Bibliomania; or Book-Madness / A Bibliographical Romance

by Thomas Frognall Dibdin

THE AUCTION-ROOM.

We are here introduced into one of the most bustling and spirit-stirring portions of the whole Work. It is full of characters—alas! now, with only two exceptions, mouldering in their coffins! Philemon (who was one of my earliest and steadiest friends) introduces us to a character, which, under the name of Orlando, made some impression upon the public, as it was thought to represent Michael Wodhull, Esq., of Thenford Hall, near Banbury; an admirable Greek scholar (the translator of Euripides), and perhaps the most learned bibliographer of his age. The conjecture of Orlando being the representative of Mr. Wodhull was not a vain conjecture; although there were, necessarily (I will not say why), parts that slightly varied from the original. Mr. Wodhull re-appears, in his natural person, in the Bibliographical Decameron, vol. iii. p. 363-6. Since the publication of that work, a curious history attaches to his memory. Within a twelvemonth of the expiration of the statute of limitation, an action at law, in the shape of an ejectment, was set on foot by a neighbouring family, to dispossess the present rightful occupant, S.A. Severne, Esq., of the beautiful domain of Thenford; to ransack the Library; to scatter abroad pictures and curiosities of every description; on the alleged ground of insanity, or incompetency to make a will, on the part of Mr. Wodhull. As I had been very minute in the account of Mr. Wodhull's person, in the work just alluded to, I became a witness in the cause; and, as it was brought into Chancery, my deposition was accordingly taken. I could have neither reluctance nor disinclination to meet the call of my excellent friend, Mr. Severne; as I was abundantly confident that the charge of "incompetency to make a will" could not rest upon the slightest foundation. It was insinuated, indeed, that the sister-in-law, Miss Ingram, had forged Mr. Wodhull's name to the will.

Such a conspiracy, to defraud an honourable man and legitimate descendant of his property, is hardly upon record; for, waiting the accidents that might occur by death, or otherwise, in the lapse of twenty years, the cause was brought into the Vice Chancellor's Court with the most sanguine hope of success. I was present during one of the days of argument, and heard my own letter read, of which I had (contrary to my usual habits) taken a copy. The plaintiffs had written to me (suppressing the fact of the intended action), requesting to have my opinion as to Mr. Wodhull's capability. I returned such an answer as truth dictated. The Counsel for the plaintiffs (ut mos est) showered down upon the defendant every epithet connected with base fraud and low cunning, of which the contents of the brief seemed to warrant the avowal. In due course, Sir Knight Bruce, now one of the supernumerary Vice Chancellors, rose to reply. His speech was one undisturbed stream of unclouded narrative and irresistible reasoning. The Vice Chancellor (Shadwell) gave judgment; and my amiable and excellent friend, Mr. Severne, was not only to return in triumph to the mansion and to the groves which had been built and planted by his venerable ancestor, Mr. Wodhull, but he was strongly advised, by the incorruptible judge on the bench, to bring an action against the plaintiffs for one of the foulest conspiracies that had ever been developed in a court of justice. The defendant might have transported the whole kit of them. But the giving advice, and the following it when given, are two essentially different things. A thousand guineas had been already expended on the part of Mr. Severne! When does my Lord Brougham really mean to reform the law? A recent publication ("Cranmer, a Novel") has said, "that he applies sedatives, when he should have recourse to operations."

But the reader must now hurry with me into "The Auction Room." Of the whole group there represented, full of life and of action, two only remain to talk of the conquests achieved![472] And Mr. Hamper, too—whose note, at [p. 117], is beyond all price—has been lately "gathered to his fathers." "Ibimus, ibimus!" But for our book-heroes in the Auction Room.

[472] Before mention made of the Auction Room, there is a long and particular account of the "Lectionum Memorabilium et Reconditarum Centenarii XVI." by John Wolf, in 1600, folio; with a fac simile, by myself, of the portrait of the Author. It had a great effect, at the time, in causing copies of this work to be sedulously sought for and sold at extravagant prices. I have known a fine copy of this ugly book bring £8 8s.

The first in years, as well as in celebrity, is Lepidus; the representative of the late Rev. Dr. Gosset. In the Bibliographical Decameron, vol. iii. p. 5, ample mention is made of him; and here it is, to me, an equally grateful and delightful task to record the worth, as well as the existence, of his two sons, Isaac and Thomas, each a minister of the Church of England. The former is covered with olive branches as well as with reputation; while the latter, declining the "branches" in question, rests upon the stem of his own inflexible worth, and solid scholastic attainments. Mrs. Gardiner, the wife of a Major Gardiner, is the only daughter of Dr. Gosset; a wife, but not a mother. The second in the ranks is Mustapha. Every body quickly found out the original in Mr. Gardiner, a bookseller in Pall Mall; who quickly set about repelling the attack here made upon him, by a long note appended to the article "Bibliomania," in one of his catalogues. Gardiner never lacked courage; but, poor man! his brains were under no controul. We met after this reply, and, to the best of my recollection, we exchanged ... smiles. The catalogue in question, not otherwise worth a stiver, has been sold as high as 15s., in consequence of the Dibdinian flagellation. Poor Gardiner! his end was most deplorable.

We approach Bernardo, who was intended to represent the late Mr. Joseph Haslewood; and of whose book-fame a very particular, and I would hope impartial, account will be found in the "Literary Reminiscences of my Literary Life." There is no one portion of that work which affords me more lively satisfaction on a re-perusal. The cause of the individual was merged in the cause of truth. The strangest compound of the strangest materials that ever haunted a human brain, poor Bernardo was, in spite of himself, a man of note towards his latter days. Every body wondered what was in him; but something, certainly worth the perusal; oozed out of him in his various motley performances; and especially in his edition of Drunken Barnaby's Tour, which exhibited the rare spectacle of an accurate Latin (as well as English) text, by an individual who did not know the dative singular from the dative plural of hic, hæc, hoc! Haslewood, however, "hit the right nail upon the head" when he found out the real author Barnaby, in Richard Brathwait; from the unvarying designation of "On the Errata," at the end of Brathwait's pieces, which is observable in that of his "Drunken Barnaby's Tour." It was an ευρηχα in its way; and the late Mr. Heber used to shout aloud, "stick to that, Haslewood, and your fame is fixed!" He was always proud of it; but lost sight of it sadly, as well as of almost every thing else, when he composed "The Roxburghe Revels." Yet what could justify the cruelty of dragging this piece of private absurdity before the public tribunal, on the death of its author? Even in the grave our best friends may be our worst foes.

At [page 196] we are introduced to Quisquilius, the then intended representative of Mr. George Baker, of St. Paul's Churchyard; whose prints and graphic curiosities were sold after his death for several thousand pounds. Mr. Baker did not survive the publication of the Bibliomania; but it is said he got scent of his delineated character, which ruffled every feather of his plumage. He was thin-skinned to excess; and, as far as that went, a Heautontomorumenos! Will this word "re-animate his clay?"

The "short gentleman," called Rosicrusius, at [page 127], must necessarily be the author of the work. He has not grown taller since its publication, and his coffers continue to retain the same stinted condition as his person. Yet what has he not produced since that representation of his person? How has it pleased a gracious Providence to endow him with mental and bodily health and stamina, to prosecute labours, and to surmount difficulties, which might have broken the hearts, as well as the backs, of many a wight "from five to ten inches taller than himself!" I desire to be grateful for this prolongation of labour as well as of life; and it will be my heart-felt consolation, even to my dying hour, that such "labour" will be acceptable to the latest posterity.

Yet a word or two by way of epilogue. The "Reminiscences" contain a catalogue raisonné of such works as were published up to the year 1836. Since then the author has not been idle. The "Tour into the North of England and Scotland," in two super-royal octavos, studded with graphic gems of a variety of description—and dedicated to the most illustrious female in Europe, for the magnificence of a library, the fruit chiefly of her own enterprise and liberality—has at least proved and maintained the spirit by which he has been long actuated. To re-animate a slumbering taste, to bring back the gay and gallant feelings of past times, to make men feel as gentlemen in the substitution of guineas for shillings, still to uphold the beauty of the press, and the splendour of marginal magnitude, were, alone, objects worthy an experiment to accomplish. But this work had other and stronger claims to public notice and patronage; and it did not fail to receive them. Six hundred copies were irrevocably fixed in the course of the first eighteen months from the day of publication, and the price of the large paper has attained the sum of £12. 12s. Strange circumstances have, however, here and there, thrown dark shadows across the progress of the sale.