some difficulties to encounter respecting the school; and sundry conferences with the village Curé, and some of the head clergy of Paris, were in consequence held. At length all difficulties were surmounted by the promise given, on the part of Madame Treuttel, to introduce only the French version of the Bible by De Sacy. Hence the school was built, and the children of the village flocked in numbers to it for instruction. I visited both the alms-house and the school, and could not withhold my tribute of hearty commendation at the generosity, and thoroughly Christian spirit, of the foundress of such establishments. There is more good sense and more private and public virtue, in the application of superfluous wealth in this manner, than in the erection of a hundred palaces like that at Versailles![126]
A different, and a more touching object presented itself to my view in the garden. Walking with Madame, we came, through various détours, into a retired and wooded part: where, on opening a sort of wicket gate, I found myself in a small square space, with hillocks in the shape of tumuli before me. A bench was at the extremity. It was a resting place for the living, and a depository of the dead. Flowers, now a good deal faded, were growing upon these little mounds--beneath which the dead seemed to sleep in peace. "What might this mean?" "Sir," replied Madame Treuttel, "this is consecrated ground. My son-in-law sleeps here--and his only and beloved child lies by the side of him. You will meet my daughter, his wife, at dinner. She, with myself, visit this spot at stated seasons--when we renew and indulge our sorrows on the recollection of those who sleep beneath. These are losses which the world can never repair. We all mean to be interred within the same little fenced space.[127] I have obtained a long lease of it--for some fifty years: at the expiration of which time, the work of dissolution will be sufficiently complete with us all." So spake my amiable and enlightened guide. The remainder of the day--during which we took a stroll to Montmorenci, and saw the house and gardens where Rousseau wrote his Emile--was spent in a mixed but not irrational manner: much accordant with my own feelings, and most congenial with a languid state of body which had endured the heats of Paris for a month, without feeling scarcely a breath of air the whole time.
ANTOINE-AUGUSTIN RENOUARD, living in the Rue St. André des Arts, is the next bibliopolist whom I shall introduce to your attention. He is among the most lynx-eyed of his fraternity: has a great knowledge of books; a delightful ALDINE LIBRARY;[128]--from which his Annals of the Aldine Press were chiefly composed--and is withal a man in a great and successful line of business. I should say he is a rich man; not because he has five hundred bottles of Burgundy in his cellar, which some may think to be of a more piquant quality than the like number of his Alduses--but because he has published some very beautiful and expensive editions of the Latin and French Classics, with equal credit to himself and advantage to his finances.[129] He debuted with a fine edition of Lucan in 1795, folio; and the first catalogue of his books was put forth the following year. From that moment to the present, he has never slackened head, hand, or foot, in the prosecution of his business; while the publication of his Annals of the Aldine Press places him among the most skilful and most instructive booksellers in Europe. It is indeed a masterly performance: and as useful as it is elegantly printed.[130] M. Renouard is now occupied in an improved edition of Voltaire, which he means to adorn with engravings; and of which he shewed me the original drawings by Moreau, with many of the plates.[131] He seems in high spirits about the success of it, and leans with confidence upon the strength of a host of subscribers. Nor does a rival edition, just struggling into day, cause him to entertain less sanguine expectations of final success. This enterprising bookseller is now also busily occupied about a Descriptive Catalogue of his own library, in which he means to indulge himself in sundry gossipping notes, critical disquisitions, and piquant anecdotes. I look forward with pleasure to its appearance; and turn a deaf ear to the whispers which have reached me of an intended brush at the Decameron.[132]
M. Renouard has allowed me free access to his library; which also contains some very beautiful copies of books printed in the fifteenth century. Among these latter, his VELLUM VALDARFER is of course considered, by himself and his friends, as the keimelion of the collection. It is the edition of the Orations of Cicero, printed by Valdarfer, at Venice, in 1471, folio: a most exquisite book--which may be fairly considered as perfect throughout. It is in its second binding, but that may be as old as the time of Francis I.: perhaps about the middle of the sixteenth century. This copy measures thirteen inches in height, by eight inches and seven-eighths in width:--almost, I conceive, in its original state of amplitude. I will frankly own that I turned over the leaves of this precious book, again and again--"sighed and looked, &c." "But would no price tempt the owner to part with it?" "None. It is reserved as the bijou of my catalogue, and departs not from hence." Severe, but just decree! There is only one other known copy of it upon vellum, which is in the Royal Library[133]-- but which wants a leaf of the table; an imperfection, not belonging to the present copy.