The history of literature, it is said, teaches us to consider its decline only as the development of a great principle of succession by which the treasures of the mind are circulated and equalized; as shoots by which the stream of improvement is forcibly directed into new channels, to fertilize new soils and awaken new capabilities. The history of book-collecting teaches us a similar lesson. The love which so often amounted to a positive passion for the exquisite productions of the Age of Illuminated Manuscripts, all but died with the introduction of the printing-press, which in reality was but a continuation of the old art in a new form. And so on, down through the successive decades and generations of the past four centuries, the decline—but not the death, for such a term cannot be applied to any phase of book-collecting—of one particular aspect of the hobby has synchronized with the birth of several others, sometimes more worthy, and at others less. An exhaustive inquiry into the various and manifold changes through which the human mind passed alone might account for these various developments, which it is not the intention of the present writer on this occasion to analyze.
The rise and progress of what Sir Egerton Brydges calls 'the black-letter mania' gave the death-blow to the long-cherished school of poetry of which Pope may be taken as the most distinguished exponent. 'Men of loftier taste and bolder fancy early remonstrated against this chilling confinement of the noblest, the most aspiring, and most expansive of all the Arts. . . . It was not till the commotion of Europe broke the chain of indolence and insipid effeminacy that the stronger passions of readers required again to be stimulated and exercised and soothed, and that the minor charms of correctness were sacrificed to the ardent efforts of uncontrolled and unfearing genius. The authors of this class began to look back for their materials to an age of hazardous freedom, and copious and untutored eloquence: an age in which the world of words and free and native ideas was not contracted and blighted by technical critics and cold and fastidious scholars.' To abandon the abstract for the more matter-of-fact details of sober history, the mania to which Brydges alludes may be said to date itself from the spring of 1773. The occasion was the sale in London of the library of James West, President of the Royal Society. George Nicol, the bookseller, was an extensive purchaser at this sale for the King, for whom, indeed, he acted in a similar capacity up to the last. Nicol told Dibdin 'with his usual pleasantry and point, that he got abused in the public papers, by Almon and others, for having purchased nearly the whole of the Caxtonian volumes in this collection for his Majesty's library. It was said abroad that a Scotchman had lavished away the King's money in buying old black-letter books.' The absurdity of this report was soon proved at subsequent sales. Dibdin adds, as a circumstance highly honourable to the King, that 'his Majesty, in his directions to Mr. Nicol, forbade any competition with those purchasers who wanted books of science and belles lettres for their own progressive or literary pursuits; thus using the power of his purse in a manner at once merciful and wise.'
The impetus which book-collecting, and more particularly the section to which we have just referred, received by the dispersal of the West Library gathered in force as time went on, reaching its climax with the Roxburghe sale thirty-nine years afterwards. The enthusiasm culminated in a club—the Roxburghe, which still flourishes. The warfare (at Roxburghe House, St. James's Square), as Mr. Silvanus Urban has recorded, was equalled only by the courage and gallantry displayed on the plains of Salamanca about the same period. 'As a pillar, or other similar memorial, could not be conveniently erected to mark the spot where so many bibliographical champions fought and conquered, another method was adopted to record their fame, and perpetuate this brilliant epoch in literary annals. Accordingly, a phalanx of the most hardy veterans has been enrolled under the banner of the far-famed Valdarfer's Boccaccio of 1471. . . . The first anniversary meeting of this noble band was celebrated at the St. Alban's Tavern [St. Alban's Street, now Waterloo Place] on Thursday, June 17, 1813, being the memorable day on which the before-mentioned Boccaccio was sold for £2,260. The chair was taken by Earl Spencer (perpetual president of the club), supported by Lords Morpeth and Gower, and the following gentlemen,[61:A] viz., Sir E. Brydges, Messrs. W. Bentham, W. Bolland, J. Dent, T. F. Dibdin (vice-president), Francis Freeling, Henry Freeling, Joseph Hazlewood, Richard Heber, Thomas C. Heber, G. Isted, R. Lang, J. H. Markland, J. D. Phelps, T. Ponton, junior, J. Towneley, E. V. Utterson, and R. Wilbraham. Upon the cloth being removed, the following appropriate toasts were delivered from the chair:
'After these the health of the noble president was proposed, and received by the company standing, with three times three. Then followed the health of the worthy vice-president (proposed by Mr. Heber), which, it is scarcely necessary to observe, was drunk with similar honours. . . . The president was succeeded in the chair by Lord Gower, who, at midnight, yielded to Mr. Dent; and that gentleman gave way to the Prince of Bibliomaniacs, Mr. Heber. Though the night, or rather the morning, wore apace, it was not likely that a seat so occupied would be speedily deserted; accordingly, the "regal purple stream" ceased not to flow till "Morning oped her golden gates," or, in plain terms, till past four o'clock.' Such is a brief account of the Roxburghe Club, which is limited to thirty-one members, one black ball being fatal to the candidate who offers himself for a vacancy, and each member in his annual turn has to print a book or pamphlet, and to present to his fellow-members a copy. Before making any further reference to the personnel of the Roxburghe Club, we quote, from a literary journal of 1823, the following trenchant paragraph, à propos of a similar club in Scotland:
'Bibliomania.—This most ridiculous of all the affectations of the day has lately exhibited another instance of its diffusion, in the establishment of a Roxburghe[62:A] Club in Edinburgh. Its object, we are told, "is the republication of scarce and valuable tracts, especially poetry."—"Republication!" In what manner? Commonsense forbid that the system of the London Roxburghe Club be adopted. Of this there are some four-and-twenty members or so, who dine together a certain number of times in the year, and each member in his turn republishes some old tract at his own expense. There are just so many copies printed as there are members of the club, and one copy is presented to each. It is evident that no sort of good can be effected by this system, and, indeed, there has not yet resulted any benefit to the literature of the country from the Roxburghe Club. They have not published a single book of any conceivable merit. The truth is that the members, for the most part, are a set of persons of no true taste, of no proper notion of learning and its uses—very considerable persons in point of wealth, but very so-so in point of intellect.'
