The Handbook of 1867 and Its Fruits—Mr Henry Huth—His Beneficial Influence on My Bibliographical Labours—He invites Me to co-operate in the Formation of His Library—I edit Books for Him—He declines to entertain the Notion of a Librarian—My Advantages and Risks—A Few Heavy Plunges—A Barnaby’s Journal—A Book of Hours of the Virgin—The Butler MSS.—Archbishop Laud—Montaigne—Mr Huth answerable for My Conversion into a Speculator—The Immense Value of the Departure to My Progress as a Bibliographer—A Caxton from the Country—Why I had to pay so Much for It—Mr Huth’s Preferences—His Americana—Deficiencies of His Library gradually supplied—His Dramatic Series—Beaumont and Fletcher and Ben Jonson—Mr Huth a Linguist and a Scholar—His First Important Purchase—Contrasted with Heber—The Drawer at Mr Quaritch’s kept for Mr Huth—His Uncertainty or Caprice explained by Himself—His Failing Health becomes an Obstacle—The Fancy a Personal One.
The appearance of the Handbook introduced me to the late Mr Henry Huth, and gave me the free range for years of his fine library, with the incidental advantage of assisting in its enlargement, and in the preparation of the catalogue. I had written to Mr Huth in the winter of 1866, soliciting the title and collation of a unique book in his hands, and he wrote back, furnishing the information not quite correctly, but stating that he was always, when in town, at home on Sunday afternoons. This slight incident produced a ten years’ intimacy, and was instrumental in inaugurating a new era in my bibliographical career.
It was when I had reached the letter K in the alphabet that I added Mr Huth to my acquaintance, and thenceforward my book, as it appeared in parts, reflected in its pages the beneficial fruit of weekly visits to that gentleman’s house, and his friendly co-operation in an enterprise which more or less interested him personally.
Our constant intercourse and my widening knowledge of certain classes of books, for which we had a common liking, naturally led to Mr Huth, in the most delicate manner, suggesting after a while, that he should be obliged if I would let him hear of any with which I might meet; and during many years I was in the habit of sending to him single volumes or parcels which fell in my way, and which he had the option of rejecting if he did not care for them, or they happened to be duplicates. I very soon, too, persuaded him to allow me to carry out small literary undertakings for him, for the sake of distributing the very limited number of copies printed among his friends and my own. I became sensible of the inconvenience and awkwardness attendant on the completion of his library, as it involved commercial relations distasteful to us both, and I ventured, as soon as I could, to propose to him a yearly allowance for my help and advice. This idea he was unwilling to entertain, however, because he thought that it would involve something like my domestication on the premises, and the library, as usual, was almost personal to himself. I therefore most reluctantly continued to add to his collection on my own terms, and, with the books which I edited for him and for the publishers, and the general exercise of my bibliographical experience elsewhere, I was in a position to develop by steady degrees my large, yet still rather loosely-defined, project for a general catalogue of early English literature.
My Handbook was brought to an end in 1867, about a twelvemonth subsequent to the fortuitous meeting with Mr Huth. But every day, when the more powerful motive for book-hunting existed, seemed to do its part in opening my eyes to the illimitable magnitude of the field on which I had entered, and in compelling me to pass my pen through some article which I had been tempted to borrow from a secondary authority. In other words, the Handbook was no sooner bound, than I began to convert a considerable proportion of it into waste-paper.
My relations with Mr Huth were, on the whole, as agreeable as they were advantageous. Many and many a rarity in his catalogue passed through my hands, and even when he acquired books elsewhere, he grew into the habit of asking me to go and look through them before they were sent home. My improving familiarity with his tastes and wants placed me in a favoured position, when I stumbled on items in the book-shops and the sale-rooms. Sometimes I had to incur rather formidable risks, and to buy for the library very expensive works, subject to them being approved, and merely on the certainty that they were not duplicates, and were clear desiderata. Such was the case with the extraordinary copy of George Turbervile’s Poems, 1570, in the original sheep binding, as clean and spotless as when it left the first vendor three centuries prior, and nearly the only one known. John Pearson, of York street, Covent Garden, had obtained it of a retired dealer at Shrewsbury for £30, and he asked me £105, with the proviso that it was not returnable as imperfect. I collated it on the spot, and F. S. Ellis very kindly and liberally lent me the money to pay for it. Luckily Mr Huth took to it, and gave me fifty guineas for my trouble. It is one of the chief Elizabethan gems in a library abounding in them.
I remember being in Boone’s shop, in Bond Street, one day, and seeing there a marvellous and matchless copy of Brathwaite’s Barnaby’s Journal, almost uncut, and beautifully bound in red morocco. Boone demanded £18, 18s. for it. I put it in my pocket. The following Sunday I saw Mr Huth, and inquired what sort of a copy of Barnaby he had. He replied that his was as good an one as could be desired, and he opened the case where it lay, and handed it to me. I took mine out, and handed it to him. He smiled. Of course, there was no comparison. His went as a duplicate to Lilly. He did not judge Boone’s dear at twenty-five guineas; it would bring twice that sum now.
I was so much accustomed to frequent the booksellers, and I was so well known and trusted that I overlooked the circumstance, in my earlier visits to Bond Street, that I had not dealt quite so regularly or largely there as elsewhere, and one day when Boone shewed me a fine Book of Hours, of which the price was £150, I coolly placed it under my arm, and walked out of the place, with an intimation that I should like to have it. I suppose that the firm was reassured when I called, a day or so after, and gave them my cheque for the amount. We became very good friends, and I took several things off Boone’s hands for Mr Huth. The Hours I have just mentioned was bound in old velvet; and the owner rather unwisely, as I thought, let Bedford give it a new morocco livery.
One offer on the part of this house to me I was unable to entertain—the Butler MSS. formerly in the hands of the poet’s editor, Thyer, and containing matter not printed by him. Boone spoke of £250; but I declined. What became of them, I never heard; they were not sold with his stock.
His retirement destroyed a link between the old school and the new. He had many curious stories to relate about those whom his uncle and himself had known—about Libri and Dibdin. He (the younger B.) was fairly shrewd and experienced, but thoroughly straightforward. I recollect picking off his shelf one morning an old tract of no particular value, but, as it happened, not in the British Museum, to which I transferred it, bearing on the title the unrecognised autograph, W. Bathon; it was the copy which belonged to Archbishop Laud, when he occupied the See of Bath and Wells.