Besides the works already noticed, are Sylvester's "Du Bartus"; Warner's "Albion and England," published in 1586; "all the works of John Taylor, the water-poet, being sixty and three in number," published in folio in 1630. This is a very rare work, and is said to have been sold for eighty guineas. A similar work to this is the "Shype of Fools of the Worlde," translated from Brandt, and published in black-letter folio, with many wood-cuts, in 1509. A perfect copy of this work is very rare. The one in the present collection is wanting in the title-page and two last leaves. [12] Its price in the catalogue Anglo-Poetica, is one hundred guineas. The copy of Taylor, in the collection, is a fine large one, and handsomely bound. The real value of these two last volumes, in a literary point of view, is perhaps not great, but still from their peculiar associations they are highly prized by bibliophiles. Southey says: "There is nothing in John Taylor which deserves preservation for its intrinsic merit alone, but in the collection of his pieces which I have perused there is a great deal to illustrate the manners of his age. If the water-poet had been in a higher grade of society, and bred to some regular profession, he would probably have been a much less distinguished person in his generation. No spoon could have suited his mouth so well as the wooden one to which he was born. Fortunately he came into the world at the right time, and lived at an age when kings and queens condescended to notice his verses, and archbishops admitted him to their tables, and mayors and corporations received him with civic honors."[13]
There is a department of curiosities in the shape of odd or rare books, which is quite interesting: among the works are the singular history of M. Ouflé; the "Encyclopædia of Man," printed in English after the manner of Hebrew publications, beginning at the close of the volume and reading to the left; "Anteros," by Baptista Fulgosius, in quarto, published in 1496. This work, "Contre l'Amour," is said to be of extraordinary rarity. Likewise the "Zodiacke of Life," published in
1588; a curious manuscript in not very good Latin, with illuminated letters, upon the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, by Hen. Custas, dated 1614; Memorable Accidents and Massacres in France, in folio, published in 1598; a singular black-letter Edict of Emperor Charles V., published in 1521; a very singular Siamese work on the laws of marriage; Petri Bembi, with a frontispiece by Hans Holbein, published in 1518; "Libri Exemplorum," by Ric Pafradius, published in 1481; the original edition of "The Rogue; or, Life of De Alfarache Guzman," folio, published in 1634, translated by James Mabbe, otherwise known as Don Diego Puedesur.
There is also a copy of the "Opera Hrosvite Illustris Virginis," published in Nuremberg in 1501, in folio, bound in old wooden covers with brass clamps. This work, which contains some wood-engravings equal to etchings, probably the work of Durer, is fully described by Mengerand in his "Esprit des Journaux"; Pisoni's "Historia," with engravings of birds, animals, and fishes, that would excite the surprise of the naturalist of the present day; "Novus Marcellus Doctrina," published at Venice in 1476, on large paper, with colored initials; a curious folio, manuscript history of the "Starre Chamber"; and Lithgow's "Rare Adventures and Painful Peregrinationes," published in 1632, interlined with the author's manuscript emendations, and evidently intended for a new edition. This work is rare—the copy owned by King Charles brought £42 at Jadis's sale.
The collection has a large number of old Bibles, many thousand biblical illustrations, a large number of other illustrated works, and many books and prints especially devoted to the Cromwellian era of English life.
The Shakespeare department contains many separate editions of the works of the immortal bard, each of which is distinguished by some peculiarity. First among these stand the four folios published in 1623, 1632, 1664, and 1685, with a number of the original quartos of separate plays, illustrated copies, some of which belonged to able scholars, and are enriched by their manuscript notes.
Mr. Burton sought to possess every work that alludes to the early editions of Shakespeare, or which serves in any way to illustrate the text. Among these are to be found many of the original tracts, the scarce romances, the old histories, and the rare ballads, upon which he founded his wonderful plays, or which are alluded to in the text. The collection contains the book alluded to by the quaint and facetious Touchstone, in "As You Like It," by which the gallants were said to quarrel with the various degrees of proof,—"the retort courteous, the countercheck quarrelsome, and the lie direct"; the "Book of Good Manners," the "Book of Sonnets" mentioned in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," the "Book of Compliments," and the "Hundred Merry Tales"; and Montaigne, translated by Florio, who is supposed by some to be the Holofernes in "Love's Labor's Lost"; the edition of Holinshed, so freely used by Shakespeare in his historical plays, with the lines quoted by him underscored with red ink.
Among the collected editions of Shakespeare is the first quarto, in seven volumes, edited by Pope, which, besides having the reputation of being the least reliable of any edition of Shakespeare's works, is defaced by an engraving of King James I. of England, which the publishers sought to palm upon the public as the likeness of the great dramatist. It is engraved by Vertue from an original painting in the Harleian collection, and does not possess the slightest resemblance to any of the various portraits of Shakespeare.
The collection contains a large-paper copy of Hanmer's beautiful quarto edition, published in 1744, with Gravelot's etchings, which is now quite rare; also, the reprint of the same work, made in 1770, and a fine copy of the quarto edition, known as Heath's, in six volumes, with proof plates after Stothard; a beautiful and undoubtedly unique copy of the Atlas folio edition in nine volumes, published by Boydell in 1802, elegantly bound and tooled with great richness of design. This copy was selected by Boydell, with great care, for Miss Mary Nicol, sister of George Nicol, printer to the king, and a relative of Boydell. It contains proof impressions of the engravings, and an extra volume of original etchings. This work was purchased at the sale of the Stowe library. The certificates of Nicol and the librarian of the Duke of Buckingham, testifying to the value and rarity of this picked specimen of typography and engraving, are bound in the first volume of the work. The collection contains Mr. Boydell's own private portfolio, with the original etchings, artist's proof, and proof before letter, of every engraving, with the portraits, now so difficult to meet with, of the large elephant folio plates, upward of one hundred in number.