On Churchyard’s Discourse of the Queenes Maiesties Entertainment in Suffolk and Norfolk, there is this commentary: ‘This must have been printed in 1577-8, because Frobisher returned from his last journey while this book was printing. I have another copy of this tract, corresponding minutely throughout with the present, except in the dedication.... The Address to the Reader differs also, but merely in the Typography.’ Of Dekker’s Bellman of London, 1608, he says, ‘I have compared this edition with that of 1612, which corresponds exactly, except that six pages of introductory matter are prefixed, and four pages of canting terms are subjoined, entitled “Operis Peroratio.”’ To the ‘O Per Se O’ of the same writer he has attached a still more elaborate account of the readings of various impressions. He appears to have compared all the editions in his hands with remarkable attention and interest.
When we come to Gascoigne’s Posies, 1575, there is a historiette which seems well deserving of reproduction: ‘This interesting copy of G. Gascoigne’s Poems, diligently read and copiously be-noted by his contemporary, Gabriel Harvey, came from the ancient and curious Library of the Parkers of Browsholme, hereditary bow-bearers of Bolland forest under the Dukes of Buccleuch. In the first instance, my friend, Thomas Lyster Parker, merely proposed to arrange, beautify and enlarge the family collection, for which purpose he called in Ford the bookseller to his assistance, who gave the greater part of the volumes new Manchester liveries instead of their old, time-worn coats, in which they had weathered centuries under the domicile of their protectors. Subsequent events induced Mr P. to dispose of the whole; a few of the Caxtons were distributed in London to Lord Spencer and others at considerable prices; but the bulk was sold to Ford, from whom I purchased the present and several more. The Manchester shears have, I fear, somewhat abridged the margins. I prize the volume as no ordinary rarity—it affords a curious average sample of the manner in which G. H. recorded his studies in the margins of his books, his neat handwriting, his various learning, his quaintness, his pedantry, and above all his self-satisfied perseverance.’
Gascoigne’s Works, 1587, Heber made a receptacle for collations with other texts, and I may be pardoned for breaking through my own rule by appending a remark by a former owner, George Steevens, ‘This volume of Gascoigne’s Works was bought for £1, 1s. at Mr Mallet’s, alias Mallock’s, alias M‘Gregor’s sale, March 14, 1766. He was the only Scotchman who died in my memory unlamented by an individual of his own nation.
On the flyleaf of Googe’s Eglogs, 1563, is a composite note by Steevens, Heber and the cataloguer. Heber, alluding to Steevens’s remarks, says, ‘Mr Steevens had never looked into Thomas Rawlinson’s cat., part vii., sold at London House, March 1726, where a copy occurs (perhaps indeed the present one) among the Poetæ in 8vo. See also Ballard’s cat. of Mr T. Britton, Small-coal man, 1714-15, No. 353.’ The Temple of Glass, by Lydgate, evoked the following: ‘I believe there are three editions of this tract—I. The present in Caxton’s types; II. An edition by Wynkyn de Worde; III. An edition by Berthelet, of which there was a copy in Pearson’s collection, bought by Malone, and left by him to Bindley, at whose sale it was bought by James Boswell.’ Just below occurs the entry of Berthelet’s impression, with a memorandum by Boswell, ‘The price, £4, 18s. 0d., which this volume had been previously sold for, is marked above. On the 21st of Jan., 1819, I purchased it for £40, 10s.!!!’ But as it had been left as a legacy by Mr Malone to Mr Bindley, at whose sale I bought it, I scarcely know how to estimate the pretium affectionis of a book which was at once a memorial of two such dear and respected friends. At Heber’s sale the copy fetched £14.
A singular assemblage of Penny Merriments, published between 1621 and 1675 (Heber Cat. iv., 1743) bears this interesting note of provenance, ‘This curious collection belonged originally to Narcissus Luttrell, and passed with the rest of his valuable Library to Mr Edward Wynne of Chelsea, on whose decease it was sold by auction at Leigh & Sotheby’s, March, 1786 (see cat., lot 23). Mr Baynes was the purchaser for £3, 8s. 0d., and bequeathed the poetical and romantic portion of his Library to Mr Ritson, at whose sale I bought it.’
We enter on a different atmosphere and line of culture, when we scan Heber’s note on a small metrical tract by ‘Playne Piers’ on the clergy, printed secretly in the time of Henry VIII., and mis-described by some authorities as in prose: ‘If Maunsell had examined it with due attention, he must have perceived that a large portion of the text (though not the whole) is written in verse, and runs into loosely-accentuated rhyming stanzas and couplets. To say the truth, I am more than half-disposed to ascribe the authorship to the famous W. Roy, of whose poem, Rede me and be not wroth, the present composition reminds me both in sentiment and measure. It is worthy of remark that G. Steevens’s copy of the first edition of that poem (now in my possession) is bound exactly uniform, and being of precisely the same dimensions, they probably were united in one cover till he separated them. It is plain that he attached equal and considerable importance to both, having bestowed on each his best russia binding, with his initials on the sides, and inscribed his autograph on the back of title and at the foot of the last leaf—infallible signs of his especial favour.’
In the case of a Caxton of extraordinary beauty, the Hoole Lyf of Jason, Heber gives an account of the copies known to him, and concludes that his own, in the original binding of oak covered with calf, and with many rough leaves, is the finest. It had been Watson Taylor’s. Another very beautiful one occurred at the Selsey sale in 1871, and fetched £670, Mr Walford desiring to see how far Mr Quaritch would go and seeing accordingly. He was fortunate enough, however, to have it taken off his hands by Mr Ellis, who sold it to an American, I believe, for £800.
Heber, as we all know, was a general scholar, and was at home in foreign no less than in English books. He observes of a very early Roman de la Rose: ‘This Edition is executed in the Characters of Ulric Gering, the earliest Parisian Printer, and is very scarce. There is said to be a copy in the Public Library at Lyons. See Delandine’s catalogue. Gering exercised his art from 1470 to 1520, in which year he died. The present is neither one of the earliest nor latest efforts of his press—perhaps about 1480. It has signatures, but neither catchwords nor numerals. It has also many grotesque woodcuts. The execution and presswork very clear and beautiful.’
Of the romantic accident which threw Robinson’s Golden Mirrour, 1589, into Heber’s hands, I give an account in the Handbook, where I also shew that the author belonged to Alton in Cheshire. Briefly, Rodd the bookseller found the volume of Elizabethan tracts, this included, at a marine store dealer’s on Saffron Hill about 1830, and being put into the scales it was found to be worth fourpence threefarthings. Rodd sold it to Heber for £50. It was a glorious haul, yet not so good as that of Warton the historian, who picked off a broker’s board at Salisbury for sixpence the 1596 edition of Venus and Adonis, bound up with several other pieces of equal or even greater rarity. Those were halcyon days, were they not? But how much the cost governs the appreciation! What comes to us cheap, because no one else wants it, we hold cheap, and that is the history of many of the early bargains.
The Phœnix Nest, 1593, contains the ensuing flyleaf matter: ‘I gave Mr Isaac Reed five Guineas for this very scarce book in the summer of 1802.—R. H....’ Heber enters into very careful detail as to the authors of the several poems, and where some of them appear in other books. The copy was uncut, and sold at his sale for £31, 10s. I accidentally discovered another very fine one at Sion College, bound up at the end of a common volume, and pointed it out to the librarian, the Reverend Mr Milman, who did not seem to be very strongly impressed by the communication. Had it been a sermon worth twopence, he might have felt otherwise.