There was a notable drop in the biddings for the imperfect copies of Chaucer from Caxton's press, and a host of items went for next to nothing, which in an inferior sale would have realised far more. It is ever so; and of course there was half a century's interest on the outlay. Still what an intense pleasure beyond money it had afforded the nobleman who formed it! And let us think, again, to how long a succession of holders the same beautiful or rare book has been a friend and a companion, a source of delight and pride!
It was remarked in the room that the present Earl had enlarged his father's possessions only to the extent of one volume (No. 2748), for which he gave £4, and which yielded him £7. He had no right to complain so far.
Concurrently with the Ashburnham episode in 1897, there came upon us all, like a shell, the extraordinary report, which proved too true, not only that the representative of Johnson of Spalding had determined to part with the valuable library preserved in the house since at least the time of the Stuarts, if not of the Tudors, but that Mrs. Johnson had actually called in a local clergyman to select what books he deemed worthy of being sent up to London for sale, and had committed the residue to a local auctioneer. The catalogues were partly distributed before the books were added, and very few booksellers were even aware of the matter, till the sale was over. Not more than three or so, and a few private persons, were present; the volumes were made up in parcels and only one mentioned, and the bidding did not exceed two or three shillings a lot. Supposing 2000 items, comprised in 100 bundles at 3s. each; the grand total would be £15! Blades quotes the library as containing seven Caxtons, and the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw thought it worth while to pay a visit to Spalding to make notes, which he very kindly communicated to us. One of the purchasers at the sale offered me two of his minor acquisitions for £30. Although the library included a proportion of desirable articles, many of the books were esteemed so worthless that the acquirers removed the ex libris, and left the rest behind them!
Some of the Caxtons in the public library at Cambridge have belonged to the Johnson family, and are supposed to have been formerly presented to it by those of Spalding. They were acquired in the earlier half of the reign of Henry VIII. by Martin Johnson at the then current prices—from sixpence to a shilling or so; and a stray or two from the same collection, long prior to the dispersion of 1897, has occurred in the auction-rooms. I have to mention in particular the Spalding Chartulary, sold in 1871. But a few still remained on the old ground, and fortunately five were bound up together in one volume, which was not comprised in the wretched fiasco and anti-climax. This precious collection was offered to Mr. Jacobus Weale, while he was still curator at South Kensington, for £20, and declined, because, as an officer of a public institution, he could not accept it at that price, and was unable to pay the real value. Two, Curia Sapientiæ, by Lydgate, and Parvus et Magnus Cato, have since been acquired by the British Museum, with five excessively rare specimens of the press of Wynkyn de Worde. The National Library did not require the Reynard the Fox or the Game of the Chess.
The Spalding case was as unique as some of the books themselves. The owner seems to have been grossly ignorant of their value, as well as wholly indifferent to the property as heirlooms.
Except as a matter of record and history, the collector need not so greatly concern himself with all those libraries which have been scattered, and yet he finds it desirable to refer to the catalogues, if they were publicly sold, in order to trace books from one hand to another, till they return into the market and find a new owner—perhaps himself. One might fill a volume with a list of all the sales which the last forty years have witnessed; but, taking the principal names, let us enumerate:—
| Addington | Ireland |
| Ashburnham | Johnson of Spalding |
| Auchinleck (Boswell) | Laing |
| Bandinel | Maidment |
| Beckford | Makellar of Edinburgh |
| Blew | Middle Hill |
| Bliss | Mitford |
| Bolton Corney | Offor |
| Collier | Osterley Park |
| Corser | Ouvry |
| Cosens | Rimbault |
| Crossley | Sir David Dundas |
| Dunn-Gardner | Sir John Fenn |
| Fountaine | Sir John Simeon |
| Fraser of Lovat | Singer |
| Frere | Stourhead |
| Fry | Sunderland |
| Gibson-Craig | Surrenden |
| Halliwell-Phillipps | Syston Park |
| Hamilton Palace | Way |
| Hartley | William Morris (residue after private sale) |
| Henry Cunliffe | Wolfreston |
| Inglis |
Within these broad lines, which do not include libraries privately acquired by institutions, such as the Dyce, Forster, and Sandars, or by the trade, which is an almost daily incidence, are comprehended a preponderant share of all the important books which have come to the front since the earliest period, of which there is an authentic register.
For we have to recollect that many of the persons whose possessions were dispersed only in our time were buyers a century or more ago, and had from Osborne, at what still appear to our weak minds provokingly low prices, his Harleian bargains. By the way, he kept them a tolerably long time. Did some one help him to find the money, or did he pay it by instalments? Seriously speaking, it was rather a white elephant. One of the most notorious private transactions in the way of sales of books en bloc was that by the Royal Society in 1873 of the printed portion of the Pirkheimer Library, presented to it by Henry Howard, Duke of Norfolk, the first president, and originally purchased by his ancestor, the celebrated Earl of Arundel, in 1636.
The dispersion of the Harleian Library doubtless gave an impetus to the revival in the eighteenth century of a taste for book-collecting; but of course a large proportion of the purchases from Osborne himself was on the part of buyers who parted with their acquisitions, and of whom we have no further record. But the Osterley Park and Ham House collections, the latter still intact, owed many indeed of their greatest treasures to this source. In 1768 Dr. Johnson, who had had a leading hand in the compilation of the Harleian Catalogue, and had so gained a considerable experience of the bearings of the matter, as they were then understood, addressed a long and interesting letter to the King's Librarian on the subject of the public collections of Europe and other bibliographical particulars.
