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diff --git a/old/bkbkm10.txt b/old/bkbkm10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09f9a5c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/bkbkm10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3844 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Books and Bookmen, by Andrew Lang +#16 in our series by Andrew Lang + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1887 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition. + + + + + +BOOKS AND BOOKMEN + + + + +Contents: + + +To the Viscountess Wolseley +Preface +Elzevirs +Ballade of the Real and Ideal +Curiosities of Parish Registers +The Rowfant Books +To F. L. +Some Japanese Bogie-books +Ghosts in the Library +Literary Forgeries +Bibliomania in France +Old French Title-pages +A Bookman's Purgatory +Ballade of the Unattainable +Lady Book-lovers + + + + +TO THE VISCOUNTESS WOLSELEY + + + +Madame, it is no modish thing, +The bookman's tribute that I bring; +A talk of antiquaries grey, +Dust unto dust this many a day, +Gossip of texts and bindings old, +Of faded type, and tarnish'd gold! + +Can ladies care for this to-do +With Payne, Derome, and Padeloup? +Can they resign the rout, the ball, +For lonely joys of shelf and stall? + +The critic thus, serenely wise; +But you can read with other eyes, +Whose books and bindings treasured are +'Midst mingled spoils of peace and war; +Shields from the fights the Mahdi lost, +And trinkets from the Golden Coast, +And many things divinely done +By Chippendale and Sheraton, +And trophies of Egyptian deeds, +And fans, and plates, and Aggrey beads, +Pomander boxes, assegais, +And sword-hilts worn in Marlbro's days. + +In this pell-mell of old and new, +Of war and peace, my essays, too, +For long in serials tempest-tost, +Are landed now, and are not lost: +Nay, on your shelf secure they lie, +As in the amber sleeps the fly. +'Tis true, they are not "rich nor rare;" +Enough, for me, that they are--there! + +A. L + + + +PREFACE + + + +The essays in this volume have, for the most part, already appeared +in an American edition (Combes, New York, 1886). The Essays on 'Old +French Title-Pages' and 'Lady Book-Lovers' take the place of 'Book +Binding' and 'Bookmen at Rome;' 'Elzevirs' and 'Some Japanese Bogie- +Books' are reprinted, with permission of Messrs. Cassell, from the +Magazine of Art; 'Curiosities of Parish Registers' from the +Guardian; 'Literary Forgeries' from the Contemporary Review; 'Lady +Book-Lovers' from the Fortnightly Review; 'A Bookman's Purgatory' +and two of the pieces of verse from Longman's Magazine--with the +courteous permission of the various editors. All the chapters have +been revised, and I have to thank Mr. H. Tedder for his kind care in +reading the proof sheets, and Mr. Charles Elton, M.P., for a similar +service to the Essay on 'Parish Registers.' + + + +ELZEVIRS + + + +The Countryman. "You know how much, for some time past, the +editions of the Elzevirs have been in demand. The fancy for them +has even penetrated into the country. I am acquainted with a man +there who denies himself necessaries, for the sake of collecting +into a library (where other books are scarce enough) as many little +Elzevirs as he can lay his hands upon. He is dying of hunger, and +his consolation is to be able to say, 'I have all the poets whom the +Elzevirs printed. I have ten examples of each of them, all with red +letters, and all of the right date.' This, no doubt, is a craze, +for, good as the books are, if he kept them to read them, one +example of each would be enough." + +The Parisian. "If he had wanted to read them, I would not have +advised him to buy Elzevirs. The editions of minor authors which +these booksellers published, even editions 'of the right date,' as +you say, are not too correct. Nothing is good in the books but the +type and the paper. Your friend would have done better to use the +editions of Gryphius or Estienne." + +This fragment of a literary dialogue I translate from 'Entretiens +sur les Contes de Fees,' a book which contains more of old talk +about books and booksellers than about fairies and folk-lore. The +'Entretiens' were published in 1699, about sixteen years after the +Elzevirs ceased to be publishers. The fragment is valuable: first, +because it shows us how early the taste for collecting Elzevirs was +fully developed, and, secondly, because it contains very sound +criticism of the mania. Already, in the seventeenth century, lovers +of the tiny Elzevirian books waxed pathetic over dates, already they +knew that a 'Caesar' of 1635 was the right 'Caesar,' already they +were fond of the red-lettered passages, as in the first edition of +the 'Virgil' of 1636. As early as 1699, too, the Parisian critic +knew that the editions were not very correct, and that the paper, +type, ornaments, and FORMAT were their main attractions. To these +we must now add the rarity of really good Elzevirs. + +Though Elzevirs have been more fashionable than at present, they are +still regarded by novelists as the great prize of the book +collector. You read in novels about "priceless little Elzevirs," +about books "as rare as an old Elzevir." I have met, in the works +of a lady novelist (but not elsewhere), with an Elzevir +'Theocritus.' The late Mr. Hepworth Dixon introduced into one of +his romances a romantic Elzevir Greek Testament, "worth its weight +in gold." Casual remarks of this kind encourage a popular delusion +that all Elzevirs are pearls of considerable price. When a man is +first smitten with the pleasant fever of book-collecting, it is for +Elzevirs that he searches. At first he thinks himself in amazing +luck. In Booksellers' Row and in Castle Street he "picks up," for a +shilling or two, Elzevirs, real or supposed. To the beginner, any +book with a sphere on the title-page is an Elzevir. For the +beginner's instruction, two copies of spheres are printed here. The +second is a sphere, an ill-cut, ill-drawn sphere, which is not +Elzevirian at all. The mark was used in the seventeenth century by +many other booksellers and printers. The first, on the other hand, +is a true Elzevirian sphere, from a play of Moliere's, printed in +1675. Observe the comparatively neat drawing of the first sphere, +and be not led away after spurious imitations. + +Beware, too, of the vulgar error of fancying that little duodecimos +with the mark of the fox and the bee's nest, and the motto +"Quaerendo," come from the press of the Elzevirs. The mark is that +of Abraham Wolfgang, which name is not a pseudonym for Elzevir. +There are three sorts of Elzevir pseudonyms. First, they +occasionally reprinted the full title-page, publisher's name and +all, of the book they pirated. Secondly, when they printed books of +a "dangerous" sort, Jansenist pamphlets and so forth, they used +pseudonyms like "Nic. Schouter," on the 'Lettres Provinciales' of +Pascal. Thirdly, there are real pseudonyms employed by the +Elzevirs. John and Daniel, printing at Leyden (1652-1655), used the +false name "Jean Sambix." The Elzevirs of Amsterdam often placed +the name "Jacques le Jeune" on their title-pages. The collector who +remembers these things must also see that his purchases have the +right ornaments at the heads of chapters, the right tail-pieces at +the ends. Two of the most frequently recurring ornaments are the +so-called "Tete de Buffle" and the "Sirene." More or less clumsy +copies of these and the other Elzevirian ornaments are common enough +in books of the period, even among those printed out of the Low +Countries; for example, in books published in Paris. + +A brief sketch of the history of the Elzevirs may here be useful. +The founder of the family, a Flemish bookbinder, Louis, left Louvain +and settled in Leyden in 1580. He bought a house opposite the +University, and opened a book-shop. Another shop, on college +ground, was opened in 1587. Louis was a good bookseller, a very +ordinary publisher. It was not till shortly before his death, in +1617, that his grandson Isaac bought a set of types and other +material. Louis left six sons. Two of these, Matthew and +Bonaventure, kept on the business, dating ex officina Elzeviriana. +In 1625 Bonaventure and Abraham (son of Matthew) became partners. +The "good dates" of Elzevirian books begin from 1626. The two +Elzevirs chose excellent types, and after nine years' endeavours +turned out the beautiful 'Caesar' of 1635. + +Their classical series in petit format was opened with 'Horace' and +'Ovid' in 1629. In 1641 they began their elegant piracies of French +plays and poetry with 'Le Cid.' It was worth while being pirated by +the Elzevirs, who turned you out like a gentleman, with fleurons and +red letters, and a pretty frontispiece. The modern pirate dresses +you in rags, prints you murderously, and binds you, if he binds you +at all, in some hideous example of "cloth extra," all gilt, like +archaic gingerbread. Bonaventure and Abraham both died in 1652. +They did not depart before publishing (1628), in grand format, a +desirable work on fencing, Thibault's 'Academie de l'Espee.' This +Tibbald also killed by the book. John and Daniel Elzevir came next. +They brought out the 'Imitation' (Thomae a Kempis canonici regularis +ord. S. Augustini De Imitatione Christi, libri iv.); I wish by +taking thought I could add eight millimetres to the stature of my +copy. In 1655 Daniel joined a cousin, Louis, in Amsterdam, and John +stayed in Leyden. John died in 1661; his widow struggled on, but +her son Abraham (1681) let all fall into ruins. Abraham died 1712. +The Elzevirs of Amsterdam lasted till 1680, when Daniel died, and +the business was wound up. The type, by Christopher Van Dyck, was +sold in 1681, by Daniel's widow. Sic transit gloria. + +After he has learned all these matters the amateur has still a great +deal to acquire. He may now know a real Elzevir from a book which +is not an Elzevir at all. But there are enormous differences of +value, rarity, and excellence among the productions of the +Elzevirian press. The bookstalls teem with small, "cropped," dingy, +dirty, battered Elzevirian editions of the classics, NOT "of the +good date." On these it is not worth while to expend a couple of +shillings, especially as Elzevirian type is too small to be read +with comfort by most modern eyes. No, let the collector save his +money; avoid littering his shelves with what he will soon find to be +rubbish, and let him wait the chance of acquiring a really beautiful +and rare Elzevir. + +Meantime, and before we come to describe Elzevirs of the first +flight, let it be remembered that the "taller" the copy, the less +harmed and nipped by the binder's shears, the better. "Men scarcely +know how beautiful fire is," says Shelley; and we may say that most +men hardly know how beautiful an Elzevir was in its uncut and +original form. The Elzevirs we have may be "dear," but they are +certainly "dumpy twelves." Their fair proportions have been docked +by the binder. At the Beckford sale there was a pearl of a book, a +'Marot;' not an Elzevir, indeed, but a book published by Wetstein, a +follower of the Elzevirs. This exquisite pair of volumes, bound in +blue morocco, was absolutely unimpaired, and was a sight to bring +happy tears into the eyes of the amateur of Elzevirs. There was a +gracious svelte elegance about these tomes, an appealing and +exquisite delicacy of proportion, that linger like sweet music in +the memory. I have a copy of the Wetstein 'Marot' myself, not a bad +copy, though murderously bound in that ecclesiastical sort of brown +calf antique, which goes well with hymn books, and reminds one of +cakes of chocolate. But my copy is only some 128 millimetres in +height, whereas the uncut Beckford copy (it had belonged to the +great Pixerecourt) was at least 130 millimetres high. Beside the +uncut example mine looks like Cinderella's plain sister beside the +beauty of the family. + +Now the moral is that only tall Elzevirs are beautiful, only tall +Elzevirs preserve their ancient proportions, only tall Elzevirs are +worth collecting. Dr. Lemuel Gulliver remarks that the King of +Lilliput was taller than any of his court by almost the breadth of a +nail, and that his altitude filled the minds of all with awe. Well, +the Philistine may think a few millimetres, more or less, in the +height of an Elzevir are of little importance. When he comes to +sell, he will discover the difference. An uncut, or almost uncut, +copy of a good Elzevir may be worth fifty or sixty pounds or more; +an ordinary copy may bring fewer pence. The binders usually pare +down the top and bottom more than the sides. I have a 'Rabelais' of +the good date, with the red title (1663), and some of the pages have +never been opened, at the sides. But the height is only some 122 +millimetres, a mere dwarf. Anything over 130 millimetres is very +rare. Therefore the collector of Elzevirs should have one of those +useful ivory-handled knives on which the French measures are marked, +and thus he will at once be able to satisfy himself as to the exact +height of any example which he encounters. + +Let us now assume that the amateur quite understands what a proper +Elzevir should be: tall, clean, well bound if possible, and of the +good date. But we have still to learn what the good dates are, and +this is matter for the study and practice of a well-spent life. We +may gossip about a few of the more famous Elzevirs, those without +which no collection is complete. Of all Elzevirs the most famous +and the most expensive is an old cookery book, "'Le Pastissier +Francois.' Wherein is taught the way to make all sorts of pastry, +useful to all sorts of persons. Also the manner of preparing all +manner of eggs, for fast-days, and other days, in more than sixty +fashions. Amsterdam, Louys, and Daniel Elsevier. 1665." The mark +is not the old "Sage," but the "Minerva" with her owl. Now this +book has no intrinsic value any more than a Tauchnitz reprint of any +modern volume on cooking. The 'Pastissier' is cherished because it +is so very rare. The tract passed into the hands of cooks, and the +hands of cooks are detrimental to literature. Just as nursery +books, fairy tales, and the like are destroyed from generation to +generation, so it happens with books used in the kitchen. The +'Pastissier,' to be sure, has a good frontispiece, a scene in a Low +Country kitchen, among the dead game and the dainties. The buxom +cook is making a game pie; a pheasant pie, decorated with the bird's +head and tail-feathers, is already made. {1} + +Not for these charms, but for its rarity, is the 'Pastissier' +coveted. In an early edition of the 'Manuel' (1821) Brunet says, +with a feigned brutality (for he dearly loved an Elzevir), "Till now +I have disdained to admit this book into my work, but I have yielded +to the prayers of amateurs. Besides, how could I keep out a volume +which was sold for one hundred and one francs in 1819?" One hundred +and one francs! If I could only get a 'Pastissier' for one hundred +and one francs! But our grandfathers lived in the Bookman's +Paradise. "Il n'est pas jusqu'aux Anglais," adds Brunet--"the very +English themselves--have a taste for the 'Pastissier.'" The Duke of +Marlborough's copy was actually sold for 1 pound 4s. It would have +been money in the ducal pockets of the house of Marlborough to have +kept this volume till the general sale of all their portable +property at which our generation is privileged to assist. No wonder +the 'Pastissier' was thought rare. Berard only knew two copies. +Pietiers, writing on the Elzevirs in 1843, could cite only five +'Pastissiers,' and in his 'Annales' he had found out but five more. +Willems, on the other hand, enumerates some thirty, not including +Motteley's. Motteley was an uncultivated, untaught enthusiast. He +knew no Latin, but he had a FLAIR for uncut Elzevirs. "Incomptis +capillis," he would cry (it was all his lore) as he gloated over his +treasures. They were all burnt by the Commune in the Louvre +Library. + +A few examples may be given of the prices brought by 'Le Pastissier' +in later days. Sensier's copy was but 128 millimetres in height, +and had the old ordinary vellum binding,--in fact, it closely +resembled a copy which Messrs. Ellis and White had for sale in Bond +Street in 1883. The English booksellers asked, I think, about 1,500 +francs for their copy. Sensier's was sold for 128 francs in April, +1828; for 201 francs in 1837. Then the book was gloriously bound by +Trautz-Bauzonnet, and was sold with Potier's books in 1870, when it +fetched 2,910 francs. At the Benzon sale (1875) it fetched 3,255 +francs, and, falling dreadfully in price, was sold again in 1877 for +2,200 francs. M. Dutuit, at Rouen, has a taller copy, bound by +Bauzonnet. Last time it was sold (1851) it brought 251 francs. The +Duc de Chartres has now the copy of Pieters, the historian of the +Elzevirs, valued at 3,000 francs. + +About thirty years ago no fewer than three copies were sold at +Brighton, of all places. M. Quentin Bauchart had a copy only 127 +millimetres in height, which he swopped to M. Paillet. M. +Chartener, of Metz, had a copy now bound by Bauzonnet which was sold +for four francs in 1780. We call this the age of cheap books, but +before the Revolution books were cheaper. It is fair to say, +however, that this example of the 'Pastissier' was then bound up +with another book, Vlacq's edition of 'Le Cuisinier Francois,' and +so went cheaper than it would otherwise have done. M. de Fontaine +de Resbecq declares that a friend of his bought six original pieces +of Moliere's bound up with an old French translation of Garth's +'Dispensary.' The one faint hope left to the poor book collector is +that he may find a valuable tract lurking in the leaves of some +bound collection of trash. I have an original copy of Moliere's +'Les Fascheux' bound up with a treatise on precious stones, but the +bookseller from whom I bought it knew it was there! That made all +the difference. + +But, to return to our 'Pastissier,' here is M. de Fontaine de +Resbecq's account of how he wooed and won his own copy of this +illustrious Elzevir. "I began my walk to-day," says this haunter of +ancient stalls, "by the Pont Marie and the Quai de la Greve, the +pillars of Hercules of the book-hunting world. After having viewed +and reviewed these remote books, I was going away, when my attention +was caught by a small naked volume, without a stitch of binding. I +seized it, and what was my delight when I recognised one of the +rarest of that famed Elzevir collection whose height is measured as +minutely as the carats of the diamond. There was no indication of +price on the box where this jewel was lying; the book, though +unbound, was perfectly clean within. 'How much?' said I to the +bookseller. 'You can have it for six sous,' he answered; 'is it too +much?' 'No,' said I, and, trembling a little, I handed him the +thirty centimes he asked for the 'Pastissier Francois.' You may +believe, my friend, that after such a piece of luck at the start, +one goes home fondly embracing the beloved object of one's search. +That is exactly what I did." + +Can this tale be true? Is such luck given by the jealous fates +mortalibus aegris? M. de Resbecq's find was made apparently in +1856, when trout were plenty in the streams, and rare books not so +very rare. To my own knowledge an English collector has bought an +original play of Moliere's, in the original vellum, for +eighteenpence. But no one has such luck any longer. Not, at least, +in London. A more expensive 'Pastissier' than that which brought +six sous was priced in Bachelin-Deflorenne's catalogue at 240 +pounds. A curious thing occurred when two uncut 'Pastissiers' +turned up simultaneously in Paris. One of them Morgand and Fatout +sold for 400 pounds. Clever people argued that one of the twin +uncut 'Pastissiers' must be an imitation, a facsimile by means of +photogravure, or some other process. But it was triumphantly +established that both were genuine; they had minute points of +difference in the ornaments. + +M. Willems, the learned historian of the Elzevirs, is indignant at +the successes of a book which, as Brunet declares, is badly printed. +There must be at least forty known 'Pastissiers' in the world. Yes; +but there are at least 4,000 people who would greatly rejoice to +possess a 'Pastissier,' and some of these desirous ones are very +wealthy. While this state of the market endures, the 'Pastissier' +will fetch higher prices than the other varieties. Another +extremely rare Elzevir is 'L'Illustre Theatre de Mons. Corneille' +(Leyden, 1644). This contains 'Le Cid,' 'Les Horaces,' 'Le Cinna,' +'La Mort de Pompee,' 'Le Polyeucte.' The name, 'L'Illustre +Theatre,' appearing at that date has an interest of its own. In +1643-44, Moliere and Madeleine Bejart had just started the company +which they called 'L'Illustre Theatre.' Only six or seven copies of +the book are actually known, though three or four are believed to +exist in England, probably all covered with dust in the library of +some lord. "He has a very good library," I once heard some one say +to a noble earl, whose own library was famous. "And what can a +fellow do with a very good library?" answered the descendant of the +Crusaders, who probably (being a youth light-hearted and content) +was ignorant of his own great possessions. An expensive copy of +'L'Illustre Theatre,' bound by Trautz-Bauzonnet, was sold for 300 +pounds. + +Among Elzevirs desirable, yet not hopelessly rare, is the 'Virgil' +of 1636. Heinsius was the editor of this beautiful volume, prettily +printed, but incorrect. Probably it is hard to correct with +absolute accuracy works in the clear but minute type which the +Elzevirs affected. They have won fame by the elegance of their +books, but their intention was to sell good books cheap, like Michel +Levy. The small type was required to get plenty of "copy" into +little bulk. Nicholas Heinsius, the son of the editor of the +'Virgil,' when he came to correct his father's edition, found that +it contained so many coquilles, or misprints, as to be nearly the +most incorrect copy in the world. Heyne says, "Let the 'Virgil' be +one of the rare Elzevirs, if you please, but within it has scarcely +a trace of any good quality." Yet the first edition of this +beautiful little book, with its two passages of red letters, is so +desirable that, till he could possess it, Charles Nodier would not +profane his shelves by any 'Virgil' at all. + +Equally fine is the 'Caesar' of 1635, which, with the 'Virgil' of +1636 and the 'Imitation' without date, M. Willems thinks the most +successful works of the Elzevirs, "one of the most enviable jewels +in the casket of the bibliophile." It may be recognised by the page +238, which is erroneously printed 248. A good average height is +from 125 to 128 millimetres. The highest known is 130 millimetres. +This book, like the 'Imitation,' has one of the pretty and ingenious +frontispieces which the Elzevirs prefixed to their books. So +farewell, and good speed in your sport, ye hunters of Elzevirs, and +may you find perhaps the rarest Elzevir of all, 'L'Aimable Mere de +Jesus.' + + + +BALLADE OF THE REAL AND IDEAL (DOUBLE REFRAIN) + + + +O visions of salmon tremendous, +Of trout of unusual weight, +Of waters that wander as Ken does, +Ye come through the Ivory Gate! +But the skies that bring never a "spate," +But the flies that catch up in a thorn, +But the creel that is barren of freight, +Through the portals of horn! + +O dreams of the Fates that attend us +With prints in the earliest state, +O bargains in books that they send us, +Ye come through the Ivory Gate! +But the tome that has never a mate, +But the quarto that's tattered and torn, +And bereft of a title and date, +Through the portals of horn! + +O dreams of the tongues that commend us, +Of crowns for the laureate pate, +Of a public to buy and befriend us, +Ye come through the Ivory Gate! +But the critics that slash us and slate, {2} +But the people that hold us in scorn, +But the sorrow, the scathe, and the hate, +Through the portals of horn! + +ENVOY. + +Fair dreams of things golden and great, +Ye come through the Ivory Gate; +But the facts that are bleak and forlorn, +Through the portals of horn! + + + +CURIOSITIES OF PARISH REGISTERS + + + +There are three classes of persons who are deeply concerned with +parish registers--namely, villains, antiquaries, and the sedulous +readers, "parish clerks and others," of the second or "agony" column +of the Times. Villains are probably the most numerous of these +three classes. The villain of fiction dearly loves a parish +register: he cuts out pages, inserts others, intercalates remarks +in a different coloured ink, and generally manipulates the register +as a Greek manages his hand at ecarte, or as a Hebrew dealer in +Moabite bric-a-brac treats a synagogue roll. We well remember one +villain who had locked himself into the vestry (he was disguised as +an archaeologist), and who was enjoying his wicked pleasure with the +register, when the vestry somehow caught fire, the rusty key would +not turn in the door, and the villain was roasted alive, in spite of +the disinterested efforts to save him made by all the virtuous +characters in the story. Let the fate of this bold, bad man be a +warning to wicked earls, baronets, and all others who attempt to +destroy the record of the marriage of a hero's parents. Fate will +be too strong for them in the long run, though they bribe the parish +clerk, or carry off in white wax an impression of the keys of the +vestry and of the iron chest in which a register should repose. + +There is another and more prosaic danger in the way of villains, if +the new bill, entitled "The Parish Registers Preservation Act," ever +becomes law. The bill provides that every register earlier than +1837 shall be committed to the care of the Master of the Rolls, and +removed to the Record Office. Now the common villain of fiction +would feel sadly out of place in the Register Office, where a more +watchful eye than that of a comic parish clerk would be kept on his +proceedings. Villains and local antiquaries will, therefore, use +all their parliamentary influence to oppose and delay this bill, +which is certainly hard on the parish archaeologist. The men who +grub in their local registers, and slowly compile parish or county +history, deserve to be encouraged rather than depressed. Mr. +Chester Waters, therefore, has suggested that copies of registers +should be made, and the comparatively legible copy left in the +parish, while the crabbed original is conveyed to the Record Office +in London. Thus the local antiquary would really have his work made +more easy for him (though it may be doubted whether he would quite +enjoy that condescension), while the villain of romance would be +foiled; for it is useless (as a novel of Mr. Christie Murray's +proves) to alter the register in the keeping of the parish when the +original document is safe in the Record Office. But previous +examples of enforced transcription (as in 1603) do not encourage us +to suppose that the copies would be very scrupulously made. Thus, +after the Reformation, the prayers for the dead in the old registers +were omitted by the copyist, who seemed to think (as the contractor +for "sandwich men" said to the poor fellows who carried the letter +H), "I don't want you, and the public don't want you, and you're no +use to nobody." Again, when Laurence Fletcher was buried in St. +Saviour's, Southwark, in 1608, the old register described him as "a +player, the King's servant." But the clerk, keeping a note-book, +simply called Laurence Fletcher "a man," and (in 1625) he also +styled Mr. John Fletcher "a man." Now, the old register calls Mr. +John Fletcher "a poet." To copy all the parish registers in England +would be a very serious task, and would probably be but slovenly +performed. If they were reproduced, again, by any process of +photography, the old difficult court hand would remain as hard as +ever. But this is a minor objection, for the local antiquary revels +in the old court hand. + +From the little volume by Mr. Chester Waters, already referred to +('Parish Registers in England;' printed for the author by F. J. +Roberts, Little Britain, E.C.), we proceed to appropriate such +matters of curiosity as may interest minds neither parochial nor +doggedly antiquarian. Parish registers among the civilised peoples +of antiquity do not greatly concern us. It seems certain that many +Polynesian races have managed to record (in verse, or by some rude +marks) the genealogies of their chiefs through many hundreds of +years. These oral registers are accepted as fairly truthful by some +students, yet we must remember that Pindar supposed himself to +possess knowledge of at least twenty-five generations before his own +time, and that only brought him up to the birth of Jason. Nobody +believes in Jason and Medea, and possibly the genealogical records +of Maoris and Fijians are as little trustworthy as those of Pindaric +Greece. However, to consider thus is to consider too curiously. We +only know for certain that genealogy very soon becomes important, +and, therefore, that records are early kept, in a growing +civilisation. "After Nehemiah's return from the captivity in +Babylon, the priests at Jerusalem whose register was not found were +as polluted put from the priesthood." Rome had her parish +registers, which were kept in the temple of Saturn. But modern +parish registers were "discovered" (like America) in 1497, when +Cardinal Ximenes found it desirable to put on record the names of +the godfathers and godmothers of baptised children. When these +relations of "gossip," or God's kin (as the word literally means), +were not certainly known, married persons could easily obtain +divorces, by pretending previous spiritual relationship. + +But it was only during the reign of Mary, (called the Bloody) that +this rule of registering godfathers and godmothers prevailed in +England. Henry VIII. introduced the custom of parish registers when +in a Protestant humour. By the way, how curiously has Madame de +Flamareil (la femme de quarante ans, in Charles de Bernard's novel) +anticipated the verdict of Mr. Froude on Henry VIII.! 'On accuse +Henri VIII.,' dit Madame de Flamareil, "moi je le comprends, et je +l'absous; c'etait un coeur genereux, lorsqu'il ne les aimait plus, +il les tuait.'" The public of England mistrusted, in the matter of +parish registers, the generous heart of Henry VIII. It is the fixed +conviction of the public that all novelties in administration mean +new taxes. Thus the Croatian peasantry were once on the point of +revolting because they imagined that they were to be taxed in +proportion to the length of their moustaches. The English believed, +and the insurgents of the famous Pilgrimage of Grace declared, that +baptism was to be refused to all children who did not pay a +"trybette" (tribute) to the king. But Henry, or rather his +minister, Cromwell, stuck to his plan, and (September 29, 1538) +issued an injunction that a weekly register of weddings, +christenings, and burials should be kept by the curate of every +parish. The cost of the book (twopence in the case of St. +Margaret's, Westminster) was defrayed by the parishioners. The +oldest extant register books are those thus acquired in 1597 or +1603. These volumes were of parchment, and entries were copied into +them out of the old books on paper. The copyists, as we have seen, +were indolent, and omitted characteristic points in the more ancient +records. + +In the civil war parish registers fell into some confusion, and when +the clergy did make entries they commonly expressed their political +feelings in a mixture of Latin and English. Latin, by the way, went +out as Protestantism came in, but the curate of Rotherby, in +Leicestershire, writes, "Bellum, Bellum, Bellum, interruption! +persecution!" At St. Bridget's, in Chester, is the quaint entry, +"1643. Here the register is defective till 1653. The tymes were +SUCH!" At Hilton, in Dorset, William Snoke, minister, entered his +opinion that persons whose baptism and marriage were not registered +"will be made uncapable of any earthly inheritance if they live. +This I note for the satisfaction of any that do:" though we may +doubt whether these parishioners found the information thus conveyed +highly satisfactory. + +The register of Maid's Moreton, Bucks, tells how the reading-desk (a +spread eagle, gilt) was "doomed to perish as an abominable idoll;" +and how the cross on the steeple nearly (but not quite) knocked out +the brains of the Puritan who removed it. The Puritans had their +way with the registers as well as with the eagle ("the vowl," as the +old country people call it), and laymen took the place of parsons as +registrars in 1653. The books from 1653 to 1660, while this regime +lasted, "were kept exceptionally well," new brooms sweeping clean. +The books of the period contain fewer of the old Puritan Christian +names than we might have expected. We find, "REPENTE Kytchens," so +styled before the poor little thing had anything but original sin to +repent of. "FAINT NOT Kennard" is also registered, and "FREEGIFT +Mabbe." + +A novelty was introduced into registers in 1678. The law required +(for purposes of protecting trade) that all the dead should be +buried in woollen winding-sheets. The price of the wool was the +obolus paid to the Charon of the Revenue. After March 25, 1667, no +person was to be "buried in any shirt, shift, or sheet other that +should be made of woole only." Thus when the children in a little +Oxfordshire village lately beheld a ghost, "dressed in a long narrow +gown of woollen, with bandages round the head and chin," it is clear +that the ghost was much more than a hundred years old, for the act +"had fallen into disuse long before it was repealed in 1814." But +this has little to do with parish registers. The addition made to +the duties of the keeper of the register in 1678 was this--he had to +take and record the affidavit of a kinsman of the dead, to the +effect that the corpse was actually buried in woollen fabric. The +upper classes, however, preferred to bury in linen, and to pay the +fine of 5L. When Mistress Oldfield, the famous actress, was +interred in 1730, her body was arrayed "in a very fine Brussels lace +headdress, a holland shift with a tucker and double ruffles of the +same lace, and a pair of new kid gloves." + +In 1694 an empty exchequer was replenished by a tax on marriages, +births, and burials, the very extortion which had been feared by the +insurgents in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The tax collectors had +access without payment of fee to the registers. The registration of +births was discontinued when the Taxation Acts expired. An attempt +to introduce the registration of births was made in 1753, but +unsuccessfully. The public had the old superstitious dread of +anything like a census. Moreover, the custom was denounced as +"French," and therefore abominable. In the same way it was thought +telling to call the cloture "the French gag" during some recent +discussions of parliamentary rules. In 1783 the parish register was +again made the instrument of taxation, and threepence was charged on +every entry. Thus "the clergyman was placed in the invidious light +of a tax collector, and as the poor were often unable or unwilling +to pay the tax, the clergy had a direct inducement to retain their +good-will by keeping the registers defective." + +It is easy to imagine the indignation in Scotland when "bang went +saxpence" every time a poor man had twins! Of course the Scotch +rose up against this unparalleled extortion. At last, in 1812, +"Rose's Act" was passed. It is styled "an Act for the better +regulating and preserving registers of births," but the registration +of births is altogether omitted from its provisions. By a stroke of +the wildest wit the penalty of transportation for fourteen years, +for making a false entry, "is to be divided equally between the +informer and the poor of the parish." A more casual Act has rarely +been drafted. + +Without entering into the modern history of parish registers, we may +borrow a few of the ancient curiosities to be found therein, the +blunders and the waggeries of forgotten priests, and curates, and +parish clerks. In quite recent times (1832) it was thought worth +while to record that Charity Morrell at her wedding had signed her +name in the register with her right foot, and that the ring had been +placed on the fourth toe of her left foot; for poor Charity was born +without arms. Sometimes the time of a birth was recorded with much +minuteness, that the astrologers might draw a more accurate +horoscope. Unlucky children, with no acknowledged fathers, were +entered in a variety of odd ways. In Lambeth (1685), George +Speedwell is put down as "a merry begot;" Anne Twine is "filia +uniuscujusque." At Croydon, a certain William is "terraefilius" +(1582), an autochthonous infant. Among the queer names of +foundlings are "Nameless," "Godsend," "Subpoena," and "Moyses and +Aaron, two children found," not in the bulrushes, but "in the +street." + +The rule was to give the foundling for surname the name of the +parish, and from the Temple Church came no fewer than one hundred +and four foundlings named "Temple," between 1728 and 1755. These +Temples are the plebeian gens of the patrician house which claims +descent from Godiva. The use of surnames as Christian names is +later than the Reformation, and is the result of a reaction against +the exclusive use of saints' names from the calendar. Another +example of the same reaction is the use of Old Testament names, and +"Ananias and Sapphira were favourite names with the Presbyterians." +It is only fair to add that these names are no longer popular with +Presbyterians, at any rate in the Kirk of Scotland. The old Puritan +argument was that you would hardly select the name of too notorious +a scriptural sinner, "as bearing testimony to the triumph of grace +over original sin." But in America a clergyman has been known to +decline to christen a child "Pontius Pilate," and no wonder. + +Entries of burials in ancient times often contained some +biographical information about the deceased. But nothing could +possibly be vaguer than this: "1615, February 28, St. Martin's, +Ludgate, was buried an anatomy from the College of Physicians." +Man, woman, or child, sinner or saint, we know not, only that "an +anatomy" found Christian burial in St. Martin's, Ludgate. How much +more full and characteristic is this, from St. Peter's-in-the-East, +Oxford (1568): 'There was buried Alyce, the wiff of a naughty +fellow whose name is Matthew Manne.' There is immortality for +Matthew Manne, and there is, in short-hand, the tragedy of "Alyce +his wiff." The reader of this record knows more of Matthew than in +two hundred years any one is likely to know of us who moralise over +Matthew! At Kyloe, in Northumberland, the intellectual defects of +Henry Watson have, like the naughtiness of Manne, secured him a +measure of fame. (1696.) "Henry was so great a fooll, that he never +could put on his own close, nor never went a quarter of a mile off +the house," as Voltaire's Memnon resolved never to do, and as Pascal +partly recommends. + +What had Mary Woodfield done to deserve the alias which the Croydon +register gives her of "Queen of Hell"? (1788.) Distinguished people +were buried in effigy, in all the different churches with which they +were connected, and each sham burial service was entered in the +parish registers, a snare and stumbling-block to the historian. +This curious custom is very ancient. Thus we read in the Odyssey +that when Menelaus heard in Egypt of the death of Agamemnon he +reared for him a cenotaph, and piled an empty barrow "that the fame +of the dead man might never be quenched." Probably this old usage +gave rise to the claims of several Greek cities to possess the tomb +of this or that ancient hero. A heroic tomb, as of Cassandra for +example, several towns had to show, but which was the true grave, +which were the cenotaphs? Queen Elizabeth was buried in all the +London churches, and poor Cassandra had her barrow in Argos, +Mycenae, and Amyclae. + +"A drynkyng for the soul" of the dead, a [Greek text] or funeral +feast, was as common in England before the Reformation as in ancient +Greece. James Cooke, of Sporle, in Norfolk (1528), left six +shillings and eightpence to pay for this "drynkyng for his soul;" +and the funeral feast, which long survived in the distribution of +wine, wafers, and rosemary, still endures as a slight collation of +wine and cake in Scotland. What a funeral could be, as late as +1731, Mr. Chester Waters proves by the bill for the burial of Andrew +Card, senior bencher of Gray's Inn. The deceased was brave in a +"superfine pinked shroud" (cheap at 1L. 5S. 6D.), and there were +eight large plate candle-sticks on stands round the dais, and +ninety-six buckram escutcheons. The pall-bearers wore Alamode +hatbands covered with frizances, and so did the divines who were +present at the melancholy but gorgeous function. A hundred men in +mourning carried a hundred white wax branch lights, and the gloves +of the porters in Gray's Inn were ash-coloured with black points. +Yet the wine cost no more than 1L. 19S. 6D.; a "deal of sack," by no +means "intolerable." + +Leaving the funerals, we find that the parish register sometimes +records ancient and obsolete modes of death. Thus, martyrs are +scarce now, but the register of All Saints', Derby, 1556, mentions +"a poor blinde woman called Joan Waste, of this parish, a martyr, +burned in Windmill pit." She was condemned by Ralph Baynes, Bishop +of Coventry and Lichfield. In 1558, at Richmond, in Yorkshire, we +find "Richard Snell, b'rnt, bur. 9 Sept." At Croydon, in 1585, +Roger Shepherd probably never expected to be eaten by a lioness. +Roger was not, like Wyllyam Barker, "a common drunkard and +blasphemer," and we cannot regard the Croydon lioness, like the +Nemean lion, as a miraculous monster sent against the county of +Surrey for the sins of the people. The lioness "was brought into +the town to be seen of such as would give money to see her. He" +(Roger) "was sore wounded in sundry places, and was buried the 26th +Aug." + +In 1590, the register of St. Oswald's, Durham, informs us that +"Duke, Hyll, Hogge, and Holiday" were hanged and burned for "there +horrible offences." The arm of one of these horrible offenders was +preserved at St. Omer as the relic of a martyr, "a most precious +treasure," in 1686. But no one knew whether the arm belonged +originally to Holiday, Hyll, Duke, or Hogge. The coals, when these +unfortunate men were burned, cost sixpence; the other items in the +account of the abominable execution are, perhaps, too repulsive to +be quoted. + +According to some critics of the British government, we do not treat +the Egyptians well. But our conduct towards the Fellahs has +certainly improved since this entry was made in the register of St. +Nicholas, Durham (1592, August 8th): 'Simson, Arington, +Featherston, Fenwick, and Lancaster, WERE HANGED FOR BEING +EGYPTIANS.' They were, in fact, gypsies, or had been consorting +with gypsies, and they suffered under 5 Eliz. c. 20. In 1783 this +statute was abolished, and was even considered "a law of excessive +severity." For even a hundred years ago "the puling cant of sickly +humanitarianism" was making itself heard to the injury of our sturdy +old English legislation. To be killed by a poet is now an unusual +fate, but the St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, register (1598) mentions +how "Gabriel Spencer, being slayne, was buried." Gabriel was +"slayne" by Rare Ben Jonson, in Hoxton Fields. + +The burning of witches is, naturally, not an uncommon item in parish +registers, and is set forth in a bold, business-like manner. On +August 21 (1650) fifteen women and one man were executed for the +imaginary crime of witchcraft. "A grave, for a witch, sixpence," is +an item in the municipal accounts. And the grave was a cheap haven +for the poor woman who had been committed to the tender mercies of a +Scotch witch-trier. Cetewayo's medicine-men, who "smelt out" +witches, were only some two centuries in the rear of our +civilisation. Three hundred years ago Bishop Jewell, preaching +before Elizabeth, was quite of the mind of Cetewayo and Saul, as to +the wickedness of suffering a witch to live. As late as 1691, the +register of Holy Island, Northumberland, mentions "William Cleugh, +bewitched to death," and the superstition is almost as powerful as +ever among the rural people. Between July 13 and July 24 (1699) the +widow Comon, in Essex, was thrice swum for a witch. She was not +drowned, but survived her immersion for only five months. A +singular homicide is recorded at Newington Butts, 1689. "John Arris +and Derwick Farlin in one grave, being both Dutch soldiers; one +killed the other drinking brandy." But who slew the slayer? The +register is silent; but "often eating a shoulder of mutton or a peck +of hasty pudding at a time caused the death of James Parsons," at +Teddington, in Middlesex, 1743. Parsons had resisted the effects of +shoulders of mutton and hasty pudding till the age of thirty-six. + +And so the registers run on. Sometimes they tell of the death of a +glutton, sometimes of a GRACE WYFE (grosse femme). Now the bell +tolls for the decease of a duke, now of a "dog-whipper." +"Lutenists" and "Saltpetremen"--the skeleton of the old German +allegory whispers to each and twitches him by the sleeve. "Ellis +Thompson, insipiens," leaves Chester-le-Street, where he had gabbled +and scrabbled on the doors, and follows "William, foole to my Lady +Jerningham," and "Edward Errington, the Towne's Fooll" (Newcastle- +on-Tyne) down the way to dusty death. Edward Errington died "of the +pest," and another idiot took his place and office, for Newcastle +had her regular town fools before she acquired her singularly +advanced modern representatives. The "aquavity man" dies (in +Cripplegate), and the "dumb-man who was a fortune-teller" (Stepney, +1628), and the "King's Falkner," and Mr. Gregory Isham, who combined +the professions, not frequently united, of "attorney and +husbandman," in Barwell, Leicestershire (1655). "The lame chimney- +sweeper," and the "King of the gypsies," and Alexander Willis, "qui +calographiam docuit," the linguist, and the Tom o' Bedlam, the +comfit-maker, and the panyer-man, and the tack-maker, and the +suicide, they all found death; or, if they sought him, the +churchyard where they were "hurled into a grave" was interdicted, +and purified, after a fortnight, with "frankincense and sweet +perfumes, and herbs." + +Sometimes people died wholesale of pestilence, and the Longborough +register mentions a fresh way of death, "the swat called New +Acquaintance, alias Stoupe Knave, and know thy master." Another +malady was 'the posting swet, that posted from towne to towne +through England.' The plague of 1591 was imported in bales of cloth +from the Levant, just as British commerce still patriotically tries +to introduce cholera in cargoes of Egyptian rags. The register of +Malpas, in Cheshire (Aug. 24, 1625), has this strange story of the +plague:- + +"Richard Dawson being sicke of the plague, and perceiving he must +die at yt time, arose out of his bed, and made his grave, and caused +his nefew, John Dawson, to cast strawe into the grave which was not +farre from the house, and went and lay'd him down in the say'd +grave, and caused clothes to be lay'd uppon and so dep'ted out of +this world; this he did because he was a strong man, and heavier +than his said nefew and another wench were able to bury." + +And John Dawson died, and Rose Smyth, the "wench" already spoken of, +died, the last of the household. + +Old customs survive in the parish registers. Scolding wives were +ducked, and in Kingston-on-Thames, 1572, the register tells how the +sexton's wife "was sett on a new cukking-stoole, and brought to +Temes brydge, and there had three duckings over head and eres, +because she was a common scold and fighter." The cucking-stool, a +very elaborate engine of the law, cost 1L. 3S. 4D. Men were ducked +for beating their wives, and if that custom were revived the +profession of cucking-stool maker would become busy and lucrative. +Penances of a graver sort are on record in the registers. Margaret +Sherioux, in Croydon (1597), was ordered to stand three market days +in the town, and three Sundays in the church, in a white sheet. The +sin imputed to her was a dreadful one. "She stood one Saturday, and +one Sunday, and died the next." Innocent or guilty, this world was +no longer a fit abiding-place for Margaret Sherioux. Occasionally +the keeper of the register entered any event which seemed out of the +common. Thus the register of St. Nicholas, Durham (1568), has this +contribution to natural history:- + +"A certaine Italian brought into the cittie of Durham a very greate +strange and monstrous serpent, in length sixteen feet, in quantitie +and dimentions greater than a greate horse, which was taken and +killed by special policie, in Ethiopia within the Turkas dominions. +But before it was killed, it had devoured (as is credibly thought) +more than 1,000 persons, and destroyed a great country." + +This must have been a descendant of the monster that would have +eaten Andromeda, and was slain by Perseus in the country of the +blameless Ethiopians. Collections of money are recorded +occasionally, as in 1680, when no less than one pound eight +shillings was contributed "for redemption of Christians (taken by ye +Turkish pyrates) out of Turkish slavery." Two hundred years ago the +Turk was pretty "unspeakable" still. Of all blundering Dogberries, +the most confused kept (in 1670) the parish register at Melton +Mowbray:- + +"Here [he writes] is a bill of Burton Lazareth's people, which was +buried, and which was and maried above 10 years old, for because the +clarke was dead, and therefore they was not set down according as +they was, but they all set down sure enough one among another here +in this place." + +"They all set down sure enough," nor does it matter much now to know +whom they married, and how long they lived in Melton Mowbray. The +following entry sufficed for the great Villiers that expired "in the +worst inn's worst room,"--"Kirkby Moorside, Yorkshire, 1687. +Georges vilaris Lord dooke of Bookingham, bur. 17. April." + +"So much for Buckingham!" + + + +THE ROWFANT BOOKS +BALLADE EN GUISE DE RONDEAU + + + +The Rowfant books, how fair they shew, +The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall, +Print, autograph, portfolio! +Back from the outer air they call, +The athletes from the Tennis ball, +This Rhymer from his rod and hooks, +Would I could sing them one and all, +The Rowfant books! + +The Rowfant books! In sun and snow +They're dear, but most when tempests fall; +The folio towers above the row +As once, o'er minor prophets,--Saul! +What jolly jest books and what small +"Dear dumpy Twelves" to fill the nooks. +You do not find on every stall +The Rowfant books! + +The Rowfant books! These long ago +Were chained within some College hall; +These manuscripts retain the glow +Of many a coloured capital +While yet the Satires keep their gall, +While the Pastissier puzzles cooks, +Theirs is a joy that does not pall, +The Rowfant books! + +ENVOI. + +The Rowfant books,--ah magical +As famed Armida's "golden looks," +They hold the rhymer for their thrall, +The Rowfant books. + + + +TO F. L. + + + +I mind that Forest Shepherd's saw, +For, when men preached of Heaven, quoth he, +"It's a' that's bricht, and a' that's braw, +But Bourhope's guid eneuch for me!" + +Beneath the green deep-bosomed hills +That guard Saint Mary's Loch it lies, +The silence of the pasture fills +That shepherd's homely paradise. + +Enough for him his mountain lake, +His glen the burn went singing through, +And Rowfant, when the thrushes wake, +May well seem good enough for you. + +For all is old, and tried, and dear, +And all is fair, and round about +The brook that murmurs from the mere +Is dimpled with the rising trout. + +But when the skies of shorter days +Are dark and all the ways are mire, +How bright upon your books the blaze +Gleams from the cheerful study fire, + +On quartos where our fathers read, +Enthralled, the book of Shakespeare's play, +On all that Poe could dream of dread, +And all that Herrick sang of gay! + +Fair first editions, duly prized, +Above them all, methinks, I rate +The tome where Walton's hand revised +His wonderful receipts for bait! + +Happy, who rich in toys like these +Forgets a weary nation's ills, +Who from his study window sees +The circle of the Sussex hills! + + + +SOME JAPANESE BOGIE-BOOKS + + + +There is or used to be a poem for infant minds of a rather +Pharisaical character, which was popular in the nursery when I was a +youngster. It ran something like this:-. + + +I thank my stars that I was born +A little British child. + + +Perhaps these were not the very words, but that was decidedly the +sentiment. Look at the Japanese infants, from the pencil of the +famous Hokusai. Though they are not British, were there ever two +jollier, happier small creatures? Did Leech, or Mr. Du Maurier, or +Andrea della Robbia ever present a more delightful view of innocent, +well-pleased childhood? Well, these Japanese children, if they are +in the least inclined to be timid or nervous, must have an awful +time of it at night in the dark, and when they make that eerie +"northwest passage" bedwards through the darkling house of which Mr. +Stevenson sings the perils and the emotions. All of us who did not +suffer under parents brought up on the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer +have endured, in childhood, a good deal from ghosts. But it is +nothing to what Japanese children bear, for our ghosts are to the +spectres of Japan as moonlight is to sunlight, or as water unto +whisky. Personally I may say that few people have been plagued by +the terror that walketh in darkness more than myself. At the early +age of ten I had the tales of the ingenious Mr. Edgar Poe and of +Charlotte Bronte "put into my hands" by a cousin who had served as a +Bashi Bazouk, and knew not the meaning of fear. But I DID, and +perhaps even Nelson would have found out "what fear was," or the boy +in the Norse tale would have "learned to shiver," if he had been +left alone to peruse 'Jane Eyre,' and the 'Black Cat,' and the 'Fall +of the House of Usher,' as I was. Every night I expected to wake up +in my coffin, having been prematurely buried; or to hear sighs in +the area, followed by light, unsteady footsteps on the stairs, and +then to see a lady all in a white shroud stained with blood and clay +stagger into my room, the victim of too rapid interment. As to the +notion that my respected kinsman had a mad wife concealed on the +premises, and that a lunatic aunt, black in the face with suppressed +mania, would burst into my chamber, it was comparatively a harmless +fancy, and not particularly disturbing. Between these and the +'Yellow Dwarf,' who (though only the invention of the Countess +D'Aulnoy) might frighten a nervous infant into hysterics, I +personally had as bad a time of it in the night watches as any happy +British child has survived. But our ogres are nothing to the bogies +which make not only night but day terrible to the studious infants +of Japan and China. + +Chinese ghosts are probably much the same as Japanese ghosts. The +Japanese have borrowed most things, including apparitions and +awesome sprites and grisly fiends, from the Chinese, and then have +improved on the original model. Now we have a very full, complete, +and horror-striking account of Chinese harnts (as the country people +in Tennessee call them) from Mr. Herbert Giles, who has translated +scores of Chinese ghost stories in his 'Strange Tales from a Chinese +Studio' (De la Rue, 1880). Mr. Giles's volumes prove that China is +the place for Messrs. Gurney and Myers, the secretaries of the +Psychical Society. + +Ghosts do not live a hole-and-corner life in China, but boldly come +out and take their part in the pleasures and business of life. It +has always been a question with me whether ghosts, in a haunted +house, appear when there is no audience. What does the spectre in +the tapestried chamber do when the house is NOT full, and no guest +is put in the room to bury strangers in, the haunted room? Does the +ghost sulk and complain that there is "no house," and refuse to +rehearse his little performance, in a conscientious and +disinterestedly artistic spirit, when deprived of the artist's true +pleasure, the awakening of sympathetic emotion in the mind of the +spectator? We give too little thought and sympathy to ghosts, who +in our old castles and country houses often find no one to appear to +from year's end to year's-end. Only now and then is a guest placed +in the "haunted room." Then I like to fancy the glee of the lady in +green or the radiant boy, or the headless man, or the old gentleman +in snuff-coloured clothes, as he, or she, recognises the presence of +a spectator, and prepares to give his or her best effects in the +familiar style. + +Now in China and Japan certainly a ghost does not wait till people +enter the haunted room: a ghost, like a person of fashion, "goes +everywhere." Moreover, he has this artistic excellence, that very +often you don't know him from an embodied person. He counterfeits +mortality so cleverly that he (the ghost) has been known to +personate a candidate for honours, and pass an examination for him. +A pleasing example of this kind, illustrating the limitations of +ghosts, is told in Mr. Giles's book. A gentleman of Huai Shang +named Chou-t'ien-i had arrived at the age of fifty, but his family +consisted of but one son, a fine boy, "strangely averse from study," +as if there were anything strange in THAT. One day the son +disappeared mysteriously, as people do from West Ham. In a year he +came back, said he had been detained in a Taoist monastery, and, to +all men's amazement, took to his books. Next year he obtained is +B.A. degree, a First Class. All the neighbourhood was overjoyed, +for Huai Shang was like Pembroke College (Oxford), where, according +to the poet, "First Class men are few and far between." It was who +should have the honour of giving his daughter as bride to this +intellectual marvel. A very nice girl was selected, but most +unexpectedly the B.A. would not marry. This nearly broke his +father's heart. The old gentleman knew, according to Chinese +belief, that if he had no grandchild there would be no one in the +next generation to feed his own ghost and pay it all the little +needful attentions. "Picture then the father naming and insisting +on the day;" till K'o-ch'ang, B.A., got up and ran away. His mother +tried to detain him, when his clothes "came off in her hand," and +the bachelor vanished! Next day appeared the real flesh and blood +son, who had been kidnapped and enslaved. The genuine K'o-ch'ang +was overjoyed to hear of his approaching nuptials. The rites were +duly celebrated, and in less than a year the old gentleman welcomed +his much-longed-for grand child. But, oddly enough, K'o-ch'ang, +though very jolly and universally beloved, was as stupid as ever, +and read nothing but the sporting intelligence in the newspapers. +It was now universally admitted that the learned K'o-ch'ang had been +an impostor, a clever ghost. It follows that ghosts can take a very +good degree; but ladies need not be afraid of marrying ghosts, owing +to the inveterate shyness of these learned spectres. + +The Chinese ghost is by no means always a malevolent person, as, +indeed, has already been made clear from the affecting narrative of +the ghost who passed an examination. Even the spectre which answers +in China to the statue in 'Don Juan,' the statue which accepts +invitations to dinner, is anything but a malevolent guest. So much +may be gathered from the story of Chu and Lu. Chu was an +undergraduate of great courage and bodily vigour, but dull of wit. +He was a married man, and his children (as in the old Oxford legend) +often rushed into their mother's presence, shouting, "Mamma! mammal +papa's been plucked again!" Once it chanced that Chu was at a wine +party, and the negus (a favourite beverage of the Celestials) had +done its work. His young friends betted Chu a bird's-nest dinner +that he would not go to the nearest temple, enter the room devoted +to coloured sculptures representing the torments of Purgatory, and +carry off the image of the Chinese judge of the dead, their Osiris +or Rhadamanthus. Off went old Chu, and soon returned with the +august effigy (which wore "a green face, a red beard, and a hideous +expression") in his arms. The other men were frightened, and begged +Chu to restore his worship to his place on the infernal bench. +Before carrying back the worthy magistrate, Chu poured a libation on +the ground and said, "Whenever your excellency feels so disposed, I +shall be glad to take a cup of wine with you in a friendly way." +That very night, as Chu was taking a stirrup cup before going to +bed, the ghost of the awful judge came to the door and entered. Chu +promptly put the kettle on, mixed the negus, and made a night of it +with the festive fiend. Their friendship was never interrupted from +that moment. The judge even gave Chu a new heart (literally) +whereby he was enabled to pass examinations; for the heart, in +China, is the seat of all the intellectual faculties. For Mrs. Chu, +a plain woman with a fine figure, the ghost provided a new head, of +a handsome girl recently slain by a robber. Even after Chu's death +the genial spectre did not neglect him, but obtained for him an +appointment as registrar in the next world, with a certain rank +attached. + +The next world, among the Chinese, seems to be a paradise of +bureaucracy, patent places, jobs, mandarins' buttons and tails, and, +in short, the heaven of officialism. All civilised readers are +acquainted with Mr. Stockton's humorous story of 'The Transferred +Ghost.' In Mr. Stockton's view a man does not always get his own +ghostship; there is a vigorous competition among spirits for good +ghostships, and a great deal of intrigue and party feeling. It may +be long before a disembodied spectre gets any ghostship at all, and +then, if he has little influence, he may be glad to take a chance of +haunting the Board of Trade, or the Post Office, instead of +"walking" in the Foreign Office. One spirit may win a post as White +Lady in the imperial palace, while another is put off with a +position in an old college library, or perhaps has to follow the +fortunes of some seedy "medium" through boarding-houses and third- +rate hotels. Now this is precisely the Chinese view of the fates +and fortunes of ghosts. Quisque suos patimur manes. + +In China, to be brief, and to quote a ghost (who ought to know what +he was speaking about), "supernaturals are to be found everywhere." +This is the fact that makes life so puzzling and terrible to a child +of a believing and trustful character. These Oriental bogies do not +appear in the dark alone, or only in haunted houses, or at cross- +roads, or in gloomy woods. They are everywhere: every man has his +own ghost, every place has its peculiar haunting fiend, every +natural phenomenon has its informing spirit; every quality, as +hunger, greed, envy, malice, has an embodied visible shape prowling +about seeking what it may devour. Where our science, for example, +sees (or rather smells) sewer gas, the Japanese behold a slimy, +meagre, insatiate wraith, crawling to devour the lives of men. +Where we see a storm of snow, their livelier fancy beholds a comic +snow-ghost, a queer, grinning old man under a vast umbrella. + +The illustrations in this paper are only a few specimens chosen out +of many volumes of Japanese bogies. We have not ventured to copy +the very most awful spectres, nor dared to be as horrid as we can. +These native drawings, too, are generally coloured regardless of +expense, and the colouring is often horribly lurid and satisfactory. +This embellishment, fortunately perhaps, we cannot reproduce. +Meanwhile, if any child looks into this essay, let him (or her) not +be alarmed by the pictures he beholds. Japanese ghosts do not live +in this country; there are none of them even at the Japanese +Legation. Just as bears, lions, and rattlesnakes are not to be +seriously dreaded in our woods and commons, so the Japanese ghost +cannot breathe (any more than a slave can) in the air of England or +America. We do not yet even keep any ghostly zoological garden in +which the bogies of Japanese, Australians, Red Indians, and other +distant peoples may be accommodated. Such an establishment is +perhaps to be desired in the interests of psychical research, but +that form of research has not yet been endowed by a cultivated and +progressive government. + +The first to attract our attention represents, as I understand, the +common ghost, or simulacrum vulgare of psychical science. To this +complexion must we all come, according to the best Japanese opinion. +Each of us contains within him "somewhat of a shadowy being," like +the spectre described by Dr. Johnson: something like the Egyptian +"Ka," for which the curious may consult the works of Miss Amelia B. +Edwards and other learned Orientalists. The most recent French +student of these matters, the author of 'L'Homme Posthume,' is of +opinion that we do not all possess this double, with its power of +surviving our bodily death. He thinks, too, that our ghost, when it +does survive, has but rarely the energy and enterprise to make +itself visible to or audible by "shadow-casting men." In some +extreme cases the ghost (according to our French authority, that of +a disciple of M. Comte) feeds fearsomely on the bodies of the +living. In no event does he believe that a ghost lasts much longer +than a hundred years. After that it mizzles into spectre, and is +resolved into its elements, whatever they may be. + +A somewhat similar and (to my own mind) probably sound theory of +ghosts prevails among savage tribes, and among such peoples as the +ancient Greeks, the modern Hindoos, and other ancestor worshippers. +When feeding, as they all do, or used to do, the ghosts of the +ancestral dead, they gave special attention to the claims of the +dead of the last three generations, leaving ghosts older than the +century to look after their own supplies of meat and drink. The +negligence testifies to a notion that very old ghosts are of little +account, for good or evil. On the other hand, as regards the +longevity of spectres, we must not shut our eyes to the example of +the bogie in ancient armour which appears in Glamis Castle, or to +the Jesuit of Queen Elizabeth's date that haunts the library (and a +very nice place to haunt: I ask no better, as a ghost in the +Pavilion at Lord's might cause a scandal) of an English nobleman. +With these instantiae contradictoriae, as Bacon calls them, present +to our minds, we must not (in the present condition of psychical +research) dogmatise too hastily about the span of life allotted to +the simulacrum vulgare. Very probably his chances of a prolonged +existence are in inverse ratio to the square of the distance of time +which severs him from our modern days. No one has ever even +pretended to see the ghost of an ancient Roman buried in these +islands, still less of a Pict or Scot, or a Palaeolithic man, +welcome as such an apparition would be to many of us. Thus the +evidence does certainly look as if there were a kind of statute of +limitations among ghosts, which, from many points of view, is not an +arrangement at which we should repine. + +The Japanese artist expresses his own sense of the casual and +fluctuating nature of ghosts by drawing his spectre in shaky lines, +as if the model had given the artist the horrors. This simulacrum +rises out of the earth like an exhalation, and groups itself into +shape above the spade with which all that is corporeal of its late +owner has been interred. Please remark the uncomforted and dismal +expression of the simulacrum. We must remember that the ghost or +"Ka" is not the "soul," which has other destinies in the future +world, good or evil, but is only a shadowy resemblance, condemned, +as in the Egyptian creed, to dwell in the tomb and hover near it. +The Chinese and Japanese have their own definite theory of the next +world, and we must by no means confuse the eternal fortunes of the +permanent, conscious, and responsible self, already inhabiting other +worlds than ours, with the eccentric vagaries of the semi-material +tomb-haunting larva, which so often develops a noisy and bear- +fighting disposition quite unlike the character of its proprietor in +life. + +The next bogie, so limp and washed-out as he seems, with his white, +drooping, dripping arms and hands, reminds us of that horrid French +species of apparition, "la lavandiere de la nuit," who washes dead +men's linen in the moonlit pools and rivers. Whether this +simulacrum be meant for the spirit of the well (for everything has +its spirit in Japan), or whether it be the ghost of some mortal +drowned in the well, I cannot say with absolute certainty; but the +opinion of the learned tends to the former conclusion. Naturally a +Japanese child, when sent in the dusk to draw water, will do so with +fear and trembling, for this limp, floppy apparition might scare the +boldest. Another bogie, a terrible creation of fancy, I take to be +a vampire, about which the curious can read in Dom Calmet, who will +tell them how whole villages in Hungary have been depopulated by +vampires; or he may study in Fauriel's 'Chansons de la Grece +Moderne' the vampires of modern Hellas. + +Another plan, and perhaps even more satisfactory to a timid or +superstitious mind, is to read in a lonely house at midnight a story +named 'Carmilla,' printed in Mr. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'In a Glass +Darkly.' That work will give you the peculiar sentiment of +vampirism, will produce a gelid perspiration, and reduce the patient +to a condition in which he will be afraid to look round the room. +If, while in this mood, some one tells him Mr. Augustus Hare's story +of Crooglin Grange, his education in the practice and theory of +vampires will be complete, and he will be a very proper and well- +qualified inmate of Earlswood Asylum. The most awful Japanese +vampire, caught red-handed in the act, a hideous, bestial +incarnation of ghoulishness, we have carefully refrained from +reproducing. + +Scarcely more agreeable is the bogie, or witch, blowing from her +mouth a malevolent exhalation, an embodiment of malignant and +maleficent sorcery. The vapour which flies and curls from the mouth +constitutes "a sending," in the technical language of Icelandic +wizards, and is capable (in Iceland, at all events) of assuming the +form of some detestable supernatural animal, to destroy the life of +a hated rival. In the case of our last example it is very hard +indeed to make head or tail of the spectre represented. Chinks and +crannies are his domain; through these he drops upon you. He is a +merry but not an attractive or genial ghost. Where there are such +"visions about" it may be admitted that children, apt to believe in +all such fancies, have a youth of variegated and intense misery, +recurring with special vigour at bed-time. But we look again at our +first picture, and hope and trust that Japanese boys and girls are +as happy as these jolly little creatures appear. + + + +GHOSTS IN THE LIBRARY + + + +Suppose, when now the house is dumb, +When lights are out, and ashes fall - +Suppose their ancient owners come +To claim our spoils of shop and stall, +Ah me! within the narrow hall +How strange a mob would meet and go, +What famous folk would haunt them all, +Octavo, quarto, folio! + +The great Napoleon lays his hand +Upon this eagle-headed N, +That marks for his a pamphlet banned +By all but scandal-loving men, - +A libel from some nameless den +Of Frankfort,--Arnaud a la Sphere, +Wherein one spilt, with venal pen, +Lies o'er the loves of Moliere. {3} + +Another shade--he does not see +"Boney," the foeman of his race - +The great Sir Walter, this is he +With that grave homely Border face. +He claims his poem of the chase +That rang Benvoirlich's valley through; +And THIS, that doth the lineage trace +And fortunes of the bold Buccleuch; {4} + +For these were his, and these he gave +To one who dwelt beside the Peel, +That murmurs with its tiny wave +To join the Tweed at Ashestiel. +Now thick as motes the shadows wheel, +And find their own, and claim a share +Of books wherein Ribou did deal, +Or Roulland sold to wise Colbert. {5} + +What famous folk of old are here! +A royal duke comes down to us, +And greatly wants his Elzevir, +His Pagan tutor, Lucius. {6} +And Beckford claims an amorous +Old heathen in morocco blue; {7} +And who demands Eobanus +But stately Jacques Auguste de Thou! {8} + +They come, the wise, the great, the true, +They jostle on the narrow stair, +The frolic Countess de Verrue, +Lamoignon, ay, and Longepierre, +The new and elder dead are there - +The lords of speech, and song, and pen, +Gambetta, {9} Schlegel {10} and the rare +Drummond of haunted Hawthornden. {11} + +Ah, and with those, a hundred more, +Whose names, whose deeds, are quite forgot: +Brave "Smiths" and "Thompsons" by the score, +Scrawled upon many a shabby "lot." +This playbook was the joy of Pott {12} - +Pott, for whom now no mortal grieves. +Our names, like his, remembered not, +Like his, shall flutter on fly-leaves! + +At least in pleasant company +We bookish ghosts, perchance, may flit; +A man may turn a page, and sigh, +Seeing one's name, to think of it. +Beauty, or Poet, Sage, or Wit, +May ope our book, and muse awhile, +And fall into a dreaming fit, +As now we dream, and wake, and smile! + + + +LITERARY FORGERIES + + + +In the whole amusing history of impostures, there is no more +diverting chapter than that which deals with literary frauds. None +contains a more grotesque revelation of the smallness and the +complexity of human nature, and none--not even the records of the +Tichborne trial, nor of general elections--displays more pleasantly +the depths of mortal credulity. The literary forger is usually a +clever man, and it is necessary for him to be at least on a level +with the literary knowledge and critical science of his time. But +how low that level commonly appears to be! Think of the success of +Ireland, a boy of eighteen; think of Chatterton; think of Surtees of +Mainsforth, who took in the great Sir Walter himself, the father of +all them that are skilled in ballad lore. How simple were the +artifices of these ingenious impostors, their resources how scanty; +how hand-to-mouth and improvised was their whole procedure! Times +have altered a little. Jo Smith's revelation and famed 'Golden +Bible' only carried captive the polygamous populus qui vult decipi, +reasoners a little lower than even the believers in Anglo-Israel. +The Moabite Ireland, who once gave Mr. Shapira the famous MS. of +Deuteronomy, but did not delude M. Clermont-Ganneau, was doubtless a +smart man; he was, however, a little too indolent, a little too +easily satisfied. He might have procured better and less +recognisable materials than his old "synagogue rolls;" in short, he +took rather too little trouble, and came to the wrong market. A +literary forgery ought first, perhaps, to appeal to the credulous, +and only slowly should it come, with the prestige of having already +won many believers, before the learned world. The inscriber of the +Phoenician inscriptions in Brazil (of all places) was a clever man. +His account of the voyage of Hiram to South America probably gained +some credence in Brazil, while in England it only carried captive +Mr. Day, author of 'The Prehistoric Use of Iron and Steel.' But the +Brazilians, from lack of energy, have dropped the subject, and the +Phoenician inscriptions of Brazil are less successful, after all, +than the Moabite stone, about which one begins to entertain +disagreeable doubts. + +The motives of the literary forger are curiously mixed; but they +may, perhaps, be analysed roughly into piety, greed, "push," and +love of fun. Many literary forgeries have been pious frauds, +perpetrated in the interests of a church, a priesthood, or a dogma. +Then we have frauds of greed, as if, for example, a forger should +offer his wares for a million of money to the British Museum; or +when he tries to palm off his Samaritan Gospel on the "Bad +Samaritan" of the Bodleian. Next we come to playful frauds, or +frauds in their origin playful, like (perhaps) the Shakespearian +forgeries of Ireland, the supercheries of Prosper Merimee, the sham +antique ballads (very spirited poems in their way) of Surtees, and +many other examples. Occasionally it has happened that forgeries, +begun for the mere sake of exerting the imitative faculty, and of +raising a laugh against the learned, have been persevered with in +earnest. The humorous deceits are, of course, the most pardonable, +though it is difficult to forgive the young archaeologist who took +in his own father with false Greek inscriptions. But this story may +be a mere fable amongst archaeologists, who are constantly accusing +each other of all manner of crimes. Then there are forgeries by +"pushing" men, who hope to get a reading for poems which, if put +forth as new, would be neglected. There remain forgeries of which +the motives are so complex as to remain for ever obscure. We may +generally ascribe them to love of notoriety in the forger; such +notoriety as Macpherson won by his dubious pinchbeck Ossian. More +difficult still to understand are the forgeries which real scholars +have committed or connived at for the purpose of supporting some +opinion which they held with earnestness. There is a vein of +madness and self-deceit in the character of the man who half- +persuades himself that his own false facts are true. The Payne +Collier case is thus one of the most difficult in the world to +explain, for it is equally hard to suppose that Mr. Payne Collier +was taken in by the notes on the folio he gave the world, and to +hold that he was himself guilty of forgery to support his own +opinions. + +The further we go back in the history of literary forgeries, the +more (as is natural) do we find them to be of a pious or priestly +character. When the clergy alone can write, only the clergy can +forge. In such ages people are interested chiefly in prophecies and +warnings, or, if they are careful about literature, it is only when +literature contains some kind of title-deeds. Thus Solon is said to +have forged a line in the Homeric catalogue of the ships for the +purpose of proving that Salamis belonged to Athens. But the great +antique forger, the "Ionian father of the rest," is, doubtless, +Onomacritus. There exists, to be sure, an Egyptian inscription +professing to be of the fourth, but probably of the twenty-sixth, +dynasty. The Germans hold the latter view; the French, from +patriotic motives, maintain the opposite opinion. But this forgery +is scarcely "literary." + +I never can think of Onomacritus without a certain respect: he +began the forging business so very early, and was (apart from this +failing) such an imposing and magnificently respectable character. +The scene of the error and the detection of Onomacritus presents +itself always to me in a kind of pictorial vision. It is night, the +clear, windless night of Athens; not of the Athens whose ruins +remain, but of the ancient city that sank in ashes during the +invasion of Xerxes. The time is the time of Pisistratus the +successful tyrant; the scene is the ancient temple, the stately +house of Athene, the fane where the sacred serpent was fed on cakes, +and the primeval olive-tree grew beside the well of Posidon. The +darkness of the temple's inmost shrine is lit by the ray of one +earthen lamp. You dimly discern the majestic form of a venerable +man stooping above a coffer of cedar and ivory, carved with the +exploits of the goddess, and with boustrophedon inscriptions. In +his hair this archaic Athenian wears the badge of the golden +grasshopper. He is Onomacritus, the famous poet, and the trusted +guardian of the ancient oracles of Musaeus and Bacis. + +What is he doing? Why, he takes from the fragrant cedar coffer +certain thin stained sheets of lead, whereon are scratched the words +of doom, the prophecies of the Greek Thomas the Rhymer. From his +bosom he draws another thin sheet of lead, also stained and +corroded. On this he scratches, in imitation of the old "Cadmeian +letters," a prophecy that "the Isles near Lemnos shall disappear +under the sea." So busy is he in this task, that he does not hear +the rustle of a chiton behind, and suddenly a man's hand is on his +shoulder! Onomacritus turns in horror. Has the goddess punished +him for tampering with the oracles? No; it is Lasus, the son of +Hermiones, a rival poet, who has caught the keeper of the oracles in +the very act of a pious forgery. (Herodotus, vii. 6.) + +Pisistratus expelled the learned Onomacritus from Athens, but his +conduct proved, in the long run, highly profitable to the +reputations of Musaeus and Bacis. Whenever one of their oracles was +not fulfilled, people said, "Oh, THAT is merely one of the +interpolations of Onomacritus!" and the matter was passed over. +This Onomacritus is said to have been among the original editors of +Homer under Pisistratus. {13} He lived long, never repented, and, +many years later, deceived Xerxes into attempting his disastrous +expedition. This he did by "keeping back the oracles unfavourable +to the barbarians," and putting forward any that seemed favourable. +The children of Pisistratus believed in him as spiritualists go on +giving credit to exposed and exploded "mediums." + +Having once practised deceit, it is to be feared that Onomacritus +acquired a liking for the art of literary forgery, which, as will be +seen in the case of Ireland, grows on a man like dram-drinking. +Onomacritus is generally charged with the authorship of the poems +which the ancients usually attributed to Orpheus, the companion of +Jason. Perhaps the most interesting of the poems of Orpheus to us +would have been his 'Inferno,' or [Greek text], in which the poet +gave his own account of his descent to Hades in search of Eurydice. +But only a dubious reference to one adventure in the journey is +quoted by Plutarch. Whatever the exact truth about the Orphic poems +may be (the reader may pursue the hard and fruitless quest in +Lobeck's 'Aglaophamus' {14}), it seems certain that the period +between Pisistratus and Pericles, like the Alexandrian time, was a +great age for literary forgeries. But of all these frauds the +greatest (according to the most "advanced" theory on the subject) is +the "Forgery of the Iliad and Odyssey!" The opinions of the +scholars who hold that the Iliad and Odyssey, which we know and +which Plato knew, are not the epics known to Herodotus, but later +compositions, are not very clear nor consistent. But it seems to be +vaguely held that about the time of Pericles there arose a kind of +Greek Macpherson. This ingenious impostor worked on old epic +materials, but added many new ideas of his own about the gods, +converting the Iliad (the poem which we now possess) into a kind of +mocking romance, a Greek Don Quixote. He also forged a number of +pseudo-archaic words, tenses, and expressions, and added the +numerous references to iron, a metal practically unknown, it is +asserted, to Greece before the sixth century. If we are to believe, +with Professor Paley, that the chief incidents of the Iliad and +Odyssey were unknown to Sophocles, AEschylus, and the contemporary +vase painters, we must also suppose that the Greek Macpherson +invented most of the situations in the Odyssey and Iliad. According +to this theory the 'cooker' of the extant epics was far the greatest +and most successful of all literary impostors, for he deceived the +whole world, from Plato downwards, till he was exposed by Mr. Paley. +There are times when one is inclined to believe that Plato must have +been the forger himself, as Bacon (according to the other +hypothesis) was the author of Shakespeare's plays. Thus "Plato the +wise, and large-browed Verulam," would be "the first of those who" +forge! Next to this prodigious imposture, no doubt, the false +'Letters of Phalaris' are the most important of classical forgeries. +And these illustrate, like most literary forgeries, the extreme +worthlessness of literary taste as a criterion of the authenticity +of writings. For what man ever was more a man of taste than Sir +William Temple, "the most accomplished writer of the age," whom Mr. +Boyle never thought of without calling to mind those happy lines of +Lucretius, - + + +Quem tu, dea, tempore in omni +Omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus. + + +Well, the ornate and excellent Temple held that "the Epistles of +Phalaris have more race, more spirit, more force of wit and genius, +than any others he had ever seen, either ancient or modern." So +much for what Bentley calls Temple's "Nicety of Tast." The greatest +of English scholars readily proved that Phalaris used (in the spirit +of prophecy) an idiom which did not exist to write about matters in +his time not invented, but "many centuries younger than he." So let +the Nicety of Temple's Tast and its absolute failure be a warning to +us when we read (if read we must) German critics who deny Homer's +claim to this or that passage, and Plato's right to half his +accepted dialogues, on grounds of literary taste. And farewell, as +Herodotus would have said, to the Letters of Phalaris, of Socrates, +of Plato; to the Lives of Pythagoras and of Homer, and to all the +other uncounted literary forgeries of the classical world, from the +Sibylline prophecies to the battle of the frogs and mice. + +Early Christian frauds were, naturally, pious. We have the +apocryphal Gospels, and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, which +were not exposed till Erasmus's time. Perhaps the most important of +pious forgeries (if forgery be exactly the right word in this case) +was that of 'The False Decretals.' "Of a sudden," says Milman, +speaking of the pontificate of Nicholas I. (ob. 867 A.D.), "Of a +sudden was promulgated, unannounced, without preparation, not +absolutely unquestioned, but apparently over-awing at once all +doubt, a new Code, which to the former authentic documents added +fifty-nine letters and decrees of the twenty oldest Popes from +Clement to Melchiades, and the donation of Constantine, and in the +third part, among the decrees of the Popes and of the Councils from +Sylvester to Gregory II., thirty-nine false decrees, and the acts of +several unauthentic Councils." "The whole is composed," Milman +adds, "with an air of profound piety and reverence." The False +Decretals naturally assert the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. +"They are full and minute on Church Property" (they were sure to be +that); in fact, they remind one of another forgery, pious and Aryan, +'The Institutes of Vishnu.' "Let him not levy any tax upon +Brahmans," says the Brahman forger of the Institutes, which "came +from the mouths of Vishnu," as he sat "clad in a yellow robe, +imperturbable, decorated with all kinds of gems, while Lakshmi was +stroking his feet with her soft palms." The Institutes took +excellent care of Brahmans and cows, as the Decretals did of the +Pope and the clergy, and the earliest Popes had about as much hand +in the Decretals as Vishnu had in his Institutes. Hommenay, in +'Pantagruel,' did well to have the praise of the Decretals sung by +filles belles, blondelettes, doulcettes, et de bonne grace. And +then Hommenay drank to the Decretals and their very good health. "O +dives Decretales, tant par vous est le vin bon bon trouve"--"O +divine Decretals, how good you make good wine taste!" "The miracle +would be greater," said Pantagruel, "if they made bad wine taste +good." The most that can now be done by the devout for the +Decretals is "to palliate the guilt of their forger," whose name, +like that of the Greek Macpherson, is unknown. + +If the early Christian centuries, and the Middle Ages, were chiefly +occupied with pious frauds, with forgeries of gospels, epistles, and +Decretals, the impostors of the Renaissance were busy, as an Oxford +scholar said, when he heard of a new MS. of the Greek Testament, +"with something really important," that is with classical +imitations. After the Turks took Constantinople, when the learned +Greeks were scattered all over Southern Europe, when many genuine +classical manuscripts were recovered by the zeal of scholars, when +the plays of Menander were seen once, and then lost for ever, it was +natural that literary forgery should thrive. As yet scholars were +eager rather than critical; they were collecting and unearthing, +rather than minutely examining the remains of classic literature. +They had found so much, and every year were finding so much more, +that no discovery seemed impossible. The lost books of Livy and +Cicero, the songs of Sappho, the perished plays of Sophocles and +AEschylus might any day be brought to light. This was the very +moment for the literary forger; but it is improbable that any +forgery of the period has escaped detection. Three or four years +ago some one published a book to show that the 'Annals of Tacitus' +were written by Poggio Bracciolini. This paradox gained no more +converts than the bolder hypothesis of Hardouin. The theory of +Hardouin was all that the ancient classics were productions of a +learned company which worked, in the thirteenth century, under +Severus Archontius. Hardouin made some exceptions to his sweeping +general theory. Cicero's writings were genuine, he admitted, so +were Pliny's, of Virgil the Georgics; the satires and epistles of +Horace; Herodotus, and Homer. All the rest of the classics were a +magnificent forgery of the illiterate thirteenth century, which had +scarce any Greek, and whose Latin, abundant in quantity, in quality +left much to be desired. + +Among literary forgers, or passers of false literary coin, at the +time of the Renaissance, Annius is the most notorious. Annius (his +real vernacular name was Nanni) was born at Viterbo, in 1432. He +became a Dominican, and (after publishing his forged classics) rose +to the position of Maitre du Palais to the Pope, Alexander Borgia. +With Caesar Borgia it is said that Annius was never on good terms. +He persisted in preaching "the sacred truth" to his highness and +this (according to the detractors of Annius) was the only use he +made of the sacred truth. There is a legend that Caesar Borgia +poisoned the preacher (1502), but people usually brought that charge +against Caesar when any one in any way connected with him happened +to die. Annius wrote on the History and Empire of the Turks, who +took Constantinople in his time; but he is better remembered by his +'Antiquitatum Variarum Volumina XVII. cum comment. Fr. Jo. Annii.' +These fragments of antiquity included, among many other desirable +things, the historical writings of Fabius Pictor, the predecessor of +Livy. One is surprised that Annius, when he had his hand in, did +not publish choice extracts from the 'Libri Lintei,' the ancient +Roman annals, written on linen and preserved in the temple of Juno +Moneta. Among the other discoveries of Annius were treatises by +Berosus, Manetho, Cato, and poems by Archilochus. Opinion has been +divided as to whether Annius was wholly a knave, or whether he was +himself imposed upon. Or, again, whether he had some genuine +fragments, and eked them out with his own inventions. It is +observed that he did not dovetail the really genuine relics of +Berosus and Manetho into the works attributed to them. This may be +explained as the result of ignorance or of cunning; there can be no +certain inference. "Even the Dominicans," as Bayle says, admit that +Annius's discoveries are false, though they excuse them by averring +that the pious man was the dupe of others. But a learned Lutheran +has been found to defend the 'Antiquitates' of the Dominican. + +It is amusing to remember that the great and erudite Rabelais was +taken in by some pseudo-classical fragments. The joker of jokes was +hoaxed. He published, says Mr. Besant, "a couple of Latin +forgeries, which he proudly called 'Ex reliquiis venerandae +antiquitatis,' consisting of a pretended will and a contract." The +name of the book is 'Ex reliquiis venerandae antiquitatis. Lucii +Cuspidii Testamentum. Item contractus venditionis antiquis +Romanorum temporibus initus. Lugduni apud Gryphium (1532).' +Pomponius Laetus and Jovianus Pontanus were apparently authors of +the hoax. + +Socrates said that he "would never lift up his hand against his +father Parmenides." The fathers of the Church have not been so +respectfully treated by literary forgers during the Renaissance. +The 'Flowers of Theology' of St. Bernard, which were to be a +primrose path ad gaudia Paradisi (Strasburg, 1478), were really, it +seems, the production of Jean de Garlande. Athanasius, his 'Eleven +Books concerning the Trinity,' are attributed to Vigilius, a +colonial Bishop in Northern Africa. Among false classics were two +comic Latin fragments with which Muretus beguiled Scaliger. +Meursius has suffered, posthumously, from the attribution to him of +a very disreputable volume indeed. In 1583, a book on +'Consolations,' by Cicero, was published at Venice, containing the +reflections with which Cicero consoled himself for the death of +Tullia. It might as well have been attributed to Mrs. Blimber, and +described as replete with the thoughts by which that lady supported +herself under the affliction of never having seen Cicero or his +Tusculan villa. The real author was Charles Sigonius, of Modena. +Sigonius actually did discover some Ciceronian fragments, and, if he +was not the builder, at least he was the restorer of Tully's lofty +theme. In 1693, Francois Nodot, conceiving the world had not +already enough of Petronius Arbiter, published an edition, in which +he added to the works of that lax though accomplished author. +Nodot's story was that he had found a whole MS. of Petronius at +Belgrade, and he published it with a translation of his own Latin +into French. Still dissatisfied with the existing supply of +Petronius' humour was Marchena, a writer of Spanish books, who +printed at Bale a translation and edition of a new fragment. This +fragment was very cleverly inserted in a presumed lacuna. In spite +of the ironical style of the preface many scholars were taken in by +this fragment, and their credulity led Marchena to find a new morsel +(of Catullus this time) at Herculaneum. Eichstadt, a Jena +professor, gravely announced that the same fragment existed in a MS. +in the university library, and, under pretence of giving various +readings, corrected Marchena's faults in prosody. Another sham +Catullus, by Corradino, a Venetian, was published in 1738. + +The most famous forgeries of the eighteenth century were those of +Macpherson, Chatterton, and Ireland. Space (fortunately) does not +permit a discussion of the Ossianic question. That fragments of +Ossianic legend (if not of Ossianic poetry) survive in oral Gaelic +traditions, seems certain. How much Macpherson knew of these, and +how little he used them in the bombastic prose which Napoleon loved +(and spelled "Ocean"), it is next to impossible to discover. The +case of Chatterton is too well known to need much more than mention. +The most extraordinary poet for his years who ever lived began with +the forgery of a sham feudal pedigree for Mr. Bergum, a pewterer. +Ireland started on his career in much the same way, unless Ireland's +'Confessions' be themselves a fraud, based on what he knew about +Chatterton. Once launched in his career, Chatterton drew endless +stores of poetry from "Rowley's MS." and the muniment chest in St. +Mary Redcliffe's. Jacob Bryant believed in them and wrote an +'Apology' for the credulous. Bryant, who believed in his own system +of mythology, might have believed in anything. When Chatterton sent +his "discoveries" to Walpole (himself somewhat of a mediaeval +imitator), Gray and Mason detected the imposture, and Walpole, his +feelings as an antiquary injured took no more notice of the boy. +Chatterton's death was due to his precocity. Had his genius come to +him later, it would have found him wiser, and better able to command +the fatal demon of intellect, for which he had to find work, like +Michael Scott in the legend. + +The end of the eighteenth century, which had been puzzled or +diverted by the Chatterton and Macpherson frauds, witnessed also the +great and famous Shakespearian forgeries. We shall never know the +exact truth about the fabrication of the Shakespearian documents, +and 'Vortigern' and the other plays. We have, indeed, the +confession of the culprit: habemus confitentem reum, but Mr. W. H. +Ireland was a liar and a solicitor's clerk, so versatile and +accomplished that we cannot always trust him, even when he is +narrating the tale of his own iniquities. The temporary but wide +and turbulent success of the Ireland forgeries suggests the +disagreeable reflection that criticism and learning are (or a +hundred years ago were) worth very little as literary touchstones. +A polished and learned society, a society devoted to Shakespeare and +to the stage, was taken in by a boy of eighteen. Young Ireland not +only palmed off his sham prose documents, most makeshift imitations +of the antique, but even his ridiculous verses on the experts. +James Boswell went down on his knees and thanked Heaven for the +sight of them, and, feeling thirsty after these devotions, drank hot +brandy and water. Dr. Parr was not less readily gulled, and +probably the experts, like Malone, who held aloof, were as much +influenced by jealousy as by science. The whole story of young +Ireland's forgeries is not only too long to be told here, but forms +the topic of a novel ('The Talk of the Town') by Mr. James Payn. +The frauds in his hands lose neither their humour nor their +complicated interest of plot. To be brief, then, Mr. Samuel Ireland +was a gentleman extremely fond of old literature and old books. If +we may trust the 'Confessions' (1805) of his candid son, Mr. W. H. +Ireland, a more harmless and confiding old person than Samuel never +collected early English tracts. Living in his learned society, his +son, Mr. W. H. Ireland, acquired not only a passion for black +letters, but a desire to emulate Chatterton. His first step in +guilt was the forgery of an autograph on an old pamphlet, with which +he gratified Samuel Ireland. He also wrote a sham inscription on a +modern bust of Cromwell, which he represented as an authentic +antique. Finding that the critics were taken in, and attributed +this new bust to the old sculptor Simeon, Ireland conceived a very +low and not unjustifiable opinion of critical tact. Critics would +find merit in anything which seemed old enough. Ireland's next +achievement was the forgery of some legal documents concerning +Shakespeare. Just as the bad man who deceived the guileless Mr. +Shapira forged his 'Deuteronomy' on the blank spaces of old +synagogue rolls, so young Ireland used the cut-off ends of old rent +rolls. He next bought up quantities of old fly-leaves of books, and +on this ancient paper he indicted a sham confession of faith, which +he attributed to Shakespeare. Being a strong "evangelical," young +Mr. Ireland gave a very Protestant complexion to this edifying +document. And still the critics gaped and wondered and believed. + +Ireland's method was to write in an ink made by blending various +liquids used in the marbling of paper for bookbinding. This stuff +was supplied to him by a bookbinder's apprentice. When people asked +questions as to whence all the new Shakespeare manuscripts came, he +said they were presented to him by a gentleman who wished to remain +anonymous. Finally, the impossibility of producing this gentleman +was one of the causes of the detection of the fraud. According to +himself, Ireland performed prodigies of acuteness. Once he had +forged, at random, the name of a contemporary of Shakespeare. He +was confronted with a genuine signature, which, of course, was quite +different. He obtained leave to consult his "anonymous gentleman," +rushed home, forged the name again on the model of what had been +shown to him, and returned with this signature as a new gift from +his benefactor. That nameless friend had informed him (he swore) +that there were two persons of the same name, and that both +signatures were genuine. Ireland's impudence went the length of +introducing an ancestor of his own, with the same name as himself, +among the companions of Shakespeare. If 'Vortigern' had succeeded +(and it was actually put on the stage with all possible pomp), +Ireland meant to have produced a series of pseudo-Shakespearian +plays from William the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth. When busy with +'Vortigern,' he was detected by a friend of his own age, who pounced +on him while he was at work, as Lasus pounced on Onomacritus. The +discoverer, however, consented to "stand in" with Ireland, and did +not divulge his secret. At last, after the fiasco of 'Vortigern,' +suspicion waxed so strong, and disagreeable inquiries for the +anonymous benefactor were so numerous, that Ireland fled from his +father's house. He confessed all, and, according to his own +account, fell under the undying wrath of Samuel Ireland. Any reader +of Ireland's confessions will be likely to sympathise with old +Samuel as the dupe of his son. The whole story is told with a +curious mixture of impudence and humour, and with great +plausibility. Young Ireland admits that his "desire for laughter" +was almost irresistible, when people--learned, pompous, sagacious +people--listened attentively to the papers. One feels half inclined +to forgive the rogue for the sake of his youth, his cleverness, his +humour. But the 'Confessions' are, not improbably, almost as +apocryphal as the original documents. They were written for the +sake of money, and it is impossible to say how far the same +mercenary motive actuated Ireland in his forgeries. Dr. Ingleby, in +his 'Shakespeare Fabrications,' takes a very rigid view of the +conduct, not only of William, but of old Samuel Ireland. Sam, +according to Dr. Ingleby, was a partner in the whole imposture, and +the confession was only one element in the scheme of fraud. Old +Samuel was the Fagin of a band of young literary Dodgers. He +"positively trained his whole family to trade in forgery," and as +for Mr. W. H. Ireland, he was "the most accomplished liar that ever +lived," which is certainly a distinction in its way. The point of +the joke is that, after the whole conspiracy exploded, people were +anxious to buy examples of the forgeries. Mr. W. H. Ireland was +equal to the occasion. He actually forged his own, or (according to +Dr. Ingleby) his father's forgeries, and, by thus increasing the +supply, he deluged the market with sham shams, with imitations of +imitations. If this accusation be correct, it is impossible not to +admire the colossal impudence of Mr. W. H. Ireland. Dr. Ingleby, in +the ardour of his honest indignation, pursues William into his +private life, which, it appears, was far from exemplary. But +literary criticism should be content with a man's works; his +domestic life is matter, as Aristotle often says, "for a separate +kind of investigation." Old Ritson used to say that "every literary +impostor deserved hanging as much as a common thief." W. H. +Ireland's merits were never recognised by the law. + +How old Ritson would have punished "the old corrector," it is +"better only guessing," as the wicked say, according to Clough, in +regard to their own possible chastisement. The difficulty is to +ascertain who the apocryphal old corrector really was. The story of +his misdeeds was recently brought back to mind by the death, at an +advanced age, of the learned Shakespearian, Mr. J. Payne Collier. +Mr. Collier was, to put it mildly, the Shapira of the old corrector. +He brought that artist's works before the public; but WHY? how +deceived, or how influenced, it is once more "better only guessing." +Mr. Collier first introduced to the public notice his singular copy +of a folio Shakespeare (second edition), loaded with ancient +manuscript emendations, in 1849. His account of this book was +simple and plausible. He chanced, one day, to be in the shop of Mr. +Rudd, the bookseller, in Great Newport Street, when a parcel of +second-hand volumes arrived from the country. When the parcel was +opened, the heart of the Bibliophile began to sing, for the packet +contained two old folios, one of them an old folio Shakespeare of +the second edition (1632). The volume (mark this) was "much +cropped," greasy, and imperfect. Now the student of Mr. Hamilton's +'Inquiry' into the whole affair is already puzzled. In later days, +Mr. Collier said that his folio had previously been in the +possession of a Mr. Parry. On the other hand, Mr. Parry (then a +very aged man) failed to recognise his folio in Mr. Collier's, for +HIS copy was "cropped," whereas the leaves of Mr. Collier's example +were NOT mutilated. Here, then ('Inquiry,' pp. 12, 61), we have +two descriptions of the outward aspect of Mr. Collier's dubious +treasure. In one account it is "much cropped" by the book-binder's +cruel shears; in the other, its unmutilated condition is contrasted +with that of a copy which has been "cropped." In any case, Mr. +Collier hoped, he says, to complete an imperfect folio he possessed, +with leaves taken from the folio newly acquired for thirty +shillings. But the volumes happened to have the same defects, and +the healing process was impossible. Mr. Collier chanced to be going +into the country, when in packing the folio he had bought of Rudd he +saw it was covered with manuscript corrections in an old hand. +These he was inclined to attribute to one Thomas Perkins, whose name +was written on the fly-leaf, and who might have been a connection of +Richard Perkins, the actor (flor. 1633) The notes contained many +various readings, and very numerous changes in punctuation. Some of +these Mr. Collier published in his 'Notes and Emendations' (1852), +and in an edition of the 'Plays.' There was much discussion, much +doubt, and the folio of the old corrector (who was presumed to have +marked the book in the theatre during early performances) was +exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries. Then Mr. Collier presented +the treasure to the Duke of Devonshire, who again lent it for +examination to the British Museum. Mr. Hamilton published in the +Times (July, 1859) the results of his examination of the old +corrector. It turned out that the old corrector was a modern myth. +He had first made his corrections in pencil and in a modern hand, +and then he had copied them over in ink, and in a forged ancient +hand. The same word sometimes recurred in both handwritings. The +ink, which looked old, was really no English ink at all, not even +Ireland's mixture. It seemed to be sepia, sometimes mixed with a +little Indian ink. Mr. Hamilton made many other sad discoveries. +He pointed out that Mr. Collier had published, from a Dulwich MS., a +letter of Mrs. Alleyne's (the actor's wife), referring to +Shakespeare as "Mr. Shakespeare of the Globe." Now the Dulwich MS. +was mutilated and blank in the very place where this interesting +reference should have occurred. Such is a skeleton history of the +old corrector, his works and ways. It is probable that--thanks to +his assiduities--new Shakespearian documents will in future be +received with extreme scepticism; and this is all the fruit, except +acres of newspaper correspondence, which the world has derived from +Mr. Collier's greasy and imperfect but unique "corrected folio." + +The recency and (to a Shakespearian critic) the importance of these +forgeries obscures the humble merit of Surtees, with his ballads of +the 'Slaying of Antony Featherstonhaugh,' and of 'Bartram's Dirge.' +Surtees left clever lacunae in these songs, 'collected from oral +tradition,' and furnished notes so learned that they took in Sir +Walter Scott. There are moments when I half suspect "the Shirra +himsel" (who blamelessly forged so many extracts from 'Old Plays') +of having composed 'Kinmont Willie.' To compare old Scott of +Satchell's account of Kinmont Willie with the ballad is to feel +uncomfortable doubts. But this is a rank impiety. The last ballad +forgery of much note was the set of sham Macedonian epics and +popular songs (all about Alexander the Great, and other heroes) +which a schoolmaster in the Rhodope imposed on M. Verkovitch. The +trick was not badly done, and the imitation of "ballad slang" was +excellent. The 'Oera Linda' book, too, was successful enough to be +translated into English. With this latest effort of the tenth muse, +the crafty muse of Literary Forgery, we may leave a topic which +could not be exhausted in a ponderous volume. We have not room even +for the forged letters of Shelley, to which Mr. Browning, being +taken in thereby, wrote a preface, nor for the forged letters of Mr. +Ruskin, which occasionally hoax all the newspapers. + + + +BIBLIOMANIA IN FRANCE + + + +The love of books for their own sake, for their paper, print, +binding, and for their associations, as distinct from the love of +literature, is a stronger and more universal passion in France than +elsewhere in Europe. In England publishers are men of business; in +France they aspire to be artists. In England people borrow what +they read from the libraries, and take what gaudy cloth-binding +chance chooses to send them. In France people buy books, and bind +them to their heart's desire with quaint and dainty devices on the +morocco covers. Books are lifelong friends in that country; in +England they are the guests of a week or of a fortnight. The +greatest French writers have been collectors of curious editions; +they have devoted whole treatises to the love of books. The +literature and history of France are full of anecdotes of the good +and bad fortunes of bibliophiles, of their bargains, discoveries, +disappointments. There lies before us at this moment a small +library of books about books,--the 'Bibliophile Francais,' in seven +large volumes, 'Les Sonnets d'un Bibliophile,' 'La Bibliomanie en +1878,' 'La Bibliotheque d'un Bibliophile' (1885) and a dozen other +works of Janin, Nodier, Beraldi, Pieters, Didot, great collectors +who have written for the instruction of beginners and the pleasure +of every one who takes delight in printed paper. + +The passion for books, like other forms of desire, has its changes +of fashion. It is not always easy to justify the caprices of taste. +The presence or absence of half an inch of paper in the "uncut" +margin of a book makes a difference of value that ranges from five +shillings to a hundred pounds. Some books are run after because +they are beautifully bound; some are competed for with equal +eagerness because they never have been bound at all. The +uninitiated often make absurd mistakes about these distinctions. +Some time ago the Daily Telegraph reproached a collector because his +books were "uncut," whence, argued the journalist, it was clear that +he had never read them. "Uncut," of course, only means that the +margins have not been curtailed by the binders' plough. It is a +point of sentiment to like books just as they left the hands of the +old printers,--of Estienne, Aldus, or Louis Elzevir. + +It is because the passion for books is a sentimental passion that +people who have not felt it always fail to understand it. Sentiment +is not an easy thing to explain. Englishmen especially find it +impossible to understand tastes and emotions that are not their +own,--the wrongs of Ireland, (till quite recently) the aspirations +of Eastern Roumelia, the demands of Greece. If we are to understand +the book-hunter, we must never forget that to him books are, in the +first place, RELICS. He likes to think that the great writers whom +he admires handled just such pages and saw such an arrangement of +type as he now beholds. Moliere, for example, corrected the proofs +for this edition of the 'Precieuses Ridicules,' when he first +discovered "what a labour it is to publish a book, and how GREEN +(NEUF) an author is the first time they print him." Or it may be +that Campanella turned over, with hands unstrung, and still broken +by the torture, these leaves that contain his passionate sonnets. +Here again is the copy of Theocritus from which some pretty page may +have read aloud to charm the pagan and pontifical leisure of Leo X. +This Gargantua is the counterpart of that which the martyred Dolet +printed for (or pirated from, alas!) Maitre Francois Rabelais. This +woeful ballade, with the woodcut of three thieves hanging from one +gallows, came near being the "Last Dying Speech and Confession of +Francois Villon." This shabby copy of 'The Eve of St. Agnes' is +precisely like that which Shelley doubled up and thrust into his +pocket when the prow of the piratical felucca crashed into the +timbers of the Don Juan. Some rare books have these associations, +and they bring you nearer to the authors than do the modern +reprints. Bibliophiles will tell you that it is the early READINGS +they care for,--the author's first fancies, and those more hurried +expressions which he afterwards corrected. These READINGS have +their literary value, especially in the masterpieces of the great; +but the sentiment after all is the main thing. + +Other books come to be relics in another way. They are the copies +which belonged to illustrious people,--to the famous collectors who +make a kind of catena (a golden chain of bibliophiles) through the +centuries since printing was invented. There are Grolier (1479- +1565),--not a bookbinder, as an English newspaper supposed (probably +when Mr. Sala was on his travels),--De Thou (1553-1617), the great +Colbert, the Duc de la Valliere (1708-1780), Charles Nodier, a man +of yesterday, M. Didot, and the rest, too numerous to name. Again, +there are the books of kings, like Francis I., Henri III., and Louis +XIV. These princes had their favourite devices. Nicolas Eve, +Padeloup, Derome, and other artists arrayed their books in morocco,- +-tooled with skulls, cross-bones, and crucifixions for the +voluptuous pietist Henri III., with the salamander for Francis I., +and powdered with fleurs de lys for the monarch who "was the State." +There are relics also of noble beauties. The volumes of Marguerite +d'Angouleme are covered with golden daisies. The cipher of Marie +Antoinette adorns too many books that Madame du Barry might have +welcomed to her hastily improvised library. The three daughters of +Louis XV. had their favourite colours of morocco, citron, red, and +olive, and their books are valued as much as if they bore the bees +of De Thou, or the intertwined C's of the illustrious and ridiculous +Abbe Cotin, the Trissotin of the comedy. Surely in all these things +there is a human interest, and our fingers are faintly thrilled, as +we touch these books, with the far-off contact of the hands of kings +and cardinals, scholars and coquettes, pedants, poets, and +precieuses, the people who are unforgotten in the mob that inhabited +dead centuries. + +So universal and ardent has the love of magnificent books been in +France, that it would be possible to write a kind of bibliomaniac +history of that country. All her rulers, kings, cardinals, and +ladies have had time to spare for collecting. Without going too far +back, to the time when Bertha span and Charlemagne was an amateur, +we may give a few specimens of an anecdotical history of French +bibliolatry, beginning, as is courteous, with a lady. "Can a woman +be a bibliophile?" is a question which was once discussed at the +weekly breakfast party of Guilbert de Pixerecourt, the famous book- +lover and playwright, the "Corneille of the Boulevards." The +controversy glided into a discussion as to "how many books a man can +love at a time;" but historical examples prove that French women +(and Italian, witness the Princess d'Este) may be bibliophiles of +the true strain. Diane de Poictiers was their illustrious +patroness. The mistress of Henri II. possessed, in the Chateau +d'Anet, a library of the first triumphs of typography. Her taste +was wide in range, including songs, plays, romances, divinity; her +copies of the Fathers were bound in citron morocco, stamped with her +arms and devices, and closed with clasps of silver. In the love of +books, as in everything else, Diane and Henri II. were inseparable. +The interlaced H and D are scattered over the covers of their +volumes; the lily of France is twined round the crescents of Diane, +or round the quiver, the arrows, and the bow which she adopted as +her cognisance, in honour of the maiden goddess. The books of Henri +and of Diane remained in the Chateau d'Anet till the death of the +Princesse de Conde in 1723, when they were dispersed. The son of +the famous Madame de Guyon bought the greater part of the library, +which has since been scattered again and again. M. Leopold Double, +a well-known bibliophile, possessed several examples. {15} + +Henry III. scarcely deserves, perhaps, the name of a book-lover, for +he probably never read the works which were bound for him in the +most elaborate way. But that great historian, Alexandre Dumas, +takes a far more friendly view of the king's studies, and, in 'La +Dame de Monsoreau,' introduces us to a learned monarch. Whether he +cared for the contents of his books or not, his books are among the +most singular relics of a character which excites even morbid +curiosity. No more debauched and worthless wretch ever filled a +throne; but, like the bad man in Aristotle, Henri III. was "full of +repentance." When he was not dancing in an unseemly revel, he was +on his knees in his chapel. The board of one of his books, of which +an engraving lies before me, bears his cipher and crown in the +corners; but the centre is occupied in front with a picture of the +Annunciation, while on the back is the crucifixion and the breeding +heart through which the swords have pierced. His favourite device +was the death's-head, with the motto Memento Mori, or Spes mea Deus. +While he was still only Duc d'Anjou, Henri loved Marie de Cleves, +Princesse de Conde. On her sudden death he expressed his grief, as +he had done his piety, by aid of the petits fers of the bookbinder. +Marie's initials were stamped on his book-covers in a chaplet of +laurels. In one corner a skull and cross-bones were figured; in the +other the motto Mort m'est vie; while two curly objects, which did +duty for tears, filled up the lower corners. The books of Henri +III., even when they are absolutely worthless as literature, sell +for high prices; and an inane treatise on theology, decorated with +his sacred emblems, lately brought about 120 pounds in a London +sale. + +Francis I., as a patron of all the arts, was naturally an amateur of +bindings. The fates of books were curiously illustrated by the +story of the copy of Homer, on large paper, which Aldus, the great +Venetian printer, presented to Francis I. After the death of the +late Marquis of Hastings, better known as an owner of horses than of +books, his possessions were brought to the hammer. With the +instinct, the flair, as the French say, of the bibliophile, M. +Ambroise Firmin Didot, the biographer of Aldus, guessed that the +marquis might have owned something in his line. He sent his agent +over to England, to the country town where the sale was to be held. +M. Didot had his reward. Among the books which were dragged out of +some mouldy store-room was the very Aldine Homer of Francis I., with +part of the original binding still clinging to the leaves. M. Didot +purchased the precious relic, and sent it to what M. Fertiault (who +has written a century of sonnets on bibliomania) calls the hospital +for books. + + +Le dos humide, je l'eponge; +Ou manque un coin, vite une allonge, +Pour tous j'ai maison de sante. + + +M. Didot, of course, did not practise this amateur surgery himself, +but had the arms and devices of Francis I. restored by one of those +famous binders who only work for dukes, millionnaires, and +Rothschilds. + +During the religious wars and the troubles of the Fronde, it is +probable that few people gave much time to the collection of books. +The illustrious exceptions are Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin, who +possessed a "snuffy Davy" of his own, an indefatigable prowler among +book-stalls and dingy purlieus, in Gabriel Naude. In 1664, Naude, +who was a learned and ingenious writer, the apologist for "great men +suspected of magic," published the second edition of his 'Avis pour +dresser une Bibliotheque,' and proved himself to be a true lover of +the chase, a mighty hunter (of books) before the Lord. Naude's +advice to the collector is rather amusing. He pretends not to care +much for bindings, and quotes Seneca's rebuke of the Roman +bibliomaniacs, Quos voluminum suorum frontes maxime placent +titulique,--who chiefly care for the backs and lettering of their +volumes. The fact is that Naude had the wealth of Mazarin at his +back, and we know very well, from the remains of the Cardinal's +library which exist, that he liked as well as any man to see his +cardinal's hat glittering on red or olive morocco in the midst of +the beautiful tooling of the early seventeenth century. When once +he got a book, he would not spare to give it a worthy jacket. +Naude's ideas about buying were peculiar. Perhaps he sailed rather +nearer the wind than even Monkbarns would have cared to do. His +favourite plan was to buy up whole libraries in the gross, +"speculative lots" as the dealers call them. In the second place, +he advised the book-lover to haunt the retreats of Libraires +fripiers, et les vieux fonds et magasins. Here he truly observes +that you may find rare books, broches,--that is, unbound and uncut,- +-just as Mr. Symonds bought two uncut copies of 'Laon and Cythna' in +a Bristol stall for a crown. "You may get things for four or five +crowns that would cost you forty or fifty elsewhere," says Naude. +Thus a few years ago M. Paul Lacroix bought for two francs, in a +Paris shop, the very copy of 'Tartuffe' which had belonged to Louis +XIV. The example may now be worth perhaps 200 pounds. But we are +digressing into the pleasures of the modern sportsman. + +It was not only in second-hand bookshops that Naude hunted, but +among the dealers in waste paper. "Thus did Poggio find Quintilian +on the counter of a wood-merchant, and Masson picked up 'Agobardus' +at the shop of a binder, who was going to use the MS. to patch his +books withal." Rossi, who may have seen Naude at work, tells us how +he would enter a shop with a yard-measure in his hand, buying books, +we are sorry to say, by the ell. "The stalls where he had passed +were like the towns through which Attila or the Tartars had swept, +with ruin in their train,--ut non hominis unius sedulitas, sed +calamitas quaedam per omnes bibliopolarum tabernas pervasisse +videatur!" Naude had sorrows of his own. In 1652 the Parliament +decreed the confiscation of the splendid library of Mazarin, which +was perhaps the first free library in Europe,--the first that was +open to all who were worthy of right of entrance. There is a +painful description of the sale, from which the book-lover will +avert his eyes. On Mazarin's return to power he managed to collect +again and enrich his stores, which form the germ of the existing +Bibliotheque Mazarine. + +Among princes and popes it is pleasant to meet one man of letters, +and he the greatest of the great age, who was a bibliophile. The +enemies and rivals of Moliere--De Vise, De Villiers, and the rest-- +are always reproaching him--with his love of bouquins. There is +some difference of opinion among philologists about the derivation +of bouquin, but all book-hunters know the meaning of the word. The +bouquin is the "small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold," +which lies among the wares of the stall-keeper, patient in rain and +dust, till the hunter comes who can appreciate the quarry. We like +to think of Moliere lounging through the narrow streets in the +evening, returning, perhaps, from some noble house where he has been +reading the proscribed 'Tartuffe,' or giving an imitation of the +rival actors at the Hotel Bourgogne. Absent as the contemplateur +is, a dingy book-stall wakens him from his reverie. His lace +ruffles are soiled in a moment with the learned dust of ancient +volumes. Perhaps he picks up the only work out of all his library +that is known to exist,--un ravissant petit Elzevir, 'De Imperio +Magni Mogolis' (Lugd. Bat. 1651). On the title-page of this tiny +volume, one of the minute series of 'Republics' which the Elzevirs +published, the poet has written his rare signature, "J. B. P. +Moliere," with the price the book cost him, "1 livre, 10 sols." "Il +n'est pas de bouquin qui s'echappe de ses mains," says the author of +'La Guerre Comique,' the last of the pamphlets which flew about +during the great literary quarrel about "L'Ecole des Femmes." +Thanks to M. Soulie the catalogue of Moliere's library has been +found, though the books themselves have passed out of view. There +are about three hundred and fifty volumes in the inventory, but +Moliere's widow may have omitted as valueless (it is the foible of +her sex) many rusty bouquins, now worth far more than their weight +in gold. Moliere owned no fewer than two hundred and forty volumes +of French and Italian comedies. From these he took what suited him +wherever he found it. He had plenty of classics, histories, +philosophic treatises, the essays of Montaigne, a Plutarch, and a +Bible. + +We know nothing, to the regret of bibliophiles, of Moliere's taste +in bindings. Did he have a comic mask stamped on the leather (that +device was chased on his plate), or did he display his cognizance +and arms, the two apes that support a shield charged with three +mirrors of Truth? It is certain--La Bruyere tells us as much--that +the sillier sort of book-lover in the seventeenth century was much +the same sort of person as his successor in our own time. "A man +tells me he has a library," says La Bruyere (De la Mode); "I ask +permission to see it. I go to visit my friend, and he receives me +in a house where, even on the stairs, the smell of the black morocco +with which his books are covered is so strong that I nearly faint. +He does his best to revive me; shouts in my ear that the volumes +'have gilt edges,' that they are 'elegantly tooled,' that they are +'of the good edition,' . . . and informs me that 'he never reads,' +that 'he never sets foot in this part of his house,' that he 'will +come to oblige me!' I thank him for all his kindness, and have no +more desire than himself to see the tanner's shop that he calls his +library." + +Colbert, the great minister of Louis XIV., was a bibliophile at whom +perhaps La Bruyere would have sneered. He was a collector who did +not read, but who amassed beautiful books, and looked forward, as +business men do, to the day when he would have time to study them. +After Grolier, De Thou, and Mazarin, Colbert possessed probably the +richest private library in Europe. The ambassadors of France were +charged to procure him rare books and manuscripts, and it is said +that in a commercial treaty with the Porte he inserted a clause +demanding a certain quantity of Levant morocco for the use of the +royal bookbinders. England, in those days, had no literature with +which France deigned to be acquainted. Even into England, however, +valuable books had been imported; and we find Colbert pressing the +French ambassador at St. James's to bid for him at a certain sale of +rare heretical writings. People who wanted to gain his favour +approached him with presents of books, and the city of Metz gave him +two real curiosities--the famous "Metz Bible" and the Missal of +Charles the Bald. The Elzevirs sent him their best examples, and +though Colbert probably saw more of the gilt covers of his books +than of their contents, at least he preserved and handed down many +valuable works. As much may be said for the reprobate Cardinal +Dubois, who, with all his faults, was a collector. Bossuet, on the +other hand, left little or nothing of interest except a copy of the +1682 edition of Moliere, whom he detested and condemned to "the +punishment of those who laugh." Even this book, which has a curious +interest, has slipped out of sight, and may have ceased to exist. + +If Colbert and Dubois preserved books from destruction, there are +collectors enough who have been rescued from oblivion by books. The +diplomacy of D'Hoym is forgotten; the plays of Longepierre, and his +quarrels with J. B. Rousseau, are known only to the literary +historian. These great amateurs have secured an eternity of gilt +edges, an immortality of morocco. Absurd prices are given for any +trash that belonged to them, and the writer of this notice has +bought for four shillings an Elzevir classic, which when it bears +the golden fleece of Longepierre is worth about 100 pounds. +Longepierre, D'Hoym, McCarthy, and the Duc de la Valliere, with all +their treasures, are less interesting to us than Graille, Coche and +Loque, the neglected daughters of Louis XV. They found some pale +consolation in their little cabinets of books, in their various +liveries of olive, citron, and red morocco. + +A lady amateur of high (book-collecting) reputation, the Comtesse de +Verrue, was represented in the Beckford sale by one of three copies +of 'L'Histoire de Melusine,' of Melusine, the twy-formed fairy, and +ancestress of the house of Lusignan. The Comtesse de Verrue, one of +the few women who have really understood book-collecting, {16} was +born January 18, 1670, and died November 18, 1736. She was the +daughter of Charles de Luynes and of his second wife, Anne de Rohan. +When only thirteen she married the Comte de Verrue, who somewhat +injudiciously presented her, a fleur de quinze ans, as Ronsard says, +at the court of Victor Amadeus of Savoy. It is thought that the +countess was less cruel than the fleur Angevine of Ronsard. For +some reason the young matron fled from the court of Turin and +returned to Paris, where she built a magnificent hotel, and received +the most distinguished company. According to her biographer, the +countess loved science and art jusqu'au delire, and she collected +the furniture of the period, without neglecting the blue china of +the glowing Orient. In ebony bookcases she possessed about eighteen +thousand volumes, bound by the greatest artists of the day. +"Without care for the present, without fear of the future, doing +good, pursuing the beautiful, protecting the arts, with a tender +heart and open hand, the countess passed through life, calm, happy, +beloved, and admired." She left an epitaph on herself, thus rudely +translated:- + + +Here lies, in sleep secure, +A dame inclined to mirth, +Who, by way of making sure, +Chose her Paradise on earth. + + +During the Revolution, to like well-bound books was as much as to +proclaim one an aristocrat. Condorcet might have escaped the +scaffold if he had only thrown away the neat little Horace from the +royal press, which betrayed him for no true Republican, but an +educated man. The great libraries from the chateaux of the nobles +were scattered among all the book-stalls. True sons of freedom tore +off the bindings, with their gilded crests and scutcheons. One +revolutionary writer declared, and perhaps he was not far wrong, +that the art of binding was the worst enemy of reading. He always +began his studies by breaking the backs of the volumes he was about +to attack. The art of bookbinding in these sad years took flight to +England, and was kept alive by artists robust rather than refined, +like Thompson and Roger Payne. These were evil days, when the +binder had to cut the aristocratic coat of arms out of a book cover, +and glue in a gilt cap of liberty, as in a volume in an Oxford +amateur's collection. + +When Napoleon became Emperor, he strove in vain to make the troubled +and feverish years of his power produce a literature. He himself +was one of the most voracious readers of novels that ever lived. He +was always asking for the newest of the new, and unfortunately even +the new romances of his period were hopelessly bad. Barbier, his +librarian, had orders to send parcels of fresh fiction to his +majesty wherever he might happen to be, and great loads of novels +followed Napoleon to Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia. The conqueror +was very hard to please. He read in his travelling carriage, and +after skimming a few pages would throw a volume that bored him out +of the window into the highway. He might have been tracked by his +trail of romances, as was Hop-o'-my-Thumb, in the fairy tale, by the +white stones he dropped behind him. Poor Barbier, who ministered to +a passion for novels that demanded twenty volumes a day, was at his +wit's end. He tried to foist on the Emperor the romances of the +year before last; but these Napoleon had generally read, and he +refused, with imperial scorn, to look at them again. He ordered a +travelling library of three thousand volumes to be made for him, but +it was proved that the task could not be accomplished in less than +six years. The expense, if only fifty copies of each example had +been printed, would have amounted to more than six million francs. +A Roman emperor would not have allowed these considerations to stand +in his way; but Napoleon, after all, was a modern. He contented +himself with a selection of books conveniently small in shape, and +packed in sumptuous cases. The classical writers of France could +never content Napoleon, and even from Moscow in 1812, he wrote to +Barbier clamorous for new books, and good ones. Long before they +could have reached Moscow, Napoleon was flying homeward before +Kotousoff and Benningsen. + +Napoleon was the last of the book-lovers who governed France. The +Duc d'Aumale, a famous bibliophile, has never "come to his own," and +of M. Gambetta it is only known that his devotional library, at +least, has found its way into the market. We have reached the era +of private book-fanciers: of Nodier, who had three libraries in his +time, but never a Virgil; and of Pixerecourt, the dramatist, who +founded the Societe des Bibliophiles Francais. The Romantic +movement in French literature brought in some new fashions in book- +hunting. The original editions of Ronsard, Des Portes, Belleau, and +Du Bellay became invaluable; while the writings of Gautier, Petrus +Borel, and others excited the passion of collectors. Pixerecourt +was a believer in the works of the Elzevirs. On one occasion, when +he was outbid by a friend at an auction, he cried passionately, "I +shall have that book at your sale!" and, the other poor bibliophile +soon falling into a decline and dying, Pixerecourt got the volume +which he so much desired. The superstitious might have been excused +for crediting him with the gift of jettatura,--of the evil eye. On +Pixerecourt himself the evil eye fell at last; his theatre, the +Gaiete, was burned down in 1835, and his creditors intended to +impound his beloved books. The bibliophile hastily packed them in +boxes, and conveyed them in two cabs and under cover of night to the +house of M. Paul Lacroix. There they languished in exile till the +affairs of the manager were settled. + +Pixerecourt and Nodier, the most reckless of men, were the leaders +of the older school of bibliomaniacs. The former was not a rich +man; the second was poor, but he never hesitated in face of a price +that he could not afford. He would literally ruin himself in the +accumulation of a library, and then would recover his fortunes by +selling his books. Nodier passed through life without a Virgil, +because he never succeeded in finding the ideal Virgil of his +dreams,--a clean, uncut copy of the right Elzevir edition, with the +misprint, and the two passages in red letters. Perhaps this failure +was a judgment on him for the trick by which he beguiled a certain +collector of Bibles. He INVENTED an edition, and put the collector +on the scent, which he followed vainly, till he died of the sickness +of hope deferred. + +One has more sympathy with the eccentricities of Nodier than with +the mere extravagance of the new haute ecole of bibliomaniacs, the +school of millionnaires, royal dukes, and Rothschilds. These +amateurs are reckless of prices, and by their competition have made +it almost impossible for a poor man to buy a precious book. The +dukes, the Americans, the public libraries, snap them all up in the +auctions. A glance at M. Gustave Brunet's little volume, 'La +Bibliomanie en 1878,' will prove the excesses which these people +commit. The funeral oration of Bossuet over Henriette Marie of +France (1669), and Henriette Anne of England (1670), quarto, in the +original binding, are sold for 200 pounds. It is true that this +copy had possibly belonged to Bossuet himself, and certainly to his +nephew. There is an example, as we have seen, of the 1682 edition +of Moliere,--of Moliere whom Bossuet detested,--which also belonged +to the eagle of Meaux. The manuscript notes of the divine on the +work of the poor player must be edifying, and in the interests of +science it is to be hoped that this book may soon come into the +market. While pamphlets of Bossuet are sold so dear, the first +edition of Homer--the beautiful edition of 1488, which the three +young Florentine gentlemen published--may be had for 100 pounds. +Yet even that seems expensive, when we remember that the copy in the +library of George III. cost only seven shillings. This exquisite +Homer, sacred to the memory of learned friendships, the chief +offering of early printing at the altar of ancient poetry, is really +one of the most interesting books in the world. Yet this Homer is +less valued than the tiny octavo which contains the ballades and +huitains of the scamp Francois Villon (1533). 'The History of the +Holy Grail' (L'Hystoire du Sainct Greaal: Paris, 1523), in a +binding stamped with the four crowns of Louis XIV., is valued at +about 500 pounds. A chivalric romance of the old days, which was +treasured even in the time of the grand monarque, when old French +literature was so much despised, is certainly a curiosity. The +Rabelais of Madame de Pompadour (in morocco) seems comparatively +cheap at 60 pounds. There is something piquant in the idea of +inheriting from that famous beauty the work of the colossal genius +of Rabelais. {17} + +The natural sympathy of collectors "to middle fortune born" is not +with the rich men whose sport in book-hunting resembles the battue. +We side with the poor hunters of the wild game, who hang over the +fourpenny stalls on the quais, and dive into the dusty boxes after +literary pearls. These devoted men rise betimes, and hurry to the +stalls before the common tide of passengers goes by. Early morning +is the best moment in this, as in other sports. At half past seven, +in summer, the bouquiniste, the dealer in cheap volumes at second- +hand, arrays the books which he purchased over night, the stray +possessions of ruined families, the outcasts of libraries. The old- +fashioned bookseller knew little of the value of his wares; it was +his object to turn a small certain profit on his expenditure. It is +reckoned that an energetic, business-like old bookseller will turn +over 150,000 volumes in a year. In this vast number there must be +pickings for the humble collector who cannot afford to encounter the +children of Israel at Sotheby's or at the Hotel Drouot. + +Let the enthusiast, in conclusion, throw a handful of lilies on the +grave of the martyr of the love of books,--the poet Albert Glatigny. +Poor Glatigny was the son of a garde champetre; his education was +accidental, and his poetic taste and skill extraordinarily fine and +delicate. In his life of starvation (he had often to sleep in +omnibuses and railway stations), he frequently spent the price of a +dinner on a new book. He lived to read and to dream, and if he +bought books he had not the wherewithal to live. Still, he bought +them,--and he died! His own poems were beautifully printed by +Lemerre, and it may be a joy to him (si mentem mortalia tangunt) +that they are now so highly valued that the price of a copy would +have kept the author alive and happy for a month. + + + +OLD FRENCH TITLE-PAGES + + + +Nothing can be plainer, as a rule, than a modern English title-page. +Its only beauty (if beauty it possesses) consists in the arrangement +and 'massing' of lines of type in various sizes. We have returned +almost to the primitive simplicity of the oldest printed books, +which had no title-pages, properly speaking, at all, or merely gave, +with extreme brevity, the name of the work, without printer's mark, +or date, or place. These were reserved for the colophon, if it was +thought desirable to mention them at all. Thus, in the black-letter +example of Guido de Columna's 'History of Troy,' written about 1283, +and printed at Strasburg in 1489, the title-page is blank, except +for the words, + + +Hystoria Troiana Guidonis, + + +standing alone at the top of the leaf. The colophon contains all +the rest of the information, 'happily completed in the City of +Strasburg, in the year of Grace Mcccclxxxix, about the Feast of St. +Urban.' The printer and publisher give no name at all. + +This early simplicity is succeeded, in French books, from, say, +1510, and afterwards, by the insertion either of the printer's +trademark, or, in black-letter books, of a rough woodcut, +illustrative of the nature of the volume. The woodcuts have +occasionally a rude kind of grace, with a touch of the classical +taste of the early Renaissance surviving in extreme decay. + +[Illustration with title page: Les demandes tamours auec les +refpofesioyeufes. Demade refponfe.] + +An excellent example is the title-page of 'Les Demandes d'amours, +avec les responses joyeuses,' published by Jacques Moderne, at Lyon, +1540. There is a certain Pagan breadth and joyousness in the figure +of Amor, and the man in the hood resembles traditional portraits of +Dante. + +There is more humour, and a good deal of skill, in the title-page of +a book on late marriages and their discomforts, 'Les dictz et +complainctes de trop Tard marie' (Jacques Moderne, Lyon, 1540), +where we see the elderly and comfortable couple sitting gravely +under their own fig-tree. + +[Illustration of 'Les dictz et complainctes...] + +Jacques Moderne was a printer curious in these quaint devices, and +used them in most of his books: for example, in 'How Satan and the +God Bacchus accuse the Publicans that spoil the wine,' Bacchus and +Satan (exactly like each other, as Sir Wilfrid Lawson will not be +surprised to hear) are encouraging dishonest tavern-keepers to stew +in their own juice in a caldron over a huge fire. From the same +popular publisher came a little tract on various modes of sport, if +the name of sport can be applied to the netting of fish and birds. +The work is styled 'Livret nouveau auquel sont contenuz xxv receptes +de prendre poissons et oiseaulx avec les mains.' A countryman clad +in a goat's skin with the head and horns drawn over his head as a +hood, is dragging ashore a net full of fishes. There is no more +characteristic frontispiece of this black-letter sort than the +woodcut representing a gallows with three men hanging on it, which +illustrates Villon's 'Ballade des Pendus,' and is reproduced in Mr. +John Payne's 'Poems of Master Francis Villon of Paris' (London, +1878). {18} + +Earlier in date than these vignettes of Jacques Moderne, but much +more artistic and refined in design, are some frontispieces of small +octavos printed en lettres rondes, about 1530. In these rubricated +letters are used with brilliant effect. One of the best is the +title-page of Galliot du Pre's edition of 'Le Rommant de la Rose' +(Paris, 1529). {19} Galliot du Pre's artist, however, surpassed +even the charming device of the Lover plucking the Rose, in his +title-page, of the same date, for the small octavo edition of Alain +Chartier's poems, which we reproduce here. + +[Illustration of title page] + +The arrangement of letters, and the use of red, make a charming +frame, as it were, to the drawing of the mediaeval ship, with the +Motto VOGUE LA GALEE. + +Title-pages like these, with designs appropriate to the character of +the text, were superseded presently by the fashion of badges, +devices, and mottoes. As courtiers and ladies had their private +badges, not hereditary, like crests, but personal--the crescent of +Diane, the salamander of Francis I., the skulls and cross-bones of +Henri III., the marguerites of Marguerite, with mottoes like the Le +Banny de liesse, Le traverseur des voies perilleuses, Tout par +Soulas, and the like, so printers and authors had their emblems, and +their private literary slogans. These they changed, accordinging + +[Another illustration titled: Le Pastissier Francois, MDCLV, title +page] + +to fancy, or the vicissitudes of their lives. Clement Marot's motto +was La Mort n'y Mord. It is indicated by the letters L. M. N. M. in +the curious title of an edition of Marot's works published at Lyons +by Jean de Tournes in 1579. The portrait represents the poet when +the tide of years had borne him far from his youth, far from +L'Adolescence Clementine. + +[Another illustration titled: Le Pastissier Francois, 1655, showing +a kitchen scene] + +The unfortunate Etienne Dolet, perhaps the only publisher who was +ever burned, used an ominous device, a trunk of a tree, with the axe +struck into it. In publishing 'Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des +Princesses, tres illustre Royne de Navarre,' Jean de Tournes +employed a pretty allegorical device. Love, with the bandage thrust +back from his eyes, and with the bow and arrows in his hand, has +flown up to the sun, which he seems to touch; like Prometheus in the +myth when he stole the fire, a shower of flowers and flames falls +around him. Groueleau, of Paris, had for motto Nul ne s'y frotte, +with the thistle for badge. These are beautifully combined in the +title-page of his version of Apuleius, 'L'Amour de Cupido et de +Psyche' (Paris, 1557). There is probably no better date for +frontispieces, both for ingenuity of device and for elegance of +arrangement of title, than the years between 1530 and 1560. By +1562, when the first edition of the famous Fifth Book of Rabelais +was published, the printers appear to have thought devices wasted on +popular books, and the title of the Master's posthumous chapters is +printed quite simply. + +In 1532-35 there was a more adventurous taste--witness the title of +'Gargantua.' This beautiful title decorates the first known +edition, with a date of the First Book of Rabelais. It was sold, +most appropriately, devant nostre Dame de Confort. Why should so +glorious a relic of the Master have been carried out of England, at +the Sunderland sale? All the early titles of Francois Juste's Lyons +editions of Rabelais are on this model. By 1542 he dropped the +framework of architectural design. By 1565 Richard Breton, in +Paris, was printing Rabelais with a frontispiece of a classical dame +holding a heart to the sun, a figure which is almost in the taste of +Stothard, or Flaxman. + +The taste for vignettes, engraved on copper, not on wood, was +revived under the Elzevirs. Their pretty little title-pages are not +so well known but that we offer examples. In the essay on the +Elzevirs in this volume will be found a copy of the vignette of the +'Imitatio Christi,' and of 'Le Pastissier Francois' a reproduction +is given here (pp. 114, 115). The artists they employed had plenty +of fancy, not backed by very profound skill in design. + +In the same genre as the big-wigged classicism of the Elzevir +vignettes, in an age when Louis XIV. and Moliere (in tragedy) wore +laurel wreaths over vast perruques, are the early frontispieces of +Moliere's own collected works. Probably the most interesting of all +French title-pages are those drawn by Chauveau for the two volumes +'Les Oeuvres de M. de Moliere,' published in 1666 by Guillaume de +Luynes. The first shows Moliere in two characters, as Mascarille, +and as Sganarelle, in 'Le Cocu Imaginaire.' Contrast the full-blown +jollity of the fourbum imperator, in his hat, and feather, and wig, +and vast canons, and tremendous shoe-tie, with the lean melancholy +of jealous Sganarelle. These are two notable aspects of the genius +of the great comedian. The apes below are the supporters of his +scutcheon. + +The second volume shows the Muse of Comedy crowning Mlle. de Moliere +(Armande Bejart) in the dress of Agnes, while her husband is in the +costume, apparently, of Tartuffe, or of Sganarelle in 'L'Ecole des +Femmes.' 'Tartuffe' had not yet been licensed for a public stage. +The interest of the portraits and costumes makes these title-pages +precious, they are historical documents rather than mere +curiosities. + +These title-pages of Moliere are the highwater mark of French taste +in this branch of decoration. In the old quarto first editions of +Corneille's early plays, such as 'Le Cid' (Paris 1637), the printers +used lax and sprawling combinations of flowers and fruit. These, a +little better executed, were the staple of Ribou, de Luynes, Quinet, +and the other Parisian booksellers who, one after another, failed to +satisfy Moliere as publishers. + +The basket of fruits on the title-page of 'Iphigenie,' par M. Racine +(Barbin, Paris, 1675), is almost, but not quite, identical with the +similar ornament of De Vise's 'La Cocue Imaginaire' (Ribou, Paris +1662). Many of Moliere's plays appearing first, separately, in +small octavo, were adorned with frontispieces, illustrative of some +scene in the comedy. Thus, in the 'Misanthrope' (Rihou 1667) we see +Alceste, green ribbons and all, discoursing with Philinte, or +perhaps listening to the famous sonnet of Oronte; it is not easy to +be quite certain, but the expression of Alceste's face looks rather +as if he were being baited with a sonnet. From the close of the +seventeenth century onwards, the taste for title-pages declined, +except when Moreau or Gravelot drew vignettes on copper, with +abundance of cupids and nymphs. These were designed for very +luxurious and expensive books; for others, men contented themselves +with a bald simplicity, which has prevailed till our own time. In +recent years the employment of publishers' devices has been less +unusual and more agreeable. Thus Poulet Malassis had his armes +parlantes, a chicken very uncomfortably perched on a rail. In +England we have the cipher and bees of Messrs. Macmillan, the Trees +of Life and Knowledge of Messrs. Kegan Paul and Trench, the Ship, +which was the sign of Messrs. Longman's early place of business, and +doubtless other symbols, all capable of being quaintly treated in a +title-page. + + + +A BOOKMAN'S PURGATORY + + + +Thomas Blinton was a book-hunter. He had always been a book-hunter, +ever since, at an extremely early age, he had awakened to the errors +of his ways as a collector of stamps and monograms. In book-hunting +he saw no harm; nay, he would contrast its joys, in a rather +pharisaical style, with the pleasures of shooting and fishing. He +constantly declined to believe that the devil came for that renowned +amateur of black letter, G. Steevens. Dibdin himself, who tells the +story (with obvious anxiety and alarm), pretends to refuse credit to +the ghastly narrative. "His language," says Dibdin, in his account +of the book-hunter's end, "was, too frequently, the language of +imprecation." This is rather good, as if Dibdin thought a gentleman +might swear pretty often, but not "TOO frequently." "Although I am +not disposed to admit," Dibdin goes on, "the WHOLE of the testimony +of the good woman who watched by Steevens's bedside, although my +prejudices (as they may be called) will not allow me to believe that +the windows shook, and that strange noises and deep groans were +heard at midnight in his room, yet no creature of common sense (and +this woman possessed the quality in an eminent degree) could mistake +oaths for prayers;" and so forth. In short, Dibdin clearly holds +that the windows did shake "without a blast," like the banners in +Branxholme Hall when somebody came for the Goblin Page. + +But Thomas Blinton would hear of none of these things. He said that +his taste made him take exercise; that he walked from the City to +West Kensington every day, to beat the covers of the book-stalls, +while other men travelled in the expensive cab or the unwholesome +Metropolitan Railway. We are all apt to hold favourable views of +our own amusements, and, for my own part, I believe that trout and +salmon are incapable of feeling pain. But the flimsiness of +Blinton's theories must be apparent to every unbiassed moralist. +His "harmless taste" really involved most of the deadly sins, or at +all events a fair working majority of them. He coveted his +neighbours' books. When he got the chance he bought books in a +cheap market and sold them in a dear market, thereby degrading +literature to the level of trade. He took advantage of the +ignorance of uneducated persons who kept book-stalls. He was +envious, and grudged the good fortune of others, while he rejoiced +in their failures. He turned a deaf ear to the appeals of poverty. +He was luxurious, and laid out more money than he should have done +on his selfish pleasures, often adorning a volume with a morocco +binding when Mrs. Blinton sighed in vain for some old point +d'Alencon lace. Greedy, proud, envious, stingy, extravagant, and +sharp in his dealings, Blinton was guilty of most of the sins which +the Church recognises as "deadly." + +On the very day before that of which the affecting history is now to +be told, Blinton had been running the usual round of crime. He had +(as far as intentions went) defrauded a bookseller in Holywell +Street by purchasing from him, for the sum of two shillings, what he +took to be a very rare Elzevir. It is true that when he got home +and consulted 'Willems,' he found that he had got hold of the wrong +copy, in which the figures denoting the numbers of pages are printed +right, and which is therefore worth exactly "nuppence" to the +collector. But the intention is the thing, and Blinton's intention +was distinctly fraudulent. When he discovered his error, then "his +language," as Dibdin says, "was that of imprecation." Worse (if +possible) than this, Blinton had gone to a sale, begun to bid for +'Les Essais de Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne' (Foppens, MDCLIX.), +and, carried away by excitement, had "plunged" to the extent of 15 +pounds, which was precisely the amount of money he owed his plumber +and gasfitter, a worthy man with a large family. Then, meeting a +friend (if the book-hunter has friends), or rather an accomplice in +lawless enterprise, Blinton had remarked the glee on the other's +face. The poor man had purchased a little old Olaus Magnus, with +woodcuts, representing were-wolves, fire-drakes, and other fearful +wild-fowl, and was happy in his bargain. But Blinton, with fiendish +joy, pointed out to him that the index was imperfect, and left him +sorrowing. + +Deeds more foul have yet to be told. Thomas Blinton had discovered +a new sin, so to speak, in the collecting way. Aristophanes says of +one of his favourite blackguards, "Not only is he a villain, but he +has invented an original villainy." Blinton was like this. He +maintained that every man who came to notoriety had, at some period, +published a volume of poems which he had afterwards repented of and +withdrawn. It was Blinton's hideous pleasure to collect stray +copies of these unhappy volumes, these 'Peches de Jeunesse,' which, +always and invariably, bear a gushing inscription from the author to +a friend. He had all Lord John Manners's poems, and even Mr. +Ruskin's. He had the 'Ode to Despair' of Smith (now a comic +writer), and the 'Love Lyrics' of Brown, who is now a permanent +under-secretary, than which nothing can be less gay nor more +permanent. He had the amatory songs which a dignitary of the Church +published and withdrew from circulation. Blinton was wont to say he +expected to come across 'Triolets of a Tribune,' by Mr. John Bright, +and 'Original Hymns for Infant Minds,' by Mr. Henry Labouchere, if +he only hunted long enough. + +On the day of which I speak he had secured a volume of love-poems +which the author had done his best to destroy, and he had gone to +his club and read all the funniest passages aloud to friends of the +author, who was on the club committee. Ah, was this a kind action? +In short, Blinton had filled up the cup of his iniquities, and +nobody will be surprised to hear that he met the appropriate +punishment of his offence. Blinton had passed, on the whole, a +happy day, notwithstanding the error about the Elzevir. He dined +well at his club, went home, slept well, and started next morning +for his office in the City, walking, as usual, and intending to +pursue the pleasures of the chase at all the book-stalls. At the +very first, in the Brompton Road, he saw a man turning over the +rubbish in the cheap box. Blinton stared at him, fancied he knew +him, thought he didn't, and then became a prey to the glittering eye +of the other. The Stranger, who wore the conventional cloak and +slouched soft hat of Strangers, was apparently an accomplished +mesmerist, or thought-reader, or adept, or esoteric Buddhist. He +resembled Mr. Isaacs, Zanoni (in the novel of that name), Mendoza +(in 'Codlingsby'), the soul-less man in 'A Strange Story,' Mr. Home, +Mr. Irving Bishop, a Buddhist adept in the astral body, and most +other mysterious characters of history and fiction. Before his +Awful Will, Blinton's mere modern obstinacy shrank back like a child +abashed. The Stranger glided to him and whispered, "Buy these." + +"These" were a complete set of Auerbach's novels, in English, which, +I need not say, Blinton would never have dreamt of purchasing had he +been left to his own devices. + +"Buy these!" repeated the Adept, or whatever he was, in a cruel +whisper. Paying the sum demanded, and trailing his vast load of +German romance, poor Blinton followed the fiend. + +They reached a stall where, amongst much trash, Glatigny's 'Jour de +l'An d'un Vagabond' was exposed. + +"Look," said Blinton, "there is a book I have wanted some time. +Glatignys are getting rather scarce, and it is an amusing trifle." + +" Nay, buy THAT," said the implacable Stranger, pointing with a +hooked forefinger at Alison's 'History of Europe' in an indefinite +number of volumes. Blinton shuddered. + +"What, buy THAT, and why? In heaven's name, what could I do with +it?" + +"Buy it," repeated the persecutor, "and THAT" (indicating the +'Ilios' of Dr. Schliemann, a bulky work), "and THESE" (pointing to +all Mr. Theodore Alois Buckley's translations of the Classics), "and +THESE" (glancing at the collected writings of the late Mr. Hain +Friswell, and at a 'Life,' in more than one volume, of Mr. +Gladstone). + +The miserable Blinton paid, and trudged along carrying the bargains +under his arm. Now one book fell out, now another dropped by the +way. Sometimes a portion of Alison came ponderously to earth; +sometimes the 'Gentle Life' sunk resignedly to the ground. The +Adept kept picking them up again, and packing them under the arms of +the weary Blinton. + +The victim now attempted to put on an air of geniality, and tried to +enter into conversation with his tormentor. + +"He DOES know about books," thought Blinton, "and he must have a +weak spot somewhere." + +So the wretched amateur made play in his best conversational style. +He talked of bindings, of Maioli, of Grolier, of De Thou, of Derome, +of Clovis Eve, of Roger Payne, of Trautz, and eke of Bauzonnet. He +discoursed of first editions, of black letter, and even of +illustrations and vignettes. He approached the topic of Bibles, but +here his tyrant, with a fierce yet timid glance, interrupted him. + +"Buy those!" he hissed through his teeth. + +"Those" were the complete publications of the Folk Lore Society. + +Blinton did not care for folk lore (very bad men never do), but he +had to act as he was told. + +Then, without pause or remorse, he was charged to acquire the +'Ethics' of Aristotle, in the agreeable versions of Williams and +Chase. Next he secured 'Strathmore,' 'Chandos,' 'Under Two Flags,' +and 'Two Little Wooden Shoes,' and several dozens more of Ouida's +novels. The next stall was entirely filled with school-books, old +geographies, Livys, Delectuses, Arnold's 'Greek Exercises,' +Ollendorffs, and what not. + +"Buy them all," hissed the fiend. He seized whole boxes and piled +them on Blinton's head. + +He tied up Ouida's novels, in two parcels, with string, and fastened +each to one of the buttons above the tails of Blinton's coat. + +"You are tired?" asked the tormentor. "Never mind, these books will +soon be off your hands." + +So speaking, the Stranger, with amazing speed, hurried Blinton back +through Holywell Street, along the Strand, and up to Piccadilly, +stopping at last at the door of Blinton's famous and very expensive +binder. + +The binder opened his eyes, as well he might, at the vision of +Blinton's treasures. Then the miserable Blinton found himself, as +it were automatically and without any exercise of his will, speaking +thus:- + +"Here are some things I have picked up,--extremely rare,--and you +will oblige me by binding them in your best manner, regardless of +expense. Morocco, of course; crushed levant morocco, double, every +book of them, petits fers, my crest and coat of arms, plenty of +gilding. Spare no cost. Don't keep me waiting, as you generally +do;" for indeed book-binders are the most dilatory of the human +species. + +Before the astonished binder could ask the most necessary questions, +Blinton's tormentor had hurried that amateur out of the room. + +"Come on to the sale," he cried. + +"What sale?" said Blinton. + +"Why, the Beckford sale; it is the thirteenth day, a lucky day." + +"But I have forgotten my catalogue." + +"Where is it?" + +"In the third shelf from the top, on the right-hand side of the +ebony book-case at home." + +The stranger stretched out his arm, which swiftly elongated itself +till the hand disappeared from view round the corner. In a moment +the hand returned with the catalogue. The pair sped on to Messrs. +Sotheby's auction-rooms in Wellington Street. Every one knows the +appearance of a great book-sale. The long table, surrounded by +eager bidders, resembles from a little distance a roulette table, +and communicates the same sort of excitement. The amateur is at a +loss to know how to conduct himself. If he bids in his own person +some bookseller will outbid him, partly because the bookseller +knows, after all, he knows little about books, and suspects that the +amateur may, in this case, know more. Besides, professionals always +dislike amateurs, and, in this game, they have a very great +advantage. Blinton knew all this, and was in the habit of giving +his commissions to a broker. But now he felt (and very naturally) +as if a demon had entered into him. 'Tirante il Bianco +Valorosissimo Cavaliere' was being competed for, an excessively rare +romance of chivalry, in magnificent red Venetian morocco, from +Canevari's library. The book is one of the rarest of the Venetian +Press, and beautifully adorned with Canevari's device,--a simple and +elegant affair in gold and colours. "Apollo is driving his chariot +across the green waves towards the rock, on which winged Pegasus is +pawing the ground," though why this action of a horse should be +called "pawing" (the animal notoriously not possessing paws) it is +hard to say. Round this graceful design is the inscription [Greek +text] (straight not crooked). In his ordinary mood Blinton could +only have admired 'Tirante il Bianco' from a distance. But now, the +demon inspiring him, he rushed into the lists, and challenged the +great Mr. -, the Napoleon of bookselling. The price had already +reached five hundred pounds. + +"Six hundred," cried Blinton. + +"Guineas," said the great Mr. -. + +"Seven hundred," screamed Blinton. + +"Guineas," replied the other. + +This arithmetical dialogue went on till even Mr. -- struck his flag, +with a sigh, when the maddened Blinton had said "Six thousand." The +cheers of the audience rewarded the largest bid ever made for any +book. As if he had not done enough, the Stranger now impelled +Blinton to contend with Mr. -- for every expensive work that +appeared. The audience naturally fancied that Blinton was in the +earlier stage of softening of the brain, when a man conceives +himself to have inherited boundless wealth, and is determined to +live up to it. The hammer fell for the last time. Blinton owed +some fifty thousand pounds, and exclaimed audibly, as the influence +of the fiend died out, "I am a ruined man." + +"Then your books must be sold," cried the Stranger, and, leaping on +a chair, he addressed the audience:- + +"Gentlemen, I invite you to Mr. Blinton's sale, which will +immediately take place. The collection contains some very +remarkable early English poets, many first editions of the French +classics, most of the rarer Aldines, and a singular assortment of +Americana." + +In a moment, as if by magic, the shelves round the room were filled +with Blinton's books, all tied up in big lots of some thirty volumes +each. His early Molieres were fastened to old French dictionaries +and school-books. His Shakespeare quartos were in the same lot with +tattered railway novels. His copy (almost unique) of Richard +Barnfield's much too 'Affectionate Shepheard' was coupled with odd +volumes of 'Chips from a German Workshop' and a cheap, imperfect +example of 'Tom Brown's School-Days.' Hookes's 'Amanda' was at the +bottom of a lot of American devotional works, where it kept company +with an Elzevir Tacitus and the Aldine 'Hypnerotomachia.' The +auctioneer put up lot after lot, and Blinton plainly saw that the +whole affair was a "knock-out." His most treasured spoils were +parted with at the price of waste paper. It is an awful thing to be +present at one's own sale. No man would bid above a few shillings. +Well did Blinton know that after the knock-out the plunder would be +shared among the grinning bidders. At last his 'Adonais,' uncut, +bound by Lortic, went, in company with some old 'Bradshaws,' the +'Court Guide' of 1881, and an odd volume of the 'Sunday at Home,' +for sixpence. The Stranger smiled a smile of peculiar malignity. +Blinton leaped up to protest; the room seemed to shake around him, +but words would not come to his lips. + +Then he heard a familiar voice observe, as a familiar grasp shook +his shoulder,-- + +"Tom, Tom, what a nightmare you are enjoying!" + +He was in his own arm-chair, where he had fallen asleep after +dinner, and Mrs. Blinton was doing her best to arouse him from his +awful vision. Beside him lay 'L'Enfer du Bibliophile, vu et decrit +par Charles Asselineau.' (Paris: Tardieu, MDCCCLX.) + + +If this were an ordinary tract, I should have to tell how Blinton's +eyes were opened, how he gave up book-collecting, and took to +gardening, or politics, or something of that sort. But truth +compels me to admit that Blinton's repentance had vanished by the +end of the week, when he was discovered marking M. Claudin's +catalogue, surreptitiously, before breakfast. Thus, indeed, end all +our remorses. "Lancelot falls to his own love again," as in the +romance. Much, and justly, as theologians decry a death-bed +repentance, it is, perhaps, the only repentance that we do not +repent of. All others leave us ready, when occasion comes, to fall +to our old love again; and may that love never be worse than the +taste for old books! Once a collector, always a collector. Moi qui +parle, I have sinned, and struggled, and fallen. I have thrown +catalogues, unopened, into the waste-paper basket. I have withheld +my feet from the paths that lead to Sotheby's and to Puttick's. I +have crossed the street to avoid a book-stall. In fact, like the +prophet Nicholas, "I have been known to be steady for weeks at a +time." And then the fatal moment of temptation has arrived, and I +have succumbed to the soft seductions of Eisen, or Cochin, or an old +book on Angling. Probably Grolier was thinking of such weaknesses +when he chose his devices Tanquam Ventus, and quisque suos patimur +Manes. Like the wind we are blown about, and, like the people in +the AEneid, we are obliged to suffer the consequences of our own +extravagance. + + + +BALLADE OF THE UNATTAINABLE + + + +The Books I cannot hope to buy, +Their phantoms round me waltz and wheel, +They pass before the dreaming eye, +Ere Sleep the dreaming eye can seal. +A kind of literary reel +They dance; how fair the bindings shine! +Prose cannot tell them what I feel,-- +The Books that never can be mine! + +There frisk Editions rare and shy, +Morocco clad from head to heel; +Shakspearian quartos; Comedy +As first she flashed from Richard Steele; +And quaint De Foe on Mrs. Veal; +And, lord of landing net and line, +Old Izaak with his fishing creel,-- +The Books that never can be mine! + +Incunables! for you I sigh, +Black letter, at thy founts I kneel, +Old tales of Perrault's nursery, +For you I'd go without a meal! +For Books wherein did Aldus deal +And rare Galliot du Pre I pine. +The watches of the night reveal +The Books that never can be mine! + +ENVOY. + +Prince, bear a hopeless Bard's appeal; +Reverse the rules of Mine and Thine; +Make it legitimate to steal +The Books that never can be mine! + + + +LADY BOOK-LOVERS + + + +The biographer of Mrs. Aphra Behn refutes the vulgar error that "a +Dutchman cannot love." Whether or not a lady can love books is a +question that may not be so readily settled. Mr. Ernest Quentin +Bauchart has contributed to the discussion of this problem by +publishing a bibliography, in two quarto volumes, of books which +have been in the libraries of famous beauties of old, queens and +princesses of France. There can be no doubt that these ladies were +possessors of exquisite printed books and manuscripts wonderfully +bound, but it remains uncertain whether the owners, as a rule, were +bibliophiles; whether their hearts were with their treasures. +Incredible as it may seem to us now, literature was highly respected +in the past, and was even fashionable. Poets were in favour at +court, and Fashion decided that the great must possess books, and +not only books, but books produced in the utmost perfection of art, +and bound with all the skill at the disposal of Clovis Eve, and +Padeloup, and Duseuil. Therefore, as Fashion gave her commands, we +cannot hastily affirm that the ladies who obeyed were really book- +lovers. In our more polite age, Fashion has decreed that ladies +shall smoke, and bet, and romp, but it would be premature to assert +that all ladies who do their duty in these matters are born romps, +or have an unaffected liking for cigarettes. History, however, +maintains that many of the renowned dames whose books are now the +most treasured of literary relics were actually inclined to study as +well as to pleasure, like Marguerite de Valois and the Comtesse de +Verrue, and even Madame de Pompadour. Probably books and arts were +more to this lady's liking than the diversions by which she beguiled +the tedium of Louis XV.; and many a time she would rather have been +quiet with her plays and novels than engaged in conscientiously +conducted but distasteful revels. + +Like a true Frenchman, M. Bauchart has only written about French +lady book-lovers, or about women who, like Mary Stuart, were more +than half French. Nor would it be easy for an English author to +name, outside the ranks of crowned heads, like Elizabeth, any +Englishwomen of distinction who had a passion for the material side +of literature, for binding, and first editions, and large paper, and +engravings in early "states." The practical sex, when studious, is +like the same sex when fond of equestrian exercise. "A lady says, +'My heyes, he's an 'orse, and he must go,'" according to Leech's +groom. In the same way, a studious girl or matron says, "This is a +book," and reads it, if read she does, without caring about the +date, or the state, or the publisher's name, or even very often +about the author's. I remember, before the publication of a novel +now celebrated, seeing a privately printed vellum-bound copy on +large paper in the hands of a literary lady. She was holding it +over the fire, and had already made the vellum covers curl wide open +like the shells of an afflicted oyster. + +When I asked what the volume was, she explained that "It is a book +which a poor man has written, and he's had it printed to see whether +some one won't be kind enough to publish it." I ventured, perhaps +pedantically, to point out that the poor man could not be so very +poor, or he would not have made so costly an experiment on Dutch +paper. But the lady said she did not know how that might be, and +she went on toasting the experiment. In all this there is a fine +contempt for everything but the spiritual aspect of literature; +there is an aversion to the mere coquetry and display of morocco and +red letters, and the toys which amuse the minds of men. Where +ladies have caught "the Bibliomania," I fancy they have taken this +pretty fever from the other sex. But it must be owned that the +books they have possessed, being rarer and more romantic, are even +more highly prized by amateurs than examples from the libraries of +Grolier, and Longepierre, and D'Hoym. M. Bauchart's book is a +complete guide to the collector of these expensive relics. He +begins his dream of fair women who have owned books with the pearl +of the Valois, Marguerite d'Angouleme, the sister of Francis I. The +remains of her library are chiefly devotional manuscripts. Indeed, +it is to be noted that all these ladies, however frivolous, +possessed the most devout and pious books, and whole collections of +prayers copied out by the pen, and decorated with miniatures. +Marguerite's library was bound in morocco, stamped with a crowned M +in interlacs sown with daisies, or, at least, with conventional +flowers which may have been meant for daisies. If one could choose, +perhaps the most desirable of the specimens extant is 'Le Premier +Livre du Prince des Poetes, Homere,' in Salel's translation. For +this translation Ronsard writes a prologue, addressed to the manes +of Salel, in which he complains that he is ridiculed for his poetry. +He draws a characteristic picture of Homer and Salel in Elysium, +among the learned lovers: + + +qui parmi les fleurs devisent +Au giron de leur dame. + + +Marguerite's manuscript copy of the First Book of the Iliad is a +small quarto, adorned with daisies, fleurs de-lis, and the crowned +M. It is in the Duc d'Aumale's collection at Chantilly. The books +of Diane de Poitiers are more numerous and more famous. When first +a widow she stamped her volumes with a laurel springing from a tomb, +and the motto, "Sola vivit in illo." But when she consoled herself +with Henri II. she suppressed the tomb, and made the motto +meaningless. Her crescent shone not only on her books, but on the +palace walls of France, in the Louvre, Fontainebleau, and Anet, and +her initial D. is inextricably interlaced with the H. of her royal +lover. Indeed, Henri added the D to his own cypher, and this must +have been so embarrassing for his wife Catherine, that people have +good-naturedly tried to read the curves of the D's as C's. The D's, +and the crescents, and the bows of his Diana are impressed even on +the covers of Henri's Book of Hours. Catherine's own cypher is a +double C enlaced with an H, or double K's (Katherine) combined in +the same manner. These, unlike the D.H., are surmounted with a +crown--the one advantage which the wife possessed over the +favourite. Among Diane's books are various treatises on medicines +and on surgery, and plenty of poetry and Italian novels. Among the +books exhibited at the British Museum in glass cases is Diane's copy +of Bembo's 'History of Venice.' An American collector, Mr. Barlow, +of New York, is happy enough to possess her 'Singularitez de la +France Antarctique' (Antwerp, 1558). + +Catherine de Medicis got splendid books on the same terms as foreign +pirates procure English novels--she stole them. The Marshal +Strozzi, dying in the French service, left a noble collection, on +which Catherine laid her hands. Brantome says that Strozzi's son +often expressed to him a candid opinion about this transaction. +What with her own collection and what with the Marshal's, Catherine +possessed about four thousand volumes. On her death they were in +peril of being seized by her creditors, but her almoner carried them +to his own house, and De Thou had them placed in the royal library. +Unluckily it was thought wiser to strip the books of the coats with +Catherine's compromising device, lest her creditors should single +them out, and take them away in their pockets. Hence, books with +her arms and cypher are exceedingly rare. At the sale of the +collections of the Duchesse de Berry, a Book of Hours of Catherine's +was sold for 2,400 pounds. + +Mary Stuart of Scotland was one of the lady book-lovers whose taste +was more than a mere following of the fashion. Some of her books, +like one of Marie Antoinette's, were the companions of her +captivity, and still bear the sad complaints which she entrusted to +these last friends of fallen royalty. Her note-book, in which she +wrote her Latin prose exercises when a girl, still survives, bound +in red morocco, with the arms of France. In a Book of Hours, now +the property of the Czar, may be partly deciphered the quatrains +which she composed in her sorrowful years, but many of them are +mutilated by the binder's shears. The Queen used the volume as a +kind of album: it contains the signatures of the "Countess of +Schrewsbury" (as M. Bauchart has it), of Walsingham, of the Earl of +Sussex, and of Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham. There is also +the signature, "Your most infortunat, ARBELLA SEYMOUR;" and "Fr. +Bacon." + +This remarkable manuscript was purchased in Paris, during the +Revolution, by Peter Dubrowsky, who carried it to Russia. Another +Book of Hours of the Queen's bears this inscription, in a sixteenth- +century hand: "Ce sont les Heures de Marie Setuart Renne. +Marguerite de Blacuod de Rosay." In De Blacuod it is not very easy +to recognise "Blackwood." Marguerite was probably the daughter of +Adam Blackwood, who wrote a volume on Mary Stuart's sufferings +(Edinburgh, 1587). + +The famous Marguerite de Valois, the wife of Henri IV., had +certainly a noble library, and many beautifully bound books stamped +with daisies are attributed to her collections. They bear the +motto, "Expectata non eludet," which appears to refer, first to the +daisy ("Margarita"), which is punctual in the spring, or rather is +"the constellated flower that never sets," and next, to the lady, +who will "keep tryst." But is the lady Marguerite de Valois? +Though the books have been sold at very high prices as relics of the +leman of La Mole, it seems impossible to demonstrate that they were +ever on her shelves, that they were bound by Clovis Eve from her own +design. "No mention is made of them in any contemporary document, +and the judicious are reduced to conjectures." Yet they form a most +important collection, systematically bound, science and philosophy +in citron morocco, the poets in green, and history and theology in +red. In any case it is absurd to explain "Expectata non eludet" as +a reference to the lily of the royal arms, which appears on the +centre of the daisy-pied volumes. The motto, in that case, would +run, "Expectata (lilia) non eludent." As it stands, the feminine +adjective, "expectata," in the singular, must apply either to the +lady who owned the volumes, or to the "Margarita," her emblem, or to +both. Yet the ungrammatical rendering is that which M. Bauchart +suggests. Many of the books, Marguerite's or not, were sold at +prices over 100 pounds in London, in 1884 and 1883. The Macrobius, +and Theocritus, and Homer are in the Cracherode collection at the +British Museum. The daisy crowned Ronsard went for 430 pounds at +the Beckford sale. These prices will probably never be reached +again. + +If Anne of Austria, the mother of Louis XIV., was a bibliophile, she +may be suspected of acting on the motive, "Love me, love my books." +About her affection for Cardinal Mazarin there seems to be no doubt: +the Cardinal had a famous library, and his royal friend probably +imitated his tastes. In her time, and on her volumes, the +originality and taste of the skilled binder, Le Gascon, begin to +declare themselves. The fashionable passion for lace, to which La +Fontaine made such sacrifices, affected the art of book decorations, +and Le Gascon's beautiful patterns of gold points and dots are +copies of the productions of Venice. The Queen-Mother's books +include many devotional treatises, for, whatever other fashions +might come and go, piety was always constant before the Revolution. +Anne of Austria seems to have been particularly fond of the lives +and works of Saint Theresa, and Saint Francois de Sales, and John of +the Cross. But she was not unread in the old French poets, such as +Coquillart; she condescended to Ariosto; she had that dubious +character, Theophile de Viaud, beautifully bound; she owned the +Rabelais of 1553; and, what is particularly interesting, M. de +Lignerolles possesses her copy of 'L'Eschole des Femmes, Comedie par +J. B. P. Moliere. Paris: Guillaume de Luynes, 1663.' In 12 +[degree sign], red morocco, gilt edges, and the Queen's arms on the +covers. This relic is especially valuable when we remember that +'L'Ecole des Femmes' and Arnolphe's sermon to Agnes, and his comic +threats of future punishment first made envy take the form of +religious persecution. The devout Queen-Mother was often appealed +to by the enemies of Moliere, yet Anne of Austria had not only seen +his comedy, but possessed this beautiful example of the first +edition. M. Paul Lacroix supposes that this copy was offered to the +Queen-Mother by Moliere himself. The frontispiece (Arnolphe +preaching to Agnes) is thought to be a portrait of Moliere, but in +the reproduction in M. Louis Lacour's edition it is not easy to see +any resemblance. Apparently Anne did not share the views, even in +her later years, of the converted Prince de Conty, for several +comedies and novels remain stamped with her arms and device. + +The learned Marquise de Rambouillet, the parent of all the +'Precieuses,' must have owned a good library, but nothing is +chronicled save her celebrated book of prayers and meditations, +written out and decorated by Jarry. It is bound in red morocco, +double with green, and covered with V's in gold. The Marquise +composed the prayers for her own use, and Jarry was so much struck +with their beauty that he asked leave to introduce them into the +Book of Hours which he had to copy, "for the prayers are often so +silly," said he, "that I am ashamed to write them out." + +Here is an example of the devotions which Jarry admired, a prayer to +Saint Louis. It was published in 'Miscellanies Bibliographiques' by +M. Prosper Blanchemain. + + +PRIERE A SAINT-LOUIS, +ROY DE FRANCE. + +Grand Roy, bien que votre couronne ayt este des plus esclatantes de +la Terre, celle que vous portez dans le ciel est incomparablement +plus precieuse. L'une estoit perissable l'autre est immortelle et +ces lys dont la blancheur se pouvoit ternir, sont maintenant +incorruptibles. Vostre obeissance envers vostre mere; vostre +justice envers vos sujets; et vos guerres contre les infideles, vous +ont acquis la veneration de tous les peuples; et la France doit a +vos travaux et a vostre piete l'inestimable tresor de la sanglante +et glorieuse couronne du Sauveur du monde. Priez-le incomparable +Saint qu'il donne une paix perpetuelle au Royaume dont vous avez +porte le sceptre; qu'il le preserve d'heresie; qu'il y face toujours +regner saintement vostre illustre Sang; et que tous ceux qui ont +l'honneur d'en descendre soient pour jamais fideles a son Eglise. + + +The daughter of the Marquise, the fair Julie, heroine of that "long +courting" by M. de Montausier, survives in those records as the +possessor of 'La Guirlande de Julie,' the manuscript book of poems +by eminent hands. But this manuscript seems to have been all the +library of Julie; therein she could constantly read of her own +perfections. To be sure she had also 'L'Histoire de Gustave +Adolphe,' a hero for whom, like Major Dugald Dalgetty, she cherished +a supreme devotion. In the 'Guirlande' Chapelain's verses turn on +the pleasing fancy that the Protestant Lion of the North, changed +into a flower (like Paul Limayrac in M. Banville's ode), requests +Julie to take pity on his altered estate: + + +Sois pitoyable a ma langueur; +Et si je n'ay place en ton coeur +Que je l'aye au moins sur ta teste. + + +These verses were reckoned consummate. + +The 'Guirlande' is still, with happier fate than attends most books, +in the hands of the successors of the Duc and Duchesse de +Montausier. + +Like Julie, Madame de Maintenon was a precieuse, but she never had +time to form a regular library. Her books, however, were bound by +Duseuil, a binder immortal in the verse of Pope; or it might be more +correct to say that Madame de Maintenon's own books are seldom +distinguishable from those of her favourite foundation, St. Cyr. +The most interesting is a copy of the first edition of 'Esther,' in +quarto (1689), bound in red morocco, and bearing, in Racine's hand, +'A Madame la Marquise de Maintenon, offert avec respect,--RACINE." + +Doubtless Racine had the book bound before he presented it. "People +are discontented," writes his son Louis, "if you offer them a book +in a simple marbled paper cover." I could wish that this worthy +custom were restored, for the sake of the art of binding, and also +because amateur poets would be more chary of their presentation +copies. It is, no doubt, wise to turn these gifts with their sides +against the inner walls of bookcases, to be bulwarks against the +damp, but the trouble of acknowledging worthless presents from +strangers is considerable. {20} + +Another interesting example of Madame de Maintenon's collections is +Dacier's 'Remarques Critiques sur les OEuvres d'Horace,' bearing the +arms of Louis XIV., but with his wife's signature on the fly-leaf +(1681). + +Of Madame de Montespan, ousted from the royal favour by Madame de +Maintenon, who "married into the family where she had been +governess," there survives one bookish relic of interest. This is +'OEuvres Diverses par un auteur de sept ans,' in quarto, red +morocco, printed on vellum, and with the arms of the mother of the +little Duc du Maine (1678). When Madame de Maintenon was still +playing mother to the children of the king and of Madame de +Montespan, she printed those "works" of her eldest pupil. + +These ladies were only bibliophiles by accident, and were devoted, +in the first place, to pleasure, piety, or ambition. With the +Comtesse de Verrue, whose epitaph will be found on an earlier page, +we come to a genuine and even fanatical collector. Madame de Verrue +(1670-1736) got every kind of diversion out of life, and when she +ceased to be young and fair, she turned to the joys of "shopping." +In early years, "pleine de coeur, elle le donna sans comptes." In +later life, she purchased, or obtained on credit, everything that +caught her fancy, also sans comptes. "My aunt," says the Duc de +Luynes, "was always buying, and never baulked her fancy." Pictures, +books, coins, jewels, engravings, gems (over 8,000), tapestries, and +furniture were all alike precious to Madame de Verrue. Her snuff- +boxes defied computation; she had them in gold, in tortoise-shell, +in porcelain, in lacquer, and in jasper, and she enjoyed the +delicate fragrance of sixty different sorts of snuff. Without +applauding the smoking of cigarettes in drawing-rooms, we may admit +that it is less repulsive than steady applications to tobacco in +Madame de Verrue's favourite manner. + +The Countess had a noble library, for old tastes survived in her +commodious heart, and new tastes she anticipated. She possessed +'The Romance of the Rose,' and 'Villon,' in editions of Galliot du +Pre (1529-1533) undeterred by the satire of Boileau. She had +examples of the 'Pleiade,' though they were not again admired in +France till 1830. She was also in the most modern fashion of to- +day, for she had the beautiful quarto of La Fontaine's 'Contes,' and +Bouchier's illustrated Moliere (large paper). And, what I envy her +more, she had Perrault's 'Fairy Tales,' in blue morocco--the blue +rose of the folklorist who is also a book-hunter. It must also be +confessed that Madame de Verrue had a large number of books such as +are usually kept under lock and key, books which her heirs did not +care to expose at the sale of her library. Once I myself (moi +chetif) owned a novel in blue morocco, which had been in the +collection of Madame de Verrue. In her old age this exemplary woman +invented a peculiarly comfortable arm-chair, which, like her novels, +was covered with citron and violet morocco; the nails were of +silver. If Madame de Verrue has met the Baroness Bernstein, their +conversation in the Elysian Fields must be of the most gallant and +interesting description. + +Another literary lady of pleasure, Madame de Pompadour, can only be +spoken of with modified approval. Her great fault was that she did +not check the decadence of taste and sense in the art of +bookbinding. In her time came in the habit of binding books (if +binding it can be called) with flat backs, without the nerves and +sinews that are of the very essence of book-covers. Without these +no binding can be permanent, none can secure the lasting existence +of a volume. It is very deeply to be deplored that by far the most +accomplished living English artist in bookbinding has reverted to +this old and most dangerous heresy. The most original and graceful +tooling is of much less real value than permanence, and a book bound +with a flat back, without nerfs, might practically as well not be +bound at all. The practice was the herald of the French and may +open the way for the English Revolution. Of what avail were the +ingenious mosaics of Derome to stem the tide of change, when the +books whose sides they adorned were not really BOUND at all? Madame +de Pompadour's books were of all sorts, from the inevitable works of +devotions to devotions of another sort, and the 'Hours' of Erycina +Ridens. One of her treasures had singular fortunes, a copy of +'Daphnis and Chloe,' with the Regent's illustrations, and those of +Cochin and Eisen (Paris, quarto, 1757, red morocco). The covers are +adorned with billing and cooing doves, with the arrows of Eros, with +burning hearts, and sheep and shepherds. Eighteen years ago this +volume was bought for 10 francs in a village in Hungary. A +bookseller gave 8 pounds for it in Paris. M. Bauchart paid for it +150 pounds; and as it has left his shelves, probably he too made no +bad bargain. Madame de Pompadour's 'Apology for Herodotus' (La +Haye, 1735) has also its legend. It belonged to M. Paillet, who +coveted a glorified copy of the 'Pastissier Francois,' in M. +Bauchart's collection. M Paillet swopped it, with a number of +others, for the 'Pastissier:' + + +J'avais 'L'Apologie +Pour Herodote,' en reliure ancienne, amour +De livre provenant de chez la Pompadour +Il me le soutira! {21} + + +Of Marie Antoinette, with whom our lady book-lovers of the old +regime must close, there survive many books. She had a library in +the Tuileries, as well as at le petit Trianon. Of all her great and +varied collections, none is now so valued as her little book of +prayers, which was her consolation in the worst of all her evil +days, in the Temple and the Conciergerie. The book is 'Office de la +Divine Providence' (Paris, 1757, green morocco). On the fly-leaf +the Queen wrote, some hours before her death, these touching lines: +"Ce 16 Octobre, a 4 h. 0.5 du matin. Mon Dieu! ayez pitie de moi! +Mes yeux n'ont plus de larmes pour prier pour vous, mes pauvres +enfants. Adieu, adieu!--MARIE ANTOINETTE." + +There can be no sadder relic of a greater sorrow, and the last +consolation of the Queen did not escape the French popular genius +for cruelty and insult. The arms on the covers of the prayer-book +have been cut out by some fanatic of Equality and Fraternity. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} See illustrations, pp. 114, 115.--In this Project Gutenberg +eText none of the illustrations are included. However, the +references to them are included.--DP + +{2} "Slate" is a professional term for a severe criticism. Clearly +the word is originally "slat," a narrow board of wood, with which a +person might be beaten. + +{3} Histoire des Intrigues Amoureuses de Moliere, et de celles de +sa femme. (A la Sphere.) A Francfort, chez Frederic Arnaud, +MDCXCVII. This anonymous tract has actually been attributed to +Racine. The copy referred to is marked with a large N in red, with +an eagle's head. + +{4} The Lady of the Lake, 1810. + +The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1806. + +"To Mrs. Robert Laidlaw, Peel. From the Author." + +{5} Dictys Cretensis. Apud Lambertum Roulland. Lut. Paris., +1680. In red morocco, with the arms of Colbert. + +{6} L. Annaei Senecae Opera Omnia. Lug. Bat., apud Elzevirios. +1649. With book-plate of the Duke of Sussex. + +{7} Stratonis Epigrammata. Altenburgi, 1764. Straton bound up in +one volume with Epictetus! From the Beckford library. + +{8} Opera Helii Eobani Hessi. Yellow morocco, with the first arms +of De Thou. Includes a poem addressed "LANGE, decus meum." +Quantity of penultimate "Eobanus" taken for granted, metri gratia. + +{9} La Journee du Chretien. Coutances, 1831. With inscription, +"Leon Gambetta. Rue St. Honore. Janvier 1, 1848." + +{10} Villoison's Homer. Venice, 1788. With Tessier's ticket and +Schlegel's book-plate. + +{11} Les Essais de Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne. "Pour Francois +le Febvre de Lyon, 1695." With autograph of Gul. Drummond, and +cipresso e palma. + +{12} "The little old foxed Moliere," once the property of William +Pott, unknown to fame. + +{13} That there ever were such editors is much disputed. The story +may be a fiction of the age of the Ptolemies. + +{14} Or, more easily, in Maury's Religions de la Grece. + +{15} See Essay on 'Lady Book-Lovers.' + +{16} See Essay on 'Lady Book-Lovers.' + +{17} For a specimen of Madame Pompadour's binding see overleaf. +She had another Rabelais in calf, lately to be seen in a shop in +Pall Mall. + +{18} Mr. Payne does not give the date of the edition from which he +copies the cut. Apparently it is of the fifteenth century. + +{19} Reproduced in The Library, p. 94. + +{20} Country papers, please copy. Poets at a distance will kindly +accept this intimation. + +{21} Bibliotheque d'un Bibliophile. Lille, 1885. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Books and Bookmen, by Andrew Lang + diff --git a/old/bkbkm10.zip b/old/bkbkm10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b0ba8a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/bkbkm10.zip |