CHAPTER XI

The extrinsic features in books—Autographs—Inscriptions—Various classes of them and of interest in their subject-matter—The Henry VIII. Prayer-Book of 1544—Some account of it—Gabriel Harvey—Spenser—Evelyn—Milton—Hypothetical grands prix—Classification of inscriptions—Examples—Dramatists—Poets—Jonson, Massinger, Drayton, Wycherley, Killigrew—Mere signatures—Shakespeare's copy of Florio's Montaigne, 1603—The Earl of Essex's copy of Drayton's Eclogues, 1593—Humphrey Chetham—Strays from his library—Beau Nash as a collector—Sir Joshua Reynolds—William Beckford and his Vathek—Foreign autographs and memoranda—A whimsical note in a copy of Shakespeare's Passionate Pilgrim, 1599—Interesting MS. matter in a copy of Stow's Survey, 1633—Pepys's binder—Dr. Burney and his verses in Sandford and Merton—Napoleon and Josephine—The Lutheran Testament given by the latter to General Buonaparte—A charming presentation copy from Josephine of Voltaire's Henriade—What makes the interest in autographs—Ineptitudes—The reviewer's copy—Latter-day vandalism—Arms on books—Prefaces and Dedications—Imprimaturs.

What may be treated as the casual accessories of books of nearly all periods and countries—the autograph inscription testifying to the ownership or signalising a gift from one possessor to another—have manifold and diversified elements of interest and attraction. These features offer a graduated scale of importance, just as it happens. The question depends on the donor, or the recipient, or the article given and received; and where all these combine to augment the charm and to complete the spell, the issue is electrifying. No more impressive corroboration of this truth could well be desired or produced than the Henry VIII. Prayer-Book of 1544 on vellum, from the Fountaine Collection, with the MSS. notes and autographs of the King, the Princess Mary, Prince Edward, and Queen Catherine Parr. It fetched about 600 guineas at Christie's in 1894.

In the Bibliographer, Bookworm, and his own Collections, the writer has formerly assembled together notices of all the most remarkable examples of English books, both printed and in MS., with inscriptions, marginalia, and other records of prior and successive possession, brought within his reach during more than thirty years past. There are not unreasonably people who may not see in an ordinary copy of a volume much tangible interest, yet who are prepared to recognise the value, and even importance, of one with the autograph and memoranda of some illustrious personage, of some great warrior or statesman, or of a famous man of letters, artist, or sculptor. The accidental and secondary feature in the work takes precedence of the rest; he pays for the sentiment and association. The direct human interest resident in such a relic is apt, in the opinion of many, to surpass that of the finest binding; for one has here the very characters traced long ago by the holder; one can imagine him (or her) seated at the table engaged in the task of leaving to the times to come this memento. The book is the casual receptacle; perchance in itself it is of inconsiderable worth; but the manuscript accessions are as an embalmment and a sanctification. The copy is not as others; it has descended to us as a part of a precious inheritance, of which the mere paper and print are the least significant; we are to approach and touch it reverently, as if the individual to whom it appertained were standing by, to reprove an ungentle hand and take back the legacy.

It would be barely possible, were it of essential use, to schedule all the existing presentation or annotated copies of books in our own and other literatures, but we shall here make an effort to offer a general view of what is intended, and what may in some instances become attainable by watching opportunities:—

Monastic inscriptions are generally limited in their interest to casual light shed by them on personages connected with the institution or on some local circumstance.

Of royal books, genuine and otherwise, the number has had a tendency to increase through the successive dispersion of old libraries everywhere, combined with the additional facilities for gaining access to those which still remain intact. The Henry VIII. Prayer-Book on vellum is the only copy known in any state of the edition of 1544, and may not have been publicly issued with this date.

Some of the royal memoranda are of signal interest and curiosity. On the back of the title, under the royal arms, the king himself says: "Remember thys wrighter wen you doo pray for he ys yours noon can saye naye. Henry R." At the passage: "I have not done penance for my malice," the same hand inserts in the margin: "trewe repentance is the best penance;" and farther on he makes a second marginal note on the sentence: "thou hast promysed forgyveness," . . . "repentance beste penance." This was a sort of family common-place book. Inside the cover Prince Edward (afterward Edward VI.) writes: "I will yf you will." The volume, which contains other matter of great historical value, appears to have been given by Henry VIII. shortly before his death to his daughter Mary; for on a small piece of vellum inside the cover he has written: "Myne owne good daughter I pray you remember me most hartely when you in your prayere do shew for grace to be attayned assurydly to yr lovyng fader Henry R." The Princess subsequently gave it to her stepmother, Catherine Parr, and it has a motto and signature of that lady's second husband, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the Admiral.