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| [CHAPTER I] | |
| My Antecedents—How and Whence the Passion came to Me—My Father’s People—And My Mother’s—My Uncle—HisGenuine Feeling for what was Old and Curious—A Disciple of Charles Lamb—Books My First Love—My Courtship of Them under MyFather’s Roof—My Clandestine Acquisitions—A Small Bibliographical Romance—My Uncle as a Collector—Some of HisTreasures—His Choice, and how He differed from My Father—An Adventure of the Latter at a Bookstall—Bargains—TheAuthor moralises upon Them—A New View—I begin to be a Bibliographer—Venice strikes My Fancy as a Subject for Treatment—MyWant of Acquaintance with It—Mr Quaritch and Mr Ruskin do not encourage Me—I resolve to proceed—I teach Myself what was Requisiteto enable Me to do so—Some of My Experiences—Molini the Elder—The London Library Forty Years Ago—What became of MyCollections for the Work—Preparing for Another and Greater Scheme, | [1] |
| [CHAPTER II] | |
| I survey the Ground before I start—I contemplate a New British Bibliography—Richard Heber—His Extraordinary Acquirements—HisVast Library—His Manuscript Notes in the Books—A High Estimate of Heber as a Scholar and a Reader—He eclipses all Other Collectors at Homeand Abroad—A Sample or so of His Flyleaf Memoranda—A Few very Interesting Books noticed—A Historiette—Anecdotes of SomeBargains and Discoveries by Him and His Contemporaries—The Phœnix Nest at Sion College—Marlowe’s Dido—Mystery connected withthe Library at Lee Priory—The Oldest Collections of English Plays—A Little Note about Lovelace—Heber’s Generosity as a Lender—HisKindness to Dyce—Fate of His Rarest Books—How He obtained some of Them—The Daniel Ballads and Their True History—Result of a Studyof Heber’s Catalogue and other Sources of Knowledge—The Handbook appears—Mr Frederick Harrison and Sir Walter Besant pay Me Compliments, | [19] |
| [CHAPTER III] | |
| The Handbook of 1867 and Its Fruits—Mr Henry Huth—His Beneficial Influence on My Bibliographical Labours—He invites Me toco-operate in the Formation of His Library—I edit Books for Him—He declines to entertain the Notion of a Librarian—My Advantages andRisks—A Few Heavy Plunges—A Barnaby’s Journal—A Book of Hoursof the Virgin—The Butler MSS.—Archbishop Laud—Montaigne—Mr Huth answerable for My Conversion into a Speculator—TheImmense Value of the Departure to My Progress as a Bibliographer—A Caxton from the Country—Why I had to pay so Much for It—MrHuth’s Preferences—His Americana—Deficiencies of His Library gradually supplied—His Dramatic Series—Beaumont and Fletcherand Ben Jonson—Mr Huth a Linguist and a Scholar—His First Important Purchase—Contrasted with Heber—The Drawer at Mr Quaritch’s keptfor Mr Huth—His Uncertainty or Caprice explained by Himself—His Failing Health becomes an Obstacle—The Fancy a Personal One, | [41] |
| [CHAPTER IV] | |
| Literary Results of My Acquaintance with Mr Huth—The New Bibliography in Progress, and the 1867 Book gradually superseded—SomeOther Literary Acquaintances—George Daniel—John Payne Collier and Frederic Ouvry, His Son-in-Law—The Millers of Craigentinny—‘Inch-rule’Miller—He purchases at the Heber Sale by Cartloads—My Efforts to procure Particulars of all the Rare Books at Britwell—I let Mr Christie-Millerhave One or Two Items—An Anecdote—Mr Miller’s London House formerly Samuel Rogers’s—His Son—Where They are all buried—The Rev.Thomas Corser—His Fine Library—What It cost and what It fetched—His Difficulties in Forming It—Whither Much of It went—My Exploitsat the Sale—Description of the House where the Books were kept—Mr Corser’s Peculiar Interest in My Eyes—His Personal Character—The SadChange in the Book Market since Corser’s Day—Mr Samuel Sanders—A Curious Incident—Mr Cosens, Mr Turner and Mr Lawrence—TheirCharacteristics—Some Account of Mr Cosens as He gave It to Me—His Line of Collecting—My Assistance requested—A Few of His PrincipalAcquisitions and Their Subsequent Fortunes—Frederic Locker—His Idiosyncrasies—His Want of Judgment—His Confidences, | [57] |
| [CHAPTER V] | |
| Mr Henry Pyne—His Ideas as a Collector, and My Intercourse with Him—His Office One of My Regular Lounges—His Willingness to Partwith Certain Books—I buy a Pig in a Poke, and It turns out well—Mr Pyne’s Sale—A Frost—I buy All the Best Lots for a Trifle—TheVolume of Occasional Forms of Prayer and Its History—Pyne’s Personal Career and Relations—His Investigation of the Affairs of a NobleFamily—The Booksellers—Joseph Lily—His Sale—His Services to Mr Huth—The Daniel Books in 1864—Daniel’s Flyleaf Fibs—TheEvent an Extraordinary Coup—The Napier First Folio Shakespear knocked down and out at £151—Why some Books are Dear without being VeryRare—F. S. Ellis and the Corser Sale—My Successful Tactics—He lends me Sir F. Freeling’s Interleaved Bibliotheca Anglo-poetica | [73] |
| [CHAPTER VI] | |
| My Transactions with Mr Ellis—Rarities which came from Him, and how He got Them—Riviere the Bookbinder—How He cleaned aValuable Volume for Me—His Irritability—A Strange Tale about an Unique Tract—The Old Gentleman and the Immoral Publication—Dryden’sCopy of Spenser—The Unlucky Contretemps at Ellis’s—A Second SomewhereElse—Mr B. M. Pickering—Our Pleasant and Profitable Relations—Thomas Fuller’s MSS. Epigrams—Charles Cotton’s Copy of Taylor theWater-Poet’s Works—A Second One, which Pickering had, and sold to Me—He has a First Edition of Paradise Lost from Me for Two Guineas anda Half—Taylor’s Thumb Bible, | [93] |
| [CHAPTER VII] | |
| Mr John Pearson—Origin of Our Connection—His Appreciable Value to Me—He assists, through Me, in Completing the Huth Library—Lovelace’sLucasta—The Turbervile—The Imperfect Chaucer—The Copy of Ruskin’s Poems at Reading—The Walton’s Angler—Locker andPearson—James Toovey—Curious Incident in Connection with Sir Thomas Phillipps—Willis & Sotheran—Two Unique Cookery Books—OnlyJust in Time—The Caxton’s Game and Play of the Chess—A Valuable Haul from the West of England—A Reverend Gentleman’s MSS. Diaries ofTravel—The Wallers—Lamb’s Tales from Shakespear, 1807—The Folio MS. of Edmond Waller’s Poems—An Unique Book of Verse—ARare American Item—The Rimells—I take from Them and sell to Them—Some Notable Americana—The Walfords—An Unique Tract by Taylorthe Water Poet—John Russell Smith and His Son—My Numerous Transactions with the Latter—Another Unknown Taylor—John Camden Hotten—Isift His Stores in Piccadilly—The Bunyan Volume from Cornwall—John Salkeld—My Expedition to His Shop on a Sunday Night, and Its Fruit—ARather Ticklish Adventure or Two—Messrs Jarvis & Son—My Finds There—King James I.’s Copy of Charron, dedicated to Prince Henry—TheUnknown Fishmongers’ Pageant for 1590—The Long-Lost English Version of Henryson’s Æsop, 1577, | [108] |
| [CHAPTER VIII] | |
| Messrs Reeves & Turner—My Literary Work for the Firm—My Advantageous Acquisitions Here—Cheap Rates at which Rare Books were FormerlyObtainable—The Large Turn-over of the Business—Wake of Cockermouth—An Unique Wynkyn de Worde—A Supposed Undescribed Shakespear in aHouse-Sale at Bognor—Tom Arthur—The Wynkyn de Worde, which I secured for Another Shilling—Arthur and Sir Thomas Phillipps of MiddleHill—The Bristol Book Shops—Lodge’s Rosalynd, 1592—Mr Elliot Stock—My Literary Work for Him—One Volume UnexpectedlyProductive—Mr Henry Stopes—My Recovery for Him of a Sarum Breviary, which belonged to an Ancestor in Queen Mary’s Days—His Wife’s Familyand Sir Walter Scott—A Canterbury Correspondent and His Benefits—Two More Uniques—A Singular Recovery from New York—Casual Strokesof Good Luck in the Provinces—The Wynkyn de Worde at Wrexham—A Trouvaille in the Haymarket—Books with Autographs and Inscriptions—AFew Words about Booksellers and Publishers, | [128] |
| [CHAPTER IX] | |
| At the Auction-Rooms—Their Changeable Temperature—My Finds in Wellington Street—Certain Conclusions as to the Rarity of Old EnglishBooks—Curiosities of Cataloguing and Stray Lots—A Little Ipswich Recovery—A Narrow Escape for some Very Rare Volumes in 1865—A FewRemarkable Instances of Good Fortune for Me—Not for Others—Three Very Severe‘Frosts’—A Great Boom—Sir John Fenn’s Wonderful Books at last brought to Light—An Odd Circumstance about One of Them—The Writermoralises—A Couple of Imperfect Caxtons bring £2900—The Gentlemen behind the Scene and Those at the Table—Books converted intoVertu—My Intervention on One or Two Occasions—The Auctioneers’ World—The ‘Settlement’ Principle—My Confidence in Sotheby’s asCommission Agents—My Three Sir Richard Whittingtons—A Reductio ad Absurdum—The House in Leicester Square and Its Benefactionsin My Favour—Change from the Old Days—Unique A.B.C.’s and Other Early School Books—the Somers Tracts—Mr Quaritch and His BibliographicalServices to Me—His Independence of Character—The British Museum—My Resort to It for My Venetian Studies Forty Years Ago—TheSources of Supply in the Printed Book Department—My Later Attitude toward It as a Bibliographer—The Vellum Monstrelet and ItsTrue History—Bookbinders—Leighton, Riviere, Bedford, Pratt—Horrible Sight which I witnessed at a Binder’s—My Publishers—Dodsley’sOld Plays—My Book on the Livery Companies of London—Presentation-Copies, | [150] |
| [CHAPTER X] | |
| As an Amateur—Old China—Dr Diamond of Twickenham—Unfavourable Results of His Tutorship—My Adventure at Lowestoft—AldermanRose—I turn over a New Leaf—Morgan—His Sale to Me of Various Objects—The Seventeenth Century Dishes—The Sèvres Tray of 1773—ThePair of Japanese Dishes—Blue and White—Hawthorn—The Odd Vase—My Finds at Hammersmith—Mr Sanders of Chiswick and his ChelseaChina—Gale—The Ruby-backed Eggshell—A Recollection of Ralph Bernal—Buen Retiro and Capo di Monte—Reynolds of Hart Street—TheWedgewood Teapot—The Rose du Barri Vases—My Bowls—An Eccentric Character and His Treasures—Reminiscences of Midhurst and UpPark—The Zurich Jug and My Zurich Visitor—The Diamond Sale, | [188] |
| [CHAPTER XI] | |
| The Stamp Book—A Passing Taste—Dr Diamond again—An Establishment in the Strand—My Partiality for Lounging—One of My Hauntsand Its Other Visitors—Our Entertainer Himself—His Principals Abroad—The Cinque Cento Medal—Canon Greenwell—Mr Montagu—Storyof a Dutch Priest—My Experience of Pictures—The Stray Portrait recovered after Many Years—The Two Wilson Landscapes—Sir Joshua’s Portraitof Richard Burke—Hazlitt’s Likeness of Lamb—The Picture Market and Some of Its Incidence—Story of a Painting—Plate—The Rat-tailedSpoon—Dr Diamond smitten—The Hogarth Salver—The Edmund Bury Godfrey and Blacksmiths’ Cups—Irish Plate—Danger of Repairing or CleaningOld Silver—The City Companies’ Plate, | [215] |
| [CHAPTER XII] | |
| Coins—Origin of My Feeling for Them—Humble Commencement—Groping in the Dark—My Scanty Means and Equally Scanty Knowledge,but Immense Enthusiasm and Inflexibility of Purpose—The Maiden Acquisition Sold for Sixteenpence—The Two Earliest Piecesof the New Departure—To whom I first went—Continuity of Purchases inAll Classes—Visit to Italy (1883)—My Eyes gradually opened—Count Papadopoli and Other Numismatic Authorities—My Sketch of the Coinsof Venice published (1884)—Casual Additions to the Collection and Curious Adventures—Singular Illusions of the Inexperienced—Anecdotes ofa Relative—Two Wild Money-Changers Tamed—Captain Hudson—The Auction-Thief—A Small Joke to be pardoned, | [235] |
| [CHAPTER XIII] | |
| My Principal Furnishers—Influence of Early Training on My Taste—Rejection of Inferior Examples an Invaluable Safeguard—I outgrowMy First Instructors—Necessity for Emancipation from a Single Source of Supply—Mr Schulman of Amersfoort—His Influential Share in AmplifyingMy Numismatic Stores—My Visit to Him—The Rare Daalder of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland—My Adventures at Utrecht andBrussels—Flattering Confidence—In the Open Market—Schulman’s Catalogues—MM. Rollin & Feuardent—Their EnglishRepresentative—Courtesy and Kindness to the Writer—Occasional Purchases—The Late Mr Montagu—Discussion about an Athenian GoldStater—An Atmospheric Experiment—My Manifold Obligations to Mr Whelan—Mr Cockburn of Richmond allows Me to select from His EnglishCollection—I forestall Mr Montagu—Messrs Spink & Son—Their Prominent Rank and Cordial Espousal of My Interests and Wants—Developmentof My Cabinet under Their Auspices—My Agreeable Relations with Them—Their Business-like Policy, Liberality and Independence—The Prince ofNaples—We give and take a Little—The Monthly Numismatic Circular—The Clerical Client, | [257] |
| [CHAPTER XIV] | |
| The Coin Sales—My Stealthy Accumulations from Some of Them—Comparative Advantages of Large and Small Sales—The Disappointment over Oneat Genoa—The Boyne Sale—Its Meagre Proportion of Fine Pieces—My Comfort, and what came to Me—Narrow Escape of the Collection from Sacrificeto a Foreign Combination—Trade Sales Abroad—A New Departure—Considerations on Poorly-Preserved Coins—I resign Them to the Learned—Ihave to Classify by Countries and Their Divisions—My Personal Appurtenances—Suggestions which may be Useful to Others—The Great BactrianDiscovery—Extent of Representative Collections of Ancient Money—Antony and Cleopatra—Adherence to My own Fixed and Deliberate Plan—TheArgument to be used by Any One following in My Footsteps—Advice of an Old Collector to a New One, | [284] |
| [CHAPTER XV] | |
| Literary Direction given to My Numismatic Studies and Choice—The Wallenstein Thaler—The Good Caliph Haroun El Reschid—Some of theTwelve Peers of France who struck Money—Lorenzo de’ Medici, called The Magnificent—Robert the Devil—Alfred the Great—Harold—TheEmpress Matilda—Marino Faliero—Massaniello—The Technist thinks poorly of Me—My Plea for the Human, Educating Interest in Coins—ThePenny Box now and then makes a Real Collector—How I threw Myself in Medias Res—First Impressions of the Greek Series—My Difficulty inApprehending Facts—Early Illusions gradually dissipated—WhatConstitutes a Typical Greek and Roman Cabinet—And what renders Great Collections Great—Redundance in Certain Cases defended—Official Authoritiesexcept to My Treatment of the Subject—Tom Tidler’s Ground—The Technical versus the Vital and Substantial Interest in Coins—My Width ofSympathy Beneficial to Myself and likely to prove so to My Followers—Outline and Distribution of My Collection—Autotype Replicas and Forgeries—RomanticEvolution of Bactrian Coinage and History—Caution to My Fellow-Collectors against Excessive Prices for Greek Coins—Wait and Watch—Mr Hyman Montaguand His Roman Gold, and the Moral—The Best Coins not the Dearest—Our National Series—Its Susceptibility to Eclectic Treatment—A WhimsicalSpeculation—An Untechnical Method of Looking at a Coin—A Burst Bubble—The Continental Currencies—Their Clear Superiority of Interest andInstructive Power—The Writer’s Attitude toward Them, | [304] |
| [CHAPTER XVI] | |
| The Question of Condition considered More at Large—How One most Forcibly Realises Its Importance and Value—Limited Survival of Ancient Coinsin Fine State—Practical Tests at Home and Abroad—Lower Standard in Public Institutions and the Cause—Only Three Collectors on My Lines besidesMyself—The Romance of the Shepherd Sale—Its Confirmation of My Views—Small Proportion of Genuine Amateurs in the Coin-Market—FastidiousBuyers not very Serviceable to the Trade—An Anecdote by the Way—The Eye for State more Educated in England than Abroad—American Feeling andCulture—What will Rare Old Coins bring, when the Knowledge of Them is more developed?—The Ladies stop the Way—Continental Indifference toCondition—Difficulties attendant on Ordering from Foreign Catalogues—Contrast between Them and Our Own—D’une Beauté Excessive—Conditiona Relative Term—Its Dependence on circumstances—Words of Counsel—Final Conclusions—Do I regret having become a Collector?—My Mistakes, | [331] |
Confessions of a Collector
CHAPTER I
My Antecedents—How and Whence the Passion came to Me—My Father’s People—And My Mother’s—My Uncle—His Genuine Feeling for what was Old and Curious—A Disciple of Charles Lamb—Books My First Love—My Courtship of Them under My Father’s Roof—My Clandestine Acquisitions—A Small Bibliographical Romance—My Uncle as a Collector—Some of His Treasures—His Choice, and how He differed from My Father—An Adventure of the Latter at a Bookstall—Bargains—The Author moralises upon Them—A New View—I begin to be a Bibliographer—Venice strikes My Fancy as a Subject for Treatment—My Want of Acquaintance with It—Mr Quaritch and Mr Ruskin do not encourage Me—I resolve to proceed—I teach Myself what was Requisite to enable Me to do so—Some of My Experiences—Molini the Elder—The London Library Forty Years Ago—What became of My Collections for the Work—Preparing for Another and Greater Scheme.
When one makes in later life some sort of figure as a collector, it may become natural to consider to what favouring circumstances the entrance on the pursuit or pursuits was due. In the present case those circumstances were slight and trivial enough. Although I belonged to a literary family, none of my ancestors had been smitten by the bibliomania or other cognate passion, simply because at first our resources were of the most limited character, and my grandfather was a man of letters and nothing more. He was without that strange, inexplicable cacoethes, which leads so many to gather together objects of art and curiosities on no definite principle or plea throughout their lives, to be scattered again when they depart, and taken up into their bookcases or cabinets by a new generation. This process, broadly speaking, has been in operation thousands of years. It is an inborn and indestructible human trait.
The earliest vestige of a feeling for books among us is unconnected with Collecting as a passion. My great-grandfather, the Presbyterian or Congregational minister, had his shelf or two of volumes, mostly of a professional cast. We hear of the Fratres Poloni, five stupendous folios, brimful of erudition—books which seem, to our more frivolous and superficial and hurrying age, better suited to occupy a niche in a museum as a monumental testimony to departed scholarship—books, alas! which those blind instruments of the revolutionary spirit of change, the paper mill and the fire, draw day by day nearer to canonisation in a few inviolable resting-places, as in sanctuaries dedicated to the holy dead. They will enter on a new and more odorous life: we shall look awfully upon them as upon literary petrifactions, which to bygone ages were living and speaking things.
The Rev. W. Hazlitt was, nevertheless, a man of unusually generous sympathies for his time and his cloth; he could relish secular as well as sacred literature, and his distinguished son thought better of him as a letter-writer than as a preacher. But neither engaged in the pursuit of books otherwise than as practical objects of study or entertainment. There was nothing ‘hobby-horsical,’ to borrow Coleridge’s expression, about the matter. Hazlitt himself secured, as he tells us, stall copies of favourite books or pamphlets, devoured the contents, and then probably cast them aside. This I take to have been Shakespear’s plan. I cannot believe the great poet to have been a bibliophile like Jonson. He merely recognised in other men’s work material or suggestion for his own.
I conclude that with my father and the Scotish blood of his maternal progenitors, the Stoddarts and Moncrieffs, a certain share of taste for antiquities, or, at any rate, for memorials of the past in a literary shape, was inherited by the Hazlitts. My immediate paternal ancestor, the late Mr Registrar Hazlitt, undoubtedly possessed a strong instinctive disposition to form around him a collection of books. He was emphatically acquisitive almost to the last; and had he been a richer man, he would probably have left behind him a fairly good and extensive library. My father was deficient in knowledge and insight—I might add, in judgment. He bought the wrong copies, or he allowed the right ones to be massacred by a pagan binder; but he was a book-lover. The nucleus of his collection had been a set of Hazlitt’s works, a few volumes given to him by Miss Lamb and others, and, of course, his own publications.