Before leaving the subject of Bibles, we may refer to one of the most interesting events of the book-sale season of 1836, when, at Evans's on April 27, the superb copy of St. Jerome's Bible, executed by Alcuin for Charlemagne, came up for sale. Commenced about the year 778, it was not completed till 800. When it was finished it was sent to Rome by his friend and disciple, Nathaniel, who presented it to Charlemagne on the day of his coronation; it was preserved by that monarch until his death. Its subsequent history is full of interest, and would form an entertaining chapter in the Adventures of Books. After its first owner's death, it is supposed to have been given to the monastery of Prum in Lorraine by Lothaire, the grandson of Charlemagne, who became a monk of that monastery. In 1576, this religious house was dissolved, but the monks preserved the manuscript, and carried it to Switzerland to the abbey of Grandis Vallis, near Basle, where it reposed till the year 1793, when, on the occupation of the episcopal territory of Basle by the French, all the property of the abbey was confiscated and sold, and the manuscript in question came into the possession of M. Bennot, from whom, in 1822, it was purchased by M. Speyr Passavant, who brought it into general notice, and offered it for sale to the French Government at the price of 60,000 francs; this was declined, when the proprietor knocked off nearly 20,000 francs from the original demand, but still without effecting a sale. M. Passavant subsequently brought it to England, and offered it to the Duke of Sussex, who, however, declined it. It was then offered to the British Museum for £12,000, then for £8,000, and at last for £6,500, which he declared an 'immense sacrifice.' Unsuccessful at every turn, he resolved to submit it to auction, and the precious volume was entrusted to Evans. It was knocked down for £1,500, but to the proprietor himself. After a further lapse of time, Passavant sold the volume to the British Museum for £750. This splendid manuscript is a large folio in delicate and beautifully formed minuscule characters, with the beginnings of chapters in fine uncials, written in two columns on the purest vellum. If this magnificent manuscript were now offered for sale, it would probably realize at least £3,000.
The rise in the value of the First Folio Shakespeare only dates back for about a century. Beloe, writing in 1806, states that he remembers the time when a very fine copy could be purchased for five guineas. He further observes, 'I could once have purchased a superb one for 9 guineas'; and (apparently) this 'superb' example realized 13 guineas at Dr. Monro's sale in 1792. At the end of the last century it was thought to have realized the 'top' price with 36 guineas. Dr. Askew had a fine copy of the Second Folio, which realized at his sale, in 1775, £5 10s.—it had cost 2-1/2 guineas at Dr. Mead's sale—the purchaser being George Steevens. In this book Charles I. had written these words: 'Dum Spiro, Spero, C. R.,' and Sir Thomas Herbert, to whom the King presented it the night before his execution, had also written: 'Ex dono serenissimi Regis Car. servo suo Humiliss. T. Herbert.' Steevens regarded the amount which he paid for it as 'enormous,' but at his sale it realized 18 guineas, and was purchased for the King's library, and is now, with some other books bought by George III., at Windsor. Steevens supposes that the original edition could not have exceeded 250 copies, and that £1 was the selling price. Its rarity ten or a dozen years after its first appearance may be gauged by the fact that Charles I. was obliged to content himself with a copy of the Second Folio; its rarity at the present moment will be readily comprehended when it is stated that during the past ninety years only five or six irreproachable examples have occurred for sale. The copy for which the Duke of Roxburghe gave 34 guineas, realized at his sale £100, and passed into the library of the Duke of Devonshire. The example in the possession of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts is a very fine one; it was formerly George Daniel's copy, and realized 682 guineas at his sale in 1864. Height makes a great difference in the price of a book of this sort. For example, a good sound example measuring 12-1/4 inches by 8 inches is worth about £136; another one measuring 13-1/8 by 8-3/8 inches would be worth £300, and perhaps more. Dibdin, with his usual prophetic inaccuracy, described the amount (£121 6s.) at which Mr. Grenville obtained his copy as 'the highest price ever given, or likely to be given, for the volume.' As a matter of fact, the time must come when it will be no longer possible to obtain a perfect copy of this volume, which to English people is a thousand times more important than the Gutenberg Bible or the Psalmorum Codex.
The following list is believed to contain all the finest examples known at present:
| FIRST FOLIO EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE, 1623. | |||
Inches High. | Inches Wide. | Present Possessor. | |
Loscombe | 12 | × 8 | |
Sotheby's | 12-1/4 | × 8 | |
Gardner | 12-3/8 | × 8 | Mr. Huth. |
Stowe | 12-3/8 | × 8-1/8 | |
Poynder | 12-1/2 | × 8-1/8 | |
Ellis | 12-5/8 | × 8-1/8 | Earl of Crawford. |
Quaritch's Catalogue | 12-11/12 | × 8 | |
Thomas Grenville | 12-7/8 | × 8-3/8 | British Museum. |
Holland | 12-3/8 | × 8-1/2 | |
Duke of Devonshire | 13-1/8 | × 8-1/8 | Chatsworth. |
George Daniel | 13-1/8 | × 8-1/4 | Baroness Burdett-Coutts. |
Beaufoy Library | 13 | × 8-3/8 | |
Locker-Lampson | 13 | × 8-3/8 | Rowfant Library. |
Gosford (Earl of) | 12-7/8 | × 8-3/8 | |
Lord Vernon | 13-1/16 | × 8-3/8 | America. |
Hartley | 13-1/8 | × 8-1/2 | |
John Murray | 13 | × 8-1/2 | Albemarle Street. |
Thorold | 13-3/8 | × 8-1/2 | America. |
Sir Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, | 13-3/8 | × 8-3/4 | Mr. C. J. Toovey. |
The Second, 1632, Third, 1664, and Fourth, 1685, Folios have considerably advanced in value—the Second has risen from £15, at which the Roxburghe copy was sold in 1812, to nearly £200; George Daniel's copy, of the purest quality from beginning to end, and one of the largest known, sold for £148, but fairly good copies may be had for half that amount. The Third Folio, which is really the rarest, as most of the impression was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, has gone up from £20 or £30 to £200, or even more when the seven doubtful plays have the separate title-page; and the Fourth Folio from £5 to about ten times that amount. But the most remarkable feature in connection with Shakespeare, so far as we are just now concerned, is the change which has taken place in the value of the quartos. We give below a tabulated list of first editions, in which this change will be seen at a glance:
| Former Price. | Recent Price. | ||||||||
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||||
| 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' 1818 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 385 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Much Ado About Nothing,' |
| 1797 1818 | 7 17 | 10 17 | 0 0 | 267 | 10 | 0 | |
| 'Love's Labour Lost,' 1818 | 40 | 10 | 0 | 316 | 10 | 0 | |||
| 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' |
| 1805 1818 | 2 12 | 2 10 | 0 0 | 116 | 0 | 0 | |
| 'The Merchant of Venice' |
| 1815 1818 | 9 22 | 9 1 | 0 0 | 270 | 0 | 0 | |
| 'King Richard II.,' 1598,[143:A] 1800 | 4 | 14 | 6 | 108 | 3 | 0 | |||
| '2 Henry IV.,' 1797 (one leaf MS.) | 8 | 8 | 0 | 225 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Henry V.,' 1818 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 211 | 0 | 0 | |||
| '1 Henry VI.,' 1801 | 38 | 7 | 0 | 50 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Richard III.,' 1818 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 351 | 15 | 0 | |||
| 'Troilus and Cressida,' 1800 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 110 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Romeo and Juliet,' 1800 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 160 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Hamlet,' 1812 | 4 | 13 | 0 | 36 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'King Lear,' 1800 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 70 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Othello' (1622), 1818 | 56 | 14 | 0 | 155 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Pericles,' 1812 | 1 | 15 | 0 | 40 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Lucrece' | 21 | 0 | 0 | 250 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Venus and Adonis'[143:B] (Malone's copy) | 25 | 0 | 0 | 315 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 'Poems' | 70 | 0 | 0 | ||||||
| 'Sonnets' |
| 1800 1812 | 3 21 | 10 0 | 0 0 | 230 | 15 | 0 | |
