[131] [Now completed in 60 volumes 8vo.: and the most copious and correct of ALL the editions of the author. It is a monument, as splendid as honourable, of the Publisher's spirit of enterprise. For particulars, consult the Library Companion, p. 771, edit. 1824.]
[132] The year following the above description, the Catalogue, alluded to, made its appearance under the title of "Catalogue de la Bibliothèque d'un Amateur," in four not very capacious octavo volumes: printed by CRAPELET, who finds it impossible to print--ill. I am very glad such a catalogue has been published; and I hope it will be at once a stimulus and a model for other booksellers, with large and curious stocks in hand, to do the same thing. But I think M. Renouard might have conveniently got the essentials of his bibliographical gossipping into two volumes; particularly as, in reading such a work, one must necessarily turn rapidly over many leaves which contain articles of comparatively common occurrence, and of scarcely common interest. It is more especially in regard to modern French books, of which he seems to rejoice and revel in the description--(see, among other references, vol. iii. p. 286-310) that we may be allowed to regret such dilated statements; the more so, as, to the fastidious taste of the English, the engravings, in the different articles described, have not the beauty and merit which are attached to them by the French. Yet does M. Renouard narrate pleasantly, and write elegantly.
In regard to the "brush at the Decameron," above alluded to, I read it with surprise and pleasure--on the score of the moderate tone of criticism which it displayed--and shall wear it in my hat with as much triumph as a sportsman does a "brush" of a different description! Was it originally more piquan? I have reason not only to suspect, but to know, that it WAS. Be this as it may, I should never, in the first place, have been backward in returning all home thrusts upon the aggressor- -and, in the second place, I am perfectly disposed that my work may stand by the test of such criticism. It is, upon the whole, fair and just; and justice always implies the mention of defects as well as of excellencies. It may, however, be material to remark, that the third volume of the Decameron is hardly amenable to the tribunal of French criticism; inasmuch as the information which it contains is almost entirely national--and therefore partial in its application.
[133] [Not so. Messrs. Payne and Foss once shewed me a yet larger copy of it upon vellum, than even M. Renouard's: but so many of the leaves had imbibed an indelible stain, which no skill could eradicate, that it was scarcely a saleable article. It was afterwards bought by Mr. Bohn at a public auction.]
[134] [It was sold at the Sale of his Aldine Library for £68. 15s. 8d. and is now, I believe, in the fine Collection of Sir John Thorold, Bart, at Syston Park. The Cicero did not come over for sale.]
[135] [In the previous edition I had supposed, erroneously, that it was the Father, M. Renouard himself, who had invoked his name on the occasion. The verses are pretty enough, and may as well find a place here as in M. Crapelet's performance.
Je l'ai vu ce fameux bouquin
Qui te fait un titre de gloire:
Tout Francois qui passe le Rhin
Doit remporter une Victoire.]
[136] [M. Renouard obtained it at a public sale in Paris, against a very stiff commission left for it by myself. A copy of equal beauty is in the Library of the Right Hon. T. Grenville.]
[137] [The Theophrastus was sold for £12 1s. 6d. and the Aristotle for £40. The latter is in the Library of the Rt. Hon. T. Grenville, having been subsequently coated in red morocco by C. Lewis.]